Captains Courageous

by Rudyard Kipling

“Not knowin’ what your notions o’ fun may be, I can’t rightly say, young feller. But if I was you, I wouldn’t call the boat which, under Providence, was the means o’ savin’ ye, names. In the first place, it’s blame irreligious. In the second, it’s annoyin’ to my feelin’s—an’ I’m Disko Troop o’ the We’re Here o’ Gloucester, which you don’t seem rightly to know.”

  “I don’t know and I don’t care,” said Harvey. “I’m grateful enough for being saved and all that, of course! but I want you to understand that the sooner you take me back to New York the better it’ll pay you.”

  “Meanin’—haow?” Troop raised one shaggy eyebrow over a suspiciously mild blue eye.

  “Dollars and cents,” said Harvey, delighted to think that he was making an impression. “Cold dollars and cents.” He thrust a hand into a pocket, and threw out his stomach a little, which was his way of being grand. “You’ve done the best day’s work you ever did in your life when you pulled me in. I’m all the son Harvey Cheyne has.”

  “He’s bin favoured,” said Disko, dryly.

  “And if you don’t know who Harvey Cheyne is, you don’t know much—that’s all. Now turn her around and let’s hurry.”

  Harvey had a notion that the greater part of America was filled with people discussing and envying his father’s dollars.

  “Mebbe I do, an’ mebbe I don’t. Take a reef in your stummick, young feller. It’s full o’ my vittles.”

  Harvey heard a chuckle from Dan, who was pretending to be busy by the stump-foremast, and blood rushed to his face. “We’ll pay for that too,” he said. “When do you suppose we shall get to New York?”

  “I don’t use Noo York any. Ner Boston. We may see Eastern Point about September; an’ your pa—I’m real sorry I hain’t heerd tell of him—may give me ten dollars efter all your talk. Then o’ course he mayn’t.”

  “Ten dollars! Why, see here, I——” Harvey dived into his pocket for the wad of bills. All he brought up was a soggy packet of cigarettes.

  “Not lawful currency, an’ bad for the lungs. Heave ’em overboard, young feller, and try agin.”

  “It’s been stolen!” cried Harvey, hotly.

  “You’ll hev to wait till you see your pa to reward me, then?”

  “A hundred and thirty-four dollars—all stolen,” said Harvey, hunting wildly through his pockets. “Give them back.”

  A curious change flitted across old Troop’s hard face. “What might you have been doin’ at your time o’ life with one hundred an’ thirty-four dollars, young feller?”

  “It was part of my pocket-money—for a month.” This Harvey thought would be a knock-down blow, and it was—indirectly.

  “Oh! One hundred and thirty-four dollars is only part of his pocket-money—for one month only! You don’t remember hittin’ anything when you fell over, do you? Crack agin a stanchion, le’s say. Old man Hasken o’ the East Wind”—Troop seemed to be talking to himself—“he tripped on a hatch an’ butted the mainmast with his head—hardish. ’Baout three weeks afterwards, old man Hasken he would hev it that the East Wind was a commerce-destroyin’ man-o’-war, an’ so he declared war on Sable Island because it was Bridish, an’ the shoals run aout too far. They sewed him up in a bed-bag, his head an’ feet appearin’, fer the rest o’ the trip, an’ now he’s to home in Essex playin’ with little rag dolls.”

  Harvey choked with rage, but Troop went on consolingly: “We’re sorry fer you. We’re very sorry fer you—an’ so young. We won’t say no more abaout the money, I guess.”

  “’Course you won’t. You stole it.”

  “Suit yourself. We stole it ef it’s any comfort to you. Naow, abaout goin’ back. Allowin’ we could do it, which we can’t, you ain’t in no fit state to go back to your home, an’ we’ve jest come on to the Banks, workin’ fer our bread. We don’t see the ha’af of a hundred dollars a month, let alone pocket-money; an’ with good luck we’ll be ashore again somewheres abaout the first weeks o’ September.”

  “But—but it’s May now, and I can’t stay here doin’ nothing just because you want to fish. I can’t, I tell you!”

  “Right an’jest; jest an’ right. No one asks you to do nothin’. There’s a heap as you can do, for Otto he went overboard on Le Have. I mistrust he lost his grip in a gale we f’und there. Anyways, he never come back to deny it. You’ve turned up, plain, plumb providential for all concerned. I mistrust, though, there’s ruther few things you kin do. Ain’t thet so?”

  “I can make it lively for you and your crowd when we get ashore,” said Harvey, with a vicious nod, murmuring vague threats about “piracy,” at which Troop almost—not quite—smiled.

  “Excep’ talk. I’d forgot that. You ain’t asked to talk more’n you’ve a mind to aboard the We’re Here. Keep your eyes open, an’ help Dan to do ez he’s bid, an’ sechlike, an’ I’ll give you—you ain’t wuth it, but I’ll give—ten an’ a ha’af a month; say thirty-five at the end o’ the trip. A little work will ease up your head, and you kin tell us all abaout your dad an’ your ma an’ your money afterwards.”

  “She’s on the steamer,” said Harvey, his eyes filling with tears. “Take me to New York at once.”

  “Poor woman—poor woman! When she has you back she’ll forgit it all, though. There’s eight of us on the We’re Here, an’ ef we went back naow—it’s more’n a thousand mile—we’d lose the season. The men they wouldn’t hev it, allowin’ I was agreeable.”

  “But my father would make it all right.”

  “He’d try. I don’t doubt he’d try,” said Troop; “but a whole season’s catch is eight men’s bread; an’ you’ll be better in your health when you see him in the fall. Go forward an’ help Dan. It’s ten an’ a ha’af a month, ez I said, an’ o’ course, all f’und, same ez the rest o’ us.”

  “Do you mean I’m to clean pots and pans and things?” said Harvey.

  “An’ other things. You’ve no call to shout, young feller.”

  “I won’t! My father will give you enough to buy this dirty little fish-kettle”—Harvey stamped on the deck—“ten times over, if you take me to New York safe; and—and—you’re in a hundred and thirty by me, anyhow.”

  “Ha-ow?” said Troop, the iron face darkening.

  “How? You know how, well enough. On top of all that, you want me to do menial work”—Harvey was very proud of that adjective—“till the fall. I tell you I will not. You hear?”

  Troop regarded the top of the mainmast with deep interest for a while, as Harvey harangued fiercely all around him.

  “Hsh!” he said at last. “I’m figurin’ out my responsibilities in my own mind. It’s a matter o’ jedgment.”

  Dan stole up and plucked Harvey by the elbow. “Don’t go to tamperin’ with Dad any more,” he pleaded. “You’ve called him a thief two or three times over, an’ he don’t take that from any livin’ bein’.”

  “I won’t!” Harvey almost shrieked, disregarding the advice, and still Troop meditated.

  “Seems kinder unneighbourly,” he said at last, his eye travelling down to Harvey. “I don’t blame you, not a mite, young feller, nor you won’t blame me when the bile’s out o’ your systim. Be sure you sense what I say? Ten an’ a ha’af fer second boy on the schooner—an’ all found—fer to teach you an’ fer the sake o’ your health. Yes or no?”

  “No!” said Harvey. “Take me back to New York or I’ll see you——”

  He did not exactly remember what followed. He was lying in the scuppers, holding on to a nose that bled while Troop looked down on him serenely.

  “Dan,” he said to his son, “I was sot again this young feller when I first saw him on account o’ hasty jedgments. Never you be led astray by hasty jedgments, Dan. Naow I’m sorry for him, because he’s clear distracted in his upper works. He ain’t responsible fer the names he’s give me, nor fer his other statements—nor fer jumpin’ overboard, which I’m abaout ha’af convinced he did. You be gentle with him, Dan, ’r I’ll give you twice what I�
�ve give him. Them hemmeridges clears the head. Let him sluice it off!”

  Troop went down solemnly into the cabin, where he and the older men bunked, leaving Dan to comfort the luckless heir to thirty millions.

  CHAPTER 2

  I WARNED YE,” said Dan, as the drops fell thick and fast on the dark, oiled planking. “Dad ain’t noways hasty, but you fair earned it. Pshaw! there’s no sense takin’ on so.” Harvey’s shoulders were rising and falling in spasms of dry sobbing. “I know the feelin’. First time Dad laid me out was the last—and that was my first trip. Makes ye feel sickish an’ lonesome. I know.”

  “It does,” moaned Harvey. “That man’s either crazy or drunk, and—and I can’t do anything.”

  “Don’t say that to Dad,” whispered Dan. “He’s set agin all liquor, an’—well, he told me you was the madman. What in creation made you call him a thief? He’s my dad.”

  Harvey sat up, mopped his nose, and told the story of the missing wad of bills. “I’m not crazy,” he wound up. “Only—your father has never seen more than a five-dollar bill at a time, and my father could buy up this boat once a week and never miss it.”

  “You don’t know what the We’re Here’s worth. Your dad must hev a pile o’ money. How did he git it? Dad sez loonies can’t shake out a straight yarn. Go ahead.”

  “In gold mines and things, West.”

  “I’ve read o’ that kind o’ business. Out West, too? Does he go around with a pistol on a trick-pony, same ez the circus? They call that the Wild West, and I’ve heard that their spurs an’ bridles was solid silver.”

  “You are a chump!” said Harvey, amused in spite of himself. “My father hasn’t any use for ponies. When he wants to ride he takes his car.”

  “Haow? Lobster-car?”

  “No. His own private car, of course. You’ve seen a private car some time in your life?”

  “Slatin Beeman he hez one,” said Dan, cautiously. “I saw her at the Union Depot in Boston, with three niggers hoggin’ her run.” (Dan meant cleaning the windows.) “But Slatin Beeman he owns ’baout every railroad on Long Island, they say, an’ they say he’s bought ’baout ha’af Noo Hampshire an’ run a line fence around her, an’ filled her up with lions an’ tigers an’ bears an’ buffalo an’ crocodiles an’ such all. Slatin Beeman he’s a millionaire. I’ve seen his car. Yes?”

  “Well, my father’s what they call a multi-millionaire, and he has two private cars. One’s named for me, the Harvey, and one for my mother, the Constance.”

  “Hold on,” said Dan. “Dad don’t ever let me swear, but I guess you can. ’Fore we go ahead, I want you to say hope you may die if you’re lyin’.”

  “Of course,” said Harvey.

  “Thet ain’t ’nuff. Say, ‘Hope I may die if I ain’t speakin’ truth.’”

  “Hope I may die right here,” said Harvey, “if every word I’ve spoken isn’t the cold truth.”

  “Hundred an’ thirty-four dollars an’ all?” said Dan. “I heard ye talkin’ to Dad, an’ I ha’af looked you’d be swallered up, same’s Jonah.”

  Harvey protested himself red in the face. Dan was a shrewd young person along his own lines, and ten minutes’ questioning convinced him that Harvey was not lying—much. Besides, he had bound himself by the most terrible oath known to boyhood, and yet he sat, alive, with a red-ended nose, in the scuppers, recounting marvels upon marvels.

  “Gosh!” said Dan at last from the very bottom of his soul when Harvey had completed an inventory of the car named in his honour. Then a grin of mischievous delight overspread his broad face. “I believe you, Harvey. Dad’s made a mistake fer once in his life.”

  “He has, sure,” said Harvey, who was meditating an early revenge.

  “He’ll be mad clear through. Dad jest hates to be mistook in his jedgments.” Dan lay back and slapped his thigh. “Oh, Harvey, don’t you spile the catch by lettin’ on.”

  “I don’t want to be knocked down again. I’ll get even with him, though.”

  “Never heard any man ever got even with Dad. But he’d knock ye down again sure. The more he was mistook the more he’d do it. But gold mines and pistols——”

  “I never said a word about pistols,” Harvey cut in, for he was on his oath.

  “Thet’s so; no more you did. Two private cars, then, one named fer you an’ one fer her; an’ two hundred dollars a month pocket-money, all knocked into the scuppers fer not workin’ fer ten an’ a ha’af a month! It’s the top haul o’ the season.” He exploded with noiseless chuckles.

  “Then I was right?” said Harvey, who thought he had found a sympathizer.

  “You was wrong; the wrongest kind o’ wrong! You take right hold an’ pitch in ’longside o’ me, or you’ll catch it, an’ I’ll catch it fer backin’ you up. Dad always gives me double helps ’cause I’m his son, an’ he hates favourin’ folk. Guess you’re kinder mad at Dad. I’ve been that way time an’ again. But Dad’s a mighty jest man; all the Fleet says so.”

  “Looks like justice, this, don’t it?” Harvey pointed to his outraged nose.

  “Thet’s nothin’. Lets the shore blood outer you. Dad did it for yer health. Say, though, I can’t have dealin’s with a man that thinks me or Dad or any one on the We’re Here’s a thief. We ain’t any common wharf-end crowd by any manner o’ means. We’re fishermen, an’ we’ve shipped together for six years an’ more. Don’t you make any mistake on that! I told ye Dad don’t let me swear. He calls ’em vain oaths, and pounds me; but ef I could say what you said ’baout your pap an’ his fixin’s, I’d say that ’baout your dollars. I dunno what was in your pockets when I dried your kit fer I didn’t look to see; but I’d say, using the very same words ez you used just now, neither me nor Dad—an’ we was the only two that teched you after you was brought aboard—knows anythin’ ’baout the money. Thet’s my say. Naow?”

  The blood letting had certainly cleared Harvey’s brain, and maybe the loneliness of the sea had something to do with it. “That’s all right,” he said. Then he looked down confusedly. “Seems to me that for a fellow just saved from drowning I haven’t been over and above grateful, Dan.”

  “Well, you was shook up and silly,” said Dan. “Anyway there was only Dad an’ me aboard to see it. The cook he don’t count.”

  “I might have thought about losing the bills that way,” Harvey said, half to himself, “instead of calling everybody in sight a thief. Where’s your father?”

  “In the cabin. What d’ you want o’ him again?”

  “You’ll see,” said Harvey, and he stepped, rather groggily, for his head was still singing, to the cabin steps where the little ship’s clock hung in plain sight of the wheel. Troop, in the chocolate-and-yellow painted cabin, was busy with a notebook and an enormous black pencil which he sucked hard from time to time.

  “I haven’t acted quite right,” said Harvey, surprised at his own meekness.

  “What’s wrong naow?” said the skipper. “Walked into Dan, hev ye?”

  “No; it’s about you.”

  “I’m here to listen.”

  “Well, I—I’m here to take things back,” said Harvey very quickly. “When a man’s saved from drowning——” he gulped.

  “Ey? You’ll make a man yet ef you go on this way.”

  “He oughtn’t begin by calling people names.”

  “Jest an’ right—right an’ jest,” said Troop, with the ghost of a dry smile.

  “So I’m here to say I’m sorry.” Another big gulp.

  Troop heaved himself slowly off the locker he was sitting on and held out an eleven-inch hand. “I mistrusted ’twould do you sights o’ good; an’ this shows I weren’t mistook in my jedgments.” A smothered chuckle on deck caught his ear. “I am very seldom mistook in my jedgments.” The eleven-inch hand closed on Harvey’s, numbing it to the elbow. “We’ll put a little more gristle to that ’fore we’ve done with you, young feller; an’ I don’t think any worse of ye fer anythin’ thet’s gone by. You wasn’t fairly
responsible. Go right abaout your business an’ you won’t take no hurt.”

  “You’re white,” said Dan, as Harvey regained the deck, flushed to the tips of his ears.

  “I don’t feel it,” said he.

  “I didn’t mean that way. I heard what Dad said. When Dad allows he don’t think the worse of any man, Dad’s give himself away. He hates to be mistook in his jedgments too. Ho! ho! Onct Dad has a jedgment, he’d sooner dip his colours to the British than change it. I’m glad it’s settled right eend up. Dad’s right when he says he can’t take you back. It’s all the livin’ we make here—fishin’. The men’ll be back like sharks after a dead whale in ha’af an hour.”

  “What for?” said Harvey.

  “Supper, o’ course. Don’t your stummick tell you? You’ve a heap to learn.”

  “Guess I have,” said Harvey, dolefully, looking at the tangle of ropes and blocks overhead.

  “She’s a daisy,” said Dan, enthusiastically, misunderstanding the look. “Wait till our mainsail’s bent, an’ she walks home with all her salt wet. There’s some work first, though.” He pointed down into the darkness of the open main-hatch between the two masts.

  “What’s that for? It’s all empty,” said Harvey.

  “You an’ me an’ a few more hev got to fill it,” said Dan. “That’s where the fish goes.”

  “Alive?” said Harvey.

  “Well, no. They’re so’s to be ruther dead—an’ flat—an’ salt. There’s a hundred hogshead o’ salt in the bins, an’ we hain’t more’n covered our dunnage to now.”

  “Where are the fish, though?”

  “In the sea they say, in the boats we pray,” said Dan, quoting a fisherman’s proverb. “You come in last night with ’baout forty of ’em.”

  He pointed to a sort of wooden pen just in front of the quarterdeck.

  “You an’ me we’ll sluice that out when they’re through. ’Send we’ll hev full pens to-night! I’ve seen her down ha’af a foot with fish waitin’ to clean, an’ we stood to the tables till we was splittin’ ourselves instid o’ them, we was so sleepy. Yes, they’re comin’ in naow.” Dan looked over the low bulwarks at half a dozen dories rowing towards them over the shining, silky sea.