TheKelvinhaughwas lying in the Queen’s Dock and the cab rattled down the silent streets which glistened wet in the glow of the gas-lamps. It was a typical Glasgow morning—dark, cheerless and with a cold drizzle descending from the brooding skies. They passed men—hands in pockets and shoulders hunched—hurrying through the rain to their “wurrk.” Dock policemen loafed under the eaves of the sheds, standing like statues with their oilskin capes reflecting the vagrant flickering of near-by gas jets. It was a ghastly morning to be going to sea, and Donald’s spirits were at a very low ebb. There was very little romance in this sort of thing.
The clatter of hoofs stopped and the cabman hailed a passer-by. “Hey, you! Whaur’s th’Kelvinhaughlyin’?”
“Twa berths doon!” came the answer. The hoofs and wheels clattered again and ceased a minute later. The Jehu came down from his “dickey.” “Yer shup’s lyin’ here, mister,” he said. “Ah’ll kerry yer box an’ gear tae th’ gang-way.”
Donald followed him through a cargo shed, dark and dismal in its emptiness. Some sparrows were quarrelling up in the rafters and two pigeons picked vagrant ears of corn from the bare stone floors. Over at an open quayside door, a knot of people were standing, and through the opening one got a glance of the gleaming wet mast of a ship and vertical parallels of new manilla cordage. Tothis door the cabman shouldered Donald’s sea-chest and bed gear and tumbled it down at the shore end of a narrow gang-way. “Ah’ll hae tae leave ye here, mister,” he said huskily. “Ah canny trust ma hoarse tae staund verra long.... Aye! that’ll be two shullin’ for you, sir! Thankye, mister, and a pleasant voyage tae ye!”
The people around the gang-way turned and stared at the boy. There were several shawled women among them, evidently seeing their men off, and some of the men appeared to be very drunk. As Donald pushed through them to get to the gang-way, a man laughed and said, “Make way fur th’ binnacle-boy!” Some of the women laughed also in a manner which testified to the brand of “tea” they had been imbibing that morning.
The gang-way was laid on the ship’s rail and opposite the half-deck, in the door of which a young fellow was standing looking at the dock. Donald addressed him. “Will you give me a hand to get my chest and bedding aboard?” The other growled an “Alright!” and came ashore. He was a youth of about twenty—a big fellow with pleasant features—but he had a glum look in his eyes, and there was a downward droop to his mouth. He followed Donald and roughly elbowed a passage through the group at the gang-way end. One of the shawled women blocked his way with a challenging look on her coarse face, but the youth shouldered her aside ruthlessly, saying, “Out of my way, you——!” Donald was shocked at such treatment of a woman, but he was shocked still more by the oath-besprinkled retort which came from the aggrieved one’s lips.
Both lugged the chest up the gang-way, while the lady of the shawl spoke her mind. “Ye lousy pair o’ brass-bound poop ornaments!” she shrieked. “Ah’d like tae gie ye a scud on yer bloody jaws, ye blankety blank——” One of the drunks beside her whipped his wet cap off his cropped skull and gave the virago a resounding slap across the mouth with it. “Haud yer tongue, ye gabby——!” he growled, but he got no further. With a wild shriek, she turned on him. Off went the shawl, and a fiend of a woman,with tousled hair flying and practically naked above the waist, dug her nails into cropped-head’s ugly face and scraped him from hair to chin. The two of them set-to in earnest—swearing, clawing, punching and kicking like a pair of wild-cats—and the others looked on without attempting to interfere.
Heavy footsteps came padding up the shed. “Chuck it! Here’s the polis!” cried someone, and a stalwart Highland policeman grasped the combatants and swung them apart. “Lemme get at him!” howled the woman—a shocking sight in herdeshabille, but the policeman had her by the arm and held her off in a mighty grip. “Is that your shup?” he asked the man. “Aye, Ah’m sailin’ in her!” growled the fellow, wiping the mud and blood off his ugly face. The officer of the law released the woman and marched the man up the gang-plank. At the rail of the ship he roared, “Hey! tak’ this fella aboard an’ lock him up!” And he swung him down on the barque’s main-deck with no gentle hand. Someone took the man and stowed him away.
Donald had seen his chest stowed inside the half-deck and had watched the rumpus on the dock. “Isn’t that awful?” he said, utterly shocked. The glum-looking youth grunted. “That’s nothing! You’ll see worse’n that some day!” Then the glum look faded somewhat and he regarded Donald curiously. “You’re a new chap?” he enquired. “First voyage, eh?”
Donald nodded. “What’s your name?” enquired the other.
“Donald McKenzie.”
“Mine’s Jack Thompson.” Both boys shook hands. Donald felt that he would like Thompson. They sat down at a small mess-table and talked. Thompson had been at sea three and a half years. He had six months of his time to serve and hoped to go up for his second mate’s ticket by the time theKelvinhaughmade a home port—“if she ever makes a home port,” he added gloomily.
“Why?” asked Donald. He had glanced around theship and she seemed to be a splendid vessel. Everything was brand-new and shining. “She seems a fine ship!”
“Fine hell!” growled the other disgustedly. “She’s nothing but a big steel tank and a cheap one at that! A great big lumbering, clumsy, four-posted box, built by the mile and cut off by the yard, that’ll give us merry blazes when we get outside. I can see what’s before us. She’ll be dirty, wet, and a bloody work-house from ‘way-back. That’s what she’ll be. If I had of seen her before yesterday, I’d have skipped—’pon my soul I would!”
Donald was not unacquainted with the idiosyncrasies of sailors, so he put Thompson’s pessimism down to a sailing-day grouch. They talked a while and Donald learned that there would be two other apprentices who would join the ship at Greenock—a port at the mouth of the Clyde. These lads, together with Thompson and Captain Muirhead, had been together on the barqueDunottar, but this ship had been run into and sunk in the Irish Channel a few months back. The “Dun Line” people had bought theKelvinhaughon the stocks to take the lost vessel’s place in a charter for carrying railroad iron out to the Pacific Coast for one of the Canadian railways. There had been four apprentices on theDunottar, but one of them was drowned when the ship went down. “A first voyager, too,” said Thompson, “but the ruddy young fool went back to save some of his gear and got caught!”
“What kind of a man is Captain Muirhead?” enquired Donald.
“From what I’ve seen of him,” replied the other bluntly, “I don’t like him much. He was only on theDunottarthe voyage she went to the bottom, and as she slid for Davy’s Locker four days after leaving port we didn’t get time to get acquainted. He’s a mean josser and a bad-tempered one too. But what can you expect in one of these ships? McKenzie only pays his skippers twelve pounds a month. Good men wouldn’t go to sea in them for that.” Staring curiously at Donald, he asked, “Your name is McKenzie. Are you any relation to the owner of these hookers?”
“Yes,” replied the other. “He’s my uncle.”
Thompson whistled and said aggressively, “Well, you can tell your uncle next time you write to him that he’s a lousy, miserable swine and that his ships are the worst-fed, worst-rigged, rottenest, under-manned hookers afloat! Wouldn’t I jolly well like to have him aboard one rounding Cape Stiff! He’d get a belly-full of it—the blasted two-ends-and-the-bight of a skin-tight Glasgow miser!”
Donald was not surprised at this freely-expressed opinion of his uncle, but he quickly disabused Thompson’s mind of any intention of writing him. “My uncle isn’t in love with me, and probably doesn’t care two pins about me!” he said shortly.
Thompson laughed. “Oh, well,” he said, “we’re in for it now, and we’ve got to stick it out. Now, sonny, I’m going to give you some tips. First of all, I’m top-dog in this half-deck. I’m the senior apprentice and what I say goes—in here. Remember that!” Donald nodded. “Now,” continued the other, “you seem a nice little chap, so I’ll take you in hand. You take this upper bunk here and chuck your bed-sack and blanket into it. These upper bunks are the best when the water is sloshing in here a foot-and-half deep. Don’t you give that bunk up on any pretence. The others will have to take the lowers, whether they like it or not. Serve ’em right for being ‘last-minute-men’ and not joining the ship here.” Donald hove his bedgear into the bunk. Thompson glanced at the stuff and felt the blanket. “Where did you get that junk? Your uncle fitted you out, ye say? God help ye! It has his trademark—a Parish Rig, a donkey’s breakfast and a bull-wool and oakum blanket! I can see he don’t love ye! Now, son, get those brass-bound rags off and get into your working clothes. You’ll have to turn-to in a minute or so. We’re waiting for the tugs and the Old Man.”
While Donald was changing his clothes the door opened and a tall man about thirty years of age and clad in an oilskin coat and with a badged cap on his head peered inside. He had a clean-cut face, an aquiline nose, piercing greyeyes, a flowing reddish mustache, and he was smoking a cigarette.
“Get ready, naow!” he said in a nasal drawl which bespoke his nationality as American. “I’ll want ye in a minute or so.”
Thompson looked up from the chest he was unpacking. “Yes, sir, we’ll be ready, sir. And, Mr. Nickerson, sir, it’s a dirty morning. Would you care for a nip, sir!”
The other swung his sea-booted feet over the washboard, entered, and closed the door. “Produce th’ med’cine young feller,” he drawled. “The Old Man will be singin’ out in a minute. Who the devil is this nipper?” He indicated Donald with a jerk of his head.
“The new apprentice, sir,” answered Thompson. “Just joined. First voyager, sir.”
The tall man fixed Donald with his gimlet eyes. “What’s yer name, nation, an’ future prospects? Donald McKenzie, eh? Scotch, I cal’late, an’ goin’ to be a sailor I reckon. Waal, let me tell ye, ye’re a bloody fool an’ ye’ll know it before ye’ve bin a dog-watch at sea. I’m the mate of this bally-hoo of blazes, and my name’s Judson Nickerson and I hail from Nova Scotia. When you address me you say ‘Mister’ and ‘sir,’ and when I address you, you jump, see?” He thrust forth a mighty fist and crushed Donald’s hand in a vice-like clasp. “You be a good boy, obey orders an’ look spry, and we’ll get along fine. Skulk, sulk or hang back, and I’ll make you wish you’d never been born!”
Thompson brought forth a bottle of whisky from his chest and handed it to the mate, who tilted it to his lips and swallowed a noggin which caused Donald to stare in amaze. Mr. Nickerson noticed the boy’s wide-opened eyes, and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, laughed. “Never seen a man drink, sonny?” he asked. “Cal’late afore ye’ve made a voyage or two—ef ye live it out—ye’ll drink a bottle at a sitting.” He swung outside again with a parting word to get ready.
Thompson took a swig at the bottle and put it back in the chest, saying, “I’m not going to give you a slug, nipper.You’ll learn quick enough without me starting you off! Curse it! The only way to go to sea is half-drunk anyway.”
There were numerous shouts out on deck and sea-booted feet clattered outside the half-deck door. The crew were being mustered. Mr. Nickerson could be heard singing out, “Look slippy, naow, you damned Paddy Wester! Get that gear away out o’ that!” and “Bos’n! Bos’n! Where in hell is that ruddy bos’n? Aft there an’ git that hawser on th’ poop an’ ready to pass daown to the tug!” Then came a kick at the half-deck door. “Turn out, naow, an’ single them lines aft here!” “Aye, aye, sir!” cried Thompson, and he went out on deck followed by Donald.
The grey dawn was dimming the light of the gas-jets and the morning looked clammy and cold. A number of men were working around the barque’s decks, and there was a crowd of people on the dock looking on. Up the poop ladder scrambled the two boys—Thompson leading—and they proceeded to the port bitts—there to wrestle with a snakey wire mooring hawser and drag it aboard through a quarter-chock. There was a light in the cabin and it shone up through the skylight. McKenzie thought it must be nice and warm and homey down below as he tugged on the cold, wet wire, grimy with coal-dust, and hard on his tender hands.
A big hulking fellow scrambled up the ladder and stood beside them. Donald glanced at him. He had straw-colored hair and a broad, ugly, clean-shaven face. “Vind dot blasted wire on der drum!” he growled at the sweating boys. “Vy der blazes don’t you use your brains! Fetch der end oop here und vind her!” Thompson dragged the end of the wire to an iron drum and wound while Donald “lighted” the hawser along. “Who’s that chap?” asked Donald, when the man had turned away.
“The ruddy Dutchman we have for a second greaser,” replied Thompson with an oath. “Mister Otto Hinkel—a square-head from Hamburg—and a stinkin’ ‘yaw-for-yes’ swine if there ever was one!”
Under the orders of the Nova Scotia mate, the twowere kept busy at various tasks, and within an hour of the time he had come aboard, Donald began to be disillusioned. There was very little romance in what he had seen, heard or done so far. Toiling and sweating in the cold, wet and muck on the barque’s decks, with drunken, fighting men falling foul of them, and cursed at by officers—themselves ill tempered and harassed—who seemed to be absolutely heartless and apparently ready to enforce orders with a blow or a kick, Donald began to recall his father’s words, “It’s a dog’s life at the best of times!” The scenes on the wharf disgusted him, and during a “knock off” to gulp a mug of coffee in the half-deck, he witnessed another dock-side altercation between two “ladies” who both appeared to have a claim of some sort on a stolid Swede, who, drunk and hardly able to stand, stood looking stupidly on.
“Ay tell ju,” screamed one of them, “he’s my hosbond dot man is! His wages cooms to me!”
“Ye’re a liar!” shouted the other, who was Scotch. “He merrit me two years ago! Ah hae ma merridge-lines tae prove it, which is a thing you havny got ye dirrty Dutch——” And she applied an epithet which implied that the lady in question had never received the benefit of clergy in lawful ratification. “Ah, ken ye, ya yalla-haired trollop! Ye hae a boat-load o’ husbands! There’s yin in ivery shup that gaes doon the Clyde——” And casting aside their shawls in the approved Broomielaw fashion, both went for one another in a scratching and hair-pulling contest of most disgusting savagery.
The big Highland dock-policeman sauntered up, and with a blasé expression on his ruddy face tried to separate the combatants. They, however, resented interference and attacked him. His helmet rolled off, to be slyly kicked into the dock by one of the onlookers who detested policemen, and the two women gave him a tough tussle. Grabbing the Swedish damsel, he shoved the Scottish maid on her back in the mud, and blew his whistle. Another policeman ran up. “Pit yer cuffs on that Moll lyin’ doon an’ bring the barra’,” said the helmetless one. “We’ll tak them baith to the offis!” The prostrate woman was evidently too drunk torise, but kicked and struggled fiercely as the policeman snapped the handcuffs on her wrists. Then she lay in the mud with the rain pouring on her naked shoulders, weeping and cursing, while her opponent struggled in the officer’s iron grip. In a few minutes the other policeman appeared with a long, coffin-like hand-cart on two wheels. The lady in the mud was hoisted into it, kicking and screaming, and effectually confined by means of two straps. With one officer pushing the hand-cart, and the other dragging the Scandinavian woman, the procession started up the shed, followed by the “boos” and groans of the spectators.
The man who was the cause of all the row suddenly seemed to wake up. Reaching around the back of his belt, he pulled out a sheath-knife, and shouting, “Ay kill dot feller!” staggered, brandishing the knife, after the policemen. Mr. Nickerson had been calmly watching the fracas from the poop, but when he saw the man moving off, he sprang from the poop rail to the dock, and in two or three long strides, reached the belligerent Swede. In less time than it takes to relate, he had knocked the fellow to the ground, and had twisted the knife out of his hand and sent it spinning along the stone floor of the shed. Then with a mighty heave, he jerked the man to his feet, rushed him up the gang-way, and then hove him from the height of the to’gallant rail to the deck. Leaping after the now thoroughly cowed sailor, the mate booted him into the fore-castle, and then, pensively pulling at his mustache, walked nonchalently aft along the main-deck to the poop, utterly oblivious to the cries of “Bucko!” “Yankee bruiser!” “Come up here an’ try yer fancy tricks an’ we’ll pit a heid on ye!” which came from the coterie on the quayside.
Donald was nauseated by the sights he had witnessed and the manner in which Mr. Nickerson had handled the Swedish sailor frightened him with its brutality. He could hear the heavy thud of the mate’s boots as they were driven into the ribs and back of the man, and it sickened his sensitive soul.
“Ye’re looking white about the gills, kid!” remarked Thompson sarcastically. “What’s worrying ye?”
“Mister Nickerson—and that sailor!” mumbled Donald.
“Huh!” said the other coolly. “He handled him fine! That’s the proper Yankee fashion, though I guess our Old Man wouldn’t like to see the mate hustle them like that around the dock. Liable to get into trouble. This is a British ship and the authorities won’t stand for manhandling if it can be proved.”
It was broad daylight now and the two tugs were alongside. The Blue Peter was flying at the fore, and the Red Ensign from the jigger gaff. Captain Muirhead and the pilot appeared on the poop—the former in his square-topped bowler hat. Coming to the break of the poop, the skipper sung out to the mate, “All hands aboard, mister?”
“Two men short, sir!” answered the mate. “Shipping master says he’ll try and locate them and send them daown to Greenock!”
The master grunted, “We’ll no get them, that’s sure. Weel, we hae tae get oot o’ this. Staund-by fur lettin’ go fore’n aft. Send a hond tae th’ wheel!”
Mr. Nickerson motioned to Thompson. “Go’n take the wheel, you! I cal’late there ain’t a sober man in th’ fo’c’sle. An’ you, nipper,” he said to Donald, “jest stand-by under the break ontil I want ye. Ye’re not much account yet awhile!”
The tow-boat whistled for the swing-bridge at the dock entrance to open, and slowly dragged the deep-laden barque away from the quay. As the single mooring lines were cast off, the onlookers gave a few “Hurrays!” and the women and men yelled to the members of the crew. “Ta, ta, Joak! Bring me hame a parrot—yin that can talk!” “So long, Gus! Look oudt for dot mate! He’s a nigger-driver!” Mr. Nickerson was up on the fo’c’sle-head rousing his Jacks around, and he came in for a number of complimentary epithets. The cook lounged in the door of his galley and as they passed through the swing-bridge piers, he waved his apron at the crowd of workmenwaiting to cross and shouted the time-honored outwardbounder’s fare-ye-well, “Urray for the pier ’ead an’ th’ bloody stiy-at-’omes!”
“Ye may well say it, Slushy!” bawled a man on the pier. “For I’m thinkin’ ye’ll be payin’ yer debts wi’ th’ foretopsail-sheet an’ maybe the polis is lookin’ for ye!” The shot evidently went home for cookie vanished.
Out through the dock walls went the barque, just as the shipyard whistles were blowing for eight o’clock, and with the stern tug straightening her out in the river channel, the ship responded to the pull of the hawser ahead and glided down to the sea.
Donald tramped up and down under the break of the poop keeping himself warm, and in one of his turns he espied a female figure, waving a handkerchief, standing near the Kelvinhaugh Ferry slip. He waved in return. It was his mother, and he leaned over the high rail and watched her until the rainy mist veiled them from each other. Then he turned inboard with a lump in his throat and tears in his eyes. He was feeling miserable, and oh, so lonely! Leaning his head against the rail he began to cry.
“Vot de hell is de matter mit you, boy?” cried a strident voice from above. Donald turned to see the German second mate looking down at him from the poop rail.
“Nothing, sir!”
“Den if nodings is de matter,” growled the other, “you yust belay dot weepings or I gif you somedings to weep for! You go forrard dere und haul down dot Blue Peter und bring it aft here und be damned smardt aboudt it!”
Three hours a member of a ship’s company and Donald was pretty well sick of it all. Nothing of the glory, adventure and romance of the sea and ships had yet unfolded itself to his eyes. No! all he had seen was sordid wharf-side bickerings, evil women and sodden men; dirty menial work and cruel words; autocratic authority, brutality and a scoffing callousness for fine feelings. He thought of these things as he coaxed the outward-bound bunting down andclear of the mazy web of rigging aloft, but with the sight of the sky and the soaring spars and the river gulls, came new heart and determination, and he murmured to himself, “Others have gone through it and came out all right. My daddy came through it all right, and so shall I!”
Thetug pulled theKelvinhaughto the Tail of the Bank and the barque dropped her anchor there. During the journey down the river the second mate kept Donald busy on odd jobs, and several times he was in close proximity to Captain Muirhead, but the latter never even greeted him by word or look. When the tug departed, the Captain eyed the sky, cloudy and overcast, and went below to his cabin. Hinkel also went below, after ordering Donald to sweep up the poop, and he was sweeping when Mr. Nickerson came aft.
“Waal, boy, what d’ye think of it all?” he enquired blithely. “Goin’ to like it?”
“I’ll like it after a while, sir,” answered Donald with a smile. “When I get more used to the ship and the work.”
The mate laughed and a saturnine smile came over his sharp features. “Which means you don’t think a hell of a lot of it so far, eh? Waal, son, ye’re dead right. It’s a dog’s life, and the man who goes to sea for a livin’ nowadays ’ud go to hell for pleasure!” And after delivering the ancient deep sea proverb, he too turned and went below.
After sweeping up the poop, Donald went down to the half-deck and found Thompson having his dinner. “Come along, nipper!” he cried cheerfully. “What’ll you have? Roast stuffed duckling with baked potatoes, string beansand brussels sprouts, jam roly-poly and coffee! How would that suit you?”
“That would suit me fine!” exclaimed Donald eagerly looking for evidences of such a menu.
“You bally well bet it would suit you!” laughed Thompson, “but there ain’t no sich luck, as the Yankees say! Here’s your chow! Dig in and curse your uncle!” As he spoke he pushed a large tin pan containing mushy potatoes and a fat, disgusting lump of pork, towards Donald. He also indicated a hook-pot and a small wooden half-pail. “There’s the tea and coffee in the pot—it’s coffee in the morning and tea at other times, but it’s the same stuff—and there’s hard bread in the barge there. Sink me! I don’t know why I left a comfortable home to go knocking around in one of these mean Scotch ships!”
Donald helped himself to the food and made a meal of the worst viands he had ever swallowed in his life. “Is it always like this?” he asked, disgustedly pushing the mess-kit away from his sight.
“Always like this?” echoed Thompson in mock indignation. “Well, I’m blowed! Godfrey, nipper, you’ll appreciate chow as good as that afore this trip’s ended! Yes, siree! you’ll learn to thank the good Lord for a penny herring and a slice o’ white bread and a real potato yet. And you’ll eat your fill o’ rotten grub afore you hit the beach again, my son! Such ungratefulness, Oliver Twist!—damned if it ain’t!”
Thompson would have continued in this strain for a while, but there came a tug at the half-deck door and two youths leaped in dragging bags and chests. “Hullo, Jack!” shouted both in unison. “Here we are again!” Both were dressed in apprentice’s uniform and were chunky lads around sixteen years of age. “Who’s the new chum, Jack?” queried one—a chubby, curly-haired chap with a pleasant smile and nice white teeth.
Thompson waved a lazy hand. “McKenzie, meet Jenkins and Moore. Jenkins has done one stretch, but Moore has only four days of his four years in. Jenkins here is a fat-head for sleep, while Moore is a young sailor but adamned old soldier and would sooner skulk than work. Now you know them!”
Jenkins laughed, but Moore scowled. He was a swarthy complexioned lad with a large ugly mouth and beady black eyes. Donald sized his two shipmates up quickly. Jenkins would be alright, but Moore would be quarrelsome. Two minutes later, his deductions were verified when both started to protest at having to take lower bunks. “I say, Thompson, old man,” said Jenkins, “the nipper will have to turn out of that bunk—”
“No he won’t,” answered Thompson, calmly smoking away. “I told him to put his truck there and he’ll stay there!”
“Oh, I say, dam’-it-all,” expostulated Jenkins. Moore started to pull Donald’s stuff out of the bunk. Donald jumped to his feet. “What the deuce are you doing with my things?” he cried calmly.
“I’m goin’ to take this bunk,” he growled. “If you or Jenkins want a punch in the jaw, I’ll give it to you!”
Donald realized in a flash that his comfort in future absolutely depended upon himself—nobody else would help him here, so he gave Moore a blow on the mouth with all the power of his right fist. The Irish lad’s beady eyes snapped savagely, and with the blood streaming from his cut lips, he went for Donald and the two mixed it up in a proper rough and tumble.
Thompson jumped from the seat and hauled Moore away. “You leave McKenzie and his bunk alone, you blighter, or I’ll wipe the deck with you! You take that bunk there and be blamed glad to get it!” And he hove Moore down into the worst located of the two lowers.
Donald sat down panting with an eye which was rapidly discoloring. “I say, Jenkins,” he said to the other apprentice, “I’m sorry to have done you out of a good bunk, but I’m game to toss you for it—” “No, you won’t,” laughed Jenkins. “It serves me right for not joining the ship in Glasgow. First come, first served. You keep the bunk, nipper. Let’s have a drink!” He produceda bottle of whisky, and on Donald refusing to join in, they offered a drink to Moore, who sullenly accepted.
This whisky drinking by lads of sixteen and twenty rather shocked Donald, but he had scarcely been an hour in the company of the three before he heard enough to convince him that there wasn’t much in the way of vice they didn’t know. The drinking, swearing, and the recounting of vicious adventures and questionable stories caused Donald to wonder why such wickedness was not visited by instant retribution from Heaven. Blasphemy and the ribald use of the most sacred things seemed to roll from the tongues of his companions like water from a fountain.
Thompson had been applying himself to the bottle rather heavily and he was fast becoming “tight.” He turned around to Donald, who was sitting on his chest listening to the talk. “Look at that poor l’il devil there!” he drawled thickly. “I like that l’il feller—he’s such a pale-faced skinny l’il nipper. He c’d crawl through a ring-bolt, by Godfrey! Ne’mind, son! You’ve jus’ got t’ learn to drink a four-finger nip ‘thout blinkin’ or coughin’, an’ learn to spin nine hundred dirty yarns, an’ swear to music, an’ keep watch snoozin’ between bells, an’ you’ll be a real dyed-in-the-wool shellback, with every finger a fishhook, and every hair a ropeyarn, an’ blood of Stockholm tar!” Thompson rambled on. “His uncle owns this hooker. Th’ lousy Scotch miser! But he don’t love that kid, he don’t. Sends him to sea in this ruddy coffin an’ fits him out with a donkey’s breakfast and a dog’s wool blanket an’ a kit ye could shoot peas through—”
A heavy tramp of sea-booted feet halted outside. Jenkins whipped the bottle away, as the broad ugly face of Mr. Hinkel appeared in the door. “Now, den, vot are you lazy defils loafin’ avay your time in here for?” he rasped in his guttural brogue. “Gome oudt of dot und bear a hand to bend der flying yib und overhaul some of der gear aloft. Dam’ rigger’s snarls everywhere und dam’ lazy boys loafin’ und yarnin’ und egspecting Gottalmighty to do der vork!” He slammed the door and Jenkins extended aspread hand with a thumb to his nose, while Thompson cursed the second mate for a “beastly yumping yiminy Yudas Dutchman!”
The boys toiled and mucked all afternoon in the rain and bitter wind, and Donald crawled to his bunk at seven that evening aching in every limb and muscle and with his hands skinned and painful. For hours he tossed around listening to the snores of his ship-mates, and the sighing of the rain-laden wind in the gear aloft. It had been an eventful day, but a day in which his clean ideal of a sea-life had been rudely shattered. He was seeing it now in its naked, unvarnished, unromantic reality, and he was realizing that if he would hold his own he must protect his rights by physical force and steel himself to endure many hardships in soul and body; case-harden his finer feelings, and rigorously restrain all impulses of sympathy and the fine charity which can be exhibited ashore. His father was the embodiment of all that was good and honorable and kind, yet, no doubt, he was as unimpressionable and as callous as Thompson or even Mr. Nickerson, while roughing it in his early days at sea. He thought of Thompson and Jenkins. Both these lads were “straight” according to youthful ethics, but how rough and tough they were in their sea-life, yet, in their homes they were possibly, and probably, as fine, true and as honorable young fellows as those environed by gentler walks of life. Sea-ways were not shore-ways, and it did not take Donald long to find out that a sea-life would make of a man exactly what he himself desired. Youth was left very much to his own resources. There was no mother to caress or to correct in a ship’s half-deck, and in the ruck of it all, with its disgusting familiarity, evil talk and callousness, the lad who had the instincts of a gentleman and a clean heart implanted in him, would come through it without being contaminated in mind or speech or diseased in body.
TheKelvinhaughlay for three days at the Tail of the Bank getting ready for sea. Though a brand new ship and fresh from the riggers’ yard, yet there was more to do in getting her ready than in a craft that had been undersailors’ hands for a dozen voyages. Standing gear had to be screwed up again, running gear rove off through the right leads and a hundred and one small gadgets installed which riggers omit and sailors have to fit. In this work, Donald did his share and spent many hours aloft working with the other lads. There was a rare thrill in this climbing and toiling with good honest cordage up in the tops and on the yards—and he felt that clambering and swinging about on the barque’s dizzy eminences savored of the real adventure of sea-faring. Like all boys, he could climb, and being free from giddiness, he thoroughly enjoyed the view from aloft. Looking down on the ship, she appeared to his unsailorly eye, a most beautiful model, and the men working on deck seemed as pigmies, while he, suspended like Mahomet’s tomb, between sea and sky, felt a strange exhilaration—a sensation which lent zest to the work and made him look to the future with a happier heart. Alas, he was unconsciously imbibing the doctrines of all sailoring, in which one remembers the good times and forgets the hardships and the miserable days.
On the third day there was enough blue in the sky “tae mak’ a Hielanman a pair o’ breeks” and the wind was coming away fair for a slant south. The two short-shipped men had turned up, dazed and useless in the aftermath of a carouse, and were in the fo’c’sle “sleeping it off.” At nine a tug came out, and the bos’n having got steam up in the donkey, the anchor was hove up without capstan-bar or chantey, and theKelvinhaughtrailed at the end of a tow-line down the Firth of Clyde with a fresh northerly breeze whipping the short combers into white-capped corrugations.
By mid-afternoon the barque had pulled through the Cumbraes and the captain was up on the poop squinting around. He had discarded his shore toggery and slumped around in a cloth cap, a cardigan jacket, heavy woollen pants and carpet slippers. After a long scrutiny of sky and sea, and a tap at the mercurial barometer hanging in the chart-house, he spoke to the mate. “We’ll get the muslin on her when she comes up wi’ Arran. Wi’ thisnortherly we’re no needin’ a tug and A’m thinkin’ we’ll be safe in rinnin’ doon the Irish Channel.”
The mate nodded. “Aye, sir. Looks like a fair wind, sir!” And he sniffed at the breeze like a hound scenting his quarry. The Old Man grunted and resumed his pacing along the weather side of the poop.
When the high purple-heathered hills of Arran came abeam, the master ceased his pacing. “Get yer tops’ls on her, mister!” he ordered the mate, and his quiet command seemed to galvanize ship and crew to stirring action. “Loose tops’ls!” roared Mr. Nickerson, and the hands working on “stowing-away” jobs, at which they were time-spinning, seemed to be imbued with new life. “Loose tops’ls—he says!” cried the bos’n directing his squad. “Move yerselves, blast ye! Loose th’ fore, you! Main an’ mizzen you! Look spry now, my sons, or ye’ll have th’ mate down among ye wi’ some Yankee salt to put on yer tails!” The lattersotto voce.
Donald went up with Thompson to the lower mizzen topsail yard, and under the senior apprentice’s direction, cast the confining gaskets adrift. Almost simultaneously from the three masts came the shout, “All gone, sir. Sheet home!” As the canvas rustled and flapped from the yards and bellied in the restraining gear, the mate’s nasal bawlings could be heard injecting action. “Lay daown from aloft you skulkers ’n get some beef on them tops’l sheets. Look slippy naow!” The chain sheets rattled and clanked through the sheaves as the men, standing on the fife-rail and deck, hove down, “hey-ho’ing!” and barking, on the slack and brought the lower clews of the fore lower topsail nigh to the sheaves of the fore-yard-arms. A man squinted aloft after the last sweat had been given at the sheets. “What a hell ov a poor cut sail,” he remarked.
“To yer main an’ mizzen tops’ls naow!” came the mate’s roar. “Never mind gamming. Ye’re not on a spouter (whaler)!” Main and mizzen lower topsails were set to the wind, and theKelvinhaughstarted to drive ahead on her own and the tow-rope began to light up. “Up on yer foretopm’st-stays’l!” “Stand-by to get that tow-lineaboard. For’ard with ye!” The tug blew a blast of her whistle and made a wide sheer from under the bows. The tow-rope was let go, and while twenty men hauled the wet, snakey manilla aboard over the foc’slehead, the tug steamed around and came up on the barque’s weather quarter to receive a material valediction—in the shape of a bottle of whisky—and the last letters. Donald saw the package being thrown down on the tug’s decks at the end of a heaving-line, and he watched with some anxiety for the safety of the hastily-written note which he had indited to his mother. It was a cheerful note—full of optimism which he did not feel when writing it, and he played up the most promising and alluring aspects of a sea-life and the men in whose company he would be for many months. Poor lad! the romantic ideal was fast fading and it was hard to write paragraphs of happy fiction with Thompson and Jenkins swapping gloomy prognostications for the future over the mess-table.
The tow-boat blew a long farewell blast from her whistle and dropped astern. Within five minutes she had swung around and was steaming up the Firth as fast as her slatting paddle-blades would take her, and with her went theKelvinhaugh’slast link with the land for many a long day.
“Upper tops’ls naow!” came the order, and under the curseful directions of the two mates and the bos’n, able-bodied, ordinary and apprentice seamen were hustled from job to job, and in the midst of the action, Donald scarce realized that he was assisting to carry out those wonderful manœuvres over which he had gloated in printed page. Somehow the actual seemed different from the visionary. There was surly venom in the barking orders of—“Tops’l halliards naow an’ put yer bloody backs into it you lazy hounds!” and such bitter remarks as “Struth! A poor bunch of beef in this crowd. Sailormen have all died an’ nawthin’ left naow but skulking kids an’ broken-down sojers!” which came from the mate. In the novels the mate was usually a bluff, fatherly old codger who sung out “Heave away, my lads!” or “Haul away, myhearties!” in a hurricane roar, and with many good-humored asides interspersed between orders, but in cold realism on theKelvinhaugh, Donald felt that Mr. Nickerson was only using his tongue because he was denied the use of his fist and boot, and the hulking German second mate growled and grunted and pushed in sullen self-restraint because British sea laws forbade him commencing the voyage by killing someone.
Running with square yards past the Arran hills, the deep-laden barque ploughed along with all hands sweating at the halliards and sheets and dressing theKelvinhaughin her “muslin.” Her tops’l yards were heavy, and it did not take the old hands in the crew long to realize that they had signed in a “work-house” in this short-handed, heavily-sparred craft. With the tops’l halliards led to a main-deck capstan, the crew stamped around straining at the bars in sullen silence. The stolid, brutal German barked guttural curses—he was too thick-headed to notice anything unusual in this silent labor, but the keen-eared mate sensed the absence of the deep-water working chorus, and he was down on the scene in a minute giving tongue.
“Come on thar’, bullies! Ain’t thar’ a chantey-man in the crowd? Strike a light someone! A chantey does the work of ten men, so walk her raound an’ sing aout!” A West Indian negro showed his white teeth in an ingratiating smile and the mate spied him. “A black-bird to sing every time!” he cried. “Come you coon—loosen up yer pipes an’ shout an’ walk them tops’l yards to the mast-head!” Thus encouraged, the negro commenced in a clear tenor,
“Shanandoah, I love yore daughter!”
“Shanandoah, I love yore daughter!”
“Shanandoah, I love yore daughter!”
“Bark you hounds!” roared the mate. “Sing aout an’ heave ’round!” And the chorus was timidly voiced in half-a-dozen keys.
“Away! My rolling river!”
“Away! My rolling river!”
“Away! My rolling river!”
The black soloist pushed and sang.
“Oh, Shanandoah, I loves to hear yo!”
“Oh, Shanandoah, I loves to hear yo!”
“Oh, Shanandoah, I loves to hear yo!”
Then the crowd, warming to their work, roared in unison.
“Ah, ha, we’re bound away—’Cross the wide Missouri!”
“Ah, ha, we’re bound away—’Cross the wide Missouri!”
“Ah, ha, we’re bound away—
’Cross the wide Missouri!”
The ancient chantey “took hold” and the men woke up from their sullen apathy and stamped around the clinking capstan roaring the plaintive refrains to the negro’s quavering solo. The mate stood watching with a smile on his keen visage. “That’s what we want to hear aboard these hookers!” he said. “When I don’t hear a craowd singin’ out they’re liverish and I’m ready to dose ’em up with a double whack of black draught!”
Whether it was through a new spirit of cheerfulness at getting under sail or through dread of the old sea medicine, the crowd commenced chanteying, and in hauling out the topgallantsail sheets and mastheading the royal yards, Donald felt something of seafaring romance, amidst the hard work and his burning hands, in lustily bawling the ancient choruses of “Sally Brown I love yer daughter!” “Whisky Johnny,” or “On the plains of Mexico.”
By the time Pladda was abeam, it was becoming dark, and the barque, sail-clad from scupper to truck, was rolling, a creamy “bone in her teeth” from her blunt bows and slugging along with a slight roll to port and starboard. With the blue bulk of Ailsa Craig ahead over the jib-boom and her royals and fores’l set, the big wind-jammer began to smell the windy spaces of her unsailed traverses, while aft on the poop paced the Old Man—proud of his new command and anxious to see how she was shaping up. Down in the half-deck, Donald, aching in bone and muscle, and with hands blistered, skinned and paining, gulped his tea in a daze, with but one consuming desire—to get into his bunk and court blessed oblivion.
“Clang-ClangClang-clang! Clang-clang! Clang-clang!” Four double tolls sounded on the bell aft betokened the sea-time of eight bells in the second dog-watch, or 8 p.m. shore time. Donald was half dozing in his bunk and listening aimlessly to the hardened Thompson holding forth to Jenkins. “Mark my words ... a ruddy workhouse. No takin’ yer ease on this lime-juicer ... nigger-drivin’, back-breakin’ starvation Scotch tank ... rotten dead cargo.... She’ll be a truck to steer ... and a swine to tack. All day to-day ... sweating ... calashee watch....” He growled away pessimistically while Donald nodded with eyes closed. Moore was in his bunk asleep. He, like Donald, was tired and sore, but bore it in sulky silence.
“Lay aft all handts!” bawled Mr. Hinkel on the main-deck. Jenkins gave Donald a rude shake and brought him to wakefulness with a yell. “Muster out on deck, nipper! Picking the watches, I guess!”
Donald scrambled out into the darkness. The barque was running with her yards square and the trucks swayed slightly across the stars. A light was blinking abeam, and the following wavelets plashed and hissed against the vessel’s sides. The men were coming from for’ard and collected in knots under the poop-break. “Come up on the poop, men!” cried the mate, leaning over the rail.
Up on the poop the wind blew cold and Donald shivered.The mate stood by the lighted binnacle with the ship’s articles in his hands.
“Sing aout naow while I call school!” he said, and he read:
“Jones!”
“Here, sir!” came from one of the crew.
“Stand to one side after you answer your names!” ordered the officer.
“Barclay!” The black chantey-man answered and joined Jones, and the mate mustered representatives of four continents as he drawled, “Valdez!”—“Si, senor!”
“Hansen!”—“Yaw, sir!”
“McLean!”—“Aye, mister!”
“Yedon—what th’ hell is this? Yedon—”
A man answered, “Yedonowskivitch, sir!”
“’Struth,” growled the officer, “yer blasted name is as long as a flyin’ jib’alliard! Yed is your name from now on!” The Russian grunted and joined the men who had been checked off.
Englishman, Irishman, Scotchman, Welshman, Japanese, Swede, Dane, German, Norwegian, Russian, Canadian, American, West Indian, Spaniard and South African represented theKelvinhaugh’slaborers, and as Donald viewed them, he wondered how it was possible for such a cosmopolitan and ill-favored gang to be gathered together. Dressed in various garbs, scarcely one looked to be a sailor, but the keen-eyed mates knew that clothes and general appearance do not mark the man who is rated “Able Bodied” and who can “hand, reef and steer.” When the watch picking began, the first man Mr. Nickerson picked was the cropped head McLean, whose face still carried the marks of the clawing he had received on the Glasgow dock, yet Donald would have sworn that this fellow was a steamship fireman or a ship-yard laborer. But they were a small, weak-looking crowd after all, and when the boy scanned the little group and allowed his eyes to wander over the barque’s great hull and the mighty fabric towering aloft—ponderous and unwieldy in the gloom—he realized something of Thompson’s forebodings and comparedthe little company of ill-assorted humans, who were to work the ship to her destination, to a squad of pigmies doomed to undertake the tasks of giants.
Much to his dismay, Donald found himself listed with the “starbowlines,” under the broad-faced Mr. Hinkel. Thompson was picked for the mate’s watch and would rank as “acting third mate,” and Chubby Jenkins was along with him. For a watch-mate, Donald had the surly Moore, and he felt that the luck was against him every way.
“Alright, men,” said Mr. Nickerson when the watch picking was over. “Starboard watch keeps the deck until midnight. Relieve the wheel and look-out, and go below the port watch!”
Though dreadfully tired and aching in every bone and muscle, Donald had to remain on deck until mid-night, and Mr. Hinkel, with brutal directness, gave him a lecture on his watch-keeping duties. “You keep oop here und avake and don’t you let me catch you skulkin’. You keep der binnacle lamps trimmed und vatch der time und strike der bells und you keep handy so dot I can see you on der lee side der poop!” And with a few curseful remarks about being pestered with useless, lazy boys, he turned and began pacing to windward. For four long hours, Donald trudged with leaden feet on a monotonous round—binnacle to cabin gangway (to squint at the clock) and gangway to poop bell. Feeling “played out,” he heaved a sigh of relief when midnight came around and he belled the news with a feeling of anticipatory pleasure in the hours of restful sleep to come.
Utterly exhausted with a “calashee” (all hands working) watch of eighteen hours—the most of which was hard labor—Donald kicked off his boots and rolled into his bunk “all standing” and slept like a dead man until Jenkins yelled “Eight bells! Turn out!” at 3.45 a.m. Moore, who had dodged the second mate during the first watch and had stolen a snooze then, turned out, dressed and went on deck without giving his watch-mate another shake. When the starbowlines mustered aft, Donald wasmissing, and only reported after Thompson had roused him out of a heavy slumber.
The tyrannous Mr. Hinkel had something to say when McKenzie came up on the poop ten minutes after the bell had tolled. “Vy der hell dond’t you turn oudt ven you are called?” he snarled. “By Gott, I’ll make you spry!” He turned and sung out to the bos’n. “Gedt a pot of slush und let dis lazy defil grease down der yigger-top-masdt!” Donald went to the lee side of the poop, nervous and apprehensive at the nature of the punishment to be meted to him for lack of punctuality in turning out on his second watch in the ship.
The bos’n, a kindly Dane, who had sailed so long in English ships as to have sunk his nationality, brought the tin slush-pot upon the poop and called to the wondering Donald. “Here, son,” he said quietly so that the second mate could not hear. “Dam’ shame sendin’ a raw nipper like you aloft on a job like this for bein’ a minute or two late. In decent ships the new boys ain’t allowed above the tops until they’ve bin a month at sea. Howsomever, son,“—rigging a bos’n’s chair to the halliards as he talked—“don’t git narvous. I’ll tend th’ halliard an’ lower ye down as ye sing out. Put the lanyard o’ this slush-pot aroun’ yer neck an’ grease th’ mast wit’ yer hands. Tie this bit o’ line aroun’ th’ topm’st when ye get above th’ eyes o’ the riggin’ so’s ye won’t swing out when she rolls. Don’t be scared, son, you’ll be alright.”
“I’m not scared, bos’n,” answered Donald, taking his seat in the chair, with the foul smelling pot of grease around his neck. Up to the block of the halliard he went—clutching the mast, as the bos’n hoisted him up, to keep from swinging, pendulum-wise, with the roll of the barque. It was dark, but clear, and the stars shone bright in the cold morning air. Far away to port a light blinked somewhere on the Galloway coast, and from his lofty perch, he could see the wake made by the ship’s passage fading into the murk astern. The rolling of the vessel was more pronounced up aloft, and before he commenced “slushing-down,” he took a turn of the line around themast as the bos’n had advised, but even then, he swayed ominously and the grease smelt indescribably foul.
Dipping his sore hands into the mess, he massaged the smooth pole with the grease as the bos’n lowered him down. It was very cold up aloft and the rolling and the foul smell of the slush was making him dizzy with nausea. Within a few minutes, he was deathly sick and hung to the spar, white-faced and with the perspiration breaking out on him. Try as he might to regain control of himself, Donald had to succumb to the dreadfulmal-de-mer, and with a feeble “Look-out, below!” he made his first contribution to Neptune.
A volley of German curses from the poop apprised him of the fact that the second mate had received evidence of his indisposition—Mr. Hinkel having, unfortunately, strode to loo’ard just when Donald was ejecting the “longshore swash out of his stomach.” The realization of what had happened frightened all the sea-sickness out of him, and he resumed his task, fearful of the consequences when he reached the deck. Coming down the mast, he wondered, as he had often wondered of late, what fascination there was in a sea-life that sent lads to sea.
On deck again after the job was done, the bos’n met him with a grin. “Ye put it all over th’ secon’ greaser,” he said. “He’s for’ard cleaning himself off.” Donald felt too nervous to smile. Mr. Hinkel would have something to say to him when he came aft.
While he was talking to the bos’n, Captain Muirhead slipped quietly around the chart-house and stood before them. “Whaur’s the second officer?” he said in a quiet, but ominous tone.
“Th’ lad here, sir, was up aloft slushin’ down an’ took sick an’ Mister Hinkel got it, sir,” answered Martin somewhat eagerly. “He’s gone for’ard to get somethin’ to clean hisself off with, sir!”
The Old Man muttered unintelligibly under his breath, stared over the port rail at something ahead, and then gave a quiet-spoken order to the man at the wheel. The helmwas shifted, and when the second mate came aft, the skipper called him. Pointing into the gloom for’ard, he said: “Do you see that ship ahead?” Hinkel followed the direction of the Old Man’s hand. “Yaw, sir!” he answered. A new phase of the silent Captain Muirhead’s character was revealed to Donald in the violent outburst which came from his lips. “Then what th’ hell dae ye mean by leavin’ th’ poop afore we’re clear o’ th’ Firth,” he thundered in a strident voice so utterly different from his usual quiet-spokeness. “What’s yer look-out doin’? Asleep, I suppose? Damn yer bloody eyes, we’d ha’ been intae that fella if Ah hadna jist spied her! Your place is here, mister, especially while we’re in th’ midst o’ Channel traffic. Ye’ll no dare tae leave this poop in your watch onless Ah’m here, or th’ mate, or unless it’s necessary fur th’ safety o’ th’ shup! Awa’ forrit an’ see if yer look-out’s awake!”
Hinkel made no reply but slouched down the poop ladder, and a moment after his guttural cursing could be heard as he dressed down the sleepy watchman on the fo’c’sle-head. “Hinkel will not love you for this night, son,” remarked the bos’n. “He’s an ugly swine, so keep out of his way.”
Donald discreetly kept to loo’ard when Hinkel came aft again. The captain paced the poop for a spell and then went below. Donald heard the second mate growl something to the man at the wheel, and a moment afterwards turned to find the hulking German in the gloom alongside of him. Hinkel grasped him by the arm in a grip that made him wince. “Jou verdammt schweinehunde!” he snarled through gritted teeth and shaking the boy violently. “Mein Gott! Ich like fur kick jou in der vasser—jou cursed rat! Jou look oudt! I’ll sveat jou fur dis!” In his rage he was almost unintelligible and he concluded by heaving Donald violently away from him.
During the rest of the watch the boy attended most assiduously to his duties, as he knew he had made an enemy who would only need a slight excuse to wreak vengeance on him, but in a way that would be upheld by theBritish Merchant Shipping laws and the officials administering it.
With a fair wind and fine weather, theKelvinhaughcleared the St. George’s Channel and swung away S.W. across the broad expanse of the North Atlantic for the equator and on the deepwaterman’s track which would bring her in the vicinity of the land again at Cape San Roque on the Brazilian coast. It was fine weather for the ship, but it wasn’t fine weather for Donald. Captain Muirhead ignored him absolutely, at least by speech, though he watched him at work often with furtive glances. The Old Man was not much of a conversationalist, but he did talk to the other apprentices, and his ignoring of young McKenzie was commented on in the half-deck. Thompson summed it up, rather brutally, but Donald knew that he meant it in a kindly spirit. “Nipper,” he said, “your uncle has no love for you or the Old Man would be falling all over you. Your stingy Scotch relative looks upon you as a charity brat—it don’t need but half an eye to see that, for he sent you to sea parish-rigged, with an outfit as mean as what ye’d get from a boarding-house master in Jerusalem. He shoved you off here as the cheapest thing he could do—an apprentice without a premium paid down—and he’ll see that you work for your keep and clothes. The skipper knows it, and that square-headed Hinkel knows it, for he’d never dare treat any of us other fellows the way he treats you. Your best friend aft here is that hard-case Blue-nose mate.... And, say, kid, just you make that skulker Moore do his share. He’s sojerin’ around in here smoking and loafing while you’re on deck. Why doesn’t Hinkel get afterhim, I’d like to know? You just bring Moore to his bearings, kid, and jab him one on the jaw if he gets lippy!” Donald thanked the senior apprentice with tears in his eyes. Ever since he had come aboard this ship, it had required all his nerve and courage to keep from breaking down at the petty tyrannies and persecutions of the second mate. The captain must be abetting his officer, or why didn’t he interfere in cases where, as Donald knew, he, as an apprentice, was not supposed to be ordered to perform. Tasks, which in most ships were done by olderhands, were delegated to McKenzie, and he carried them out cheerfully, thinking that he was going through the rigorous course prescribed for those who would become “compleat and perfect seamen.”
Mr. Nickerson seemed indeed to be his best friend among the after guard. Though not in the mate’s watch, yet that officer did not take long to size Donald up as a lad having the right spirit in him for a sailor. He was willing and jumped to obey a command. He was intelligent and mastered the intricacies of the big barque’s rigging and gear in less time than most green hands would have taken to determine bow from stern and starboard from port. In the dog-watches and on Sundays, the mate took Donald in hand and taught him how to steer, and by the time theKelvinhaughhad picked up the north-east trade winds in the latitude of the Canaries, he was able to take a wheel in fine weather and steer “by the wind” or by compass.
The Nova Scotian’s lessons were forceful and not readily forgotten. “I jest show a boy once,” he used to say, “an’ then I expect him to go ahead an’ do it himself. When I have to show a thing twice I ram it home with a rope’s end!” Jenkins and Moore—the latter especially—had cause to fear the mate’s teachings, but Donald stood high in his favor through his intelligent grasp of things and the will to master a problem. To the other apprentices and in the eyes of the hands for’ard, Nickerson was a “ruddy Yankee bucko,” and it must be admitted, the epithet was justified, for he was a “taut” hand and made no bones about using his fist or boot to accentuate “nippiness.”
By the time the barque caught the “trades,” and in spite of the miserable food supplied, young McKenzie had toughened up wonderfully. The continual “horsing” to which he was being subjected by his watch officer seemed to be the very elixir necessary to building up his apparently frail constitution. His muscles and sinews hardened and developed; his eyes were clear and bright, and the sallowness of his face became replaced by a healthy tan. The soft hands became hard and horny-palmed, while hismovements were quick and active under the spur of the mate’s teachings and the second mate’s spite. If the sea killed some boys, it was making a man of Donald, and he recalled the old Glasgow specialist’s advice to his mother, “He’ll be as tough as a louse an’ as hard tae kill!”
While he had benefitted physically through a sea-life, his boyish ideals of the romance and adventure of seafaring had been ruthlessly shattered. His treatment on theKelvinhaughhad practically killed all the thrilling fancies and dreams of his home days. He was beginning to realize his father’s words, “It’s a dog’s life at the best of times!” and even the blue-skied “trades,” with the barque bowling along through the azure ocean under clouds of brand-new canvas, white as snow, failed to awake in him the same enthusiasm as the ideal about which he had dreamed. True! they were glorious days—for a passenger or the officers, maybe—but for Donald, hard-worked and living on wretched provender and environed by men whose imaginations were dead, the “trade” latitudes were but periods in a voyage, just as summer and winter were seasonal phases in a calendar year. Had he gone to sea under better auspices, his enjoyment of the sea and its glories would have been different.
There was one lesson he did learn and which he ever afterwards retained as a permanent part of his character, and that was dependence upon himself and the submergence of sensitiveness and meek toleration of injustices from equals. The rough talk of the half-deck and the cutting jibes of his shipmates no longer wounded his sensibilities. While he retained his inbred gentleness, yet he case-hardened it with an armor of indifference not to be easily penetrated. Physically, he resented being imposed upon by others not entitled to command obedience, and gained his first step in that resolution in a “show down” with his apprentice watch-mate, Moore.
The surly youth had never forgiven McKenzie for the bunk episode when the ship was at Greenock. He also attempted, by reason of the fact that he had served four days of his time at sea in the lostDunottar, to claimseniority over Donald and to delegate to the latter the job of “Peggy” for the half-deck. Donald was willing to do his share of fetching the food from the galley and in cleaning out the apprentice’s quarters, but he began to resent doing all of it. Moore considered that Donald’s willingness to do mess-boy work for the crowd was a tacit acknowledgment of his seniority and freedom from such menial tasks, but he over-stepped the bounds one dog-watch when he insolently ordered McKenzie to sweep up the floor of the boys’ quarters, after he had littered it with shavings from a model which he was whittling. Donald had swept the half-deck out earlier in the day, and calmly told Moore that “as you’ve made the mess, it is up to you to clean it up!” Thompson was in his bunk reading, but hearing the words between the two, he knocked off to watch events.
“D’ye hear me, nipper!” growled Moore threateningly. “I told you to clane this litter up. Git now or I’ll be after makin’ ye!”
Donald stood up, determined and very cool. “Moore!” he said calmly, “I’ve made up my mind that I’m a better man than you, so put up your hands, for I’m going to knock the tar out of you!” And he went for the other like a shot out of a gun.
Moore was bigger and heavier than Donald, but he was one of the kind who “sojered” in a heave or a haul and only exerted his strength when he had to. When Donald was toiling under Hinkel’s eye, Moore was “sun-fishing” somewhere. Hinkel was too busy horsing McKenzie to care a continental what Moore was doing, and it was thought by some of the hands that the second mate had received a substantial monetary consideration from the Irish lad to allow him a “jack-easy” time. Moore’s people were wealthy brewers in Liverpool, and he went to sea with plenty of money. However, Mr. Hinkel’s attentions to Donald proved Moore’s undoing. As a physical developer of soft muscles, the second mate had been a success as far as Donald was concerned, and within five minutes, the younger lad had Moore backed up against the bulk-headand was “knocking the tar” out of him with fists as hard and as bony as though shod with knuckle-dusters. Thompson was sitting up in his bunk betting plugs of tobacco on the outcome of the “mill” with Jenkins and the bos’n, who were watching from the door. The sail-maker and carpenter were craning through the ports, thoroughly enjoying the “scrap” and murmuring, “Good fur the wee fella! He’s a richt nippy yin wi’ his dukes!”
Moore, badly mauled, hauled down his flag, and Donald broke away from him. With a new gleam in his eyes—both puffed from some of Moore’s shots—he said, “From now on, Moore, you’ll go half and half in any work that’s to be done in here, and you’ll begin now and do a week’s “Peggy” for what I’ve been doing since we up-hook’d, or I’ll turn to and plug you some more!”
Thompson laughed. “That’s talking, nipper,” he said, “ride him down! You gave that Irish puddler just what he was bearing up for!” And Donald felt that he had gone a step up on the ladder of the spirit that makes the man.