Tramping on Life Part 21

This did not make the captain angry. Instead, like a vain boy, he began in French....

"I don't speak French ..." again objected the sailor, still in English.

"Very well, we'll speak in English, then ... bring him down into the cabin ..." to the men and mates ... To the sailor again, "Come on, Englishman! (in derision), and we'll sign you on in the ship's articles."

They haled him below. The captain dismissed the sailors. The captain, the two mates and I, were alone with the mutineer.... I stepped into the pantry, pretending to be busy with the dishes. I didn't want to miss anything.

"Now," explained the captain, "what's happened has happened ... it's up to you to make the best of it ... we had to shanghai you," and he explained the case in full ... and if he would behave and do his share of the work with the rest of the crew, he would be treated decently and be paid ... and let go, if he wished, when the _Valkyrie_ reached Sydney....

"Now sign," commanded the mate, "I never heard of a man in your fix ever being treated so good before."

"But I won't sign."

"Damme, but you will," returned Miller, the first mate, who, though German, spoke English in real English fashion--a result, he later told me, of fifteen years' service on English boats....

"Take hold of him, Stanger," this to the second mate, a lithe, sun-browned, handsome lad who knew English but hated to speak it.

They wrestled about the cabin at a great rate ... finally they succeeded in forcing a pen into the mutineer's hand....

Then the man calmed down, apparently whipped.

"Very well, where shall I sign?"

"Da," pointed the captain triumphantly, pointing the line out, with his great, hairy forefinger ... and, with victory near, relapsing into German.

But, just as it reached the designated spot, the fellow gave a violent swish with the pen. The mates made a grab for his hand, but too late. He tore a great, ink-smeared rent through the paper....

_Whang!_ Captain Schantze caught him with the full force of his big, open right hand on the left side of his face.... _Whish!_ Captain Schantze caught him with the full force of his open left, on the other cheek!

The shanghaied man stiffened. He trembled violently.

"Do it a thousand times, my dear captain. I won't sign till you kill me."

"Take him forward. He'll work, and work hard, without signing on.... No, wait ... tie him up to the rail on the p.o.o.p ... twenty-four hours of that, my man, since you must speak English--will make you change your mind."

He was tied, with his hands behind him.

The captain paced up and down beside him.

Then Franz (as I afterward learned his name) boldly began chaffing the "old man" ... first in English.

"I don't understand," replied Schantze; he was playful now, as a cat is with a mouse ... or rather, like a big boy with a smaller boy whom he can bully.

After all, Schantze was only a big, good-natured "kid" of thirty.

Then Franz ran through one language after another ... Spanish, Italian, French....

The captain noticed me out of the tail of his eye. His big, broad face kindled into a grin.

"What are you doing here on deck, you rascal!" He gave me an affectionate, rough pull of the ear.

"Polishing the bra.s.s, sir!"

"And taking everything in at the same time, eh? so you can write a poem about it?"

His vanity flattered, Schantze began answering Franz back, and, to and fro they shuttled their tongues, each showing off to the other--and to me, a mere cabin boy. And Franz, for the moment, seemed to have forgotten how he had been dragged aboard ... and the captain--that Franz was a mutineer, tied to the taffrail for insubordination!

Sea-sickness never came near me. Only it was queer to feel the footing beneath my feet rhythmically rising and falling ... for that's the way it seemed to my land-legs. But then I never was very st.u.r.dy on my legs ... which were then like brittle pipestems.... I sprawled about, spreading and sliding, as I went to and from the galley, bringing, in the huge basket, the breakfast, dinner and supper for the cabin....

The sailors called me "Albatross" (from the way an albatross acts when sprawling on shipdeck). They laughed and poked fun at me.

"Look here, you Yankee rascal," said the captain, when I told him I never drank ... "I think it would do you good if you got a little smear of beer-froth on your mouth once in a while ... you'd stop looking leathery like a mummy ... you've already got some wrinkles on your face ... a few good drinks would plump you out, make a man of you.

"In Germany mothers give their babies a sip from their steins before they are weaned ... that's what makes us such a great nation."

If I didn't drink, at least the two mates and the sailmaker made up for me ... we had on board many cases of beer stowed away down in the afterhold, where the sails were stored. And next to the dining room there was the s.p.a.ce where provisions were kept--together with kegs of k.u.mmel, and French and Rhine wines and claret....

And before we had been to sea three days I detected a conspiracy on the part of the first and second mates, the cook, and the sailmaker--the object of the conspiracy being, apparently, to drink half the liquor out of each receptacle, then fill the depleted cask with hot water, shaking it up thoroughly, and so mixing it.

As far as I could judge, the old, bow-legged sailmaker had taken out a monopoly on the cases of beer aft. Never were sails kept in better condition. He was always down there, singing and sewing.

Several times I saw him coming up whistling softly with a lush air of subdued and happy reminiscence.

Several mornings out ... and I couldn't believe my ears ... I heard a sound of music. It sounded like a grind-organ on a city street....

_The Sunshine of Paradise Alley_.

And the captain's voice was booming along with the melody.

I peeked into Schantze's cabin to announce breakfast.

He had a huge music box there. And he was singing to its playing, and dancing clumsily about like a happy young mammoth.

"Spying on the 'old man,' eh?"

He came over and caught me by an ear roughly but playfully.

"No, Captain, I was only saying breakfast is ready."

"You're a sly one ... do you like that tune? _The Sunshine of Paradise Alley?_ It's my favorite Yankee hymn."