“IT’S what I’m always tellin’ you, Mike,” said Captain Bascomb severely, “you’re too rough with ’em.”
Mr. Michael Doyle, mate of the skysail yarder “Bride of Abydos,” was usually nearly as handy with his tongue as he was with his fists, which was saying a good deal. But on this occasion he was, for once in his life, fairly stumped. He opened and shut his mouth several times like a landed fish, but, like a fish, remained speechless.
“Too rough with ’em, that’s what you are,” pursued the skipper. “You should use a bit o’ tact. You shouldn’t keep kickin’ ’em. I’m a humane man myself, and I tell you I take it very hard—very hard indeed I do—to have my ship avoided as if we’d got plague on board just because I’ve got a rip-roarin’ great gazebo of a mate from the County Cork that doesn’t know when to keep his feet to himself. When I was a nipper they learned me to count ten before I kicked. That’s what you want to do. Twenty for the matter o’ that.”
Captain Bascomb was a hard case, though anyone overhearing the foregoing remarks might have thought otherwise. He was also a tough nut. Men who spoke from personal experience said, and said with deep emotion, that he was both these things, as well as other things less fitted for polite mention: so presumably it was true.
Now, while there are undeniably times and seasons when it is a valuable asset for a shipmaster to have the character of a tough nut and a hard case, there are equally conceivable circumstances when such a reputation may be a decidedly inconvenient possession. And it was precisely such a set of circumstances which had arisen on the day in late autumn when the conversation just recorded took place.
The “Bride of Abydos” lay alongside the lumber mill wharf at Victoria. Her cargo of lumber was all on board. And she would have been ready to sail for home on the next morning’s tide but for one trifling and inconvenient particular—namely, that she was without a crew.
This regrettable discrepancy was due to two principal reasons. In the first place, the rumour of a discovery of gold, or copper, or aluminium, or something of a metallic nature up in the Rocky Mountains had had the inevitable effect of inducing the ship’s company of the “Bride of Abydos” to abandon as one man their nautical calling, and depart for the interior of British Columbia with an unbounded enthusiasm which would only be surpassed by the enthusiasm with which they would doubtless return to it in less than three months’ time.
But it would be useless to deny that Captain Bascomb’s fame as a tough nut—a fame to which the ungrudging tributes of his late crew had given a considerable local fillip—was the outstanding cause for the coyness manifested by eligible substitutes about coming forward to fill the vacant berths in the “Bride of Abydos’s” forecastle.
Hence it was that gloom sat upon Captain Bascomb’s brow, and a reflected gloom upon that of Mr. Michael Doyle—a gloom which was graphically expressed by the steward when he imparted to the black doctor in confidence the news that the Old Man was lookin’ about as pleasant as a calf’s daddy.
Mr. Doyle delicately brushed the crumbs from his waistcoat, and cleared his throat cautiously by way of preparing the ground for another conversational opening.
“What do you keep making that row for?” demanded the skipper. “You put me in mind of a cock chicken that’s just learnin’ to crow! If you do it again I’ll mix you some cough stuff—and I’ll see you swallow it too.”
“I was only goin’ to say——” began Mr. Doyle in aggrieved tones.
“Goin’ to say, were you? Well, if you’ve got anything to say that’ll show me how to make a crew that can work the ‘Bride of Abydos’ out of a nigger grub sp’iler and a hen-faced boob of an eavesdropping Cockney steward”—here he paused to relieve his feelings by adroitly launching a cuspidor at the inquiring countenance of Cockney George as it protruded from the pantry door—“you can say it,” continued the skipper; “if not, you needn’t! I’m in no mood for polite conversation, and that’s a fact.”
Silence and profound gloom descended once again upon the cabin and its occupants, while the fluttered and indignant George, still palpitating at the recollection of his narrow escape from the captain’s unexpected projectile, slippered gingerly off to enjoy a growl with the black cook, who was sitting in his galley crooning the songs of Zion in a discreet undertone to the carefully muted strains of his concertina.
And just at that moment the gangway creaked loudly beneath a heavy tread, and a stranger stepped on board.
He was a large man with a large, flabby face, in which a large cigar was carelessly stuck as if to indicate the approximate position of the mouth: a loose-lipped mouth which looked, if possible, even more unpleasant when it smiled than when it scowled.
“Say, looks like someone’s feelin’ kinder peeved,” observed the new-comer, pushing the skipper’s late missile with his toe. “Cap’n aboard, stooard?”
“Ho, yus, he’s on board right enough,” responded George. “Frowed this ’ere at me ’ead just now, ’e did. Whatcher want?” he inquired suspiciously. “’Cos if it’s tracks or anyfink o’ that, I ain’t goin’ to let you in, not on your sweet life I ain’t! Ever see a blinkin’ gorilla wiv the toofache? ’Cos that’s ’im—see! Just abart as safe to go near as wot ’e is—see! You take my tip and ’op it! Beat it for the tall timbers! Go while the goin’s good!”
“That’s right all right,” responded the stranger cordially. “I guess I’ll just walk right in and introdooce myself.”
He stepped briskly along the alleyway and tapped on the cabin door.
A growl like that of a wounded jaguar was the only response, but, taking this as a permission to enter, the visitor projected his head, not without caution, round the edge of the door.
“G’ mornin’, Cap’n—g’ mornin’, mister,” he said heartily. “Pardon me breezin’ along this way, but I’ve a hunch you and me might be able to do business. I understand you’re in a bit of a difficulty regardin’ a crew.”
Captain Bascomb regarded him for a few seconds without speaking. A remarkable variety of emotions might have been seen chasing one another across his countenance as he did so—surprise, incredulity, and joy chief among them.
“I am,” he said slowly. “I am, and that’s a fact, Mr.—— I didn’t quite get your name.”
“Grover—Samuel Grover—Seattle Sam to most folks around these parts,” replied the stranger, making bold to enter and take a seat. “Fine ship you’ve got here, Cap’n!”
“Ship’s all right,” responded the skipper curtly.
He didn’t seem able to take his eyes off Mr. Grover’s face. It wasn’t a beautiful face, either; to be quite candid, it verged upon the repulsive. But Captain Bascomb gazed at it as if it had been the face of his first love. Seattle Sam flattered himself he was making a good impression.
“See here, Cap’n,” he went on, “I’ve a vurry nice bunch of b’ys up at my li’l’ place on Cormorant Street. Prime sailormen every one of ’em. And I’d just love to ship ’em along with you. But”—he leaned forward and tapped his fat finger on the table—“here’s the snag! Speakin’ as man to man, Cap’n, you ain’t asackly parpular.”
“Oh, I’m not, ain’t I?” said Captain Bascomb, bristling. “Well, if that’s all you’ve come to say, the sooner you beat it out of here the better! As I was saying to my mate here only just now, I’m in no mood for polite conversation—not to say personal remarks of an offensive nature——”
“Not so fast, Cap’n, not so fast,” said Seattle Sam hastily, taking the precaution to hook towards him the companion to the captain’s earlier missile, ostensibly that he might put it to the purpose for which it was designed, but really in the interests of disarmament. “What I was just leadin’ up to was this. I guess I can fix things for you good. But I guess I can’t do it without a sort of a li’l’ frameup.”
At this point Mr. Doyle reluctantly withdrew, in obedience to a simple wireless message from his superior, and strain his ears as he might from his post at the head of the companion he could hear no more than a mumble of voices drifting up from below.
The conference was a lengthy one, so much so that Mr. Doyle had long grown tired of waiting when the tinkle of glasses indicated that it was drawing to a close.
“Well, here’s towards ye, Cap’n,” came the slightly raised voice of Seattle Sam, “an’ to our li’l’ trip together!”
The captain’s guest had hardly got out of the alleyway before Mr. Doyle came clattering down the companion with his eyes bulging.
“Is that big stiff goin’ to sign on wid us?” he inquired in a reverential whisper, his native Munster more honeyed than ever, as always in moments of deep emotion.
“He is, Mike,” returned the skipper, in accents broken by feeling.
“Can I have him in my watch?” asked Mr. Doyle.
“Mike, you can.”
“And can I—can I kick him whenever I like?” pursued the mate in the supplicating tones of a reciter giving an impersonation of a little child asking Santa Claus for a toy drum.
But at this point Captain Bascomb’s feelings overcame him altogether, and, leaping from his seat, he seized his astonished second in command firmly yet gracefully round the middle, and proceeded to give a highly spirited rendering of the Tango Argentina as performed in that country.
George, who was observing matters from his usual point of vantage, flew to describe the portent to his crony in the galley.
“Dat’s a bery dangerous man,” said the doctor, “a bery biolent, uncontrollabous kin’ of a man, sonny! Ah jus’ done drop mah ol’ pipe in de cabin soup one mawnin’, an’ Ah tell you Ah wuz skeered for mah life. An’ Ah tell you what, bo’—Ah’se skeered o’ dat man when he’s lookin’ ugly, but Ah’se ten times, twenty times, hundred times skeereder when he’s lookin’ pleased.... An’ when he gits dancin’——” And he rolled his woolly head till it nearly fell off his shoulders.
Meanwhile Mr. Samuel Grover was stepping out briskly in the direction of his boarding-house for seamen in the pleasant thoroughfare known as Cormorant Street. The name was a singularly appropriate one, for Mr. Grover and his like had long gorged there upon sailormen. He hummed pleasantly to himself as he walked, and the rapidity with which he twirled his cigar round his large loose mouth indicated to those who knew the man that he was feeling on unusually good terms with himself and the world.
“Now, b’ys,” he cried, rubbing his fat hands together as he surveyed the dozen or so of depressed-looking sailormen who were playing draw poker for Chinese stinkers in the bar of his modest establishment, “now, b’ys, I’ve gotten a real fine ship for the lot o’ ye.”
The old habitués of his place looked at one another with dawning suspicion. They had encountered this air of extravagant geniality before.
“W-w-wot’s name-of-er?” inquired Billy Stutters, so called by reason of a slight impediment in his speech. It never took him less than a minute to get up steam, but as soon as he was under way the words came with a rush, like water from a stopped-up drain whence the obstruction has been suddenly removed.
“The ‘Bride of Abbeydoes,’” said Mr. Grover, “and a damn fine ship too.”
You could have heard a pin drop for a minute or two while his audience digested this news. Ginger Jack, who was an old man-of-war’s man, and as hard a case as any of the King’s bad bargains who ever drifted under the Red Duster, was heard to observe that he warn’t goin’ to sign in no blinkin’ “Abbeydoes,” nor “Abbeydon’t” neither for the matter o’ that. Billy Stutters, after a mighty effort, was understood to second the amendment.
“Ho, you ain’t, ain’t you?” said Mr. Grover with scathing irony. “An’ wot makes your Royal ‘Ighnesses that bloomin’ partic’lar, may I ask?”
“B-b-b-becos-I’ve-bin-in-’er-afore,” said Billy, sulkily, “an’ the sk-k-kipper-kicked-me!”
“Did he so?” commented Mr. Grover facetiously. “I thought maybe you was goin’ to say he kissed you.... Now, look ’ere, b’ys,” he continued, assuming all the powers of persuasion he could muster; “I guess you’ve gotten cold feet about the ‘Bride of Abbeydoes.’ You take it from me, she ain’t so black as what she’s painted. Not by a jugful. I don’t mind admittin’, man to man, Captain Bascomb’s a hard case. And Mister Doyle, well, I reckon he’s another. But they’re all right with a crowd of smart, handy boys like yourselves. You ain’t a bunch o’ greasers or sodbusters from way back that don’t know a deadeye from a fourfold purchase. You’re the sort o’ crowd as a skipper won’t find no fault with, as he’ll be proud to see about his ship. And just to show I’m in earnest, I’m goin’ to sign on in the ‘Bride of Abbeydoes’ myself. Fair an’ square. I’m about doo to run across and see the home-folks in London, England. I’ve a fancy to take a turn at sailorizin’ again. An’ I like a fast ship. Now then, b’ys, is it a go? That’s the style. The drinks are on the house!”
“Nice sort o’ state of affairs,” observed Mr. Grover a little later to his factotum in the privacy of the den he called his office. “A lot of ungrateful swabs I’ve been keepin’—keepin’, mind you—for best part of two weeks, and they ups with their ‘Won’t sign ’ere’ ’n’ ‘Ain’t goin’ to sail there’ as if they was bloomin’ lords. Well, well! I’ll learn ’em. Don’t I hope Mr. Bucko Doyle’ll put it across ’em good and hard, that’s all!
“Why, in the old days in ’Frisco,” he continued dreamily, “you could ship a corp and no questions asked. And as for sailormen—well, you didn’t consult ’em. And quite right too. A lot they know about what’s good for ’em—a bunch of idle, extravagant swine! Warn’t it all for their good to get ’em shipped off to sea sharp afore they’d got time to get into trouble and go fillin’ up the jail, I ask you? And then you get a lot of meddlin’ psalm-singin’ idjits as don’t know the first thing about the class o’ men people like me ’ave got to deal with. Psha!”
And Mr. Grover set about filling a sea-chest with an assortment of old newspapers and empty bottles which would have struck his future shipmates, had they been there to see, as a curious outfit for a Cape Horn passage.
The next day bright and early he attended with his crowd at the shipping office, where, having duly heard the ship’s articles mumbled over, the party appended their signatures and marks thereto and became duly members of the crew of the “Bride of Abydos.” The morning was fine and sunny, and every one was in high good-humour. Captain Bascomb’s face was wreathed in smiles, and the wink to which Seattle Sam treated him when no one was looking elicited an even huger one in reply.
All the same, a joke is a joke, and Mr. Grover considered that it was carrying the joke a bit too far when the third mate, a big apprentice just out of his time, ordered him to tail on to the topsail halyards or he’d wonder what hit him. However, he complied with the order with as good a grace as he could muster, and even went the length of joining with some heartiness in the time-honoured strains of “Reuben Ranzo.” “After all,” he reflected, “may as well do the thing properly while you’re about it.”
Still, he wasn’t sorry when the time drew near for the little comedy to come to an end. Dropping, with a sigh of relief, the rope on which he had been hauling he walked quickly off towards the poop, rubbing his fat palms tenderly as he went. They had so long been strangers to anything resembling a job of work that they were already beginning to blister.
“Well, Skipper,” he cried gaily, “time to square our li’l’ account and say so long, I guess!”
The captain gave him rather a peculiar glance, and led the way in silence down into the cabin.
Seattle Sam hesitated a moment. Time was getting short. But a drink was a drink, after all, and it would have meant going back on the tradition of a lifetime to refuse one.
He had hardly entered the saloon before he became vaguely conscious of a certain lack of cordiality in the atmosphere. The pilot’s dirty glass was still on the table, but there was no other sign of liquid refreshment. He could not keep a note of uneasiness out of his voice.
“Well, Skipper,” he repeated, “so long, and a pleasant voyage!”
The captain’s eyes met his in a cold stare of absolute repudiation. Seattle Sam’s extended hand dropped slowly to his side, and the self-satisfied smirk faded from his face. The captain had taken up a position between him and the companion. Instinctively he turned towards the alleyway which led to the main deck. It was blocked by the substantial form of Mr. Michael Doyle.
Too late the ghastly truth began to dawn.
“Talking about squarin’ accounts,” said the skipper slowly, “I’ve got a little account to square. It’s been waiting a long time too. Matter o’ fifteen years or so. Take a good look at me! Ever seen me before? Just cast your mind back a bit to the time when you were ’Frisco Brown’s runner, and shipped a big husky apprentice out o’ the Golden Gate in a Yankee blood boat that the ‘Bride of Abydos’ is a day-nursery to!... I’ve got the scars of that trip about me yet, soul and body, Mister Seattle Sam, and you’re goin’ to pay for ’em, and compound interest too!”
As he spoke, three long wails from the tug’s hooter rent the air, answered by round after round of cheering from the ship.
The skipper stood back, while Seattle Sam dashed up on to the poop with a low howl of rage and terror.
The tug’s hawser trailed dripping through the water, and she was turning her nose for home with a mighty churning of her paddles. The crimp rushed to the rail, waving his arms frantically above his head, and a yell of derision greeted him from the crew lined along her bulwarks. They were all in it, then! He was alone, alone, with a man he had shanghaied, a crew he had tried to swindle, and a sea-chest full of waste paper wherewith to face the bitter days and nights off the Horn.
“Bos’n!” yelled the skipper. “Call all hands aft!”
“Lay aft all hands!” roared the bos’n, and soon a throng of interested faces looked up at the captain as he stood with his hands planted on the poop rail.
His words were few but to the point.
“Boys, you’ve heard I’m a hard man to sail under. Maybe I am. That’s for you to find out. I won’t have back chat. I won’t stand for any sojering or shinaniking. If you’re decent sailormen, and know your work, and do it, we’ll get on all right. If you’re not, me and my mates are here to knock ruddy hell out of you.
“One word more. This man here”—he indicated the trembling form of Seattle Sam—“came on board my ship yesterday to sell you. I’ll give you his words. ‘I’ll fool ’em I’m goin’ to sign on myself, and they’ll come like lambs. Twenty dollars apiece and the men are yours. And I don’t care if you give ’em ruddy hell!’ Now I say to you, ‘This man’s yours! Take him, and I wish you joy of your shipmate!’”
And, grasping Seattle Sam by the collar of his coat and the scruff of his pants, he propelled him to the top of the poop ladder and gave him a skilful hoist which dropped him full in the midst of the expectant group below.
. . . . .
The tug’s smoke was a grey feather on the skyline; Flattery a grey cloud on the port bow.
The song of the wind in his royals was sweet music in Captain Bascomb’s ears. So was the rush and gurgle of the waves under the clipper’s keel. So were all the little noises that a ship makes in a seaway.
But, oh, sweeter far than them all was a confused turmoil which ever and anon came vaguely to his hearing—a sound made up of thuds, of cries, of curses—which indicated beyond the shadow of a doubt that Mr. Samuel Grover, some time of ’Frisco, and late of Cormorant Street, Victoria, was undergoing the decidedly painful process of being ground exceeding small!