The Cruise of the Dry Dock | Page 5

chalk cliffs that England thrusts toward France. Overhead stretched a translucent yellow-green sky with the long black line of the _Vulcan's_ smoke marking it.
Leonard moved across the bridge slowly.
There was almost perfect silence over the great structure below him, save for the slow creaking of new joints in the iron plates, the softened chough-choughing of the tug ahead.
There were several paint barrels piled up on the bridge, slung there no doubt by machinery, to prevent the men having to toil up with it from below. The boy leaned against one of these barrels, gazing into the yellow flood of light that bathed everything in its own saffron. His heart beat high with a feeling of the hazard of the ocean. He tried to fancy what would happen to the huge dock as it adventured through tropic seas. His imagination readily conjured up a kaleidoscope of incidents--cannibal proas, shark fights, sea serpents, typhoons, mutinies, what not.
And at every turn of the tug's propeller all this bright dashing world of adventure drew nearer and nearer. For some reason he recalled what the bystander on the dock had said--"Everything is unreasonable at sea," and he laughed aloud.
As a sort of gloomy echo of his laugh, his ear caught a groan from the other side of the paint barrels. With the utmost surprise and curiosity, he straightened up and moved silently around the pile.
Then he saw the tall Englishman leaning across the bridge rail, face in hands, staring at the line of land silhouetted in black between the brazen sky and the reflecting water. Smith's whole attitude was so suggestive of trouble that Madden moved forward in generous sympathy.
The Englishman heard the movement, straightened, looked around; his long face wore a look of suffering in the colored light.
"Sorry you're so blue, old man," sympathized the American, making a guess at the cause of his bad spirits. "Let's have a turn around this old tub and forget homesickness."
"Home!" echoed Caradoc gruffly. "It's--it's all England I'm leaving. It's England and honor and--" he stiffened suddenly and snarled out: "Do you think I climbed away up here on this bridge hunting your company?"
Leonard was utterly nonplussed by this shift. "I'm sure I meant no harm--"
"Certainly not," sneered Caradoc. "You Americans have the undesired friendliness of stray puppies--you have no conception of personal reserve--you turn your souls into moral vaudevilles."
A flush of indignation swept over Madden. "That's no decent return for a friendly approach!" he declared hotly, "and I'd rather be a puppy than a hedgehog any day!"
Caradoc made no reply, but seemed to erase Madden from his mind and shifted slowly around to his staring and his thoughts.
This last bit of impudence fairly clanged on Madden's temper. He felt a desire to tell this coxcomb just what he thought of him. If Caradoc had remained facing the American, Madden might have done so, but it feels foolish to rail at a profile. Madden wheeled angrily, tramped across the bridge, then down the high side of the dock toward the ladder. From far below him came Hogan's voice, a concertina, and the sound of clacking feet. Apparently the Irishman had induced someone to dance a jig.
CHAPTER II
ADVENTURE BEGINS
Fortunately for the British Towing and Shipping Company, the next few days were glassy calm, and as the Vulcan coughed along the South England coast, the crew had fair opportunity to raise the coat of paint out of danger.
They had finished the ends by this time and were now working on the high exterior sides of the dock. The labor was distasteful to Leonard, not within itself, but it is disagreeable to dangle in midair over a huge iron wall, blue water gurgling below, and sit beside a man who has affronted one by calling one's manners puppyish and one's soul a vaudeville. Even if one really be fond of puppies and enjoy vaudeville, the implication is unpleasant.
On the third morning after, Caradoc wielded his brush listlessly and looked sick. His fine shoulders sagged and his eyes were hollow in his long face. Leonard, whose spirits naturally mounted with the sun, found it hard to continue the three days' silence. He wanted to talk about the splendid English coast with its gemlike villages set in green, the red-sailed fishing smacks, the social gulls feeding in the long trail behind the dock. It is difficult to be reserved under such conditions. Then, too, Caradoc was so obviously ill, Madden felt sorry for the fellow.
As for the Englishman, he paid little attention to his working mate, but languidly splashed the iron wall, and himself, with red paint. After some two hours' work, he stood up on the platform as if sore, made an irresolute start, finally climbing the rope ladder to the top. Madden wondered about the queer fellow, but was rather relieved