The Green Flag and Other Stories of War and Sport - The Striped Chest

Arthur Conan Doyle (0:00)

Section 10 of The Green Flag and Other Stories of War and Sport. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit librivox.org. Recording by Phil Schempf.

The Green Flag and Other Stories of War and Sport by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The Striped Chest.

What do you make of our aler dice? I asked. My second mate was standing beside me upon the pope, with his short thick legs a stretch, for the gale had left a considerable swell behind it, and our two quarter boats nearly touched the water with every roll. He steadied his glass against the mizzen shrouds, and he looked long and hard at this disconsolate stranger every time she came reeling up on the crest of a roller, and hung balanced for a few seconds before swooping down upon the other side. She lay so low on the water that I could only catch an occasional glimpse of a pea-green line of bulwark. She was a brig, but her main mast had been snapped short off some ten feet above the deck, and no effort seemed to have been made to cut away the wreckage, which floated sails and yards like the broken wing of a wounded gull upon the water beside her. The foremast was still standing, but the fore-topsail was flying loose, and the headsails were streaming out in long white pennons in front of her. Never have I seen a vessel which appeared to have gone through rougher handling. But we could not be surprised at that, for there had been times during the last three days when it was a question whether our own bark would ever see land again. For thirty-six hours we had kept her nose to it, and if the Mary Sinclair had not been as good a seaboat as ever left the Clyde, we could not have gone through. And yet, here we were, at the end of it, with the loss of only our gig and a part of the starboard bulwark. It did not astonish us, however, when the smother had cleared away to find others had been less lucky, and that this mutilated brig staggering about upon a blue sea and under a cloudless sky had been left, like a blinded man after a lightning flash, to tell the terror which has passed. Allardyce, who was a slow, methodical Scutchman, stared long and hard at the little craft, while our seaman lined the bow or clustered upon the four shrouds to have a view of the stranger. In latitude twenty degrees and longitude ten degrees, which were about our bearings, one becomes a little curious as to whom one meets, for one has left the main lines of Atlantic commerce to the north. For ten days we had been sailing over a solitary sea.

He's derelict, I'm thinking, said the second mate. I had come to the same conclusion. For I could see no signs of life upon her deck, and there was no answer to the friendly wavings from our seaman. The crew had probably deserted her under the impression she was about to found her. She can't last long, continued Allardyce, in his measured way. She may put her nose down and her tail up any minute. The water's lippin up to the edge of a rail.

What's her flag? I asked. I'm trying to make out. It's got all twisted and tangled with the halyards. Yes, I've got it now, clear enough. It's a Brazilian flag, but it's wrong side up. She had hoisted a signal of distress then, before her people abandon her. Perhaps they had only just gone. I took the mate's glass and looked round over the tumultuous face of the deep blue Atlantic, still veined and starred with white lines and spoutings of foam. But nowhere could I see anything human beyond ourselves.

There may be living men aboard, said I.

There may be salvage, muttered the second mate. Then we will run down upon her leased side and lie too. We were not more than a hundred yards from her when we swung our four yard back, and there we were, the bark and the brig, ducking and bowing like two clowns in a dance. Drop one of the quarter boats, said I. Take four men, Mr. Allardyce, and see what you can learn of her. But just at that moment, my first officer, Mr. Armstrong, came on deck, for seven bells had struck and was but a few minutes off his watch.

It would interest me to go along myself to this abandoned vessel and to see what there might be aboard of her. So, with a word to Armstrong, I swung myself over the side, slipped down the falls and took my place in the sheets of the boat.