Bobby Blake on a Plantation: or, Lost in the Great Swamp

“The air is fine, all right,” said Fred. “But a little something to fill my stomach wouldn’t be so awful bad, either.”

“That sounds like Pee Wee,” laughed Bobby. “But since you mention it, I begin to feel hungry too. How about you, Lee?”

“You bet,” exclaimed the boy from the South, but his voice lacked the tone of sincerity. Fred looked at him and grinned.

“What’s the matter, Lee?” he inquired. “You don’t mean to tell me you’re feeling seasick, do you?”

“Of course I’m not seasick.”

“No, of course he isn’t seasick,” said Bobby, with a wink at Fred. “He just doesn’t feel well, that’s all. People are often that way on salt water. It must be something about the air, I guess.”

“Yes, that’s probably it,” agreed Fred, in a tone of deep sympathy. “What you need, Lee, is a good bang up supper to set you up. How would a nice pork chop or two hit you?”

“I don’t know how they’d hit me, but I do know that something is going to hit you pretty quick, if you don’t stop talking about eats,” retorted Lee. “You two go on down and eat your heads off. I’m going to stay up here a while. I had a big lunch, anyway.”

“Well, you probably won’t have it much longer,” was Fred’s parting shot, as he and Bobby started on a run for the dining room.

There were a number of empty places around the tables, but Bobby and Fred enjoyed the meal hugely, with appetites no whit affected by the uneasy motion of the ship. When they had finished, they went on deck again, and found Lee coiled up in a steamer chair, and looking far from happy.

“Guess I’ll have to admit that I’m seasick,” he said, with a somewhat feeble grin, “but I’ve got lots of company, anyway. Most everybody I’ve seen so far seems to be as bad or worse than I am.”

“Oh, well, it probably won’t last long,” said Bobby. “If you can get a decent rest to-night, you’ll be all right in the morning.”

“I wouldn’t mind so much now if we did hit some of those rocks Fred was talking about,” went on the boy from the South. “If I could get onto a nice solid rock right now, I know I’d feel a whole lot better.”

But when the next morning came, the ocean was very calm, and Lee felt almost himself again, so that he could aid his two friends in their attacks on the excellent meals that were provided for them. They read, played deck games, and altogether enjoyed themselves immensely. On the second day of the trip, they noticed that the air was becoming perceptibly warmer, and knew that they were getting into southern waters. Schools of porpoises raced with the ship, and the boys never tired watching them shooting through the water just under the ship’s bows, and keeping up their speed without any apparent effort. Several times they saw little flying fish, and once Fred was sure that he saw a shark, but when the ship came up with the object that he had seen, it proved to be nothing more ferocious than a half submerged log.

“Some sailor, you are,” said Lee, anxious to get even with Fred for some of the remarks passed on his own seamanship. “I may not be as salty as some people think they are, but still I can tell fishes from trees.”

“Well, I’m glad you know that much, anyway,” said Fred. “You certainly are coming along fast. Some day, when you get over calling portholes windows, you’ll be a real sailor.”

“I don’t think I ever want to be a sailor,” retorted Lee. “Good old solid ground is good enough for me. Seems to me this old tub is jumping around worse all the time.”

“It would be strange if it didn’t,” said Bobby. “The wind is getting stronger every minute, and it’s working up some pretty big seas.”

Almost as he finished speaking a big wave dashed against the bow, and showered them with spray.

“I’m going some place where it’s dry!” gasped the boy from the South, and dashed for the companionway. Bobby and Fred lingered a while, but were soon, forced to seek shelter in the lee of a deckhouse. They could see members of the crew going about making every movable object fast, and they guessed that they were in for a storm.

CHAPTER X

HALF A GALE

In an incredibly short space of time a heavy sea was running, and the big ship, which at its dock had seemed so solid and immovable, was tossed about almost wholly at the will of the angry waves. The bow would rise up and up as it met a rushing hill of frothing green water, then, as the giant wave rushed astern, the bow would dip, and the whole vessel would seem to be coasting down into a frothing valley. Crests of the big rollers, picked up and flung aboard by the howling wind, drenched any hardy soul who ventured on deck. Sometimes the bow would not lift quickly enough to an onrushing wave, and the water would crash down on the forecastle with a tremendous impact and rush aft, sweeping any movable object along with it.

The engines were throttled down to “half speed ahead,” which eased the laboring of the vessel somewhat. Night fell early over a wild and desolate waste of tossing waters, and even the three carefree boys were sobered somewhat as they gazed through tightly bolted portholes at the scene without. Lee was frankly seasick again, and even Bobby and Fred had to admit that they “felt a little off.”

“But anyway, a storm like this isn’t likely to last long,” remarked Bobby. “It came up in a hurry, and likely will go down just as fast.”

“It can’t go too fast to suit me,” groaned Lee, “‘A life on the rolling deep’ may be all right for some people, but it rolls entirely too much to be popular with me.”

“Not to mention how deep it is when the ship happens to sink,” said Fred. “Whether we like it or not, we’ve got to admit that the man who wrote that poetry knew what he was talking about.”

“Well, it’s time for supper, and I’m going to have some,” said Bobby. “What do you say, fellows? Are you with me?”

“Guess you’ll have to count me out,” replied the boy from the South. “I don’t think food and I will ever be friends again.”

Bobby and Fred managed to satisfy their appetites, although the dishes persisted in dodging here and there in a most disconcerting manner, and never seemed to be satisfied until they had settled themselves comfortably in some one’s lap. Most of the passengers were keeping to their staterooms, and taken altogether, the meal was not exactly a cheerful affair. All three of the boys turned into their berths soon afterward, and by dint of wedging themselves in with pillows and rolled up articles of clothing, managed to get a fairly good night’s rest.

In the morning the wind appeared to have blown itself out, and as the boys were dressing a weak and watery shaft of sunlight came streaming through the porthole.

“That certainly looks good to me,” said Lee, who still looked rather pale and unhappy. “If ever I get back on dry land, I’m going to stay there a while.”

“It won’t feel bad for a change,” admitted Fred, “and with a little luck we ought to make it in another day or two. We’d have gotten in without this delay if it hadn’t been for the storm.”

After breakfast the boys went on deck, and found the ocean much moderated, although still far from calm. After a little, they found themselves near the door of the wireless room, and were soon chatting with the operator on duty, who seemed to be a genial sort of fellow. He and the boys were soon on the best of terms, and he explained the workings of some of the simpler parts of the apparatus.

“I suppose a night like last night keeps you fellows pretty busy, doesn’t it?” inquired Bobby.

“Yes, we have to be right on the job,” answered Quinn, the wireless operator, “although last night wasn’t as bad as many I’ve been through. We didn’t get an S. 0. S. call once.”

“From the way this ship was acting,” said Lee, ruefully, “I should think it would be more likely that we would be sending a call for help instead of receiving it.”

“Why, that wasn’t any more than a brisk breeze compared to some of the blows I’ve been through,” said Quinn. “I remember one night on the North Sea when it really did blow some. And as far as that goes, I’m willing to bet that everybody else on that ship remembers it, too.”

“Was it so very bad, then?” inquired Bobby.

“Well, at that time I was doing duty on a converted yacht. We were guarding a convoy, and one by one the other patrol boats made for port, being unable to stay out any longer. But our captain refused to give up, and finally we were the only boat left. Well, the wind kept blowing harder and the seas rising, until the only wonder is that we weren’t swamped altogether. Tremendous seas were following us, and at last one monster came right aboard over the after rail. It slammed up against the wireless shack, and before we knew what had happened, we and the shack were carried bodily forward. We thought that our last minute had come, but, luckily for us, the wireless house was slammed up against the forward deck house. Then it went to pieces entirely. I made a grab for the first thing my hand met, which happened to be a mast stay, and hung on for all I knew how. It seemed to me that I was under water for an age, but the big wave finally passed, and I crawled back to the deck more dead than alive. Yes, that was a real rough night at sea, I’ll admit.”

“How about the other wireless men?” queried Fred. “Did they come through all right?”

“Well, by a miracle neither was swept overboard, but Pearsall, who had just joined the ship a week or two before, broke his right arm. But he considered himself lucky to be alive at all. We all did, for that matter.”

“I should think you would be,” said Bobby, “and I suppose you had plenty of other narrow escapes besides that one.”

“Plenty is right,” assented Quinn, “Why, I remember one winter afternoon we got an S.O.S. from a munition ship that had caught fire. It was some eighty miles to the west of us, and by the time we reached it, it was right on the edge of dark. When we got there, the fire was at its height. Most of their boats had been wrecked by the explosions of ammunition as the fire reached it, and most of the crew were in the water, some with life preservers, and others clinging to bits of floating wreckage. It was like going through a barrage to get near them. But we lowered our boats and finally got the last man safely aboard. Then we steamed away at a rate the old hooker had never hit up before, because we knew that when the fire reached the main hold there would be a blowup that would pretty well clean everything that happened to be around right off the water. And we weren’t a bit too soon either, because we hadn’t covered more than half a mile when the blazing wreck exploded with a slam that you could hear for fifty miles. As it was, we were pretty well shaken up, but got off without any serious damage. But it was pretty ticklish business while we were cruising round a cable’s length away, picking the crew out of the water.”

CHAPTER XI

QUICK THINKING

“It must have taken some nerve to do it at all,” declared Lee admiringly.

“Well, we knew they’d have done the same thing for us, if conditions had been the other way round,” said Quinn. “If seamen didn’t help each other out that way, the life would be even harder than it is.”

The boys were eager to hear more of the wireless man’s adventures, and he, nothing loth, spun them more than one yarn of exciting episodes in far corners of the earth, for he had been almost everywhere that ships go. He was often interrupted by messages coming or going, but the boys were fascinated by his stories, and could hardly tear themselves away when dinner time came.

“That man has surely seen a lot,” remarked Bobby, while they were eating an excellent meal, “and he knows how to tell about what he has seen, too. I’m sorry we didn’t get acquainted with him earlier on the trip.”