1929-12-13 — Page 45

CHINA MAIL CHRISTMAS SUPPLEMENT. 1929.

When Loxley went aboard his ship he the hammer of the falling seas was deafen- was lowered overboard its effect was ap- found the people busily engaged in repair- |ing.

parent. The disabled ship rode more easily. ing the havoc wrought by Captain Bobstay's During the middle watch of the morn- Lowing the waves that were slowly sleeked clumsiness, as Loxley was pleased to call it. ing of December 23 Captain Harold Loxley, with oil. Reluctantly, realising the helpless- The old freighter was still in her old posi-snatching an uncomfortable doze in the ness of his ship, reflecting on how this tion, and the clouds of coal-dust were flying bridge chartroom, was aroused by a sudden freely, but the wind had shifted and the jarring shudder that fetched him out on Hyacinth was no longer smothered by the deck with the velocity of a cork leaving a flying foulness,

popgun. The entire engine-room seemed to have gone suddenly mad. "The engines were rioting savagely-until they stopped with a queer suddenness that was disconcerting.

"Well, what's wrong?" Loxley demand-

ed.

"

mishap would reflect upon himself, and how pitying silence instead of sycophantic flat- tery would greet him when next he entered the captains' room of the Port of Call, Loxley gave orders for the broadcasting of a wireless message asking for assistance.

Dorothy Was Dorothy "Smack it about," Loxley ordered.

The weather worsened before a reply "Miss Soames is coming down to tea, and don't want her to see the ship looking like

was received. It was from the Cromlech, westward-bound with the mails. She was a pigsty." With the result that when his

"Don't know yet, sir; there was a shock altering course and could save life, Lut that sweetheart tripped over the gang-plank the

The telephone from the engine-room was all. Not that abandonment of the section of the ship through which she must pass, at any rate, was shining. Dorothy rang. Loxley took himself to the instru- Hyacinth seemed necessary at the moment. She was keeping afloat, though the chief Soames looked so charming that Loxley lost [ment. his head. A married captain inevitably lost

"Either she's dropped her screw over-engineer secretly communicated the news certain amount of popularity among lady board, or she's stripped the blades," he was that the derelict wreckage had done even passengers, and among the people who told. "Did she hit anything?" The night more damage than rid the screw of its travelled by the Hyacinth were often mar- riageable girls with considerable fortunes; but still-Dorothy was Dorothy. She had a small fortune in her own right, too; but had she been penniless Loxley would pro- bably have fallen in love with her just the

game.

•

"I'll tell you what," he said enthusias tically, "since we're scheduled to be back for Christmas, sweetie, let celebrate the season properly and get married '

was inky black, save for the ghostly sheen of the high-running seas with white crests hissing and snorting. It was impossible to see anything. Actually, the Hyacinth's roaring propeller had touched a fragment of floating wreckage, all unseen by the look- outs, and this had stripped the blades as neatly as if the work had been done in a dockyard ashore. Single-screwed as she was, she was as helpless as a mud-scow.

Soft Places In Structure

This was after he had dilated on Cap- There was really very little that could tain Bobstay's heinousness. Dorothy, after be done. The weather was worsening, and maidenly demur, decided that such a thing the promise of the barometer was affright- might be possible. Why not be married at ing. Loxley felt a queer increasing empti- Christmas? It was a time for giving, and ness in the region of his solar-plexus. He there were no obstacles, anyway. They could have married months before, only that Loxley had selfishly considered his career before his sweetheart's happiness,

Crown On Her Happiness

So that when Dorothy waved adieu to the stately Hyacinth she did it with the full assurance that the ship's return would set the crown.upon:her happiness, And Harold Loxley, when the Hyacinth, full to capacity

with enthusiastic home-going Christmas knew more about the Hyacinth's weaknesses passengers, left her port and turned her bow than he had ever admitted to a living soul. to the east, was conscious of pleasant. There were soft places in her structure, and anticipatory thrills. Among the liner's pas- what was promising would find them out, *sengers were not so many pretty marriage-probably with fatal thoroughness. Helpless able girls as usual, perhaps; most of the as she was, the liner might conceivably tear people were middle-aged and married, ex- her boilers adrift and send them crashing cept for the children. There were a hundred and twenty youngsters among the comple- *ment.

"We'll give 'em all a proper party the day before we land," Loxley suggested to the purser. "Santa Claus, Christmas tree, and everything complete, eh? Give them a Christmas they'll never forget! If the weather only keeps decent, that is."

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through her bottom-plates to the Atlantic floor, whither the ship herself would swiftly follow. There were four hundred and fifty passengers and a crew of three hundred men. Harold Loxley was responsible for all. He did a lot of confused thinking in a remarkably short time.

blades. The ship was leaking, not hopeless- ly, but enough to keep the pumps working full-bore. Loxley had a vision of the suffer- ings of the children and women if it became necessary to tranship them through raging seas which were chill as ice.

As he had gone down to the foredeck to superintend the construction of the sea- anchor, Loxley was drenched to the skin and frozen stiff. The spindrift that hurtled freely everywhere congealed as it fell, and the Hyacinth shrouded herself in ice. He shift of went to his own cabin for a clothes. The first object on which his eyes fell was the red, furred robe in which he had proposed to enact the role of Santa Claus. He laughed sourly as he bundled it together and flung it into a corner of his swilling floor. He had made such glowing plans for Christmas!

Specious Falsehoods

Changed from the skin outward, he re- turned to the deck; but before he mounted to the bridge he altered his mind and went below to reassure the passengers with specious falsehoods. The great main saloon, the most ornate room afloat, its owners claimed for it, was crowded almost to capa- city with frightened women and whimpering children. The glittering Christmas decora- tions appeared oddly out of place.

"Everything's all right," said Loxley, less convincingly than he could have wished. "There's been a minor accident, but we'll soon set things to rights. Don't fret we'll all be safely home for Christmas yet." But the passengers looked at him sceptically. The ship was making a mess of herself, and the word had gone round that, fierce as the gale was at present, it promised to be in- finitely worse before it improved.

"Get canvas on her aft-keep her up into the wind," he ordered, racking his He himself, he decided, would enact the brains for the sea-lore which he had neglect role of the Christmas saint. It would give ed in the hunt for social acquirements. "If him a chance to display his talent for not she'll roll the funnel out of herself at amateur theatricals, of which he was proud. this, rate!" The hitherto ignored canvas Usually, in the shipboard plays that were was got up and bent; but it didn't do much staged he was wont to play the part of the good. The Hyacinth was not built for sail, gallant hero who performed Thespian and she was too big and unwieldy for the miracles. He made his preparations, with small amount she was able to spread to take *a dozen women passengers to help him. The effect. She wallowed swinishly in the in-marked increase in the rigors. Christmas

barber's shop was looted for gifts, and a creasing troughs of the waves. tree was devised by the chief carpenter out boarded her with thorough-going earnest- of a boat's mast and various evergreens. It ness, and ominous crashings announced the promised to be a party of parties one that havoc wrought among her boats. Something would linger in the youngsters' memories of a panic was already setting in amongst for years.

the passengers below, and through a venti- lator giving on the upper bridge Loxley heard the affrighted chorus of children's screaming.

Sea Anchor Rigged

The day of the 23rd passed horribly. Daylight revealed a horror of white-lipped sea running devastatingly under a yelling sky where the lowering storm-clouds swung dizzily. Night settled down again. A mes- sage was received from the Cromlech to say that she was doing her best to reach the spot, but that the weather conditions were against her progress. Nightfall brought a

Eve dawn laggardly, to show a blacker sky Big seas and a higher-running sea, with the Hyacinth taking bitter punishment. The sea-anchor several more of the boats were smashed into was crumbling away piece by piece, and

matchwood. A dull, piteous apathy. was growing_among the passengers. Boat-work across that storm-swept expanse of white water seemed an actual impossibility: The barometer was pumping menacingly, giving awful promise of even worse weather to come. The chief engineer was seriously alarmed about his boilers, although he was doing everything humanly possible to avert disaster by means of extra shores. But his

B Screaming Inclemency But the weather failed to co-operate with the enthusiasm it might have shown. Three days before Christmas Eve it began. to blow, and every hour increased the "We'll have to rig a sea-anchor!" he de- screaming inclemency. It came away with clared; "we've got to keep her bow on to terrible intensity from the stark north-east, these big fellows!"" Accordingly, with kicking up a sea that caused the Hyacinth slavish, heartbreaking labour, a sea-anchor to roll and pitch to a degree unbelievable. was rigged. Two men were broken to ruin Whole water washed her forward deck, and in the doing of it; but once the contraption

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