The William Hope Hodgson Megapack

by William Hope Hodgson

  Captain Jeller’s vocabulary was limited and vulgar, and his choice of words therefore unpleasing; but there was no mistaking his meaning; and the crew went forward again, shaking their heads soberly.

  “Just wot I said,” remarked one of them, “he’s a ’oly terror!”

  In this there seemed to be a moody acquiescence on the part of the others; all except one, a young fellow, who muttered an audible threat that he would stick his knife into any one who hazed him.

  “That’s wot you thinks,” returned the first speaker. “You just ’ave a try, an’ you’ll find ’arf a bloomin’ ounce of lead in yer bloomin’ gizzard!”

  “That’s so,” added one of the older men with conviction. “Them sort allus carries a gun in their pocket, handy-like.”

  But the young man looked at the other two with a sullen, somewhat contemptuous stare.

  “They wouldn’t dare if you chaps stuck up to them. It’s just because you let them haze you. You run if they breathe on you!”

  “You just wait a bit, young feller,” replied the second man. “Wait till one on ’em gets his knife into yer. I’ve sailed with them kind, an’ you ’aven’t. They’ve ways an’ means as you’ve no idea of. You’ll learn quick enough if you runs foul of one on ’em!”

  The older man finished his warning with a solemn shake of the head, to which the young fellow replied nothing; but, turning, went into the fo’cas’le, swinging his shoulders unbelievingly.

  “He’ll be gettin’ ’arf murdered,” remarked the first man.

  “Aye,” returned the other. “He’s young an’ thinks he can ’old ’is own; but Lord help ’im if he runs foul of the after-guard!”

  And they also went into the fo’cas’le.

  Aft, in the “glory hole,” three of the ’prentices—all youngsters—sat and regarded one another with dismayed looks.

  “What an old brute he must be!” exclaimed Tommy, the youngest. “If my people had guessed he was like that there would have been ructions and no mistake.”

  “Well, youngster,” put in Martin, an older lad who had done the previous trip with the skipper, “you’re in a hot shop right enough; but you’ll find it a darned sight hotter if you go talking like that with the door open. They can hear every word you say up on the poop; that is, if there’s not much wind.” Tommy looked startled.

  Martin continued, addressing the three of them:

  “See here, youngsters; what you’ve got to do is to fly like mad if they sing out for you to do anything, and whatever they do, never answer one of them back. Never!”

  He repeated the last word with emphasis. Tommy’s eyes grew rounder. “Why?” he said breathlessly. “What do you think they would do?”

  “Do? Goodness knows! Anything, I believe. Last trip they treated one of the ordinaries so badly that the poor chap went queer—silly. Mind you, he acted like a goat and gave both the second mate and the skipper slack; but they knocked all that out of him and some of his brains as well, I believe. Anyway he went half-dotty before the end of the voyage.”

  “Why didn’t the men interfere?” questioned the boy, warmly.

  “Interfere? Not they! And if they had the old man would have shot them down like a lot of sheep.”

  “Didn’t you tell when you got home?”

  Martin shrugged his shoulders.

  “Not I. The youngster cleared out—disappeared. Besides who was I to tell, and what could I have said? They’d have shut me up anyway.”

  “I’d never have come on the same ship again—never!”

  “That depends,” replied Martin. “I tried to get shoved into another but it was no use. And wouldn’t I have looked pretty now if I had gone ’round telling how Toby the ordinary seaman was used by the old man and the second? Wouldn’t I be in for a nice time of it, eh?”

  Tommy nodded gravely; yet his eyes were reproachful.

  “Still, I think you ought to have told, even—”

  “Oh, stow it!” exclaimed Martin, cutting him short. “Wait until you’ve had the old man down on top of you; then you can begin to gas.”

  Tommy wisely made no reply, but began talking with the two others in a low voice; while Martin lay back in his bunk and smoked.

  II.

  During the next few days the Lady Shannon had a fine fair wind which took her well away from the land, the captain making a course sufficiently to the westward to clear the bay.

  Now that they were in blue water there was no mistaking the after-guard’s intentions to make things hum for the “crowd.” There was no afternoon watch below, and work was kept up right through the second dog-watch, while instead of turning the men to washing down at 6 A.M. it was buckets and brooms—and holystones—as soon as the morning watch was relieved at 4 o’clock.

  All this as may be imagined developed a very fair amount of grumbling among the men; but after three or four had been laid out by the first and second mates with the aid of a belaying-pin the grumbling was confined to the inside of the fo’cas’le, and the crowd bade fair to submit quietly enough to treatment far worse than would be meted out to any convict in one of our prisons.

  Yet, as it happened, there was one man with sufficient pluck to make a stand for the sake of the manhood within him, and this was Jones, the young fellow who had sworn he would not be hazed.

  So far he had been sufficiently fortunate to escape the attentions of the second mate, in whose watch he was.

  On the twelfth day out, however, came violent friction between them. The men were holystoning at the time, and the second, on the lookout for trouble, was “bouncing” ’round the decks and keeping them at it. Suddenly he saw Jones biting off a chew.

  “Darn you, you terbaccer-eating hog!” he roared. “You just throw that plug over the side an’ put some of your dirty beef on ter that stone!”

  But Jones did no such thing. Instead, he slipped the plug back into his pocket. In an instant the second mate was beside him.

  “I’ll teach you not to do what I tell you!” he snarled, and pushed the kneeling man over on to the muddy decks with a rough thrust of his boot.

  Jones fell on his right side and the plug of hard tobacco tumbled out from his pocket among the slime of water, dirt, and mud-colored sand. Immediately the second stooped for it and the next instant it was over the side.

  “Get a hold of that stone!” he bellowed. “Smart now, or I’ll knock the dirty face off you!”

  He gave a clumsy kick with his heavy seaboot as he spoke.

  The kick took Jones in a slanting graze across his right shin-bone and he gave a curse of pain. Then he scrambled on to his knees.

  “Thought that’d fetch you!” said the second mate grimly. “Get ahead with that there stonin’ if you don’t want any more!”

  Jones made no reply and no move to go on with his work; but just stared wrathfully up at the officer.

  “—you!” he burst out at last.

  “That’s it, is it!” exclaimed the second, and ran to the starboard pin-rail from whence he took a heavy iron belaying-pin. He returned at a run.

  “Now then you dirty son of a sea-horse!” he roared. “I’ll show you! You open your blabby mouth tome!”

  He raised the pin as he pointed to the holystone.

  “Pick it up!” he shouted. “Pick it up an’ get to work or I’ll knock you inter next week!”

  Jones picked up the great lump of holystone with an air of apparent submissiveness, but instead of beginning to work it across the gritty deck he suddenly raised it in both hands and brought it down with a squashing thud upon the second mate’s right foot. The officer gave out a loud yell of agony, dropped the belaying-pin, raised his injured member, slipped and came down stern-foremost among the muck of sandy mud.

  The next instant Jones had flown at him like a tiger and taking him by the throat had forced him down upon his back and commenced banging his head against the deck. The men had ceased their stoning and were looking on in mingled terror and delight.

&n
bsp; All at once from the direction of the poop there came the sound of running footsteps; they passed along the narrow gangway which led to the little bridge, standing upon four stanchions in the middle of the after part of the main-deck.

  “Ther old man!” called some one in a voice of fear; but Jones, mad with anger, was past noticing.

  The following moment the skipper’s face appeared over the bridge-rail, his face livid with rage. He held a revolver.

  “Jeerusalem! You strike my officer! Take that! An’that! An’that!”

  He was firing indiscriminately among the men upon the deck. Evidently he had been drinking, for though it was plain that he desired to perforate Jones, he only succeeded in shooting one of the other men through the calf of the leg.

  Then, save for Jones and the second mate, the decks were empty of men. They had run like sheep. Up on the bridge the captain was clicking his revolver impotently. It had not been loaded in all its chambers, and he had fired off the full ones.

  From further aft the first mate appeared in his shirt and trousers. He caught sight of the struggle from the break of the poop, and straight away made two jumps of the ladder on to the main-deck. Reaching the place where Jones was worrying the almost senseless officer, he took a flying kick at him, but with no effect. At that he stooped and caught him by the collar, reaching at the same time for the heavy pin which the second mate had dropped.

  “Let go, you rotten fool!” he shouted, raising the pin.

  “Let go, you—!” obscenely echoed the skipper from the bridge overhead.

  At the same time he hurled his empty revolver at Jones. The flying weapon took the first mate on the top of the head and he went down in a heap without knowing what had struck him.

  From the doorway of the ’prentices’ berth there came a shrill “Hurray!” in a boy’s voice. It was from Tommy, who had thus involuntarily voiced his delight at the turn which the affair had taken. The skipper caught the word and turned wrathfully. He saw Tommy and immediately threw his leg over the edge of the bridge-rail. Dropping to the main-deck, he went for the boy.

  “You puppy-faced poop ornament!” he snarled. “You dare ter open your biscuit-hatch at me!”

  He seized him by the back of the neck and ran him to the starboard rail. Here, grasping the end of the mizzen lower topsail brace, he shifted his grip to the youngster’s arm. Then with the heavy brine-sodden rope he struck the boy furiously, beating out from him little gasping sobs. In his savage, half-drunken state he took no note of where he struck, and under one of the blows, which caught Tommy across the back of the neck, the boy went suddenly limp within his grasp.

  Behind him there came a curse in the mate’s voice, a dull thud and a quick choking cry from Jones, another blow, followed by a slight gurgle and then silence.

  The skipper opened his hand and Tommy slid down on to the deck—quietly; then tossing down the rope-end across him he turned rapidly to see the first mate, recovered from the result of the misaimed pistol, in the act of dragging the limp body of Jones off the second mate.

  Taking not the least notice of the huddled boy upon the deck, the captain walked for’ard a few steps and looked down at the insensible second. Then he roared for the steward to bring some whisky. When this was brought they forced some between the second mate’s lips and when he came ’round applied the bottle to their own; after which, with the help of the steward, they got the battered officer to his room.

  Returning on deck the skipper sang out for two of the men to lay aft and carry Jones for’ard. Tommy had been removed to his bunk by the ’prentices, immediately the captain and the mates left the deck and now Martin was busily engaged in bathing his head with some salt water.

  III.

  It was two nights later, in the first watch. The second mate had shaken off the effects of his hammering sufficiently to return to duty. To himself he had vowed that Jones—if he lived—should surfer terribly before the ship reached port. But Jones was still in a state of semi consciousness, due to the blows that the first mate had dealt him; so that for the present the second mate had to curb his hatred and wait.

  Four bells had gone and it was full night, with a bright moon shining. For a while the captain and the second mate had paced the poop, conversing on various topics, chief of which was the grinding of all insubordination out of the men. Presently in response to an order of the captain’s the second mate made his way along the narrow gangway—elevated some ten feet above the main-deck—to the little bridge on its four teak uprights.

  Upon the bridge was placed the “Standard” compass. In addition to the compass there were a couple of rows of wooden ornamental poop-buckets, while up through the deck of the little bridge rose a ventilator. Nothing else was kept upon the bridge; so that what followed the captain was enabled to see plainly. He saw the second mate step up to the compass and peer in at the lighted card. Then came his voice—

  “Sou—”

  It broke off horribly with a hoarse scream and the captain saw him throw up his arms and fall backward on to the bridge deck. Completely astounded and puzzled the skipper ran hastily along the gangway to him.

  “What’s up with you, Mr. Buston?” he asked, stooping over him; but the second gave back no reply.

  At last the skipper reached for the binnacle-lamp. Slipping it from its place he threw the light upon the prostrate mate. It showed him the face, curiously distorted. From that his glance passed to a thin stream which trickled from beneath the man. He knelt down and turned him half over. The blood came from the back of the right shoulder.

  He stood up, releasing the body, and it fell back with an inert sagging of the shoulders. He felt dazed and frightened. The thing had happened before his eyes, within twenty feet of him; yet he had seen nothing that would account for it.

  The bridge stood up above the main-deck like an island and was reached only by the gangway which led from the poop. But even if this had not been so it did not seem possible that any one could have touched the second mate without the captain being aware of it. The more he turned the matter over the more he realized how inexplicable it was. Then a sudden idea came to him and he glanced upward. Had a knife or a spike been dropped from aloft. He thought not. Had that been the case then the instrument would have been visible—and there was none. Besides, the wound was behind.

  Had it been caused by any one dropping a knife or spike, then it would have been in the head or top of the shoulders. There was a similar objection to supposing that a weapon had been thrown at him from the deck below. In that case the wound would have been in the front or one of the sides. It was no use; he could not solve the mystery.

  He gathered his wits somewhat and bellowed to one of the ’prentices to go and call the mate. Another he sent for’ard to order every man, watch below as well as watch on deck, to lay aft. He would at least know the whereabouts of each of the crew.

  The first mate came running with his gun in his hand. It was evident that he was incurably expectant of trouble. While the men were mustering the skipper told the first mate all that he knew.

  As soon as the men were aft the captain made each one pass below the bridge under the light from the binnacle-lamp. Every man was thus discovered to be there, except Jones. Then the ’prentices were mustered, and all came forward except Tommy. As soon as this was done the skipper told the men to stay where they were. Then he ordered the mate to go and see if the missing man and boy were in their respective bunks. In a few minutes the first mate returned to say that they were. Then the captain dismissed the men; but without telling them of the tragedy which had occurred.

  As soon as they had gone he turned to the first mate.

  “See you ’ere, Mr. Jacob,” he said. “Do you think as that dirty carkiss for’ard is as bad as ’e seems?”

  “Yes, sir,” replied the mate. “It’s not him, if that’s what you’re thinking. He looks as if it was his turn next to slip off the hooks.”

  “An’therb’y?”

  The m
ate shook his head.

  “No, sir. He’s not got over that warming you gave him by a long chalk.”

  “If I thought—” began the skipper; but broke off short.

  “Yes, sir?”

  The skipper threw the light down on to the dead man.

  “Wot’s done it?” he asked in a voice denoting that he was at the end of his imagination. “Wot’s done it?”

  “Well sir, it must be one of the lousy crowd for’ard.”

  “One of ther crowd! Do you think as one of them’d be livin’ if I’d thought as it was them!”

  The first mate made no reply, and the captain continued.

  “It ain’t nothin’ ’uman as ’as done this ’ere.”

  He stirred the body with the toe of his boot as he spoke. “You think, sir—”

  “I don’t think nothin’! I’m a long way past thinkin’. Why! I saw ’im killed with me own eyes. He was just struck dead standin’ ’ere in ther moonlight. There weren’t nothin’ come near ’im, an’ there ain’t no signs of a knife, nor nothin’. I reckon as it’s some one as ’e’s done for, some time or another.”

  The mate glanced ’round the decks, silent and ghostly under the moonlight. Though he was a fairly intelligent man, it was plain that he felt a chill of unease.

  The skipper went on with his uncomfortable theorizing:

  “It’s a dead man’s ghost!” he said. “W’en that hog for’ard, as you done for, slips ’is cable, strikes me as you’ll be ’aving a call—sudden!”

  He touched the body with his foot, suggestively.

  “I didn’t know that you were superstitious, sir,” said the mate.

  The captain turned and looked at him steadily.

  “You knowed right then,” he said at length. “I ain’t, but I ain’t a blind fool neither! An’ when I sees one of me officers knifed before me eyes, an’ nothin’ in sight, you can bet as I give in ter facts. I never was narrer, an’ wot me eyes shows me I believes. You can take it from me right off as ther’s something in this ’ere packet as ain’t ’uman.”