Chapter XVI: The Captain’s Gamble

October had been a month of exceptionally pleasant weather, but, in the night of November first, Bradley woke to feel the old house trembling and to hear the rain thundering on the roof overhead and rattling against the windows. The wind screamed in the chimney, and in the lulls the battered weather-vane on the barn creaked and whined. It was comfortable in bed and he lay there listening to the storm and remembering that Peleg had been hinting at the coming of dirty weather. Drowsily he wondered if there would be any wrecks along shore.

While he was dressing next morning he heard voices in the road below, and opening the window saw Jim Rogers, the fish peddler, sitting in his wagon with the rain sluicing from the peak of his sou’wester and carrying on a shouted conversation with Mrs. Baker.

“What did you say ’twas, Mr. Rogers?” screamed the old lady, speaking through the closed blinds of her chamber window.

“The _Freedom_; big six-masted coal barge. She’s high and dry on the Razorback. Hawser parted. The tug’s tryin’ to git her off now, but Cap’n Knowles telephoned Sam Hardy that ’twan’t no use.”

“Do tell! It’s been a hard storm. One of our henhouse shutters has blown off. Oh, Mr. Rogers! fetch a quart of clams ’round to the back door and leave ’em on the steps, won’t you? I’ll pay you next time you call.”

Bradley didn’t hear the last part of this conversation. He was struggling into his clothes. Only Miss Prissy was up when he came downstairs, and she protested strongly against his going without breakfast. He compromised by hastily swallowing a slice of bread and butter, and then, putting on his oilskins, ran out of the house and down the road.

They were talking about it everywhere. Caleb Weeks, who was taking down the shutters of his store, called as Bradley splashed past:

“She’s a good job for somebody,” was Caleb’s hail. “Too big for you and Ez though, I’m ’fraid.”

“Squealer” Wixon met him a little further on. “Knowles says she’s hard and fast,” said Squealer. “The tug’s goin’ to give it up. They’re telephonin’ Cook now. The Boston Salvage Company’ll git her off, or try to, I cal’late.”

Bradley’s objective point was the post-office. He wanted to see Hardy and learn the particulars. But Captain Titcomb was there before him; they met at the door. The Captain’s eyes were shining.

“Come on, Brad!” he said. “I was jest goin’ to send for you. I know all about it.”

He told the story as they walked to the wharf in the pouring rain. It was as Rogers had said; the great barge, twin sister of the _Liberty_, was on her way from Boston to New York under tow. The storm had come up unexpectedly and the hawser had parted. Now she was fast on the Razorback shoal.

“Crimustee!” exclaimed the Captain. “_Won’t_ she be a job! Brad! Brad! if you and me could only have the chance!”

Alvin Bearse, who boarded nowadays at the house of a relative in Orham, was already on board the _Diving Belle_ when the partners reached her.

“I’ve been expectin’ you,” he said. “Steam’s up.”

The trip down was a rough one, even while they were in the bay. But when they turned Setuckit Point and stood out over the rips the _Diving Belle_ climbed one great wave after another, coasting down their greenish-gray slopes like a chip, and pouring salt water from her scuppers in a steady stream.

Even before they reached the Point they saw the six masts of the barge over the low sand dunes against the rain-streaked sky. Now, as they drew nearer to the shoal, she loomed larger and larger. Her high black sides, with the rollers breaking against them, looked like those of a mammoth whale, and the little tug, puffing and rocking a short distance away, like a baby beside its mother.

“She’s hard and fast for sure,” muttered Captain Titcomb. “Five thousand tons of coal inside of her and this no’theaster drivin’ her further on every minute--I swan to man, Brad! she’s there for awhile! No tug--nor three tugs, fur’s that goes--can haul her off. ’Member what I said when the _Liberty_ come so near landin’ where she is? It’s an anchor and cable job and we can do that as well as anybody and cheaper than the big fellers. If they’ll only let us try! By crimustee! they’ve _got_ to!”

That evening the train brought representatives of three large wrecking companies to Orham. The younger Mr. Cook came also. The partners saw him, but he would give them no satisfaction. “You must come to Boston to-morrow if you want to bid,” he said. “But I tell you frankly, price isn’t the only thing; we must be satisfied that the job can be carried through.” It was evident that he didn’t believe they could handle it.

But Bradley and the Captain were certain they could handle it if the chance was given them. Seventy men, at least, would be needed, and to house and feed them was the problem. The Boston Salvage Company had lighters and barges for this purpose, and they had not. But there was the big shanty at the Point, the one in which the picnic had been held. Thirty men had lived and slept there before. By building new bunks and slinging hammocks, twice that number, at least, could find room. The rest must occupy other shanties or come up to Orham at night. The partners schemed and figured until nearly four o’clock in the morning.

One of them must go to Boston that day. The Captain said Bradley ought to go because Cook knew him, but the junior partner didn’t agree.

“You go, Cap’n Ez,” he said, with decision. “You’re a better bargainer than I am, and it’ll take a good talker and a clever trader to land this job in the face of the competition. Go, and good luck be with you!”

So the Captain went on the first train. He promised to telegraph as soon as a decision was reached.

But no telegram came that day. All the next forenoon Bradley hung about the station waiting. The noon train arrived; no Captain, and still no word. But, after supper, as the anxious young man walked up to meet the evening train, it was evident that somebody knew something.

Obed Nickerson was standing on the corner. “Brad,” he said. Then, in a low tone, “Brad, I wouldn’t stand for it if I was you. You’re a partner as much as he is, and I wouldn’t let him drag me into such a fool deal. I like you, and, fur’s that goes, I like Ez; but he’s crazy. Say no, and put your foot down.”

“What are you talking about?” asked Bradley in astonishment.

“What? Don’t you know? Why--well, then, I ain’t goin’ to tell you. Only you take my advice and say no; that’s all.”

Obed’s puzzling advice made Bradley feel even more uneasy. He determined to wait until the train arrived, and then, if the Captain didn’t come, to telegraph to the United States Hotel. But the first man off the train was Captain Titcomb.

The Captain shook his partner’s hand and said, “Hello!” He looked very tired--yes, and worried.

“Didn’t get it, hey?” asked Bradley. “Well, I hardly dared think you would.”

“Oh, I got it! Yes, I got it!”

“You _did_! Glory hallelujah!”

“Um--hum. Now don’t ask any more questions here. Come on down to my room.”

He was silent all the way to the Traveller’s Rest, and, for a man who had just secured the greatest contract of his business life, seemed strangely downcast. When they reached the room he locked the door and threw his overcoat and hat on the sofa.

“Now----” began Bradley, but the Captain held up his hand.

“Set down,” he said. “It’s a long yarn. Got a cigar in your clothes? Thanks.”

He lit the cigar and, twisting it into the corner of his mouth, began to talk.

“Well,” he said slowly, “I made Boston all right, and stood for Cook and Son’s under full canvas. I hailed the young squirt with the hay on his upper lip and asked him if the old man was in. ‘What do you want to see him for?’ says he. ‘Son,’ says I, ‘you trot along like a good little boy and tell the old man that the feller that’s goin’ to git the _Freedom_ off Orham shoal is out here.’ That kind of fetched him over with a slat, and he went in and told Cook. In a minute out he comes and pilots me into the skipper’s stateroom.

“I cal’late Cook was expectin’ to see another feller. ‘Are you from the Salvage Company?’ says he. ‘No,’ says I, takin’ a chair; ‘my name’s Titcomb. I’m from Orham. My partner’s a young feller name of Nickerson; he’s the one you picked out to lift the _Liberty’s_ anchor that time.’ Well, that way of puttin’ it made him laugh and he told me to go ahead and spin my yarn, only be quick. I spun it, but I ain’t sartin that I was quick. I never talked so afore in _my_ life, though I’ve beat it once sence. When I hove anchor fin’lly, he says, ‘Cap’n, there’s nothin’ the matter with your nerve, is there?’ I told him no, I hadn’t had to take physic for it. ‘Well,’ says he, ‘I’d like to give you the job, but you ain’t big enough. This ain’t anchor-draggin’.’

“Then I got after him again, told him about the new schooner, drew a diagram of the shoal and made it plain jest how she’d got to be got off if ’twas done at all, and that we could do it as well as anybody else in the world and a whole lot cheaper. At last he told me to come in and see him again late that afternoon.

“I was ’round on time, you bet! The hay-lip chap told me the old man had gone for the day, but that he’d left word that ’twas no use, our firm wan’t big enough for the job. Says I to hay-lip, ‘Where’s the old man live?’ He didn’t know, bein’ a good liar. I asked him, in an interested sort of way, if he was dead sure where he lived himself, and went out to paw over the directory. Inside of an hour I was on an electric car bound for Brookline.

“Talk about houses! Those Cooks live in a place that makes Barry’s, down on the cliff road, look like Peleg’s shanty. I sailed up forty fathom of front steps and hove taut on the bell. A darky, with more brass buttons than the skipper of a Cunarder, come to the door. Says he, ‘Your card, please.’ Says I, ‘Never mind the card; Mr. Cook had an app’intment with me this afternoon.’ Which was true, you’ll notice. So he steered me into a room that was as full of pictures as a museum, and there I set on the edge of a velvet chair and tried to look as if I was used to it.

“Pretty soon down comes Cook, in a swaller-tail coat. He looked mad. ‘Is it you?’ he says. ‘Didn’t you git my message?’ I told him I’d got it, but that ’twouldn’t be fair to him to let that end it. I said that on purpose, ’cause I jedged, from what you’d said and what I’d seen myself, that the way to git on with him was to be independent. He grinned and then I commenced to talk. And _how_ I did talk! The mornin’ sermon wan’t within a mile of the evenin’ service. I told him flat-footed how much the contract meant to us and all that. Pretty soon young Cook come in and he listened, too.

“Fin’lly the old man says, ‘Well, Titcomb, what’s your figger?’ I told him what you and me had agreed on. He seemed surprised, I thought. Then he and his son went into the next room and talked. When they come back, he says, ‘Titcomb, you’ve got the perseverance of the devil--or that partner of yours.’ (Put you in good company, hey, Brad?) ‘Your price, I don’t mind tellin’ you,’ he goes on, ‘is lower than anyone else has given. If you were a bigger concern I guess I’d give the job to you. Anyway, you come in and see me to-morrer.’

“Well, this mornin’ I was at his office when the doors opened. And there I set until after two this afternoon. A feller from the Salvage Company come in while I was there, and so did one from the South Boston tug people. They went into Cook’s room and come out again. Fin’lly the old man sent for me. He and his son were there together. ‘Titcomb,’ says he, ‘I’m a fool and I know it, but I’m goin’ to let you try to git the _Freedom_ clear.’”

Bradley, who had listened rather impatiently to this long yarn, struck the table with his hand. “Great!” he cried. “Cap’n Ez, you’re a wonder! Shake hands!”

But the Captain did not shake. Instead he looked at the floor. “Wait a minute, Brad,” he observed. “That wan’t all he said. He went on to tell me that in givin’ us the job he was riskin’ a bran-new vessel worth eighty thousand dollars. ‘Mind,’ he says, ‘I b’lieve you can do it if anybody can, but I won’t risk another cent. I won’t pay by the day. I’ll give you fifteen thousand when she’s off the shoal and towed to Boston; but I won’t pay a red until she is. It’s got to be a contract job, payment on delivery of the goods.’”

Bradley’s face fell. “Of course that settled it,” he said. “You couldn’t accept such an idiotic offer as that.”

Captain Ezra took his cigar from his mouth. “Well, Brad,” he answered, soberly, “that’s what I did; I accepted it.”

The junior partner sprang from his chair. “Good Lord above!” he cried. “Man, you’re crazy!”

“Well now, Brad----”

“Well now, Cap’n Ez! Look here! you and I have put almost our last copper into the new schooner. We’ve got practically no ready money. We must hire from seventy to one hundred men at three dollars a day and pay them every week. We must feed ’em. We must spend money fitting up the shanty to lodge ’em in. It’ll take, maybe, a month before we get her clear--if we do clear her. We may have to spend five or six thousand before then. Where’s the money coming from?”

“I know all that. We’ll mortgage the _Diving Belle_ and raise the cash.”

“Are you out of your head? We’ve been lucky so far and haven’t had a failure. But failures are bound to come. Suppose we work on this barge for a month and then a heavy gale strikes--as it’s likely to strike any time now; just the season for it. The _Freedom_ couldn’t stand one real November gale on that shoal; she’d break up or pound the bottom out of her. Then we’ve lost all we’ve spent; the schooner would be taken to pay the mortgage, and you and I--where would we be?”

“But, Brad, think of what it means to us if we make good.”

“Think of what it means if we don’t! The end of Titcomb and Nickerson; that’s sure.”

“But they’ll have had a run for their money. Look here, son! ’Twan’t kindness and love for you and me that made Cook and Son give us this contract. ’Twas ’cause our price was low and ’cause they know mighty well we can do it jest as well as the biggest concern on earth. It’s anchors and cables, not big tugs and lighters, that’ll work off that barge. Cook says heave the coal overboard; don’t try to save it.”

“Cap’n Ez, we got that job because nobody else would take it that way. We _can_ do it if anybody can, but nobody else would be fool enough to gamble against the Lord Almighty’s weather. We’d be called fools from here to Provincetown.”

“Not if we win out, we wouldn’t.”

“Well, it’s ridiculous and I say no.”

The Captain drew a long breath. “All right,” he said, gloomily. “Maybe you’re right, Brad. It is a crazy gamble, I s’pose, and I was afraid you’d see it that way. Only you must make up your mind to this: if we give up this chance we must settle back and be nothin’ but anchor-draggers the rest of our lives. We’ve flunked once, and, no matter how good the reason is, no more big jobs’ll come our way. _But_, if we make good--whew!”

Now it was Bradley’s turn to hesitate. There was some sense in what his partner said. But it was playing against odds and with the last dollar on the table. Obed Nickerson had given him a hint of what the townsfolk would think of it.

The Captain noticed the hesitation. “I’ve done nothin’ but go over the thing sence I left Cook’s office,” he said. “But, the way I’m built, I’d rather go back to the coastin’ trade than be a one-hoss wrecker. Either I’ll be the real thing or nothin’, and I’m ready to take the chance. But you’re ha’f owner--or pretty nigh ha’f--and what you say goes.”

It was that pretty nigh that influenced Bradley. He realized that all he was, in a business sense, he owed to the Captain. And the latter had more money invested in the company than he had. Then, too, the thought of Gus came to him. It was for her that he had worked and hoped and planned. Now that she didn’t care, why should he care either? He sat still, thinking, and the Captain, too, was silent.

Suddenly Bradley spoke. “Oh, hang it! what’s the odds?” he exclaimed, recklessly. “Go ahead, Cap’n! I’ll sink or swim with you!”

Captain Ezra grasped his hand. “I swore you would,” he cried. “Son, this job’s goin’ to make us!”

Bradley’s laugh was short and rather bitter.

“Yes,” he said, “make--or break.”