Alexander Key
Clancy
    Alone on a wide, wide sea – a shipwrecked salt and the fightingest rooster that ever crowed a challenge to death

    Only once in the past six months had Captain Shamus O’Toole of the Belle of Panama, felt the light finger of luck. That was last evening when the Belle’s rusty boiler had blown out her bottom plates and she had gone down with all hands except himself.
    Captain O’Toole sat up on the floating object upon which he had spent the night, and squinted with a cantankerous eye at the red-rimmed dawn breaking over the Atlantic. He cursed emphatically in three languages and did a thorough job in each. In good waterfront American he damned the Belle’s owners for putting him on a rusty hulk and refusing to spend a penny for repairs. In bastard French he overhauled the now defunct French engineer who had kept up too heavy a head of steam. He filled the morning with lusty Portuguese blasphemy because the line’s representative in Para had added insult to various injuries by jamming the Belle’s hold with a consignment of chickens for a New York breeder.
    “Chickens!” he bellowed, shaking a big fist at the rising sun. “Bah! Worse than runnin’ a stinkin’ cattle boat! No wonder we blew to hell, what with that damned squawkin’ an’ crowin’ goin’ on day an’ night!”
    Temporarily dry of profanity, Captain O’Toole spat and took note of his surroundings.
    He was some hundreds of miles north of the South American coast, the sea calm with a gentle swell, and not a ship in sight. Nor was there a chicken in sight. This last brought a measure of satisfaction; at least a man could have a little quiet for a change.
    He scratched his bald head and set about examining the contraption on which he found himself.
    At a glance it seemed nothing more than a jumble of logs bound with vines and odd bits of rope. During the night, after floundering around for several hours in the effort to keep his square bulk afloat, he had been too exhausted to pay much attention to the thing when his groping hand touched it. But now recognition came.
    It was the remains of the raft of balsa logs he had bought in Para. It had seemed like an excellent chance to put something over on the Belle’s owners and make a few dollars for himself, so he had paid his last cent for the raft and had it swung intact to the after well deck, thinking to get rid of it at some port along the way before docking in New York. When the Belle went down, the raft must have torn from its lashings and bobbed like a cork to the surface.
    Captain O’Toole eyed the thing for several minutes. He had no illusions about the future. Balsa being what it was, the first good blow would send the logs flying. And barring wind, he could sit on the fool thing until the heat fried his brain and thirst drove him mad.
    He knew better than to let his mind dwell on thoughts of rescue. Even had he forgotten the Belle’s last position, the long streamers of sargasso weed on either side would have told him where he was. Few ships came this way. Only an occasional tramp like the Belle, steaming across the horse latitudes on a bee line for home.
    Captain O’Toole sighed and went methodically through his pockets, laying each find in a cavity of one of the logs. There was a jackknife with a six-inch razor-edged blade; a handsome pair of brass knuckle-dusters that had served him well though thirty years of service on the seven seas; a pipe, a pouch of soggy tobacco and four useless matches; a watch that no longer ticked; a bandanna handkerchief, and a pocketbook. The last was empty save for a ticket in steam and one in sail. Neither was of any value now.
    He stared a moment at the sailing ticket. It had been his hope for some years to buy a small craft, a shoal-draft schooner or a ketch, say, and settle down to a leisurely life of coastwise trading – with no owners to rob him and keep his bile dangerously boiling. It was that thought that had prompted him to occasional purchases like the balsa raft.
    “And they talk about the luck o’ the Irish!” Captain O’Toole spat again, started to pocket his possessions, and abruptly stiffened.
    From near by came a hoarse squawking sound, faintly reminiscent of a rooster’s crow.
    Captain O’Toole whirled, cursed. The raft appeared empty save for himself. “What the blhoody thunderation!” he muttered. “Am I goin’ bugs already?”
    The sound came again. He located it this time. It issued from one corner where several logs had broken their lashings and lay crisscrossed together.
    Captain O’Toole crept stealthily toward the spot, pulled the feather-light logs aside. In his long-suffering heart was malice aforethought, and on his round, sun-reddened face was an expression that was fiendishly amiable.
    “Chick, chick, chick!” he clucked. “Nice little chicken! Now, where the devil are ye, ye dir-r-rthy, thievin’ son of a blackguard!” He reached into his pocket, drew forth the knife, flicked open its deadly six-inch blade. “Nice little chicken!” he repeated. “Just come out an’ let papa pet ye.”
    His hand shot down between the logs, grasped something in a partly demolished crate hidden near the water line. He jerked forth a fluttering, half-drowned fowl.
    “Yeah!” he growled ominously. “Papa’ll pet ye, all right. Papa’s goin’ to slit yer schurvy, squawkin’—”
    What happened next was too quick for sight to follow. The chicken squirmed. Its legs seemed to flash in the sunlight. Red-hot pain ripped down Captain O’Toole’s left arm. He jumped back with a yelp, sat down heavily. The chicken leaped to a perch at one corner of the raft, and with head cocked side-wise, fixed him with a belligerent eye.
    For several seconds the two glared at each other resentfully. “Ye schr-r-awny, mur-r-dherous beast!” growled O'Toole. “What the hell d’ye think ye are?”
    There was a long thin gash in his arm. He blinked at it, puzzled. He stared at the chicken’s feet, and his jaw gaped open.
    “Well, I’ll be a double-planked son of a mackerel! Ye’re a damned gamecock!”
    He sat down and peered at the phenomenon with rising interest. It was a red rooster, hard-bodied and long-legged. Comb and excess feathers had been trimmed away. It was ugly, and seemed to be proud of it. Over its spurs gleamed three-inch silver spikes terminating in needle points.
    Captain O’Toole remembered that a pair of Brazilians had been shipped on the Belle to look after her noisy cargo. Quite evidently they had been preparing for a cockfight when the Belle went down.
    The cock crowed. Its voice was hoarse but defiant. Captain O’Toole grinned suddenly, momentarily forgetting his hatred of the feathered tribe. “From the looks o’ ye, I’d say there was a healthy strain of Irish in ye. An’ yer hair’s as red as that hellion of a first mate the line saddled me with. I’m thinkin’ Clancy would be a good name for ye.”
    His big fist snapped forward suddenly. “But mind, ye blinkin’ son of a buck varmint, I’m just lettin’ ye live on probation! Don’t forgit ye’re nothin’ but a damned chicken!”
    The sun rose higher, began to bum down with a furnace heat. Captain O’Toole wished with all his soul he had the tarpaulin that had covered the raft when it reposed on the Belle’s well deck. There was no evidence of the tarpaulin now, no evidence of anything in the smooth water. He was a doomed man with nothing but a fighting cock for a companion.
    The raft, he decided, could stand a bit of repair. Repairing it was a waste of time, for in a few more days It would make no difference whether the contraption held together or not. Still, action was better than contemplation.
    * * *
    His craft was roughly in three layers, some twenty feet long and twelve in breadth. Its cork-like buoyancy held it well out of the water. Patiently he began rearranging the jumbled logs, making fast the broken lashings. Clancy watched him hungrily.
    “Ye devilish rascal,” snapped O’Toole, “stop gawkin’ at me! The nearest chicken feed is four hundred miles off the port quarter!”
    The thought of food set his mind upon a new tack. There was enough flesh about Clancy’s bones to sustain life for several days. And the desire for life, he was astounded to realize, was as healthy at fifty as it had been at twenty.
    The obvious course was to keep Clancy fed and in condition. With his knife he gouged out a rotten section of a log and tossed the red cock a grub. Clancy took it in a gulp and looked hopefully for another. Several more slashes revealed a centipede. Before Clancy could reach it, the precious item slid down between the logs. Both started a frantic search.
    The centipede was never seen again, but Captain O’Toole’s probing fingers encountered something that sent a thrill down his spine.
    Abruptly he jumped over the raft’s side. When he came up he was dragging a corner of a tarpaulin behind him. Lines held the other ends fast underneath, but a careful inspection disclosed the fastenings and explained that the raft had merely turned over when it bobbed up from the Belle’s deck.
    Using the lines to brace one of the raft’s flimsy crosspieces as an upright support, O’Toole rigged the tarpaulin as a temporary awning. Sitting in its shade, he went to work on another project.
    There was no log small enough for his purpose, but one of them showed a long crack down the center. Freeing this log, he began widening the crack with vigorous strokes of the knife. Before the sun dipped for the afternoon he had split his raw material neatly in half.
    Selecting the half with the lesser flaws, he finally cut it into two straight timbers of nearly the same size.
    By now the sun hung low in the west; he was tired, hungry, and thirst was clutching his throat like a dry, hot hand. Clancy stood near, making reproachful clucking sounds.
    “Shut up, ye red hellion!” he growled. His eyes wandered feverishly out over the sea. Perhaps something edible or drinkable had floated up from the Belle.
    There was nothing. Only blue and purple emptiness rising in gentle swells, with gray-green bands of sargasso weed stretching endlessly into the distance. He frowned at the weed, wondering if it could be eaten, and suddenly raked a mass of it aboard.
    Clancy darted into it, pecking. He was swallowing something when O’Toole kicked him aside. “Lay off, ye greedy beggar! If there’s aught here, we’ll divvy up an’ share alike!”
    He pawed through the weed, found a number of microscopic shellfish and seven tiny, very pale shrimp. He wiped each find carefully with his handkerchief, turned the shellfish over to Clancy, and munched the softer portions of the shrimp, sucking out every drop of juice.
    It helped a little. He raked in a second pile of weed, caught more shrimp. By the time the night had come, he had taken the edge from his thirst.
    He slipped into the water, soaked for several minutes, then stretched upon the logs for a brief rest. When the moon rose, he was sitting up, working again.
    * * *
    The big dipper hung at midnight. Upon the raft was a creditable mast whittled from balsa wood, carefully stayed with lines from the tarpaulin. Rigged to this was the other timber, supporting the tarpaulin itself in the form of a sizable square sail.
    The remainder of the night was occupied in trimming the other half of the balsa log. With one end of it hacked flat, it took the form of a crude rudder.
    The sun rose, a red ball that became a burning white-hot disk. No breath of air stirred. Captain O’Toole slowly lowered the sail, lay down under it. He swore vehemently when Clancy began his hungry clucking.
    “Ye damned schrawny, useless, persistent hunk o’ nothin’! Why the hell couldn’t ye have been a hen?”
    Finally he got up, fished weakly over the raft’s side for more weed. After all, if it hadn’t been for Clancy, he might never have discovered the tarpaulin. He found a thimbleful of tiny shellfish – but no shrimp. He lay back exhausted, and for a long time slept fitfully.
    When he woke again it was night. A cool, damp breeze brushed his face.
    He got up, fumbled in the jet blackness, managed to raise and clew out the sail. His hands tightened on the rudder log as the raft surged sluggishly forward and his eyes stabbed the intense dark for a star, a horizon. There was none. For all he knew, he might be driving deeper into the Sargasso, farther away from shipping lanes.
    After what seemed two hours or more, the breeze died. The raft rocked uncomfortably upon an increasing swell. Captain O’Toole lay on his back, conserving energy. Somewhere near he could hear Clancy’s anxious clucking.
    Another day came. Fog hung about him, heavy and opaque. He spent hours looking for shrimp and found only four.
    He glared at Clancy. The red cock was silent now. His wings drooped, and occasionally he gulped weakly as if the diet of salty shellfish had sickened him. Captain O’Toole took out his knife.
    “Another day o’ this and ye’ll not be fit for a buzzard to eat.” His voice was a thick croak. “I don’t like to do this, ye scamp, but a man must wet his throat.”
    Clancy arched his head. In the gesture there was something fearless, proud, defiant – and trusting.
    Captain O’Toole ran a furry tongue over his cracked lips. Slowly he closed the knife and put it back in his pocket. “Mebbe,” he said, “ ’twould be better if I waited till tomorrow.”
    The sun went down, the black dark came again. Captain O’Toole tried to sleep, could not. He knew now that the whole thing was hopeless. Even if the fog cleared and the wind came, it would take a week of good sailing weather to move the raft within sight of ships.
    He’d been a fool to get his hopes up so. He leaned back against the tiller, trying to assure himself that by the time a man has reached fifty he is an unreasonable lubber to expect much from the future.
    But it was hard. Dammit, there were several things he would like to do before he threw up the sponge. One of these was to stop at San Juan and chin with Jake Lawley, the ship chandler and trader. He hadn’t thought about it before, but Lawley was one man on earth he could call a friend. Lawley had never tried to squeeze him like other outfitters, and was always ready with a loan.
    Captain O’Toole croaked a dry curse, and shook his fist at the black fog.
    He heard Clancy flap awake, then crow hoarsely.
    The fog seemed to echo the sound, fling it back in a faint, pure, high note. Fog, Captain O’Toole reflected, could play queer tricks at times.
    Clancy attempted another crow, but his voice cracked to a dull squawk.
    The echo came again, faint, high, as pure as before.
    Captain O’Toole lurched upright, knees unsteady. The sound wasn’t an echo – it was another cock crowing!
    He was tense now, ears straining. From which direction had it come? Dead ahead, or to starboard?
    He began thrashing the rudder log in a frenzied sculling motion. The other cock might be a mile away. Impossible to tell; sounds traveled a long way over water. His eyes stabbed the darkness, searching for a light. He saw nothing.
    After what seemed a millennium, the sail rattled faintly in a cat’s-paw of a breeze and the raft rocked forward.
    “Damn ye, Clancy!” he urged. “Crow! For the love o’ God, crow!”
    Clancy remained silent. O’Toole tried to shout. His voice was without carrying power. He steered blindly, judging direction by the passage of air over his cheek.
    Time passed. The sky lightened perceptibly on his right. That helped; he had his bearings now – but was he going in the right direction?
    A feeble, ghostly squawk came from Clancy’s throat. He was answered.
    * * *
    The raft veered downwind. It was almost dawn now. Several minutes later Captain O’Toole saw a vague shape ahead. It gradually took form, became a small, trim ketch riding low in the water, mainsail fluttering in the breeze. She was down by the head; her mizzen had been snapped off ten feet above the cockpit, and her starboard rail was nearly awash. Farther on he made out the ship’s boat. It contained three men.
    “Ahoy, ketch!” O’Toole croaked.
    The small boat stopped. Someone hailed him in Spanish.
    “Hola! Amigos!” he croaked back in the same language. “Can you give me a lift?”
    “A lift? Sacred Mother! Who are you?”
    “O’Toole, o’ the Belle o’ Panama,” he answered. “Three mortal days I’ve been driftin’.”
    The raft rocked by the ketch, hove to in the lee of the ship’s boat. O’Toole’s feverish eyes caught the name on the ship’s stern. A Puerto Rican trader, in trouble. “For the love of heaven, amigos, give me a drink of water!”
    He tottered across the raft, clutched the boat’s gunwale. A squat, swarthy man in the stern sheets picked up a boathook and thrust O’Toole’s raft away.
    “Caramba! Keep your distance, Señor. It is a long run to land, and we are in no mood for a passenger. If you wish water, go aboard the Doña Serena and get it. There is much water in the hold.”
    O’Toole got to his knees, blank amazement on his swollen face. “Ye – ye dir-r-rthy yellow-bellied sons o’ heathens!” he rasped, thirst forgotten. “Ye’re for-gittin’ the code o’ the sea!”
    The two men sitting on a pile of dunnage half rose. One drew a knife.
    “Back, Carlos,” the squat man ordered. “Use your energy to help Ramon step the mast. We have a long week ahead.” He swung to O’Toole. “If you would drink, Senor,” he. said in good English, “I suggest that you hurry. The Dona scraped a bit of coral. I give her five minutes before she goes to the bottom. And I hope you enjoy the drink. She is ballasted with sugar! Adios!”
    A sail fluttered in the bow and the boat surged off through the fog.
    “The hell ye scraped coral!” O’Toole yelled. “Ye’ve been under gunfire. That mast was shot off!”
    His only answer was a muffled curse.
    * * *
    The balsa raft bumped against the Doña’s starboard rail. With a line in his hand, O’Toole splashed through the swell lapping the deck. He snapped the line about a stanchion, lurched toward the after companionway.
    Dry lips mumbling a prayer, he slipped through sticky water that reached to his waist, groping for the galley. If the brine hadn’t reached the fresh-water pump—
    He found the pump, worked it frantically, and suddenly clear, fresh water gurgled into his mouth. Captain O’Toole drank deeply, abruptly tore himself away as he felt the Doña roll under his feet.
    He had to find a bucket, a cask, anything to hold water – and find it quickly.
    His eyes probed the galley, the cabin forward, saw nothing. He was lunging up the companion ladder when his feet struck a floating wine jug. He splashed back to the pump, filled the jug and tumbled up on deck.
    At the raft he stopped short. “Clancy!” he bellowed. “Clancy! Where are ye?”
    Clancy was not on the raft. The crazy, brainless chicken! Somehow, he couldn’t leave it behind.
    He stumbled over the deck, stared again at the raft, halted. His eyes flicked along the ship’s side, at the open hatches, the Doña’s upraised stern. That quick scrutiny, with thirty years of sea-wisdom behind it, gave birth to a dangerous but brilliant chain of thought.
    * * *
    He whirled, ran the length of the ship, closed the companion doors, slammed the hatches tight. His knife gleamed open, and he slashed at lines from the broken mizzen, heaving them to the raft. Now he leaped down, his knife flashing among the balsa logs.
    The balsa’s sail went by the board. Pour quick slashes and the raft parted in the center. He jumped to the outer half, encircled it with a line, and gaining the Doña’s rail again, towed the great pile of balsa logs forward.
    With the hatches closed, there was air enough between decks to keep the Doña afloat an hour or more. If her leak were a small one, things could be done about it – it all depended on the balsa logs.
    He managed to wedge the logs under the Doña’s stem and lashed them tight, making the lines fast to the bitts and running braces to the stays.
    That done, he ran back for the other half of the raft, towed it astern. He wedged it in the same manner under the transom, fastening the lines to the stump of the mizzen mast.
    The Doña Serena shifted, settled, seemed to straighten. He crawled to the rail to watch the water line. Minutes passed. At either end he could see the piles of balsa logs; the ship rested upon them, pressed them down till they were barely awash. Would they hold?
    They should. A balsa log was as good as a pontoon of the same size.
    They held. And with the knowledge, O’Toole sprawled into the cockpit well, overcome with hunger, fatigue and relief.
    Dazedly, he thought of Clancy. What had happened to the red devil? He struggled painfully upright, threw open the after hatch and let himself down the companion ladder. He moved anxiously through waist-high water, eyes searching; meanwhile, his hands explored cupboards, crammed stray items of food into his mouth, cans into his pockets.
    Clancy was not in this part of the ship. He splashed back, gained the deck, and ripped off the cargo hatch.
    He caught a glimpse of the red cock on the upper rung of the ladder, hackles flaring. Then something fluttered upward. Wings beat against his face; a gray form ran squawking toward the bow.
    * * *
    O’Toole spun out of the way, staring. It was a big gray rooster. Clancy came behind him, wings beating weakly. Murder gleamed from his little red eyes. He was three days without water and had hardly the strength to stand – but Clancy was a gamecock, and fighting was the breath of life.
    O’Toole roared, swooped him up and carried him aft. “Why, ye blhoody, fire-spittin’ devil! Ye wouldn’t pick on a poor, scared little rooster what’s only twice yer size – an’ him savin’ our lives by crowin’ for us! Shame on ye!”
    He opened a tin of sausages with his knife, filled the empty tin with water, crumbed a biscuit, and watched Clancy eat.
    Captain O’Toole lay dozing, until the hot sun drove him to his feet. He couldn’t rest yet; he had to find that leak.
    He noted that the fog had nearly burned off, and that the Doña’s mainsail was slatting faintly. The Doña’s boat couldn’t have gone far; the breeze was hardly strong enough. He was starting down the cargo hatch when a sound forward brought him up with a jerk.
    The swarthy man was sliding over the port rail, a pistol in his hand. Behind him came Carlos and Ramon.
    The short man smiled. “Imagine our surprise, Senor, when the fog lifted and we saw the Doña Serena still afloat. Balsa logs, eh? You are very clever, Senor. Thank you for saving my ship.”
    Captain O’Toole’s jaw went hard. “Your ship? Your ship? By the thunderin’ Jehoshaphat an’ the laws o’ salvage, ’tis my ship now!”
    “Ah, no, Señor. I, Captain Francisco Barros, am still the owner and master of the Doña Serena. We are a long way from a court of admiralty.”
    “An’ pretty damn anxious not to reach a court o’ admiralty!” O’Toole growled. “From the piratical looks o’ the three o’ ye, I’d say they’d hang ye on sight.”
    “Enough!” snapped Barros. “Ramon, put away your knife. Tie his hands!”
    Ramon scowled. “Por que – why? We cannot afford to have him with us!”
    “Do as I say. There is work to be done. The Irish ox can help – for a few days.”
    O’Toole’s eyes became pin points of blue flame. They flicked from Ramon to Carlos, and to the pistol Barros held steadily. He might handle the first two, but the pistol defied argument.
    As Ramon approached with a piece of rope, O’Toole’s big hands bunched in his pockets. He measured the distance between himself and Barros, and his mind groped futilely for a plan.
    “Out with your hands!” snapped Barros. “You can be thankful we need you, or you’d go the way of some others I met. Perhaps you do not recognize—”
    He was interrupted by a frightened squawk. A gray rooster ran between his legs, collided against O’Toole, in a frenzied effort to escape something.
    A smaller, red shape flashed into sight. Abruptly the air was filled with flying feathers. In the center of it, a whirling ball of movement, was Clancy.
    Captain O’Toole’s fists came out of his pockets with the speed of six-inch shells from a cannon. Each was encased in a wicked brass knuckle. One of them exploded with a shell’s force against Barros’ jaw. Barros did not see it coming, for he was occupied in evading the flashing silver needles on Clancy’s legs. Barros dropped his pistol and described a backward somersault over the Doña’s rail and into the boat.
    All in the same motion, Captain O’Toole’s left fist raked Ramon’s lean nose, practically unhinging it. His right came up again, drove past Carlos’ knife, and permanently changed the shape of that snarling gentleman’s face.
    "Mil diablos!” Ramon screamed. He made a flying dive for the pistol, seized it, and for a second Captain O’Toole stared at death. A shot burned past his neck, and then his brass knuckles exploded Ramon into a shuddering heap.
    O’Toole whirled. “Ye blhoody, piratical sons o’—” He halted, peered about in disappointment. He was just getting wound up, and the thing was over.
    He dumped Carlos and Ramon into the boat beside Barros, jerked the mooring loose and kicked the boat away. “An’ don’t come back,” he ordered. “I might git cantankerous next time.”
    He watched while someone feebly trimmed the sail and the Doña’s boat moved slowly southward. He turned, hauled in on the Doña’s mainsheet, and went back to the wheel. The Doña Serena crept sluggishly downwind. Somewhere forward, Clancy crowed defiantly.
    * * *
    Three weeks later the Doña Serena limped into the harbor of San Juan and dropped her hook near Jake Lawley’s pier. She floated fairly high now, and the balsa logs had been transferred to two neatly lashed bundles at her sides.
    When Lawley came aboard he stared at the unusually thin but more than ordinarily cheerful Captain O’Toole. “Shamus, you bald-headed buck crocodile! I heard the sharks had eaten you!”
    O’Toole spat. “They tried to, but it made ’em a mite sick.”
    “Where in the thundering creation did you pick up this ketch? It belongs to that rebel, Barros. He killed a couple of officials and lit out on the Doña. A gunboat took after him, but he got away.”
    “I declare,” said O’Toole. “Kinda been missin’ the news lately. Can’t imagine what happened to Barros. But the Doña’s mine now. Salvage. Had a fine time patchin’ that shell hole in her bottom; plugged it with rags an’ stuff. Funny thing about sugar. It’s good commercial ballast, though when it gits wet, ye can’t handle it. But if it gits wet enough, it’ll dissolve an’ ye can pump it out.”
    “What the devil are you talking about?”
    “Nothin’. When I git the proper papers signed, Jake, reckon ye can have the Doña fixed up for me? She’ll make a sweet tradin’ craft. I got a mint o’ money in balsa that’ll take care o’ the expense. An’ say, have ye got some chicken feed ye can send aboard?”
    Lawley blinked. “Chicken feed?”
    “Yeah. The finest doggone chicken feed money can buy!”

    1937
    (Hearst's International-Cosmopolitan [Hearst's International Combined with Cosmopolitan], vol. 102, #1, January, pp.46-47,75-76)

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