The Grain Ship Part 24

"Why?" answered the skipper. "Do you think I'm going to have them trooping around my cabin?"

"No, not at all; but show 'em the brick, only don't use it, or they'll throw it back. And don't make any gun-play, for they don't know what it means, and it's no good, for ye can't shoot into thim. They're that hard that they'll turn a bullet, I'm told."

"Possibly," said the captain, looking at his hand. "I hurt myself when I hit him. Well, Murphy, all right, if you can control them. I can see that I might have to shoot them all if I shot one, and that wouldn't do."

"No, of course not, sir. I'll l'arn a few of them to steer, and the mates'll be rid of it."

So, under these conditions they worked the ship across the western ocean. By tact and "sign language" Murphy induced them to stand their tricks at the wheel; but they would stand no tutelage, and steered in their own way--a zizzag track over the sea. Another limitation which they imposed upon their usefulness was their emphatic refusal to stand watch, though from inward impulse they divided themselves into watches.

They would work factory hours, or not at all, so Captain Williams had to be content with the loss of most of his light sails before the pa.s.sage was half over. For a sudden increase of wind at night would occasionally prove too much for Murphy or Hennesey, with the mate on watch. As for going aloft, day or night, their case was too hopeless, even for the optimistic Murphy, even had they been willing to leave the deck--which, most decidedly, they were not.

Even so, this pa.s.sage might have reached a successful termination, the homeward-bound Irishmen safely landed at Queenstown, and the others graduated in a much-needed schooling in the doctrine of the brotherhood of man; but Captain Williams, against Murphy's urgent and earnest plea for more meat on the forecastle menu, persisted in sticking to the original diet. The _Albatross_ was a "full-and-plenty" ship--that is, one in which, with the supposed consent of the crew, the government scale was discarded in favor of one containing more vegetables and less meat. But these men knew nothing of this, or the reasons for it; and while believing that there was no whisky in the ship, they had accepted this deprivation, they were firmly a.s.sured that there was plenty of meat; so day by day their discontent grew, until by the time the ship had reached soundings they were ripe for open revolt. And it was the small, weakling steward that brought it about.

The pa.s.sage had been good for all except this steward. It had brought to Captain Williams and his two mates, now recovered in mind and body from the first friction, the unspoken but fixed conception that there were men in the world not afraid of them. It had reduced Murphy's fat, and his resentment against Hennesey and Captain Williams. It had increased Hennesey's respect for Murphy and lessened his respect for himself; for without Murphy's moral support he could not have done his part. It had eliminated the alcohol from the veins and the brains of the twenty-four wild men, and lessened the propensity to kill at the same time that it lessened their fear of a brick. It had lessened the sublime, ages-old contempt for white men that the Chinese cook shared with his countrymen, and which simply _had_ to yield to the fear of death inspired by three or four frenzied Irish faces at the galley door, their owners demanding "mate." But the small steward, busy with his cabin dishes, his cabin carpets, only visiting the galley to obtain the cabin meals, had seen nothing, felt nothing, and learned nothing.

And, with the indifference of ignorance, he had left his brick in the galley--the fatal spot where it ought not to have been, in view of what was to happen.

For three stormy days the ship had been charging along before a wind that had increased to a gale, and a following sea that threatened to climb aboard. The jib-topsail, the skysails and royals, the lighter middle staysails, and the fore and mizzen topgallantsails had been blown away, and the ship was practically under topsails, a bad equipment of canvas with which to claw off a lee sh.o.r.e. The lee sh.o.r.e developed at daylight of the fourth stormy morning, a dim blue heightening of the horizon to the east, dead ahead; and Captain Williams, who had been unable to get a sight with his s.e.xtant for six days, could only determine that his dead reckoning, based upon the wild steering of his crew, had brought him too far to the north, and that the land he saw was the coast above Mizen Head.

After breakfast, when factory hours began, he called all hands to the braces; and they came, bracing the yards for the starboard tack, to keep away from that menacing lee sh.o.r.e; but, during the work, Murphy, by way of encouragement, called the crew's attention to the dim blot of blue to leeward.

"The Imerald Isle, boys," he declared. "Wark, ye watchmakers, wark, and git home."

They worked n.o.bly, but wondered why the ship was heading away from the Emerald Isle, and expressed their wonder loudly and profanely. In vain did Murphy explain that Queenstown was around the corner to the south, and it was to Queenstown that they were bound. Their dissatisfaction grew, and at dinner-time lifted them above the weakening influence of the "sign language."

They had never taken account of the days when meat was due, ascribing the fixed hiatuses to the unkindness of the Chinese cook; and when they mustered at the galley door at noon and the cook handed them a huge pan of bean soup they raged at him, incoherently, but vehemently.

"Whaur's th' mate--the mate? Giv's the mate, ye haythen! giv's the mate, domyersool!"

The cook shrank back before their gleaming eyes and threatening fists, and they crowded into the galley, where, as fate determined, the mild little steward was gathering up the cabin dinner. He seized his brick.

"Now, here, you men," he said, bravely, "you get right out of this galley. Do you hear?" And he waved his brick threateningly.

"Whaur's the mate? Giv's the mate, ye man-killers."

"The mate is aft. You know that well as I do. Go right out of this galley."

"Whaur's the mate?"

"Aft in the cabin, I told you. Get out of here."

Even now things might have been well, for a few of them showed a willingness to go aft for the "mate." But the men of the other county came to the other galley door, and, menaced from both sides, the steward unwisely threw his brick. It struck the head of the foremost Irishman (it was the man on his wedding trip) and almost knocked him down. The cook frantically followed suit, and carnage began. The two gangs crowded into the narrow apartment, and the cook and steward soon went underfoot before the shower of fist-blows and kicks. They would a.s.suredly have been injured in the _melee_ had not a Limerick face approached too temptingly close to a Galway fist and diverted the storm. In utter fear of death the two crawled to the stove and pried up a couple of bricks while the rival factions fought each other. But their action was observed, and with whoops and oaths the combatants armed themselves, while the cook and steward crawled under the galley table for safety.

The captain and first mate were in the cabin, waiting for their dinner.

The second mate was near the wheel, admonishing the Irish helmsman, as he dared, in the way of better steering "by-the-wind." Hennesey was in the port forecastle, just turning out after his forenoon watch below, and Murphy was amidships; but the sound of oaths, shrieks of rage and pain, and the incessant hammering of bricks upon the bulkheads and the pots and pans of the galley brought all to the scene, the captain and mates with their pistols.

"Hold on, Captain," said Murphy; "don't shoot any wan. Just let 'em fight it out, then they'll be more tractable."

This seemed reasonable, and the group watched from the main-hatch.

There was a steady flight of bricks out through each galley door, some impacting upon the rails and falling to the deck, others going overboard. Occasionally an Irishman would reel out in company with the brick that had impelled him; but, after crawling around on all-fours for a moment, he would go back with a brick gleaned from the deck. At last, however, one came out with a little more momentum than usual--enough to carry him over to the rail; and from this point of view he could see the group at the hatch. He glared at them from under his tousled hair, then uttered a war-whoop.

"Ei-hei-ee, in thaur!" he yelled, "quit yer foolin' an' c'm'an out.

Here be the b.l.o.o.d.y murders, the man-killers, the domned sons uv a landlord. C'm'an out, ye divils."

They heard, and they came, from both doors, with b.l.o.o.d.y faces and blackened eyes, and, seeing the captain and his aids, charged as one man. In vain Murphy's poised brick and Hennesey's persuasive voice. In vain the leveled pistols of the captain and mates and their thundering orders to stop or be shot down. There came a volley of bricks, and the captain's pistol was knocked from his hand, while a second brick, striking him on the head, robbed him of sense and volition. Each of the mates fired his pistol once, but not again; the bullets flew wide, and the firearms were twisted from their hands, while they were tripped up, struck, and kicked about until helpless to rise or resist. Hennesey and Murphy were also borne to the deck and punished. Some might have been killed had not one inspired Celt given voice to an original idea.

"Lock 'em up!" he shouted. "Lock 'em up in the kitchen, an' nail the dures on thim!"

They joyously accepted the suggestion. The four weak and stricken conscious men were dragged or shoved into the galley by some, while others lifted the unconscious captain after them. Then the doors were closed, and soon they heard the hammering of nails over the jangle of voices. Then the jangle of voices took on a new and distinct note of unanimity.

"Turn the boat, Denny," they shouted to the man at the wheel. "Turn the boat around. We'll go home in sphite o' thim, the vilyuns."

Their footfalls sounded fainter and fainter as they rushed aft; and Murphy picked himself up from the floor, now almost denuded of its brick paving.

"For the love of Gawd," he groaned, wiping the blood from his eyes, "are they goin' to beach her in this gale?"

The galley was lighted by two large deadlights, one each side, too small to crawl through, but large enough for a man's head. Murphy reached his head through one of them and looked aft. They had surrounded the wheel, and their war-cries were audible. As many as six were handling the spokes, and the big ship was squaring away before the wind, heading for that dim spot of blue in the murk and smoke to leeward. Murphy could see it when the ship pitched into a hollow--about forty miles away.

"And us locked up like rats in a trap," he muttered. "She'll strike in four hours, and Gawd help us all if we can't git out of here."

But there was no getting out, and they made the best of it. The cook and steward emerged from beneath the table, and made more or less frivolous comments on the condition of the galley and the ruin of the dinner, until silenced by the irate Murphy. The two mates took their hands from their aching heads and showed interest in life; and in time Captain Williams came to his senses and sat up on the floor, smeared with bean soup and cluttered with dented pots, pans, and stove-fittings. He was told the situation, and wisely accepted it; for nothing could be done.

And from aft came to their ears the joyous whoops of the homeward-bound men, close to their native land and anxious to get to it by the shortest route. Murphy occasionally looked out at them; they were all near the wheel, cursing and berating those handling the spokes, and being cursed in return. But they were not quarreling.

"Me brother Mike was right," muttered Murphy, as he drew his head in after a look at them. "They've forgotten their dinner. They'd rather fight than ate, but rather wark than fight."

The big, light ship, even with upper canvas gone and the yards braced to port, was skimming along over the heaving seas at a ten-knot rate, and Murphy's occasional glimpses of that growing landfall showed him details of rock and wood and red sandy soil that bespoke a steep beach and a rocky bottom. The air was full of spume and the gale whistled dismally through the rigging with a sound very much like that of Murphy's big base-burner in his Front Street boarding-house, when the chill wintry winds whistled over the housetops. He wondered if he would ever return.

"G.o.d help us, Skipper," he said, solemnly, "if we don't strike at high tide. For at low tide we'll go to pieces an' be drowned as the water rises."

"I looked it up this morning," said the captain, painfully; for he was still dazed from the effects of the brick. "It is high tide on this coast at four this afternoon."

"All to the good, as far as our lives are consarned," said Murphy; "and mebbe for your ship, Skipper. It'll be hard to salve her, of course; but she won't git the poundin' she'd get at low-water mark."

"I don't care. It's a matter for the underwriters. Don't bother me. I may kill you, Murphy, and your man Hennesey, some day, but not now. I'm too sick."

They waited in silence until the crash came--a sickening sound of riven timbers and snapping wire rope. Then, from the sudden stopping of the ship, there came a heightening and a strengthening of the song of the wind in the rigging, and the thumping of upper spars, jolted clear of their fastenings by the shock. Looking out, Murphy saw that the topgallantmasts, with their yards, were hanging by their gear, threatening to fall at any heave of the ship on her rocky bed. And he saw that the beach was not a hundred yards distant. Also, that the crew was flocking forward.

"Let us out of here," he called, as they came within hearing. "What more do ye want, ye bogtrotters? Ye've wrecked the man's boat, but d'ye want to kill us?"

"Yis," they chorused. "Why not, ye divils? Ye've nearly killed us all, dom yez. No mate, no whusky, no money. Tell us the road to Galway."

"An' the road to Limerick," said another. "An' whin do we git paid aff?"

"I'll have ye in jail, ye hyeenas," said Murphy. "That's yer pay, and that's the road to Galway and Limerick. Wait till the coast guard comes along. They'll git ye."

He drew back to avoid a brick that threatened to enter the deadlight, and the conversation ended.

Meanwhile the ship was slowly swinging around broadside to the beach.

She was too high out of water for the seas to board her, though they pounded her weather side with deafening noise, and with each impact she was lifted sh.o.r.eward a few feet more. Finally the crashings ceased, and they knew that, with water in the hold, she had gone as high as the seas could drive her. Then, with the going down of the tide, the heavy poundings of the sea grew less and the voices of the crew on the forecastle deck more audible.