MONTGOMERY USES HIS POWER

Some time after Lister went to the factory he woke one night from disturbed sleep.  His small room under Terrier’s bridge was very hot and the door and port were open.  A faint draught blew in and the mosquito curtain moved about his bed.  The tug rolled languidly and the water splashed against her side.  Farther off the gentle swell broke with a dull murmur across the wreck.

This was all, but Lister was persuaded he had, when half awake, heard something else.  At dusk a drum had begun to beat across the lagoon and the faint monotonous noise had jarred.  It was typically African; the negroes used drums for signaling, although white men had not found out their code.  Lister had come to hate all that belonged to the fever coast.

The drum, however, was not beating now, and he rather thought he had heard the splash of a canoe paddle.  There was no obvious reason this should bother him, but he was bothered and after a few minutes got up and put on a thin jacket.  On deck it was very hot and he felt the warmth of the iron plates through his slippers.  In West Africa one puts on slippers as soon as one gets out of bed, for fear of the jigger insect that bores into one’s foot.  A gentle land breeze blew across the lagoon and the air was hot and damp like steam.  Lister smelt river mud and aromatic forest.

There was no moon, but he saw the dark hull rise and fall, and the flash of phosphorescent foam where the swell washed across the deck.  In the distance, the surf rumbled and now and then there was a peal of thunder.  Lister wondered why he had left his berth.  He was tired and needed sleep, for he had been occupied all day at the pump, which was not running well.  Recently he had been conscious of a nervous strain and things that were not important annoyed him; then he often woke at night, feeling that some danger threatened.

Walking along the deck he found a white sailor sitting on the windlass drum.  The man did not move until Lister touched his arm.

“Did you hear something not very long since, Watson?”

“No, sir,” said the other with a start.  “Now and then a fish splashed and she got her cable across the stem.  Links rattled.  That was all.”

Lister thought the man had slept, but it was not important, since there was no obvious necessity for keeping anchor watch.

“Did you hear something, sir?” the other inquired.

“I don’t know.  I imagine I did!”

The sailor laughed, as if he understood.  “A queer country; I’ve been here before!  Beautiful, bits of it; shining surf, yellow sands, and palms, but it plays some funny tricks with white men.  About half of them at the factories get addled brains if they stay long.  Believe in things the bushmen believe, ghosts and magic, and such.  Perhaps it’s the climate, but on this coast you get fancies you get nowhere else.  I’d sooner take look-out on the fo’cas’le in a North Sea gale than keep anchor watch in an African calm.”

Lister nodded.  He thought the man felt lonely and wanted to talk and he sympathized.  There was something insidious and daunting about the African coast.  He walked round the deck and then returning to his room presently went to sleep.

At daybreak he heard angry voices and going out found Brown storming about the deck.  Two white sailors had come back in the boat from the hulk, with the news that the negroes berthed on board her had vanished in the night, except for three or four whom the sailors had brought to the tug.  When Brown got cooler he went up to the men who squatted tranquilly on the hatch.  They were big muscular fellows and wore, instead of the usual piece of cotton, ragged duck clothes.

“Where’s the rest of the gang?” Brown asked.

“No savvy, sah,” said one.  “Some fella put them t’ing Ju-Ju on him and he lib for bush.”

“What’s a Ju-Ju?” Lister inquired.

“Hocus-pocus, magic of a sort,” the captain growled.  “When a white man knows much about Ju-Ju his proper place is an asylum.”  He turned to the boys.  “How did them other fellows go?”

“No savvy, sah.  We done hear not’ing.”

“I expect they were afraid to meddle,” Brown remarked, and resumed:  “Why did you lib for stop?”

“We Accra boy; white man’s boy.  Them bushman him d ­n fool too much.  Run in bush like monkey, without him clo’es.”

Brown knitted his brows and then made a sign of resignation.  “I reckon it’s all we’ll know!  Well, the tide’s falling and we must shift for some kernels before the sun is hot.  Better start your pump.”

The pump was soon at work, and Lister, watching the engine, mused.  He wondered how much the Accra boys knew, or if it was possible the others had stolen away without waking them.  Watson, the look-out, had heard nothing, and Lister remembered Brown’s remarks about the Ju-Ju and thought the boys did know something but were afraid to tell.  Watson had said the country was queer, and if he meant fantastic, Lister agreed.  There was something about it that re-acted strangely on one’s imagination.  In the North American wilds, one was, so to speak, a materialist and conquered savage Nature by using well-known rules.  In Africa one did not know the rules and felt the power of the supernatural.  It looked as if there was a mysterious, malignant force.  But the pump was running badly and Lister saw he must not philosophize.

When the sun got hot he stopped for breakfast and afterwards he and Brown smoked for a few minutes under the awning.

“I’m bothered about the boys’ going,” the captain declared.  “There’s not much doubt Montgomery got somebody to put Ju-Ju on them; bribed a magician to frighten them by a trick.  Since they’re a superstitious lot, I reckon we can’t hire another gang in this neighborhood.  However, now he’s stopped our coal, you’ll have to go to Sar Leone, and may pick up some British Kroos about the port.”

“Then I’d better go soon,” said Lister.  “The braces I bolted on the pump won’t hold long; she rocks and strains the shaft when she’s running hard.  I must get a proper casting made at a foundry.  Besides, the engine crosshead’s worn and jumps about.  I must try to find a forge and machine-shop.”

“They’ve got something of the kind at Sar Leone; I don’t know about a foundry,” Brown replied.  “Take Learmont to navigate, and start when you like.  We’ll shift the hulk to leeward of the wreck and she ought to ride out a south-east breeze.”

Lister sailed a few days afterwards, and reaching Sierra Leone found nobody could make the articles he required.  For all that, they must be got, and he resolved to push on for Grand Canary.  The distance was long, he had not men enough for an ocean voyage, and would be lucky if he got back to the lagoon in three or four weeks, but if he could not mend the pump, the salvage work must stop.  Lister knew when to run a risk was justified.

After he passed the Gambier, wind and sea were ahead, his crew was short, and he was hard pressed to keep the engine going and watch the furnaces.  He slept when he could, in snatches, with his clothes on, and now and then used an exhausted fireman’s shovel On the steamy African coast the labor and watchfulness would have worn him out, but the cool Trade breeze was bracing.  Although he was thin, and got thinner, the lassitude he had felt at the lagoon vanished, and the fatigue he fought against was not the fatigue that kills.

In the meantime, Terrier pushed stubbornly north across the long, foam-tipped seas that broke in clouds of spray against her thrusting bows.  She was swept by the sparkling showers, but the showers were warm, and the combers were not often steep enough to flood her deck.  For all that, their impact slowed her speed.  She must be driven through their tumbling crests, full steam was needed to overcome the shock, and the worn-out men moved down coal from the stack on deck to feed the hungry fires.

Lister’s eyes ached from the glare of smoky lamps that threw puzzling lights about the machinery.  After long balancing on slanted platforms, his back and legs were sore; his brows were knit in a steady frown, and his mouth was always firm.  When the strain was over, he sometimes wondered what he thought about in the long, exhausting watches, but remembered nothing except his obstinate concentration on his task.  The strange thing was, he did not think much about Barbara, although he was vaguely conscious that, for her sake, he must hold out.  He meant to hold out.  Perhaps his talents were not numerous, but he could handle engines, and when it was necessary he could keep awake.

At length, Learmont called him one morning to the bridge, and he leaned slackly against the rails.  His eyes were dull, and for some hours he had breathed the fumes of burning tallow.  A slide had given him trouble; he could keep the metal cool.  On the bridge, however, the air was keen and sweet, and he felt the contrast. Terrier plunged and threw the spray about, but the seas were short, as if something ahead broke the wind.  By and by Learmont indicated a lofty bank of mist.

“Teneriffe!” he said.  “I was half-asleep when I took the sun, but my reckoning was not very far out.”

Lister looked up.  In the distance a sharp white cone, rising from fleecy vapor, cut the sky, and Lister, with dull satisfaction, knew the famous peak.  Nearer the tug was another bank of mist, that looked strangely solid but ragged, as if it were wrapped about something with a broken outline.  Some minutes afterwards a high, dark object like a mountain-top, loomed in the haze.

“Grand Canary!” Learmont remarked.  “The range behind Las Palmas town.  I expect the smudge ahead is the Isleta hill.”

“We’ve made it!” Lister said hoarsely, and braced himself.  Now the strain was gone, he felt very slack.

The sun rose out of the water, the mist began to melt, and rolling back, uncovered a line of surf and a belt of rough hillside.  Then volcanic cliffs, a sandy isthmus, and a cluster of masts and funnels got distinct, and Lister fixed the glasses on a white stripe across a cinder hill.  His hand shook, but he steadied the glasses and saw the stripe was a row of huge letters.

“... ary Engineering Co ...” he read.

His heart beat when he went below.  Luck had given him a hard job, but he had put it across.  Soon after Terrier arrived he went to the engineering company’s office and the manager looked at him curiously.  Then he gave Lister some wine and, after studying his drawings and patterns, said he could make the things required.  Lister drove to the town, and going to a Spanish barber’s, started when he saw his reflection in a glass.  He had not shaved for long, and fresh water was scarce on board the tug.  His face was haggard, the engine grime had got into his skin, and his eyes were red.  He was forced to wait, and while the barber attended to other customers, he fell asleep in his chair.  When he left the shop he went to a hotel and slept for twelve hours.