Read Ebook: When the squadron dropped anchor by Burtis Thomson

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Ebook has 131 lines and 9150 words, and 3 pages

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.

"Put me in charge of your men, Don Rafael. I know how to handle men, white or brown. I know how to fight cholera. Learned those tricks in the Philippines, and I've never forgot them. Escape?" He laughed tolerantly. "I wouldn't leave you and your wife to fight this scourge if you threatened to whip me off the place."

Don Rafael bent his head in grave thought. There was a tribute in the steel-blue eyes when he lifted them.

"I thank you, se?or. I need you."

Day and night, Stanley Graydon carried on his grim fight. Under his unsparing leadership, his peon laborers learned to police their grounds and huts as though the god of kitchen police was their patron saint. They fought the mosquitoes in their breeding spots, as though they were chastising the devil in person. They fought with oil and lime and shovels to drive the plague from their borders. They held to his laws without a murmur.

For a week the hacienda stood isolated from a world that knew nothing of its plight. Then Colonel Henriquez rode debonairly up the scarlet-flanked avenue. He was scornful of the agitated peon at the gates; blind to the sinister yellow flag that hung above the hacienda's veranda. It was Don Rafael who broke the news to him. Henriquez wheeled his horse, drove his spurs into its flanks, and rode away as though the devil of the old patrician followed his incontinent flight. That night Don Rafael unbosomed himself to his prisoner.

"You came to us the potential murderer of our first-born, Se?or Graydon. In my heart your sentence to death had been passed. Colonel Henriquez, the black-hearted craven, has wiped that out. He had been my honored guest for years. We differed in politics, but I thought him a brave and honest man. When I told Juan of his cowardly desertion, I learned the truth of the fight in which he was wounded."

"And that, se?or?"

"Henriquez thought you a spy from the United States. There was something on foot, and they determined to kidnap you so that you could not thwart their plans. Ah, se?or, something evil is marching on, but Juan has not yet the courage to tell me all. When he was delirious he babbled of secret plans, of strange foreign agents, of Ramona Bay. They have given me troubled nights. Perhaps, when Juan is himself again, he will tell me all."

"Ramona Bay!" exclaimed Stanley Graydon.

"Whatever concerns Ramona Bay, se?or, is of vital import to your country as well as mine," and the old don's voice was grave. "We will be allies, you and I, as we have been since the day you cast your fate with an old man and his wife."

He caught up a decanter, filled two glasses with golden wine, and they drank to their compact, standing.

Ramona Bay! If there was hidden intrigue on foot in Santander, it could mean but one thing. If he and Don Rafael could unmask it, he would be striding far in his hope for rehabilitation.

At noon the following day Don Rafael, visibly perturbed, sought him out. His first words came with a rush of Spanish that Stanley Graydon found difficult to follow. Juan, now clearly on the road to recovery, roused by bitter contempt for Henriquez, had made a clean breast of it. Through mock marriages of native women to foreign agents, the groundwork for titles to land bordering on Ramona Bay had already been accomplished by the Henriquez faction. A revolution, headed by Henriquez, was scheduled to break out in the capital on the first of the month.

Ten days was the slender interval--days that would see gun running at its peak; the corruption of troops by gold, and lavish promises of increased pay. The old patrician's face was haggard.

"These foreign agents, Don Rafael--how have they worked under cover and betrayed your government?"

"Ah, se?or, there have been more of those far-off nationals in Santander in the last six months than usually venture here in as many years. They have come in the guise of scientists, interested in the phenomena of subterranean rivers that abound in the valleys to the west of here; as business men, and as tourists. We have been blind dolts. There has not been a revolution here in fourteen years," and the old man's eyes shone with pride. "That has been due in the main to the laws that forbid aliens to acquire land. It has barred out the great concessions. You see how it is being circumvented. Tell me, se?or, what must we do?"

"The first thing is to warn some powerful and loyal man in the government," came the quick answer. "He must move with caution, or he will bungle it. As for the rest, I have thought of a plan; but first you must take this step."

As they strode back to the hacienda, framing the dispatch that must be sent to the capital, Stanley Graydon saw a rider dismounting there. There was something disquietingly familiar about the man's carriage. As recognition flashed over him, he was torn by conflicting emotions. Dixon! The man who had driven him from the service by lying charges. Dixon! The one man in a thousand who could set in motion the nebulous plan he had framed for the salvation of Ramona Bay.

Dixon greeted him with the old inscrutable smile. There was nothing in his manner or speech, as he explained the reason for his unexpected visit, to suggest that they had ever been shipmates.

"Just ran down, after a conference with the admiral, for a 'look-see' at Ramona Bay and the general conditions down here," he said coolly. "Yes, I called at the legation, but I rarely bother with those diplomat chaps. They told me everything was peaceful. Also, that Se?or Navarro," and he bowed politely, "was the chief landowner out here and friendly toward us. So I took the liberty of riding out."

With a quick smile, Don Rafael insisted that he spend the night, and then checked himself.

"Thanks, se?or," replied Dixon, as Don Rafael outlined the situation. "I shan't let thoughts of cholera disturb my sleep. I've been shipmates with it at Rio and on the Isthmus, when they were pest holes. Quarantined in half a dozen fever ports."

Through Don Rafael's story, however, he had turned his battery of cold, gray eyes on Stanley Graydon. He fancied once that he had caught in them a glimmer of admiration, for the old don had been eloquent in his praise.

With scarcely a pause, Don Rafael plunged into the revelations made by Juan. His long fingers forked through his white beard. His eyes were afire with the startling import of them. Dixon listened, imperturbable, emotionless.

"Your story is very interesting, se?or," he commented. His voice, stripped of feeling, was in sharp contrast to the appeal for help.

"Fortunately," he went on, "in my capacity as the squadron intelligence officer, I have come here well informed of the general situation. Neither Washington nor the legation has even hinted at what you tell me. I am afraid your son has been imposed upon, or that his mind is not yet clear. You must also remember that Colonel Henriquez's conduct would contribute to your son's sensational denunciations."

"Then you would not consent to send a radio through to the admiral, outlining these reports?" Stanley Graydon broke in impulsively. "It would be of untold value if the squadron should cruise down this way and be on hand for any developments."

"I would hardly care to endanger my reputation in the service by any such ill-timed action," came the curt reply. "A man's reputation in the service means a great deal more to him, Mr. Graydon, than a civilian could possibly comprehend."

There was unmistakable menace in that blunt ultimatum. It would have been a lethal blow to Stanley Graydon's pride should Dixon choose to denounce him to the old don who had learned to lean so heavily upon him. His eyes flashed, but he took the rebuke standing up.

Through the dinner Dixon carried the difficult situation with an aplomb that wrested grudging admiration from him. Dixon had always been an enigma to him. Gifted far beyond the average, reticent and cold-blooded to a degree, he had held aloof from the heated discussions of the wardroom. This evening, despite the rebuff he had administered, he chose to talk of out-of-the-way ports, of international affairs, of his destroyer duty in the North Sea, and he held them under his charm.

Behind it all, however, the brusque rejection of their impassioned pleas rankled deeply. It seemed beyond belief that he could dismiss so lightly the menace to Ramona Bay.

In the morning Dixon joined him on his daily inspection. His questions were to the point, his approval free and ungrudging, as Stanley Graydon showed him the precautions that had been carried out with an iron hand. Through it all he held a fatalistic scorn for the menace of cholera, so far as he was concerned. For the first time he referred to their service on the flagship.

"Sorry, Graydon, about that row we had aboard ship. Personally I am no purist, but I am a fatalist. Seen many a fine chap make a damaging slip in his career. That was due to something beyond his control. I've got over the angry resentment that swept over me that night. I should perhaps have let it go. Talked it over frankly, brutally, with you afterward."

"So you still think I cheated at cards!"

"I may have treated you unjustly, Graydon. Still, the admiral gave you every chance to clear yourself. Let's try another tack. I always admired your professional ability. I admire the way you're handling this tough job down here, and the way you hold your head up. I am willing to admit that, in spite of the most damning evidence, you may be innocent. Here's hoping you can prove it."

Stanley Graydon's impulse to blurt out in savage, unsparing retaliation was checked by but one factor. That was his earnest desire to convince Dixon of the seriousness of Juan's revelations. In the face of these revelations, he had no wish to incur further enmity.

On their way back to the hacienda, Dixon summed up his observations.

"You're dead right, Graydon, in laying down the law for those ignorant peons." He smiled tolerantly as he went on. "I'm destined to die at sea, just as I was destined to follow the sea. So don't mind if I allow myself a little latitude on your rules."

True to his tenets, Dixon steered his fatalistic course, eating mangoes with relish, drinking unboiled spring water. He was missing at breakfast the third day. Stanley Graydon, a prey to misgivings, found him in bed with the unmistakable marks of cholera on him. They were there in the faint livid tinge of his face; in the spasms of pain that raced through his body.

With the discovery, the last trace of bitter resentment on Graydon's part fled. The iron will of the man, his serene fatalism, his stubborn fight for life, where a peon would have succumbed without a struggle, enlisted Graydon's admiration.

Don Rafael heard the news with an air of deep abstraction. It was apparent that something of greater import had him in its grasp.

"Ah, if only Se?or Dixon had acted as we begged him to! Now, if he recovers and relents, it may be too late." His face was drawn.

The bitterness of it brought inspiration to Stanley Graydon.

"That radio is going, Don Rafael!" he cried. "I'll write the message, sign Dixon's name to it, and the legation will have it coded and on the air before night falls!"

Don Rafael's voice boomed out exultantly for a mounted messenger.

"We'll have the squadron at anchor in Ramona Bay two days before Henriquez is ready to spring his coup. We'll have a division of destroyers searching for those gun-running expeditions. And when it's all over, Don Rafael, I'll tell why I came to Santander. If you'll give me your hand at the end of that story, it will be all the reward I shall ask."

"God bless you, se?or!" Don Rafael's voice was husky.

From Dixon's bag Stanley Graydon brought a sheaf of official message blanks. He framed his dispatch in convincing naval terms, explicit and shipshape, and signed Dixon's name to it. Behind him Don Rafael's lined face was creased with a smile of beatific joy.

Stubbornly Dixon held to the faith that death could come to him only at sea, but he was weakening fast. Another day passed before the message seemed to have penetrated to his indomitable soul that he might not outlive the day. His mind was clear as the tone of a ship's bell. His voice, despite its weakness, held the cold quality that was the index to the man.

"Graydon," he gasped, "they'll be piping me over the side soon. Listen to me for a moment, old man. When I've finished, bring Don Rafael here. You'll need a witness to the last part of my yarn." He choked for a moment and then went grimly on:

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