Evening Star Newspaper, September 20, 1936, Page 79

r ) September 20, 1936 THIS WEEK Captain Brice answers a strange S.0.S. The story of an old sea-dog who could cope with both the wavescand a woman by F. BRITTEN AUSTIN 14 ELL, Mister! — obey orders, and ¢ don’t argue! Get those two boats over the side!” For twenty years — from his legendary period as second mate, with the heaviest fist on the seven seas — nobody had seriously thought of arguing with Captain Brice’s orders, reason- able or unreasonable. He glanced to the half- submerged ship drifting abeam. “‘She’ll float for another half hour yet.” The mate renounced his feeble beginning of expostulation, hardly audible in the shriek of the gale, and disappeared down the bridge- ladder. On the bridge, reeling low to the monstrous- ly heaving sea, Captain Brice manoeuvred his ship around the derelict freighter he had striven all night to reach and gave as much lee as possible to his two boats battling towards her. She was now only a few hundred yards away, a torn Swedish flag flying reversed from her taffrel-staff, her boats gone, her decks awash, lifting soggishly, ever more re- luctantly, to the seas that swirled over her. ‘“The Goth- holm of Géteborg, three days out from New York, with hatches stove and engine-room flooded,’’ her S.0.S. had reported her to be. Almost immediately thereafter, her radio had ceased. # When he had received that message, Cap- tain Brice had had a pleasant vision of a nice fat piece of salvage richly terminating this year-long voyage tramping to and fro in the China Sea, down to Australia to load horses for India, thence to Singapore and Durban for a homeward freight of rubber and tin, ostrich-feathers and what-not. With his captain’s share, he would stake Nettie (how delighted Nettie would be to see him!) a dazzling spree and then put her on easy street for life. They'd find that cottage on Long Island, with a back yard and some chickens to amuse her during his long ab- sences. Childless, she was terribly bored in the city. The best was not good enough for Nettie. It was a miracle that, with her culture and refinement, she should adore him, a hard- shell sailorman, readier with a blow than a word, normally and justifiably hated by those under him. At first sight of the derelict, that golden Magazine Section 3 dream had vanished. A tow was out of the question. She might go at any minute. The most he could do was to save life. There was no salvage-money nor anything else in that. He was no liner-captain to be made a press- hero of, and given a gold medal. He was mere- ly a seaman doing a routine job of the sea — and doing it skilfully and successfully. Al- ready his boats were creeping close to the doomed ship. The people on the precarious refuge of her raised poop-deck were waving eagerly to them. He scanned that huddled, wave-drenched crowd through his binoculars, turned again to the first officer who had rejoined him. “Isn’t that a woman there, Mister?” The first officer also peered through his glasses. “Looks like it, sir.— Captain’s wife, I guess.” Captain Brice growled unsympatheti- cally. “Damned nonsense! These sentimental squareheads! A man’s a fool who bothers with a woman at sea!” He watched his boats approach the freight- er’s quarter, saw a line flung and caught. A ° Jacob’s ladder was put over from the poop- lllustration by Leslie Benson BRICE CLENCHED HIS FISTS. “I'DLIKETOPUT ! YOU BOTH BACK ON X YOUR SHIP,” HE v SNARLED 1 deck to be plucked almost horizontal by the gale as the derelict wallowed bows to wind. A figure in oilskins descended it cautiously, bore it down with his weight, while another fol- lowed and depressed it nearer to the vertical. Quickly now! The sea was washing sheer over the derelict’s foredeck, was breaking over the The last of the crowd — that would be the Swedish captain hugging a bundle, the ship’s papers — clambered down the ladder to the second boat. Both boats, deeply laden, cast off. Suddenly, where the Gothkolm had been was only a swirl of waves that ran together. Half an hour later, his first officer reported to Captain Brice on the bridge. “‘All aboard, sir! Forty-five of "em — Captain Jensen sends you his compliments and thanks, sir. He'd be glad to see you when you have time. He has his wife with him. I've lent her some pajamas and given him some dry clothes. They’re hav- ing soup and coffee in the saloon. The other officers are being taken care of in the engi- neers’ mess.” Captain Brice put the ship back on her course, pounding into-head seas that hurled themselves slashingly along her deck. Then he went down from the bridge to his new passengers. Gripping the doorway for support as the ship reared and plunged dizzily, he lurched into the saloon. The rescued captain — tall, fair-haired, goodlooking — rose politely at his entrance. With the Swede was his wife, in pajamas, wrapped in an officer’s great coat. The Swede’s wife? The slight young woman (Continved on page 12)