Glencannon, page 24
"Losh!" murmured Mr. Glencannon, resting on his oars and measuring her bulk. "She's carrying enough dead oxen to mak' a haggis the size o' the Rock o' Gibraltar! Noo, if only Wee Wully Anstruther is still her engineer—"
From somewhere aft came thuds, shouted oaths and peals of ribald laughter. A bottle whizzed through the moonlight and plunged into the water like a three-inch shell.
"Haw!" chuckled Mr. Glencannon, "Wee Wully Anstruther's still in her, beyant the shadow o' a doot! I only hope he's not in one o' his tontrums, because I forgot to bring my bross knuckles."
He made fast the dinghy to the platform of the ladder, ascended to the deck and strode aft toward the sounds of disturbance. In the open doorway of the engineer's saloon he halted, amazed at the strange rite in progress within. Around the table at the center of the smoke-filled room stood a number of lumpy, ruddy-faced gentlemen, as well as a number of others slightly less lumpy and ruddy, but obviously equally tough. Mr. Glencannon identified the former as butchers and refrigeration engineers and the rest as the engine-room staff of the Northern Princess. All were shouting advice and encouragement to a diminutive four-striped officer who, blindfolded and with his hands bound behind him, was kneeling on the table apparently endeavoring to drown himself in a dish of consommé.
"He looks lik' Wee Wully," muttered Mr. Glencannon. "He is Wee Wully. But what in the world is he doing?"
Moving closer, he perceived that the diminutive one was lapping up the consommé with the thirst of the worn hart that panteth after the water brooks. At length, strangling but triumphant, he straightened up, a silver coin between his teeth.
"Four minutes, thirteen seconds!" announced somebody.
Amidst hoarse cheers, bonds and blindfold were stripped from the hero and he was assisted to the floor. Swaying slightly, he acknowledged the plaudits of the multitude and wrung out his sodden necktie.
"Anstruther!" exclaimed Mr. Glencannon, hurrying forward and shaking his hand. "How are ye, Wee Wulliam, how are ye?"
The little man blinked up at him uncertainly; then, "Colin Colcollin!" he proclaimed, raspingly. "Merry Chrishmash, Crolin, Mrerry Chrishmash!... Come, fill up the plate again, ladsh, and let my auld friend Grencrarron have a gro at it!"
"Oh, thonk ye, Wully; ye're really too kind!" Mr. Glencannon demurred. "I'd dearly love to tak' part in yere innocent little game, espeecially as I obsairve that the prize is a half crown. But to tell ye the honest truth, Wully, I sumply canna drink clear soup."
"Who osked ye to drink clear soup?" demanded Mr. Anstruther, truculently. "Who osked ye to drink thick soup? Who osked ye to drink green-turtle soup, pink-turtle soup, purtle-turtle soup or mocking-turtle soup? Thash no' soup in yon plate, ye gowk; it's whishky!"
"Eh?" Mr. Glencannon vaulted to the table, knelt before the dish and sniffed a magical aroma. "Why, it's Duggan's Dew o' Kirkintilloch!" he cried. "Come, blindfold me, gentlemen! Tie my honds!... There, noo! Ready, timekeeper? Go!"
He found the pastime distinctly to his taste, especially as his walrus mustache, acting like a sponge, augmented his natural prowess. So rapidly did he lower the level of the plate's contents that Mr. Anstruther, fearing for his own record, approached on tiptoe and restored it from a fresh bottle. Sensing despite his blindfold that he was the victim of sharp practice, Mr. Glencannon redoubled his efforts, emptied the plate and retrieved the half crown in the phenomenal time of four minutes flat.
The plaudits which acclaimed his exploit were perfunctory, and in them he sensed a vaguely hostile note. Moreover, his teeth were so firmly embedded in the half crown that he suspected it was lead.
"Dom!" rasped Mr. Anstruther, making a wry face. "Why, ye've qualified for the finals with yere vurra feerst try! But then, Glencannon, ye auld snake, ye always were a dangerous mon at parlor games and parties!"
"True," admitted Mr. Glencannon, disengaging the coin from his lower incisors and tossing it through the porthole. "As a matter o' fact," he raised his voice to make himself heard above the considerable din—"as a matter o' fact, Wully, it's precisely because o' a party that I've come aboord to consult ye. Ye see, I've promised to mak' a Christmas haggis."
"A haggis?" repeated Mr. Anstruther. "Ye mean a guid, auld, steaming, peppery, juicy, Heeland haggis? Weel, weel, weel, let's drink a drink to it! The only trooble is, where are ye going to get the billy goat's blodder?"
"A-weel," said Mr. Glencannon, "if I hoppened to want a billy goat's blodder, one o' the feerst places I'd look for it wud be in the neighborhood o' a billy goat. But why shud I want it?"
"Because, dom it, ye canna mix it, stoof it, cook it, have it or eat it withoot it!" asserted Mr. Anstruther. "I can't, eh? Who says I can't?" He arose, bit a crescent-shaped fragment out of the visor of his cap and sat down again. "Yes, yes, precisely! I've followed ye to a T, so noo ye can follow me to a whusky."
"Glodly!" said Mr. Glencannon. "However, Wully, I fear we dinna quite understond each other. I cudna use a billy goat's bladder, because I dinna want to mak' a futball, a bagpipe or a hot-water bottle. What I told ye I wanted to mak' was a haggis."
"A haggis?" Mr. Anstruther repeated again. "Ye mean a guid, auld, steaming, peppery, juicy, Heeland haggis? Weel, weel, weel, let's drink a drink to it! The only trooble is—er—er—Trooble? Ho! If it's trooble ye're looking for, ye ugly brute, ye've only to—"
"Noo, wait, Wee Wulliam!" Mr. Glencannon restrained him. "You and I are auld friends and ye're Bura Misteri Sahab o' the Northern Princess, the which is a vurritable Noah's Ark full o' frozen cattle. Weel, I was thinking that if ye could see yer way clear to lending me the loan o' a nice, tender dead ox oot o' yere cargo, I—"
Mr. Anstruther yawned, removed his trousers, pulled them over his head as though they were a nightshirt, thrust his arms through the legs and buttoned the fly snugly around his neck. Then he looked down at his bare, gnarled knees. "Why, look!" he bawled. "Look! There's somebody aroond here, there's some skulking thief aroond here, that has stole the vurra troosies off my breech!" He lurched forward and leveled an accusing finger at Mr. Glencannon. "There he is, lads!" he shouted. "Let's heave the scoondrel overboard!"
With a menacing growl they made for him. Mr. Glencannon snatched up a full whiskey bottle from the sideboard and, wielding it clubwise, fought his way to the door. He fled along the deck toward the ladder, the pack at his heels, but so hotly were they pressing him when he reached it that he dared not attempt to descend to his dinghy. Through alleyways, up and down companions, round and about the ship they sped, the decks drumming to their footfalls and the night made hideous with the sounds of hue and cry.
Turning a corner and momentarily out of sight of his pursuers, Mr. Glencannon slid halfway down a steep iron ladder and fell the remainder of the distance. Thanks to his presence of mind in clutching the bottle to his breast, there were only personal casualties. He found himself in a narrow, dimly lit passage at one end of which was a door marked Keep Out; This Means You! "Aye, but it doesna mean me!" he gasped, turning the knob. It was not, as he had surmised, a collision door, for despite its considerable thickness it was surprisingly light in weight. He stepped over the high sill, slammed the portal after him, and was in Stygian darkness. Instantly, miraculously, the sounds of pursuit were stilled; in fact, as he stood there straining his eyes and ears, he felt that the blackness was palpable, that it was packed in around him under pressure and that it shut him off from all the world. Here, at last, was sanctuary!
He lit his pocket flash. Its beam licked an ebonite panel upon which were various switches and instruments and a brass plate, engraved Handling Chamber, No. 3 Hold. "'Let there be licht!'" he quoted, closing several switches at once. Suddenly dazzled, he saw that he was in a spacious, white-enameled room. There were banks of pipes on the bulkheads, and from the deckhead above, chain hoists hung on curving steel tracks. The tracks ran from doors in the port and starboard sides of the vessel, converging amidships at the entrance to the hold.
"H'm, weel, it's all vurra tronquil and commendably saniturra," he remarked. "I'll mak' mysel' comfortable till yon murderers get tired o' sairching for me, and then I'll sneak oot. Whoosheroo, it's a job to mak' a haggis!" He sat with his back against the pipes and broached his bottle. The silence was broken by a liquid, gurgling sound. This was natural enough in the circumstances, but when he had recorked the bottle, the gurgling continued.
"Strange!" he mused. "Uncanny! Weel, they're peculiar craft, these great floating ice chests! Noo, evidently this so-called Hondling Chamber is insulated, so that frozen meat can be unloaded through it withoot opening the hatches and raising the temperature in the hold proper. They sumply open yon door amidships, hook their oxen on the chain hoists and drog them ower to the door on whichever side they hoppen to be discharging from. I wonder—noo, I wonder—if a mon cud steal an ox oot o' here singlehonded? O' coorse, if Wee Wully Anstruther and his butchers and his bondits shud catch him at it—brhh!"
The very thought made his blood run cold, so he fortified himself with a few thermal units from the bottle. Feeling no reaction, he consumed a few more. As he did so, the neck of the bottle rattled dismally against his teeth, and vice versa. "Why, guid losh, mon, yere hond is treembling lik' a leaf! Ye're—ye're treembling all ower! Can it be ye're in for a bout o' fever?" He felt a dull ache across his shoulder blades and another farther down. "Spinal meningitus!" he gasped, endeavoring to rise. "But, heavens! I canna stond up! Paralysis! Help!" he bawled. "Anstruther! Somebody! Help!"
He realized with a surge of horror that no voice, no human sound, could penetrate those insulated walls.
"Aloss!" he moaned. "They'll unload my puir cadaver at Marseels with the rest o' the meat! Christmas Eve—ah, what a nicht to die!"
Resignedly, he bowed his head and buried his face in his hands. Soon he was conscious of a painful constriction in his armpits and across the chest. His first diagnosis was pleurisy; then he discovered that he was leaning forward into the slack of his jacket like a papoose in a blanket, and that the back and shoulders, crusted with hoarfrost, were firmly frozen to the pipes.
"Ah, come!" he growled, his breath turning to steam in the icy air. "What silly horseplay is this?" He undid the buttons and squirmed out of the garment, which hung rigid as a knightly panoply on the wall. "Ho, I see it all, noo! Anstruther has turned on the freezing system—that explains the gurgling! He intends to freeze me to death alive!" With difficulty he unstuck his jacket from the brine pipes, stamped upon it until it regained some measure of flexibility, and donned it. Skidding across the frosty floor, he made for the instrument panel. A dial, marked Fahrenheit Temperature, Handling Chamber, registered 26 degrees. Even as he scanned it, the needle dropped to 24, then to 22, and so continued downward. "Och, horrors!" croaked Mr. Glencannon, holding his bottle to the light, gauging its contents and taking a mammoth sowp of them. "If I'm no rescued soon, I'll have to put mysel' on half rations! Where are the Soviet ice-breakers? Where are the Yonkee planes? Where are the Alaskan dog teams, the Canadian Quintriplets and the doughty Odmiral Byrd? Am I to be abondoned here to freeze?"
Very cautiously he unlatched the door by which he had entered and pressed his ear to the crack. "Noo, two o' ye wait richt here," he heard Mr. Anstruther's rasping voice. "If he comes down this way, clout him ower the head and—"
Mr. Glencannon let the latch click back into place. He crossed to the door of the hold and swung it open. From the shadowy spaces beyond came a gust like the polar breath of Antarctica.
"Ah, foosh!" he cringed, fumblingly uncorking the bottle. "Grim death confronts me where'er I turn! I'd better drink up this whuskey before it freezes, for my teeth are chottering so I cudna chew it!"
He was about to close the door when he discerned within the hold a level expanse of beef carcasses so vast that its limits were lost in the gloom. It was the top layer of the cargo; the legs of the beasts, hewn off to stumps in precise conformity to market specifications, jutted up in ranks as orderly and rigid as the Grenadier Guards on parade. Here, dead, frozen and far from their lush native pastures, was a whole Malagasy herd! Here was meat to feed a multitude! Here, to a quester after haggis, was El Dorado!
For a moment, Mr. Glencannon stood gnawing at the frozen fringe of his mustache and expelling the brittle fragments. Then he dragged the fall of one of the chain hoists into the hold, fixed the hook in the nearest carcass and hoisted it clear. Pulling, hauling and butting it with his shoulders, he slid it along the overhead conveyor rail to the starboard side. He swung open the insulating panel which covered the loading door in the hull and unscrewed the dozen iron dogs which secured the clamps.
"Noo, then!" he panted. "All I've got to do is open it, let my ox doon into the water and climb doon the chain mysel'. It'll be a short swim forward to the dinghy; I'll row it back, tak' my ox in tow and return in triumph to the Inchcliffe Castle. But I'd best turn oot the lichts, lest Anstruther and his thugs shud spot me."
One by one he flipped the switches; the lights went out and simultaneously the liquid gurgling ceased. "Shish-shish!" he simpered, blushing in the darkness. "Weel, wud ye believe it? It must have been I, mysel', that turned on all the winter weather in the feerst place!"
Slowly, soundlessly, he swung back the hull door and stood gratefully in the flood of tropic air which wafted through the opening. But though the heat was a benison to his body, it had a strange effect upon his brain.
"Whoe!" He swayed dizzily. "Hold hard, Glencannon, hold hard! You've had only a little ower a bottle and a half o' whusky, but anybody'd think ye'd had a drap too much!"
Not without difficulty he slung the carcass clear of the side and lowered it until the slack in the chain indicated that it was afloat. It lay on its back with its stump legs in the air. He clambered down the chain and, still grasping it, stood on the buoyant beef while he took stock of the situation. He could see his dinghy bobbing at the ladder foot with Wee Wully Anstruther drowsing in the stern of it. Due to the manner in which he was wearing his trousers, Mr. Anstruther had a sinister, hunchbacked look about him. Even more sinister, however, was the twelve-inch Stillson wrench which lay ready to his hand on the thwart.
"Ho, dearie me!" groaned Mr. Glencannon. "What's to be done the noo?" He moved a trifle aft along the beef and sat down to lower its metacenter and increase its stability. This brought its neck out of water like a clipper's bow, but caused the after portion to float almost awash. To avoid wetting his feet, Mr. Glencannon stepped down into the vent in the belly as though it were a cockpit and seated himself in the stern sheets. "Haw, vurra snoog," he murmured, conning the little craft with an appreciative eye. "Vurra tidy and vurra shipshape. If only it had a bit more sheer and another strake o' freeboard, it wud be the most seaworthy ox in all the Gulf o' Aden. What more cud an auld sailor osk?" He squinted across the harbor and distinguished the lights of the Inchcliffe Castle. "Foosh to the dinghy, they'll bring it back when they've sobered up. I'll novigate hame in my ain haggis!" He unhooked the chain hoist and, paddling with his hands, made off into the night.
"Ah, but it's grond to be at sea again." He sniffed the breezes gratefully. "Although come to think o' it, I havena been ashore since we left Mombasa." He raised his voice in a rollicking blue water chantey. He was putting his whole soul into the chorus of "yo heave ho's!" when he realized that his lingual mechanism was actually giving off the words and music of a sentimental ballad that he recalled as "Sweet Mary of Argyll."
Weel, weel, let it have its ain way; he thought, tolerantly. After all, Sweet Mary is a beautiful auld song. Listen. But he listened vainly, for now, despite himself, he was reciting Burns' "Address to a Haggis."
"Ah, swith!" he growled, when the poem ended. "'Tis all vurra oggrovating! I suspect there must have been a certain amoont o' alcohol in Wee Wully's whusky!"
Whether or not the suspicion was justified, he found it increasingly difficult to hold to his course or even to remember where the course lay. From time to time he paused in his splashing to take a star sight, but the stars were swooping and dipping in the celestial vault, playing tag with the lights on shore and generally behaving in a scandalous manner.
"Peerplexing!" he said, lifting his hands out of the water and raising them smartly on high in the Toss Oars position prescribed in the Royal Navy. "I almost wish I had Montgomery aboord to novigate this craft for me. But, no, on second thocht, no! Though I'm forced to associate with him on the Inchcliffe Castle, domned if I'd tolerate him on my ain private yacht! But where, oh, where is the Inchcliffe Castle?" He strained his eyes into the night and descried Djebel Ishan and its brood of lesser peaks looming black against the sky. His view of them was somewhat obstructed by a row of tree trunks rising out of the water in the near foreground. "Tut, tut!" he objected. "There's no forest in the middle o' Aden harbor, and therefore I doot if I see one. There's some sort of a swundle, here, or pairhops it's a mirage. But"—he reached out and touched the nearest trunk—"but no; it's solid!"
There was a soft swish, a gleam of phosphorescence on the starboard beam. Something struck his frail craft amidships, causing it to tremble from brisket to rump. The sea gushed onto his lap through a gaping puncture just below the water line.
"Torpedoed!" he cried. "We're holed in the tenderloin! All honds abandon ship!"
He scrambled to his feet. The beef rolled gunwales-under. To prevent it capsizing, Mr. Glencannon threw his arms around the tree trunk. There was a second shock, a ripping, rending sound and lo, the carcass was dragged from under him by an eight-foot shark! Clinging to the tree with everything but his eyelashes, he saw the great fish tearing at the meat, saw it joined by another and another, and watched in horror as they churned the water to foam a scant yard beneath his wincing coattails.
