The Brassbounder Part 1

The Bra.s.sbounder.

by David W. Bone.

I

THE 'BLUE PETER'

Ding ... dong.... Ding ... dong. The university bells toll out in strength of tone that tells of south-west winds and misty weather. On the street below my window familiar city noises, unheeded by day, strike tellingly on the ear--hoof-strokes and rattle of wheels, tramp of feet on the stone flags, a s.n.a.t.c.h of song from a late reveller, then silence, broken in a little by the deep mournful note of a steamer's siren, wind-borne through the Kelvin Valley, or the shrilling of an engine whistle that marks a driver impatient at the junction points.

Sleepless, I think of my coming voyage, of the long months--years, perhaps--that will come and go ere next I lie awake hearkening to the night voices of my native city. My days of holiday--an all too brief spell of comfort and sh.o.r.e living--are over; another peal or more of the familiar bells and my emissary of the fates--a Gorbals cabman, belike--will be at the door, ready to set me rattling over the granite setts on the direct road that leads by Bath Street, Finnieston, and Cape Horn--to San Francisco. A long voyage and a hard. And where next? No one seems to know! Anywhere where wind blows and square-sail can carry a freight. At the office on Sat.u.r.day, the shipping clerk turned his palms out at my questioning.

"Home again, perhaps. The colonies! Up the Sound or across to j.a.pan,"

he said, looking in his _Murray's Diary_ and then at the clock, to see if there was time for him to nip home for his clubs and catch the 1.15 for Kilmacolm.

Nearly seventeen months of my apprenticeship remain to be served.

Seventeen months of a hard sea life, between the masts of a starvation Scotch barque, in the roughest of seafaring, on the long voyage, the stormy track leading westward round the Horn.

It will be February or March when we get down there. Not the worst months, thank Heaven! but bad enough at the best. And we'll be badly off this voyage, for the owners have taken two able seamen off our complement. "Hard times!" they will be saying. Aye! hard times--for us, who will now have to share two men's weight in working our heavily sparred barque.

Two new apprentices have joined. Poor little devils! they don't know what it is. It seemed all very fine to that wee chap from Inverary who came with his father to see the ship before he joined. How the eyes of him glinted as he looked about, proud of his bra.s.s-bound clothes and badge cap. And the Mate, all smiles, showing them over the ship and telling the old Hielan' clergyman what a fine vessel she was, and what an interest he took in boys, and what fine times they had on board ship, and all that! Ah yes--fine times! It's as well the old chap doesn't know what he is sending his son to! How can he? We know--but we don't tell.... Pride! Rotten pride! We come home from our first voyage sick of it all.... Would give up but for pride.... Afraid to be called 'stuck sailors' ... of the sneers of our old schoolmates....

So we come home in a great show of bravery and swagger about in our bra.s.s-bound uniform and lie finely about the fine times we had ... out there! ... And then nothing will do but Jimmy, next door, must be off to the sea too--to come back and play the same game on young Alick!

That's the way of it! ...

Then when the Mate and them came to the half-deck, it was: "Oh yes, Sir! This is the boys' quarters. Well! Not always like that, Sir--when we get away to sea, you know, and get things shipshape. Oh, well no! There's not much room aboard ship, you see. This is one of our boys--Mister Jones." (Jones, looking like a miller's man--he had been stowing ship's biscuits in the tanks--grinned foolishly at the Mate's introduction: 'Mister!') "We're very busy just now, getting ready for sea. Everything's in a mess, as you see, Sir. Only joined, myself, last week. But, oh yes! It will be all right when we get to sea--when we get things shipshape and settled down, Sir!"

Oh yes! Everything will be all right then, eh? Especially when we get down off the Horn, and the dingy half-deck will be awash most of the time with icy water. The owners would do nothing to it this trip, in spite of our complaints. They sent a young man down from the office last week who poked at the covering boards with his umbrella and wanted to know what we were growling at. Wish we had him out there--off Diego Ramirez. Give him something to growl at with the ship working, and green seas on deck, and the water lashing about the floor of the house, washing out the lower bunks, bed and bedding, and soaking every st.i.tch of the clothing that we had fondly hoped would keep us moderately dry in the next bitter night watch. And when (as we try with trembling, benumbed fingers to buckle on the sodden clothes) the ill-hinged door swings to, and a rush of water and a blast of icy wind chills us to the marrow, it needs but a hoa.r.s.e, raucous shout from without to crown the summit of misery. "Out there, the watch! Turn out!" in tone that admits of no protest. "Turn out, d.a.m.n ye, an' stand-by t' wear ship!"

(A blast of wind and rain rattles on my window-pane. _Ugh_! I turn the more cosily amid my blankets.)

Oh yes! He would have something to growl at, that young man who asked if the 'Skipp-ah' was aboard, and said he "was deshed if he could see what we hed to complain of."

He would learn, painfully, that a ship, snugly moored in the south-east corner of the Queen's Dock (stern-on to a telephone call-box), and the same craft, labouring in the teeth of a Cape Horn gale, present some points of difference; that it is a far cry from 58 South to the Clyde Repair Works, and that the business of shipping is not entirely a matter of ledgers.

Oh well! Just have to stick it, though. After all, it won't always be hard times. Think of the long, sunny days drowsing along down the 'Trades,' of the fine times out there in 'Frisco, of joys of strenuous action greater than the shipping clerk will ever know, even if he should manage to hole out in three. Seventeen months! It will soon pa.s.s, and I'll be a free man when I get back to Glasgow again.

Seventeen months, and then--then----

Ding ... dong.... Ding ... dong.... Ding dong....

Quarter to! With a sigh for the comfort of a life ash.o.r.e, I rise and dress. Through the window I see the Square, shrouded in mist, the nearer leafless shrubs swaying in the chill wind, pavement glistening in the flickering light of street lamps. A dismal morning to be setting off to the sea! Portent of head winds and foul weather that we may meet in Channel before the last of Glasgow's grime and smoke-wrack is blown from the rigging.

A stir in the next room marks another rising. Kindly old '_Ding ...

dong_' has called a favourite brother from his rest to give me convoy to the harbour.

Ready for the road, he comes to my room. Sleepy-eyed, yawning. "Four o'clock! _Ugh_! Who ever heard of a man going to sea at four in the morning! Ought to be a bright summer's day, and the sun shining and flags flying an'----" A choked laugh.

"Glad I'm not a sailorman to be going out on a morning like this! Sure you've remembered everything? Your cab should be here now. Just gone four. Heard the bells as I was dressing----"

Rattle of wheels on the granite setts--sharp, metallic ring of shod heels--a moment of looking for a number--a ring of the door-bell.

"Perty that's tae gang doon tae th' Queen's Dock wi' luggage.... A'

richt, Mister! Ah can cairry them ma'sel'.... Aye! Weel! Noo that ye menshun it, Sur ... oon a mornin' like this.... Ma respeks, gents!"

There are no good-byes: the last has been said the night before. There could be no enthusiasm at four on a raw November's morning; it is best that I slip out quietly and take my seat, with a last look at the quiet street, the darkened windows, the quaint, familiar belfry of St. Jude's.

"A' richt, Sur. G'up, mere! Haud up, mere, ye!"

At a corner of the Square the night policeman, yawning whole-heartedly, peers into the cab to see who goes. There is nothing to investigate; the sea-chest, sailor-bag, and bedding, piled awkwardly on the 'd.i.c.key,' tell all he wants to know.

"A sailor for aff!"

Jingling his keys, he thinks maybe of the many 'braw laads' from Lochinver who go the same hard road.

Down the deserted wind-swept streets we drive steadily on, till house lights glinting behind the blinds and hurrying figures of a 'night-shift' show that we are near the river and the docks. A turn along the waterside, the dim outlines of the ships and tracery of mast and spar looming large and fantastic in the darkness, and the driver, questioning, brings up at a dim-lit shed, bare of goods and cargo--the berth of a full-laden outward-bounder. My barque--the _Florence_, of Glasgow--lies in a corner of the dock, ready for sea. Tugs are churning the muddy water alongside, getting into position to drag her from the quay wall; the lurid side-light gleams on a small knot of well-wishers gathered at the forward gangway exchanging parting words with the local seamen of our crew. I have cut my time but short.

"Come en there, you!" is my greeting from the hara.s.sed Chief Mate.

"Are you turned a ---- pa.s.senger, with your gloves and overcoat? You sh'd have been here an hour ago! Get a move on ye, now, and bear a hand with these warps.... Gad! A drunken crew an' skulkin'

'prentices, an' th' Old Man growlin' like a bear with a sore----"

Grumbling loudly, he goes forward, leaving me the minute for 'good-bye,' the late 'remembers,' the last long hand-grip.

Into the half-deck, to change hurriedly into working clothes. Time enough to note the guttering lamp, evil smell, the dismal aspect of my home afloat--then, on deck again, to haul, viciously despondent, at the cast-off mooring ropes.

Forward the crew--drunk to a man--are giving the Chief Mate trouble, and it is only when the gangway is hauled ash.o.r.e that anything can be done. The cook, lying as he fell over his sailor bag, sings, "_'t wis ye'r vice, ma gen-tul Merry!_" in as many keys as there are points in the compa.s.s, drunkenly indifferent to the farewells of a sad-faced woman, standing on the quayside with a baby in her arms. Riot and disorder is the way of things; the Mates, out of temper with the muddlers at the ropes, are swearing, pushing, coaxing--to some attempt at getting the ship unmoored. Double work for the sober ones, and for thanks--a muttered curse. Small wonder that men go drunk to the sea: the wonder is that any go sober!

At starting there is a delay. Some of the men have slipped ash.o.r.e for a last pull at a neighbourly 'hauf-mutchkin,' and at a muster four are missing. For a time we hold on at single moorings, the stern tug blowing a 'hurry-up' blast on her siren, the Captain and a River Pilot stamping on the p.o.o.p, angrily impatient. One rejoins, drunken and defiant, but of the others there is no sign. We can wait no longer.

"Let go, aft!" shouts the Captain. "Let go, an' haul in. d.a.m.n them for worthless sodjers, anyway! Mister"--to a waiting Board of Trade official--"send them t' Greenock, if ye can run them in. If not, telephone down that we're three A.B.'s short.... Lie up t' th'

norr'ard, stern tug, there. Hard a-port, Mister? All right! Let go all, forr'ard!" ... We swing into the dock pa.s.sage, from whence the figures of our friends on the misty quayside are faintly visible. The little crowd raises a weakly cheer, and one bold spirit (with his guid-brither's 'hauf-pey note' in his pocket) shouts a bar or two of "Wull ye no' come back again!" A few muttered farewells, and the sh.o.r.e folk hurry down between the wagons to exchange a last parting word at the Kelvinhaugh. '_... Dong ... ding ... DONG ... DONG...._' Set to a fanfare of steam whistles, Old Brazen Tongue of Gilmorehill tolls us benison as we steer between the pierheads. Six sonorous strokes, loud above the shrilling of workshop signals and the nearer merry jangle of the engine-house chimes.

Workmen, hurrying to their jobs, curse us for robbing them of a 'quarter,' the swing-bridge being open to let us through. "Come oon!

Hurry up wi' that auld 'jeely-dish,' an' see's a chance tae get tae wur wark," they shout in a chorus of just irritation. A facetious member of our crew shouts:

"Wot--oh, old stiy-at-'omes. Cahmin' aat t' get wandered?"--and a dockman answers:

"h.e.l.lo, Jake, 'i ye therr? Man, th' sailormen maun a' be deid when th'

Mate gied you a sicht! Jist you wait tae he catches ye fanklin' th'

cro'-jeck sheets!"

We swing slowly between the pierheads, and the workmen, humoured by the dockman's jest, give us a hoa.r.s.e cheer as they scurry across the still moving bridge. In time-honoured fashion our c.o.c.kney humorist calls for, 'Three cheers f'r ol' Pier-'ead, boys,' and such of the 'boys' as are able chant a feeble echo to his shout. The tugs straighten us up in the river, and we breast the flood cautiously, for the mist has not yet cleared and the coasting skippers are taking risks to get to their berths before the stevedores have picked their men. In the shipyards workmen are beginning their day's toil, the lowe of their flares light up the gaunt structures of ships to be. Sharp at the last wailing note of the whistle, the din of strenuous work begins, and we are fittingly drummed down the reaches to a merry tune of clanging hammers--the shipyard chorus "Let Glasgow flourish!"

Dawn finds us off Bowling, and as the fog clears gives us misty views of the Kilpatrick Hills. Ahead, Dumbarton Rock looms up, gaunt and misty, sentinel o'er the lesser heights. South, the Renfrew sh.o.r.e stretches broadly out under the brightening sky--the wooded Elderslie slopes and distant hills, and, nearer, the shoal ground behind the lang d.y.k.e where screaming gulls circle and wheel. The setting out is none so ill now, with G.o.d's good daylight broad over all, and the flags flying--the 'Blue Peter' fluttering its message at the fore.

On the p.o.o.p, the Captain (the 'Old Man,' be he twenty-one or fifty) paces to and fro--a short sailor walk, with a pause now and then to mark the steering or pa.s.s a word with the River Pilot. Of medium height, though broad to the point of ungainliness, Old Jock Leish (in his ill-fitting broadcloth sh.o.r.e-clothes) might have pa.s.sed for a prosperous farmer, but it needed only a glance at the keen grey eyes peering from beneath bushy eyebrows, the determined set of a square lower jaw, to note a man of action, accustomed to command. A quick, alert turn of the head, the lift of shoulders as he walked--arms swinging in seaman-like balance--and the trick of pausing at a windward turn to glance at the weather sky, marked the sailing shipmaster--the man to whom thought and action must be as one.

Pausing at the binnacle to note the direction of the wind, he gives an exclamation of disgust.

"A 'dead muzzler,' Pilot. No sign o' a slant in the trend o' th' upper clouds. Sou'west, outside, I'm afraid.... Mebbe it's just as weel; we'll have t' bring up at th' Tail o' th' Bank, anyway, for these three hands, d.a.m.n them.... An' th' rest are useless.... Drunk t' a man, th'