Wide Courses Part 2

"'Man overboard!' he yells, and snaps the patent life-buoy over the side, and the marine on the starboard side of the quarter he yells, 'Man overboard!' and the marine on the after-bridge he yells, 'Man overboard!' and the two seaman on watch on the for'ard bridge, 'Man overboard, sir!' they yell, and the watch officer orders, 'Hard on your wheel, Quartermaster!' and to the bosun's mate on watch the watch officer yells, 'Pipe the deck division to quarters!' and the watch officer pulls a few bells and talks through three or four tubes, and in no time the ship is coming around in a circle, and up on deck came piling about two hundred l.u.s.ty young seamen, and it was, 'boats away,'

and over the side went hanging gigs and cutters and whale-boats, and then it was, 'Search-lights all clear!' and in about one minute the big ship was back on the spot, and in another minute and a half there were eight boats with half-dressed crews rowing around, and six big search-lights playing tag on the waters. An hour and a half they stood by, but no sign of him and no call from him. And then it was return to your ship, sound quarters and call the roll. But everybody was present or accounted for, and the skipper gave the captain of marines the devil, and the marine captain gave the devil to his marine guard, the Georgia boy, who by this time was beginning to doubt that he hadn't been asleep.

"Next afternoon the admiral was on deck taking the air, and after a while he asks, 'Where was that marine guard standing when he says he heard that air-port uns.c.r.e.w.i.n.g and that splash last night?' And they dug the marine out of the brig and brought him up, and he stood on the same spot leaning over the rail, and the old man stands there and takes a look down. And he looks to see if there was an air-port handy. And there was--the air-port of the flag office. 'H'm!--h'm!' he says. 'That's all now, Lyman,' to the marine officer. Nothing more; but an hour later the marine was released from the brig--n.o.body knew why."

Throughout all the story Dalton had been sitting atop of the coffer-dam, hands with flat palms pressing down, and feet hanging, with heels drumming against the coffer-dam sides. After he had done he pushed himself up by the palms of his hands, rearranged his row of tin letter-files, shifted his electric bulkhead light, picked up a fat folk-lore volume and waited, with eyes twinkling down on us, for somebody to say something.

"And how long ago was that, Dallie?" asked somebody, at last.

"Five years."

"And never a word from the admiral?"

"Never a word."

"H-m-ph! Don't you suppose--"

"Suppose what, fat Reggie? D' y' mean to hint at conspiracy between a rear-admiral of the United States Navy and an enlisted man--a yeoman?

Why, Reggie!"

"Of course not. But nothing more from anybody? Not from Washington, either?"

"Nothing, inquisitive child. But there's an old flat-footed friend of mine in the department--and he, whenever he writes me, never forgets to mention that every once in a while the chief clerk, or somebody or other in his division, is sure to look out the window and across the street at the White House grounds, as if trying to remember something; and whenever he takes a particularly long look he is always sure to turn around and say to the man at the nearest desk, 'What d' y' s'pose ever became of that hose-pipe spook used to haunt this place?' And the man at the nearest desk he'll look up and nibble at the end of his pen-holder, or maybe he'll get up and have a look out of the window at the Cabinet playing tennis, and after a while he'll say: 'That's so; I wonder what ever did become of that? But'--maybe another look across at the tennis court--'that'll turn up again, no fear.'

"But it won't," concluded the flag yeoman, with a smile we could have buried one of his tin letter-files in; "for we were two hundred miles out of Hong-kong at that time, steaming 14.6 miles an hour through the China Sea, and you know it's good and deep there. And now"--he rolled flat on his back, balanced his neck on the head-rest under the bulkhead light, and his fat book on his chest--"now I'm not advising anybody, and particularly not you, Fatty, but that's the way a competent yeoman, with a little advice from a couple of old shipmates, laid that hose-pipe ghost of other days. But mind, I'm not telling you to go and do anything like that."

"No, of course not," says our captain's yeoman, and rubs his fat chin.

"Of course not."

"But if you do," says Dalton, and sets his head sideways to see how Reginald was taking it--"if you do, you'd make a hit with your skipper, you betcher--only he'd never tell you."

"Why wouldn't he, if he liked it?"

"Why? 'Twouldn't be regulations. And now, you fellows, beat it. Seven bells gone and the Old Man is due aboard at twelve o'clock. And sometimes he takes a notion to go cruising around the cabin country before he turns in. Besides, I want a chance to peruse a little improving literature before I turn in myself. So beat it, all of you."

And out into the pa.s.sageways and up the hatchways we beat it; all but our captain's fat yeoman, who went back to his office at a grave thoughtful pace.

The Seizure of the "Aurora Borealis"

I had no notion in the beginning of going anywhere near Newfoundland that winter, but the word was pa.s.sed to me from old John Rose of Folly Cove that if I thought of running down for a load of herrin', then he'd ought to have a couple o' thousand barrels, by the looks o' things, fine and fat in pickle, against Christmas Day, and old John Rose being a great friend of mine, and the market away up, I kissed the wife and baby good-by and put out for Placentia Bay in the _Aurora_.

Now if anybody'd come to me before I left Gloucester that trip and asked me to turn a smuggling trick, why, I'd 'a' said: "Go away, boy, you're crazy." But on the way down I put into Saint Pierre. You know Saint Pierre? In the Miquelons, yes, where in the spring the fishing vessels from France put in--big vessels, bark-rigged mostly, and carrying forty or fifty in a crew--they put in to fit out for the Grand Banks fishing.

And they come over with wine mostly for ballast. And in the fall they sail back home, but without the wine.

And, of course, somethin's got to be done with that wine, and though wine's as cheap in Saint Pierre as 'tis to any port in France, yet 'tisn't all drunk in Saint Pierre--not quite. The truth is, those people in Saint Pierre aren't much in the drinking line. One American shacking crew will come in there and put away more in one night than that whole winter population will in a week--that is, they would if they could get the kind they wanted. But that Saint Pierre wine isn't the kind of booze that our fellows are looking for after hauling trawls for a month o'

winter days on the Banks. No, what they want is something with more bite in it. And what becomes of it? H-m--if you knew that you'd know what a lot of people'd like to know.

Well, I put into Saint Pierre, for I knew old John Rose and his gang of herring netters would cert'nly relish a drink of red rum now and again on a cold winter's night, and, going ash.o.r.e, I runs into a sort of fat, black lad about forty-five, half French, half English, that was a great trader there, named Miller. 'Twas off him I bought my keg of rum for old John Rose. I'd heard of this Miller before, and a slick, smooth one he was reported to be, with a warehouse on one of the docks.

He'd been looking at my vessel, he said, had noticed her come to anchor, and a splendid vessel she was--fast and weatherly, no doubt of that.

Well, that was all right, for, take it from me, the _Aurora_ was all that anybody could say of her that was good. And when you believe that way, and a man comes along and begins to praise your vessel like that, whether you like his sail plans or not, why you just naturally can't help warming up to him. We took a walk up the street together.

And a master and a crew that knew how to handle her, too, Miller goes on. Now I blinked a little at that, straight to my face as it was, but after two or three more drinks I says to myself: "Oh, h.e.l.l, what's the good o' suspectin' everybody that pays a compliment of trying to heave twine over you?" We got pretty friendly, and, talking about one thing and another, he finally asked me if I ever had a notion of selling my vessel. I only smiled at him, and asked him if he had any idea what she cost to build. I told him then. Fourteen thousand dollars to the day of her trial trip, and all the money my wife and I had in the world had gone into her. He had no idea she cost so much; but, on reflection, it must be so--of a certainty yes. A splen-did, a su-pairb vessel, so swift to sail, so perfect to manoeuvre. If he himself possessed such an enchanting vessel--well, he could use her to much profit. There was a way.

He said that so slyly that I had to ask him what that way was. He winked. "I deal in wines--what way can it be?" And, of course, I winked back to show that I was a deep one too. It's wonderful what things a man c'n get up to wind'ard of you after he's half filled you up. Well, no more then, but we left our caffay for a walk around the port, me looking for a little souvenir in the jewelry line for the baby. Christmas was comin', and though I didn't expect to be home till after New Year's, still I wanted the wife to know I hadn't forgotten the baby.

I was tellin' that to Miller, and a little more about them, of how I hadn't been but a couple of years married, and how I kissed her and the baby good-by on the steps, and her tellin' me the last thing not to go pilin' the vessel up on the rocks anywhere, that the baby's fortune was in her now, and so on.

Well, sir, that farewell scene, that adieu, was too touching for him--he insisted on picking out the souvenir himself, and he picked out a good one, a pretty brooch to fasten the baby's little collar, and he paid for it--forty francs--and I just had to take it.

Well, we had another drink and parted, me not expecting to see any more of him; but that night as I was down on the dock hailing the vessel for a dory to go aboard, a man stepped up to me and laid his hand on my arm. "Captain Corning?" he said, and I said yes.

Well, he was a friend of Mr. Miller--he had seen me talking to Mr.

Miller, and learned that I was about to depart in the early morning, bound for Placentia Bay; he would like to ask me to do him a small favor. Could I take one package and land it on my way to Auvergne, where was one friend of his? A small matter, one five-gallon keg of rum, that rum which was of such trivial price in Saint Pierre, but on which the duty was so high in Newfoundland, and his friend was one poor man, one fisherman, who could not afford to pay the duty.

Now this Auvergne was twenty-five miles this side of any port of entry, and my first landing in Newfoundland, according to law, had to be at a port of entry. And so I told this chap that, and how I was liable to a heavy fine, and so on.

Yes, he discerned much truth in what I said, but consider that poor fisherman who could have his good rum merely for the landing--no other cost, none whatever--he, a friend of Mr. Miller, was sending it as a gift for the holiday Christmas time. And that rum--consider the piteously cold nights hauling the nets when a drink of good rum was so soothing, so grateful, so inspiring. And a little favor like that--the Colonial Government would not be--truly not--and if I did not take the rum that poor fisherman of Auvergne would have none in its stead. He could not afford it, the duty was so high--an impossible duty, as no doubt I knew.

I did know, and also I remembered many a drink of Saint Pierre rum I'd had on a cold night in Newfoundland and no duty paid on it, and many a cold night hauling herring when I didn't have it, but wished I had, and would've gone a long ways to get it, duty or no duty. And then I remembered how Miller had been pretty decent to me that day--the little brooch he'd bought for the baby I could even then feel in my vest pocket--and I said all right, and when half an hour later a dory slipped up to the side of the _Aurora_ and a keg was handed over the rail I didn't ask any questions, but took and stowed it under the cabin run.

Next morning we sailed, and, after a four hours' easy run, made Auvergne, a little port in Placentia Bay, tucked away between two headlands--one easterly, one westerly. Coming from Saint Pierre, it was, of course, the westward one we rounded. According to directions, I ground out two long and two short woofs on the fog-horn, at which a man pops from behind a big rock and waves a handkerchief three times.

Well, that was according to directions, too, and I drops a dory over the side with Sam Leary and Archie Gillis and the keg in it, and tells them to row over to the beach, ask the name of the lad that jumped from behind the rock, and if it was the same as on the tag to leave the keg with him. It was about a mile to the bit of beach, and the dory was almost there, when from behind the easterly headland comes the revenue-cutter. "That looks bad," I says, "but we'll say we've come for fresh water, that our tanks were leakin', and that we had to have fresh water to cook dinner, and Sam and Archie in the dory--'specially Sam--they'll have wit enough to empty the keg over the side and go on up as if they was really lookin' for water."

And that's what would 'a' happened if it'd not been for the thirst that Sam Leary and Archie Gillis most always had with them. They see the revenue-cutter, and they knew just what they oughter done, but they couldn't let go that keg without having one last drink out of it, and when they got that drink down they couldn't help thinking what a pity to waste so much good rum, and taking a look back at the cutter, and seeing she was still half a mile away--"Time enough," says Sam to Archie--"this lad behind the big rock'll have something to stow it in," and he and Archie walks without any hurry up to the rock where the man was hiding.

But instead of one man behind that rock, there was six, and right away there was a battle. Sam and Archie bowls over a couple and gets away up the beach and safe among rocks, but the revenue people got the keg. By that time the cutter was alongside us, and so they wouldn't get the little Christmas keg I had tucked away for John Rose I pulled the plug out of it in no time and let it drain into her bilge. And that was an awful waste of good liquor, and I knew John Rose would grieve when I told him.

They had a clean case against me, and I was taken with the _Aurora_ to Harbor Grace for trial. When they asked me what I had to say, I told 'em that I was simply bringing a little keg of rum from a man in Saint Pierre to his friend in Auvergne. They asked me the name of the man in Saint Pierre, and I said I didn't know. They asked me the name of the man in Auvergne, and I said I didn't know. "Was this the man?" they asks, and shows me the tag on the keg. I didn't answer. And they went on to show there was no man in Auvergne by that name, and what were they to understand by that?

I told them I didn't know--it was past me. And it cert'nly was. But they knew what to make of it, they said. There were people in Auvergne doing this illegal business under false names. And I had used a false name, and to try to tell the honorable court that I did not know the name of the man in Saint Pierre who gave me the rum, nor the man I was bringing it to--why, I knew very well who gave me the rum, and I knew who I was bringing it to, and if the truth were known, I knew a lot more about the rum-smuggling traffic. And they were going to put a stop to it.

And they laid a fine of twenty-five hundred dollars against my vessel.

Maybe you might think that a pretty heavy fine, but that's nothing.

Almost any little local magistrate down that way can soak an American skipper or owner for almost any amount and get away with it. And how's that? Well, we pay two or three dollars a barrel to Newfoundland fishermen for herring. Before we went down here the St. John's merchants used to pay them about fifty cents a barrel, and it's the St. John's merchants who have all the money and came pretty near running Newfoundland.

Well, when my little local magistrate fines me twenty-five hundred dollars I said I wouldn't pay it, that I'd stir things up at Washington, and so on, but they only laughed at me, and put her up for sale.

Now I'd 've bid her in myself if I'd had the money, but I only had a couple of hundred dollars in cash for running expenses with me. All my Newfoundland friends down that way were poor people--fishermen. If 'twas home we could 'a' raised plenty of money on her, but I was in Newfoundland, not Gloucester, and they rushed the thing through.

Well, the _Aurora_ was bid in for just the amount of the fine, and that was a shame, the vessel she was, and she was bid in by a man n.o.body seemed to know. I went to the man who bid her in and told him the whole story, of what the vessel meant to me, of how I came to bring the rum over, and asked him would he give me the chance to communicate with some business men in Gloucester and buy her back, but he only laughs at me, and laughs in a way to make me think I was a child.

And in one way I was sort of a child, then, but I didn't begin to realize how much of a child till I heard a voice giving orders to make sail on the _Aurora_. A coast steamer had just come in, and from her had come a crew of men to take the _Aurora_ away, and this was the voice of the man who gave me the keg of rum that night in Saint Pierre. And while I was looking at him another man came alongside from the coast steamer, and this was Miller himself. If the _Aurora_ had been within distance I would have jumped aboard; but she had her lower sails up then and was moving in pretty lively fashion out of the harbor.