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I might never have heard of Sol Abernathy, if it hadn’t been that my cousin, George, summered in Dockport, year before last. The moment George told me about him and his trick launch, I had the feeling that it all had something to do with the “Wild Ships” or “B-Boats,” as some called them. Like everyone else, I had been speculating over the origin of the mysterious, unmanned vessels that had played such havoc with the Gulf Stream traffic. The suggestion that Abernathy’s queer boat might shed some light on their baffling behavior prodded my curiosity to the highest pitch.
We all know, of course, of the thoroughgoing manner in which Commodore Elkins and his cruiser division recently rid the seas of that strange menace. Yet I cannot but feel regret, that he could not have captured at least one of the Wild Ships, if only a little boat, rather than sink them all ruthlessly, as he did. Who knows? Perhaps an examination of one of them might have revealed that Dr. Horatio Dilbiss had wrought a greater miracle than he ever dreamed of.
At any rate, I lost no time in getting up to the Maine coast. At Dockport, finding Sol Abernathy was simplicity itself. The first person asked pointed him out to me. He was sitting carelessly on a bollard near the end of the pier, basking in the sunshine, doing nothing in particular. It was clear at first glance that he was one of the type generally referred to as “local character.” He must have been well past sixty, a lean, weathered little man, with a quizzical eye and a droll manner of speech that, under any other circumstances, might have led me to suspect he was spoofing — yet remembering the strange sequel to the Dockport happenings, the elements of his yarn have a tremendous significance. I could not judge from his language where he came from originally, but he was clearly not a Down Easter. The villagers could not remember the time, though, when he had notbeen in Dockport. To them he was no enigma, but simply a local fisherman, boatman, and general utility man about the harbor there.
I introduced myself — told him about my cousin, and my interest in his boat, the Betsy B. He was tight-mouthed at first, said he was sick and tired of being kidded about the boat. But my twenty-dollar bill must have convinced him I was no idle josher.
“We-e-e-ll,” he drawled, squinting at me appraisingly through a myriad of fine wrinkles, “it’s about time that somebody that really wants to know got around to astin’ me about the Betsy B. She was a darlin’ little craft, before she growed up and ran away to sea. I ain’t sure, myself, whether I ought to be thankful or sore at that perfesser feller over on Quiquimoc. Anyhow, it was a great experience, even if it did cost a heap. Like Kiplin’ says, I learned about shippin’ from her.”
“Do I understand you to say,” I asked, “that you no longer have the launch?”
“Yep! She went — a year it’ll be, next Thursday — takin’ ‘er Susan with W.”
This answered my question, but shed little light. Susan? I saw I would do better if I let him ramble along in his own peculiar style.
“Well, tell me,” I asked, “what was she like — at first — how big? How powered?”
“The Betsy B was a forty-foot steam launch, and I got ‘er secondhand. She wasn’t young, by any means — condemned navy craft, she was — from off the old Georgia. But she was handy, and I used ‘er to ferry folks from the islands hereabouts into Dockport, and for deep- sea fishin’.
“She was a dutiful craft — ” he started, but broke off with a dry chuckle, darting a shrewd sideways look at me, sizing me up. I was listening intently. “Ye’ll have to get used to me talkin’ of ‘er like a human,” he explained, apparently satisfied I was not a scoffer, “‘cause if ever a boat had a soul, she had. Well, anyhow, as I said, she was a dutiful craft — did what she was s’posed to do and never made no fuss about it. She never wanted more’n the rightful amount of oil — I changed ‘er from a coal- burner to an oil-burner, soon as I got ‘er — and she’d obey ‘er helm just like you’d expect a boat to.
“Then I got a call one day over to Quiquimoc. That perfesser feller, Doc Dilbiss, they call him, wanted to have his mail brought, and when I got there, he ast me to take some things ashore for ‘im, to the express office. The widder Simpkins’ boy was over there helpin’ him, and they don’t come any more wuthless. The Doc has some kind of labertory over there — crazy place. One time he mixed up a settin’ of eggs, and hatched ‘em! Made ‘em himself, think of that! If you want to see a funny-lookin’ lot of chickens, go over there some day.”
“I shall,” I said. I wanted him to stay with the Betsy Baccount, not digress. His Doc Dilbiss is no other than Dr. Horatio Dilbiss, the great pioneer in vitalizing synthetic organisms. I understand a heated controversy is still raging in the scientific world over his book, “The Secret of Life,” but there is no doubt he has performed some extraordinary feats in animating his creations of the test tube. But to keep Abernathy to his theme, I asked, “What did the Simpkins boy do?”
“This here boy comes skippin’ down the dock, carryin’ a gallon bottle of some green-lookin’ stuff, and then what does he do but trip over a cleat on the stringer and fall head over heels into the Betsy B. That bottle banged up against the boiler and just busted plumb to pieces. The green stuff in it was sorta oil and stunk like all forty. It spread out all over the insides before you could say Jack Robinson, and no matter how hard I scoured and mopped, I couldn’t get up more’n a couple of rags full of it.
“You orter seen the Doc. He jumped up and down and pawed the air — said the work of a lifetime was all shot — I never knew a mild little feller like him could cuss so. The only thing I could see to do was to get outa there and take the Simpkins boy with me — it looked sure like the Doc was a-goin’ to kill him.
“Naturally, I was pretty disgusted myself. Anybody can tell you I keep clean boats — I was a deep-sea sailor once upon a time, was brought up right, and it made me durned mad to have that green oil stickin’ to everything. I took ‘er over to my place, that other little island you see there…” — pointing outside the harbor to a small island with a couple of houses and an oil tank on it — ”…and tried to clean ‘er up. I didn’t have much luck, so knocked off, and for two — three days I used some other boats I had, thinkin’ the stink would blow away.
“When I got time to get back to the Betsy B, you coulda knocked me down with a feather when I saw she was full of vines — leastways, I call ‘em vines. I don’t mean she was full of vines, but they was all over ‘er insides, clingin’ close to the hull, like ivy, and runnin’ up under the thwarts, and all over the cylinders and the boiler. In the cockpit for’ard, where the wheel was, I had a boat compass in a little binnacle. Up on top of it was a lumpy thing — made me think of a gourd — all connected up with the vines.
“I grabbed that thing and tried to pull it off. I tugged and I hauled, but it wouldn’t come. But what do you think happened?”
“I haven’t the faintest idea,” I said, seeing that he expected an answer.
“She rared up and down, like we was outside in a force-six gale, and whistled!” Abernathy broke off and glared at me belligerently, as if he half expected me to laugh at him. Of course, I did no such thing. It was not a laughing matter, as the world was to find out a little later.
“And that was stranger than ever,” he continued, after a pause, “cause I’d let ‘er fires die out when I tied ‘er up. Somehow she had steam up. I called to Joe Binks, my fireman, and bawled him out for havin’ lit ‘er off without me tellin’ him to. But he swore up and down that he hadn’t touched ‘er. But to get back to the gourd thing — as soon as I let it go, she quieted down. I ran under those vines to see where they come from. I keep callin’ ‘em vines, but maybe you’d call ‘em wires. They were hard and shiny, like wires, and tough — only they branched every whichaway like vines, or the veins in a maple leaf. There was two sets of ‘em, one set runnin’ out of the gourd thing on the binnacle was all mixed up with the other set comin’ out of the bottom between the boiler and the engine.
“She didn’t mind my foolin’ with the vines, and didn’t cut up except whenever I’d touch the gourd arrangement up for’ard. The vines stuck too close to whatever they lay on to pick up, but I got a pinch- bar and pried. I got some of ‘em up about a inch and slipped a wedge under. I worked on ‘em with a chisel, and then a hacksaw. I cut a couple of ‘em and by the Lord Harry — if they didn’t grow back together again whilst I was cuttin’ on the third one. I gave up! I just let it go, I was that dogtired.
“Before I left, I took a look into the firebox and saw she had the burner on slow. I turned it off, and saw the water was out of the glass. I secured the boiler, thinkin’ how I’d like to get my hands on whoever lit it off.
“Next day, I had a fishin’ party to take out in my schooner, and altogether, what with one thing and another, it was a week before I got back to look at the Betsy B. Now, over at my place, I have a boathouse and a dock, and behind the boathouse is a fuel oil tank, as you can see. This day, when I went down to the dock, what should I see but a pair of those durned vines runnin’ up the dock like electric cables. And the smoke was pourin’ out of ‘er funnel like everything. I ran on down to ‘er and tried to shut off the oil, ‘cause I knew the water was low, but the valve was all jammed with the vine wires, and I couldn’t do a thing with it.
“I found out those vines led out of ‘er bunkers, and mister, believe it or not, but she was a-suckin’ oil right out of my big storage tank! Those vines on the dock led straight from the Betsy Binto the oil tank. When I found out I couldn’t shut off the oil, I jumped quick to have a squint at the water gauge, and my eyes nearly run out on stems when I saw it smack at the right level. Do you know, that dog-gone steam launch had thrown a bunch of them vines around the injector and was a-feedin’ herself? Fact! And sproutin’ from the gun’le was another bunch of ‘em, suckin’ water from overside.
“But wouldn’t she salt herself?” I asked of him, knowing that salt water is not helpful to marine boilers.
“No, sir-ree! That just goes to show you how smart she was gettin’ to be. Between the tank and the injector, durned if she hadn’t grown another fruity thing, kinda like a watermelon. It had a hole in one side, and there was a pile of salt by it and more spillin’ out. She had rigged ‘erself some sorta filter — or distiller. I drew off a little water from a gauge cock, and let it cool down and tasted it. Sweet as you’d want!
“I was kinda up against it. If she was dead set and determined to keep steam up all the time, and had dug right into the big tank, I knew it’d run into money. I might as well be usin’ ‘er. These vines I’ve been tellin’ you about weren’t in the way to speak of; they hung close to the planks like the veins on the back of your hand. Seein’ ‘er bunkers was full to the brim, I got out the hacksaw and cut the vines to the oil tank, watchin’ ‘er close all the time to see whether she’d buck again.
“From what I saw of ‘er afterward, I think she had a hunch she was gettin’ ready to get under way, and she was r’arin’ to go. I heard a churnin’ commotion in the water, and durned if she wasn’t already kicking her screw over! just as I got the second vine cut away, she snaps her lines, and if I hadn’t made a flyin’ leap, she’d a gone off without me.
“I’m tellin’ you, mister, that first ride was a whole lot like gettin’ aboard a unbroken colt. At first she wouldn’t answer her helm. I mean, I just couldn’t put the rudder over, hardly, without lyin’ down and pushin’ with everything I had on the wheel. And Joe Binks, my fireman, couldn’t do nuthin’ with ‘er neither — said the throttled fly wide open every time he let go of it.
“Comin’ outa my place takes careful doin’ — there’s a lot of sunken ledges and one sandbar to dodge. I says to myself, I’ve been humorin’ this baby too much. I remembered she was tender about that gourd thing, so the next time I puts the wheel over and she resists, I cracks down on the gourd with a big fid I’d been splicin’ some five-inch line with. She blurted ‘er whistle, and nearly stuck her nose under, but she let go the rudder. Seein’ that I was in for something not much diffrunt from bronco bustin’, I cruised ‘er up and down outside the island, puttin’ ‘er through all sorts a turns and at various speeds. I only had to hit ‘er four or five times. After that, all I had to do was to raise the fid like I was a-goin’ to, and she’d behave. She musta had eyes or something in that gourd contraption. I still think that’s where her brains were. It had got some bigger, too.
“I didn’t have much trouble after that, for a while. I strung some live wires across the dock — I found she wouldn’t cross that with ‘er feelers — and managed to put ‘er on some sort of rations about the oil. But I went down one night, ‘round two in the mornin’, and found ‘er with a full head of steam. I shut everything down, leavin’ just enough to keep ‘er warm, and went for’ard and whacked ‘er on the head, just for luck. It worked, and as soon as we had come to some sorta understanding, as you might say, I was glad she had got the way she was.
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