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The Third Officer: A Present-day Pirate Story
The Third Officer / A Present-day Pirate Story
CHAPTER I
The S.S. "Donibristle"
To the accompaniment of a pungent whiff of hot oil, a miniature cascade of coal dust and frozen snow, and the rasping sound of the derrick chain, the last of the cargo for No. 3 hold of the S.S. Donibristle bumped heavily upon the mountain of crates that almost filled the dark confined space.
"Guess that's the lot, boss," observed the foreman stevedore.
"Thanks be!" ejaculated Alwyn Burgoyne, third officer of the 6200-ton tramp, making a cryptic notation in the "hold-book". "Right-o; all shipshape there? All hands on deck and get those hatches secured. Look lively lads!"
Burgoyne waited until the last of the working party had left the hold, then, clambering over a triple tier of closely-stowed packing-cases, he grasped the coaming of the hatch and with a spring gained the deck.
"What a change from Andrew!" he soliloquized grimly, as he surveyed the grimy, rusty iron deck and the welter of coal-dust and snow trampled into a black slime. "All in a day's work, I suppose, and thank goodness I'm afloat."
Three months previously Alwyn Burgoyne had been a sub-lieutenant in the Royal Navy; hence his reference to "Andrew", as the Senior Service is frequently designated by long-suffering bluejackets. Under peace conditions and in the knowledge that the greatest menace with which the British Empire was ever threatened was removed for all time, the Admiralty were compelled to make drastic reductions both in personnel and material. Numbers of promising young officers, trained from boyhood to the manners and customs of ships flying the White Ensign, had been "sent to the beach", or, in other words, their services had been dispensed with. Even the sum of money paid to these unfortunates was a sorry recompense for their blighted careers, since circumstances and the fact that they were of an awkward age to embark upon another profession were a severe handicap in life's race.
Burgoyne, however, was one of the luckier ones. Forsaking the lure of gunnery, torpedo, and engineering, he was specializing in navigation and seamanship when the "cut" came. Without loss of time he had sat for and obtained first a Mate's and then a Master's Board of Trade Certificate, and with these qualifications, aided by a certain amount of influence, he obtained the post of Fourth Officer in the British Columbian and Chinese Shipping Company.
On his first voyage in the S.S. Donibristle, from Vancouver to Shanghai, Burgoyne gained a step in promotion. Viewed from a certain point it was a regrettable promotion, since Alwyn had to step into a dead man's shoes. But Roberts, the Third Officer, disappeared on the homeward run – it was a pitch-dark night, and a heavy beam sea, and no one saw him go – and Burgoyne "took on" as Third.
To fill the vacant post, Phil Branscombe, a Devonshire lad who had come into the British Columbian and Chinese Shipping Company via a wind-jammer and a Barry collier, was appointed as Fourth Officer, and Branscombe was now about to start on his first voyage under the B.C. & C.S.C. house-flag.
The Donibristle was lying at Vancouver. She had been bunkered with Nanaimo coal; the last of her cargo – mostly Canadian ironmongery and machinery – was under hatches, and she was due to sail at daybreak.