by Ralph Henry Barbour and H.P. Holt, originally begun November 1917
THE WRECKING OF THE KINGFISHER
As soon as the Pacific Queen was moored at Auckland, Barnes saw that Dave got most of the money due to him as wages, urging that he had not enough clothes to keep him warm. Barnes did not like to lose the lad, but he had youngsters of his own, and he knew Dave had been submitted to more unkindness than necessary at the hands of the mate.
"Good-bye, kid," he said, wiping his greasy hand to shake that of the boy. "Heaven knows it 'll be a stroke of bad luck for any ship's cook that gets you to help him. I'm glad to be rid of you. But remember what I've told you. Don't jump aboard any old tub. You 're a smart enough youngster except for your lack of brains and your impidence, and you know how to take care of yourself a bit better now, but ships isn't all as comfortable as the Pacific Queen. I expect I 'll be bumping up against you again somewhere or other. Don't sign on to any craft where the crew speak an un-Christian lingo, or they might flay you alive. I learnt my lesson that way on a Portugee boat, afore you were thought of."
Carrying his suitcase, Dave went up the gangway, thrilled at the idea of putting his feet on foreign soil. He spent some hours walking along the wharves, where vessels of all nationalities, rigs, and sizes were lying, each one busily loading or unloading. He did not feel in any hurry. There was more money in his pocket than he had ever possessed at any one time, and it was money of which he was proud, for he had earned it.
Dave felt no compunction about having left the Pacific Queen. Mr. Quick did not want him, and he did not want Mr. Quick. Now both parties were satisfied. Barnes was the only person who really might be inconvenienced, and he had said he could easily get some one else "more useful and less impident."
After amusing himself by watching the shipping for a while, Dave decided to keep out of the way until the following evening, by which time his old ship would have sailed. Boarding a street car, he travelled at random to another part of the town, where he began to search for a room. Seeing an elderly man digging in a cottage garden, he spoke to him over the fence.
"Can you tell me where I could get a room for a few nights?" the boy asked.
The man straightened his back.
"I don't jest know," he said, surveying Dave, who was wearing his only respectable suit of clothes. "I'll speak to my missis."
The "missis," a portly soul with a jovial face, came out.
"I've got an empty room that my son had afore he went up-country," she said. "You can have that if you don't mind roughing it."
"I'm used to roughing it, being a sailor," replied Dave, feeling just a little bit important.
"For the land's sake!" the woman exclaimed, scanning him more closely. "I'd never have thought it. You 're only a boy although you are so tanned."
Mrs. Higgins made Dave very comfortable, he having fallen into her good graces at once; and the old people listened with great interest to his story of the voyage, punctuating it with many questions, for they had always been a stay-athome couple. The boy spent several days with them, being glad of the chance to stretch his legs ashore, and never tired of seeing the strange sights.
Once Mrs. Higgins managed to extract his Brooklyn address from him without arousing his suspicion. In the course of time Aunt Martha received a motherly letter in which she learnt that her Dave was "all well," that he had fallen into good hands during his stay in New Zealand, and that all his shirt buttons were put on and his socks mended before he went to sea again.
Dave encountered some disappointment in the matter of ships. Naturally, he hoped to get a vessel bound for either New York or Boston, but as luck would have it the ships seemed to be clearing for nearly every part of the world except those he wanted to reach. The only two steamers bound for New York had full crews, and in his inmost heart the boy was glad, as neither of them looked equal to the Pacific Queen. His task involved tramping along miles of wharves and docks, and his reception was not always as pleasant as that accorded to him by Captain Chisholm. He was always civil, though, and consequently got a direct answer to his questions, even though it was sometimes given a little brusquely.
On the fifth day he received a definite offer of a berth on a large English boat bound to Capetown and London, and it was a sore temptation, the vessel being one of the most up-to-date freight ers, of between five and six thousand tons. Dave, however, was strongly opposed to the idea of going so far from home. As it was, he had made a very long trip, and he had a great desire to double back on his tracks if possible, so he declined the job. But after several more days had passed he began to grow anxious for he had spent a good deal of his money on various articles which experience had taught him were necessary. With considerable misgiving he went on board a small tramp, at last, determined to accept any berth that was going, and in a few minutes found himself engaged on the ancient steamer Kingfisher, bound for Adelaide and Fremantle, Australia, in the capacity of cook's help and cabin-boy.
Dave bitterly regretted his choice before he had been at sea twenty-four hours. The ship was one of the oldest afloat in those waters,-and proportionately dirty. Rats scuttled among the cargo, and even found their way to the crew's quarters. Either because the owners were mean about paint, or because the skipper was indifferent, the old Kingfisher had a dilapidated appearance, and in anything but the calmest weather she was known pleasantly by the crew as "the submarine," by reason of her trick of digging her nose into the waves instead of riding on top of them.
But bad as her appearance and sailing qualities were, it was her machinery which was worst, and Dave found that MacTavish, her Scottish engineer, never tired of bemoaning his fate in having to drive such "scrap iron." The Kingfisher was a much smaller vessel than the one which had carried Dave to New Zealand, and he found that the various officers had a proportionately smaller idea of their own dignity. MacTavish had many chats with the boy, taking a certain amount of interest in him because his own wife was a New York woman. But most of his conversation was about that "rattle-box doon below."
"I only shipped in her for this voyage," he said, "and if ever we get back to New Zealand, aboot which I have me doubts, I mean to have a word with them owners for sendin' such a bunch of trouble to sea."
"She seems to be working all right," Dave suggested mildly.
"Seems to!" the Scot said in scornful accents. "I s'pose you 're deaf on one side so you canna hear that clackety-clack. It fair gives me toothache to listen to it. Dinna say I told you, but I have my suspicions them engines was once used by Noah in the Ark. They 're worn out, and it passes my wit to know how they hold together. Every bearing is as loose as old age can make it, there is n't a steam pipe that does n't leak, and at night when I turn in I expect to find the whole lot of junk has punched a hole in the bottom of the ship and fallen through by mornin'."
Although Dave guessed much of this was exaggerated, it did not tend to make him feel any happier about his choice of ships.
"She's got through all right before," he said. "Let's hope she will last out this time."
"Aye, she may," observed the melancholy Scot, "and then again she mightn't. You know what happens to the pitcher thai goes oftenest to the well. One day this tub is going to attend a funeral, and it 'll be her own. It gives me a pain in the spine to think what may happen if we strike rough weather and she starts kicking up her heels. If that old propeller gets out of the water, with a full head of steam driving it at racing speed, I 'll be wishing myself back in bonnie Scotland."
Dave found that a similar state of dissatisfaction reigned everywhere on board, and the mates accordingly had to employ harsh measures in dealing with the men. The food, too, was far from satisfactory, and Dave had to work incessantly, if not for the cook for one of the mates, if not for one of the mates then for the captain. He was kept running all day and soon began to wish he had heeded Barnes's warning that he might go farther and fare worse. He consoled himself with the reflection, however, that he was gaining more experience, continually adding to his stock of learning in nautical matters. Hard work and the life in the pure salt air were keeping him in the pink of condition. His muscles were setting, and he already possessed more strength than the average boy of his age. Being naturally ambitious, he began to study the rudiments of navigation in his few spare moments, and in this the second mate gave him some slight assistance, lending him one or two books to read on the subject. One of his greatest hopes was to be allowed to take a trick at the wheel, but this, of course, was out of the question at present.
In spite of MacTavish's misgivings, the Kingfisher chugged her weary way more than a thousand miles to the west, passed through Bass Strait (where Dave got his first glimpse of the coastline of Australia) and finally brought up with a wheeze and a cough of her engines at Adelaide. There the ship was tied up for three days, unloading and loading; and on several occasions the boy found time for a run ashore. Before sailing from there he wrote again to his father, stating that he was well and happy, and relating various incidents which he knew would be of interest. He covered a whole sheet in telling of MacTavish and his "bunch of trouble" down below, never dreaming what an important part those old engines were to play in his career.
After casting off at Adelaide, the Kingfisher passed Kangaroo Island on her port beam, and entered the vast and stormy bay known as the Great Australian Bight, where great currents meet and where the elements rarely seem to be at rest. For full six hundred miles the Kingfisher had to plough her way through a wild sea, and MacTavish's life became a nightmare. Even when he went to his bunk he could not sleep for fear of the man with his hand on the throttle allowing the propeller to "race" as the vessel kicked her heels up; and as luck would have it the leaky steam pipes began to bother him more than ever. Twice they had to lay to in the trough of the sea while all hands in the engine room struggled to repair some defect. The captain, who had been in command of the ship for a number of years, apparently took it as a matter of course. A voyage in the Kingfisher without some serious engine trouble would have seemed almost unnatural to him.
"My hair 'll be snow white," the chief engineer complained to Dave during a breathing spell on deck. "There's something uncanny aboot yon machinery. It's foolin' us all the time. The thing is possessed. It waits patiently until we get one part patched up, before breaking out in a fresh place, but no sooner we've got her running than she gets up to her old games. I'm only waitin' for one of the cylinder heads to blow off or the boilers to bust, and then I 'll be able to light my pipe in peace and watch the rest of her lie doon and die."
But the boilers held and the cylinders never faltered. Worse trouble was waiting around the corner for the unhappy Scot. Eight in the middle of the Bight, when the wind was blowing big guns and giant waves were careering along, the Kingfisher gave a plunge which left her propeller in mid air for the space of several seconds before there was time to shut off steam. MacTavish, feeling the vibration, knew what was happening, and burst into a cold perspiration. If it had occurred on any other ship, he would not have been so concerned; but his "rattle-box" was in no condition to stand treatment of that kind. A few hours later his worst fears were realized. An oiler reported that a crack had developed in the main shaft, near the propeller.
The ship was promptly stopped, and MacTavish made a careful inspection of the damage. For once, the captain was deeply concerned. He, too, went down into the bottom of the ship, to see how bad the trouble was.
"She's cracked at a flaw in the steel," MacTavish declared, "and it's only a question of how much strain is put on her before she rips right off as clean as a carrot. You 'll have to run at half speed, anyway, Cap'n. If you make Fremantle, you 'll be lucky."
For days after that the Kingfisher crawled westwards, with the engineers nursing her "scrap iron" jealously. She managed to scrape out of the Bight and was already within a few hundred miles of Fremantle when a southerly gale struck her in all its fury.
Suddenly, while the ship was pitching, she shuddered convulsively. There was a grating noise in the engine-room, and then silence.
The propeller-shaft had parted, and they were at the mercy of the sea. The only thing that was of the slightest assistance was a fore-and-aft sail which had been rigged, but the canvas was rotten, and it split from top to bottom in a violent gust.
For the first time in his life Dave was facing real danger.
Helpless as a log, the Kingfisher ran before the storm hour after hour. The crew could now do nothing but wait for a possible shifting of the wind. It kept steadily in one quarter, however, and, when darkness fell, the hopes of every one on board fell to zero. Rockets were sent up, but there was no answering signal. All through the night Dave, with the rest of the crew, stood on deck, anxiously looking for something in the nature of a miracle to happen.
Dawn broke after an apparent eternity, only to accentuate the misery of their position. Everywhere the sea was a mass of foam and seething, white-crested waves. Soon the loom of low-lying land ahead became apparent, and toward this they were carried remorselessly. At the end of their cables dangled the two anchors, which, now that the Kingfisher was in shallower water, dragged nd retarded her progress somewhat, but did not hold.
"Stand by the boats," the captain bellowed at last through a megaphone. There were breakers about three cable lengths ahead.
Every man was already wearing a life-belt. The chance of getting ashore, even in the boats, seemed a forlorn one, with such a sea raging.
All waited tensely for the moment when the vessel should strike the ground. Just outside the grasp of the hungry breakers she hit the bottom with a mighty thud which jarred her from stem to stern. The next wave lifted her. Then she struck for the last time, and the days of the old Kingfisher were over.
Waves were breaking right over her when the men were struggling to lower the boats. One boat, containing as many of the crew as could scramble into her, capsized instantly, and Dave shuddered as he heard the cries of the doomed men. He was standing at the side of the ship, waiting with others for a favorable instant to jump into a boat that danced crazily alongside. For a second the small craft was lifted almost up to the rail, and he made a leap, landing, more by good fortune than anything else, in the middle of the boat just as the men in her began to pull away.
The next ten minutes were thrilling. Dave could not think of them for months afterward without a vivid picture of it all flashing into his brain.
There were more than a dozen sailors huddled together in the dancing craft. Dave never knew the exact number. Far too heavily laden, she stood no chance of reaching shore. Straight at the breakers she went. It was neck or nothing. At the worst, the men in her could only die, but they could die fighting for their lives.
The first wave toyed with the craft, lifting it like a cork before passing on. Twenty feet behind it towered a silent, green wall of water, the crest of which was just beginning to topple over with a hissing, ominous sound. Relentlessly it rushed on, and Dave's heart sank, for he believed that his last moment had come.
The boat shot upward and spun round dizzily, half full of water. The boy clutched one of the seats with nerveless fingers. Every second he expected to feel the wave closing over him. Rowing was out of the question. They were at the mercy of the sea. The boat met the next wave broadside on. It came like some devouring monster, eager for its prey. One of the crew, his nerves strung to breaking point, uttered a hoarse cry as the mass of water struck them. The boat turned completely over, and its occupants sank in a smother of foam, many of them to their doom.
Aided by the life-belt he was wearing, the boy struck out, gasping. At one instant he came to the surface and took a choking breath. The next moment another swirling breaker had caught and overwhelmed him again. His mouth, ears, and nose were full of water. He was rolling over and over and the last of his strength was fast ebbing away. When his head emerged from the foam the thunder of the surf sounded fainter, as though it were drifting away into the distance. Vaguely he wondered what his dad and Aunt Martha were doing, far away at home; but his thoughts were disconnected. He felt an inclination to sleep, although he was being smothered all the time. If only he could get one more breath!
For a flash he returned fully to consciousness, when a sharp pain shot through his knee as it struck a rock. Then came forgetfulness.
...to be continued
Showing posts with label the sea. Show all posts
Showing posts with label the sea. Show all posts
Lost Island, Chapter 6
by Ralph Henry Barbour and H.P. Holt, originally begun November 1917
BARNES ADVISES AND DAVE RESOLVES
Just as the spinning dory reached the vortex, a change came over the turbulent water. The fiercest suction seemed to have spent itself. The whirlpool became a dozen smaller eddies, each with its rapidly revolving current, and though the dory danced from one point of danger to another it remained afloat. Loose spars and gear from the derelict began to shoot up to the surface.
"Let her have it now, lads," shouted the bo'sun. "This 'll be our only chance of getting any one who went down."
A minute later both dorys were over the place where the Miriam had sunk, and two unconscious forms were soon lifted out of the water,
"There's two more somewhere," Mr. Quick shouted across, as a number of men in each boat began to apply artificial respiration to the half-drowned victims.
Dave, happening to look a little way from the scene of the tragedy, noticed something awash on the surface for a moment.
"There's a man over there, Mr. Grimes," he yelled to the bo'sun, and the dory was urged across the intervening space.
"Sure enough there is," said Grimes, as they drew near. "You 've got quick eyes, lad. If this chap has any kick left in him he 'll owe his life to you."
The man's form was just sinking again when they got hold of it with a boat hook. He was a deck hand named Hawke, who had gone out of his way on more than one occasion to do an act of kindness to the boy.
For nearly half an hour the dorys cruised about the scene of the disaster, in the hope of picking up the remaining member of the crew, but the sea had claimed her toll; and for some days afterward there brooded over the ship an air of gloom, the missing man having been not only a good sailor but a popular comrade.
The rest of the voyage, until they made their first stop, at New Orleans, was uneventful. Dave was bitterly disappointed to find that, as they were only to remain in port a few hours, nobody was allowed ashore, and he left the gate of Louisiana with only a confused memory of docks. The weather remained favourable in the Gulf and the Caribbean Sea; and the boy settled down to ship's routine during the long run to Cape Horn, where the Pacific Queen ran into a furious gale, which battered her for four days. It was Dave's first experience of really bad weather, and with it came more seasickness, for the ship sometimes lay over at an angle of forty-five degrees, or seemed to be trying to stand on her nose as she slid down the mountainous seas. Green waves were shipped, but little damage was done, everything movable having been securely lashed.
The cook had a miraculous faculty of keeping on his feet and manipulating dishes and pans when by all known laws of gravitation he should have been sprawling. The first time Dave was jerked off his legs by a violent roll of the ship Barnes hurled a stream of invective at him, performing wondrous gymnastics with his bushy eyebrows and balancing a stew-pan on the galley stove the while.
"Do you want me to hold you up," he fumed, "as well as do all the work in this galley? This comes of goin' to sea with babies! It's a cradle you ought to have. Me and the mate will take turns rockin' you to sleep. I'd never have come aboard this packet if I'd known you'd be— Come here," he added, softening suddenly, noticing a red stain on Dave's shirt-sleeve. "You 're an idiot, that's what you are. Why didn't you tell me you'd hurt yourself?"
He rolled up the boy's sleeve and found a cut which, while not serious, was causing considerable pain. With a tenderness that even Dave had not suspected Barnes capable of, the cook bathed and bandaged it, leaving the dinner to take care of itself until he had finished.
"Allus keep the dirt out of a cut, kid," he said, "if you haven't got brains enough to keep out of cutting yourself, which you have n't."
As that day wore on the sea grew worse, and Barnes quietly took on to his own shoulders a good many of the boy's duties, for in spite of his incessant, vitriolic grumbling, he knew well enough that Dave was a willing worker, and an exceptionally useful one considering that he was a "first tripper." Moreover it was only with difficulty now, in spite of his many years of experience, that Barnes could move about while the ship was playing such antics.
"You'd better turn in, youngster," he said during the evening. "There's nothing much for you to do."
"Thanks, Mr. Barnes," Dave said limply, profoundly grateful for the chance of getting to his bunk. He was making his way for'ard and feeling extremely sick, when he encountered Mr. Quick. The wild sea had aroused all the mandriving quality in the mate, who promptly put the lad to cleaning the chain-locker, which happened to be the most disagreeable task he could think of at the moment.
David Hallard came of stubborn stock, and the situation had to be pretty desperate for him to admit to himself that he was beaten, but by the time he was able to crawl into his berth he had a craving to be home, in his own bed, in the house that did not sway and try to turn somersaults, and where there were no chain-lockers. It was the worst hour of the gale, and Dave, though not actually frightened, was more than a little awed. Added to that, his arm hurt a good deal. And besides the seasickness, which alone was enough to make him intensely miserable, he had the recent memory of Mr. Quick's deliberate unkindness. The rolling of the steamer kept him awake for hours, during which he made a grim resolution. After that his mind became easier and he dropped off to sleep.
Next morning, to his great joy, the boy found the gale had almost abated, and though a heavy sea was still running, the ship was riding much more easily. His resolution involved one point which puzzled him, and after a while he decided to consult the cook.
"I want to ask your advice, Mr. Barnes," he said. "I've made up my mind to do something."
"What d' you take me for?" snapped Barnes, bustling about the galley. "Do I look like a walkin' encyclopedia? I'm too busy to fiddle about with kids, anyway."
The boy did not answer but went on steadily with his work.
Barnes continued to bustle, making perhaps a trifle more noise than was absolutely necessary with his pans, and glancing occasionally in the direction of his youthful assistant. At last he coughed awkwardly.
"What 's worryin' you, Dave?" he asked, puffing out his red cheeks. He liked the boy more than he was aware of, and took a fatherly pride in giving him advice.
"Oh, only this, I 've decided to leave the ship when we get to Auckland."
Barnes stared and blinked his queer-looking eyes.
"Pity to do that," he said. "By rights you ought to take the ship with you. Is n't the steam heat to your satisfaction, or is it 'cos you have n't got a private bath-room?"
Dave knew Barnes well enough by now to ignore his sarcasm.
"I 'll be real sorry to go and leave you, Mr. Barnes," the lad went on, "but Mr. Quick has never forgotten me upsetting that soup over his legs, and he's got it in for me."
"I know," the cook said. "That's one of his playful little habits. It's the vinegar in him. But don't forget, sonny, you might go further an' fare worse."
"Maybe," Dave agreed ruefully, "but if I have my way, I 'll try to be under a mate whose legs I have n't upset hot soup over. Here is what I want to know, though. This boat goes on to Australian ports and the crew are paid off at Brisbane, aren't they?"
"If we ever get there."
"Well, how can I get my pay at Auckland?"
"You want some new clothes, don't you?" Barnes said. "There's nothing in the slop-chest for kids. I 'll put in a word for you, and they 'll advance you as much money as you've earned up to the time we hit New Zealand."
This relieved Dave's mind considerably, because all the cash he possessed was one dime, one nickel and four cents; and though he had sufficient confidence to leave the ship at Auckland and find another berth, he very naturally disliked the notion of finding himself in a strange land, many thousands of miles from Aunt Martha's flapjacks, with a large appetite and only nineteen cents in his pocket.
Realizing that the more he knew about his new profession the more easily he would be likely to obtain another ship in New Zealand, Dave learnt all he could during the next few weeks, and here he found a valuable tutor in Hawke. The sailor spent many hours of his watch below teaching the boy some of the simpler arts of his craft, including splicing and the tying of those baffling knots which form such an important part of a nautical education. Hawke would also have pressed some of his possessions on Dave as a mark of gratitude for what the boy had done when he was in the water, but these Dave firmly refused, accepting only Hawke's clasp knife as a souvenir.
Very little occurred to relieve the monolony of the voyage through the Southern Pacific. Dave, however, had not been at sea long enough to get over the novelty of it all. They had left Cape Horn about four thousand miles astern when the look-out one day reported a sail on the port bow. An hour later Captain Chisholm altered his course, observing that the ship was flying a signal for assistance. As the Pacific Queen drew near it was seen that the distressed vessel was a bark named the Polly E. Perkins, with every stitch of canvas set. There was very little wind and the sails flapped lazily. The Polly E. Perkins reported that she had been nearly two months beating her way from New Zealand against adverse winds, and was now running out of water. The crew was already on short rations. Captain Chisholm sent a supply of the precious liquid and then, on learning that he could render no further assistance, steamed once more westward, leaving the bark to resume her trying trip.
"Take my tip and never sign on an old windjammer," Barnes said to Dave as the other vessel dropped astern. "It's a dog's life on a steamer, anyway, but I'd hate to tell you what it's like on them floatin' coffins."
Dave smiled, remembering that the old mariner with the paint brush at Brooklyn had spoken disparagingly of the "new-fangled steam contraptions."
"Hang you for a lubber," spluttered the cook, "laughin' at me that's old enough to be teaching your grandfather. If you don't hop off this ship when we touch Auckland I 'll report you to the cap'n and have you fired for impidence."
"I was only thinking of another sea-going man, older than you, who said he preferred sailing craft," said Dave, whereupon the cook proceeded to tell some horrifying stories of wind-jammers that had drifted into that strange region known as the Sargasso Sea and remained there helpless for years until the starving crew fought among one another, even for the rats in the hold, before they perished miserably.
"But if they all died how do you know they fought for the rats?" Dave asked.
"The cap'n has to enter such things in the log," replied Barnes acidly, determined not to be beaten. "I remember the time, when I was a youngster at sea, when people who asked half as many silly questions as you do would have been put in irons and fed on salt water."
As the Pacific Queen neared Auckland, Dave wound up a long letter which he had been writing to his father, bit by bit, ever since he left Brooklyn. It was characteristic of the lad that he said very little of such hardships as he had encountered. He explained that he was going to join another ship, and added hopefully that he would find one homeward bound if possible, little dreaming of the strange adventures that were before him ere he could cross the threshold of his home again.
...to be continued
BARNES ADVISES AND DAVE RESOLVES
Just as the spinning dory reached the vortex, a change came over the turbulent water. The fiercest suction seemed to have spent itself. The whirlpool became a dozen smaller eddies, each with its rapidly revolving current, and though the dory danced from one point of danger to another it remained afloat. Loose spars and gear from the derelict began to shoot up to the surface.
"Let her have it now, lads," shouted the bo'sun. "This 'll be our only chance of getting any one who went down."
A minute later both dorys were over the place where the Miriam had sunk, and two unconscious forms were soon lifted out of the water,
"There's two more somewhere," Mr. Quick shouted across, as a number of men in each boat began to apply artificial respiration to the half-drowned victims.
Dave, happening to look a little way from the scene of the tragedy, noticed something awash on the surface for a moment.
"There's a man over there, Mr. Grimes," he yelled to the bo'sun, and the dory was urged across the intervening space.
"Sure enough there is," said Grimes, as they drew near. "You 've got quick eyes, lad. If this chap has any kick left in him he 'll owe his life to you."
The man's form was just sinking again when they got hold of it with a boat hook. He was a deck hand named Hawke, who had gone out of his way on more than one occasion to do an act of kindness to the boy.
For nearly half an hour the dorys cruised about the scene of the disaster, in the hope of picking up the remaining member of the crew, but the sea had claimed her toll; and for some days afterward there brooded over the ship an air of gloom, the missing man having been not only a good sailor but a popular comrade.
The rest of the voyage, until they made their first stop, at New Orleans, was uneventful. Dave was bitterly disappointed to find that, as they were only to remain in port a few hours, nobody was allowed ashore, and he left the gate of Louisiana with only a confused memory of docks. The weather remained favourable in the Gulf and the Caribbean Sea; and the boy settled down to ship's routine during the long run to Cape Horn, where the Pacific Queen ran into a furious gale, which battered her for four days. It was Dave's first experience of really bad weather, and with it came more seasickness, for the ship sometimes lay over at an angle of forty-five degrees, or seemed to be trying to stand on her nose as she slid down the mountainous seas. Green waves were shipped, but little damage was done, everything movable having been securely lashed.
The cook had a miraculous faculty of keeping on his feet and manipulating dishes and pans when by all known laws of gravitation he should have been sprawling. The first time Dave was jerked off his legs by a violent roll of the ship Barnes hurled a stream of invective at him, performing wondrous gymnastics with his bushy eyebrows and balancing a stew-pan on the galley stove the while.
"Do you want me to hold you up," he fumed, "as well as do all the work in this galley? This comes of goin' to sea with babies! It's a cradle you ought to have. Me and the mate will take turns rockin' you to sleep. I'd never have come aboard this packet if I'd known you'd be— Come here," he added, softening suddenly, noticing a red stain on Dave's shirt-sleeve. "You 're an idiot, that's what you are. Why didn't you tell me you'd hurt yourself?"
He rolled up the boy's sleeve and found a cut which, while not serious, was causing considerable pain. With a tenderness that even Dave had not suspected Barnes capable of, the cook bathed and bandaged it, leaving the dinner to take care of itself until he had finished.
"Allus keep the dirt out of a cut, kid," he said, "if you haven't got brains enough to keep out of cutting yourself, which you have n't."
As that day wore on the sea grew worse, and Barnes quietly took on to his own shoulders a good many of the boy's duties, for in spite of his incessant, vitriolic grumbling, he knew well enough that Dave was a willing worker, and an exceptionally useful one considering that he was a "first tripper." Moreover it was only with difficulty now, in spite of his many years of experience, that Barnes could move about while the ship was playing such antics.
"You'd better turn in, youngster," he said during the evening. "There's nothing much for you to do."
"Thanks, Mr. Barnes," Dave said limply, profoundly grateful for the chance of getting to his bunk. He was making his way for'ard and feeling extremely sick, when he encountered Mr. Quick. The wild sea had aroused all the mandriving quality in the mate, who promptly put the lad to cleaning the chain-locker, which happened to be the most disagreeable task he could think of at the moment.
David Hallard came of stubborn stock, and the situation had to be pretty desperate for him to admit to himself that he was beaten, but by the time he was able to crawl into his berth he had a craving to be home, in his own bed, in the house that did not sway and try to turn somersaults, and where there were no chain-lockers. It was the worst hour of the gale, and Dave, though not actually frightened, was more than a little awed. Added to that, his arm hurt a good deal. And besides the seasickness, which alone was enough to make him intensely miserable, he had the recent memory of Mr. Quick's deliberate unkindness. The rolling of the steamer kept him awake for hours, during which he made a grim resolution. After that his mind became easier and he dropped off to sleep.
Next morning, to his great joy, the boy found the gale had almost abated, and though a heavy sea was still running, the ship was riding much more easily. His resolution involved one point which puzzled him, and after a while he decided to consult the cook.
"I want to ask your advice, Mr. Barnes," he said. "I've made up my mind to do something."
"What d' you take me for?" snapped Barnes, bustling about the galley. "Do I look like a walkin' encyclopedia? I'm too busy to fiddle about with kids, anyway."
The boy did not answer but went on steadily with his work.
Barnes continued to bustle, making perhaps a trifle more noise than was absolutely necessary with his pans, and glancing occasionally in the direction of his youthful assistant. At last he coughed awkwardly.
"What 's worryin' you, Dave?" he asked, puffing out his red cheeks. He liked the boy more than he was aware of, and took a fatherly pride in giving him advice.
"Oh, only this, I 've decided to leave the ship when we get to Auckland."
Barnes stared and blinked his queer-looking eyes.
"Pity to do that," he said. "By rights you ought to take the ship with you. Is n't the steam heat to your satisfaction, or is it 'cos you have n't got a private bath-room?"
Dave knew Barnes well enough by now to ignore his sarcasm.
"I 'll be real sorry to go and leave you, Mr. Barnes," the lad went on, "but Mr. Quick has never forgotten me upsetting that soup over his legs, and he's got it in for me."
"I know," the cook said. "That's one of his playful little habits. It's the vinegar in him. But don't forget, sonny, you might go further an' fare worse."
"Maybe," Dave agreed ruefully, "but if I have my way, I 'll try to be under a mate whose legs I have n't upset hot soup over. Here is what I want to know, though. This boat goes on to Australian ports and the crew are paid off at Brisbane, aren't they?"
"If we ever get there."
"Well, how can I get my pay at Auckland?"
"You want some new clothes, don't you?" Barnes said. "There's nothing in the slop-chest for kids. I 'll put in a word for you, and they 'll advance you as much money as you've earned up to the time we hit New Zealand."
This relieved Dave's mind considerably, because all the cash he possessed was one dime, one nickel and four cents; and though he had sufficient confidence to leave the ship at Auckland and find another berth, he very naturally disliked the notion of finding himself in a strange land, many thousands of miles from Aunt Martha's flapjacks, with a large appetite and only nineteen cents in his pocket.
Realizing that the more he knew about his new profession the more easily he would be likely to obtain another ship in New Zealand, Dave learnt all he could during the next few weeks, and here he found a valuable tutor in Hawke. The sailor spent many hours of his watch below teaching the boy some of the simpler arts of his craft, including splicing and the tying of those baffling knots which form such an important part of a nautical education. Hawke would also have pressed some of his possessions on Dave as a mark of gratitude for what the boy had done when he was in the water, but these Dave firmly refused, accepting only Hawke's clasp knife as a souvenir.
Very little occurred to relieve the monolony of the voyage through the Southern Pacific. Dave, however, had not been at sea long enough to get over the novelty of it all. They had left Cape Horn about four thousand miles astern when the look-out one day reported a sail on the port bow. An hour later Captain Chisholm altered his course, observing that the ship was flying a signal for assistance. As the Pacific Queen drew near it was seen that the distressed vessel was a bark named the Polly E. Perkins, with every stitch of canvas set. There was very little wind and the sails flapped lazily. The Polly E. Perkins reported that she had been nearly two months beating her way from New Zealand against adverse winds, and was now running out of water. The crew was already on short rations. Captain Chisholm sent a supply of the precious liquid and then, on learning that he could render no further assistance, steamed once more westward, leaving the bark to resume her trying trip.
"Take my tip and never sign on an old windjammer," Barnes said to Dave as the other vessel dropped astern. "It's a dog's life on a steamer, anyway, but I'd hate to tell you what it's like on them floatin' coffins."
Dave smiled, remembering that the old mariner with the paint brush at Brooklyn had spoken disparagingly of the "new-fangled steam contraptions."
"Hang you for a lubber," spluttered the cook, "laughin' at me that's old enough to be teaching your grandfather. If you don't hop off this ship when we touch Auckland I 'll report you to the cap'n and have you fired for impidence."
"I was only thinking of another sea-going man, older than you, who said he preferred sailing craft," said Dave, whereupon the cook proceeded to tell some horrifying stories of wind-jammers that had drifted into that strange region known as the Sargasso Sea and remained there helpless for years until the starving crew fought among one another, even for the rats in the hold, before they perished miserably.
"But if they all died how do you know they fought for the rats?" Dave asked.
"The cap'n has to enter such things in the log," replied Barnes acidly, determined not to be beaten. "I remember the time, when I was a youngster at sea, when people who asked half as many silly questions as you do would have been put in irons and fed on salt water."
As the Pacific Queen neared Auckland, Dave wound up a long letter which he had been writing to his father, bit by bit, ever since he left Brooklyn. It was characteristic of the lad that he said very little of such hardships as he had encountered. He explained that he was going to join another ship, and added hopefully that he would find one homeward bound if possible, little dreaming of the strange adventures that were before him ere he could cross the threshold of his home again.
...to be continued
Lost Island, Chapter 5
by Ralph Henry Barbour and H.P. Holt, originally begun November 1917
IN WHICH THE PACIFIC QUEEN LOSES A PRIZE
Derelict?" Dave said, not quite sure what a derelict was. "Doesn't that mean..."
"A derelict, my son," said Barnes, "is the sort of thing a cap'n spends all his life lookin' for, but most generally he doesn't find it; and even when he finds it, it might be lucky and it might be powerful unlucky. If the old man has a hoodoo, he 'll either find the derelict in the dark by punching bow on into it, or the derelict won't be worth the trouble of takin' to port. But if the skipper who runs across it is one of them people that can't go wrong, he 'll be able to tow the thing into port and live happy ever after on what he gets out of the salvage."
Dave, consumed with curiosity, held out his hand for the glasses.
"Away, child, away," commanded the cook with his eyes still glued to them. "Here is work for men, not infants. A two-thousand-ton steamer, as I live. We 'll all have rings on our fingers and bells on our toes after this, for the cap 'n does n't get all the salvage money. I dunno what share the cook gets, eggsactly, but it ought to be about half, I reckon. You 'll pick up a few hundred dollars too, kid, maybe, though I'm sure you don't deserve it. Here, take a squint through these binoculars; though you don't deserve that, either."
Dave, rapidly growing more excited as they ran nearer the vessel, tried to discern some sign of life on board her, but could not. He did not understand quite what the cook meant about salvage, though it sounded good.
The engine-room telegraph rang, and the Pacific Queen slowed down. The order came from the bridge for a boat to be swung out. Mr. Quick, hustling a crew into her, took charge and put off to the other vessel. Everybody waited impatiently for their return. The ship bobbing up and down, a hundred yards away, had evidently encountered trouble of some sort. Her bows were dangerously low in the water, as if the forward compartments were flooded, and there was a list which made one think she was going to topple over any minute. A number of plates were stove in, showing she had hit something with tremendous force.
The boarding party remained away half an hour, and on his return the chief mate reported that the vessel was the Miriam, of Boston, apparently laden with a general cargo. She was deserted and sinking. The forward hold and engine-room were full of water, and he thought that only the bulkheads holding out were saving her. Once the pressure of water broke those down, she would sink.
"She's been worth a power of money, Mr. Quick," commented Captain Chisholm, "to say nothing of the cargo in her. I guess I 'l1 just slip over myself and see what sort of a chance there is of doing anything with her. She's been in collision during a gale, and the boat that hit her probably took the men off. We 're within twenty-four hours' run of Charleston. A salvage job like this would just tickle me to death. If it can possibly be done, Mr. Mate, I'm going to try it."
The captain's inspection of the derelict was not so lengthy.
"There's a sporting chance of getting her into dock," he announced as he climbed back onto the Pacific Queen, "but there isn't a minute to lose. We must get the pumps to work immediately. It will be tricky work, because she may sink like a stone when, she does go. Now, Mr. Quick, get that new manila hawser bent on to her, and look alive there. You 'll want a dozen men on her. Better take only volunteers, as it's risky."
Volunteers were ready enough. Dave moved forward to join them, but Barnes pulled him back by the ear.
"That's work for men, not babies, didn't I tell you?" he said. "Besides, who d'you s'pose is going to wash the dishes on this packet if you go and get drownded? It's no use me askin' the cap'n to do it, and I'm sure I won't. Yon is a death-trap, lad. It's a desperate chance to make big money, and, mark my words, they 'll hang on to the last minute. We 'll get our share of the salvage money just the same, so stop where you are. Blow you, anyway; you 're more trouble than you 're worth!"
In the next few minutes Dave learnt what real hustling at sea was.
Mr. Quick knew the art of driving men in an emergency, and in an incredibly short time the derelict was pulling heavily behind the Pacific Queen at the end of the long hawser, and looking strangely awkward with her heavy list. Mr. Quick's task was a formidable one, but he set about it with grim determination, for the prize was one well worth having. There was a ground swell running, but no water was coming inboard; so after having hand pumps rigged up and setting four men to work at top speed on these, he had the hatches ripped off. As he had surmised, the cargo had shifted badly, and that was what made her lean over so perilously. Bales, boxes, and merchandise of all kinds were lying in indescribable confusion, and it was a Herculean task to get the hold anything like ship-shape without the aid of steam-winches. Mr. Quick, however, threw off his coat and worked as hard as any of the men. The derelict was not in imminent danger of turning turtle so long as the sea did not grow worse, but there was always the danger of a strong wind getting up suddenly.
With aching backs, fingers lacerated by frenzied tugging at the jumbled cargo, and perspiration pouring off them, the men toiled at their task without a break all day, and Mr. Quick did not call them off until there was an appreciable difference in the way the boat was riding in the water. The men at the pumps, however, worked in vain. Thousands of gallons of water gushed out of the hold for'ard without raising the bow an inch in the sea. It was evident that a hole of considerable size must have been torn in the side of the vessel, through which the water rushed as fast as the overtaxed muscles of the seamen pumped it out.
Everybody on the Pacific Queen was agog with excitement, casting many an anxious glance back at the precious prize.
"Quick ain't giving them men a picnic; no, sir!" Barnes said to Dave. "They 'll be 'most dead by the time we get to port. That mate hasn't had a proper chance to let off steam in months, and my name is n't Bill Barnes if he does n't enjoy it more 'n a big-league baseball game. Tbat man ain't got no heart. He's just made up of vinegar and guncotton."
It was true that Mr. Quick was getting the last ounce out of the men, and the pumping went on incessantly. There was always the bare chance that they were lightening the derelict a trifle, and the mate did not like to think of the tremendous strain those bulkheads were standing. Every hour, though, brought them miles nearer Charleston.
When night had fallen Barnes stood at the stern of the Pacific Queen, surveying the lurching light which alone showed that the stricken craft was still above water.
"This is where I quit cookin' puddin's for a bunch of sailors," he said to Dave. "It's more 'n I ever hoped for to come my way, is pickin' up two hundred feet or so of a steamer without even a canary on board. D 'you know what I'm going to do with my share, kid? I'm going to found a home for tired sea-cooks. Yes, sir. That's what I'm going to do. There's going to be free grab and things, and no man in there will do a stroke of work. Maybe there 'll be a steward engaged. Yes, sir, I've got his duties figgered out right now. When a tired sea-cook is reclinin' at his ease, with a good cargo of roast beef stowed aboard, running his mind over the days when: he had the life plagued out of him afloat, that steward 'll knock at the door soft-like and say it's time the crew's dinner was ready. Yes, sir. There 'll only be one man in that home for tired sea-cooks, and that's me. And do you know what I 'll say to the steward? I 'll tell him to tell the crew to go to Jericho.
"Laugh, you little lubber," he added, glaring at Dave, "or I 'll drop you overboard. What are you going to do with your share, Dave?"
The boy thought for a moment.
"I 'll pay someone to write a book teaching manners to sea-cooks," he said, side-stepping just in time to avoid Barnes's hand.
The coming of darkness had not improved the position. There was an atmosphere of grave anxiety on the Pacific Queen, for it needed no very experienced eye to judge that the Miriam's chances were, to say the least, slim; and none knew better than Mr. Quick how insecure was the position of the men under him.
Dave slept fitfully, dreaming he was the skipper of a steamer that encountered a whole fleet of derelicts. He had them all tied astern, like a string of barges, reaching for miles. Then his chief engineer came up to report that there was no more coal left on board, and Captain David Hallard was struggling desperately with the problem of what to do, when he awoke.
Through a porthole he saw that the first signs of dawn were visible in the eastern sky. Dressing hastily, he went on deck.
Oleson and one or two other sailors were hovering round the stern, discussing the Miriam's chances of keeping afloat.
"She 'll just about make Charleston," one man said, "but she wouldn't get much farther."
"I never expected to find her above water this morning," commented another, gloomily.
"Leave that to Quick," said the first sailor. "He knows what he's doing. There 'll be a scramble for that dory they 're trailing astern, though, if she does sink!"
The light was growing rapidly, and Dave could now make out the form of the chief mate. The creak and thud of the pumps came faintly across the heaving water.
Mr. Quick, as a matter of fact, was ill at ease. He had been standing for some time over the flooded hold, listening, and fearing to hear a repetition of an ominous sound—a dull groaning that seemed to come from somewhere underneath him. Using his arms as a semaphore, he sent a signal to Captain Chisholm, who had been restlessly pacing the bridge.
"Afraid bulkheads giving way," he signaled. "No lower yet, but stand by ready to let go hawser if necessary!"
The captain frowned as he read the message. It was maddening to have such valuable salvage snatched away when they were getting so near to port. But he was responsible for the lives of the men.
"Don't take chances," he signaled back. "Have dory ready."
Mr. Quick smiled grimly, but no one on the Pacific Queen saw that smile. It was not a pleasant sight. He was willing to run the same risk of being drowned as the men, but as chief mate he would draw a large proportion of the salvage money, and for the present he had no intention of giving the order which would send the men into the dory.
Every now and again he went to the side of the ship to see if she had settled farther. He was perfectly aware that the noise he had heard indicated something sinister was happening down in the flooded interior of the ship and that the derelict's chances now hung on a single thread. But while that thread held there was a hope of big salvage money.
An hour passed—two hours. Mr. Quick, with every nerve strained to breaking point, felt a peculiar motion of the derelict, and the deck vibrated slightly. Though hard and cruel, he was brave. Very quietly, and still puffing at the stump of a cigar which he had nearly bitten through, he peered again over the side.
For three minutes he remained in that position, staring intently at the water.
Oleson, on the Pacific Queen, took the glasses from Dave's hand.
"She 's a full foot lower," he said jerkily. "I 'll be veree surprised if she keeps up another hour."
Suddenly the cries of alarmed men on the Miriam were heard. A crashing, rumbling noise from under the decks had told them the end had come.
Like a tired thing, the derelict lurched heavily, and before the men on board had time to get half way to the dory, the doomed steamer's bows were in the sea. She canted over, making progress along the deck difficult. Only eight of the crew, besides the mate, had dropped into the small boat, when the stern of the derelict began to rise as her bows went farther downward. To have delayed another second would have meant death for all. With his own hands Mr. Quick cast the painter when the dory was tilted at a perilous angle, and even as the piteous cries of the four men left on board were ringing in their ears, the sailors in the dory bent desperately to their oars in order to avoid the whirlpool which the sinking ship would create on her plunge to the bottom.
Though the muscles in their backs and arms cracked under the strain, the men did not succeed in getting far enough away to avoid the eddy.
The instant he noticed what was happening, Captain Chishohn stopped the engines of the Pacific Queen.
"Let go that hawser," came the order from the bridge. "Get another boat out quick. Be smart there."
Like lightning the men obeyed. The loss of their prize was forgotten for the moment, for human lives were in peril. There was no time to pick and choose who was to man the second dory. Those near at hand jumped in, Dave among them. Just as they pushed off from the side of the Pacific Queen the little craft containing Mr. Quick and eight men was caught by the outside of the whirlpool and began to spin round.
"Easy with your oars, lads," said the bo'sun in charge of the second dory. "We must keep out of that."
The irresistible suction drew the mate's boat nearer and nearer that swirling centre of the whirlpool in rapidly narrowing circles. The men in her were now struggling frantically against overwhelming odds. It seemed as though nothing could possibly save them from being drawn under, to be shot far down in the track of the Miriam.
Dave gripped the gunwale of the boat tightly. He wanted to close his eyes to shut out the impending tragedy. He forgot the mate's brutality. It was agonizing to have to sit still and do nothing while his shipmates were on the verge of death.
...to be continued
IN WHICH THE PACIFIC QUEEN LOSES A PRIZE
Derelict?" Dave said, not quite sure what a derelict was. "Doesn't that mean..."
"A derelict, my son," said Barnes, "is the sort of thing a cap'n spends all his life lookin' for, but most generally he doesn't find it; and even when he finds it, it might be lucky and it might be powerful unlucky. If the old man has a hoodoo, he 'll either find the derelict in the dark by punching bow on into it, or the derelict won't be worth the trouble of takin' to port. But if the skipper who runs across it is one of them people that can't go wrong, he 'll be able to tow the thing into port and live happy ever after on what he gets out of the salvage."
Dave, consumed with curiosity, held out his hand for the glasses.
"Away, child, away," commanded the cook with his eyes still glued to them. "Here is work for men, not infants. A two-thousand-ton steamer, as I live. We 'll all have rings on our fingers and bells on our toes after this, for the cap 'n does n't get all the salvage money. I dunno what share the cook gets, eggsactly, but it ought to be about half, I reckon. You 'll pick up a few hundred dollars too, kid, maybe, though I'm sure you don't deserve it. Here, take a squint through these binoculars; though you don't deserve that, either."
Dave, rapidly growing more excited as they ran nearer the vessel, tried to discern some sign of life on board her, but could not. He did not understand quite what the cook meant about salvage, though it sounded good.
The engine-room telegraph rang, and the Pacific Queen slowed down. The order came from the bridge for a boat to be swung out. Mr. Quick, hustling a crew into her, took charge and put off to the other vessel. Everybody waited impatiently for their return. The ship bobbing up and down, a hundred yards away, had evidently encountered trouble of some sort. Her bows were dangerously low in the water, as if the forward compartments were flooded, and there was a list which made one think she was going to topple over any minute. A number of plates were stove in, showing she had hit something with tremendous force.
The boarding party remained away half an hour, and on his return the chief mate reported that the vessel was the Miriam, of Boston, apparently laden with a general cargo. She was deserted and sinking. The forward hold and engine-room were full of water, and he thought that only the bulkheads holding out were saving her. Once the pressure of water broke those down, she would sink.
"She's been worth a power of money, Mr. Quick," commented Captain Chisholm, "to say nothing of the cargo in her. I guess I 'l1 just slip over myself and see what sort of a chance there is of doing anything with her. She's been in collision during a gale, and the boat that hit her probably took the men off. We 're within twenty-four hours' run of Charleston. A salvage job like this would just tickle me to death. If it can possibly be done, Mr. Mate, I'm going to try it."
The captain's inspection of the derelict was not so lengthy.
"There's a sporting chance of getting her into dock," he announced as he climbed back onto the Pacific Queen, "but there isn't a minute to lose. We must get the pumps to work immediately. It will be tricky work, because she may sink like a stone when, she does go. Now, Mr. Quick, get that new manila hawser bent on to her, and look alive there. You 'll want a dozen men on her. Better take only volunteers, as it's risky."
Volunteers were ready enough. Dave moved forward to join them, but Barnes pulled him back by the ear.
"That's work for men, not babies, didn't I tell you?" he said. "Besides, who d'you s'pose is going to wash the dishes on this packet if you go and get drownded? It's no use me askin' the cap'n to do it, and I'm sure I won't. Yon is a death-trap, lad. It's a desperate chance to make big money, and, mark my words, they 'll hang on to the last minute. We 'll get our share of the salvage money just the same, so stop where you are. Blow you, anyway; you 're more trouble than you 're worth!"
In the next few minutes Dave learnt what real hustling at sea was.
Mr. Quick knew the art of driving men in an emergency, and in an incredibly short time the derelict was pulling heavily behind the Pacific Queen at the end of the long hawser, and looking strangely awkward with her heavy list. Mr. Quick's task was a formidable one, but he set about it with grim determination, for the prize was one well worth having. There was a ground swell running, but no water was coming inboard; so after having hand pumps rigged up and setting four men to work at top speed on these, he had the hatches ripped off. As he had surmised, the cargo had shifted badly, and that was what made her lean over so perilously. Bales, boxes, and merchandise of all kinds were lying in indescribable confusion, and it was a Herculean task to get the hold anything like ship-shape without the aid of steam-winches. Mr. Quick, however, threw off his coat and worked as hard as any of the men. The derelict was not in imminent danger of turning turtle so long as the sea did not grow worse, but there was always the danger of a strong wind getting up suddenly.
With aching backs, fingers lacerated by frenzied tugging at the jumbled cargo, and perspiration pouring off them, the men toiled at their task without a break all day, and Mr. Quick did not call them off until there was an appreciable difference in the way the boat was riding in the water. The men at the pumps, however, worked in vain. Thousands of gallons of water gushed out of the hold for'ard without raising the bow an inch in the sea. It was evident that a hole of considerable size must have been torn in the side of the vessel, through which the water rushed as fast as the overtaxed muscles of the seamen pumped it out.
Everybody on the Pacific Queen was agog with excitement, casting many an anxious glance back at the precious prize.
"Quick ain't giving them men a picnic; no, sir!" Barnes said to Dave. "They 'll be 'most dead by the time we get to port. That mate hasn't had a proper chance to let off steam in months, and my name is n't Bill Barnes if he does n't enjoy it more 'n a big-league baseball game. Tbat man ain't got no heart. He's just made up of vinegar and guncotton."
It was true that Mr. Quick was getting the last ounce out of the men, and the pumping went on incessantly. There was always the bare chance that they were lightening the derelict a trifle, and the mate did not like to think of the tremendous strain those bulkheads were standing. Every hour, though, brought them miles nearer Charleston.
When night had fallen Barnes stood at the stern of the Pacific Queen, surveying the lurching light which alone showed that the stricken craft was still above water.
"This is where I quit cookin' puddin's for a bunch of sailors," he said to Dave. "It's more 'n I ever hoped for to come my way, is pickin' up two hundred feet or so of a steamer without even a canary on board. D 'you know what I'm going to do with my share, kid? I'm going to found a home for tired sea-cooks. Yes, sir. That's what I'm going to do. There's going to be free grab and things, and no man in there will do a stroke of work. Maybe there 'll be a steward engaged. Yes, sir, I've got his duties figgered out right now. When a tired sea-cook is reclinin' at his ease, with a good cargo of roast beef stowed aboard, running his mind over the days when: he had the life plagued out of him afloat, that steward 'll knock at the door soft-like and say it's time the crew's dinner was ready. Yes, sir. There 'll only be one man in that home for tired sea-cooks, and that's me. And do you know what I 'll say to the steward? I 'll tell him to tell the crew to go to Jericho.
"Laugh, you little lubber," he added, glaring at Dave, "or I 'll drop you overboard. What are you going to do with your share, Dave?"
The boy thought for a moment.
"I 'll pay someone to write a book teaching manners to sea-cooks," he said, side-stepping just in time to avoid Barnes's hand.
The coming of darkness had not improved the position. There was an atmosphere of grave anxiety on the Pacific Queen, for it needed no very experienced eye to judge that the Miriam's chances were, to say the least, slim; and none knew better than Mr. Quick how insecure was the position of the men under him.
Dave slept fitfully, dreaming he was the skipper of a steamer that encountered a whole fleet of derelicts. He had them all tied astern, like a string of barges, reaching for miles. Then his chief engineer came up to report that there was no more coal left on board, and Captain David Hallard was struggling desperately with the problem of what to do, when he awoke.
Through a porthole he saw that the first signs of dawn were visible in the eastern sky. Dressing hastily, he went on deck.
Oleson and one or two other sailors were hovering round the stern, discussing the Miriam's chances of keeping afloat.
"She 'll just about make Charleston," one man said, "but she wouldn't get much farther."
"I never expected to find her above water this morning," commented another, gloomily.
"Leave that to Quick," said the first sailor. "He knows what he's doing. There 'll be a scramble for that dory they 're trailing astern, though, if she does sink!"
The light was growing rapidly, and Dave could now make out the form of the chief mate. The creak and thud of the pumps came faintly across the heaving water.
Mr. Quick, as a matter of fact, was ill at ease. He had been standing for some time over the flooded hold, listening, and fearing to hear a repetition of an ominous sound—a dull groaning that seemed to come from somewhere underneath him. Using his arms as a semaphore, he sent a signal to Captain Chisholm, who had been restlessly pacing the bridge.
"Afraid bulkheads giving way," he signaled. "No lower yet, but stand by ready to let go hawser if necessary!"
The captain frowned as he read the message. It was maddening to have such valuable salvage snatched away when they were getting so near to port. But he was responsible for the lives of the men.
"Don't take chances," he signaled back. "Have dory ready."
Mr. Quick smiled grimly, but no one on the Pacific Queen saw that smile. It was not a pleasant sight. He was willing to run the same risk of being drowned as the men, but as chief mate he would draw a large proportion of the salvage money, and for the present he had no intention of giving the order which would send the men into the dory.
Every now and again he went to the side of the ship to see if she had settled farther. He was perfectly aware that the noise he had heard indicated something sinister was happening down in the flooded interior of the ship and that the derelict's chances now hung on a single thread. But while that thread held there was a hope of big salvage money.
An hour passed—two hours. Mr. Quick, with every nerve strained to breaking point, felt a peculiar motion of the derelict, and the deck vibrated slightly. Though hard and cruel, he was brave. Very quietly, and still puffing at the stump of a cigar which he had nearly bitten through, he peered again over the side.
For three minutes he remained in that position, staring intently at the water.
Oleson, on the Pacific Queen, took the glasses from Dave's hand.
"She 's a full foot lower," he said jerkily. "I 'll be veree surprised if she keeps up another hour."
Suddenly the cries of alarmed men on the Miriam were heard. A crashing, rumbling noise from under the decks had told them the end had come.
Like a tired thing, the derelict lurched heavily, and before the men on board had time to get half way to the dory, the doomed steamer's bows were in the sea. She canted over, making progress along the deck difficult. Only eight of the crew, besides the mate, had dropped into the small boat, when the stern of the derelict began to rise as her bows went farther downward. To have delayed another second would have meant death for all. With his own hands Mr. Quick cast the painter when the dory was tilted at a perilous angle, and even as the piteous cries of the four men left on board were ringing in their ears, the sailors in the dory bent desperately to their oars in order to avoid the whirlpool which the sinking ship would create on her plunge to the bottom.
Though the muscles in their backs and arms cracked under the strain, the men did not succeed in getting far enough away to avoid the eddy.
The instant he noticed what was happening, Captain Chishohn stopped the engines of the Pacific Queen.
"Let go that hawser," came the order from the bridge. "Get another boat out quick. Be smart there."
Like lightning the men obeyed. The loss of their prize was forgotten for the moment, for human lives were in peril. There was no time to pick and choose who was to man the second dory. Those near at hand jumped in, Dave among them. Just as they pushed off from the side of the Pacific Queen the little craft containing Mr. Quick and eight men was caught by the outside of the whirlpool and began to spin round.
"Easy with your oars, lads," said the bo'sun in charge of the second dory. "We must keep out of that."
The irresistible suction drew the mate's boat nearer and nearer that swirling centre of the whirlpool in rapidly narrowing circles. The men in her were now struggling frantically against overwhelming odds. It seemed as though nothing could possibly save them from being drawn under, to be shot far down in the track of the Miriam.
Dave gripped the gunwale of the boat tightly. He wanted to close his eyes to shut out the impending tragedy. He forgot the mate's brutality. It was agonizing to have to sit still and do nothing while his shipmates were on the verge of death.
...to be continued
Lost Island, Chapter 4
by Ralph Henry Barbour and H.P. Holt, originally begun November 1917
THE DERELICT
The new hand's sleeping quarters were in the "fo'c'sle," but he did not sleep much the first night, for everything was strange. So far, the ship was very steady, only giving a roll occasionally. When the boy turned out next morning they were far out to sea and running to the south, the coast-line of New Jersey looming up in the distance on the starboard beam.
Dave soon discovered that he was to lead a strenuous existence on board. With only one pair of hands, he was to do all sorts of odd jobs for the cook, help the steward to wait on the captain, who had his meals alone, obey orders from any one who took it into his head to issue commands, and make himself generally useful. He got a good many hints from Barnes when that queer individual was in the mood to be communicative, though Dave had to sort out the hints from a maze of contradictory statements.
"It's a reg'lar dog's life at sea," said the cook, while Dave was stirring a mysterious compound in a large basin. Barnes seemed to have a fondness for that expression. "I dunno why kids like you want to come on a ship. An' yet it's all right at times, such as when you get ashore. The best part of bein' at sea is goin' ashore, I allus says. Didn't I see you runnin' your legs off for Oleson this morning?" he demanded ferociously, without the slightest warning.
"Who's Oleson?" Dave asked. He had been performing a variety of duties for so many people.
"Oleson is that great, lumbering, Swedish seaman who looks like a one-eyed mule." Dave recognized the vague description by the fact that one man wore a patch over his left eye.
"Yes, he asked me to—"
"Never mind what he asked you to do," the cook snapped. "You've got to learn to look after yourself, kid, or nobody on this ship won't be doin' nothing soon. You 'll be doing it all. Oleson wants a couple of valets to run about after him, and somebody to carry his breakfast to him in the morning so that he can have it in bed nice and comfortable. Don't tell him so or he might screw your neck round five times, but I'm just puttin' you wise, see? Hi, there!" he added quickly, Dave having stopped stirring to listen. "I 'll break every bone in your body if you spoil that puddin'."
Mr. Quick, who was reputed to have eyes in the back of his head, took no notice of the new hand except to give him an occasional sharp order. Dave, being new to ship's discipline, disliked the chief mate's manner, but made a mental resolve not to incur that officer's wrath. The third day out, however, an incident occurred which made a permanent enemy of Mr. Quick.
A steady wind had begun to blow, whistling through the rigging and giving the steamer a most unpleasant motion known as the "cork-screw." That is to say, she neither pitched all the time nor rolled all the time, but kept up an aggravating combination of both. Dave was getting rather white in consequence, and did not by any means feel sure of his legs. He had a strong desire to lie down and wait until he got used to the motion, but there were many things for him to do. In the middle of this the steward popped his head into the galley.
"Shake up the skipper's dinner in a hurry," he said. "The old man says he wants it right now. I'm going to fix up the table, so send the kid on with the soup soon as you can."
"Tell the captain to go to Jerusalem," spluttered Barnes, who hated to be hurried. "Reg'lar dog's life, this is. Here, Dave, take this soup along to the steward, and get a move on."
David, anxious to do his best, but feeling more shaky than ever, took the plate and hurried, according to instructions. Even without the soup he would have found it most difficult to retain his balance; as it was, he only kept upright by a miracle. His mind was concentrated solely on his task, and there was no reason for him to suppose that Mr. Quick would come around the corner suddenly.
Before the boy had the slightest warning, the apparition of Mr. Quick towered in front of him. Both the mate and the boy were apparently in a hurry. Dave realized what was inevitable a fiftieth part of a second before it happened, but he was utterly powerless to prevent the disaster.
The plate struck Mr. Quick just about on the lowest button of his waistcoat, and Dave, being unable to check himself, followed the plate.
Mr. Quick gave a yell of pain, for the soup, which trickled its greasy course down his trousers, was scalding hot. Dave remembered that fact while he was scrambling to his feet with one eye on the mate's red hair, which appeared to bristle and stand erect.
"I'm very sorry, sir," the boy stammered. "The boat swayed just then."
Mr. Quick's arm was raised and an angry light shone in his eyes.
"You lubberly pup!" he bellowed. "I 'll teach you better manners than to throw soup over an officer of the ship. She swayed, did she? Then this is where you sway!" and he struck at the boy with a huge fist.
Had the blow landed where Mr. Quick intended it to, Dave would probably have been knocked unconscious, but he dodged just in time, and the mate, still hurling abuse at Dave, and mopping himself down with a handkerchief, turned on his heel and disappeared along the alleyway; while Dave, very crestfallen, went back to the galley for more soup. There more trouble was awaiting him, for Barnes seemed to be in the worst of tempers until he learned of the calamity. Then, however, his anger vanished and his fat sides shook with laughter. He did not love the chief mate and rejoiced exceedingly at the latter's discomfiture.
"But take my tip, Dave," he said severely, "and keep out of that man's way after this, or he 'll make things hot for you."
Dave, unfortunately, could not altogether keep out of Mr. Quick's way, though he would have been glad to follow the advice. The mate was of an unforgiving nature and nursed his grievance. He set Dave to all manner of disagreeable tasks, and more than once cuffed him on slight provocation, thereby arousing the intense indignation of Barnes.
"If only I could depend on the steward," the cook said explosively, "I'd give Mr. Bloomin' Quick something in his dinner that would do his heart good. It's the likes of him that makes it a dog's life at sea. Say, kid," he went on in fiery tones, "I 'll make you eat them potato peelin's raw if you don't hurry up."
The weather continued rough, and the Pacific Queen was nearly a week out of port before Dave began to lose the topsy-turvy feeling in his stomach. What with seasickness and Mr. Quick's studied unkindness, he felt exceedingly miserable sometimes, but he kept a stiff upper lip, thereby earning the secret admiration of Barnes, who was a good deal more human than even he suspected himself of being.
When Dave was gaining his sea legs he noticed a ship, hull down, on the port bow and remembered the binoculars, which he usually kept fastened up in his suitcase. Slipping down for them, he returned, and was standing in the well-deck, peering out at the distant vessel, when the skipper passed near.
"Well, sonny, what d'you make of her? Is she a pirate, or what? Those look like good glasses. Let me have a peek through them."
The captain took the binoculars, and after studying the ship on the horizon a moment, said:
"These are uncommonly fine glasses. I believe they 're as good as my own, if not better. Whose are they?"
"Mine, sir," replied Dave, with a touch of pride.
"Yours!" said the captain incredulously, glancing down with an air of suspicion at Dave's clothes—an old suit that had grown much the worse for wear with rough work afloat. "Where did you get them?" the big man went on sharply.
Dave flushed, stung by the suggestion conveyed in the captain's words. He was not used to having his honesty questioned.
"They were my father's, sir," he said, unconsciously drawing himself up. "Dad said I might use them. They were given to him by a pilot after Dad had saved his life."
"All right, lad; don't ever get cross with the captain," the big man said, in kindly fashion, patting the boy's shoulder. "But take my advice and look after those binoculars in your travels, because they 're worth as much as you 'll earn in a month of Sundays."
Still feeling a little wounded, Dave was returning the glasses to the suitcase, when one of the deck hands informed him that Mr. Quick wanted him immediately and was "raging something 'orrible."
The boy hurried away without locking the case up, and found Mr. Quick had upset a bottle of some evil-smelling liquid over the floor of his cabin. He was wiping it up, fuming, and calling for a bucket of hot water, all at the same time. Dave was fully occupied for ten minutes and then, remembering the glasses, returned to lock the case.
To his dismay they had disappeared. That they had been stolen was obvious. There could be no other explanation. And he had promised his father to take such care of them!
In consternation he sought the cook. Barnes grew red with indignation.
"It's dollars to doughnuts one of them engine-room scum has done it," he declared. "I '11 see into this."
The second engineer was on friendly terms with the cook, and Barnes readily enlisted his sympathy.
"I 'll speak to the chief," he said, "and we 'll make a search."
Making a search, however, was not as easy as it sounded. The only hope was that the thief had not had time to secrete the glasses in one of the many inaccessible nooks with which every ship abounds. Barnes and the second engineer together went through the men's quarters, but without success. Those deck-hands who were off duty—as a class, deck-hands hate a thief on board like poison—offered to join in the search, and soon half a dozen men were rummaging in every hole and corner. Dave's hopes were sinking lower and lower. He was beginning to regard the glasses as gone forever, when Barnes started to ferret about in the after wheel-house; and there he came upon them hidden away on the top of a beam.
"You 're not fit to have a ten-cent spy-glass," he snorted, glaring at Dave from under his fearsome eyebrows. "In my locker they 'll stay now till we finish the trip, except when I take 'em out to look for your brains. If I could find the scum that swiped 'em I'd make chop suey of him, to feed Mr. Quick with. Just about the sort of diet to suit him."
"Hello, what's the cap'n up to?" he went on suddenly. "If he isn't turning off his course, I'm a Dutchman.''
Going to the side of the boat he saw they were heading directly for a steamer which lay with a heavy list, perhaps five miles away. No smoke emerged from her funnel. Adjusting the glasses, the cook examined the craft for a while.
"By jiminy!" he exclaimed. "If she ain't a derelict, I 'll eat my hat.''
...to be continued
THE DERELICT
The new hand's sleeping quarters were in the "fo'c'sle," but he did not sleep much the first night, for everything was strange. So far, the ship was very steady, only giving a roll occasionally. When the boy turned out next morning they were far out to sea and running to the south, the coast-line of New Jersey looming up in the distance on the starboard beam.
Dave soon discovered that he was to lead a strenuous existence on board. With only one pair of hands, he was to do all sorts of odd jobs for the cook, help the steward to wait on the captain, who had his meals alone, obey orders from any one who took it into his head to issue commands, and make himself generally useful. He got a good many hints from Barnes when that queer individual was in the mood to be communicative, though Dave had to sort out the hints from a maze of contradictory statements.
"It's a reg'lar dog's life at sea," said the cook, while Dave was stirring a mysterious compound in a large basin. Barnes seemed to have a fondness for that expression. "I dunno why kids like you want to come on a ship. An' yet it's all right at times, such as when you get ashore. The best part of bein' at sea is goin' ashore, I allus says. Didn't I see you runnin' your legs off for Oleson this morning?" he demanded ferociously, without the slightest warning.
"Who's Oleson?" Dave asked. He had been performing a variety of duties for so many people.
"Oleson is that great, lumbering, Swedish seaman who looks like a one-eyed mule." Dave recognized the vague description by the fact that one man wore a patch over his left eye.
"Yes, he asked me to—"
"Never mind what he asked you to do," the cook snapped. "You've got to learn to look after yourself, kid, or nobody on this ship won't be doin' nothing soon. You 'll be doing it all. Oleson wants a couple of valets to run about after him, and somebody to carry his breakfast to him in the morning so that he can have it in bed nice and comfortable. Don't tell him so or he might screw your neck round five times, but I'm just puttin' you wise, see? Hi, there!" he added quickly, Dave having stopped stirring to listen. "I 'll break every bone in your body if you spoil that puddin'."
Mr. Quick, who was reputed to have eyes in the back of his head, took no notice of the new hand except to give him an occasional sharp order. Dave, being new to ship's discipline, disliked the chief mate's manner, but made a mental resolve not to incur that officer's wrath. The third day out, however, an incident occurred which made a permanent enemy of Mr. Quick.
A steady wind had begun to blow, whistling through the rigging and giving the steamer a most unpleasant motion known as the "cork-screw." That is to say, she neither pitched all the time nor rolled all the time, but kept up an aggravating combination of both. Dave was getting rather white in consequence, and did not by any means feel sure of his legs. He had a strong desire to lie down and wait until he got used to the motion, but there were many things for him to do. In the middle of this the steward popped his head into the galley.
"Shake up the skipper's dinner in a hurry," he said. "The old man says he wants it right now. I'm going to fix up the table, so send the kid on with the soup soon as you can."
"Tell the captain to go to Jerusalem," spluttered Barnes, who hated to be hurried. "Reg'lar dog's life, this is. Here, Dave, take this soup along to the steward, and get a move on."
David, anxious to do his best, but feeling more shaky than ever, took the plate and hurried, according to instructions. Even without the soup he would have found it most difficult to retain his balance; as it was, he only kept upright by a miracle. His mind was concentrated solely on his task, and there was no reason for him to suppose that Mr. Quick would come around the corner suddenly.
Before the boy had the slightest warning, the apparition of Mr. Quick towered in front of him. Both the mate and the boy were apparently in a hurry. Dave realized what was inevitable a fiftieth part of a second before it happened, but he was utterly powerless to prevent the disaster.
The plate struck Mr. Quick just about on the lowest button of his waistcoat, and Dave, being unable to check himself, followed the plate.
Mr. Quick gave a yell of pain, for the soup, which trickled its greasy course down his trousers, was scalding hot. Dave remembered that fact while he was scrambling to his feet with one eye on the mate's red hair, which appeared to bristle and stand erect.
"I'm very sorry, sir," the boy stammered. "The boat swayed just then."
Mr. Quick's arm was raised and an angry light shone in his eyes.
"You lubberly pup!" he bellowed. "I 'll teach you better manners than to throw soup over an officer of the ship. She swayed, did she? Then this is where you sway!" and he struck at the boy with a huge fist.
Had the blow landed where Mr. Quick intended it to, Dave would probably have been knocked unconscious, but he dodged just in time, and the mate, still hurling abuse at Dave, and mopping himself down with a handkerchief, turned on his heel and disappeared along the alleyway; while Dave, very crestfallen, went back to the galley for more soup. There more trouble was awaiting him, for Barnes seemed to be in the worst of tempers until he learned of the calamity. Then, however, his anger vanished and his fat sides shook with laughter. He did not love the chief mate and rejoiced exceedingly at the latter's discomfiture.
"But take my tip, Dave," he said severely, "and keep out of that man's way after this, or he 'll make things hot for you."
Dave, unfortunately, could not altogether keep out of Mr. Quick's way, though he would have been glad to follow the advice. The mate was of an unforgiving nature and nursed his grievance. He set Dave to all manner of disagreeable tasks, and more than once cuffed him on slight provocation, thereby arousing the intense indignation of Barnes.
"If only I could depend on the steward," the cook said explosively, "I'd give Mr. Bloomin' Quick something in his dinner that would do his heart good. It's the likes of him that makes it a dog's life at sea. Say, kid," he went on in fiery tones, "I 'll make you eat them potato peelin's raw if you don't hurry up."
The weather continued rough, and the Pacific Queen was nearly a week out of port before Dave began to lose the topsy-turvy feeling in his stomach. What with seasickness and Mr. Quick's studied unkindness, he felt exceedingly miserable sometimes, but he kept a stiff upper lip, thereby earning the secret admiration of Barnes, who was a good deal more human than even he suspected himself of being.
When Dave was gaining his sea legs he noticed a ship, hull down, on the port bow and remembered the binoculars, which he usually kept fastened up in his suitcase. Slipping down for them, he returned, and was standing in the well-deck, peering out at the distant vessel, when the skipper passed near.
"Well, sonny, what d'you make of her? Is she a pirate, or what? Those look like good glasses. Let me have a peek through them."
The captain took the binoculars, and after studying the ship on the horizon a moment, said:
"These are uncommonly fine glasses. I believe they 're as good as my own, if not better. Whose are they?"
"Mine, sir," replied Dave, with a touch of pride.
"Yours!" said the captain incredulously, glancing down with an air of suspicion at Dave's clothes—an old suit that had grown much the worse for wear with rough work afloat. "Where did you get them?" the big man went on sharply.
Dave flushed, stung by the suggestion conveyed in the captain's words. He was not used to having his honesty questioned.
"They were my father's, sir," he said, unconsciously drawing himself up. "Dad said I might use them. They were given to him by a pilot after Dad had saved his life."
"All right, lad; don't ever get cross with the captain," the big man said, in kindly fashion, patting the boy's shoulder. "But take my advice and look after those binoculars in your travels, because they 're worth as much as you 'll earn in a month of Sundays."
Still feeling a little wounded, Dave was returning the glasses to the suitcase, when one of the deck hands informed him that Mr. Quick wanted him immediately and was "raging something 'orrible."
The boy hurried away without locking the case up, and found Mr. Quick had upset a bottle of some evil-smelling liquid over the floor of his cabin. He was wiping it up, fuming, and calling for a bucket of hot water, all at the same time. Dave was fully occupied for ten minutes and then, remembering the glasses, returned to lock the case.
To his dismay they had disappeared. That they had been stolen was obvious. There could be no other explanation. And he had promised his father to take such care of them!
In consternation he sought the cook. Barnes grew red with indignation.
"It's dollars to doughnuts one of them engine-room scum has done it," he declared. "I '11 see into this."
The second engineer was on friendly terms with the cook, and Barnes readily enlisted his sympathy.
"I 'll speak to the chief," he said, "and we 'll make a search."
Making a search, however, was not as easy as it sounded. The only hope was that the thief had not had time to secrete the glasses in one of the many inaccessible nooks with which every ship abounds. Barnes and the second engineer together went through the men's quarters, but without success. Those deck-hands who were off duty—as a class, deck-hands hate a thief on board like poison—offered to join in the search, and soon half a dozen men were rummaging in every hole and corner. Dave's hopes were sinking lower and lower. He was beginning to regard the glasses as gone forever, when Barnes started to ferret about in the after wheel-house; and there he came upon them hidden away on the top of a beam.
"You 're not fit to have a ten-cent spy-glass," he snorted, glaring at Dave from under his fearsome eyebrows. "In my locker they 'll stay now till we finish the trip, except when I take 'em out to look for your brains. If I could find the scum that swiped 'em I'd make chop suey of him, to feed Mr. Quick with. Just about the sort of diet to suit him."
"Hello, what's the cap'n up to?" he went on suddenly. "If he isn't turning off his course, I'm a Dutchman.''
Going to the side of the boat he saw they were heading directly for a steamer which lay with a heavy list, perhaps five miles away. No smoke emerged from her funnel. Adjusting the glasses, the cook examined the craft for a while.
"By jiminy!" he exclaimed. "If she ain't a derelict, I 'll eat my hat.''
...to be continued
Lost Island, Part 3
by Ralph Henry Barbour and H.P. Holt, originally begun November 1917
OFF TO SEA
"Gone! Gone where?" asked the captain, with a frown of annoyance.
"I met him on the wharf and he said he'd left the ship, sir," Dave replied.
Suddenly the captain's face wore a smile. The situation appeared to amuse him.
"What d'you know about that!" he said, with a deep laugh. "You 'll get on, son, if you 're always as smart as this. Come back and talk to me in a week. From what I can see of you, I reckon you 'll fill the billet, but I'm too busy to waste time on you now. Come along next Thursday, and then I 'll run the rule over you."
Dave's heart beat a little faster than usual as he walked home. Nothing had been farther from his mind earlier in the day than definitely to ask for a job on a vessel. Now he was as good as booked to sail in a week! In the excitement of the moment he had quite forgotten to ask where the ship was bound for. All he knew was her name—the Pacific Queen. As a matter of fact, he was not deeply concerned as to her destination. Any point of the compass was equally satisfactory to him. Perhaps he rather favored China or Japan, but any other old place would do nearly as well. He felt supremely happy and much more important than he ever remembered. Although he had not officially "signed on," the big captain with the deep laugh had said he would fill the billet, and Dave was prepared to take the captain's word for it. The only thing that made him thoughtful was the fact that he would have to go without telling his father or Aunt Martha. There did not seem to be any way out of that difficulty. If he told Aunt Martha, she would make a fuss and his father would hear of it, and Dave knew what that would lead to. Captain Hallard had definitely said his son was not to go to sea until the following year, and when Captain Hallard said a thing he meant it. Dave weighed the whole situation up carefully on his way home and decided the best thing was to disappear quietly to prevent a scene. He would just leave a note for his dad, explaining matters, and promising to return home immediately he got back to America.
That programme was all right in theory until he reached the house. As soon as he entered the door he felt that Aunt Martha's eyes were on him, and that she somehow knew. As a matter of fact Aunt Martha did glance at him, but not more closely than she always did. He was as dear to her as her own son would have been. David tried to act in a perfectly natural manner, but when, a boy has just arranged to go to sea on the impulse of the moment, he would be more than human if he failed to show that something unusual was in the wind.
"What's come over the lad?" Aunt Martha exclaimed after a while. "You 're dancing around like a pea in a hot frying pan."
This surprised Dave. He was under the impression that lie was exceptionally quiet.
"You 're all excited and worked up," declared Aunt Martha. "I expect you've been to one of these ball games or watching red Indians at the movies, haven't you?"
"No," replied Dave, subsiding into a chair and making an iron resolution not to move a muscle for five minutes at least.
"Then I guess you 're feverish. Why, I never saw your cheeks so flushed."
Dave stood the ordeal well. He buried himself in a book, pretending to read, but the words danced under his eyes. He, David Hallard, was it sailor at last, or at least as good as a sailor.
In seven short days school and Brooklyn would be things of the past. He would be "outward bound." The words had a fine ring to them. There was to be no waiting for twelve dreary months.
Dave lay awake many hours that night, and, with the first streaks of dawn, crept quietly down the stairs, for he wanted to set his eyes on the Pacific Queen again. He felt an air of proprietorship in regard to the vessel. Also, he half dreaded to find she had disappeared in the night, and it was with positive relief that he saw her lying snugly tied up at her berth.
He had learned in recent months to judge the cut of a vessel, and the Pacific Queen looked a trim craft to him. She was a single-screw steel freighter that had not been launched more than three years. No mail-boat that ever tore her way out of New York seemed half so magnificent in Dave's eyes as the Pacific Queen lying at her moorings that early summer morning. There was no sign of life on board except a thin stream of smoke from the galley stack, and the boy stood feasting his eyes on his future home for a full hour before a healthy appetite sent him hurrying home to see what Aunt Martha had for breakfast.
The problem of what to take on the voyage puzzled him somewhat. There were not many things he could take, as the money-box into which he had been dropping dimes and five-cent pieces for a couple of years contained only a few dollars. A large clasp-knife, of course, must be included. Of that there was no question. Whoever heard of a sailor without a clasp-knife? Dave was not absolutely certain what it was for, but he knew it was indispensable, so he boldly laid out a dollar and a half on a fearsome weapon with a bone handle. Fortunately, he had a new pair of heavy shoes. One problem gave him many uneasy hours. His father had once told him that when the time came for him to go to sea he could have the binoculars that formed one of Captain Hallard's souvenirs of the sea. The clasp-knife was a treasure already, but those binoculars were the crowning point of Dave's desires. They had cost an awful lot of money at one time and were not a necessary part of a boy's outfit, but Dave felt it would be a great thing to have them with him.
Choosing a suitable opportunity, he asked: "Dad, do you remember saying I could have your glasses when the time came?"
"Surely," his father agreed, "and I hope you will remember always to treat 'em as carefully as I have done. They've got fine lenses in them, and I don't know that I ever handled a better pair of binoculars in my life. There's many a sea-captain tramping round the ocean who'd give a whole lot to own a pair of glasses like them, so you 'll have to be careful or they will get stolen. Not that stealing is common on board ship. It's the unforgivable sin at sea. I have seen a man thrown overboard and near drowned for taking what wasn't his. All the same you 'll have to keep your eyes open, but if you've still got them when the time comes for you to be pacing the bridge they 'll be worth a sight more to you than the junk you can pick up for good money at most stores. When there's a thick haze and you 're driving down on a vessel that's blowing her buzzer fit to wake the dead, you can't tell which direction the sound is coming from. The lives of everybody on board may depend on your being able to spot the other boat. That's when you want a good pair of binoculars to see through."
"Can I use them now just as if they were mine?" Dave put in anxiously. He had a nice sense of honor. Nothing would have induced him to take them on the Pacific Queen without a favorable reply to this question.
"Why, I don't see any objection," Captain Hallard replied good-naturedly, puffing away at his pipe. "Only, as I say, take care of them, and mind you don't scratch the lenses. They were given to me nigh on thirty years ago by an old deep-sea pilot once when we were in the North Sea, making Flushing on the Dutch coast. I was second mate at the time. It had been blowing a regular gale, and we'd got to the lightship where the pilot cutter was generally hanging around. Dark! Tou couldn't see your hand before you, away from a lamp; and there was a heavy ground swell running. All of a sudden we saw the flare off the cutter, signalling that a pilot was coming to us. It means fifty dollars at least for a few hours' work, so they 'll board you in a mighty bad sea if their small boat can stand it. Our skipper didn't reckon they could make it, but he sent up a flare in answer, and pretty soon the dory bumped alongside with two men at the oars besides the pilot. I'd slung a rope ladder over and was standing by. The pilot got ready to catch hold of the ladder when the ship was n't rolling extra hard. The dory was bobbing up and down and I felt kind of nervous for the old man. He had boarded hundreds of ships in the dark, but the sea is a queer thing, my lad. She's always waiting. You never know when she's going to get you. Just as the pilot was reaching out for the ladder a big wave caught us on the starboard quarter and rolled us right over on top of the dory. It crumpled up like an egg, and I made sure all three men in her must have been killed.
"I gave a yell up to the bridge, bent a line on to a stanchion, took hold of one end of it, and slipped over the side. I could swim quite a bit in those days, but I didn't fancy paddling around in the North Sea under such conditions without something to hang on to the old ship by. I couldn't see a thing, but presently I touched a man's head. I got one arm round him and when we were heaved on board we found it was the pilot. He'd got a nasty bump on the forehead, and was dazed for a while, but he came round after the skipper had given him a stiff glass of grog. We never saw anything of the other men. Before we dropped the pilot he gave me these binoculars that he had in his overcoat pocket, saying he'd made up his mind to retire anyhow, and reckoned he could take a hint from the sea as well as any man."
At times Dave felt almost bursting with the desire to tell one of his school friends the wonderful thing that was to happen on the following Thursday, but he kept his own counsel and waited as patiently as he could. On his last night at home he wrote two letters, one to his father and one to Aunt Martha. The first ran:
Dear Dad:
I couldn't wait, and I'm going to sea. Please forgive me. I 'll take good care of the binoculars and write to you often.
Your loving son,
David.
He propped the two letters up against the clock on the mantelpiece and then went to bed in his own room for the last time, after packing his few possessions in an old suitcase. Dave hardly dared close his eyes lest he should sleep too long. Before it was light he slipped on his clothes.
The stairs creaked as he walked down them in his stocking-feet, with his shoes in one hand and the suitcase in the other. He dreaded waking either his father or Aunt Martha, and yet had to fight with a desire to say good-by to them. He had to bite his lips hard and a lump came into his throat when he passed his father's door.
The lock and bolt on the front door took an eternity to manipulate in the dark. His fingers seemed to be all thumbs. He had never noticed before how much noise the key made in that lock. He wondered vaguely how long it would be before he turned it again. Quite a lot had to happen before then. The lump in his throat grew bigger. Not until he had closed the door ever so softly, and stood on the path, did he realize exactly how dear home was to him, or what a lot Aunt Martha had done for him in her prim fashion. The great adventure was starting. No, it had actually started! From that moment onwards he was to be a wage-earner and a sailor.
For three hours Dave waited on the wharf, until there were signs of life on the Pacific Queen. When Captain Chisholm turned out of his berth he was told there was a boy waiting to see him.
"A boy!" he said. "What does he want?"
"Says you told him to come, sir. He's been on deck since four o'clock."
"Oh, I know," said the captain. "Send him here."
The master mariner was having breakfast when Dave was ushered in. He had already ascertained that the boat was bound for Auckland, New Zealand, and other Australasian ports.
"So you want to go to sea, eh?" the big man asked, attacking a pile of bacon and eggs.
"Yes, sir," Dave replied.
"Ever been afloat?"
"Not yet, sir."
"What's your name?"
"David Hallard."
"How old?"
"Sixteen, sir."
"Got a father?"
"Yes, sir."
"What does he say about it?"
"He says I can be a sailor, sir," he answered, after a moment's hesitation. "He was a ship's master, but he's got rheumatism now."
"Well, you seem a smart enough lad. You 'll have to jump around a bit at sea. We've no use for lazy folk here. Go and report to Mr. Quick, the first mate. He will tell you what to do. He's rough and ready, but he knows his business. Don't let him have to tell you twice and you 'll be all right. We sail at noon. Run along now."
Dave found that Mr. Quick was a very different type of man from the captain. He seemed to bark instead of talking, nor did he appear to be in a particularly pleasant frame of mind that morning. He had fiery red hair and piercing eyes. Mr. Quick devoted precisely sixty seconds to the new hand, during which he gave Dave some terse and emphatic advice, after which he hustled him off to the galley, where he was placed under the wing of Barnes, the ship's cook.
"Well, and what have they sent to plague the life out of me now?" Barnes asked in a high, squeaky voice. If Dave had not been trying hard to make a good impression on every one he might have laughed, for Barnes had the most comical face he had ever seen. In reality he was good-natured enough, but for some reason he always tried to give the impression that he was cranky and unapproachable, perhaps because people had been taking advantage of his amiability for forty years at sea. His fat cheeks were red, and his eyebrows stood out like two white bushes. In spite of the greeting, Dave liked Barnes instinctively on sight, and grew to like him still more in the course of time; and he is a lucky person who makes a friend of the cook afloat.
"I've come to help you," the boy said. "So far, I only know how to peel potatoes, though."
"Well, I sha'n't be askin' you to bake doughnuts or fry chickens for the passengers yet a while," the cook growled, "'cause there ain't no passengers this trip, and again there ain't no chickens to fry. Ship's biscuits, cold, with plenty o' weevils in 'em, is all the hands get on this ship week-days. Sundays it 's different. We has to warm the biscuits up into a puddin' for a change."
"Then what do we want a cook for?" asked Dave, with a grin.
"Look here, youngster, I 'll not stand for any impidence," Barnes declared, puffing out his cheeks and doing wonderful things with his bushy eyebrows. "You'll have a frying-pan about your ears in a brace of shakes. Don't stand there like a dummy! Why don't you get to work? Do you expect me to wash all them dishes?"
Dave whipped off his coat and started on the task with a alacrity which brought a grunt of satisfaction from the cook—a sound which Barnes hastily strove to hide with a cough.
It occurred to the new hand that he might be able to extract some information from the cook.
"Can you tell me what other duties I 'll have on board this boat, Mr. Barnes, besides washing dishes?"
The cook glared at him.
"Not a thing, my son," he said. "It's one of the rules on this ship that the boy isn't allowed to do anything but wash dishes. When he's got through he has to part his hair in the middle and dine with the skipper—if there isn't some more dishes to wash, which there allus is. What are you pesterin' me with fool questions for, anyhow? Do you take me for the navigatin' officer or only the owner? Eeach me that frying-pan down and I 'll belay your ears with it."
Dave promptly obeyed, and got a thump on the shoulders with it for "more impidence." After that, he was kept busy with various duties in the galley until, for the first time in his life, he felt the peculiar vibration of a ship's engines. The propeller had begun its endless song of "chugchug-a-chug."
Another Hallard had started on his first voyage.
"Can I go on deck a few minutes, Mr. Barnes, please?" he asked. The idea of cutting up cabbages while the lights of his home town dropped astern did not appeal to him.
"Why, yes, son," the cook replied, working his eyebrows so ridiculously that the boy had to laugh in spite of the curious feeling it gave him to know that Aunt Martha was probably in tears at the moment and that his dad was possibly watching that very ship from the window upstairs. "Go right along. Don't forget to ask Mr. Quick for a deck-chair and plenty of cushions. You 'll need the cushions if Mr. Quick catches you admirin' the scenery."
Dave slipped up the companion-way. Already they were steaming along at seven or eight miles an hour, a thick trail of smoke hanging astern.
All was hustle and hurry on deck. The boy dodged out of the way of the sailors, and, standing on a coil of rope, watched familiar scenes disappear. It seemed difficult to realize that he was not dreaming. The lump was there in his throat bigger than ever when he went back to the galley, and something in his expression caught the watchful eye of the cook.
"Never mind, laddie," said Barnes. "This is your first trip, isn't itf Left the old folks behind, eh? We've all been through it. It's a dog's life at sea, but you 'll be back eatin' cornbeef an' cabbage at home afore you know it."
...to be continued
OFF TO SEA
"Gone! Gone where?" asked the captain, with a frown of annoyance.
"I met him on the wharf and he said he'd left the ship, sir," Dave replied.
Suddenly the captain's face wore a smile. The situation appeared to amuse him.
"What d'you know about that!" he said, with a deep laugh. "You 'll get on, son, if you 're always as smart as this. Come back and talk to me in a week. From what I can see of you, I reckon you 'll fill the billet, but I'm too busy to waste time on you now. Come along next Thursday, and then I 'll run the rule over you."
Dave's heart beat a little faster than usual as he walked home. Nothing had been farther from his mind earlier in the day than definitely to ask for a job on a vessel. Now he was as good as booked to sail in a week! In the excitement of the moment he had quite forgotten to ask where the ship was bound for. All he knew was her name—the Pacific Queen. As a matter of fact, he was not deeply concerned as to her destination. Any point of the compass was equally satisfactory to him. Perhaps he rather favored China or Japan, but any other old place would do nearly as well. He felt supremely happy and much more important than he ever remembered. Although he had not officially "signed on," the big captain with the deep laugh had said he would fill the billet, and Dave was prepared to take the captain's word for it. The only thing that made him thoughtful was the fact that he would have to go without telling his father or Aunt Martha. There did not seem to be any way out of that difficulty. If he told Aunt Martha, she would make a fuss and his father would hear of it, and Dave knew what that would lead to. Captain Hallard had definitely said his son was not to go to sea until the following year, and when Captain Hallard said a thing he meant it. Dave weighed the whole situation up carefully on his way home and decided the best thing was to disappear quietly to prevent a scene. He would just leave a note for his dad, explaining matters, and promising to return home immediately he got back to America.
That programme was all right in theory until he reached the house. As soon as he entered the door he felt that Aunt Martha's eyes were on him, and that she somehow knew. As a matter of fact Aunt Martha did glance at him, but not more closely than she always did. He was as dear to her as her own son would have been. David tried to act in a perfectly natural manner, but when, a boy has just arranged to go to sea on the impulse of the moment, he would be more than human if he failed to show that something unusual was in the wind.
"What's come over the lad?" Aunt Martha exclaimed after a while. "You 're dancing around like a pea in a hot frying pan."
This surprised Dave. He was under the impression that lie was exceptionally quiet.
"You 're all excited and worked up," declared Aunt Martha. "I expect you've been to one of these ball games or watching red Indians at the movies, haven't you?"
"No," replied Dave, subsiding into a chair and making an iron resolution not to move a muscle for five minutes at least.
"Then I guess you 're feverish. Why, I never saw your cheeks so flushed."
Dave stood the ordeal well. He buried himself in a book, pretending to read, but the words danced under his eyes. He, David Hallard, was it sailor at last, or at least as good as a sailor.
In seven short days school and Brooklyn would be things of the past. He would be "outward bound." The words had a fine ring to them. There was to be no waiting for twelve dreary months.
Dave lay awake many hours that night, and, with the first streaks of dawn, crept quietly down the stairs, for he wanted to set his eyes on the Pacific Queen again. He felt an air of proprietorship in regard to the vessel. Also, he half dreaded to find she had disappeared in the night, and it was with positive relief that he saw her lying snugly tied up at her berth.
He had learned in recent months to judge the cut of a vessel, and the Pacific Queen looked a trim craft to him. She was a single-screw steel freighter that had not been launched more than three years. No mail-boat that ever tore her way out of New York seemed half so magnificent in Dave's eyes as the Pacific Queen lying at her moorings that early summer morning. There was no sign of life on board except a thin stream of smoke from the galley stack, and the boy stood feasting his eyes on his future home for a full hour before a healthy appetite sent him hurrying home to see what Aunt Martha had for breakfast.
The problem of what to take on the voyage puzzled him somewhat. There were not many things he could take, as the money-box into which he had been dropping dimes and five-cent pieces for a couple of years contained only a few dollars. A large clasp-knife, of course, must be included. Of that there was no question. Whoever heard of a sailor without a clasp-knife? Dave was not absolutely certain what it was for, but he knew it was indispensable, so he boldly laid out a dollar and a half on a fearsome weapon with a bone handle. Fortunately, he had a new pair of heavy shoes. One problem gave him many uneasy hours. His father had once told him that when the time came for him to go to sea he could have the binoculars that formed one of Captain Hallard's souvenirs of the sea. The clasp-knife was a treasure already, but those binoculars were the crowning point of Dave's desires. They had cost an awful lot of money at one time and were not a necessary part of a boy's outfit, but Dave felt it would be a great thing to have them with him.
Choosing a suitable opportunity, he asked: "Dad, do you remember saying I could have your glasses when the time came?"
"Surely," his father agreed, "and I hope you will remember always to treat 'em as carefully as I have done. They've got fine lenses in them, and I don't know that I ever handled a better pair of binoculars in my life. There's many a sea-captain tramping round the ocean who'd give a whole lot to own a pair of glasses like them, so you 'll have to be careful or they will get stolen. Not that stealing is common on board ship. It's the unforgivable sin at sea. I have seen a man thrown overboard and near drowned for taking what wasn't his. All the same you 'll have to keep your eyes open, but if you've still got them when the time comes for you to be pacing the bridge they 'll be worth a sight more to you than the junk you can pick up for good money at most stores. When there's a thick haze and you 're driving down on a vessel that's blowing her buzzer fit to wake the dead, you can't tell which direction the sound is coming from. The lives of everybody on board may depend on your being able to spot the other boat. That's when you want a good pair of binoculars to see through."
"Can I use them now just as if they were mine?" Dave put in anxiously. He had a nice sense of honor. Nothing would have induced him to take them on the Pacific Queen without a favorable reply to this question.
"Why, I don't see any objection," Captain Hallard replied good-naturedly, puffing away at his pipe. "Only, as I say, take care of them, and mind you don't scratch the lenses. They were given to me nigh on thirty years ago by an old deep-sea pilot once when we were in the North Sea, making Flushing on the Dutch coast. I was second mate at the time. It had been blowing a regular gale, and we'd got to the lightship where the pilot cutter was generally hanging around. Dark! Tou couldn't see your hand before you, away from a lamp; and there was a heavy ground swell running. All of a sudden we saw the flare off the cutter, signalling that a pilot was coming to us. It means fifty dollars at least for a few hours' work, so they 'll board you in a mighty bad sea if their small boat can stand it. Our skipper didn't reckon they could make it, but he sent up a flare in answer, and pretty soon the dory bumped alongside with two men at the oars besides the pilot. I'd slung a rope ladder over and was standing by. The pilot got ready to catch hold of the ladder when the ship was n't rolling extra hard. The dory was bobbing up and down and I felt kind of nervous for the old man. He had boarded hundreds of ships in the dark, but the sea is a queer thing, my lad. She's always waiting. You never know when she's going to get you. Just as the pilot was reaching out for the ladder a big wave caught us on the starboard quarter and rolled us right over on top of the dory. It crumpled up like an egg, and I made sure all three men in her must have been killed.
"I gave a yell up to the bridge, bent a line on to a stanchion, took hold of one end of it, and slipped over the side. I could swim quite a bit in those days, but I didn't fancy paddling around in the North Sea under such conditions without something to hang on to the old ship by. I couldn't see a thing, but presently I touched a man's head. I got one arm round him and when we were heaved on board we found it was the pilot. He'd got a nasty bump on the forehead, and was dazed for a while, but he came round after the skipper had given him a stiff glass of grog. We never saw anything of the other men. Before we dropped the pilot he gave me these binoculars that he had in his overcoat pocket, saying he'd made up his mind to retire anyhow, and reckoned he could take a hint from the sea as well as any man."
At times Dave felt almost bursting with the desire to tell one of his school friends the wonderful thing that was to happen on the following Thursday, but he kept his own counsel and waited as patiently as he could. On his last night at home he wrote two letters, one to his father and one to Aunt Martha. The first ran:
Dear Dad:
I couldn't wait, and I'm going to sea. Please forgive me. I 'll take good care of the binoculars and write to you often.
Your loving son,
David.
He propped the two letters up against the clock on the mantelpiece and then went to bed in his own room for the last time, after packing his few possessions in an old suitcase. Dave hardly dared close his eyes lest he should sleep too long. Before it was light he slipped on his clothes.
The stairs creaked as he walked down them in his stocking-feet, with his shoes in one hand and the suitcase in the other. He dreaded waking either his father or Aunt Martha, and yet had to fight with a desire to say good-by to them. He had to bite his lips hard and a lump came into his throat when he passed his father's door.
The lock and bolt on the front door took an eternity to manipulate in the dark. His fingers seemed to be all thumbs. He had never noticed before how much noise the key made in that lock. He wondered vaguely how long it would be before he turned it again. Quite a lot had to happen before then. The lump in his throat grew bigger. Not until he had closed the door ever so softly, and stood on the path, did he realize exactly how dear home was to him, or what a lot Aunt Martha had done for him in her prim fashion. The great adventure was starting. No, it had actually started! From that moment onwards he was to be a wage-earner and a sailor.
For three hours Dave waited on the wharf, until there were signs of life on the Pacific Queen. When Captain Chisholm turned out of his berth he was told there was a boy waiting to see him.
"A boy!" he said. "What does he want?"
"Says you told him to come, sir. He's been on deck since four o'clock."
"Oh, I know," said the captain. "Send him here."
The master mariner was having breakfast when Dave was ushered in. He had already ascertained that the boat was bound for Auckland, New Zealand, and other Australasian ports.
"So you want to go to sea, eh?" the big man asked, attacking a pile of bacon and eggs.
"Yes, sir," Dave replied.
"Ever been afloat?"
"Not yet, sir."
"What's your name?"
"David Hallard."
"How old?"
"Sixteen, sir."
"Got a father?"
"Yes, sir."
"What does he say about it?"
"He says I can be a sailor, sir," he answered, after a moment's hesitation. "He was a ship's master, but he's got rheumatism now."
"Well, you seem a smart enough lad. You 'll have to jump around a bit at sea. We've no use for lazy folk here. Go and report to Mr. Quick, the first mate. He will tell you what to do. He's rough and ready, but he knows his business. Don't let him have to tell you twice and you 'll be all right. We sail at noon. Run along now."
Dave found that Mr. Quick was a very different type of man from the captain. He seemed to bark instead of talking, nor did he appear to be in a particularly pleasant frame of mind that morning. He had fiery red hair and piercing eyes. Mr. Quick devoted precisely sixty seconds to the new hand, during which he gave Dave some terse and emphatic advice, after which he hustled him off to the galley, where he was placed under the wing of Barnes, the ship's cook.
"Well, and what have they sent to plague the life out of me now?" Barnes asked in a high, squeaky voice. If Dave had not been trying hard to make a good impression on every one he might have laughed, for Barnes had the most comical face he had ever seen. In reality he was good-natured enough, but for some reason he always tried to give the impression that he was cranky and unapproachable, perhaps because people had been taking advantage of his amiability for forty years at sea. His fat cheeks were red, and his eyebrows stood out like two white bushes. In spite of the greeting, Dave liked Barnes instinctively on sight, and grew to like him still more in the course of time; and he is a lucky person who makes a friend of the cook afloat.
"I've come to help you," the boy said. "So far, I only know how to peel potatoes, though."
"Well, I sha'n't be askin' you to bake doughnuts or fry chickens for the passengers yet a while," the cook growled, "'cause there ain't no passengers this trip, and again there ain't no chickens to fry. Ship's biscuits, cold, with plenty o' weevils in 'em, is all the hands get on this ship week-days. Sundays it 's different. We has to warm the biscuits up into a puddin' for a change."
"Then what do we want a cook for?" asked Dave, with a grin.
"Look here, youngster, I 'll not stand for any impidence," Barnes declared, puffing out his cheeks and doing wonderful things with his bushy eyebrows. "You'll have a frying-pan about your ears in a brace of shakes. Don't stand there like a dummy! Why don't you get to work? Do you expect me to wash all them dishes?"
Dave whipped off his coat and started on the task with a alacrity which brought a grunt of satisfaction from the cook—a sound which Barnes hastily strove to hide with a cough.
It occurred to the new hand that he might be able to extract some information from the cook.
"Can you tell me what other duties I 'll have on board this boat, Mr. Barnes, besides washing dishes?"
The cook glared at him.
"Not a thing, my son," he said. "It's one of the rules on this ship that the boy isn't allowed to do anything but wash dishes. When he's got through he has to part his hair in the middle and dine with the skipper—if there isn't some more dishes to wash, which there allus is. What are you pesterin' me with fool questions for, anyhow? Do you take me for the navigatin' officer or only the owner? Eeach me that frying-pan down and I 'll belay your ears with it."
Dave promptly obeyed, and got a thump on the shoulders with it for "more impidence." After that, he was kept busy with various duties in the galley until, for the first time in his life, he felt the peculiar vibration of a ship's engines. The propeller had begun its endless song of "chugchug-a-chug."
Another Hallard had started on his first voyage.
"Can I go on deck a few minutes, Mr. Barnes, please?" he asked. The idea of cutting up cabbages while the lights of his home town dropped astern did not appeal to him.
"Why, yes, son," the cook replied, working his eyebrows so ridiculously that the boy had to laugh in spite of the curious feeling it gave him to know that Aunt Martha was probably in tears at the moment and that his dad was possibly watching that very ship from the window upstairs. "Go right along. Don't forget to ask Mr. Quick for a deck-chair and plenty of cushions. You 'll need the cushions if Mr. Quick catches you admirin' the scenery."
Dave slipped up the companion-way. Already they were steaming along at seven or eight miles an hour, a thick trail of smoke hanging astern.
All was hustle and hurry on deck. The boy dodged out of the way of the sailors, and, standing on a coil of rope, watched familiar scenes disappear. It seemed difficult to realize that he was not dreaming. The lump was there in his throat bigger than ever when he went back to the galley, and something in his expression caught the watchful eye of the cook.
"Never mind, laddie," said Barnes. "This is your first trip, isn't itf Left the old folks behind, eh? We've all been through it. It's a dog's life at sea, but you 'll be back eatin' cornbeef an' cabbage at home afore you know it."
...to be continued
Lost Island, Part 2
by Ralph Henry Barbour and H.P. Holt, originally begun November 1917
THE MYSTERY OF THE BARK HATTERAS
"There she is," he said at last. "This can't be the same Hatteras that you 're talking about though, because they searched everywhere for her at the time." Adjusting his glasses, Captain Hallard read:
"A strange mystery of the sea is recalled now that the bark Hatteras is definitely given up for lost. Six months have elapsed since she was last heard of in the Pacific Ocean, and the owners have no alternative but to regard her as sunk. The vessel herself was fully insured, but not the cargo, and it now appears that the latter included one small shipment which was of considerable value, consisting of a quantity of platinum. A good deal of money has been spent, since she was first reported missing, in searching for any trace of the Hatteras, but no sign of her has been discovered.
"A curious feature of the story is that no man knows, or ever will know, exactly where this valuable consignment came from originally. Possibly it was mined in New Guinea, where platinum is known to exist, or possibly in some part of Australia, but that must always remain a matter of conjecture.
"About a year ago Messrs. Jacobs & Krantz of San Francisco, dealers in precious metals, received a letter from one Vance Peters, written at Sydney, New South Wales. Peters stated that he had discovered a rich deposit of platinum, and had worked on it for two years until the supply was exhausted. He said he had melted it down into bars, had deposited it in a Sydney bank, and now wanted Jacobs & Krantz to market it for him, as facilities for disposing of it in Sydney were not good.
"The San Francisco firm consented to handle the transaction, and in due course received a letter from Peters announcing that he was sailing from Sydney on the Hatteras, bringing the platinum with him. There the known history of the platinum almost ends. After the Hatteras put to sea she was spoken twice between Sydney and Honolulu. Then there swept over that part of the Pacific the succession of devastating northeasterly gales which wreaked havoc among shipping there six months ago. Vessels of all kinds were blown far out of their course, and many of them were lost. The last heard of the Hatteras was a report from the ship Minerva that she had passed within a mile of her in the neighbourhood of Fanning Island. The bark was then partly dismasted and flying signals of distress. The Minerva herself was in great difficulties, and was unable to go to her assistance. From that moment the Hatteras became a thing of mystery. It is probable that she foundered with all hands in water a mile deep. There are many islands, mostly low-lying coral reefs, in that part of the Pacific. In the faint hope that the treasure-ship might have gone on one of these, Messrs. Jacobs & Krantz arranged with a vessel that was due to pass there to explore the region thoroughly, and the captains of other ships were offered a reward for definite news. But nothing has ever been heard of the ill-fated vessel or those who were on her."
While his father was reading the old newspaper cutting Dave Hallard sat motionless, his hands gripping the arms of the chair tightly.
"That sailor told me the Hatteras they saw was near Fanning Island, Dad," he said eagerly.
Captain Hallard looked up quickly.
"That's queer," he said. "I wonder if she could have been the same ship."
"Well, if she was, Dad, and nobody's got that platinum out of her—"
"If," Captain Hallard interrupted, laughing. "I guess there are lots of 'ifs.' To begin with, your sailor probably was spinning a yarn, and even if he did see the old wreck of the Hatteras, she must have been nearly smashed to pieces long ago. Everything in her would be washed away by now. Besides, where was this island he saw her on?"
"I remember he mentioned Fanning Island when you read it just now," said Dave, "and besides that he said they were sailing between there and an island called Christmas when they came across the wreck of the Hatteras."
"That's a pretty wide field," commented Captain Hallard. "Those two places are hundreds of miles apart, and you might spend a lifetime hunting about there for what you were after."
"He also said there was a hill," declared Dave, as the ancient mariner's story came back to his memory, "that looked like the back of a camel."
"You 're sure he didn't say a cow, or a rabbit?" Captain Hallard asked jocularly. "I'm afraid, Dave, he was having fun with you."
"I don't think so," Dave replied quietly. He had the greatest faith in his father's judgment, but on the other hand he had a vivid memory of the old sailor's simple directness.
Aunt Martha, who had been sitting knitting industriously, as usual, throughout the conversation, made no comment, and registered a mental note of the fact that Dave was growing more like his father every day. The Hallards did not have those steady grey eyes for nothing. It had been inflexible devotion to one purpose which enabled the retired sea-captain to amass his original fortune, and Dave was already exhibiting the same capacity for sticking to his guns, whatever object he wished to achieve. And she knew that the boy's determination to go to sea would never leave him until the salt water was rolling under him. This new notion that had entered his head, of treasure-ships lying waiting to disgorge their precious stores, would most likely add a romantic tinge to his desire, making certain that still another of the Hallards was to take to the roving life.
A day or two later, after supper, Dave produced a school atlas, and pored over it with a pencil and paper, measuring off distances.
"Dad, how long would it take for a bark to sail a hundred and fifty miles!" he asked.
"About a thousand years if there wasn't any wind."
"Yes, but with a fair wind?"
"Oh, maybe a day or two. Why?"
"Then it only takes a day or two to go from Fanning Island to Christmas Island in a bark in a fair wind?" said Dave.
"It depends how long you waste on the way picking up that treasure," replied Captain Hallard, with a twinkle in his eye. "Don't you worry, my lad. Hard dollars don't come like that. You 're just as likely to bump up in Broadway against a solid chunk of gold so big that it holds up the traffic as anybody is to rescue a fortune that's been lost in the sea for years."
"I know that, Dad," Dave agreed. "But it does seem an awful shame that the man who spent two years mining the stuff should never have got here with it safely. I asked Billy Tench yesterday to find out from his father what platinum is worth. Billy's father works in a jewelry store. I wrote down what he said to show you. How much do you guess Mr. Peters would have got for the stuff if he had reached America with it?"
Captain Hallard puffed at his pipe and wrinkled his brows in an effort of mental arithmetic.
"I suppose somewhere between ten and twenty dollars an ounce," he guessed.
"Wrong," corrected Dave. "At that time it was worth over thirty dollars an ounce."
"Bough luck on Peters," commented Captain Hallard. He knew by bitter experience what it felt like to lose a fortune.
"But that isn't all," Dave went on. "The price of platinum has gone up to three times its old value since then. That means if any one were lucky enough to find the treasure now, it would be worth about a hundred dollars an ounce."
Captain Hallard raised his eyebrows.
"I vote we start an expedition to find treasureships, Dave," he said, wincing as his rheumatism gave an extra twinge. "Then we 'll be able to come back and buy Aunt Martha that new coffee-percolator she's set her heart on. Then we might go over to Europe and hunt up some of those Spanish galleons. There were lots of 'em sunk, half full of gold coins. I'm badly in need of a new pipe."
"Yes, and we 'd buy 'Journey's End' back, eh, Dad?" Dave suggested.
"Aye, lad," his father agreed, with a sigh. The loss of his home on the cliff was still a very sore point to Captain Hallard. "But don't ever get such notions of easy money into your head. You have a lot of hard work to put in at school yet before you earn your first cent."
"How soon can I go to sea?" Dave asked abruptly.
"Not until this time next year," said his father. "I don't suppose you 'll ever rest contentedly until you have tried it out and found that a sailor's life is n 't a bit as they say it is in storybooks. I went through it. I thought I was going to have a wonderful time when I joined my first ship. She was a square-rigger, of the old-fashioned type. I remember I had a coat with some brass buttons on it, and I had an idea that I should spend most of my time on the poop, or the fo'c'sle-head, looking through a long telescope. But they set me on to peeling potatoes, and kept me at it though I was so seasick I did n't care whether I lived or died. Then the mate told me to dress up, as I had to do something special for the captain. I put on my best duds, including the coat with the brass buttons, and they started me on the job of tarring the rigging. By the time I'd got through with that, and after I'd upset the tar-bucket when the ship gave an extra hard roll, I was so messed up from head to foot I hardly knew my own name, though I'd learnt that sailoring didn't consist chiefly of looking smart in brass buttons and navigating the ship."
"But you did n't give up the sea for years and years after that, did you?" the boy persisted.
"No, I 'll admit that, though there was many a time I'd have done 'most anything to get back home and put on some dry clothes. The grub wasn't too good, either, in those days, and the older hands got the pick of what was going. Ship-owners don't believe in overfeeding their crews. The men might get too fat to shin up the rigging if they had three square meals a day, so they 're given ship's biscuits to keep 'em in condition and cut expenses down."
Dave plied his father with questions about life afloat, and Captain Hallard gave him as accurate a picture as he could of routine on board ship. To the boy it all seemed fascinating, including the hard, dirty work and the "salt horse" which, he gathered, together with the extremely hard biscuits, formed the staple diet on many craft.
The only thing worrying him was that he had to start at high school and wait a whole year before he would be allowed to eat "salt horse" and feel the motion of the boat under him as she nosed her way out of the harbor, past that flashing light in the distance at Sandy Hook, and carried him to those entrancing distant lands of which he had heard so much.
School seemed a dull affair during the next two months when such radiant possibilities lay in store. Dave went on with his studies, but his heart was not in them. Every day, after dark, he spent hours at the window from which he could see the lights of passing vessels, and in the afternoons he haunted the wharves, where screaming winches were hauling bales and cases from the mysterious depths of different vessels. The smell of tarred ropes became a thing of joy to him, and when, on occasions, the mate or bo'sun" of some ship invited him on board to look around after they had had a long chat, Dave thrilled with a new delight. The snug cabins and berths, not always as clean or tidy as they might have been, were a source of infinite wonder.
Though he did not realize it, Dave was fanning the flame within him. At home he came out with nautical terms which he had picked up, to the great distress of Aunt Martha, for, to her, it was clearly the beginning of the end. Secretly shs had always treasured the hope that her brother would put his foot down firmly and prevent Dave from risking his life on the sea, and occasionally, even now, she would have a passage of arms with Captain Hallard on the subject.
"Let the boy have a taste of it," he always declared. "You wouldn't bring ducks up without water, and the Hallards are worse than any ducks I ever knew, only they want salt water. He 'll go whether I let him or not, so I might just as well let him, when he's old enough."
Aunt Martha bent over her knitting on these occasions, making the needles fly and missing stitches, because you can't see to knit, even with spectacles, when your eyes are full of tears.
"Don't worry, Martha dear," Andrew Hallard said once, when this happened. "He won't come to any harm, and if I had my time over again, I'd be a sailor just the same, so we can't blame him. Now, stop crying. It's a healthy life at sea, after all; and to listen to you, one would think every mariner who left the wharf went straight to Davy Jones's locker as soon as he got into deep water.
Soon after the summer vacation began, Dave stood on one of the wharves within a mile of his home and watched a trim-looking steamer sidle to her berth. She was low in the water with a heavy cargo. Some time after the gangway was let down and traffic on it had started, an undersized youth, whose pockets bulged strangely, strolled casually ashore. He was about Dave's age, had red hair, and an extremely dirty face. Something about the boy attracted Dave's attention. He noticed that the red-headed youth looked quickly to the right and left, and then, dodging behind a truck, began to walk hurriedly away from the ship.
Dave stepped across the wharf so that the owner of the red hair would have to pass close to him. The boy was glancing over his shoulder and nearly bumped into Dave.
"Hello, kid, which is the way to New York?" he asked jerkily.
"It's miles from here. This is Brooklyn," Dave said.
"Do you know the way around here?" the boy asked. "I want to get out of this quick."
"Come with me," said Dave, growing more interested. He had learned every turn and corner of the docks. Three minutes later they were in a busy street, and the boy seemed to breathe more freely. His face began to wear a triumphant smile.
"That's fine!" he said. "I 'll be safe now."
"Safe from what?"
"I've skipped the ship. I was scared to death somebody would spot me. I've got all my things in my pockets."
"What did you skip the ship for?" Dave asked, hugely pleased at being concerned, even in a small way, with a nautical adventure.
"Wanted to see America," responded the youth. "Don't you let on that you've seen me. So long."
A moment later the owner of the red hair and dirty face was swallowed up in Brooklyn, and Dave went back to the steamer with new interest. An idea had occurred to him. It was only a vague idea, but it concerned the fact that he felt perfectly capable of doing anything that redheaded, undersized chap had done on the ship; and moreover, the ship was now short of a boy.
A curious tight feeling gripped him at the throat. For the space of perhaps five minutes he stood still, thinking hard, and then he boldly walked down the gangway.
Can I see the captain, please?" he said to a tall man who was standing on deck talking to a companion.
"What do you want the captain for?"
"I want to see him on— on business," said Dave.
The man looked down into the boy's grey eyes which showed neither fear nor disrespect.
"Well, sonny, I'm the captain," he said. "What is it?"
"I guess you want a boy, sir," said Dave. "The other one's gone. I'd like his job."
...to be continued
THE MYSTERY OF THE BARK HATTERAS
"There she is," he said at last. "This can't be the same Hatteras that you 're talking about though, because they searched everywhere for her at the time." Adjusting his glasses, Captain Hallard read:
"A strange mystery of the sea is recalled now that the bark Hatteras is definitely given up for lost. Six months have elapsed since she was last heard of in the Pacific Ocean, and the owners have no alternative but to regard her as sunk. The vessel herself was fully insured, but not the cargo, and it now appears that the latter included one small shipment which was of considerable value, consisting of a quantity of platinum. A good deal of money has been spent, since she was first reported missing, in searching for any trace of the Hatteras, but no sign of her has been discovered.
"A curious feature of the story is that no man knows, or ever will know, exactly where this valuable consignment came from originally. Possibly it was mined in New Guinea, where platinum is known to exist, or possibly in some part of Australia, but that must always remain a matter of conjecture.
"About a year ago Messrs. Jacobs & Krantz of San Francisco, dealers in precious metals, received a letter from one Vance Peters, written at Sydney, New South Wales. Peters stated that he had discovered a rich deposit of platinum, and had worked on it for two years until the supply was exhausted. He said he had melted it down into bars, had deposited it in a Sydney bank, and now wanted Jacobs & Krantz to market it for him, as facilities for disposing of it in Sydney were not good.
"The San Francisco firm consented to handle the transaction, and in due course received a letter from Peters announcing that he was sailing from Sydney on the Hatteras, bringing the platinum with him. There the known history of the platinum almost ends. After the Hatteras put to sea she was spoken twice between Sydney and Honolulu. Then there swept over that part of the Pacific the succession of devastating northeasterly gales which wreaked havoc among shipping there six months ago. Vessels of all kinds were blown far out of their course, and many of them were lost. The last heard of the Hatteras was a report from the ship Minerva that she had passed within a mile of her in the neighbourhood of Fanning Island. The bark was then partly dismasted and flying signals of distress. The Minerva herself was in great difficulties, and was unable to go to her assistance. From that moment the Hatteras became a thing of mystery. It is probable that she foundered with all hands in water a mile deep. There are many islands, mostly low-lying coral reefs, in that part of the Pacific. In the faint hope that the treasure-ship might have gone on one of these, Messrs. Jacobs & Krantz arranged with a vessel that was due to pass there to explore the region thoroughly, and the captains of other ships were offered a reward for definite news. But nothing has ever been heard of the ill-fated vessel or those who were on her."
While his father was reading the old newspaper cutting Dave Hallard sat motionless, his hands gripping the arms of the chair tightly.
"That sailor told me the Hatteras they saw was near Fanning Island, Dad," he said eagerly.
Captain Hallard looked up quickly.
"That's queer," he said. "I wonder if she could have been the same ship."
"Well, if she was, Dad, and nobody's got that platinum out of her—"
"If," Captain Hallard interrupted, laughing. "I guess there are lots of 'ifs.' To begin with, your sailor probably was spinning a yarn, and even if he did see the old wreck of the Hatteras, she must have been nearly smashed to pieces long ago. Everything in her would be washed away by now. Besides, where was this island he saw her on?"
"I remember he mentioned Fanning Island when you read it just now," said Dave, "and besides that he said they were sailing between there and an island called Christmas when they came across the wreck of the Hatteras."
"That's a pretty wide field," commented Captain Hallard. "Those two places are hundreds of miles apart, and you might spend a lifetime hunting about there for what you were after."
"He also said there was a hill," declared Dave, as the ancient mariner's story came back to his memory, "that looked like the back of a camel."
"You 're sure he didn't say a cow, or a rabbit?" Captain Hallard asked jocularly. "I'm afraid, Dave, he was having fun with you."
"I don't think so," Dave replied quietly. He had the greatest faith in his father's judgment, but on the other hand he had a vivid memory of the old sailor's simple directness.
Aunt Martha, who had been sitting knitting industriously, as usual, throughout the conversation, made no comment, and registered a mental note of the fact that Dave was growing more like his father every day. The Hallards did not have those steady grey eyes for nothing. It had been inflexible devotion to one purpose which enabled the retired sea-captain to amass his original fortune, and Dave was already exhibiting the same capacity for sticking to his guns, whatever object he wished to achieve. And she knew that the boy's determination to go to sea would never leave him until the salt water was rolling under him. This new notion that had entered his head, of treasure-ships lying waiting to disgorge their precious stores, would most likely add a romantic tinge to his desire, making certain that still another of the Hallards was to take to the roving life.
A day or two later, after supper, Dave produced a school atlas, and pored over it with a pencil and paper, measuring off distances.
"Dad, how long would it take for a bark to sail a hundred and fifty miles!" he asked.
"About a thousand years if there wasn't any wind."
"Yes, but with a fair wind?"
"Oh, maybe a day or two. Why?"
"Then it only takes a day or two to go from Fanning Island to Christmas Island in a bark in a fair wind?" said Dave.
"It depends how long you waste on the way picking up that treasure," replied Captain Hallard, with a twinkle in his eye. "Don't you worry, my lad. Hard dollars don't come like that. You 're just as likely to bump up in Broadway against a solid chunk of gold so big that it holds up the traffic as anybody is to rescue a fortune that's been lost in the sea for years."
"I know that, Dad," Dave agreed. "But it does seem an awful shame that the man who spent two years mining the stuff should never have got here with it safely. I asked Billy Tench yesterday to find out from his father what platinum is worth. Billy's father works in a jewelry store. I wrote down what he said to show you. How much do you guess Mr. Peters would have got for the stuff if he had reached America with it?"
Captain Hallard puffed at his pipe and wrinkled his brows in an effort of mental arithmetic.
"I suppose somewhere between ten and twenty dollars an ounce," he guessed.
"Wrong," corrected Dave. "At that time it was worth over thirty dollars an ounce."
"Bough luck on Peters," commented Captain Hallard. He knew by bitter experience what it felt like to lose a fortune.
"But that isn't all," Dave went on. "The price of platinum has gone up to three times its old value since then. That means if any one were lucky enough to find the treasure now, it would be worth about a hundred dollars an ounce."
Captain Hallard raised his eyebrows.
"I vote we start an expedition to find treasureships, Dave," he said, wincing as his rheumatism gave an extra twinge. "Then we 'll be able to come back and buy Aunt Martha that new coffee-percolator she's set her heart on. Then we might go over to Europe and hunt up some of those Spanish galleons. There were lots of 'em sunk, half full of gold coins. I'm badly in need of a new pipe."
"Yes, and we 'd buy 'Journey's End' back, eh, Dad?" Dave suggested.
"Aye, lad," his father agreed, with a sigh. The loss of his home on the cliff was still a very sore point to Captain Hallard. "But don't ever get such notions of easy money into your head. You have a lot of hard work to put in at school yet before you earn your first cent."
"How soon can I go to sea?" Dave asked abruptly.
"Not until this time next year," said his father. "I don't suppose you 'll ever rest contentedly until you have tried it out and found that a sailor's life is n 't a bit as they say it is in storybooks. I went through it. I thought I was going to have a wonderful time when I joined my first ship. She was a square-rigger, of the old-fashioned type. I remember I had a coat with some brass buttons on it, and I had an idea that I should spend most of my time on the poop, or the fo'c'sle-head, looking through a long telescope. But they set me on to peeling potatoes, and kept me at it though I was so seasick I did n't care whether I lived or died. Then the mate told me to dress up, as I had to do something special for the captain. I put on my best duds, including the coat with the brass buttons, and they started me on the job of tarring the rigging. By the time I'd got through with that, and after I'd upset the tar-bucket when the ship gave an extra hard roll, I was so messed up from head to foot I hardly knew my own name, though I'd learnt that sailoring didn't consist chiefly of looking smart in brass buttons and navigating the ship."
"But you did n't give up the sea for years and years after that, did you?" the boy persisted.
"No, I 'll admit that, though there was many a time I'd have done 'most anything to get back home and put on some dry clothes. The grub wasn't too good, either, in those days, and the older hands got the pick of what was going. Ship-owners don't believe in overfeeding their crews. The men might get too fat to shin up the rigging if they had three square meals a day, so they 're given ship's biscuits to keep 'em in condition and cut expenses down."
Dave plied his father with questions about life afloat, and Captain Hallard gave him as accurate a picture as he could of routine on board ship. To the boy it all seemed fascinating, including the hard, dirty work and the "salt horse" which, he gathered, together with the extremely hard biscuits, formed the staple diet on many craft.
The only thing worrying him was that he had to start at high school and wait a whole year before he would be allowed to eat "salt horse" and feel the motion of the boat under him as she nosed her way out of the harbor, past that flashing light in the distance at Sandy Hook, and carried him to those entrancing distant lands of which he had heard so much.
School seemed a dull affair during the next two months when such radiant possibilities lay in store. Dave went on with his studies, but his heart was not in them. Every day, after dark, he spent hours at the window from which he could see the lights of passing vessels, and in the afternoons he haunted the wharves, where screaming winches were hauling bales and cases from the mysterious depths of different vessels. The smell of tarred ropes became a thing of joy to him, and when, on occasions, the mate or bo'sun" of some ship invited him on board to look around after they had had a long chat, Dave thrilled with a new delight. The snug cabins and berths, not always as clean or tidy as they might have been, were a source of infinite wonder.
Though he did not realize it, Dave was fanning the flame within him. At home he came out with nautical terms which he had picked up, to the great distress of Aunt Martha, for, to her, it was clearly the beginning of the end. Secretly shs had always treasured the hope that her brother would put his foot down firmly and prevent Dave from risking his life on the sea, and occasionally, even now, she would have a passage of arms with Captain Hallard on the subject.
"Let the boy have a taste of it," he always declared. "You wouldn't bring ducks up without water, and the Hallards are worse than any ducks I ever knew, only they want salt water. He 'll go whether I let him or not, so I might just as well let him, when he's old enough."
Aunt Martha bent over her knitting on these occasions, making the needles fly and missing stitches, because you can't see to knit, even with spectacles, when your eyes are full of tears.
"Don't worry, Martha dear," Andrew Hallard said once, when this happened. "He won't come to any harm, and if I had my time over again, I'd be a sailor just the same, so we can't blame him. Now, stop crying. It's a healthy life at sea, after all; and to listen to you, one would think every mariner who left the wharf went straight to Davy Jones's locker as soon as he got into deep water.
Soon after the summer vacation began, Dave stood on one of the wharves within a mile of his home and watched a trim-looking steamer sidle to her berth. She was low in the water with a heavy cargo. Some time after the gangway was let down and traffic on it had started, an undersized youth, whose pockets bulged strangely, strolled casually ashore. He was about Dave's age, had red hair, and an extremely dirty face. Something about the boy attracted Dave's attention. He noticed that the red-headed youth looked quickly to the right and left, and then, dodging behind a truck, began to walk hurriedly away from the ship.
Dave stepped across the wharf so that the owner of the red hair would have to pass close to him. The boy was glancing over his shoulder and nearly bumped into Dave.
"Hello, kid, which is the way to New York?" he asked jerkily.
"It's miles from here. This is Brooklyn," Dave said.
"Do you know the way around here?" the boy asked. "I want to get out of this quick."
"Come with me," said Dave, growing more interested. He had learned every turn and corner of the docks. Three minutes later they were in a busy street, and the boy seemed to breathe more freely. His face began to wear a triumphant smile.
"That's fine!" he said. "I 'll be safe now."
"Safe from what?"
"I've skipped the ship. I was scared to death somebody would spot me. I've got all my things in my pockets."
"What did you skip the ship for?" Dave asked, hugely pleased at being concerned, even in a small way, with a nautical adventure.
"Wanted to see America," responded the youth. "Don't you let on that you've seen me. So long."
A moment later the owner of the red hair and dirty face was swallowed up in Brooklyn, and Dave went back to the steamer with new interest. An idea had occurred to him. It was only a vague idea, but it concerned the fact that he felt perfectly capable of doing anything that redheaded, undersized chap had done on the ship; and moreover, the ship was now short of a boy.
A curious tight feeling gripped him at the throat. For the space of perhaps five minutes he stood still, thinking hard, and then he boldly walked down the gangway.
Can I see the captain, please?" he said to a tall man who was standing on deck talking to a companion.
"What do you want the captain for?"
"I want to see him on— on business," said Dave.
The man looked down into the boy's grey eyes which showed neither fear nor disrespect.
"Well, sonny, I'm the captain," he said. "What is it?"
"I guess you want a boy, sir," said Dave. "The other one's gone. I'd like his job."
...to be continued
"A School Afloat"
by John H. Gibbons, USN, and Charles Bernard, July 1885
And so it came about that, soon after her decision, little Decatur stood on the pier at the foot of West Twenty-third street, New York, where a sea-soldier (called a "marine"), stood on guard at the landing and a little steam-launch bobbed against the pier waiting to take several boys out to the school-house. Think of starting for school in a steam launch!
The launch steamed out into the river and hauled alongside the steps of the school-house. And the school-house was a great war-ship. The boys climbed the high, black side of the ship and came out upon the shining white decks. There they found another marine on guard, while an officer and some young sailors were busy near at hand.
The admission to the school is simple enough. A boy must be of robust figure, intelligent, of a sound and healthy constitution, free from any physical defects or malformation; he must be able to read and write; and be of the standard height and measurement. All of these requirements our young Decatur could meet satisfactorily ; yet it is a test which many boys fail to stand; for, at a recent examination in Boston, out of nearly one hundred applicants, only twenty-six succeeded in passing the requisite physical examination.
Then Decatur Jones signed his name to what are known as the "shipping articles," by which he agreed to serve continuously in the Navy of the United States until he was twenty-one years old; and, having exhibited a printed form signed by his mother, in which she gave her consent to the step he had taken, he was declared a voluntarily enlisted third-class boy in the United States Navy, with the pay of $9.50 per month, besides what is known as the navy "rations " of thirty cents per day.
The very next day saw Decatur Jones with a squad of other new recruits on board one of the steamers of the Fall River Line, bound for Newport, at which place they were at once transferred to the school-ship "New Hampshire," anchored off Coasters' Harbor Island.
Some six years ago, the State of Rhode Island presented this island of Coasters' Harbor to the United States, with the understanding that it was to be used as a naval training station. It lies within a mile of the beautiful old city of Newport, and is separated from the main-land by a narrow strait spanned by a causeway. Anchored off this island lies the bluff-bowed old line-of-battle ship "New Hampshire," with numerous decks, of which protrude the muzzles of guns. This is the cradle of the training fleet—the real school afloat. All the other ships, at New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Washington, and San Francisco are simply the entering, or receving, ships. As often as there are twenty boys ready at any of these ships, they are sent, as was our friend Decatur Jones, to the stout old ship "New Hampshire" at Coasters' Harbor.
As Decatur clambered up the three long flights of gangway ladders and stepped upon the quarter-deck, he was met by a pleasant-looking gentleman, radiant with brass buttons and gold lace. This was the officer of the deck. He took Decatur's transfer papers from the trembling lad, looked him over from head to foot, and called for the master-at-arms.
The master-at-arms, whom Decatur soon learned to like, and to call, as did the other boys, from some as yet undiscovered reason, "Jimmy Legs," doffed his cap and saluted the brass-buttoned officer of the deck.
"Master-at-arms," said that dignitary, "you will see that this boy has a bath and that his hair is cut; then take him down to the sick-bay to be vaccinated. After that, get him his bag and hammock; show him his 'swing' and how to 'lash and carry.'"
"Aye, aye, sir!" responded "Jimmy," briskly, although the order was rattled off at such a rate that poor Decatur had no idea what the gentleman in brass buttons was talking about. But "Jimmy Legs " did; and turning to Decatur, he said, "This way, lad," and led him at once into a large deckhouse on the upper deck, where stand a dozen or more bath-tubs, beside the steam pump and boiler.
The bath was soon over, and then, on the deck next below, Decatur's abundant hair was neatly clipped down to the regulation "short cut" by a boy barber; after which he was taken to the hospital-room, known as the "sick-bay," upon a still lower deck, where he was vaccinated by the surgeon, a kind-looking old gentleman.
After this intimation that cleanliness and health are among the most important considerations in the school of the sailor, Decatur was left to himself and given a chance to look about him. He wandered through the great ship, gazed up at the tall masts and lofty spars with their masses of rigging, and felt certain that he would surely become dizzy were he to try to skip aloft, as could most of the five hundred boys who, in their natty blue uniforms, seemed to be in every part of the ship. He examined the great guns on the gun-deck, the ponderous capstans and heavy anchor-chains, the racks of burnished rifles and shining cutlasses, the brightly scoured mess-tables on the berth-deck, with their outfits of knives, forks, spoons, and pans shining like polished silver, until, tired and hungry, he began to wonder whether he was to have any supper and where he was to sleep.
Just at the right moment along came "Jimmy Legs" again. "Here 's your station billet, my son," he said, handing the boy a small piece of printed paper. "Watch number, 22, port forecastle: that 's your hammock number also. At quarters you go with number two's gun crew, first division. Then here you have your station given for all the exercises with sails and spars. You belong to the first cutter's crew—that 's your boat, d' ye see? All the information in a nut-shell. There 's the call for mess formation sounding now, so run along and join your crew—number two, first division."
"Dear me," thought Decatur, "I never can remember all that. Number two—first division; I wonder what it means?"
But in the midst of his wondering a manly-looking boy, with two red chevrons on his arm, stepped up to him.
"What 's your name?" he asked. "Jones?"
"Yes; Decatur Bainbridge Jones."
"Well, my name 's Nelson, and I 'm captain of your gun's crew—number two, first division," said the new-comer. "Follow me, and I 'll show you where we fall in."
Decatur, greatly relieved, followed his new friend along the line of boys, and was properly placed with his own crew. Then, after muster, all the crew marched down to a supper of bread and milk, and Decatur picked up plenty of information.
"Who 's Commodore Duff? " he asked, catching at the curious name as it passed among the boys. "Is he the head of the ship?"
"Well, we could n't get along without him very well," was the laughing reply. "Why, Duff's our caterer, you know. He's an Italian with a jawbreaking name, and we call him Duff for short; and does n't he feed us well, though? You just ought to have seen our last Christmas dinner,"—and there sounded a chorus of appreciative smacks in recollection of that Christmas dinner.
Supper over, "Jimmy Legs" made his appearance again, loaded down with a hammock, mattress, blankets, a large black canvas bag, and a small square box.
"This is your bed," he said to our friend Decatur, pointing to the hammock. "This is your clothesbag, and this is your ditty-box for sewing gear, writing materials, and odds and ends. You will draw your clothing to-morrow, when the officer of your division has had a look at you. Now, come along and I 'll show you where to swing your hammock."
He led the way to the gun-deck. "This is your berth," he said; "number twenty-two, same as your hammock number and watch number. I 'll take care of your bag and box until to-morrow."
Then he put up the hammock, arranged the bedding, and trotted quietly away, while young Decatur, thoroughly tired out, found that a hammock is a much more comfortable bed than he imagined, and was soon sound asleep.
The next morning, when Decatur had donned his blue shirt with its rolling collar, the loosely fitting trousers, and the jaunty cap with "New Hampshire" lettered in gold upon it, he felt himself in reality "every inch a sailor." And as he now becomes one of the five hundred, and hence loses to a great degree his identity, we must leave him to share the fortunes of his comrades, while we take a more general look at what these fortunes are.
The blast of bugles and flare of drums at early daylight is the "reveille," warning the young apprentices that it is time to "turn out." Should they forget this fact, there are any number of petty officers ready to impress it upon them. Twelve minutes are allowed in which to turn out, dress, lash hammocks, carry them on deck, and stow them in the nettings provided for the purpose. The next step is to carry out the morning orders, under the direction of the officer of the deck. The decks are swept clean, and the running rigging laid up neathly on the pins. The order is then passed to scrub and wash clothes. Each boy becomes for the moment his own washerman, and, brush in hand, goes heartily at this laundry work. Smirched clothing is never tolerated; so every day is wash-day, thereby giving all hands an opportunity to keep their clothing neat and clean.
The cleanliness of the ship itself is a matter considered equally as important as that of the crew. The boatswain's mates pipe "Wash down the decks," and the work begins. Buckets of water, hickory brooms, sand and holy-stones, squillgees and swabs—all are brought into use to drive every particle of dirt from the oak planks of the decks, which soon shine with a whiteness that any housewife would envy. Then the ship must be cleaned outside, and the copper sheathing scrubbed and oiled until it looks like a band of reddish gold above the water-line. The ship having received her share of attention, the boys are given a half-hour in which to prepare for "early inspection," at which the master-at-arms and a number of subordinates make a critical observation of the toilets.
Then comes breakfast, and, after that, more cleaning. There are no intervals of idleness. This time it is the guns that need care; their brass-work must be made to shine like a mirror in the sun. While this is going on, a bugle sounds sick-call, and all those who are too ill for the day's work flock down to the dispensary, where the old surgeon and his young assistant are busy feeling pulses, peering down throats, and prescribing generously for each patient.
The great event of the forenoon is "quarters." All the crews assemble at their guns for muster, inspection, and drill. Four guns' crews, of seventeen boys each, make up a division, which is in charge of an officer. The drills are varied and interesting, and pertain more particularly to that part of the training which makes "fighting men." The boys are exercised in loading, pointing, and firing the heavy cannon which constitute the ship's battery. The target is towed out to the proper distance from the ship. There is about this gunpractice much "make-believe"—as the phrase goes—at first, but when the boys are thoroughly posted in their duties, real powder and shell are brought in. The deafening reports are at first a sore trial to delicate nerves, but our young friends are soon able to stand unmoved while an eight-inch Dahlgren gun belches forth flame and smoke.
Broadsword and cutlass drills, under the supervision of an expert swordsman, and pistol, howitzer, and infantry drills form a part of the routine, which goes toward strengthening the youthful arm that may some day be raised in defense of our country's flag.
After quarters, exercises and studies, with an interval of one hour at noon for dinner, fill up the time until four o'clock. Evening quarters, for muster only, are at half-past four, and supper is at five. Hammocks are piped down early in the evening, and every one must be turned in at nine o'clock, when silence fore and aft is the order of the night.
The school of instruction for the apprentices is divided into three departments, viz.: Seamanship Department, Gunnery Department, and Department of Studies. Each department is in charge of an officer, with several assistants. In seamanship, the boy is first taught the names of all the spars, ropes, and sails. He is then sent on the "monkey yard," which is slung a few feet above the deck, and there taught how to handle a small sail. Encouraged to take a run up the rigging every morning, the boy soon forgets his fear of falling, and is then allowed to take part in the regular exercises aloft—such as loosing, furling, reefing, bending, and unbending sails, sending up or down light yards and top-gallant masts, etc. Cutting and fitting rigging, knotting and splicing rope, sail-making, boxing the compass, heaving the lead and log signals, pulling oars, swimming, and the use of the diving apparatus come under this head. The course of instruction in gunnery includes the theory of gunnery, in addition to the practice mentioned in a preceding paragraph as divisional drills. The Department of Studies embraces the rudiments of an ordinary English education—reading, writing, spelling, arithmetic, grammar, geography, history, moral and religious instruction, and singing.
This, then, is the every-day work of the apprentices, but it is not all work and no play. On Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday afternoons, those whose conduct record may warrant are given liberty to visit the quaint old town of Newport. For those who do not care for this, the island close at hand is a rare place for base-ball, foot-ball, and other field sports. Boating is always in order—the ship's boats for rowing, and the little brig Toy or the schooner-yacht Wave for sailing. These last two, manned by the boys themselves, make pleasant cruises in Narragansett Bay, and often visit the surrounding towns. And it is a pretty sight on some breezy day to see the boys walk out on the long boom and drop into the cutter that bobs and dances alongside. In the pleasant summer evenings the band plays for "stag" dancing on board ship, and a singing-master leads the choruses, which make the air resound with "Nancy Lee," "Life on the Ocean Wave," and other songs of the sea. A library and reading-room are open during recreation hours. On Sunday mornings church service is conducted by the Chaplain on the gun-deck, when all are required to be present.
For the bad or unruly boy. or the one who lazily or willfully shirks his duty, there is first justice and then punishment. Such a boy is duly reported to the officer of the deck and the culprit is speedily summoned to answer to the charges against him before a court composed of the captain, the executive officer and the chaplain. It is like a regular police court, too. in which if the boy can plead a good excuse or can prove by witnesses that no blame attaches to him he may do so. Everything is done according to exact justice, and punishment is only given when proven to be merited.
After a year on the ship, those boys who have advanced far enough in their profession to be considered available for sea are generally transferred to some of the cruising ships of the training squadron, when the fleet rendezvous at Newport in the early spring, preparatory to the summer cruise.
The transfer day is a gala day. The fortunate boys are bustling around getting their bags and hammocks ready and saying their good-byes. "Commodore Duff" always provides a grand farewell dinner on this occasion, to which every departing apprentice will look back with pleasure when fresh provisions give out at sea, and "salt horse" (salt beef), "soup and bully" (canned beef), and "hard-tack" have important places in the bill of fare. The draft turns out in blue mustering-clothes, and, amid a volley of cheers and swinging of caps, boards the tug, which has been waiting alongside, and are soon distributed among their new homes.
Once upon the high seas, much of the romance of the sailor's life fades quickly away. It may be pleasant to stroll along the cliffs and to watch the great waves break in a line of white foam and a shower of spray, but once afloat in a wave-tossed ship, many a young sailor has felt contemplation give way to an indescribable feeling of misery and woe. There are few people who are proof against sea-sickness, and the land-lubber who can endure the rolling and pitching without a qualm is a hero indeed. But the lad who "tackles it" manfully, with a dogged determination to crush out the first symptoms of weakness, generally conquers, and is soon able to laugh with the rest. One or two days is the average time allowed for getting one's "sea legs."
The coast-line soon fades away in a purple haze as the small fleet bowls along before the wind out into the broad Atlantic. The change is exhilarating. To many it is a new world—the blue above and the blue below. The weather is fair to-day, but to-morrow the clouds may bank up around the horizon in dark, foreboding masses, the gentle breeze may increase to a howling gale, and the speeding ship be stripped of her lofty canvas until she is left wallowing in a heavy sea and drifting bodily to leeward. It is then that the stout heart and the steady hand of the sailor boy stand him in good stead. There are to'-gallant sails and royals to be furled, the lofty yards of which sway from side to side with the motion of the ship, making the dizzy height all the more perilous, and the youngsters must reef top-sails, working with their hands, and acquiring the knack of "hanging on" without the help of those useful members.
Day and night the watch is set, to pass four hours on deck ready to answer every call, whether it be to man the "jib down-haul" or "spanker brails"; then four hours below, with nothing to do. The "dog watches" of two hours each (from 4 to 6 p. M. and from 6 to 8 p. M.) break the continuity, and enable the watches to alternate, and thus secure eight hours below every other night.
Thus a year—several months of it spent in seavoyaging—slips quickly by, and the young tar has advanced steadily in his calling. His fund of general knowledge has been increased by visiting foreign countries. At no time has the training in the three departments of Seamanship, Gunnery, and Studies been lost sight of, although self-reliance has taken the place of that dependence upon others which is necessarily so common at first.
Upon attaining his majority, the apprentice is in every way fitted for general service as a man-of-war's-man, and may serve—according to his choice—in any squadron that stands in need of men. Whether he chooses the much-sought-for European squadron, or visits the celestials in China, or wanders in the Pacific or South Atlantic, let us hope that he will at all times prove himself worthy of his alma mater, and help to regenerate that fast-disappearing class—the American seaman.
"Going to sea" the old-fashioned way. How well do you think you could keep up with the duties assigned to these boys?Little Decatur Jones had fully made up his mind that nothing but a sailor's life would satisfy him. The old sea-faring spirit of his forefathers was in the lad, and he chafed and fretted greatly under the restrictions of what he called his "humdrum" country life. His father was dead, and his mother could not procure an appointment for him to the naval academy at Annapolis. But when she learned through the village postmaster that the United States Navy offered just such boys as Decatur Jones a good home, fair wages, and the sea-life he desired, she decided, after long deliberation, to let the boy have his way.
And so it came about that, soon after her decision, little Decatur stood on the pier at the foot of West Twenty-third street, New York, where a sea-soldier (called a "marine"), stood on guard at the landing and a little steam-launch bobbed against the pier waiting to take several boys out to the school-house. Think of starting for school in a steam launch!
The launch steamed out into the river and hauled alongside the steps of the school-house. And the school-house was a great war-ship. The boys climbed the high, black side of the ship and came out upon the shining white decks. There they found another marine on guard, while an officer and some young sailors were busy near at hand.
The admission to the school is simple enough. A boy must be of robust figure, intelligent, of a sound and healthy constitution, free from any physical defects or malformation; he must be able to read and write; and be of the standard height and measurement. All of these requirements our young Decatur could meet satisfactorily ; yet it is a test which many boys fail to stand; for, at a recent examination in Boston, out of nearly one hundred applicants, only twenty-six succeeded in passing the requisite physical examination.
Then Decatur Jones signed his name to what are known as the "shipping articles," by which he agreed to serve continuously in the Navy of the United States until he was twenty-one years old; and, having exhibited a printed form signed by his mother, in which she gave her consent to the step he had taken, he was declared a voluntarily enlisted third-class boy in the United States Navy, with the pay of $9.50 per month, besides what is known as the navy "rations " of thirty cents per day.
The very next day saw Decatur Jones with a squad of other new recruits on board one of the steamers of the Fall River Line, bound for Newport, at which place they were at once transferred to the school-ship "New Hampshire," anchored off Coasters' Harbor Island.
Some six years ago, the State of Rhode Island presented this island of Coasters' Harbor to the United States, with the understanding that it was to be used as a naval training station. It lies within a mile of the beautiful old city of Newport, and is separated from the main-land by a narrow strait spanned by a causeway. Anchored off this island lies the bluff-bowed old line-of-battle ship "New Hampshire," with numerous decks, of which protrude the muzzles of guns. This is the cradle of the training fleet—the real school afloat. All the other ships, at New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Washington, and San Francisco are simply the entering, or receving, ships. As often as there are twenty boys ready at any of these ships, they are sent, as was our friend Decatur Jones, to the stout old ship "New Hampshire" at Coasters' Harbor.
As Decatur clambered up the three long flights of gangway ladders and stepped upon the quarter-deck, he was met by a pleasant-looking gentleman, radiant with brass buttons and gold lace. This was the officer of the deck. He took Decatur's transfer papers from the trembling lad, looked him over from head to foot, and called for the master-at-arms.
The master-at-arms, whom Decatur soon learned to like, and to call, as did the other boys, from some as yet undiscovered reason, "Jimmy Legs," doffed his cap and saluted the brass-buttoned officer of the deck.
"Master-at-arms," said that dignitary, "you will see that this boy has a bath and that his hair is cut; then take him down to the sick-bay to be vaccinated. After that, get him his bag and hammock; show him his 'swing' and how to 'lash and carry.'"
"Aye, aye, sir!" responded "Jimmy," briskly, although the order was rattled off at such a rate that poor Decatur had no idea what the gentleman in brass buttons was talking about. But "Jimmy Legs " did; and turning to Decatur, he said, "This way, lad," and led him at once into a large deckhouse on the upper deck, where stand a dozen or more bath-tubs, beside the steam pump and boiler.
The bath was soon over, and then, on the deck next below, Decatur's abundant hair was neatly clipped down to the regulation "short cut" by a boy barber; after which he was taken to the hospital-room, known as the "sick-bay," upon a still lower deck, where he was vaccinated by the surgeon, a kind-looking old gentleman.
After this intimation that cleanliness and health are among the most important considerations in the school of the sailor, Decatur was left to himself and given a chance to look about him. He wandered through the great ship, gazed up at the tall masts and lofty spars with their masses of rigging, and felt certain that he would surely become dizzy were he to try to skip aloft, as could most of the five hundred boys who, in their natty blue uniforms, seemed to be in every part of the ship. He examined the great guns on the gun-deck, the ponderous capstans and heavy anchor-chains, the racks of burnished rifles and shining cutlasses, the brightly scoured mess-tables on the berth-deck, with their outfits of knives, forks, spoons, and pans shining like polished silver, until, tired and hungry, he began to wonder whether he was to have any supper and where he was to sleep.
Just at the right moment along came "Jimmy Legs" again. "Here 's your station billet, my son," he said, handing the boy a small piece of printed paper. "Watch number, 22, port forecastle: that 's your hammock number also. At quarters you go with number two's gun crew, first division. Then here you have your station given for all the exercises with sails and spars. You belong to the first cutter's crew—that 's your boat, d' ye see? All the information in a nut-shell. There 's the call for mess formation sounding now, so run along and join your crew—number two, first division."
"Dear me," thought Decatur, "I never can remember all that. Number two—first division; I wonder what it means?"
But in the midst of his wondering a manly-looking boy, with two red chevrons on his arm, stepped up to him.
"What 's your name?" he asked. "Jones?"
"Yes; Decatur Bainbridge Jones."
"Well, my name 's Nelson, and I 'm captain of your gun's crew—number two, first division," said the new-comer. "Follow me, and I 'll show you where we fall in."
Decatur, greatly relieved, followed his new friend along the line of boys, and was properly placed with his own crew. Then, after muster, all the crew marched down to a supper of bread and milk, and Decatur picked up plenty of information.
"Who 's Commodore Duff? " he asked, catching at the curious name as it passed among the boys. "Is he the head of the ship?"
"Well, we could n't get along without him very well," was the laughing reply. "Why, Duff's our caterer, you know. He's an Italian with a jawbreaking name, and we call him Duff for short; and does n't he feed us well, though? You just ought to have seen our last Christmas dinner,"—and there sounded a chorus of appreciative smacks in recollection of that Christmas dinner.
Supper over, "Jimmy Legs" made his appearance again, loaded down with a hammock, mattress, blankets, a large black canvas bag, and a small square box.
"This is your bed," he said to our friend Decatur, pointing to the hammock. "This is your clothesbag, and this is your ditty-box for sewing gear, writing materials, and odds and ends. You will draw your clothing to-morrow, when the officer of your division has had a look at you. Now, come along and I 'll show you where to swing your hammock."
He led the way to the gun-deck. "This is your berth," he said; "number twenty-two, same as your hammock number and watch number. I 'll take care of your bag and box until to-morrow."
Then he put up the hammock, arranged the bedding, and trotted quietly away, while young Decatur, thoroughly tired out, found that a hammock is a much more comfortable bed than he imagined, and was soon sound asleep.
The next morning, when Decatur had donned his blue shirt with its rolling collar, the loosely fitting trousers, and the jaunty cap with "New Hampshire" lettered in gold upon it, he felt himself in reality "every inch a sailor." And as he now becomes one of the five hundred, and hence loses to a great degree his identity, we must leave him to share the fortunes of his comrades, while we take a more general look at what these fortunes are.
The blast of bugles and flare of drums at early daylight is the "reveille," warning the young apprentices that it is time to "turn out." Should they forget this fact, there are any number of petty officers ready to impress it upon them. Twelve minutes are allowed in which to turn out, dress, lash hammocks, carry them on deck, and stow them in the nettings provided for the purpose. The next step is to carry out the morning orders, under the direction of the officer of the deck. The decks are swept clean, and the running rigging laid up neathly on the pins. The order is then passed to scrub and wash clothes. Each boy becomes for the moment his own washerman, and, brush in hand, goes heartily at this laundry work. Smirched clothing is never tolerated; so every day is wash-day, thereby giving all hands an opportunity to keep their clothing neat and clean.
The cleanliness of the ship itself is a matter considered equally as important as that of the crew. The boatswain's mates pipe "Wash down the decks," and the work begins. Buckets of water, hickory brooms, sand and holy-stones, squillgees and swabs—all are brought into use to drive every particle of dirt from the oak planks of the decks, which soon shine with a whiteness that any housewife would envy. Then the ship must be cleaned outside, and the copper sheathing scrubbed and oiled until it looks like a band of reddish gold above the water-line. The ship having received her share of attention, the boys are given a half-hour in which to prepare for "early inspection," at which the master-at-arms and a number of subordinates make a critical observation of the toilets.
Then comes breakfast, and, after that, more cleaning. There are no intervals of idleness. This time it is the guns that need care; their brass-work must be made to shine like a mirror in the sun. While this is going on, a bugle sounds sick-call, and all those who are too ill for the day's work flock down to the dispensary, where the old surgeon and his young assistant are busy feeling pulses, peering down throats, and prescribing generously for each patient.
The great event of the forenoon is "quarters." All the crews assemble at their guns for muster, inspection, and drill. Four guns' crews, of seventeen boys each, make up a division, which is in charge of an officer. The drills are varied and interesting, and pertain more particularly to that part of the training which makes "fighting men." The boys are exercised in loading, pointing, and firing the heavy cannon which constitute the ship's battery. The target is towed out to the proper distance from the ship. There is about this gunpractice much "make-believe"—as the phrase goes—at first, but when the boys are thoroughly posted in their duties, real powder and shell are brought in. The deafening reports are at first a sore trial to delicate nerves, but our young friends are soon able to stand unmoved while an eight-inch Dahlgren gun belches forth flame and smoke.
Broadsword and cutlass drills, under the supervision of an expert swordsman, and pistol, howitzer, and infantry drills form a part of the routine, which goes toward strengthening the youthful arm that may some day be raised in defense of our country's flag.
After quarters, exercises and studies, with an interval of one hour at noon for dinner, fill up the time until four o'clock. Evening quarters, for muster only, are at half-past four, and supper is at five. Hammocks are piped down early in the evening, and every one must be turned in at nine o'clock, when silence fore and aft is the order of the night.
The school of instruction for the apprentices is divided into three departments, viz.: Seamanship Department, Gunnery Department, and Department of Studies. Each department is in charge of an officer, with several assistants. In seamanship, the boy is first taught the names of all the spars, ropes, and sails. He is then sent on the "monkey yard," which is slung a few feet above the deck, and there taught how to handle a small sail. Encouraged to take a run up the rigging every morning, the boy soon forgets his fear of falling, and is then allowed to take part in the regular exercises aloft—such as loosing, furling, reefing, bending, and unbending sails, sending up or down light yards and top-gallant masts, etc. Cutting and fitting rigging, knotting and splicing rope, sail-making, boxing the compass, heaving the lead and log signals, pulling oars, swimming, and the use of the diving apparatus come under this head. The course of instruction in gunnery includes the theory of gunnery, in addition to the practice mentioned in a preceding paragraph as divisional drills. The Department of Studies embraces the rudiments of an ordinary English education—reading, writing, spelling, arithmetic, grammar, geography, history, moral and religious instruction, and singing.
This, then, is the every-day work of the apprentices, but it is not all work and no play. On Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday afternoons, those whose conduct record may warrant are given liberty to visit the quaint old town of Newport. For those who do not care for this, the island close at hand is a rare place for base-ball, foot-ball, and other field sports. Boating is always in order—the ship's boats for rowing, and the little brig Toy or the schooner-yacht Wave for sailing. These last two, manned by the boys themselves, make pleasant cruises in Narragansett Bay, and often visit the surrounding towns. And it is a pretty sight on some breezy day to see the boys walk out on the long boom and drop into the cutter that bobs and dances alongside. In the pleasant summer evenings the band plays for "stag" dancing on board ship, and a singing-master leads the choruses, which make the air resound with "Nancy Lee," "Life on the Ocean Wave," and other songs of the sea. A library and reading-room are open during recreation hours. On Sunday mornings church service is conducted by the Chaplain on the gun-deck, when all are required to be present.
For the bad or unruly boy. or the one who lazily or willfully shirks his duty, there is first justice and then punishment. Such a boy is duly reported to the officer of the deck and the culprit is speedily summoned to answer to the charges against him before a court composed of the captain, the executive officer and the chaplain. It is like a regular police court, too. in which if the boy can plead a good excuse or can prove by witnesses that no blame attaches to him he may do so. Everything is done according to exact justice, and punishment is only given when proven to be merited.
After a year on the ship, those boys who have advanced far enough in their profession to be considered available for sea are generally transferred to some of the cruising ships of the training squadron, when the fleet rendezvous at Newport in the early spring, preparatory to the summer cruise.
The transfer day is a gala day. The fortunate boys are bustling around getting their bags and hammocks ready and saying their good-byes. "Commodore Duff" always provides a grand farewell dinner on this occasion, to which every departing apprentice will look back with pleasure when fresh provisions give out at sea, and "salt horse" (salt beef), "soup and bully" (canned beef), and "hard-tack" have important places in the bill of fare. The draft turns out in blue mustering-clothes, and, amid a volley of cheers and swinging of caps, boards the tug, which has been waiting alongside, and are soon distributed among their new homes.
Once upon the high seas, much of the romance of the sailor's life fades quickly away. It may be pleasant to stroll along the cliffs and to watch the great waves break in a line of white foam and a shower of spray, but once afloat in a wave-tossed ship, many a young sailor has felt contemplation give way to an indescribable feeling of misery and woe. There are few people who are proof against sea-sickness, and the land-lubber who can endure the rolling and pitching without a qualm is a hero indeed. But the lad who "tackles it" manfully, with a dogged determination to crush out the first symptoms of weakness, generally conquers, and is soon able to laugh with the rest. One or two days is the average time allowed for getting one's "sea legs."
The coast-line soon fades away in a purple haze as the small fleet bowls along before the wind out into the broad Atlantic. The change is exhilarating. To many it is a new world—the blue above and the blue below. The weather is fair to-day, but to-morrow the clouds may bank up around the horizon in dark, foreboding masses, the gentle breeze may increase to a howling gale, and the speeding ship be stripped of her lofty canvas until she is left wallowing in a heavy sea and drifting bodily to leeward. It is then that the stout heart and the steady hand of the sailor boy stand him in good stead. There are to'-gallant sails and royals to be furled, the lofty yards of which sway from side to side with the motion of the ship, making the dizzy height all the more perilous, and the youngsters must reef top-sails, working with their hands, and acquiring the knack of "hanging on" without the help of those useful members.
Day and night the watch is set, to pass four hours on deck ready to answer every call, whether it be to man the "jib down-haul" or "spanker brails"; then four hours below, with nothing to do. The "dog watches" of two hours each (from 4 to 6 p. M. and from 6 to 8 p. M.) break the continuity, and enable the watches to alternate, and thus secure eight hours below every other night.
Thus a year—several months of it spent in seavoyaging—slips quickly by, and the young tar has advanced steadily in his calling. His fund of general knowledge has been increased by visiting foreign countries. At no time has the training in the three departments of Seamanship, Gunnery, and Studies been lost sight of, although self-reliance has taken the place of that dependence upon others which is necessarily so common at first.
Upon attaining his majority, the apprentice is in every way fitted for general service as a man-of-war's-man, and may serve—according to his choice—in any squadron that stands in need of men. Whether he chooses the much-sought-for European squadron, or visits the celestials in China, or wanders in the Pacific or South Atlantic, let us hope that he will at all times prove himself worthy of his alma mater, and help to regenerate that fast-disappearing class—the American seaman.
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