Harrigan by Max Brand (story books to read txt) 📖

the wall with his hands poised, ready for the first attack.

"Who called you?" roared Campbell.

"Your bell—" began the assistant.

"You lie! Get out! I was telling a joke to my old friend Harrigan. Maybe I leaned back against the bell. Shake hands with Harrigan. I've known him for years."

Incredulous, Harrigan lowered his clenched fist and relaxed it to meet the hesitant hand of the assistant.

"Now be off," growled the chief, and the others fled.

As the door closed, Harrigan turned in stupid amazement upon the Scotchman. The latter had dropped into his chair again and now looked at Harrigan with twinkling eyes.

"You'd have fought 'em all, eh, lad?"

He burst into heavy laughter.

"Ah, the blue devil that came in your eyes! Why did I not let them have one whirl at you? Ha, ha, ha!"

"Wake me up," muttered Harrigan. "I'm dreamin'!"

"There's a thick lie in my throat," said Campbell. "I must wash it out and leave a truth there!"

He opened a small cupboard, exposing a formidable array of black and green bottles. One of the black he pulled down, as well as two small glasses, which he filled to the brim.

"To your bonny blue eyes, lad!" he said, and raised a glass. "Here's an end to the mutiny—and a drop to our old friendship!"

Harrigan, still with clouded mind, raised the glass and drank. It was a fine sherry wine.

"How old would you say that wine was?" queried the Scotchman with exaggerated carelessness.

The carelessness did not deceive Harrigan. His mind went blanker still, for he knew little about good wines.

"Well?" asked the engineer.

"H-m!" muttered Harrigan, and racked his brain to remember the ages at which a good vintage becomes a rare old wine. "About thirty-five years."

"By the Lord!" cried Campbell. "It never fails—a strong man knows his liquor like a book! You're almost right. Add three years and you have it! Thirty-eight years in sunshine and shadow!"

He leaned back and gazed dreamily up to the ceiling.

"Think of it," he went on in a reverent murmur. "Men have been born and grown strong and then started toward the shady side of life since this wine was put in the bottle. For thirty-eight years it has been gathering and saving its perfume—draw a breath of it now, lad!—and when I uncork the bottle, all the odor blows out to me at once."

"True," said Harrigan, nodding sagely. "I've thought the same thing, but never found the words for it, chief."

"Have you?" asked Campbell eagerly. "Sit down, lad; sit down! Well, well! Good wine was put on earth for a blessing, but men have misused it, Harrigan—but hear me preaching when I ought to be praying!"

"Prayin'?" repeated the diplomatic Harrigan. "No, no, man! Maybe you've drunk a good store of liquor, but it shines through you. It puts a flush on your face like a sun shinin' through a cloud. You'd hearten any man on a dark day!"

He could not resist the play on the words, and a shadow crossed the face of the engineer.

"Harrigan," he growled, "there's a double meaning in what you say, but I'll not think of it. You're no fool, lad, but do not vex me. But say your say. I suppose I'm red enough to be seen by my own light on a dark night. What does Bobbie say?

"Oh, wad some power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as others see us!

"Well, well! I forgave you for the sake of Bobbie! Do you know his rhymes, lad?"

A light shone in the eye of Harrigan. He began to sing softly in his musical, deep voice: "Ye banks and braes of bonny Doon—"

"No, no, man!" cried Campbell, raising his hand in horror at the sound of the false accent. "It should go like this!"

He pulled a guitar out of a case and commenced to strum lightly on it, while he rendered the old song in a voice roughened by ill usage but still strong and true. A knock at the door interrupted him at the climax of his song, and he glared toward the unseen and rash intruder.

"What will ye hae?" he roared, continuing the dialect which the song had freshened on his tongue.

"The shift in the fireroom is short-handed," said the voice. "That fellow Harrigan has not shown up. Shall we search for him?"

"Search for the de'il!" thundered Campbell. "Harrigan is doing a fine piece of work for me; shall I let him go to the fireroom to swing a shovel?"

"The captain's orders, sir," persisted the voice rashly.

Campbell leaped for the door and jerked it open a few inches.

"Be off!" he cried; "or I'll set you passin' coal yourself, my fine lad! What? Will ye be asking questions? Is there no discipline? Mutiny, mutiny—that's what this is!"

"Aye, aye, sir!" murmured a rapidly retreating voice.

Campbell closed and locked the door and turned back to Harrigan with a grin.

"The world's a wide place," he said, "but there's few enough in it who know our Bobbie, God bless him! When I've found one, shall I let him go down to the fireroom? Ha! Now tell me what's wrong between you and McTee."

"I will not talk," said Harrigan with another bold stroke of diplomacy, "till I hear the rest of that song. The true Scotch comes hard on my tongue, but I'll learn it."

"You will, laddie, for your heart's right. Man, man, I'm nothing now, but you should have heard me sing in the old days—"

"When we were in Glasgow," grinned Harrigan.

"In Glasgow," repeated Campbell, and then lifted his head and finished the song. "Now for the story, laddie."

Harrigan started, as though recalled from a dream built up by the music. Then he told briefly the tale of the tyranny aboard the Mary Rogers, now apparently to be repeated.

"So I thought," he concluded, "that it was to be the old story over again—look at my hands!"

He held them out. The palms were still red and deeply scarred. Campbell said nothing, but his jaw set savagely.

"I thought it was to be this all over again," went on Harrigan, "till I
met you, chief. But with you for a friend I'll weather the storm.
McTee's a hard man, but when Scot meets Scot—I'll bet on the
Campbells."

"Would you bet on me against Black McTee?" queried the engineer, deeply moved. "Well, lad, McTee's a dour man, but dour or not he shall not run the engine room of the Heron."

And he banged on the table for emphasis.

"Scrub down the bridge every morning, as they tell you, but when they send you below to pass the coal, come and report to me first. I'll have work for you to do—chiefly practicing the right accent for Bobbie's songs. Is not that a man's work?"

CHAPTER 19

To make good this promise, Campbell straightway sang for Harrigan's delectation two or three more of his favorite selections. It was evening, and the shift in the fireroom was ended before Harrigan left the engineer's room. On his way to the deck he passed the tired firemen from the hole of the ship. They stared at the Irishman with wide eyes, for it was known that he had been in the chief engineer's room for several hours; they looked upon him as one who has been in hell and has escaped from thence to the upper air.

He was, in fact, a marked man when he reached the forecastle. Rumor travels through a ship's crew and it was already known that Black McTee hated the Irishman and that White Henshaw had commenced to persecute him in a new and terrible manner.

This would have been sufficient tragedy to burden the shoulders of any one man, however strong, and when to this was added the fact that he had been kept by the grim chief engineer for several hours in the chief's own room, and finally considering that this man had passed through a shipwreck, one of three lone survivors, it is easy to understand why the sailors gave him ample elbow room.

It was evidently expected that he would break out into a torrent of abuse, and when he, perceiving this, remained silent, their awe increased. All through supper he was aware of their wondering glances; above all he felt the gray, steady eyes of Jerry Hovey, the bos'n, yet he ate without speaking, replying to their tentative questions with grunts. Before the meal was finished and the pipes and cigarettes lighted, he was a made man. Persevering in his role, as soon as he had eaten he went out on deck and sat down in the corner between the rail and the forecastle upon a coil of rope.

As deep as the blue sea in the evening light was the peace which lay on the soul of Harrigan, for the day had brought two great victories, one over McTee and the other over the chief engineer. It was not a stolid content, for he knew the danger of the implacable hate of McTee, but with the aid of Campbell he felt that he would have a fighting chance at least to survive, and that was all he asked.

So he sat on the coil of rope leaning against the rail, and looked ahead. It was almost completely dark when a hand fell on his shoulder and he looked up into the steady, gray-blue eyes of the bos'n.

"I promised to talk to you tonight," said that worthy, and sat down uninvited on a neighboring coil of rope.

He waited for a response. As a rule, sailors are glad to curry favor with the bos'n. Harrigan, however, sat without speaking, staring through the gloom.

"Well?" said Hovey at length. "You're a silent man, Harrigan."

There was no response.

"All right; I like a silent man. In a way of speakin', I need 'em like you! If you say little to me, you're likely to say little to others.

"I don't talk much myself," went on Hovey, "until I know my man. I ain't seen much of you, but I guess I figure you straight."

He grew suddenly cautious, cunning, and the steady, gray-blue eyes reminded Harrigan of a cat when she crouches for hours watching the rathole.

"You ain't got much reason for standing in with White Henshaw?" he purred.

"H'm," grunted the Irishman, and waited.

"Sure, you ain't," went on Hovey soothingly, "because McTee has raised hell between you. They say McTee tried his damnedest to break you?"

The last question was put in a different manner; it came suddenly like a surprise blow in the dark.

"Well?" queried Harrigan. "What of it?"

"He tried all the way from Honolulu?"

"He did."

"Did he try his fists?"

"He did."

Jerry Hovey cursed with excitement.

"And?"

"I carried him to his cabin afterward," said Harrigan truthfully.

"Would you take on McTee again? Black McTee?"

"If I had to. Why?"

"Oh, nothin'. But McTee has started White Henshaw on your trail. Maybe you know what Henshaw is? The whole South Seas know him!"

"Well?"

"You'll have a sweet hell of a time before this boat touches port,
Harrigan."

"I'll weather it."

"Yes, this trip, but what about the next? If Henshaw is breakin' a man, he keeps him on the ship till the man gives in or dies. I know! Henshaw'll get so much against you that he could soak you for ten years in the courts by the time we touch port. Then he'll offer to let you off from the courts if you'll ship with him again, and then the old game will start all over again. You may last one trip—other men have—one or two—but no one has ever lasted out three or four shippings under White Henshaw. It can't be done!"

He paused to let this vital point sink home. Only the same dull silence came in reply, and this continued taciturnity seemed to irritate Hovey. When he spoke again, his voice was cold and sharp.

"He's got you trapped, Harrigan. You're a strong man, but you'll never get his rope off your neck. He'll either hang you with it or else tie you hand and foot an' make you his slave. I know!"

There was a bitter emphasis on the last word that left no doubt as to his meaning, and Harrigan understood now the light of that steady, gray-blue eye which made the habitual smile of good nature meaningless.

"Ten years ago I shipped with White