I HAD been kept so late by my kind entertainer that I found, by inquiry of the boat-keeper of a man-of-war cutter at the landing stage, that the Bombay’s boat with the liberty men had been gone for nearly an hour; and the coxswain, seeing my dilemma, called in a shore boat pulled by a couple of darkeys, who agreed to take me off to my ship for a few reis.
As we neared the Bombay I saw evidences of unusual commotion on board, and observed a signal of distress hoisted in the mizzen rigging. We pulled alongside, and scrambling on deck I discovered what was the trouble.
Among the naval stores which composed our cargo were six hundred barrels of whiskey. In those days liquor was served out as a daily ration in the United States Navy, but the practice did not prevail in the merchant service, liquor being allowed on board but few ships, and it was served as a ration in no American vessels.
Sailors have always been noted for their ingenuity in stealing liquor; and to keep this out of his men’s reach, our captain had stored the barrels in the fore and after runs, or lowest part of the lower hold. The sailors were aware of this, and on this Sunday had found their opportunity.
Mr. Bowker, the chief mate, and the port watch were on shore, and Captain Gay had gone on board another ship, the Angier, to pass the day and dine with her commander. This left Mr. Daniels, the second mate, in charge. He was a rather easy-going young man, and soon retired to his stateroom to enjoy the quiet day in reading an interesting novel.
Chips, the carpenter, after smoking a pipe, went to sleep in his bunk, and the crew found little difficulty in taking from his chest such tools as they wished. With these the starboard watch proceeded to cut a hole through the forecastle deck, and succeeded so well that by dinner-time they had broken out the upper tier of stores and exposed the barrels of whiskey.
The cargo they removed they piled up carefully in the quarters of the absent port watch, filling their side of the forecastle up to the carlines.
Not satisfied with broaching one barrel for immediate use, they providently decided to lay in a stock for future consumption, and to this end hoisted three barrels of whiskey up into the forecastle, and concealed them underneath their berths.
They then restored the remainder of the cargo to its place, and refitted the deck planks so carefully as scarcely to leave a trace of their work.
After dinner the watch settled down to the business of drinking and carousing. When at five o’clock in the afternoon Mr. Daniels, having finished his novel, came forward to call away the boat to bring the liberty men on board, he was startled at finding the entire watch drunk and inclined to be very quarrelsome.
He at once sent the carpenter and the boy Jim in the dingey on board the Angier to state the case to our captain, and he accepted the offer of Captain Edson to send the Angier’s boat for our liberty men. The two captains then came at once on board the Bombay, in the dingey. The arrival, an hour later, of the liberty men, who were also drunk, made matters worse, instead of better, for the two watches fell to fighting in the forecastle.
This was the disturbance that was going on when I arrived on board. Captain Gay, who was one of the old-time sea captains and a very “taut hand” with his crews, ordered the second mate to go down into the forecastle and bring up any rum he might find there. He supposed, of course, that the liquor the men had obtained had been smuggled on board from the bumboat.
Mr. Daniels went down with a very ill grace, I thought. The forecastle was just then a very lion’s den, and he did not stay long, but came up with a rush through the hatchway with a bleeding nose and puffed eyes.
When he could regain his breath, he exclaimed: “Captain Gay, they’ve got a barrel of whiskey there on tap, and they are fighting over it like a lot of wild Indians! It was all I could do to get out of the forecastle alive!”
“A barrel! What do you mean?”
“It’s just so, sir; there is a barrel on tap, and they are drinking it out of their pint cups! I am almost sure it is one of the barrels from the hold, but how on earth they got it out I can’t imagine. The hatches haven’t been opened to-day; that I will swear to!”
This was certainly a very bad state of affairs, and Captain Gay felt that he must take summary action. Going to the cabin, he returned with four revolvers and gave one each to the officers and to the carpenter. Then looking down the hatch, he shouted, “Men, come on deck at once, every one of you!”
A howl of derision was the only reply.
“I will give you five minutes to get up here, or I’ll come down there and find out the reason why!” he cried.
They simply yelled defiantly in drunken chorus.
“Come along, Mr. Bowker,” said the captain. “You and I will start these fellows up. Mr. Daniels, you and the carpenter put the irons on them as they come up the hatchway!”
The captain and mate bravely started down the hatchway, revolvers in hand. They were taking desperate chances. It was no small thing for two men, even with arms in their hands, to face a dozen sailors, maddened with drink, at close quarters, in a hand-to-hand encounter such as this must needs be. But those old-time skippers were accustomed to rough-and-tumble fights, and they never shirked an encounter of the kind, even at long odds.
Jim and I had gone forward to see the outcome of the affair, and we were, of course, in a high state of excitement as the captain and mate disappeared below.
For several minutes there was a terrible confusion of voices in the forecastle, and then a sound of blows and oaths, followed by the sharp crack of a pistol shot. Then a brief pause, followed by a renewal of the uproar. Another shot was fired, and almost immediately the captain appeared on the ladder, struggling with a stalwart fellow who had grasped the pistol by the barrel, and was striving to get possession of it.
The carpenter leaned over the scuttle and struck the sailor a heavy blow on the head with a pair of iron handcuffs, whereupon the fellow let go his grasp of the pistol and fell heavily down the ladder. The captain then came up, bleeding from a cut on the side of his face, evidently the result of a blow, and with his clothing fairly torn to shreds. Mr. Bowker quickly followed, in an even worse condition, and without his pistol, which he had lost in the affray.
Mr. Daniels pulled over the scuttle and slipped in the hatch-bar; and, feeling that the wild beasts were at least caged, our side called a parley.
“I shot one of the scoundrels in the arm,” said the captain. “Did your shot take effect, Mr. Bowker?”
“I think so, sir; but I am not sure of it. They closed in on me so I could not very well see.”
I happened just then to glance through a port and saw a boat coming alongside. “Here’s a boat with some officers, sir,” I reported.
The captain went to the gangway and received a Brazilian officer who came on board. Looking curiously at the captain’s disordered condition, he said, “I am sent by the port captain to inquire what trouble you are in, as you have a distress signal flying.”
The captain explained and the lieutenant went forward to investigate. Mr. Bowker opened the scuttle, and the officer called down in his broken English, “Mariners, I command that you come on deck at once!”
“Who are you, monkey-face?” shouted a man from below. “Get out of this, or we will serve you worse than we did old Bowker!” At the same time a pistol shot whistled ominously past the young lieutenant, while a chorus of oaths and yells saluted him.
“But, captain,” said the young man, “this is truly a mutiny! I must report to my commanding officer and obtain further assistance.” And he hurried to his boat and left the ship.
By this time it was growing dark, and affairs were in a very bad state for the night. The two captains consulted together as to the best course to pursue. As discipline had now become almost a dead letter in the ship, we all gathered aft, having first secured the forward hatchway, and several propositions were discussed by the officers.
“Captain Gay,” said Captain Edson, “if you take my advice you will not allow the authorities to interfere in the matter, at this stage of the mutiny at least. If they undertake to settle it they will put you to no end of trouble and expense, and possibly delay your voyage. I have had some experience with them in a similar affair. I would at least exhaust my own resources first.”
“That is good advice, as far as the Brazilians are concerned,” replied Captain Gay, “but what shall I do with those wild men down in the forecastle?”
“Come below and we will talk over a plan by ourselves, where we haven’t quite so many listeners,” said Captain Edson, as he glanced at my companion Jim, who, with mouth and ears both wide open, was pushing forward to catch every word.
They went below, and Mr. Bowker, now that the excitement was over for the moment, found time to give us his attention; and we were set at work cleaning up the decks, securing the boats, and making all snug for the night.
In a short time the steward brought up an order to the mate to take the Angier’s boat and go on board the Brazilian man-of-war Independenzia, with Captain Gay’s compliments, and to say that we should not require any assistance that night, but should be glad to have the police boat sent in the morning to take the prisoners on shore. Before going the mate was directed to see that the forward hatch was well lashed down and that a kedge anchor was put on it as an additional precaution against its being lifted off by a combined effort of the men below.
As the “prisoners” were as yet a long way from being secured, we were all very much mystified by this message from the captain, and the mate remarked to Mr. Daniels in my hearing that he “thought the old man had better catch his chickens before he counted them.”
But all the same, he obeyed the order, and we went down into the steerage to supper, there to discuss the mutiny in all its various aspects. When the Angier’s boat returned, Captain Edson went back to his own ship.
That night the mates and the carpenter kept the anchor watches between them, and the crew long before midnight succumbed to the effects of the liquor, and were all quiet in the forecastle.
The next morning we were aroused at daylight, and for once found the captain on deck as early as any one. Jim and I were sent off at once in the dingey to bring Captain Edson on board, who came, bringing with him a mysterious package of something that smelled very much like matches.
Captain Gay received him at the gangway; and after they had drunk a cup of coffee, they both went forward with the mates and the carpenter, who to his and our surprise was ordered to bring: his broad-axe with him. The captain then looked about carefully, and at last directed the carpenter to cut a hole through the deck planks something more than a foot square, between the beams. The carpenter was rather astonished, but obeyed orders, and the chips at once began to fly.
The captain then went to the galley and returned with an iron pot, to which he attached a line, and Captain Edson poured the contents of his package into the kettle. By this time the hole was cut through the deck.
“Stand by to open the scuttle, Mr. Bowker,” said the captain. “Now, men,” he called down, as the hatch was opened carefully, “are you coming up like men, or shall I make you come up like sheep?”
The crew greeted this request with shouts and oaths. Many of them had waked and were again drinking the liquor.
The captain closed the hatch and called out, “Cook, bring me a shovelful of live coals here!”
The cook came with the hot coals, which he put, as directed, into the pot.
As the dense white smoke of the burning brimstone in the vessel curled up, the captain lowered the pot through the hole in the deck, keeping it close up to the beams and out of reach of the men below, and then placed two wet swabs over the hole, so that none of the fumes could escape above.
Flesh and blood could not endure the suffocating vapors that immediately filled the forecastle. In less than five minutes there was a terrific rush up the ladder, and a violent effort was made to raise the hatch, which was prevented by the lashings and the heavy kedge anchor.
“Stand by, now, all of you!” cried the captain to the mates, “and clap the handcuffs on them as I let them through, one at a time!”
He opened one door of the scuttle, through which the first man precipitated himself. He was at once secured and the door was closed. Then it was re-opened, and the crew were let out one by one until the whole twelve lay handcuffed on the deck in a row. The last men were scarcely able to crawl up, so dense were the noxious fumes in the forecastle.
When the work was completed, Captain Gay walked up and down the deck in a high state of glee at the entire success of his experiment, and addressed the captives as he passed:
“Oh, you are a precious lot of scoundrels, aren’t you? You thought you had the weather-gage of me, did you? I think you will sing a different tune when you find yourselves in the calaboose! I have more than half a mind to give you a round dozen apiece before I send you there, just to warm myself up this morning! But I won’t soil my fingers with you, you drunken brutes, much as I should enjoy it! Mr. Bowker, signal for the police boat, and send these fellows off as quickly as possible and let us be rid of them!”
He turned aft, and went down to breakfast with Captain Edson.
When the police boat came, the officer was greatly surprised at finding so large a number of prisoners awaiting him. They were taken on shore; and after remaining in the city prison until we sailed, they were, as we subsequently learned, released, and were shipped by a whaler who came in short of hands.
Our captain picked up another crew without much difficulty, and we went on unlading. We then took on board a cargo of coffee and carried it to New Orleans, where we loaded with cotton for Liverpool.