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Updated: June 18, 2025
We stuck to the Grotkau's tail that night an' the next twa days she slowed down to five knot by my reckonin' and we lapped along the weary way to the Fastnet." "But you don't go by the Fastnet to get to any South American port, do you?" I said. "We do not. We prefer to go as direct as may be. But we were followin' the Grotkau, an' she'd no walk into that gale for ony consideration.
It was the coldest cold I remember in all my experience. "Syne I went aft to the engine-room. The Grotkau sat on her own tail, as they say. She was vara shortshafted, an' her gear was all aft. There was four or five foot o' water in the engine-room slummockin' to and fro, black an' greasy; maybe there was six foot.
An' the Grotkau the Grotkau of all conceivable bottoms soaking up every pound that should be ours at Liverpool! "I was staggered wi' this folly considerin' the dinner at Radley's in connection wi' the same. "Ye may well stare, McPhee, says the head-clerk.
"The Kite was in the Baltic while the auld man was warkin' his warks, but I know the assessors valued the Grotkau, all told, at over three hunder and sixty thousand her manifest was a treat o' richness an' McRimmon got a third for salvin' an abandoned ship.
Bell fetched the Kite round with the jerk that came close to tearin' the bitts out o' the Grotkau, an' I mind I thanked my Maker in young Bannister's cabin when we were inside Plymouth breakwater. "The first to come aboard was McRimmon, wi' Dandie. Did I tell you our orders were to take anything we found into Plymouth?
"It came on to blow when we fetched soundin's, an' that kept me standin' by the hawsers, lashed to the capstan, breathin' twixt green seas. I near died o' cauld an' hunger, for the Grotkau towed like a barge, an' Bell howkit her along through or over. It was vara thick up-Channel, too.
"I did not mean that; but some half-starvin' oiler or, maybe, trimmer must ha' opened it awhile to mak' sure o' leavin' the Grotkau. It's a demoralisin' thing to see an engine-room flood up after any accident to the gear demoralisin' and deceptive both.
All day I laid in the bunk reading the' Woman-Hater, the grandest book Charlie Reade ever wrote, an' pickin' a toothful here an' there. It was weary, weary work. Eight days, man, I was aboard the Grotkau, an' not one full meal did I make. Sma' blame her crew would not stay by her. The other man? Oh I warked him wi' a vengeance to keep him warm.
"Five-and-twenty thousand pound sterlin'. Noo, I'm fra the North, and I'm not the like to fling money awa' rashly, but I'd gie six months' pay one hunder an' twenty pounds to know who flooded the engine-room of the Grotkau. I'm fairly well acquaint wi' McRimmon's eediosyncrasies, and he'd no hand in it. It was not Calder, for I've asked him, an' he wanted to fight me.
Young Bannister an' Calder will be drinkin' in the saloon, an' six months hence the Board o' Trade 'll gie the skipper a pair o' binoculars. It's vara philanthropic all round. "We'll lay by till day ye may think we waited for it wi' sore eyes an' there sat the Grotkau, her nose a bit cocked, just leerin' at us. She looked paifectly ridiculous.
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