"She's movin'!" cried a voice from the crowd on the wharf side. "Watch 'er! Watch 'er!"
A dull English cheer rippled over the waterfront.
"Blarst if I see why she moves!" marveled an onlooker. "That tug looks like a water bug 'itched to a 'ouse-boat—it's hunreasonable!"
"Aye, but they're tur'ble stout, them tugs be," argued a companion.
"It's hunreasonable, just the same, 'Enry!"
"Everything's hunreasonable at sea, 'Arry. W'y w'en chaps put to sea they tell we're they're at by lookin' at th' sun."
"Aw! An' not by lookin' at th' map?"
"By lookin' at th' sun, 'pon honor!"
"Don't try to jolly me like that, 'Enry, me lad; that's more hunreasonable than this."
By this time the cheers had become general and the conversation broke off. An enormous floating dry dock, towed by an ocean-going tug, slowly drew away from the ship yards on the south bank of the Thames, just below London. The men on the immense metal structure, hauling in ropes, looked like spiders with gossamers. A hundred foot bridge which could be lifted for the entrance of ocean liners, spanned the open stern of the dock and braced her high side walls. These walls rose fifty or sixty feet, were some forty feet thick and housed the machinery which pumped out the pontoons and raised the two bridges, one at each end. The tug, the Vulcan, which stood some two hundred yards down stream, puffing monotonously at the end of a cable, did seem utterly inadequate to tow such a mass of metal. Nevertheless, to the admiration of the crowd, the speed of the convoy slowly increased.
Tug and dock were well under way when the onlooking line was suddenly disrupted by a well-dressed youth who came bundling a large suit case through the press and did not pause until on the edge of the green moulded wharf.
"Boat!" he hailed in sharp Yankee accent, gesticulating at a public dory. "Here, put me aboard that dry dock, will you? Hustle! the thing's gathering way!"
"A little late," observed a voice at the newcomer's elbow.
"Yes, I hung around London Tower trying to see the crown jewels, then I broke for St. Paul's for a glimpse of Nelson's Monument, then I ran down to Marshalsea, where Little Dorrit's father—make haste there, you slowpoke water-rat! Rotton London bus service threw me six minutes late!" he concluded.
The American's explosive energy quickly made him a focus of interest.
"What are you trying to do?" smiled the Englishman, "jump out of a Cook's tour into a floating dock?"
The American turned on the joker and saw a tall, well-set-up young fellow with extraordinarily broad shoulders, long brown face, stubby blond mustache, who looked down on him with amused gray eyes.
"In a way," grinned the man with the suit case. "I'm knocking about all over the map, trying to see if the world is really round. Got a job aboard that dock—going with her to Buenos Aires—Say, slow-boy, is that dory of yours anchored, or is it really coming this way?"
"Coomin' that way, sor!" wheezed the waterman from below.
"That's a coincidence," observed the stranger, twirling his pale mustache. "I had a berth on her, too." He indicated a huge English kit bag at his feet.
"Then you'd better get a move on if you're going!" snapped the American, instantly taking charge of the whole affair. "Shoot your grip here!" He stood ready to receive and deliver it to the boatman who had landed below.
"Had about decided not to go," frowned the Briton with an odd change of manner. "It looks—er—so nasty over there—still, if you can endure it I suppose I—" the final phrase was lost in the swing at his big kit bag.
The American followed the luggage hurriedly; the tall fellow lowered himself calmly and with a certain precision into the stern of the dory. The boatman set out toward the gliding mass of iron.
The blond youth surveyed their distance from the great dock and marked its deliberate but deceptive speed.
"I doubt whether we catch it after all," he remarked with slight interest in his voice.
"Then we'll take a train to Gravesend and get aboard boat there," planned the American promptly.
A smile glimmered on the long brown face for a moment. "That's very Yankee-like, I believe," he said complimentarily.
With the brisk friendliness of his nation, the Yankee drew a morocco case from his pocket. "Leonard Madden is my name," he said as he offered a bit of engraved card.
The Englishman started to reach inside his coat but paused. "I am Caradoc Smith," he replied gravely. Then, as an afterthought, he drew a small silver-mounted flask from his pocket, unscrewed the cap, poured it full of a liquor and offered it.
"To a pleasant acquaintance and a profitable journey, Mr. Madden," he began ceremoniously.
A slight flush reddened the white skin at Madden's collar, but did not show on his tanned face. It always embarrassed him to be forced to reject friendly overtures.
"Sorry," he shook his head; "don't use it. But the wish goes."
The Englishman looked his surprise. "Then, if you don't object—" he lifted pale brows.
"Certainly not; do as you like."
Smith tossed the capful down his throat. "You know, I've met several Americans," he commented more warmly, "and half of them don't use alcoholics. Strange thing—can't fancy why."
Madden went into no explanation. They were nearing the dock by this time and their boatman began a hoarse calling for some one on board to toss a line.
It was like shouting for a man in a city block. The basal pontoon rose twelve feet above their heads; beyond this towered the thick side walls spanned by the bridge. The waterline of the whole dock was painted a bright red, some four feet high, and above this rose an expanse of raw black iron, punctuated with long rows of shining rivet heads.
The boatman was rowing at top speed and bellowing like an asthmatic fog horn. "We'll never git nobody," he wheezed. "Nobody seems to stay around this section of th' dock, sor."
Madden raised a lusty shout; the great structure was slowly increasing her speed.
"Yell, Smith, yell!" he counseled between shouts. "We may not be able to get a train to Gravesend in time!"
"I'm not that eager to go," observed the Englishman with a shrug.
The dory was falling behind. Madden leaped up, ran to the oars and began pushing as the boatman pulled. Their united efforts just kept the blunt little dory in the hissing wake of the dock.
"Help! Line! Aboard dock! Lend a line!" the two of them roared discordantly.
"We're not going to make it!" cried Madden desperately. "Lend a hand here, Smith!"
At that moment a dark head with sharp black mustaches popped over the stern of the dock.
"Ah-ha! A race!" cried the man above in a French accent. "Come, Mike, zee the English sporting speerit! Voila! What a race—a dory and a dry dock!"
"Throw us a line!" shrieked Madden, "you blithering—think this is fun?"
"Ah, pardon, a thousand pardons! I hasten!"
He disappeared and a few seconds later a coil of rope came hurtling down. Madden caught it and his toil was over. A moment later another sailor, of distinct Irish physiognomy, dropped down a rope ladder to the boat. They paid the sweating boatman a double fare, climbed up and hoisted their bags with the line.
Only when on board did the lads appreciate the enormous size of the dock. It would have been impossible to throw a baseball from one end to the other. The black sides rose above them like an iron canyon. Ranging down these precipices were innumerable huge iron stanchions for the shoring of ocean liners. Toward the forward end of the dock was a two hundred ton pile of coal, for the use of the tug, but it was dwarfed to the size of a kitchen supply by the black expanse around it. On the other side there were erected a few temporary wooden houses to serve as kitchen, dining room, and quarters for the crew on the voyage. There were a group of men loitering about these cabins.
The newcomers still stared at their gigantic surroundings when the interested Frenchman said politely:
"It ees large, beeg, yes?"
"Where's the boss?" inquired Leonard. "We've got jobs aboard this craft."
"He is making out the papers now, I think, and ees in a bad temper, too."
With this discouraging information, the two young men started for the officers' cabin. As they entered the place they met a crew of typical London longshoresmen coming out. Inside, a stocky purple-cheeked cockney stood at a little desk and glowered at them with small red eyes.
"'Ow's this?" he growled sharply, and in some surprise. "You are not in th' crew Hi picked hup."
"No, we applied at the office—"
"Hoffice, hoffice," snarled the man. "W'ot do they know about men, settin' hup there with their legs cocked hup? W'ot is it ye want anyway?"
Leonard silently offered a paper he had received from the British Towing and Shipping Company. The mate wrinkled his half inch of knobbly brow as he read the paper in a low undertone, after the manner of illiterate men.
"And by the way, my man," began Caradoc in stiff condescension, "we would like one of those cabins to ourselves."
The mate flung up a club-like head and threw back his blocky shoulders. "My man!" he gasped. "Ye call me my man, ye little cigarette-suckin' silk-hatted Johnny—orderin' private cabins! W'ot ye think this is—a floatin' 'otel?"
Madden bit his lip to keep from smiling at the odd play of anger and surprise on Smith's long expressive face.
"No harm meant, Mr. ——" began the American soothingly.
"Malone—Mate Malone!" stormed the angry officer by way of introduction.
"You understand how friends prefer to bunk together instead of with strangers. We thought we would ask you about it."
This soothed the irascible fellow somewhat. Still glowering, he spraddled out of the cabin with the boys after him, and presently indicated one of the small temporary cabins with a jerk of his thumb. As to whether his intentions were kindly or cruel, Madden could not determine, but their lodgment was a low kennel-like place, the smallest in the row. Nevertheless it was very clean and smelled of new lumber. It held four bunks, two on a side. The boys dropped their luggage inside with the pleasure of travelers reaching their destination.
"Got no fire arms nor whiskey?" growled the mate, looking through the door at his new men.
Both answered in the negative.
"All right; step lively now. We want to raise that waterline 'igh enough to work in the waves before we reach th' Channel."
The lads shut the door after them, then started under Malone's direction for whatever work he had.
They found the whole crew swinging along the hundred foot front of the dock, broadening the brilliant red waterline with all possible dispatch. The reason for attacking the front first was obvious. In case of rough weather, the way of the dock would pile the waves higher ahead than anywhere else. Leonard and his new friend lowered themselves on a swinging platform over the twelve-foot pontoon and joined in the work.
Tug and dock were now passing through the congested traffic of the lower Thames and the enormous English shipping spread in a panorama before them. Here were barges, smacks, scows, sailing vessels; big liners plowing through the press with hoarse whistles; rusty English tramps, that carried the Union Jack to the uttermost ends of the earth. Even a few dreadnoughts lay castled on the broadening waters. On both sides of the river, dull warehouses and factories stretched out rusty wharves, like myriad fingers, to receive the tonnage that converged on this center of the world's activities.
American curiosity almost prevented Madden from working at all. He painted intermittently, between wonders, so to speak. As for Caradoc, he made no pretense to labor, but propped a broad shoulder against the supporting rope, stuck a cigarette under his white mustache and fell to regarding the waterscape in a serious, preoccupied fashion.
"Say, old man," warned Leonard in an undertone, briskly plying his brush, "that mate looked down at us then. He'll raise a rough house if we don't get a move on and keep our section up."
Caradoc came out of his muse, tossed his cigarette into the swirling water a few feet below him. "Impudent chap!" he snapped.
Madden laughed. "His trade is to get work out of men and it requires impudence."
Caradoc grunted something, perhaps an assent. The two fell briskly to work and soon made an impression on the blank iron wall. At first the American chatted of this and that, rehearsing his own aimless ramblings as men will, but presently he observed that Smith was painting away and paying no attention to his partner's chatter.
"What's the worry, old man?" queried Madden lightly. "'Fraid the paint'll give out?"
"I presume they have sufficient paint," answered Smith stiffly, as he flapped his brush across the bright head of a big rivet.
"Why—yes," agreed Madden, a little taken aback, "but you look like you might be getting up a grouch at something—"
"About time to pull up, isn't it?" interrupted Smith.
The brusqueness in the speech grated on Madden, but they hauled up their platform without further remarks on either side. The Englishman seemed to work slower than the American, but somehow covered as much ground.
The coat of red paint had risen considerably on the dock when the bosun's whistle gave a faint shrill from the deck. The whole string of painters facing the pontoon's bow began hauling up their platforms. The lads followed their example.
Malone was hastily pulling his crew together in the mess room on the middle pontoon. He came by waving his short heavy arms in the direction of the long eating room.
"Get along aft; you're to sign the ship's papers!" he bawled monotonously. "Get along!"
Most of the men walked faster when the mate flung his arms at them. Leonard felt the impulse to step livelier but held himself to Caradoc's deliberate stride.
In the mess room the boys found a compact, black-haired, serious-faced young man of unknown nationality reading the ship's articles in an expressionless tone. Nobody listened, although various penalties were prescribed for desertion, quitting ship without leave, disobedience of orders, each with its particular fine or punishment. When the reader finished, the men walked around one by one and signed the register. Then a copy of the articles was pointed out on the side of the mess room, and again no one observed.
The performance was hardly completed when the gong rang for supper. There were not more than a dozen men at mess. Most were of stolid English navvy type, dirty uncouth men whose gross irregular features told of low birth and evil life. The foreign element comprised an Irishman named Mike Hogan and the Frenchman whom the boys had met when they first came aboard. The crowd called him Dashalong. Upon inquiry, Leonard found it to be Deschaillon. The young man who read the articles was named Farnol Greer. However, he proved a silent, taciturn youth, who seemed to converse with no one and to have no friends.
In the long narrow eating cabin mingled the clean smell of newly sawed lumber and the odor of poor cookery. The meal proved rather worse than ordinary steerage food. After the first taste Smith put it by, grumbling. Leonard, who was hungry, consumed about half of his.
Beef stew and boiled white fish formed the menu. Perhaps there is nothing quite so slippery and disheartening as boiled white fish grown luke warm or cold. The navvies ate ravenously enough, but Hogan and Deschaillon were not so wolfish.
Mike speared a bit on his fork and regarded it sadly. "This fish reminds me uv a fun'ril," he observed, "an' yonder lad looks to be chief mourner," he nodded toward Farnol Greer.
"He ees not mourning over the feesh," declared Deschaillon gayly. "He ees struck on heemself, and found his affection ees misplaced."
Madden laughed. The spirits of the Celt and the Gaul seemed to improve as their fare grew worse.
"Oh, av course a frog-atin' Frinchman loike you, Dashalong, would think any kind av fish a reg'lar feast."
Deschaillon leaned over to inspect his portion. "Now eet does very well—to wax zee mustache, Mike." He twirled his own.
Caradoc grunted disapproval of such doubtful table talk, arose and left the rough company and rough fare with supercilious condemnation.
"Your friend's appetite sames as dilicate as his wor-rkin' powers," observed Hogan as he watched the Englishman stoop and disappear through the doorway.
Madden smiled. "We didn't work any too hard this afternoon, did we?"
Mike and Pierre proved droll companions, ready to jibe at anyone or anything in perfect good nature, so that it was an hour before Leonard strolled outside. As he had no further duty, he climbed a long ladder to the top of the high dock wall and walked forward toward the bridge.
By this time the sun had set and left the world filled with a luminous yellow afterglow. The estuary of the Thames had widened abruptly off Sheerness, and far to the south was the dim line of chalk cliffs that England thrusts toward France. Overhead stretched a translucent yellow-green sky with the long black line of the Vulcan's smoke marking it.
Leonard moved across the bridge slowly.
There was almost perfect silence over the great structure below him, save for the slow creaking of new joints in the iron plates, the softened chough-choughing of the tug ahead.
There were several paint barrels piled up on the bridge, slung there no doubt by machinery, to prevent the men having to toil up with it from below. The boy leaned against one of these barrels, gazing into the yellow flood of light that bathed everything in its own saffron. His heart beat high with a feeling of the hazard of the ocean. He tried to fancy what would happen to the huge dock as it adventured through tropic seas. His imagination readily conjured up a kaleidoscope of incidents—cannibal proas, shark fights, sea serpents, typhoons, mutinies, what not.
And at every turn of the tug's propeller all this bright dashing world of adventure drew nearer and nearer. For some reason he recalled what the bystander on the dock had said—"Everything is unreasonable at sea," and he laughed aloud.
As a sort of gloomy echo of his laugh, his ear caught a groan from the other side of the paint barrels. With the utmost surprise and curiosity, he straightened up and moved silently around the pile.
Then he saw the tall Englishman leaning across the bridge rail, face in hands, staring at the line of land silhouetted in black between the brazen sky and the reflecting water. Smith's whole attitude was so suggestive of trouble that Madden moved forward in generous sympathy.
The Englishman heard the movement, straightened, looked around; his long face wore a look of suffering in the colored light.
"Sorry you're so blue, old man," sympathized the American, making a guess at the cause of his bad spirits. "Let's have a turn around this old tub and forget homesickness."
"Home!" echoed Caradoc gruffly. "It's—it's all England I'm leaving. It's England and honor and—" he stiffened suddenly and snarled out: "Do you think I climbed away up here on this bridge hunting your company?"
Leonard was utterly nonplussed by this shift. "I'm sure I meant no harm—"
"Certainly not," sneered Caradoc. "You Americans have the undesired friendliness of stray puppies—you have no conception of personal reserve—you turn your souls into moral vaudevilles."
A flush of indignation swept over Madden. "That's no decent return for a friendly approach!" he declared hotly, "and I'd rather be a puppy than a hedgehog any day!"
Caradoc made no reply, but seemed to erase Madden from his mind and shifted slowly around to his staring and his thoughts.
This last bit of impudence fairly clanged on Madden's temper. He felt a desire to tell this coxcomb just what he thought of him. If Caradoc had remained facing the American, Madden might have done so, but it feels foolish to rail at a profile. Madden wheeled angrily, tramped across the bridge, then down the high side of the dock toward the ladder. From far below him came Hogan's voice, a concertina, and the sound of clacking feet. Apparently the Irishman had induced someone to dance a jig.
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