Adventure Magazine Cover — page 55: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

The Burden Paternal Basil. The mere thought was comfort- ing. I turned to business and resumed my neglected lookout from the bridge-end. I glanced to port, where the Flamingo squelched drunkenly to seaward, all her damage failing.to add to her general air of decrepitude. On her bridge I saw a figure which my glasses told me was Dick Basil, and as I looked he semaphored with his arms a final question as to our situation. Then the old man ran out to the end of our bridge and semaphored back, roaring vocally as he waved his arms, as if-to leave no doubt as to his meaning— “Keep your head pointing seaward, you young fool, and have that - old booby- trap condemned soon as you get alongside {)? again! ka h ‘ THEN I watched the skipper as he piloted his steamer up the bay. I had seen gray faces; I saw his own handsome old face look ashy gray twice: when Dick got into trouble and when his old wife pegged out, but I never believed a face could wear the gray pallor eet I saw there now. I could almost read his mind. I could imagine him chewing it all over. Here he was, all but penniless, an old man, too old to start again, casting everything broad- cast to the sea for the sake of a boy who had not made any great records as a son. For there could be no doubt he would lose his ship, his pension, and at least have his certificate suspended for what must have seemed to the owners a mad action. I wanted to speak to him, but his grim expression warned me not to. He would carry his own load and weather his own storm or go under without complaint; that I knew. I turned away and spotted one of the pleasantest of the diretcors coming out of the radio-room. Even his-usually pleasant face wore a grim and forbidding frown, and any hope I had nursed for the old skipper was frozen to death right there. - Beneath the bridge the voices were still vociferous. The pilot’s voice rose at times above the rest, and he seemed angry. That was natural. Any pilot would feel angry at being turned off the bridge only to see a mess such as Cantain Basil had made. At least, that’s how it struck me. “Oh well, that’s the way it goes,” I mut- tered to myself. “Tt’s the way of the sea. Never a man can tell whether old Ocean will hand him a slap on the back or a slam in the eye!” In good time we tied up sntgly to the railway pier with our wounded side to the gaping crowd ashore. Our _ passengers stepped down the gangway and stood away off, inspecting us, nodding and shaking heads sagely as they toted up the dam- age. There was a train at the pier station, and I could see a hot argument afoot be- tween Rat-face and some of the rest; and soon he screamed something hot, shook his fist at the others, and bolted off to catch the train. Some of them moved after him, but came back when the train started, and at last they all came aboard again and one of them, the one I saw coming from the radio- room, knocked on the skipper’s door. The old man was dressing to go up-town. “Who’s there?”’ snapped the old man sharply. “T want to speak to_you, captain,” said the director in a voice that seemed to me more pleasant than unpleasant. “Oh, it’s you, eh? Well, come on in and let’s get the dirty business over, mister!”’ The door was flung wide and I saw the skipper inside, half-dressed, his face set with a sort of dogged obstinacy as if he had resolved to defend his course against all creation. “I want personally to congratulate you on a piece of fine, daring seamanship, cap- tain,” said the man, standing in the door- way. I could see amazement come over the skipper, as anybody looking on might have seen it in me. My ears stuck out like bat- wings for the rest. “TI may say, with one exception; that all of us admired, personally, of course, ‘your splendid act; and all the more so since I received a reply to a radio message ashore which made clear some things we did not know concerning one of the directors and your son Richard. “Of course, as directors of the company we shall be forced to take action in this matter- different to our actions as indi- viduals. The steamer is rather badly damaged, captain, and it would be unfair to our shareholders to pass it. But I am sent to inform you that one of our members, who need not be named, will be very closely examined concerning his connection with that steamer Flamingo, and will certainly “S 450 Gomichboo (E@)