Adventure Magazine Cover — page 101: what you’re looking at

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

The Makings of a Sailorman “‘Where’s Mr. Hoskins?” asked Saltsman in low tones, going over and looking into the binnacle past the helmsman’s shoulder. “Back to the chart-room, I guess. What’re you doing, Salty? Helping him navigate?”’ Saltsman grinned. Being kidded about studying navigation had never worried him. “Y brought him some medicine,’ he said. “Well, you’d better give it to him,” said the other. ‘“He’s peevish enough to heave you over the side if he catches you chewing the fat with the man at the wheel. Beat it now, before you’re caught.” Saltsman could not resist another look at the compass, despite the other’s warning. Saltsman noted that the course was two hundred and seventy degrees. He repeated the figures over to himself to keep from forgetting them as he went toward the chart-room. The side door was open, and at its entrance he called softly. Getting no answer, he went on in. At once he caught the sound of heavy, labored breathing, and in a moment he was kneeling over the officer’s body lying full length on the deck. Saltsman took hold of his shoulder and shook him. Hoskins groaned, threshed up with his arms-and sent the glass which . Saltsman held spinning across the deck. The motion was one of delirium and from his nursing the sailor recognized it, even in the dark. He put his hand on the officer’s forehead and then down inside his shirt. The man seemed afire with the fever that racked him. Saltsman wondered what todonext. In the back of his consciousness he was still repeating the course he had read from the compass, and suddenly he realized it was wrong. He had just left half an hour’s painful study of his chart and re- membered that the true course was almost south. “Two hundred and seventy degrees,” he said. “Ought to be one hundred and seventy, or near-abouts.” He shook Hoskins again and tried to rouse him. Then he thought of the night order book, the purpose of which he had tried so faithfully to memorize. Leaving Hoskins, he switched on the light over the broad desk where the charts were spread and found the course written in ink as plainly as could be—signed with the cap- tain’s initials—“‘One hundred and seventy 87 degrees.” The chart was there also, to show plainly that the course should be almost due south instead of west. By the light Saltsman saw, too, that Hoskins’ face was flushed, his mouth open, and his hands gripping convulsively.: His unseeing eyes stared straight up atthe deck overhead. “Bad off,” said Saltsman. ‘“Must’ve fell in a faint, like Tilman did. Id better call doc.” Shoving aside the chart and navigation books, he lifted the heavy man to the desk and put an oilskin coat under his head. Then he ran out on the bridge again to see if by any chance he had been mistaken in the reading of the compass. ‘“What’s all the excitement?” asked the quartermaster, who had heard the breaking glass. ‘Did he throw the stuff at your” “Mr. Hoskins is bad sick. I’m going after doc. But you’re steering the wrong course. It ought to be one hundred and seventy, not two hundred and seventy.” “Must’ve had a shot too many of your own dope,” said the quartermaster calmly. “Fooling with the wild ones in the sick bay must be catching. Go see about Mr. Hoskins and turn off that light you left burning in the chart-room.”’ “The course is wrong, I tell you,” sisted Saltsman, ‘‘and it’s narrow along here. Change it right away before I go.” “Change nothing, you big boob! What do you think I am, takmg orders from a baby whale? Changing the course without proper orders is apt to put a man in jail for the rest of his life, if he’s unlucky enough to still have it when the ship hits the beach.” “But it’s there in the book,” said Salts- man, growing more excited all the time. “T saw it. Hurry, so I can go on and do something for Mr. Hoskins!” “T go by my orders, bo,” said the other firmly. ‘Brush on by, now. If you're so sure of yourself, wake up the old man and tell him your troubles, but don’t tell "em to me.” “Get away from there,” sailor with sudden determination. | heading wrong, certain and sure.’ He took hold of the wheel, ee for its possession. Micky Morton, the quartermaster, was one of the old-timers, squarely built and stocky. He tried to hold the wheel and, said the big “Vou’re in- GComicbooks EO