Read Ebook: When the squadron dropped anchor by Burtis Thomson

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Ebook has 131 lines and 9150 words, and 3 pages

Langauge: English

Publisher: US, Street & Smith Publications, 1927

Credits: Roger Frank and Sue Clark

When the Squadron Dropped Anchor

Accused of the most dishonorable conduct, cast off from the navy and the life he loved, Graydon still found opportunity to serve his country and erase the stain on his honor.

The echoes of the ship's bugle, calling away the second whaleboat, died softly in the still harbor of San Juan de Gracias. The boat crew ran out on the boom, down its swinging rope ladder to the thwarts beneath, and pulled out to the gangway. At the head of the gangway stood a man in blue civilian serge and wide-brimmed panama hat. The brim half hid the eyes that were held to the seam of the cruiser's deck. His shoulders sagged like those of a fighter waiting the knock-out blow.

The curt announcement of the ensign on watch, "Your boat is alongside," brought the man's head up with a jerk. His shoulders braced and his heels met. Mechanically his hand went in salute to the brim of the panama. In the old formula of the quarter-deck he answered: "I have your permission to leave the ship, sir?"

There was no answer. For a moment he faced aft to where the colors rippled over the taffrail. Then, with head down, shoulders drooping, he turned and ran down the ladder to the waiting whaleboat. The ensign stepped to the rail.

"In the whaleboat there. Land Mr. Graydon on the beach and return to the ship!"

"Aye, aye, sir! Shove off for'ard! Out oars! Way together!"

Swirls of phosphorescence leaped away from the driving ash blades, to trail like ropes of pearl in the wake. On the low-lying beach to which they raced, slender palm trees, silver lances in the blazing sun, stabbed upward through the heat mirage that ran like white fire. The thatched roofs of the native village sprawled in untidy array before the blurred eyes of the man in blue serge.

The next stage by which Stanley Graydon, ex-captain of marines, severed his ties with the service was a schooner that warped alongside a wharf at Santander, capital of the Republic of Santander, three days later. To the beauty of those sea leagues and to the bizarre life on the schooner he was blind. His thoughts were elsewhere.

Held against the light, while their breathless shipmates crowded closer, Dixon pointed out the tiny pin-prick points in their upper corner. A swift manipulation. Five of the marked cards lay face up on the table. The ace-high full on which Graydon had won the last pot. A sharp, curt order by Dixon. The surgeon returning from his cabin with a pack of cards--a pack that was an exact duplicate in pattern and color to the marked pack. The deft fingers of Dixon weaving through them, now and then holding one to the light. In the corner the tiny telltale points.

That same night--the vision followed swiftly--a corporal of marines, one of his own crack detachment, pacing slowly before the closed door of his cabin. The morning, with the admiral's orderly, one of that gallant platoon he had led into the Bois de Belleau, at his door.

"The admiral's compliments, sir, and he would like to see the captain in his cabin."

The picture came clear. Kelly's gloved hand falling away smartly from the visor of his cap. The strained face relaxed, and the haunted look in Stanley Graydon's face softened. He would never forget Kelly, blessed old leatherneck, with his hand outstretched, and his husky voice.

"It's a damn, dirty shame, captain. We're with you, every marine in the outfit. You'll come clean out of this barrage."

The measured toll of the schooner's bell sounded midnight. Stanley Graydon, leaning over the rail, hands gripping the shrouds, went on with the reconstruction of his hell.

For a full hour they had talked it over, and every word of the white-haired admiral had burned into his memory. His ten years of clean service. His brilliant record overseas. His taut performance of duty in the squadron. His heavy poker losses for two straight months, and then his phenomenal change of luck. At its end, the admiral had delivered his edict.

"Here is my verdict, Graydon: Trial by general court-martial, or your resignation for the good of the service. I may have no right to offer you that alternative, but your record merits it. With all my heart I wish that you may be able to disprove these damnable charges. I will give you a fortnight and the assistance of any officer you may name."

His fine old face was twitching, and his voice a bit shaky.

The fortnight had expired, a space of veritable exile. At its end the net of circumstantial evidence had tightened slowly and inexorably. He had dully accepted the alternative of resignation, for he had to find sanctuary for a while, some place where he would have time to think more clearly. But the thought rankled in his mind that his choice would be construed as a tacit admission of his guilt.

It was the admiral himself who had suggested Santander as a temporary anchorage in which he might have time to plan his course. Santander was in the vicinity, and its rich coffee and sugar plantations and its forests of hardwoods might lead to some business opening, while he fought for vindication.

The schooner tied up alongside the wharf at Santander, with disorderly tumult. Its very antithesis of the orderly man-of-war discipline that was steeped in his blood brought a wry smile to his lips. He made his way to the Hotel Grande Centrale, a rambling white hostelry facing the Plaza Concepcion.

The inevitable statue of a general, with cocked hat and brandished sword, astride of a fiery rocking-horse, dominated the sleepy plaza. At its sight Stanley Graydon's native optimism was beating back to full tide. He raised his hat in mock salute.

"Greetings, old-timer!" he said softly. "I knew you when you were masquerading as Dessalines, in the Champ de Mars, at Port-au-Prince. I ran across your bows in Caracas, as Simon Bolivar. The day we hit the beach in Guatemala last March, you were holding the spotlight of a dusty old square as Carrera. Some day I'll set up a little banana republic of my own. Then I'll write out a treasury warrant for the price of 'One statue, imitation bronze. Model AA, Series 2408,' and the big mail-order house in Chicago will ship me your twin brother. Wait until I get into the caf?, my dear general, and I'll drink your health."

A barefooted waiter placed a green "swizzle" on his marble-topped table. As he raised it to his lips, he was aware that a group of officers at a near-by table was watching him with undisguised interest. One was a swaggering, swarthy giant of a man, with a sweeping black mustache and the rank devices of a colonel on his shoulders and cuffs. The others were, with one exception, conventional tyes of Central American soldiery. The exception was a youngster, barely out of his teens, but with a captain's devices on the freshly starched khaki, with its red piping. His face was oval, and his features were clearly cut. Stanley Graydon appraised him as far superior in birth and breeding to his mates.

The swarthy colonel returned his casual glance with an ill-favored scowl. He turned to the others, and a ripple of laughter swept over them at his remark. It was clear to Stanley Graydon that they were in the mood for sport with a gringo. He paid his score, and, as he passed their table, a roar of derisive, raucous laughter followed.

"Damned 'spigs!'" he muttered contemptuously. "Probably had as much as two drinks, and feeling them."

Out he went, blissfully unconscious that his straight, flat back, trim shoulders, and precise stride marked him indelibly in a caste strikingly at variance with the business men, generous of girth, careless of bearing, who ventured into Santander.

Early the next morning he started for a ride into the savannas. His mount was a spirited stallion, and his spirits rose, as he cleared the cobbled streets and cantered briskly on. Ahead lay the panorama of the rolling savannas. For miles the lush acres, pale green with sugar cane, rippled like an inland sea. Here and there showed irregular patches of varied crops. The red roofs of haciendas loomed above their blotched huddles of outbuildings. Above them tossed the silhouetted feathers of giant palms against the pale blue of the tropical sky.

To the south the sun danced on a broad expanse of water, where a great bay, with a bottle-neck entrance between bold headlands, lay like a silver mirror in the frame of dark-green shores.

"Ramona Bay! Lord, what a picture!"

His mind raced back to the charts and maps over which he and Dixon had worked out maneuver problems for the admiral. With his background of overseas service, he had been detailed as Dixon's assistant. All the plans of naval action on the West coast had stressed the overwhelming importance of a base on Ramona Bay. Its seizure by a hostile force would have exposed the fleet's line of communications to a deadly menace; the home coast to dangerous raids; the diversion of naval units that would be vitally needed in the main theater of operations.

The sudden thunder of hoofs and boisterous laughter broke into his reflective mood. Out from the cover of a patch of woods came the riders. The distance narrowed, and he saw the red piping on khaki uniforms and recognized the riders as the group in the caf?. There was studied insolence in their faces, and Stanley Graydon reined to one side to give them a wide berth.

The horseman on the near flank, the swarthy colonel, deliberately moved toward him at a lively canter. His own mount, crowded uncomfortably close to the cactus hedge, wheeled and lashed out with his heels. The unshod hoofs drummed viciously into the flank of the colonel's mount. A riding crop slashed across the rump of Stanley Graydon's stallion, and a burst of derisive glee greeted the animal's frenzied leap.

His crop lashed back with retaliatory slash across the colonel's hands. His stallion, now panicky, bolted. A pistol shot whistled overhead. Furious at his apparent flight, he was unable to check his racing animal until he had covered a full half mile beyond the wooded stretch.

All this, however, held no clew to the patent hostility of the Henriquez faction. At all events, he was determined not to let it disturb his plans for a second ride into the interior, the following day.

Noon had passed before he wheeled his stallion homeward. He was trotting regretfully out of the cover of woods into the heat of the savanna lands. The drum of fast-flying hoofs and an exultant cry warned him that treachery was afoot. He had purposely gone unarmed, but now how he longed to close his fingers over the butt of a service pistol. Out from their ambush rushed a squad of horsemen, Henriquez at their head. With horses rearing and kicking, pistols barking, the unequal fight was on. The butt of a pistol fell with solid thud on the back of his head, as they milled about him.

When Stanley Graydon recovered his senses he was trussed in his saddle like a pack of coffee. Ahead of him he saw Captain Navarro, limp in his saddle, supported by one of the party. A crimson splotch was staining the youngster's side. Beyond loomed the gates of a hacienda. Through a grove of mango trees water gleamed. At the end of a row of flame trees, scarlet with blossom, the troop halted.

The gates swung open, and they moved at a walk to the steps of a wide veranda. The agitated cries of a woman, the stern bass of a man's excited queries, were enough to tell him that it was the hacienda of Don Rafael Navarro, on the shores of Ramona Bay.

The coolness of the interior into which he was hurried was grateful after that trussed-up ride in the blazing sun. His wrists and ankles were swollen from their bonds. His head ached frightfully from the pistol-butt's blow. It left him lethargic to the hostile looks of the group that faced him. He listened with a mocking smile, while Henriquez told his fantastic tale of a fight in which Graydon was made the aggressor. There was no flinching from the steel-blue eyes of Don Rafael.

He was tempted to protest that he had been unarmed; that the wound of young Captain Navarro could only have been inflicted by a wild pistol shot from one of his own friends, but at his first words Don Rafael silenced him.

"Jos?!"

"Your hands and feet will no longer be bound, se?or," Don Rafael addressed him. "If you attempt to escape, however, Jos?'s machete has a sharp edge, and my hounds are quick on the trail."

A snowy-haired woman, evidently his wife, drew herself sharply against the wall, as he and Jos? passed. Her sensitive mouth was twisted in aversion.

Outside the grilled door of his room, Jos? squatted on his heels, smoking innumerable cigarettes from the blue packet that is a hall mark of the tropics. His naked machete hung in a rope sling at his side. In the morning Jos? gave surly answers, Captain Navarro had been delirious--weak with fever. Jos? ended this disquieting intelligence by drawing his blunt thumb across his wrinkled neck. Still there was no word from Don Rafael. It seemed there would be none until the fate of his son had been determined beyond doubt. Oddly enough, it was Jos? who forced the hand of his master.

"Jos?!" called Stanley Graydon the next morning. "Jos?! Where is my breakfast?"

The figure curled up on the matting outside did not answer. Stirred by an uneasy premonition, Graydon stepped to the locked grill door and stooped to look at Jos?'s face. It was bluish and livid. The lips were pressed tightly against the yellow teeth. There were great dark circles about the eyes. He stooped lower. The body was taut as a bowstring. The eyes stared at him in the fixity of death. The legs were drawn sharply up against the stomach, where the last agonizing cramp had shot them.

"Cholera!" he muttered. "Poor devil!"

Graydon's calls for Don Rafael rang insistently. The maid who finally came gave one affrighted look and bolted, shrieking her terror. Then came the old don, who listened, with troubled eyes, to his prisoner's startling proposal.

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