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Updated: May 26, 2025
Fifteen minutes later a dozen men were kicking exhaustedly in the water on the port side of the Vulcan, shouting in urgent voices for ropes. A few were already clambering up the bobstays. There was no reply from the utterly terrorized men on the tug, then came the whiz of missiles thrown through the air. "Hogan! Mulcher! Galton! Ropes!
"Glory be!" chanted Hogan, "Oi'll wear a tall hat, a long-tailed coat and carry a silver-headed cane, and thin Susie Maloney and Bridget O'Malley and Peggy O'Brien will be sorry they iver tossed up their saucy noses at th' love o' an honest lad!" "I'll own a kennel of bulldogs," growled Mulcher, "and 'ave a fight hev'ry day." All this was given in chorus and much of it lost.
"It burns a blue light!" corrected Hogan with chattering teeth. "Th' ship o' the dead!" shivered Mulcher. A sudden explanation flashed into Madden's head. "You fools are afraid of our own dry dock," he whispered briefly. "We've traveled in a circle and reached the dock again." "Oh, no, sor, it ain't that! Tain't th' dry-dock, sor!" aspirated several fear-struck voices.
When the sheer panic of surprise had worn away somewhat, the weirdness of the uncanny voyage came upon the crew with tenfold force. They stood gripping the rail, staring ahead with the feeling of condemned prisoners on their way to the gallows. "We're 'eaded for the 'ole in th' sea!" muttered Mulcher. "We'll go down tug an' hall," mumbled Galton unsteadily. "Fish bait, that's w'ot we are!"
The coming night was arranged for, but for morning, the names of Heck Mulcher, Ben Galton and Caradoc Smith stood in order. Madden was just marking these men when there was a tap at the door. Upon call, Gaskin, the cook, entered, bearing a big tray of dishes, "Yer dinner, sir," he said, very respectfully.
It stuck and Leonard started to their aid, when a hook in his own territory demanded his attention. Just then a head came up over the rail just above Hogan and Mulcher. The German had turned his automatic on the defenders when Hogan's shillalah caught him on the temple. He reeled backwards, his pistol spitting into the air.
Madden had dislodged two or three, when Mulcher cried out for help. The enemy had succeeded in catching a fluke on the rail, and putting so much weight on it that the cockney could not prize it off. Immediately Hogan and another defender crawled to Mulcher's aid like big lizards. They thrust in sticks and spikes and prized vigorously, while the bullets were drumming on the plates outside.
He knew he could defend himself from any assault the crew might make in that condition. But they made none. They stopped a little way from him, some drunkenly grave, others winking or leering, some abusive and threatening. "Go'n' tuh 'lect 'nother captain," announced Mulcher thickly. "You no reg'lar hofficer!" "You 'it a man for 'elpin' you, and 'urt 'is eye!"
For answer Madden turned to the men. "Mulcher, bring me a life buoy, will you?" Mulcher arose and started on his errand. Caradoc stared. "You don't intend to swim that distance through this heat?" "There's a boat over there, and provisions, perhaps." "And the crew?"
Galton obeyed instinctively, half carrying the long sagging form to the bunk. "Hogan!" he thundered at the cyclone on his right, "you and Mulcher stop that! Stop it, Mulcher!" he turned to some of the men. "Part 'em there! Stop 'em!" Six navvies, three to the man, jumped and grabbed the combatants. "Just look, will you?" Madden pointed to Caradoc on the bunk.
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