Mr Collins flared up.
‘You may take your choice of three ways,’ he said, ‘the Medorus tows out at noon. If you can find a first-mate to suit you by then, or if you take Wilson as first-mate, you take her out. If not, I’ll find another master for her and you can find another ship.’
Benson lumbered off the booby-hatch and disappeared down the cabin companion-way. The cabin-boy came up whistling, went briskly over the side, and scampered some little distance up the pier to where three boarding-masters stood chatting. One of them came back with him, three or four half sober sailors tagging after him. These he left by the deaf man’s sea-chest. Its owner came aboard with him and together they went down into the cabin.
‘Look here, Mr Collins,’ I said, ‘I’ve half a mind to back out of this and stay ashore?’
‘Why?’ he queried, his little gray eyes like slits in his face.
‘I hear this captain called Beast Benson, I see he has difficulty in getting a crew and before me you force him to take a deaf mate. An unwilling crew, a defective officer and an unpopular captain seem to me to make a risky combination.’
‘All combinations are risky at sea, as far as that goes,’ said Mr Collins easily. ‘Most crews are unwilling and few captains popular. Benson is not half a bad captain. He always has bother getting a crew because he is economical of food with them. But you’ll find good eating in the cabin. He has never had any trouble with a crew, once at sea. He is cautious, takes better care of his sails, rigging and tackle than any man I know, is a natural genius at seamanship, humoring his ship, coaxing the wind and all that. And he is a precious sharp hand to sell flour and buy coffee, I can tell you. You’ll be safe with him. I should feel perfectly safe with him. I’m sorry I can’t go, I can tell you.’
‘But the deaf mate,’ I persisted.
‘He has good discharges,’ said Mr Collins, ‘and is well spoken of. He’s all right.’
At that moment the boarding-master came out of the cabin and went over the side. Two of the sailors picked up the first-mate’s chest and it was soon aboard. The two men went down into the cabin to sign articles. As they went down and as they came up I had a good look at them. One was a Mecklenburger, a lout of a hulking boy, with an ugly face made uglier by loathsome swellings under his chin. The other was a big, stout Irishman, his curly hair tousled, his fat face flushed, his eyes wild and rolling with the after-effects of a shore debauch. His eyes were notable, one bright enamel-blue, the other skinned-over with an opaque, white, film. He lurched against the companion-hatch, as he came up, and half-rolled, half-stumbled forward. He was still three-quarters drunk.
The Medorus towed out at noon. Mr Collins and Griswold stayed aboard till the tug cast loose, about dusk. After that we worked down the bay under our own sail. Even in the Lay I was seasick and for some days I took little interest in anything. I had made some attempt to eat, but beyond calling the first-mate Mr Wilson and the second mate Mr Olsen, my brief stays at table had profited me little. I had brought a steamer-chair with me and lolled in it most of the daylight, too limp to notice much of anything.
I couldn’t help noticing Captain Benson’s undignified behavior. A merchant captain, beyond taking the sun each morning and noon and being waked at midnight by the mate just off watch to hear his report, plotting his course on his chart and keeping his log, concerns himself not at all with the management of his ship, except when he takes the wheel at the critical moment of tacking, or of box-hauling, if the wind changes suddenly, or when a dangerous storm makes it incumbent upon him to take charge continually. Otherwise he leaves all routine matters to the mate on watch. Benson transgressed sea-etiquette continually in this respect. He was forever nosing about and interfering with one or the other mate in respect to matters too small for a self-respecting captain’s notice. His mates’ contempt for him was plain enough, but was discreetly veiled behind silent lips, expressionless faces and far-off eyes. The men were more open and exchanged sneering glances. The captain would sit on the edge of the cabin-deck, his feet dangling over the poop-deck, and continually nag the steersman, keeping it up for hours.
‘Keep her up to the wind,’ he would say, ‘keep that royal lifting.’
‘Aye, aye, Sir,’ would come from the man at the wheel.
Next moment the captain would call out:
‘Let her go off, you damn fool. You’ll have her aback!’
‘Let her go off, Sir,’ the victim would reply.
Presently again Benson would snarl:
‘Where are you lettin’ her go to? Keep her up to the wind.’
‘Keep her up to the wind, Sir,’ would come the reply and so on in maddening reiteration.
A day or two after we cleared the Capes the big one-eyed Irishman had the wheel. His name, I found afterwards, was Terence Burke and he was from Five Rivers, Canada. He had been a mariner all his life, knew most of the seas and ports of the world. He was especially proud of having been in the United States Navy and of his Civil War record. He had been one of the seamen on the Congress or the Cumberland, I forget which, and graphic were his descriptions of his sensations while the Merrimac’s shells were tearing through the helpless ship, the men lying flat in rows on the farther side of the decks, and the six-foot live-oak splinters, deadly as the bits of shell themselves, flying murderously about as each shell burst; of how they took to their boats after dark, and reached the shore, expecting to be captured every moment; of how they saw the Ericsson’s lights (Burke always called the Monitor the Ericsson) coming in from the sea, and took heart. Burke was justly proud that he had been one of the men detailed, as biggest and strongest, to work the Ericsson’s guns, and that he had helped fight her big turret guns in her famous first battle.
All this about Burke I did not learn till many days later. But it was plain to be seen, even by a sea-sick land-lubber, that he was an able seaman, seasoned, competent and self-respecting. All that was manifest all over him as he stood at the wheel. Likewise it was plain that he had brought liquor aboard with him, for he was still half-drunk, and quarrelsome drunk. Even I could see that in his attitude, in his florid face, in his boiled eye. But Captain Benson did not see it when presently he came on deck and seated himself on the edge of the cabin-deck. He cocked his eye up the main-mast and presently growled.
‘Let her go off.’
Burke shifted the wheel a quarter of a spoke, his jaws clenched, his lips tight shut.
Benson chewed on his big quid and kept his eye aloft. Again he growled:
‘Keep her up to the wind.’
Burke shifted the wheel back a quarter of a spoke, again without any word.
‘I’ll learn ye sea-manners,’ Benson snarled, ‘I’ll learn ye to repeat after me what I say. Do ye hear me?’
‘Aye, aye, Sor,’ Burke replied, smartly enough.
Shortly Benson came at him again.
‘Let her go off, you damn fool.’
‘Let her go off, you damn fool, Sor,’ Burke sang out in a rasping Celtic roar which carried to the jibboom.
It was Olsen’s watch and the big Norseman was standing by the weather-rigging, his hand on one of the main shrouds. He grinned broadly, full in Captain Benson’s face and then looked away to windward. Burke was clutching the spokes as if he were ready to tear them out of the wheel. He looked fighting mad all over. Captain Benson looked aft at him, looked forward, looked aloft, and then rose and went below without a word. Henceforward he worried the steersman no more, unless it were Dutch Charlie, the big loutish boy with the ulcerated chin, or Pomeranian Emil, a timid Baltic waif. Burke and the other full-grown men he let alone.
Next day Burke looked drunker and more belligerent than ever. I noted it, even in my half-daze of flabby nauseated weakness, which subdued me so totally that not even a beautiful and novel spectacle revived me. It was just before noon. The captain and the first-mate had come on deck with their sextants to determine our latitude. The day was fine with a gentle steady breeze, a clear sky and uncloude
d sunlight, over all the white-capped blue waters. Smoke sighted a little before turned out to be that of a British man-of-war. Just as the captain told the man at the wheel to make it eight-bells, the man-of-war crossed our bows, all white paint and gilding, her ensign spread, flags everywhere, her band playing and her crew manning the yards. The cabin-boy said it was an English bank-holiday, and that she was bound for Bermuda. I was too flaccid to ask further or to care. I made no attempt to go below for the noon meal. I lay at length in my chair. While the captain and mates were at their dinner I could hear loud voices from the forecastle, or perhaps round the galley door. Presently the first-mate came on deck. He walked to starboard, which was to windward, and stood staring after the far off smoke of the vanished man-of-war. He was a tall, clean-built square-shouldered man, English in every detail of movement, attitude and demeanor. He interested me, for in spite of his expressionless face he looked far too intelligent for his calling. I was watching him when I was aware of Burke puffing and snorting aft along the main deck. He puffed and snorted up the port companion-ladder to the poop-deck. His face was redder than ever and his eyes redder than his face. He carried a pan of scouse or biscuit-hash or some such mess. He approached the first-mate from behind and hailed him.
‘Luke at thot, Sor,’ he said, ‘uz thot fit fude fur min?’
The mate, unaware of his presence, did not move or speak.
‘Luke at thot Oi say,’ Burke roared, ‘uz thot fit to fade min on?’
The mate remained immobile.
Burke gave a sort of snarling howl, hurled at the mate the pannikin, which hit him on the back of the head, its contents going all over his neck and down his collar. As he threw it Burke leaped at the officer. He whirled round before he was seized and met the attack with a short, right-hand jab on Burke’s jaw. There was not enough swing in the blow to down the sailor. He clutched both lapels of the mate’s open pea-jacket and pulled him forward. The force the mate had put into the blow, and the impetus it had imparted to Burke, besides his sideways wrench, took the mate half off his feet. He got in a second jab, this time with his left hand, but again too short to be effective. Both men lurched toward the booby-hatch and the inside breast-pockets of the mate’s jolted jacket cascaded a shower of letters upon the deck, which blew hither and thither to port. My chair was on the cabin-deck just above the port companion-ladder. The booky man’s instinct to save written paper shook me out of my lethargy. In an instant I was out of my chair, down the ladder and picking up the scattered envelopes. Not one, I think, went over-board. I saved three by the port rail and a half a dozen more further inboard. As I scrambled about from one to the other I glanced again and again at the men struggling on the other side of the booby-hatch. The mate had not lost his footing. His short-arm jabs had pushed Burke back till he lost hold of the pea-jacket. The Irishman gathered himself for a rush, the mate squared off, in perfect form, met the rush with a left-hand upper cut on the seaman’s chin, calculated his swing and planted a terribly accurate right-hand drive full in Burke’s face. He went backward over the starboard companion-ladder down into the main deck.
Paying no more attention to him the mate turned to pick up his letters. He found several on the deck against the booby-hatch, and one by the break of the cabin. Then he looked about for more. I stepped unsteadily toward him and handed him those I had gathered up. In gathering them it had been impossible for me to help noting the address, and the stamps and the postmarks, which on several were English, on two or three French, on two Italian, on one German, on one Egyptian and on one Australian. The address the same on all, was:
GEOFFREY CECIL, ESQ.
c.o. ALEXANDER BROWN & SON
Baltimore, Maryland,
U. S. A.
Instinctively I turned the packet face down as I handed it to him. He took it gracefully and in his totally toneless voice said:
‘Thank you very much!’
As he said the words Captain Benson appeared in the cabin companion-way, his revolver in his hands. The mate in the act of stowing with his left hand the letters in his inner breast-pocket, pointed his extended index finger at the pistol.
‘Put that thing away!’ he commanded.
The voice was as toneless as before, but far otherwise than the blurred British evenness of his acknowledgment to me, these words rang hard and sharp. Benson took the rebuke as if he had been the mate and the other his captain, turned and shuffled fumblingly back down the companion-way. As he passed the pantry door the cabin-boy whipped out of it and popped up the companion-way to see, and the big Norse mate emerged deliberately behind him.
By this time the fat negro steward and most of the crew had come aft and gathered about the prostrate Burke.
The first-mate cleared the scouse from his neck and collar, took some tarred marline from an outside pocket of his pea-jacket, and in a leisurely way went down into the waist. He had the men turn Burke over and tie his hands behind him and his ankles together. Then he had buckets of sea-water dashed over him. Burke soon regained consciousness.
‘Carry him forward and put him in his bunk,’ the mate commanded. ‘When he says he will behave cut him loose.’
Captain Benson had come on deck and was standing by the booby-hatch.
‘That man ought to be put in irons,’ he said as the mate turned.
The mate’s eyes were on his face as he said it.
‘He needs no irons,’ he retorted crisply. ‘Why make a mountain out of a mole-hill.’
I had been hoping that I was getting used to the sea, for I was only passively uncomfortable and mildly wretched. But sometime that night it came on to blow fresh and I waked acutely sea-sick and suffering violently from horrible surging qualms in every joint. I clambered out of my bunk, struggled into some clothes and crawled across the cabin and up the after companion-way to the wheel-deck. There I collapsed at full length into four inches of warm rain water against the lee-rail. At first the baffling breeze was comforting after the stuffy cabin, smelling of stale coffee, damp sea-biscuit, prunes, oilskins and what not. But I was soon too cold, for I was vestless and coatless, and before long my teeth were chattering and I had a general chill to add to my misery. It was the first-mate’s watch and coming aft on his eternal round he found me there. He at once went below and brought me not only vest and jacket but my mackintosh also. I was wet to the skin all over, but the mackintosh was gratefully warm. Forgetting that he could not hear I thanked him inarticulately, and relapsed into my shifting pond, where I slipped into oblivion, my head on the outer timber, the tearing dawn-wind across my face.
Sometime before noon I was again in my chair, as on the day before, and it was again the first-mate’s watch. Again I saw Burke come aft. He was not puffing and snorting this time, but very silent. His florid face was a sort of gray-brown. His head was tied up and the bandage tilted sideways over his bad eye. He came up to port companion ladder half way from the waist of the poop-deck. There he stood holding on to the top of the rail, looking very humble and abashed. It was some time before the first-mate noticed him or deigned to notice him. In that interval Burke said a score of times:
‘Mr Willson, Sor!’
Each time he realized that he was ignored he waited meekly for a chance to try again. Finally the mate saw him speak and asked:
‘What is it, Burke?’
Burke began to pour out a torrent of speech.
‘Come here,’ said the mate.
When Burke was close to him he said:
‘Speak slow!’
‘Shure Sor,’ he said, ‘ye wudn’t go fur to call ut mut’ny whan a man’s droonk an’ makes a fule of himsilf?’
‘Perhaps not,’ the mate replied, his steady eyes on Burke’s face.
‘Ye, wudn’t, I know,’ Burke went on confidently. ‘Ye see, Sor, Oi was half droonk whan Oi cum aboord. An’ Oi had licker tu, more fule Oi. Mr Olsen, he cum forrard in the dog-watch afther ye’d taat mie me place, and he routed ut out an’ hove ut overboord. Oi’m sobered
now Sor, with the facer ye giv me an’ the cowld wather an’ the slape, Oi’m sobered, an’ Oi’m sobered for the voyage, Sor. Ye’ll foind me quoite and rispectful Sor. Oi was droonk Sor, an’ the scouse misloiked me, an’ Oi made a fule ov mesilf. Ye’ll foind me quoite and rispectful, Sor, indade ye wull. Ye wudn’t go for to log me for mut’ny for makin’ a fule ov mesilf Sor, wud ye now, Sor?’
‘No, Burke,’ said the mate. ‘I shall not log you. Go forward.’
Burke went.
Some days later I was forward on the forecastle deck, ensconced against the big canvas-covered anchor, leaning over the side and watching the foam about the cut-water and the up-spurted coveys of sudden flying fish, darting out of the waves, at the edge of the bark’s shadows and veering erratically in their unpredictable flights. Burke, barefoot and chewing a large quid, was going about with a tar-bucket, swabbing mats and other such devices. He approached me.
‘Mr Ferris, Sor,’ he said, ‘ye wudn’t have a bit of washin’ a man cud du for ye? Ye’ll be strange loike aboord ship, an’ this yer foorst voyge, an’ ye the only passenger, an’ this a sailin’ ship, tu. Ye’ll be thinkin’ ov a hotel, Mr Ferris, Sor. An’ there’s no wan to du washin’ here fur ye, Sor. The naygur cuke is no manner ov use tu ye. Ye giv me anny bits ye want washed an Oi’ll wash ’em nate fur ye. A man-o-war’s man knows a dale ov washin’ an’ ye’ll pay me wut ye loike. Thin I’ll not be set ashore in Rio wudout a cint, Sor.’
‘You’ll have your wages,’ I hazarded.
‘Not with Beast Benson,’ he replied, ‘little duh ye know Beast Benson. Oi know um. Wut didn’t go into me advances ull go into the shlop-chest. Oi may have a millrace or maybe tu at Rio, divil a cint moor.’
This was the beginning of many chats with Burke. He told me of Five Rivers, of his life on men-of-war, of his participation in the battle between the Merrimac and the Ericsson, as he called the Monitor, of unholy adventures in a hundred ports, of countless officers he had served under.
‘An’ niver wan uz foine a gintlemin tiz Mr Willson,’ he would wind up. ‘Niver wan ov them all. Shure, he’s no Willson. He ships as John Willson, Liverpool. Now all the seas knows John Willson ov Liverpool. There’s thousands ov him. He’s afloat all over the wurruld. He’s always the same, short and curly-headed, black-haired and dark-faced, ivery John Willson is loike ivery other wan. Ivery Liverpool Portugee uz John Willson whin he cooms to soign articles. But Mr Willson’s no Dago, no Liverpool man at all. He’s a gintlemin, British all over, an’ a midlander at thot an’ no seaman be naature at all. But he’s the gintlemin. Ye saa him down me. He’s the foine gintlemin. Not a midshipman or liftenant did iver Oi see a foiner gintlemin than him, and how sinsible he uz. Haff the officers Oi’ve served under wuz lunies, sinsible on this or thot, but half luny on most things and luny all over on this or thot. But luke at Mr Willson. Sinsible all over he uz, sinsible all thru. Luke at the discipline he huz. An’ no wunder. Luke at huz oi! He cudn’t du a mane thing av he wanted tu, he cudn’t tell a loi av he throid, thrust me Sor, Oi know, the min knows. It’s loike byes at skule wid a tacher, or min in the army wid their orficers. You can’t fule thim, they knows, an’ wull they knows a man whin they say wan. Oi’d thrust Mr Willson annywhere and annyhow. So wud anny other sailor man or anny man. Deef he uz, deef as an anchor fouled on a rock bottom. But he hears wid huz eyes, wid huz fingers, wid the hull skin av him. He’s all sinse an’ trewth an’ koindness.’
The Stuff of Dreams: The Weird Stories of Edward Lucas White (Dover Horror Classics) Page 15
