Tramping on Life Part 22

And it must have been; every morning for eighty-nine days the gaudy music box faithfully played the tune over and over again.

The ship drifted slowly through the Sarga.s.so Sea--that dead, sweltering area of smooth waters and endless leagues of drifting seaweed.... Or we lifted and sank on great, smooth swells ... the last disturbance of a storm far off where there were honest winds that blew.

The p.r.i.c.kly heat a.s.sailed us ... hundreds of little red, biting pimples on our bodies ... the cook's fresh-baked bread grew fuzz in twenty-four hours after baking ... the forecastle and cabin jangled and snarled irritably, like tortured animals....

It was with a shout, one day, that we welcomed a good wind, and shot clear of this dead sea of vegetable matter.

As we crossed the equator Father Neptune came on board ... a curious sea-ceremony that must hark back to the Greeks and Romans....

The bow-legged sailmaker played Neptune.

He combed out a beard of rope, wrapped a sheet around his shoulders, procured a trident of wood....

"Come," shouted one of the sailors to me, running up like a happy boy, "come, see Neptune climbing on board."

The sail-maker pretended to mount up out of the sea, climbing over the forecastle head--just as if he had left his car of enormous, pearl-tinted sea-sh.e.l.l, with the spouting dolphins still hitched to it, waiting for him, while he paid his respects to our captain.

Captain Schantze, First Mate Miller, Second Mate Stange, stood waiting the ceremonial on the officers' bridge, an amused smile playing over their faces.

A big, boy-faced sailor named Klaus, and the ship's blacksmith, a grey-eyed, sandy-haired fellow named Klumpf, followed the sailmaker close behind, as he swept along in his regalia, solemnly and majestically. And Klaus beat a triangle. And Klumpf played an accordion.

"Sailmaker" (the only name he was called by on the ship) made a grandiose speech to the Captain.

Schantze replied in the same vein, beginning,

"Euer Majestat--"

The sailors marched forward again, to their music, like pleased children. For custom was that they should have plum duff this day, and plenty of hot grog....

Before I was aware, I was caught up by several arms.

For I had never before crossed the line. So I must be initiated.

They set me on a board, over a great barrel of sea-water.

Klumpf gave me a mock-shave with a vile mixture of tar and soap. He used a great wooden razor about three feet long. The officers shouted and laughed, looking on from the bridge.

"What's your name, my boy?" asked Father Neptune.

"John Greg--" Before I could articulate fully the blacksmith thrust a gob of the vile lather into my mouth. As I spluttered and spit everyone gave shouts of laughter. One or two sailors rolled on the deck, laughing, as savages are said to do when overtaken with humour.

The board on which I sat was jerked from under me. Once, two times, three times, I was pushed, almost bent double, far down into the barrel of sea-water. It was warm, at least.

Then a hue and cry went up for Franz. He was caught. He swore that he had crossed the line before, as doubtless he had. But there was now a sort of quiet feud between him and the rest aboard. So in a tumbling heap, they at last bore him over. He fought and shrieked. And because he did not submit and take the ceremony good-naturedly, he was treated rather roughly.

My certificate of initiation was handed me formally and solemnly. It was a semi-legal florid doc.u.ment, sealed with a bit of rope and tar. It certified that I had crossed the line. The witnesses were "The Mainmast," "The Mizzen Mast," and other inanimate ship's parts and objects....

"Keep this," said Sailmaker, as he handed it to me, "as evidence that you have already crossed the line, and you will never be shaved with tar and a wooden razor again. You are now a full-fledged son of Neptune."

On a ship at sea where the work to do never ends, it is a serious matter if one of the crew does not know his work, or fails to hold up his end.

That means that there is so much more work to be done by the others.

Franz deliberately shirked. And, as far as I could see, he purposely got in bad with the mates, under whom he had approximately sixty days more of pulling and hauling, going up aloft, scrubbing, and chipping to do. I was puzzled at the steadfast, deliberate malingering of the man.

The crew all hated him, too. I have seen the man at the wheel deliberately deflect the ship from its course, in order to bring the wind against the mutineer's belly, hoping to have him blown overboard while he was running aloft....

And one night, in the forecastle, someone hurled a shoe at him. A blow so savagely well-aimed, that when he came running aft, howling with pain (for, for all his obstinacy, he seemed to lack courage)--to complain of the outrage, to Schantze--his eye popped out so far that it seemed as if leaping out of its socket! It was ghastly and b.l.o.o.d.y like a butchered heart.

Later, I asked the sailors why this had been done to Franz. And Klumpf said--

"We had a scuffle over something. We were all taking it friendly ... and Franz bit Klaus through the hand, almost ... then someone threw a shoe and hit him in the eye"....

In about a week, after his eye had healed just a little, I drew Franz apart. We sat down together on the main hatch. I was worried about him.

I did not understand him. I was sorry for him.

"Look here, Franz ... don't you know you might get put clean out of business if you keep this mutiny of one up much longer? You can't whip a whole ship's crew."

"I don't want to whip a whole ship's crew."

"The captain had to have another man in a hurry, you know ... but he's really willing to give you decent treatment."

"Did the captain send you to tell me this?"

"Of course not ... only I'm sorry for you."

Franz gave me a broad, inexplicable wink. He smiled grotesquely--from swollen lips made more grotesque because of a recent punch in the mouth "Sailmaker" had fetched him....

"Don't trouble yourself about me. I know what I'm doing, my boy."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that, as soon as I came out of my drunk, and found myself shanghaied, I _wanted_ them to ill-treat me ... there's a Sailors' Aid Society at Sydney, you know!"