Pirates Abroad

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 122, 16 February 1935, Page 23

Pirates Abroad

HOW JACK SAVED THE SHIP Jean and Jack Martin were anxiously awaiting the siren signal for the Formosa to cast off from her moorings at Tsu Tsao on the last stage of her run to Shanghai, where they were to meet their parents. At last it blew, and immediately two- sailors at the head of the gangway began to loosen the ropes, and the crowd on the quay moved back to give the gangway room to run ashore. Suddenly Jean clutched Jack’s arm, “Oh, look, Jack!” she cried, "he can’t get on 1” A small Chinese boy was vainly endeavouring to push his way through the heedless crowd. “Get out!” snapped one of the sailors. “You can’t go down now.” Then his voice changed; a slight form had slipped past him and was running down the gangway. “Here, Jack, you young rascal, you come back!” he cried, plunging down after him. Then ensued such a hubbub and confusion as the Formosa had never seen before. Bells clanged and orders were shouted. Captain Macdermott on the bridge looked very grim, for although it was his proud boast that he always got away on the stroke of time how could he go and leave. Jack, whom, with bis sister, he had specially taken under his care, to hang about a Chinese port for a week. With the Chinese boy restored to his father, and the Formosa well on her way he had Jack “on the carpet.” ”“A nice tale I should have had to tell your father!” he said. “I wouldn’t even trust myself unarmed among a crowd like that at Tsu Tsao. See here, it’s twenty-four hours ‘C.B.’ (confined to barracks) for you, just to teach you not to get into hot water, you see.” Jack’s cabin was an Inside one, so he couldn’t even look out to sea, and left to hims'elf he dozed most of the time. “The captain’s right,” of course, he thought, "but I’d do it again all the same, I’m glad that boy hasn’t lost his father.” He didn’t sleep very soundly that night, and ju>3t after three bells be became aware of a strange sound at his window. Tap, tap, tap! Tap, tap, tap! He stood on his bunk and looked out, and there, in the dimly-lit alley, he saw the Chinese boy through whom he had earned his punishment. He was holding up a bundle and whispering, “Ssh! No makee noise! Pilates loot ship, one two minute takee plish’ners. Me heard them. Put these Chinese clothes, come long me, hide till pilates gone,” he urged. Staggered though he was by this news, Jack very quickly grasped what it meant. He had heard of Chinese pirates boarding vessels as passengers and by a sudden, well-plannecT rising, overpowering the white crew and hurrying off with what loot and prisoners they could seize. He had also heard stories of the miseries which captives had to endure before being ransomed. He must give the alarm! At all costs he must save Jean! Her cabin was on the deck above; she could dress in the Chinese clothes. Seizing the bundle he ran out. But it was too late. Already the pirates were streaming silently from the fore part of the ship, some along his alley, others swarming up by the forward hatch to the deck above. At any mo- - ment the signal might be given to rush the bridge and the ofiicers’ quarters. Then he had a brilliant idea. He darted back, quickly donned the Chinese trousers, coat, and hat, and then boldly mingling with the tip-toeing pirates, . made his way to where, on the outer wall of the engine room, hung the hose pipe with which, each morning, a certain sailor flooded the deck while native deck hands scrubbed and swabbed. Stealthily he unhooked the hose and turned the handle. Then, as a stream of icy water gushed out—“ Help! Pirates! Help!” he yelled, jumping about and spraying at everybody within reach. “Pirates! Pirates!” Immediately the whole ship was in an uproar. The pirates, instead of springing a surprise, had received one, and one they could not face. Fearful of the powerful jet of hose, they fled helter-skelter, falling over themselves, and shouting in the utmost confusion. Still Jack sprayed and yelled above the rest. ” . Captain Macdermott and his white crew, tumbling out'at the first sound, soon took command of the situation, making prisoners -those of the pirates who had not already jumped overboard. A little later everything was quiet and Jack was once again “on the carpet.” This time, however, the captain’s words were in a different tone. But It was the sailor who put the whole thing in a nutshell. “It was through that young Chinaman that you got yourself and me into hot water with the cap’n, but it was through both him and water that you got us all out of something worse, I reckon, young Jack.”