When the Squadron Dropped Anchor
Accused of the most dishonorable conduct, cast off from the navy andthe life he loved, Graydon still found opportunity to serve hiscountry and erase the stain on his honor.
The echoes of the ship’s bugle, calling away the second whaleboat,died softly in the still harbor of San Juan de Gracias. The boatcrew ran out on the boom, down its swinging rope ladder to thethwarts beneath, and pulled out to the gangway. At the head of thegangway stood a man in blue civilian serge and wide-brimmed panamahat. The brim half hid the eyes that were held to the seam of thecruiser’s deck. His shoulders sagged like those of a fighter waitingthe knock-out blow.
The curt announcement of the ensign on watch, “Your boat isalongside,” brought the man’s head up with a jerk. His shouldersbraced and his heels met. Mechanically his hand went in salute tothe brim of the panama. In the old formula of the quarter-deck heanswered: “I have your permission to leave the ship, sir?”
There was no answer. For a moment he faced aft to where the colorsrippled over the taffrail. Then, with head down, shoulders drooping,he turned and ran down the ladder to the waiting whaleboat. Theensign stepped to the rail.
“In the whaleboat there. Land Mr. Graydon on the beach and return tothe ship!”
“Aye, aye, sir! Shove off for’ard! Out oars! Way together!”
Swirls of phosphorescence leaped away from the driving ash blades,to trail like ropes of pearl in the wake. On the low-lying beach towhich they raced, slender palm trees, silver lances in the blazingsun, stabbed upward through the heat mirage that ran like whitefire. The thatched roofs of the native village sprawled in untidyarray before the blurred eyes of the man in blue serge.
The next stage by which Stanley Graydon, ex-captain of marines,severed his ties with the service was a schooner that warpedalongside a wharf at Santander, capital of the Republic ofSantander, three days later. To the beauty of those sea leagues andto the bizarre life on the schooner he was blind. His thoughts wereelsewhere.
One picture, that of the unforgettable night in the wardroom of theU. S. S. Franklin, flagship of the Special Service Squadron,haunted him like a nightmare. There was Dixon, squadron intelligenceofficer, face white as the cloth on the poker table, voice shakingwith cold passion, denouncing him as a card sharp. He had dashed theundealt pack full into Dixon’s face. Only the restraining arms ofhis shipmates had kept him from driving his fist full into thatsneering countenance. Then, like the ever-changing picture on ascreen, Dixon coolly searched through the scattered cards until hehad separated an even dozen.
Held against the light, while their breathless shipmates crowdedcloser, Dixon pointed out the tiny pin-prick points in their uppercorner. A swift manipulation. Five of the marked cards lay face upon the table. The ace-high full on which Graydon had won the lastpot. A sharp, curt order by Dixon. The surgeon returning from hiscabin with a pack of cards—a pack that was an exact duplicate inpattern and color to the marked pack. The deft fingers of Dixonweaving through them, now and then