Part 78

The whole great fabric fairly shouted responsibility at him.

He was confident of his ability. As chief mate he had mastered the problems of courses and manoeuvers in the fog along that same route which he must now take. But until then the supreme responsibility had devolved upon another.

Men were rushing freight aboard on rattling trucks--parallel lines of stevedores were working. There were many trunks, avant couriers of the passengers.

He went aboard by the freight entrance and found his way to the row of officers' staterooms. He recognized the gray-bearded veteran who was pacing the alley outside the pilot-house, though the man was not in uniform; it was the deposed master.

“Good morning, Captain Mayo,” he said, without any resentment in his tones. “I congratulate you on your promotion.”

“I hope you understand that I didn't go hunting for this job,” blurted Mayo.

“I believe it's merely a matter of new policy--so Manager Fogg tells me. Understand me, too, Captain Mayo! I harbor no resentment, especially not against you.”

He put out his hand in fine, manly fashion, and was so distinctly the best type of the dignified, self-possessed sea-captain of the old school, that Mayo fairly flinched at thought of replacing this man.

Captain Jacobs opened the door lettered “Captain.” “All my truck is out and over the rail. I'll sit in with you, if you don't mind, until Mr. Fogg arrives. You're going to have a thick passage, Captain Mayo.”

“It doesn't seem right to me--putting a new man on here in this fog,” protested Mayo, warmly. “I ought to have her in clear weather till I know her tricks. In a pinch, when you've got to know how a boat behaves, and know it mighty sudden in order to avoid a smash, one false move puts you into the hole.”

“They seem to be running steamboat lines from Wall Street nowadays, instead of from the water-front,” said Captain Jacobs, dryly. “It's all in the game as they're playing it in these times. There's nothing to be said by the men in the pilot-house.”

“I'm a sailor, and a simple one. I think I know my job, Captain Jacobs, or else I wouldn't accept this promotion. But I've got no swelled head. It's the proper and sensible thing for you to take the Montana out tonight and let me hang around the pilot-house and watch you. If I can prevail upon Mr. Fogg to allow it, will you make another trip?”

“I would do it to help you, but I'll be blasted if I'll help Fogg--not if he would get down now and beg me,” declared Captain Jacobs, showing temper for the first time. “And if you had been pitchforked out as I've been after all my years of honest service you'd feel just as I do, Captain Mayo. You don't blame me, do you?”

“I can't blame you.”

“You know the courses, and you'll have the same staff as I've had. You'll find every notation in the log accurate to the yard or the second. She's a steady old girl and, knowing tide set and courses, as you do, you can depend on her to the turn of a screw. You have my best wishes--but I'm done.”

He put the fervor of final resolve into the declaration. But, with sailor's fraternal spirit of helpfulness he sat down and went into the details of all the Montana's few whims. He called in the mates and introduced them to the new master. They seemed to be quiet, sturdy men who bore no malice because a new policy had put a new man over them.

Then arrived General-Manager Fogg, and in this strictly business presence Mayo did not presume to voice any of his doubts or his opinion of his inefficiency.

The rather stiff and decidedly painful ceremony of speeding the former commander was soon over, and Captain Jacobs departed.

“Why haven't you put on your uniform?” asked Fogg. “You have fixed yourself out with a new one, of course?”

“Yes, sir.” Mayo's cheeks flushed slightly when he recollected how he had strutted before the mirror in his room at the hotel. But he had been ashamed to hurry into his gilt-incrusted coat in the presence of Captain Jacobs.

“Get it on as soon as you can,” ordered the general manager. “I want you to make a general inspection of the boat with me.”

They made the tour, and in spite of his misgivings, when he saw the mists sweeping past the end of the pier Captain Mayo, receiving the salutes of respectful subalterns, felt the proud joy of one who has at last arrived at the goal of his ambition.

Master of the crack Montana, queen of the Vose fleet, at the age of twenty-six!

He glanced into each of the splendid mirrors of the great saloon to make sure of the gold letters on his cap.

The thick carpet seemed grateful to his step. The ship's orchestra was rehearsing in its gallery.

If only that devilish fog would lift! But still it surged in from the sea, and the glass, down to 29.40, promised no clearing weather.

“Safety to the minutest detail--that's my motto,” declared Manager Fogg. “Order a fire drill.”

It was accomplished, and Mr. Fogg criticized the lack of snap. He was rather severe after the life-boat drill, was over. He ordered a second rehearsal. He commanded that the crew do it a third time. The warmth of his insistence on this feature of shipboard discipline was very noticeable.