The Brassbounder Part 12

Nathan put up the price.

"Give me gravediggers or organ-grinders, boys, if ye kyan't get sailormen," he was reported to have said. "Anything with two hands an'

feet. I guess I'm Jan--K.--Nathan, and they'll be sailormen or 'stiffs' before we reach aout!" No one knew where she got a crew, but while the Britishers were awaiting semi-lawful service, Jan K. slipped out through the night, getting the boarding-house runners to set sail for him before they left the _Flint_ with her crew of drugged longsh.o.r.emen. At the end of the week we got three more men. Granger, a Liverpool man, who had been working in the Union Ironworks, and, "sick o' th' beach," as he put it, wanted to get back to sea again.

Pat Hogan, a merry-faced Irishman, who signed as cook (much to the joy of Houston, who had been the 'food spoiler' since McEwan cleared). The third was a lad, Cutler, a runaway apprentice, who had been working ash.o.r.e since his ship had sailed. It was said that he had been 'conducting' a tramcar to his own immediate profit and was anxious. We were still six hands short, but, on the morning after a Yankee clipper came in from New York, we towed out--with three prostrate figures lying huddled among the raffle in the fo'cas'le.

We raised the anchor about midnight and dawn found us creeping through the Golden Gate in the wake of a panting tug. There was nothing to see, for the morning mist was over the Straits, and we had no parting view of the harbour. The siren on Benita Point roared a raucous warning as we felt our way past the Head; and that, for us, was the last of the land.

When we reached the schooner and discharged our Pilot, it was still a 'clock calm,' and there was nothing for it but to tow for an offing, while we put the canvas on her in readiness for a breeze.

At setting sail we were hard wrought, for we were still three hands short of our complement, and the three in the fo'cas'le were beyond hope by reason of drug and drink. The blocks and gear were stiff after the long spell in harbour. Some of the new men were poor stuff. The Mexican 'rancheros' were the worst; one was already sea-sick, and the other had a look of despair. They followed the 'crowd' about and made some show of pulling on the tail of the halyards, but they were very green, and it was easy to work off an old sailor's trick on them--'lighting up the slack' of the rope, thus landing them on the broad of their backs when they pulled--at nothing! We should have had pity for them, for they never even pretended to be seamen; but we were shorthanded in a heavy ship, and the more our arms ached, the louder grew our curses at their clumsy 'sodgerin'.'

One of the three in the fo'cas'le 'came to' and staggered out on deck to see where he was. As he gazed about, dazed and bewildered, the Mate, seeing him, shouted.

"Here, you! What's yer name?"

The man pa.s.sed his hand over his eyes and said, "Hans."

"Well, Hans, you git along to the tops'l halyards; d.a.m.n smart's th'

word!"

With hands to his aching head, the man staggered drunkenly. Everything was confusion to him. Where was he? What ship? What voyage? The last he remembered would be setting the tune to a Dago fiddler in a gaudy saloon, with lashings of drink to keep his feet a-tripping. Now all was mixed and hazy, but in the mist one thing stood definite, a seamanlike order: "Top'sl halyards! d.a.m.n smart!" Hans laid aft and tallied on with the crowd.

Here was a man who had been outrageously used.

Drugged--robbed--'shanghai-ed'! His head splitting with the foul drink, knowing nothing and no one; but he had heard a seamanlike order, so he hauled on the rope, and only muttered something about his last ship having a crab-winch for the topsail halyards!

About noon we cast off the tug, but there was yet no wind to fill our canvas, and we lay as she had left us long after her smoke had vanished from the misty horizon.

At one we were sent below for our first sea-meal. Over our beef and potatoes we discussed our new shipmates and agreed that they were a weedy lot for a long voyage. In this our view was held by the better men in the fo'cas'le and, after dinner, the crew came aft in a body, headed by Old Martin, who said "as 'ow they wanted t' speak t' th'

Captin!"

The Old Man was evidently prepared for a 'growl' from forward, and took a conciliatory stand.

"Well, men? What's the trouble? What have you to say?" he said.

Old Martin took the lead with a.s.surance. "I speaks for all 'ans, Captin," he said.... "An' we says as 'ow this 'ere barque is short-'anded; we says as 'ow there's three empty bunks in th'

fo'cas'le; an' two of th' 'ans wot's shipped ain't never bin aloft afore. We says as 'ow--with all doo respeck, Captin--we wants yer t'

put back t' port for a crew wot can take th' bloomin' packet round the 'Orn, Sir!"

Martin stepped back, having fired his shot, and he carefully arranged a position among his mates, so that he was neither in front of the 'men'

or behind, where Houston and the cook and the 'rancheros' stood.

The Old Man leaned over the p.o.o.p-rail and looked at the men collectively, with great admiration. He singled out no man for particular regard, but just admired them all, as one looks at soldiers on parade. He moved across the p.o.o.p to see them at a side angle; the hands became hotly uncomfortable.

"What's this I hear, men? What's this I hear?"

("As fine a crowd o' men as ever I shipped, Mister," a very audible aside to the Mate.) "What's this I hear? D'ye mean t' tell me that ye're afraid t' be homeward bound in a well-found ship, just because we're three hands short of a big 'crowd'?"

"Wot 'bout them wot ain't never been aloft afore," muttered Martin, though in a somewhat subdued voice.

"What about them?" said the Old Man. "What about them? Why, a month in fo'cas'le alongside such fine seamen as I see before me" (here he singled out Welsh John and some of the old hands for a pleasant smile), "alongside men that know their work." (Welsh John and the others straightened themselves up and looked away to the horizon, as if the outcome of the affair were a matter of utter indifference to them.) "D'ye tell me a month alongside men that have sailed with me before won't make sailors of them, eh? _Tchutt_, I know different....

Sailors they'll be before we reach the Horn." (Here one of the potential 'sailors' ran to the ship's side, intent on an affair of his own.)

The men turned to one another, sheepish.

"Ye know well enough we can't get men, even if we did put back to port," continued the Old Man. "They're no' t' be had! Ye'll have to do yer best, and I'll see" (a sly wink to the Mate) "that ye ain't put on. Steward!"

He gave an order that brought a grin of expectation to the faces of all ''ans,' and the affair ended.

A wily one was our Old Jock!

The Mate was indignant at so much talk.... "A 'clip' under the ear for that Martin," he said, "would have settled it without all that palaver"; and then he went on to tell the Old Man what happened when he was in the New Bedford whalers.

"Aye, aye, man! Aye, aye," said Old Jock, "I know the Yankee game, Mister--blood an' thunder an' belayin' pins an' six-ounce knuckle-dusters! Gun play, too, an' all the rest of it. I know that game, Mister, and it doesn't come off on my ship--no' till a' else has been tried."

He took a turn or two up and down the p.o.o.p, whistling for a breeze.

Out in the nor'-west the haze was lifting, and a faint grey line of ruffled water showed beyond the gla.s.sy surface of our encircling calm.

"Stan' by t' check th' yards, Mister," he shouted, rubbing his hands.... "Phe ... w! Phe ... w! Phe ... w! encouraging."

XIV

A TRICK AT THE WHEEL

"Keep 'r full an' by!"

"Full 'n by!"

Houston, relieved from the wheel, reports to the Mate and goes forward, and I am left to stand my trick.

We are in the south-east trades; a gentle breeze, and all sail set.

Aloft, the ghostly canvas stands out against a star-studded sky, and the masthead trucks sway in a stately circle as we heave on the light swell. She is steering easily, asking nothing but a spoke or two when a fluttering tremor on the weather leach of the royals shows that she is nearing the wind. The light in the binnacle is dim and spluttering, the gla.s.s smoke-blackened, and one can but see the points on the compa.s.s card. South sou'-west, she heads, swinging a little west at times, but making a good course. Eccles, who should see to the lights, is stretched out on the wheel-box grating, resuming the thread of his slumbers; a muttered "'ware!" will bring him to his feet when the Mate comes round; meantime, there are stars ahead to steer by, and the binnacle-lamp may wait.

South of the Line, at four in the morning, is a fine time to see the stars, if one be but properly awake. Overhead, Orion has reached his height, and is now striding towards the western horizon. The Dog-star is high over the mizzen truck, and Canopus, clear of the weather backstays, is a friend to a drowsy helmsman. The Southern Cross is clearing the sea-line, and above it many-eyed Argus keeps watch over the Pole. Old friends, all of them, companions of many a night watch on leagues of lonely sea. A glow to the eastward marks where the dawn will break, and the fleecy trade-clouds about the horizon are already a.s.suming shape and colour. There the stars are paling, but a planet, Jupiter, perhaps, stands out in brilliance on the fast lightening sky.

Forward one bell is struck, and the look-out chants a long-drawn, "Aw--ll's well!"

The Mate, who until now has been leaning lazily over the p.o.o.p rail, comes aft, yawning whole-heartedly, as men do at sea. He peers into the dimly-lighted binnacle, turns his gaze to the sail aloft, sniffs the wind, and fixes me with a stern though drowsy eye.

"H-mm! You, is it?" (I have but a modest reputation as a steersman.) "Jest you keep 'r full now, or I'll teach ye steerin' in your watch below. Keep 'r full, an' no d.a.m.ned shinnanikin!" He goes forward.

'Shinnanikin' is a sailor word; it means anything at all; it may be made an adjective or a verb, or almost any part of speech, to serve a purpose or express a thought. Here it meant that there was to be no fooling at the helm, that she was to be steered as by Gunter himself.

"Full an' by," was the word. "Full an' by, an' no d.a.m.ned shinnanikin!"

Right!