Part 4 (1/2)
”Aye, lay to it, and we'll eat that turkey for Christmas yet,” yells Sam.
”Lay to it, and we'll have more than the turkey.” I says.
”What's that we'll have, Alec?” hollers Sam.
”Pull to the Aurora and see.” I hollers back. It was blowing so hard we could hardly hear each other, and what with the chop we were driving the dory through we might well have been in swimming.
We made the _Aurora_, and, looking back as I leaped over her rail, I could see Miller running back up the dock.
”Hurry, fellows.” I yells to them, ”Miller's gone to head us off.”
As we drops onto the _Aurora's_ deck a head pops out of the fo'c's'le companion-way. He looked like he'd just come out of a fine sleep.
”You,” I yelled, ”allay you--rauss--beat it,” and rushed him to the dory we'd just come aboard in. He looks up at me in the most puzzled way. Two more heads popped up out of the companion-way. ”And allay you two,”
yells Sam and Archie, and grabs 'em and heaves 'em into the dory, casts off her painter, and they drifts off like men in a trance. One minute they were sound asleep in their bunks and the next adrift and half-dressed in a dory in the middle of the harbor with a gale of wind roaring in their ears and a choppy sea wetting 'em down.
”In with her chain-anchor slack,” I calls, ”and then up with her jibs,”
which they did. ”And now her fores'l--up with her fores'l.” Then we broke out her chain-anchor. I was to the wheel and knew the second the anchor was clear of the bottom by the way she leaped under me. ”Don't stop to cat-head that anchor,” I calls, ”but cut her hawser.” They cut her hawser free, and with the big anchor-rope kinking through the hawse-hole, away went the _Aurora_, picking up, as she went, the chain-anchor with its eight or ten fathoms of chain still out and tucking it under her bilge; and there that anchor stayed, jammed hard against her bottom planking, while she rushed across the harbor.
”Now,” I said, ”let's see if we c'n work out of this blessed pocket without somebody having to notify the insurance companies afterward.”
All along the water-front the people by now were crowding to look at us.
All they saw was an American fis.h.i.+ng schooner with a crazy American crew trying to pick her way through a crowded harbor with her four lowers set in a living gale.
We were across the harbor in no time. ”Stand by now--stand by sheets,” I sung out. Steady as statues they waited for the word, and when they got it--”Har-r-d a-lee-e!” Whf-f the steam came out of them, and the busiest of all was Sam Leary, with the big turkey between his feet.
As she came around I was afraid her anchor would take bottom and her way be checked. It did touch, but the _Aurora_ spun on her toes so quick that before that anchor knew it was down she was off and flying free again.
All this time I was looking around for Miller and at last I saw him in a little power boat. He had the French gun-boat in mind that was sure, but his craft was making heavy weather of it, and before he was half-way to the gun-boat we were under her stern, on our shoot for the harbor entrance, and from the gun-boat's deck they were peeping down on us, grinning and yelling the same as everybody else, waiting to see us pile up on the rocks somewhere.
But no rocks for the _Aurora_ that Christmas Day. She knew what we wanted of her. There's a spindle beacon in Saint Pierre harbor, white-painted slats on a white-painted rock sticking out of the water, and there was a French packet lying to the other side. We had to go between. I knew they were betting a hundred to one we'd hit one or the other.
We weathered the packet and squeezed by the beacon. The end of our long bowsprit did hit the white-painted slats, gave 'em a good healthy wallop, but that wasn't any surprise--we figured on going close. We were by and safe, and looking back from the wheel to mark her wake swas.h.i.+ng over the very rock itself, I had to whisper _to_ her:
”_Aurora_, girl, you're all I ever said you were.” But if you'd seen her, the big spars of her, the set of her rigging, the fine-fitting sails, the beautiful line of the rail, and the straight flat deck, you'd have to admit it wasn't any surprise. You couldn't 've done it with every vessel--but the _Aurora!_ A great bit of wood, the _Aurora!_
And looking past her wake, I picked out Miller's motor boat along inside the French gun-boat. But no gun-boat was worrying me then. They might chase me, but the gun-boat wasn't afloat that could 've chased and caught the _Aurora_ in that gale. A man didn't need to be a French captain to know that.
But for fear they might chase us, I kept her going. And after we'd had time to get our breath, we took a peek into her hold. And it was loaded with cases--wine, brandy--liquors of all kinds. And the gang said: ”How about it, skipper?” And I said: ”Help yourself--you've earned it,” and they helped themselves.
And they had their promised Christmas dinner. The turkey had only to be warmed up. After it was warmed up, it was fine to hear Sam telling about the recapturing of it. ”He was in the kitchen--just been hauled out the oven--and the chef, he was standing over him with a big carving knife, when I spots the pair of 'em through the window. 'Stand by, fellows,' I hollers, and jumps through the window and grabs the carving knife and chases cheffie out the room with it. And back through the window comes me and the turk. An' they all hollers murder and comes after us. And look at him now! Twenty-five pounds he weighs--the biggest turkey, I'm tellin' you, ever sailed out of ol' Saint Peer. A whale, twenty-five pounds as he lies there. And four kinds of wine--four kinds. Ca.s.sie, champagne, claret, which you don't have to drink 'less you want to, and that red-colored wine I don't know the name of, but good stuff--I sampled it. And that's what I call a Christmas dinner.”
And I guess it was. Pretty soon they were hopping around like a lot of leaping goats. The best-natured crowd ever you see, mind, but it was Christmas Day, and they'd done a good job; the blood was running wild inside them, and I let them run a while. And then when I thinks it time to begin to straighten them out, I looks them over and finally picking out Archie Gillis I says, 'Archie, I think you're the drunkest! Take the wheel and soak it out.'
And Archie stood to the wheel, and up the cabin steps the rest of the gang kept pa.s.sing him drinks of champagne when they thought I wasn't looking.
By dark of that Christmas we shot into Folly Cove in Placentia Bay and came to anchor off John Rose's wharf. And the _Aurora's_ crew were there helping John, and there was the load of herring John had promised. And he thought I'd come for the herring, but I hadn't--not yet. I had a word in private with John, and he found a nice little place among the cliffs, and with John Rose and the _Aurora's_ crew it didn't take long to stow those cases of wine where no stranger would find them in a hurry.
And when that was done I goes over the papers again. And sure enough, her papers read for a fis.h.i.+ng trip to the Grand Banks. Her crew had been s.h.i.+pped for a fis.h.i.+ng trip. Her gear, dories, bait (not much bait though) was all for a fis.h.i.+ng trip. It was plain as could be, I had Miller under my lee. And so we put out again into the night, and before daylight we were back in Saint Pierre harbor again, and all hands ash.o.r.e.