Trustee From the Toolroom (27 page)

His wife, pretty and kittenish, came downstairs from the bedroom floor, with their two daughters, twelve and ten years old. 'Who was that, hon?' she asked,

' Sol Hirzhorn,' he replied. ' I'll have to go and see him in the morning.'

'Oh, honey! Won't it do on Monday?'

He shook his head. ' I'm afraid not. Not when Sol Hirzhorn takes the trouble to find me here and ring me personally.'

She sighed, but she did not complain further. Men were like that, always putting business first - but after all, Sol Hirzhorn was Sol Hirzhorn. To her, born and bred in the state of Washington, the name was a household word, and she shared in the reflected glory of her husband's coming visit to Sol Hirzhorn in his fabulous home at Wauna. She said, 'Well, come and eat, anyway.'

'Just a few minutes,' he replied. ' I'll have to call Chuck about this.'

'Oh, honey!'

'He'll be going to bed,' he explained. He glanced at the watch upon his wrist. ' It's ten o'clock right now in Cincinnati.'

She left him, and took the children into the dining room. He turned again to the telephone, and presently he was speaking to his employer in his home. ' I don't know what it is he wants, Mr Ferris,' he said. 'But it's about the Flume River mill, and it's business.'

' Say, that's great news,' said Mr Ferris. 'What was it that we quoted for the whole job? Just under two million, wasn't it?'

' Seventeen hundred thousand and some odd dollars,' said his representative. 'What will I say if he only wants to do a part of it?'

'String him along, 'n call me as soon as you can. In that case I'd not go back to New York. I'd fly right out and be with you Sunday afternoon. He shouldn't split that job. I'd try to talk him out of it. It's not giving the system a fair trial.'

They talked a little longer. 'I guess I'll call you anyway, soon as I get away from him,' Mr Rockawin said. 'You'll be home tomorrow?'

'Sure I'll be home,' said Mr Ferris. 'This is big news. I '11 just sit right here looking at the television, waiting for your call.'

Mr Ferris was a smaH, dynamic man with auburn hair, fifty-three years old. The war had made him what he was. In 1934 he had been a draughtsman in an aircraft drawing office, specializing upon undercarriage legs and on aircraft hydraulics generally. He had considerable inventive genius and even more business acumen. With the growth of aviation he had left the drawing office and had started a tiny specialist business in Cincinnati, working on a shoestring, getting all his machined parts made out by sub contract. He had never looked back. His business had grown astronomically with the war; by 1945 he was the president of a

twenty-million-dollar corporation, with a business that was comparable with that of Solomon P. Hirzhorn.

For years he had wanted to get his finger into the lumber industry, which he considered to be antiquated in its equipment, judged by aircraft standards. Moreover, although his business was doing well, there was little doubt that rockets and guided missiles would replace the manned aircraft in the future to a large degree. Guided missiles were not well suited to hydraulic units, and even piloted aeroplanes were now flying at such altitudes that special precautions, with increased complexity, had to be taken to prevent the hydraulic fluid boiling in the pipes. He had already switched a considerable proportion of his manufacturing capacity to the automotive industry; the lumber business was another one. As a hydraulic engineer, he was turning his attention more and more to things that stayed on the ground.

He did his best to delegate authority, but his business grew too quickly; as soon as he found a man to take one section off his shoulders another enterprise was starting up, needing his guiding hand for the first year or so. In 1952 he had a nervous breakdown and spent three months in a very expensive home. He came out mentally refreshed and fit as a flea, divorced his wife and married another one, and began working sixteen hours a day again. In 1956 he had another breakdown, and went back into the home. This time his doctors impressed on him that he really must do less work and find more interests. They suggested a long sea voyage.

He did not want to die, and so he bought a large schooner yacht, the
Flying Cloud,
that had been built for a cinema magnate who committed suicide for an unmentionable reason. He had actually voyaged in her on his second emergence from the mental home across the Pacific and as far as Sydney. By that time he was so bored that he left her and sank into the deep chair of a Pan American airliner with an audible sigh of relief; in two days he was back in his office at Cincinnati and at work. Since then he had conscientiously tried to use his big yacht as his doctors had recommended, and he was actually on board her two or three times a year; each time intending a month's cruise or longer. Each time the office drew him back as with a magnet, because he had no other interest in his liie except his very fleeting loves.

He sat in his home on Paxton Avenue between the Observatory and the Country Club, and waited for the call from Jim Rockawin. It came at about three in the afternoon, noon on the West coast. 'Look, Mr Ferris,' said his representative, ' this isn't just what I thought.'

'No business?' asked his employer sharply.

' I think he's going to order presently, but he's not ordering just yet. Emmanuel was there, the eldest son. They wanted to know if they could use the existing power house with the steam plant in it - throw out the steam plant and put our diesel motors and hydraulic generators in it. It's 380 feet from the first conveyor. It's not a proposition, really, but I said that I'd go over Monday and take a look at it with them.' He paused. 'What Sol Hirzhorn really wanted was something different.'

'What's that?'

' He wants to borrow your yacht.'

' For crying out loud!' said Mr Ferris.' What does he want with that? Go for a sail in it?'

' No. He wants to use it. Say, Mr Ferris, this is going to be mighty difficult to explain over the long-distance line. You got a tape machine there, so you could read it over later and make up your mind ?'

'Sure I've got a tape. Wait while I fix it up.' There was a pause, and then he said, 'Go ahead.'

The representative had been collecting his thoughts during the pause, and when he spoke it was clearly and lucidly. ' Some years ago Mr Hirzhorn had a bad spell with his health, and his doctors told him he must get himself a hobby in his home. Well, he started a workshop - not a wood workshop like the rest of us, but a real engineering workshop with lathes, milling machines, shapers, a drill press, oxyacetylene welding, and God knows what. He took me down and showed me. I never saw anything like it. That's where he spends most of his spare time now. He's making some kind of a clock.'

The tape reel rolled slowly, steadily, as he spoke. He told the whole story, reading out the carbon copy of the letter froin Mr McNeil to Professor O'Leary at Ann Arbor that he had got from Julie. 'Well, that's the way it is, Mr Ferris,' he said at last. ' He wants to borrow the
Flying Cloud
to go down to Tahiti and pick up these boys on their fishing boat, and do whatever this Keith Stewart wants to do, and bring him back to Tacoma so that Sol Hirzhorn can talk to him about his clock before he goes back to England. He'll pay you charter money, of course. I know this all sounds screwy, but that's the way it is.'

' You think he's going to convert that mill, Jim ?'

'I'm.sure he is, Mr Ferris.'

'Is he dickering with anybody else?'

' I don't think so. I don't think he'd do that. When the time comes he'll try to beat us down on the price-.'

' Sure, sure.' That was a commonplace.' Well, he can have the yacht, of course. Tell him that right away. Regarding charter money, it won't cost him a cent if he puts an order with us. Otherwise - oh, tell him that we'll let him know. I've never chartered it before. No - tell him he can have it free, as long as he likes.'

'Whether he puts an order with us or not?'

'That's right. I shan't be using it.'

'I think that's very wise, boss, if I may say so. Sol's going to be very pleased.'

'Okay, okay. I'll play this tape back and call Captain Petersen. Now, you go over Monday and string them along. Better call me again Monday night, around six o'clock your time.'

Keith Stewart sat on the deck of the
Mary Belle
that Saturday afternoon twelve days out from Honolulu, while Jack Donelly slept below. He was very different now from the fat, rather unhealthy little man who had sailed upon the
Maty Belle.
Five days of seasickness had made him noticeably slimmer and more competent in his appearance. That had been over for a week. He now knew the sails and ropes by name and what they did. He could not yet pull down a reef alone, or he had never done so, but he knew how it was done.

He still wore the tattered Panama hat as a protection from the midday sun, and he still wore the cricket shirt at night and when the sun began to burn, but most of the time he went clothed only in a pair of bathing shorts, and barefoot; from frequently stubbing his toes he had charted the position of every eyebolt in the deck and now avoided them. He was a very different man from the Keith Stewart who had boarded the aeroplane at Blackbushe.

By his noon latitude observations and by Jack's dead reckoning he judged that they were now about two degrees and forty minutes north of the Equator, about abreast of Christmas Island and probably two or three hundred miles to the east of it. Jack thought that they were closer than that. They had seen a patch of floating seaweed early that morning, and he had viewed it with concern.' It could have come from anywhere,' Keith had protested.

'Not from the east it couldn't,' Jack grumbled. 'Seaweed don't last more 'n a few weeks in the sea. I never seen seaweed more 'n 300 miles from land, 'n that only when there's been an offshore gale. Want to put the thinking cap on for this.'

Later, in the
Pacific Islands Pilot,
Keith had found some evidence of an east-going current in the vicinity of Christmas Island at that season of the year. Jack grunted when he told him. ' I guess we're well away down to leeward,' he grumbled. 'Give me a shake up if you see any birds.' He went down below to sleep.

Later that afternoon Keith saw something better than a bird; he saw the smoke of a steamer. It appeared broad on the starboard bow on the horizon and grew fairly rapidly. It was the second ship that they had seen since leaving Honolulu, and Keith watched it with interest. Presently he could see the hull above the horizon, and realized that it was going to pass fairly close to them.

He called Jack Donelly from his sleep.

The captain put his head out of the hatch and studied the position.' Bear up a little,' he said. He pointed with the flat of his hand at the direction he wanted Keith to steer to intercept the steamer, or pass close to her. Keith put down the helm and pulled in the main sheet and then the fore-sheet. 'That's okay,' said Jack. 'Keep her as you go.'

'What are you going to do?' asked Keith.

The captain looked at him in surprise. ' Why, stop her 'n ask where we are,' he said. It seemed the most natural thing to him. To Keith it seemed an appalling thing to do; this was a big ship, costing millions of pounds. But he was new to the sea, and he said nothing.

Jack said, 'We'll need a board.' He thought for a moment, vanished down below, and reappeared with the lid of the locker under his bunk, and, mysteriously, a piece of chalk. 'I'll take her,' he said, going to the helm. 'You write better 'n what I do. Put,
want position.'
A sudden doubt assailed him. 'Suppose they give it on a board in this latitude and longitude. You know how to put that out upon the chart'n say where we are?'

Keith said, ' I can do that.' He bent to his task, making the letters as bold and clear as he could, and adding the word
please,
which seemed quite unnecessary to his captain. Then he took the helm again while Jack went below, and reappeared with a large flag of the United States, which he bent on to the burgee halliards and hauled to the masthead upside down. He viewed it with satisfaction. 'It's a great thing to belong to a wonderful country like the ole United States,' he remarked. 'I mean, you Britishers, nobody wouldn't know if your Union Jack was upside down or not. But with Old Glory, there's no mistaking.'

The ship drew nearer on an intercepting course. She was a tanker, light in the water, painted grey all over like a battleship, and wearing the Blue Ensign. In fact she was a Fleet oiler that had discharged her cargo at Christmas Island and was now on her way back to England through the Panama Canal, but they had no means of knowing that. When she was less than half a mile away and they could hear the noise of her engines above the noises of their own passage they held up their board. Her engines slowed and stopped. Jack took the helm and put the ship about to windward, and let all sheets draw, and sailed down the length of her, Keith holding up their board. From the bridge an officer scrutinized it through glasses, waved to them in acknowledgement, and vanished inside. At the stern of the tanker Jack gibed the mainsail and sailed up the length of her again.

Two officers appeared upon the bridge holding a blackboard. The figures on it read,' Lat. 02° 50' N., Long. 156° 55' W.'

Keith copied the figures down carefully, and went below and set them out upon his chart. He reappeared at the hatch. 'We're only seventy-four miles from Christmas Island,' he said.