The Brassbounder Part 13

The light grows, and the towering ma.s.s of canvas and cordage shows faint shadows here and there. The chickens in the quarter coops stir and cackle; a c.o.c.k crows valiantly. Eccles, sleeping his watch on the lee side of the p.o.o.p, stirs uneasily, finds a need for movement, and tramps irresolutely up and down his appointed station. From somewhere out of sight the Mate shouts an order, and he goes forward to take in the sidelights; dim and sickly they shine as he lifts them inboard.

There is now some sign of life about the decks. A keen smell of burning wood and a glare from the galley show that the cook has taken up the day's duties. Some men of the watch are already gathered about the door waiting for their morning coffee, and the 'idlers' (as the word is at sea), the steward, carpenter, and sailmaker, in various states of attire, are getting ready for their work.

Two bells marks five o'clock, and the crowd about the galley door grows impatient. The cook has a difficulty with his fire, and is behind time.

"Come on, 'doctor'!" shouts Old Martin; "get a move on yer! Them tawps'l 'alyards is screechin' fer a pull, an' th' Mate's got 'is heagle heye on that 'ere fore-tack. 'E'll be a-floggin' th' clock afore ye knows it!"

The Mate hears this, as Martin intended he should, and scowls darkly at that ancient mariner. Martin will have his 'old iron' worked up for that before the watch is out. He's a hard case. Coffee is served out, and the crowd disperses. It is now broad daylight, and the sun is on the horizon. The east is a-fire with his radiance; purest gold there changing to saffron and rose overhead; and in the west, where fading stars show, copper-hued clouds are working down to the horizon in track of the night. Our dingy sails are cut out in seemly curves and glowing colours against the deep of the sky; red-gold where the light strikes, and deepest violet in the shadows. Blue smoke from the galley funnel is wafted aft by the draught from the sails, and gives a kindly scent to the air; there is no smell like that of wood fires in the pride of the morning. This is a time to be awake and alive; a morning to be at the wheel of a leaning ship.

Presently I am relieved for a few minutes that I may have my coffee.

Being the last man, I get a bo'sun's share of the grounds. To my protests the cook gives scant heed.

"Ach, sure! Phwat are yez growlin' at? Sure, if ye'd been in my last ship, yez wouldn't have none at all! Devil the coffee would yez get till eight bells ov a marnin', an' tay at thatt, bedad!"

The 'doctor,' being Irish, is beyond argument, so I take my pannikin along to our quarters to sift the grounds as best I can. There is naught but dry ship's biscuit to put down with it, for it is well on in the week--Thursday, indeed--and only Hansen among us can make his week's rations last out beyond that; he was bred in the north. The half-deck is in its usual hopeless disorder--stuffy and close and dismal in the shuttered half-light. Four small ports give little air, and sea clothes hanging everywhere crowd up the s.p.a.ce. The beams, blackened by tobacco smoke, are hacked and carved, covered by the initials and remarks of bygone apprentices. Only the after one is kept clear; there the Board of Trade inscription (slightly altered by some inspiring genius), reads, "Certified to suffocate eight seamen." A dismal hole on a bright morning! Happily, one has not far to go for a breath of keen air. Ten minutes is my time, and I am back at the wheel again.

The Mate is seated on the cabin skylight, smoking. This is his time to consider the trim of the sails. It is no matter that the evening before the gear was sweated up to the tautest of sailing trim; the wind is unchanged, but morning shows wrinkles in the clew of the royals or a sag in the foot of a topsail. Ropes give mysteriously, and this must all be righted before the Old Man comes on deck. So he smokes leisurely and considers the trim.

The day's work begins at half-past five. The Mate strikes three bells himself, exact, on the tick of the minute, and goes forward to turn the men to.

"Fore tack," as Martin said, is the first order. The Mate signs to me to luff her up, and when the sail shakes the tack is hove hard down.

Then sheets and halyards are sweated up, ropes coiled, and a boy sent aloft to stop up the gear. At the main they have the usual morning wrestle with the weather topsail sheet--a clew that never did fit.

Macallison's loft must have been at sixes and sevens the day they turned that sail out; a Monday after Glasgow Fair, belike. When the trim is right, wash deck begins. A bucket and spar is rigged, and the clear sparkling water is drawn from overside. This is the fine job of the morning watch in summer seas. The sound of cool sluicing water and the swish of scrubbing brooms is an invitation that no one can resist.

There is something in it that calls for bare feet and trousers rolled above the knee. There is grace in the steady throwing of the water--the br.i.m.m.i.n.g bucket poised for the throw, left foot c.o.c.ked a few inches above the deck, the balance, and the sweeping half-circle with the limpid water pouring strongly and evenly over the planking; then the recovery, and the quick half-turn to pa.s.s the empty bucket and receive a full--a figure for a stately dance!

Now it is six, and I strike four bells. Martin has the next trick, but I see no signs of my relief. The Mate will have him at some lowly 'work-up' job, cleaning pig-pens or something like that, for his hint about flogging the clock in the morning. The cranky old 'sh.e.l.lback' is always 'asking for it.'

In the waist a row begins, a bicker between the sailmaker and bo'sun.

Old Dutchy is laying it off because someone has spilt water on the main-hatch, where a sail is spread out, ready for his work. In course, the bo'sun has called him a 'squarehead,' and 'Sails,' a decent old Swede, is justly indignant at the insult; only Germans are squareheads, be it known. "Skvarehedd! Jou calls me skvarehedd! Ah va.s.s no more skvarehedd as jou va.s.s," he says, excited. "Jou tinks d' sheep va.s.s jours, mit jour vash-backet und deck-scrub. Dere va.s.s no places for d'

sailmake, aindt it? Skvarehedd! Skvarehedd jourselluf, dam c.o.c.kney loafer!" There are the makings of a tidy row, but the Mate, coming from forrard, cuts it short.

"Now, then, you men there, quit yer chinning an' get on with the work!"

'Sails' tries to explain his grievance, but meets with little sympathy.

"Squarehead? Well, what the h.e.l.l's th' odds, anyhow? If ye ain't a squarehead, ye'r as near it 's can be!"

This is rough on old 'Sails,' whose proud boast is that he has been "for thirty jahrs sailmake mit British sheeps in!" He goes sorrowfully to his work, and bends over his seam with many shakings of the head.

"Skvarehedd!"

Time is drawing on, and I am getting tired of my long trick, when I see Martin coming round the deck-house. He has donned the familiar old red flannel shirt that he stands his wheel in, and, bareheaded as he always is at sea, he looks a typical old salt, a Western Ocean warrior. He mounts the lee ladder, crosses to windward in the fashion of the sea, and stands behind me. Here, I thought, is a rare chance to get at Martin. I give him the Mate's last steering order as I got it.

"Full an' by," I said, concealing a foolish grin; "full an' by, and no d.a.m.ned shinnanikin!" Martin looked at me curiously. "No shinnanikin,"

was a new order to a man who could steer blindfold, by the wind on his cheek; to a man who had steered great ships for perhaps half a century.

On the other hand, orders were orders, meant to be repeated as they were given, seamanlike.

Martin squared himself, put a fresh piece of tobacco in position, and gripped the spokes. "Full 'n' by," he said, lifting his keen old eyes to the weather clews of the royals, "full 'n' by, 'n' no d.a.m.ned shinnanikin, it is!"

XV

''OLY JOES'

"She'll be one o' them 'oly Joes; them wot cruises among th' Islands wi' tracks an' picter books for th' bloomin' 'eathens!"

"'O--ly Joes! 'Oly Joes b' d.a.m.n," said Martin. "'Oly Joes is schooners same's mission boats on th' Gran' Banks! ... 'Oly Joes!

She's a starvation Britisher, that's wot _she_ is; a pound an' pint ruddy limejuicer by th' set o' them trucks; sailor's misery in them painted bloomin' ports o' her."

The subject of discussion was a full-rigged ship, standing upright in mid-Pacific, with all her canvas furled; looking as she might be in Queenstown Harbour awaiting orders. The south-east trades had blown us out of the tropics, and we held a variable wind, but there was nothing in the clean, fresh morning to cause even a Killala pilot to clew up, and the strange sight of an idle ship in a working breeze soon drew all hands from work and slumber, to peer over the head rail, to vent deep-sea logic over such an odd happening.

One of the younger hands had expressed an opinion, and Martin, who held that "boys an' Dutchmen should only speak when spoke to," was scornfully indignant.

"'O--ly bloomin' Joe! ... 'Ow should she be an 'oly Joe, me young 'know-all'? Wot d'ye know 'bout 'oly Joes, anyway?"

"Well! ... 'eard as 'ow they clews up at eight bells o' a Sat.u.r.d'y night an' prays, solid on, till they sets tawps'ls, jack-easy, ov a Monday mornin'!"

The laugh of derision sent him shamefaced to the fo'cas'le, and we talked about till there was a call for all hands to haul courses up and stand by to work ship. We hauled sharp up to windward, and, as we drew on, we saw what was the matter, and the sight caused our Old Man to dive below to his charts, cursing his wayward chronometer.

We saw the loom of a low island, scarce raised above the sea, with the surf breaking lightly, and the big ship piled up, all standing, on the verge of the weather reef. She looked to be but lately gone on, for her topsides were scarce weather-beaten. The boats were gone from her skids, and the davit tackles, swinging lubberly overside, told that her crew had left her. Aloft, she seemed to be in good trim, and her sails were as well stowed as if she were lying in the Canning Dock with her nose against the Custom House. We lay-to for some time with our ensign apeak, but saw no sign of life aboard of the wreck, and when we fired a charge from our signal-gun (a rusty six-pounder), only a few sea-birds rose at the report. We were about to bear off on our course again when we saw two sail rounding the reef from the west side, and beating out.

There was but a light breeze, and they were some time in reaching us.

One was a large boat with barked canvas, going well and weatherly, but the other, plainly a ship's lifeboat, hung heavy in the wind, and presently her crew lowered sail and came at us under oars. The big boat reached us first, her steersman taking every inch out of the fickle breeze. Plainly these were no deep-water sailor-men, by the way they handled their boat. Smart, wiry men, they had no look of castaways, and their light cotton clothes were cleanly and in order.

As they sheered alongside they hailed us in clear, pleasant English: one shouted, in face of our line of wondering seamen, a strange sea salutation:

"G.o.d bless you, Captain Leish! Are you long out?"

"Blimy," said the bo'sun, "th' young 'un wos right after all. 'Oly Joes they be!"

"Mebbe 'oly Joes, but them ain't sailormen," muttered Martin sullenly; "them's Kanakas!"

Neither was quite right, for the boatmen were Pitcairn Islanders, and they were soon on deck greeting us in the friendly way of men from afar. Their leader went aft to the Old Man, and the rest remained to tell us of the wreck, in exchange for what scant knowledge we had of affairs.

The island was called Oeno. The ship was the _Bowden_, of Liverpool.

She had gone ash.o.r.e, six weeks back, in a northerly wind, with all sail on her: chronometer was twenty miles out: a bad case, the whole bottom was ripped out of her, and her ruined cargo of grain smelt abominably; two of their men were already sick. Ugh! ... The crew of the ship had made for Pitcairn, ninety miles to the southward; they might be there now. They (the Islanders) had now been three weeks on the reef, salving what they could. There was not much: they were all pretty sick of the job, and wanted to get back to Pitcairn. Perhaps the Captain would give them a pa.s.sage; it was on the way?

As we stood about, the Old Man and the leader of the Islanders came out of the cabin, and talked with the others. All wanted to get back to Pitcairn, and, the Old Man agreeing to give them a pa.s.sage, we hoisted the smaller boat on our davits, towed the other astern, and were soon on our way towards Pitcairn.

When we got the ship in fair sailing trim, we had a rare opportunity of learning something of the Island and its people. Discipline was, for the time, relaxed, and but for working ship, in which the Islanders joined us, we had the time to ourselves. In the shade of the great sails, we stood or sat about, and our decks showed an unusual animation in the groups of men colloguing earnestly--strangers met by the way.

In stature the Islanders were perhaps above the average height, lithe and wiry, and but few were darker-skinned than a Spaniard or Italian.

They spoke excellent English (though, among themselves, they had a few odd words), and their speech had no unnecessary adjectives. They had a gentle manner, and no ill language; sometimes our rough ship talk raised a slight protest; a raised hand, or a mild, "Oh, Sir!" Their leader, who was Governor of the Island, was a man in the prime of life, and, though dressed in dungarees and a worn cotton shirt, barefooted like the rest, had a quiet dignity in his manner and address that caused even our truculent Old Martin to call him Sir. There was one outlander among them, a wiry old man, an American whaleman, who had been settled on the Island for many years; he it was who steered the boat, and he knew a little of navigation.

Their talk was mostly of ships that had visited the Island, and they asked us to run over the names of the ships that were at 'Frisco when we left; when we mentioned a ship that they knew, they were eager to know how it fared with her people. They had fine memories. They could name the Captain and Mates of each ship; of the whalers they had the particulars even down to the bulk of oil aboard. They seemed to take a pleasure in learning our names, and, these known, they let pa.s.s no opportunity of using them, slipping them into sentences in the oddest manner. They themselves had few surnames--Adams, Fletcher, Christian, and Hobbs (the names of their forefathers, the stark mutineers of the _Bounty_)--but their Christian names were many and curious, sometimes days of the week or even dates. They told us that there was a child named after our Old Man, who had called off the Island the day after it was born, five years ago; a weird name for a la.s.sie! In one way the Islanders had a want. They had no sense of humour. True, they laughed with us at some merry jest of our Irish cook, but it was the laugh of children, seeing their elders amused, and though they were ever cheery-faced and smiling, they were strangely serious in their outlook.

We had light winds, and made slow progress, and it was the afternoon of the second day when we saw Pitcairn, rising bold and solitary, on the lee bow. The sun had gone down before we drew nigh, and the Island stood sharp outlined against the scarlet and gold of a radiant western sky. Slowly the light failed, and the dark moonless night found us lifting lazily to the swell off the north point. The Islanders manned their boats and made off to the landing place. It was clock calm, and we heard the steady creak of their oars long after the dark had taken them. We drifted close to the land, and the scent of trees, lime and orange, was sweetly strange.

The boats were a long time gone, and the Old Man was growing impatient, when we heard voices on the water, and saw, afar off, the gleam of phosph.o.r.escence on the dripping oars. We heard the cheery hail, "The _Florence_, ahoy!" and burned a blue light to lead them on.