CHAPTER XV
In Which We Have a Good Race In Earnest
And I had an idea that if I asked the captain to go in the boat, or suggested it to Mr. Barney, I’d get an immediate refusal. I had a decided belief that Captain Somes didn’t wish me to get aboard the Gullwing again. Not that he needed my services particularly—although my work was costing him nothing but my grub and the cast-off clothes I had been given; but Captain Si feared that Captain Joe needed me, and my remaining with the Seamew was crippling his rival. Which, by the way, was likely to be the facts in the case.
So, with this scheme in my mind, I expect I was even more cautious than was necessary. I might have been unnoticed had I jumped right into the boat as it went overboard.
But when I heard Mr. Barney call off the men’s names, I noted that Job Perkins was among the chosen. I had sized up Job for what he was. I grabbed him as he passed me on the run and shot into his ear:
“Listen! ten dollars when we reach Baltimore if you’ll let me take your place in the boat.”
“Huh?” said Job, wonderstruck for a moment. But it was only for a moment. The old fellow had all his wits about him and in working order.
“It’s a bargain, boy,” he whispered, and the next moment he fell sprawling over a coil of rope and scrambled up again right before Mr. Barney.
“Hullo! what’s the matter with you, old man?” demanded the second officer.
“Ow-ouch!” groaned Job, rubbing his arm.
“Hurt you?” snapped Mr. Barney.
“By gravey! I did wrench my arm,” groaned Job, his face writhing with an expression of pain.
I stepped in at once. “I’ll take his place, sir,” I said.
“All right!” cried the officer, without a glance, and I slid down the falls and seized the bow oar.
In another moment the officer followed me, getting into the stern, and we cast off.
“You git that boat for me, Mr. Barney!” bawled Cap’n Si, over our heads. “Don’t you let them fellers from the Gullwing beat ye.”
“We’ll do our best,” responded Mr. Barney, waving his hand. Then to us he said: “Give way, men! See what you can do. Bend the ash!”
Before we had left the deck of the Seamew we knew that the Gullwing’s boat was off ahead of us. It looked as though the drifting boat was about as far from one vessel as she was from the other. The air being so light, we would have lost time trying to beat down to the spot. The race was between the six-oared boats, and I do not believe any college regatta was ever pulled amid more intense excitement.
At first, however, as we were so low in the water, we could not see our rival. Nor could we scarcely observe the object of our race.
But over these gentle waves we could pull a mighty stroke, and I found that the men with me at the oars were practiced hands. The strokeman set a pace that made us bend our backs in good earnest. This was a race!
Mr. Barney was using a steering oar, and using it well. He stood up to the work, and therefore he could see much farther than we at the oars. By glancing now and then over my left shoulder, however, I could see the black hulk of the drifting boat rising and falling upon the gentle waves.
And at first I saw nothing about the boat to express life saving the fluttering rag. It was a flag. After some minutes of hard pulling it was revealed to us that it was a British flag, set union down.
As I pulled I saw that Mr. Barney was looking across at some other object than the mysterious black craft. His eyes were squinted up as he gazed into the rising sun, and the expression of his face was mighty grim.
“He sees the Gullwing’s boat,” I thought.
“Pull, you fellows!” he suddenly barked at us. “Why don’t you pull?”
And we were pulling. I could stand the pace for a bit longer, I thought; but the stroke was certainly bending his back and driving his oar with a vigor that left little more to be expected from mortal man.
“Pull!” yelled our mate. “Pull, or those lubbers will beat you to it.”
There was no feathering of oars, or any fancy work. This was just the hard, deep pull of the deep-sea oarsman. We breathed heavily; the sweat poured from our limbs; we neither spoke nor looked back over our shoulders now. We became veritable pieces of mechanism, set to do this certain stroke, and to do it until we broke down completely!
“Keep it up! Break your backs!” yelled the second mate.
I had an idea that there was an added incentive for Mr. Barney’s excitement. His twin brother more than likely commanded the boat from the Gullwing. But we at the oars could not see her yet.
Nearer and nearer we came to the drifting boat. Our craft sprang through the sea at the end of every stroke. Had one of the oars broken I believe we would have been capsized.
Once more I glanced around. Not a sign of life in that floating mystery with its signal floating from the broken mast. But there was a bit of canvas spread forward of that mast, like an awning.
Mr. Barney saw me look back and he swore at me good and plenty.
“You want us to lose this race, you sawney!” he exclaimed.
I was convinced that, for his part, he was more anxious to beat the Gullwing’s crew—and incidentally his brother—than to save any life there might be remaining on the wreck.
But perhaps I misjudged Mr. Alfred Barney. We were all excited. Even I, who had no reason for wishing to see the Seamew’s boat win, pulled my oar with every last ounce of strength I possessed. Mr. Barney had accused me without warrant of trying to throw the race.
The two racing boats were not head-on to each other, but were approaching the wreck at an angle that now brought each in sight of the other. When the Gullwing’s boat flashed into the range of my eyes I saw half a dozen of the men I knew. There was Thankful Polk, heaven bless him, and Mr. Jim Barney at the steering oar. The sight of them made me feel good all over.
But I could not see the wreck now without twisting my head around. And if I did that I knew I should bring the wrath of our second mate upon me. The Gullwings cheered. For a moment I did not know what for. Could they be winning?
And then Thank’s jolly voice reached me across the stretch of sea:
“Hurray, Clint! Go it, old boy! You’re a sight for sore eyes!”
But I had no breath with which to answer. And I reckon if he had been pulling his oar as I was, he would not have been so boisterous.
The strain of the last few minutes of the race was terrific. My breath came in great sobs, and I heard the other men with me groan as they strained at the heavy oars. We were about all in.
“Pull, you tarriers!” barked Mr. Alf Barney again.
“Keep it up, boys!” yelled Mr. Jim Barney in the other boat.
I saw scowling looks exchanged between the twin brothers. It must be true, as Job Perkins had said, the two Barney boys were deadly enemies!
Then suddenly our cox shouted: “In oars! Way all!”
I felt the nose of the boat bump something behind me. I dropped my oar and turned to seize the broken gunwale of the drifting hulk we had pulled so hard to reach. We of the Seamew had won the race.