CHAPTER III
In Which the Bubble of My Conceit Is Pricked
Now this is no place to report the details of a fight of this character. It is all well and good for a boy to learn to box; it is one of the cleanest sports there is. It teaches one to be quick of eye and foot, inculcates courage, gives even a naturally timid person confidence, and aids wind and muscle. But the game should be played only with soft gloves—never with bare fists.
Maybe once or twice in the average boy’s life will he need the knowledge gained in the gymnasium to save himself from a beating. I think now I should have sidestepped this trouble with Bob Promise, and could have done so with no loss of honor or self-respect.
But as I saw how lubberly the fellow was, and how clumsy he was on his feet, I was fired with the conceit that I had a chance to hold my own in the contest. And so I did.
I passed my watch to Thank and claimed two-minute rounds; he acted as timekeeper while the gorilla man was referee. We fought altogether five rounds, and during that time my antagonist only managed to reach me half a dozen times, and only once did he knock me to the deck.
I was pretty fresh at the end of this time, while Bob was blowing like a porpoise, I had closed one of his eyes, and his face was bleeding where my knuckles had cut him deeply. During the last round I noticed that the men had kept mighty quiet, and as the big fellow stepped in between us when Thank announced the end of the round, I saw Mr. Barney, the second mate, standing behind me.
“I reckon that’s enough, boys,” said the little second mate, good-naturedly enough. “They’re not matched by the rules you are following. This young fellow will soon have Bob groggy. The boy’s got all the science and Bob has no show.”
This was putting it in a light that vexed me. I had thought I was the one to earn sympathy, not the bully.
“Why,” I complained, “he pitched on me for nothing. And he outweighs me thirty pound.”
“And you outweigh me twenty pound, you young bantam, you!” laughed the second mate. “Come! I’m a better match for you than Bob is.”
I flushed pretty red at that, for although I saw Mr. Barney was a man to respect, I did not think he handled his watch by the weight of his muscle.
“If you don’t think so, put up your hands again, and we’ll try a bout,” said Mr. Barney, still laughing. “If you give me the kind of an eye Bob has, I won’t chalk it up against you. The boys will tell you that if there’s anything aboard the old Gullwing, it’s fair dealing.”
“And that’s right for ye, Mr. Barney!” exclaimed the gorilla man. Then he winked at me. “Hit him as hard as ye kin, boy!” he whispered.
“Come on,” said the mate, buttoning his jacket tight and taking his position. “You won’t have to fight the whole crew to get a standing.”
I saw he meant it, and I knew by his smile that he was a fair-minded man and wished me no harm. I secretly thought, too, that I was as good as he was.
“Time!” called Thank, rather shakily.
The very next second something happened to me that I hadn’t expected. I thought I could parry his first blow, at least; but it landed under my jaw and every tooth in my head rattled. I leaped back and he followed me up with a swiftness that made me blink.
I parried several more swift blows and then hit out myself when I thought I saw my chance. He just moved his head a trifle to one side and my fist shot by. My whole weight went with it and I collided against him. He only rocked a little on his feet, and as I dodged back he struck me a blow on the chest that drove me half a dozen yards into the arms of the spectators.
“If I had placed that higher up—as I might—you would have been asleep, my lad,” he said, coolly. “Don’t you believe it?”
“I do, sir,” I said, panting.
“I am just as much better than you, as you are than Bob,” he said, laughing again. “He has no science and you have a little. But I have more science and so we’re not fairly matched. And now, boys, that’s fun enough for to-day,” and he turned on his heel and went up on deck.
I tell you right now, I felt pretty foolish. But the men didn’t laugh. The big man, whom I learned later was Tom Thornton, said:
“He’s a smart little bit of a man, is Mr. Jim Barney. You might be proud to be put out by him.”
“Excuse me!” I returned, feeling to see if all my teeth were sound. “No kicking mule has got anything on him when he hits you.”
“And his brother Alf, on the Seamew, is a match for him,” said another of the men. “There’s a pair of them—brothers and twins, and as much alike as two peas in a pod. I mind the time they was looking for some men down in a joint on Front Street, Baltimore, and a gang started in to clean ’em up. Thought they was dudes trying to be rounders. The Barney boys held off a dozen of them till the police came, and neither of them even showed a scratch.”
I pulled myself together and went over to Bob, who was swabbing his face in a bucket of water. I held out my hand to him, and said:
“The second mate was right. If we’d fought rough and tumble you could have easily fixed me. But you’ve got lots of muscle and I bet that second mate doesn’t sail without a set of gloves in his cabin. If he’ll lend ’em to us I’ll teach you what little I know myself about boxing.”
“That’s fair enough!” shouted Tom Thornton. “The boy’s all right.”
“I’m game,” growled Bob, giving me his hand. “But I don’t like fresh kids.”
“That’s all right,” said I. “Mebbe I’ll get salted a little before the voyage is over.”
And so the affair ended in a laugh. But I guess I learned one lesson that I was not likely to forget in a hurry.
And both Thankful Polk and I had a whole lot to learn about this big ship. Although my chum had been five years from home (leaving his native village in the hills of Georgia when he was twelve) he had learned little seamanship. Nowadays ships do not receive apprentices as they used to in the palmy days of the American merchant marine, which is a regrettable fact, for it was from the class of apprentices that most of our best shipmasters came.
A seaman—a real A. B.—must know every part of the ship he serves, its rigging and whatnot, just as any other journeyman tradesman must know his business. It is not necessary that an able seaman should be a navigator; but every navigator should be an able seaman. Such a man likewise should be something of a sailmaker, rigger and shipbuilder. In these days when the work of a crew is so divided that men are stationed at certain work in all weathers few men before the mast are all-round seamen. And this is likewise regrettable.
In the months I had spent upon the Scarboro I had learned much—and in that I had the advantage of Thank. Captain Rogers and Mr. Robbins were both thorough-going seamen, and when we were not chasing whales I had been drilled by the mate, and by young Ben Gibson, the second officer, in the ropes, the spars, the handling of gear, and taught to take my trick at the wheel with the best man aboard.
And I was thankful for all this now, for although the Gullwing was a much larger ship, and differently rigged from the whaler, I could catch hold now pretty well when an order was given. I knew, too, that men like Captain Bowditch and Mr. Gates and Mr. Barney liked their hands to be smart, and I was not afraid to tackle anything alow or aloft.
The men told me, too, that “the old man” (which is a term given the captain aboard ship not at all disrespectful in meaning) was a terror for crowding on sail. Besides, there was a deeper reason for Captain Bowditch wishing to put his ship through the seas and reaching Baltimore just as soon as possible.
“Ye see,” said old Tom Thornton, in the dog-watch that afternoon, “the firm owns another ship like the Gullwing—the very spittin’ image of it—the Seamew. They’re sister ships; built in the same dockyard, at the same time, and by the very same plans. A knee, or a deck plank, out o’ either one would fit exactly into the similar space in the other—and vicy varsy.
“They was put into commission the same month, and they make the same v’yges, as usual. Cap’n Si Somes, of the Seamew is about the same age as our skipper. They was raised together down east; they went to sea together in their first ship. And they got their tickets at the same time, since which they’ve always served in different ships, one mounting a notch when the other did. Rivals, ye’d call them, but good friends.
“But they’re always and forever trying to best each other in a v’yge. They races from the minute they cast off moorings at Baltimore to the minute they’re towed inter their berths again. They crowd on sail, and work their crews like kildee, and stow their cargoes, and unload the same like they was racin’ against time. And now, this trip, they’ve got a wager up,” and old Tom chuckled.
“It was this here way: We battened down hatches the same morning the Seamew did at Baltimore, and the tugs was a-swinging of us out. Cap’n Si sung out from his poop: ‘Joe! I bet ye an apple I tie up here afore you do when the v’yge is over.’
“‘I take ye,’ says our skipper, ‘pervidin’ it’s a Rhode Islan’ Greenin’—I ain’t sunk my teeth into no other kind for forty year—it’s the kind I got my first stomach-ache from eatin’ green, when I was a kid.’
“And that settled it. The bet was on,” chuckled Tom. “And we fellers for’ard have suffered for it, now I tell ye! The Seamew beat us to Buenos Ayres by ten hours on the outward v’yge. We caught her up, weathered the Horn and was unloading at Valpariso when the Seamew arrived. But, by jinks! she beat us to Honolulu.”
“How was that?” I asked.
“Made a better passage. We got some top-hamper carried away in a squall. To tell you the truth, Cap’n Joe carried on too much sail for such a blow. But we weren’t long behind her at Manila, and my soul! how Cap’n Joe did make those Chinks work unloadin’ an’ then stowin’ cargo again when we started back.
“The Seamew got away two days before we did. But we left Honolulu a few hours ahead of her, and she has to touch at Guayaquil—up in Equidor. As far as time and distance goes, however, both ships is about even. We had to unload a lot of stuff back there at Valpariso, and load again. Both are hopin’ not to touch nowheres till we git home. And it wouldn’t surprise me none if we sighted the Seamew almost any day now, unless she’s clawed too far off shore.”
This good-natured competition between the two big ships had, I believe, something to do with the smart way in which the crew of this one on which I sailed went about their work. Jack Tar is supposed to be a chronic grumbler; and surely the monotony of life at sea may get on the nerves of the best man afloat; but I seldom heard any grumbling in the fo’castle of the Gullwing.
However, there was another rivalry connected with this voyage of the sister ships—a much more serious matter—and, indeed, one that proved tragic in the end, but of this I was yet to learn the particulars in the eventful days that followed.