"Wait! Stay here! You'll do what I tell you, Harrigan. I'm the boss
belowdecks."
It was a declaration of war, and what it cost Campbell no one could
ever tell. He stood swaying slightly from side to side, while he glared
at Henshaw.
"You're drunk," remarked the captain coldly. "I'll give you half an
hour, Campbell, to come to your senses--but after that--"
"Damn you and your time! I want no tune! I say the lad has been put
through hell and shan't go back to it, do you hear me?"
Henshaw was controlling himself carefully, or else he wished to draw
out the engineer.
He said: "You know the record of Harrigan?"
"What record? The one McTee told you? Would you believe what Black
McTee says of a man he tried to break and couldn't?"
"My friend McTee is out of the matter. All that you have to do with is
my order. You've heard that order, Campbell!"
"I'll see you in hell before I send him to the hole."
Henshaw waited another moment, quietly enjoying the wild excitement of
the engineer like the Spanish gentleman who sits in safety in the
gallery and watches the baiting of the bull in the arena below.
"I shall send that order to you in writing. If you refuse to obey then,
I shall act!"
He turned on his heel; McTee stayed a moment to smile upon Harrigan,
and then followed. As the door closed, Harrigan turned to Campbell and
found him sitting, shuddering, with his face buried in his hands. He
touched the Scotchman on the shoulder.
"You've done your part, chief. I won't let you do any more. I'm
starting now for the hole."
"What?" bellowed Campbell. "Am I no longer the boss of my engine room?
You'll sit here till I tell you to move! Damn Henshaw and his written
orders!"
"If you refuse to obey a written order, he can take your license away
from you in any marine court."
"Let it go."
"Ah-h, chief, ye're afther bein' a thrue man an' a bould one, but I'd
rather stay the rest av me life in the hole than let ye ruin yourself
for me. Whisht, man, I'm goin'! Think no more av it!"
Campbell's eyes grew moist with the temptation, but then the fighting
blood of his clan ran hot through his veins.
"Sit down," he commanded. "Sit down and wait till the order comes. It's
a fine thing to be chief engineer, but it's a better thing to be a man.
What does Bobbie say?"
And he quoted in a ringing voice: "A man's a man for a' that!"
Afterward they sat in silence that grew more tense as the minutes
passed, but it seemed that Henshaw, with demoniac cunning, had decided
to prolong the agony by delaying his written order and the consequent
decision of the engineer. And Harrigan, watching the suffused face of
Campbell, knew that the time had come when his will would not suffice
to make him follow the dictates of his conscience.
All of which Henshaw knew perfectly well as he sat in his cabin filling
the glass of McTee with choice Scotch.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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