Drowned Gold

Front matter

DROWNED GOLD

ROY NORTON

"I WISH TO SEND YOU TO FRANCE WITH JUST THREE MILLION DOLLARS' WORTH OF GOLD" (page 77)

Chapter 1

DROWNED GOLD

Being the Story of a Sailor's Life

PART I

CHAPTER I

THERE is one word that I can't see on a map, or on the stern of a ship, or elsewhere, that doesn't cause me to smile, and that word is "Esperanza." And if ever a man had a well-confirmed right to smile at the sight of something always suggestive, I deem myself justified; for from beginning to end, from the day I first read that name until now, never did a name enter more conspicuously into a man's life than it did into mine. It made me, unmade me, made me again, undid me again, and finally put me where I am.

As a start, I was born on a "wind-jammer," called the Esperanza, and owned by my father, while she labored most valiantly for her life in a tropical hurricane, and aboard which my mother was voyaging for her health. A young doctor who had opportunely taken a cheap passage from Boston to Trinidad, by dint of clinging to stanchion and life-line, reached my father's side and bellowed the news that there was another passenger aboard, and my father, who had been on watch and fighting the storm for nearly twenty-four hours, turned haggard, anxious eyes to the doctor's face, and shouted, "And—my wife?"

"As well as could be expected, sir."

"Thank God!" my father replied, and bellowed an order to the helmsman. He did not ask concerning me, it appears. It was twenty hours later before he saw me, and not until the hurricane had begun to break, and he had "shot the sun." It is therefore a matter of fairly accurate record that my birthplace was about 65° 30' W. by 24° 30' N., and it would seem that I belong to the sea by parentage and heredity, as well as by first appearance. My father prospered from that day, in his own way, clinging always to his faith in God's brave winds to speed his fortunes, and scorning steam. When he came to be the owner of a considerable fleet of "wind-jammers," and retired to the home he built near Cotuit, Massachusetts,—where he could always hear the roar of the sea,—and found it best to incorporate his holdings into a com- pany of which he owned nearly eighty per cent of the stock, he chose the name of "The Esperanza Sailing Company." He was a stern and bearded man, sparing of speech or display of affection; but I knew that he loved me when he chose that name. I could have handled a full-rigger before I was sixteen years of age, save for lack of that wisdom which is gained only by experience, and I was not happy on that day, when, coming into harbor as second mate of the Esperanza III, my father gruffly^ told me that I was not to go out with her again. I had hoped that I should be given the first mate's berth, at least.

"My friend, Congressman Walker," my father continued, without a word of praise for my achievements, solicitous inquiry for my health, or mark of affection, "has got you an appointment to Annapolis. You are to go there by the next train, report yourself, and be examined to see whether all that I have spent in time, money, and personal effort for your education, have been wasted. If you can qualify and then stick it through, you will become a sailor for your country, a gentleman by training, and"—his voice broke queerly and became husky,—"your mother and I will be very proud of you!"

My heart pumped savagely. I suddenly discerned that my father was getting old, and should have liked to put my arms around him, there on the deck, but dared not, for I had always stood in awe of him. I saw through a mist brought on by this remarkable betrayal of his feelings; and when I lifted my eyes he was trudging sturdily away over the dock, with his sailor's balanced and unmistakable stride.

I had never even thought of going to Annapolis. "Kid-gloved sailors," we who had been educated with tar on our hands called those gentlemen of the Navy; but I drew my wages at my father's office and obeyed his command. I passed the preliminary examinations and was entered on the Naval Academy's register before I wired him of my success. I still have his letter in reply:

Telegrams are one of two things, the necessities of urgent business, or the extravagance of fools. The one you sent us doubtless cost two shillings, where a two-cent stamp would have served as well. But—what I said on the dock still stands on the log. Your mother is sending you six pairs of woolen socks she knit herself. Doubtless she will write.

But the letter didn't hurt. I knew him too well. I read between the lines all that his heart cried, but which his hands were dumb to write.

He came to see me once, at the Academy, and strode like an old viking around the grounds, silent, grim, but observing. He was there nearly a whole hour, and I was astounded when the Commandant in passing us suddenly stopped, rushed toward him, ignoring me, and called him by his first name, not only with evidence of respect, but affection. My father waved me away, and for a long time these two superiors of mine of whom I stood in awe, paced backward and forward over the parade. I was actually astonished when my father laughed at something the Commandant said, and did not know until years had passed that these two had been boyhood shipmates and friends.

My father was not there when I graduated, but sent messages by my mother. He was too busy experimenting with a yacht that he had built mostly with his own hands on extemporized ways, and that he had caused to be laid down just where the lawn of our garden in Cotuit met the beach. He came aboard the first ship to which I was ordered, and gravely inspected her from fore to aft, making no comment, asking now and then a question, and staring up at her basket masts as if disapproving of anything in top-hamper that could not carry sail. He fought shy of introductions, sniffed at the luxury of my cabin, merely poked his head into the ward room, and neglected to look back at me after he stepped on the deck landing of the side ladder; but I saw that for a long time he stood on the edge of the pier where he was landed, staring at the cruiser. Again I had that strange, crying desire to go ashore and put my arms around him; and somehow my awe and reverence increased, and there came to me with poignancy the knowledge that I had never fully appreciated his rugged worth and native greatness. I sustained some immense wish to melt from him the hardened outer shell and know the splendid love and warmth that glowed fervently beneath! I always remember him thus, standing on the edge of the pier, firmly set upon his legs and feet, and scanning with a sailor's clear eye the ship on which his only son abode, for it was the last time I ever saw him.

And I've told of him that one may understand why, being the son of such a father, speech, exposition of inner feelings, or an outward show of emotion, have been difficult to me throughout my life.

By a certain exploit, which doesn't matter now, while in command of a new submarine, I gained some favor, and, more as vacation given as reward, I think, was one of the lucky ones chosen to go on one of our best cruisers sent abroad to a certain regatta to represent the United States in a rather imposing array of squadrons. And I conceive this to be the beginning of the game that Fate had set wherein four of us were to play as best we might; for it was in a meeting in that foreign land that the first three of us who were to participate in the adventure came together.

There are no blue-water men afloat who do not know of Torbay, that rare and beautiful indentation in the Devonshire coast of England. There are but few globe-trotters who have not visited it, and those who have not are to be pitied. Noble cliffs and headlands, all variegated with beautiful colors, ranging from brilliant reds to somber grays, scarcely altered in appearance since those stirring days when the great Armada was given its death-blow almost in their shadows, shelter this queen of bays. Scarcely changed is it since the day when the great Napoleon paced the deck of a British warship at anchor and sighed to rest on those beautiful shores. Names that thrill the history of the seas are connected with it; Drake, Raleigh, Nelson, and a score of others knew it well, and sometimes adventured from it. On its shores still stands the ancient abbey where a great Spanish sea captain, defeated, was entertained. And even then Torquay was a city of delight. When we steamed into it on that placid August morning, and saluted and were met by thunderous salutes in return, the bay was filled not only with trim yachts, but by men-o'-war from all nations, come to represent their countries, and Torquay was in gala attire for the anticipated visit of a king and queen.

Very well do I remember that it was on the second day after our arrival, when there came, dancing and curtsying over the tiny sparkling waves, a gay little motor-boat from whose jack fluttered an American flag. It was that which attracted my attention; for our flag, alas! was not so familiar a sight as it should have been in foreign bays. A girl was at the wheel, and such a girl! She wore no hat, and the sun caught glints of fire from hair that was like profuse red gold. Her face, uplifted, was such a one as we who love our country, and have pride in her, like to idealize as the American woman's face, calm and dignified in repose, but ever ready to laughter, to light, and to friendliness. She gave an order in a voice that was like a rich contralto note fitted to the sea, and the man stopped his engines, then reversed, and the boat came to a beautiful and well-executed halt. A great bulk of a man, seated in the stern, hailed, and there was that in his face that spoke of command and of great seas. No one could have been more surprised than I when he asked if Lieutenant-Commander Thomas Hale was aboard. I had never met my visitor; but saw, as he came up the side ladder, that he was gnarled and twisted, and suffering, evidently from rheumatism.

"You are Mr. Hale?" he queried, when, assisted by two seamen, he reached the deck and confronted me. "Your father, old Tom, and I are lifelong friends," he continued, in his heavy voice that came astonishingly from one so perceptibly an invalid. "He wrote me that you were coming. I am Sterritt, Henry Sterritt."

"Captain Sterritt, of the Sterritt Salvage and Wrecking Company?" I replied, recalling that name that was distinguished by a hundred tales of his valor over our windswept Atlantic coast, and that had always been coupled in my mind with storms, gallant rescues, and fearless endeavor. Not a hamlet of the New England coast that had not some story to tell of his deeds, of his honor, of how he might have accumulated wealth had he not shared with his little army of valiant men. The story of the wrecking tug, Eagle, fighting her way with this man at the wheel, to rescue those aboard a liner lost off Shovels Shoals, still thrilled the minds of clean American youth.

"THIS IS MY DAUGHTER, MARTY," HE EXPLAINED

"This is my daughter, Marty," he explained, and I was acutely conscious of her presence. I had never seen such a woman as this! Tall she was, and strong, and lithe. Taller than most women, as I knew by comparison, for I am an inch above the American "six-foot," and her eyes were but little below the level of mine. A man who is above normal height never fails to note, with a little of surprise, when he meets eyes so nearly level with his own. And strong she was, for I, who am so inordinately broad-shouldered, observe such characteristics. Long previous I had become accustomed to being called "The Viking," and yet, I swear, as she stood there, with the breeze ruffling her hair, and the glint of the waves reflected from the seas in the infinite depths of her blue and fearless eyes, the appellation came to me like a shock, for here stood before me one who might have fought valiantly with the sea-rovers of old. It was fitting that she should have sprung from the loins of that old lion of the sea, who, come to sad days of torture and travail, stood, gnarled, bent, and pain-racked, by her side.

"Is it a visiting day, or do we intrude?" she asked, with an abrupt and mischievous smile.

The ice was broken, but I felt abashed; for I stood there like one dumbfounded by some blazing glory of light.

I laughed to hide my embarrassment.

"There are still seven days in a week," I said. "And of these, on such an occasion, there are but two when visitors are denied. This is not one of them." And I had a sufficient recovery of my senses to conduct them from a place where a file of marines, trying to appear unconcerned, but with yawning ears, hovered about, and where a strange amount of ship duties seemed to draw a considerable number of deck men. And it was thus I first met one who was to play a part in my life, a part that was not to be without a clash, such as was given when a mystic of old struck loudly upon a gong calling its hearers to war; for ours was not the smooth way of the firm lands, but befitting those who, being of the sea, dwell upon, yet struggle perpetually with it.

Chapter 2

CHAPTER II

IT was at the very memorable reception given to a king and queen in the Princess Pier Concert Hall where I first met the third pawn of Fate. For a whole week we had been lying there, with gala decorations, in Torbay. There had been a display of illuminated ships, in which, I am proud to think, our own had not been outdone. From fighting-top to water-line we had pricked her out with toy lights, at the expense of much effort and of more work than comes when coaling. We had been overrun with visitors. We had been on constant parade. But never a day passed when I had not made occasion to see Miss Marty Sterritt!

The reception was much like all such. The guests had been allowed to inspect royalty at close range; there had been the customary national anthems, the disappearance of royalty, the lowering of the plush and gilt line that hedged them off from the others, and a fine band had reappeared in undress uniform. I had vainly tried to get a few words with Marty Sterritt, but had been discomfited by the fact that she seemed too popular to be left alone, and that there were many who craved introductions and the privilege of a number on her card. And in particular I noticed a German naval lieutenant, a junior, as could be told by his uniform. He was talking to her when I succeeded in giving her my salutations, and she was still laughing at something he had said. He bowed to me from the hips forward, as I came upon them, and she extended her white and capable hand.

"You must meet Count Waldo von Vennemann," she said, and introduced us. Even as I shook hands with him I remembered having heard his name frequently, not only from her own lips, but in connection with certain humorous escapades of dare-devilry, and that his rank alone had saved him from his Imperial Master's wrath. I admit, here and now, after all that has since happened, that I liked him. There was something magnetic in his frank smile, his hearty laugh, his clear eyes; yes, in his very youthfulness and virility. He spoke English without the slightest trace of an accent, and I learned, later, that his knowledge of America was astonishing.

"The count and I are old friends," Miss Sterritt said, and smiled as at some quaint recollection.

"Yes," he said, with his flashing smile. "Once when I bolted from home in quest of adventure, I worked for just five days for Mr. Henry Sterritt. Then he fired me!"

They laughed together, and she completed the story by adding, "Mr. Vennemann pretended to be a diver. He—a diver! And the worst of it was, after father discharged him, we couldn't get rid of him, because on the very night following his dismissal he called at our house, in dress-clothes, if you please, and offered father a cigar from a gold case, and asked how the salvaging business was proceeding since it had lost his valuable services!"

"But I got the best of it," the count parried. "I did get to watch the raising of the Scudder of Boston."

"By paying father passage and 'prog' money."

"But I got to see it, just the same, and twice they let me go down in a diver's suit—"

"When father wasn't there!"

"Of course! But I did, just the same."

He laughed heartily now, and I began to surmise that his reputation for strange pranks was not unearned. I actually began to respect him for his persistence; but I was not unaware of it when he calmly refused to be shaken off as Marty Sterritt took my arm and suggested that we get away from the somewhat over-warn: ballroom, and stroll out into the Pier Gardens for which Torquay is famed; for he walked with us, immaculate, distinguished, graceful, and conversational. I envied him his ability to entertain, as I have always envied those who can talk freely and fluently on any topic, for we who are called quiet men are not always unsociable by instinct: merely tongue-bound unfortunates, who spend much time in thinking what we might possibly say to prove that we are neither churls nor misanthropes.

I met the count aboard his own ship, where he made himself most agreeable, and, in turn, when he visited our cruiser, tried to return his hospitality; but I could not but feel a vague annoyance when, each time I visited the Sterritts, I found him there. And I admit this the more readily with the confession that never had I met one who absorbed so much of my thought as Marty Sterritt. The day when we received sailing orders was a sad one for me, who would have liked to loiter on the waters of Torbay, so conveniently within reach of Torquay and all it held, indefinitely. We slipped away after making our good-byes, and, as the cruiser felt the first big swell off Berry Head, capped with its ruined fort and modern light, I could see through my glasses two figures walking along the front by Princess Gardens, and knew them to be Marty Sterritt and Count Waldo von Vennemann. I sighed tempestuously, knowing that he had been left in a clear field to win her favor.

There was a strained diplomatic situation between our country and Turkey, and thither we went to lie idly through the fall months, wearying of Pera and Constantinople. Suddenly we returned westward, and awaited orders in Naples. And it was my turn for the clear field; for scarcely had we dropped anchor before an invitation came to visit the Sterritts, now domiciled in a hotel on the famous sea-front drive, and I lost no time. Captain Sterritt, despite all that climate and medical advice could do for him, was steadily failing. I was shocked by the change in his appearance. Moreover, there had come a great alteration in Marty, who seemed depressed, subdued, and fearful. I learned to know the longing to shield, and comfort, there in those days; for I gravely feared that the valiant old man was making his last fight, doggedly and grimly, but traveling steadily to defeat. Nature, against whom he had battled all his life, was preparing the stroke of grace.

Time and again words struggled within me to tell his daughter that if the spark of his life expired, I wished her to look to me as her rock of refuge. Time and again I stammered on the brink of telling all that was in my heart for her, and ever my tongue failed, curbed not only by my habitual reticence, but also by a new and overpowering shyness. And even then, while filled with pity for her, came a cablegram from my mother. My father was dead. Drowned in the sea that had been his throughout so much of his life! The little yawl that had been his delight had been his undoing, for it had failed to weather a storm. And there was something menacing in the appeal my mother sent, urging me to come home immediately, if leave could be secured, as my father's "business affairs demanded attention."

Through the infinite courtesy of that great admiral who has since gone to his rest, there was but small delay in securing leave, and in just fifteen days from the receipt of the cablegram, I entered the home of which I knew so little, where my mother waited my coming. It was a very sad reunion, because it was as if she had lost all moorings of life now that my father, who had been to her shield, shelter, and tower of strength, was gone. He had left a will, but it had not been read, being held for my return. The lawyer, who brought it to the house on the evening I telephoned him, was a very elderly man, such as my father would naturally have selected, and insisted on reading it aloud. It was a very useless and trying ceremony. It left everything he had in the world to me, his only son, "Trusting in my son's honor, which is without smirch or stain, to provide for his mother and be to her all that I have tried to be, and to give to her all the love that I have given both him and her throughout all my life since I have known her, and she gave him to me."

There was a letter with the will that was directed to me. I did not read it then, but sat with her throughout the evening, both silent, and staring into the flames that leaped up the big open fireplace that had been my father's great joy. Here he, too, had sat in the years of his restless retirement, undemonstrative save that, I know, he always sat with his arm around her, even as I did on that bleak December night. I did not read the letter immediately when, after bidding her good-night, I retired to my room, but stood looking about me with a strange sensation of suddenly realizing all the love that silent man of the sea had bestowed upon me in his own way. This home had been his one great extravagance. He had fought for the woman who had been his beacon, his ideal. And, with hard common sense and harsh self-appraisement, he had gone to a distinguished architect, told him how much he had to spend on that home, given him a certified check for fifty thousand dollars and told him to plan and build. There had been but one proviso in his retainer and instructions (for of this I learned from the lips of the architect himself, years later), that one room should be fitted to suit a sailor; that it should overlook the sea, and be within sound of the perpetual waves; that it should be a room to which a wearied mariner, come to rest, might enter as a haven, and with downcast eyes, as if ashamed of sentiment, he had concluded: "For that room, sir, shall belong, always, to my son, and, if God is so kind, to his sons when all of us are gone."

I switched off the lights and for a long time stood by the window, looking from the grateful warmth of modern heat out over the tops of the pine trees and the lawn, all snow-clad and white, toward the sea that now glittered under the cold winter moon. Thus, I doubted not, had my father stood, sometimes, thinking of the happiness he had planned for me when I, too, retired. And somehow, that night, I felt his presence in the room, and turned with a great yearning to speak to him. Ah, if it had been possible, on that night I should have been eloquent with all the unbounded memories of his wordless kindness, forgetting that it had ever been his way to hold me aloof.

Here, too, there was an ample grate and a glowing fire, rendering the elaborate heating system but a superfluity. I drew the shades and the hangings, and, by firelight alone, read his letter:

To my boy, Tom (if ever this is read by you, which it may not be, inasmuch as the sea, or the intervention of God, may prohibit): You may have thought that, due to a very grievous failing of mine, I have never given you a father's affection, a father's caress, or a father's companionship. All of which I regret, for since that day when I first saw you, a tiny babe aboard the first ship I ever owned, the old Esperanza, you have been—always giving place to the great light of my life, your mother—the one being for whom I fought and strove. My limitations will have been defined, and all that I have done, and all in which I have failed, will have been totaled if this ever reaches your eyes. Suffice it that there have been but two beings in this world for whom I have done the best I could—my very utmost—your mother and you. I put you into the United States Navy because I am, first of all, an American, and believe that, next to the fealty due God Himself, there comes none other equal to that which a man owes his country. Also, I wished you to be a gentleman of the Navy, for no blackguard can therein survive. This letter will never be given you if you fail. It will not be put into your hands if I survive the woman who has been to me, regardless of all others, the greatest woman that God ever gave to man, your mother. It will not be read by you unless the will I have made has been read. One is a legal document; but this letter will be a codicil from the very heart of one who, though dumb in speech, and incapable in lavishment of outward caress, has loved you as no other man ever will. It is my last and sole request, and is based upon the following urgent reason: Your mother will need companionship from you, and you must give it!

I therefore ask, that, if you are not indispensable to the service of your country, you shall resign and place yourself at her disposal, to comfort her last years, as I have tried to do.

You will not, perhaps, be a rich man, as I had hoped, because times have changed, and steam has superseded us of the old school who trusted to fair winds, free sails, and a clean reputation for our profit. You have my consent to go into steam; but I wish you would, for the sake of one who loves you, your father, cling to the old name; for it has been dear to me because you were born aboard the Esperanza. You have been a good, obedient, and worthy son, of whom I am very proud. Reports for which I arranged have proven it; for there has never been a week when you were away from me that I did not have such report. May God bless you and prosper you, and make of you a strong staff to comfort your mother, for whom I shall wait with such patience as may be given in the Great and Last Port.

It was very dim in the room when I finished reading. The flames of the fire scintillated into innumerable broken flashes, through my tears, and I was glad that I was alone where none might observe my lack of repression. For an hour I sat bidding an unfaltering good-bye to the service that I had loved, and all the dreams that had arisen from it; but my hand did not falter when, after turning on the lights, I wrote my resignation from the United States Navy. The least I could give to that strange, silent, unemotional man, whose pride had held him aloof, but whose love had followed me from the hour of my birth, was obedience to his last request.

Chapter 3

CHAPTER III

NO individual is indispensable to a nation, regardless of his greatness or his smallness. The great Lincoln, of whose tragic death no real American may think without a sudden tremor of veneration and pity, left but a momentary gap when his life's work was ended. How little, then, mattered the loss of the services of Thomas Hale, a mere lieutenant-commander aboard one of America's many ships? But I still cherish, with much pride, some of the letters I received from superiors and brother officers! Each individual, be he ever so humble, must have something of which to be proud if he has been at all a man!