The voice in the fog

The Seriphus was a ten thousand ton, straight bow ocean tanker, and her history was the common one of Clyde-built ships--a voyage here and a passage there, charters by strange oil companies, petrol for Brazil, crude petroleum that went to Asia (for anointment purposes among the heathen) and once there was a hurried call to some unpronounceable Aegean port where the Seriphus acted against the Turks in their flare-up after the Great War.

The ordinary and usual--the up and down the trade routes--passed away from the Seriphus when Ezra Morgan, senior captain in the service of William Henningay and Son, took over the tanker and drove her bow into strange Eastern seas, loading with oil at California and discharging cargo in a hundred unknown ports.

Of Ezra Morgan it was said that he had the daring of a Norseman and the thrift of a Maine Yankee; he worked the Seriphus for everything the tanker could give William Henningay and Son; he ranted against the outlandish people of the Orient and traded with them, on the side, for all that he could gain for his own personal benefit.

Trading skippers and engineers with an inclination toward increasing wage by rum-running and smuggling were common in the Eastern service. Ezra Morgan’s rival in that direction aboard the Seriphus ruled the engine-room and took pride in declaring that every passage was a gold mine for the skipper and himself.

The chief engineer of the Seriphus saw no glory in steam, save dollars; he mopped up oil to save money. His name was Paul Richter--a brutal-featured man given to boasting about his daughter, ashore, and what a lady he was making of her.

Paul Richter--whom Morgan hated and watched--was far too skilled in anything pertaining to steam and its ramifications to be removed from his position aboard the Seriphus. Henningay, Senior, believed in opposing forces on his many tankers--it led to rivalry and efficiency, instead of close-headedness and scheming against owners.

The Seriphus, after a round passage to Laichau Bay, which is in the Gulf of Pechili, returned to San Francisco and was dry-docked near Oakland, for general overhauling.

Richter, after making an exact and detailed report to Henningay, Jr., visited the opera, banked certain money he had made on the round-passage, then went south to his daughter’s home. He found trouble in the house; Hylda, his daughter, had a heart affair with a marine electrician, Gathright by name, a young man with a meager wage and unbounded ambition.

Through the Seven Seas, from the time of his Bavarian wife’s death, from cancer of the breast, Richter, chief engineer of the Seriphus, had sweated, slaved, saved and smuggled contraband from port in order to say:

“This is my daughter! Look at her!”

Now, as Richter discovered, Hylda, twenty-seven years of age, somewhat prim and musical, had given her promise to an electrician whom the engineer believed was not fit to dust her shoes. Richter, used to breaking and thrashing coolie oilers, ordered Gathright from the house and locked up his daughter.

She cried for seven days. Gathright was seen in town. Richter’s rage gave way to an engineer’s calculation.

“What for I study in University and college? Why do I hold certificates? I fix Gathright!”