Themonotonous routine of uneventful sea-life saw the big barque across the equatorial line, and the usual spell of windless calms had to be endured when theKelvinhaughleft the dying trade winds astern in nine degrees north. After a stretch of twenty-five days, “bracing up” and “squaring away” to innumerable “cat’s paws” and flickering zephyrs, the vessel picked up the south-east trades a few degrees south of the line and, braced sharp up, made brave sailing for such a huge heavily laden craft. So far the weather had been fine and the barque had not yet been called upon to match her clumsy fabric with angry wind and sea.
It does not take a ship’s company long to size up the condition of things aboard ship, and fo’c’sle and half-deck gossip showed that the hands had pretty well taken the measure of the after-guard. Captain Muirhead turned out to be a cheap skipper, a sulky old bear, an indifferent sailor and over-fond of the bottle. In the calm, windless doldrums, he never came up on deck but what the aroma of whisky travelled with him. On these occasions he was more talkative than usual, and exhibited a fondness for yarning with the second mate. The big German would act so openly servile during these phases of the captain’s favor, that the crew had him designated as a “ruddy skipper licker.” Curiously enough, when the Old Man was sober, he treated Hinkel to the rough side of his tonguepretty frequently, and would often call him to task for errors and omissions in seamanship.
With Mr. Nickerson the case seemed to be different. The master had very little to say to him at any time, but the mate acted on numerous occasions as if he had but little use for his commander. Nickerson was undoubtedly a splendid seaman, and Martin, the bos’n, openly averred that he was the smartest mate he had ever sailed with as far as his seamanship was concerned. Thompson bore testimony to the Nova Scotian’s skill as a navigator, and stated that he had taught him wrinkles in working difficult problems which would have stumped many an extra master. But Mr. Nickerson’s harsh treatment of the crew did not win him their affections, though it commanded their fear and respect.
As the days passed, Donald prayed fervently for the voyage to end. Hinkel was fast making his life a burden to him, while Thompson’s and the bos’n’s gloomy prognostications of the future in the barque did not tend to hearten his outlook on the days to come. The boy did not worry much about the third mate’s prophecies of disaster, but when Martin began growling, it was time to take notice. “Mark me well,” croaked he to the hands, “we’ll catch hell in this hooker. Th’ pitch o’ th’ Horn in July ain’t a good season for this big hulk down there, an’ she’ll be a man-killer! Mark me well! Them big heavy yards an’ sails an’ a long ship an’ a deep ship means work an’ dirt. She’s slower’n blazes in answerin’ her helm and a lazy swine in coming about—always gittin’ in irons. An’ she’ll be wet ... a ruddy half-tide rock! Th’ grass’ll grow on them there decks afore we get around. Aye! Mark me well! There’ll be th’ devil to pay an’ no pitch hot when we gitdown there!”
The continual croaking about “down there” had but little effect upon Jenkins and Moore. Both had never rounded the Horn; could not imagine its frightfulness, and were not worrying. “Come day, go day, God send Sunday!” was their motto. The barque was so big and new that the Horn had no terrors in their imaginations. In asmaller, older ship it might be bad, but in the big newKelvinhaugh?—Tcha! there was nothing to it! Donald, however, was not so optimistic. Possibly the nigger-driving he was continually subjected to somewhat obscured any rosy outlook on the future. Anyhow, he prepared for the worst and did what he could to make his poor kit fit for dirty weather and a long spell of it. Jenkins and Moore had plenty of clothes—they would pull through alright, but Donald, with his wretched rig, knew that he would get nothing more to augment it this side of the Horn. In such straits a boy could not but wish that the voyage would end.
Hinkel became more tyrannous as the barque reached to the south’ard, subjecting McKenzie to numerous petty tyrannies known in seafaring parlance as “work-up jobs.” A favorite trick of the second mate’s was to tug slyly on the bunt and leech-lines—breaking the twine or yarn which kept them from chafing the sails. He would then sing out for McKenzie to lay aloft and overhaul and stop the gear from the royal down, generally around the end of a watch. Poor Donald would have to skip up with a fist-full of rope-yarns and finish the task by the time his watch had been anywhere from half to an hour in their bunks. Aye, there are a hundred and one ways in which a despotic officer can break the spirit of a man or boy at sea! One incident north of the Plate showed the true calibre of the man, and gave Donald an experience he was never likely to forget. It was one of the outstanding incidents in his career and one of the most humiliating. Thompson had called him at the end of the first night watch. There was a strong breeze blowing aft and the barque was slugging along under all plain sail. As he pulled on his clothes, Thompson remarked jocularly, “You’re shapin’ up not too bad as a shell-back, nipper, but there’s one thing you can’t do yet.”
“What’s that?”
“You can’t chew tobacco,” replied the other with a grin. “Until you can masticate a quid you can’t call yourself a genuine deep-waterman.” “I’ll go you,” said Donald. “Gimme a bite of your plug.” And with aliberal chew in his cheek, he jumped out on deck and reported aft.
The second mate had some work for the watch for’ard and told Donald to take the wheel. The sea was slapping under the ship’s stern and causing the wheel to buck heavily, and the boy could only manage her by putting his foot on the spokes at intervals in order to rest his sorely strained arms. For almost an hour he steered and chewed on his quid, but the wrenching of the wheel was beginning to exhaust him. He had just put his foot on the lower spokes when he was conscious of Mr. Hinkel’s presence at the lee side of the wheel-box. At the same moment a heavier sea than usual smashed under the counter and the wheel jerked savagely—knocking his foot away. Grasping the spinning spokes with his two hands he tried to arrest the violent whirl, but before he could exert his strength, he was hurled completely over the wheel-box and up against the second mate. The officer slipped to his knees, but jumped up in a flash and arrested the whirling spokes. Donald lay across the grating with all the breath knocked out of him and deathly sick through swallowing the tobacco he had been valorously masticating.
Hinkel yelled viciously for a hand to take the wheel—kicking the prostrate Donald violently with his heavy boots and swearing vengeance as soon as he could leave the jerking spokes. Donald was too sick to take much heed and lay across the grating horribly ill.
“Jou verdammt schweine!” bawled the furious German as soon as he was relieved. “Ich teach you!” He grabbed the boy by the arm and dragged him across the deck, swearing in mixed English and German. Over to the hen-coops at the fore-end of the poop he hauled the unresisting apprentice, and opening up a door, jammed him headfirst in among the screeching fowls. Slamming the barred door down again, he turned the catch, and stood up. “Stay in dere dis vatch!” he snarled. “I’ll teach jou to gedt fonny me vit!”
Too sick to protest or cry out, Donald lay prone inside the narrow coop while the few remaining inmates cluckedand squawked and pecked at his head. At that moment he only wished to die and end his misery, and this feeling, together with the violent jar he had received at the wheel, the tobacco in his stomach and the foul odor from the floor of the coop, sent him off into a faint.
He came-to a short time later to find himself being pulled out of the coop by Mr. Hinkel, and he heard Mr. Nickerson saying, “Bring him out!” in a voice as harsh as a file. The mate was in his shirt and under-drawers, and when Donald was hauled from his foul prison, the chief officer bent down and asked, “What in blazes were you doing, boy?” Donald related dully how he had been thrown over the wheel-box. The second mate broke in. “I tell jou, sir, he vos star-gazink und let der veel go! She nearly broached mit der jung fool’s monkey-tricks—”
The Nova Scotian leaned forward and peered menacingly into the German’s face. “Listen, Hinkel,” he said slowly and in a voice as hard as steel, but as ominous as a death threat, “I’ve got your flag an’ number, my bucko, and if I catch you man-handlin’ that boy again I’ll break you like a dry stick. You measly Dutchman!” That was all he said, quietly, so that the man at the wheel could not hear, but Hinkel was visibly impressed and without a word, turned militarily on his heels and walked to loo’ard. The mate watched him for a moment and bent down and raised Donald to his feet. “Go to yer bunk, boy, an’ stay there for the rest of the watch.” Donald staggered away feeling unspeakably grateful to his champion, and with a fixed determination to forever eschew at least one of a “dyed-in-the-wool” shell-back’s accomplishments.
That the second mate hated him, Donald knew, though he was completely at a loss to account for the continual hazing by the brutal German. Possibly, he thought, it was because the fellow was a natural bully, and Donald’s misfortune in getting the second mate into trouble with the skipper for being off the poop on the night in the Firth of Clyde may have accentuated Hinkel’s spite.
The captain’s attitude was also unaccountable to Donald’s reasoning. During the whole of the time he had beenon the barque, Captain Muirhead had never spoken to him, nor had he taken notice of him in any way save by furtive glances. The man had no reason to dislike Donald, yet after the familiar conversations they had had together at Glasgow, he had now closed up like a clam, though to the other boys he often passed friendly remarks, and on occasions, corrected them with the rough side of his tongue. To Donald, he neither spoke friendly or otherwise, and the boy wondered why the skipper maintained such an attitude towards him. Thompson often commented on the fact and put forth several conclusions. “He’s either afraid of you because you’re the owner’s nephew, or else he doesn’t care a continental about you because you’re a charity ’prentice. It’s one thing or the other, sure.”
Off the Plate, Donald underwent another bitter experience which left a deep and lasting impression upon him and served to put the captain in the proper category of relationship. An English barque, homeward bound, had passed and McKenzie was on the poop handing code flags for the Old Man who spoke the barque and asked to be reported. It was blowing fresh abaft the beam, but the sea was smooth save for a long swell from the south’ard. The last hoist was flying from the spanker-gaff, when the halliard parted and the bunting came fluttering down on the poop. The other ship had got the signal, however, as her answering pennant was up, and Captain Muirhead gruffly told Mr. Hinkel to stow the flags away. During the afternoon in the second mate’s watch, the Captain suddenly told Hinkel to have the halliard rove off again as he might require it at any time. “Ye don’t need tae top up th’ gaff, mister,” the Old Man added. “Send yin o’ thae boys up. That young McKenzie is spry enough tae reeve it off!”
As the ship was running, the spanker was furled, but to shin up a slippery spar standing out from the jiggermast at an angle of about thirty-five degrees is no easy task even in a dock, and with the vessel rolling and the gaff swaying, even though braced with the vangs, the job was exceedingly risky, and able seamen would have refused to do it. Donald, however, made no demur, but jumped toobey the second mate’s guttural command. With the light halliard in his hand, he clambered up the jigger shrouds and swung down from the top on to the gaff and sat astride it facing towards the stern of the ship.
With the halliard in his teeth, he started to clamber up the pole with his arms and legs encircling it, but owing to the fact that it was a scraped spar and recently “slushed,” the task of shinning it was exceedingly difficult. Several times he hauled himself up, only to slide back, and once or twice the swaying of the ship almost caused him to slip off altogether.
“Oudt jou go, now, und no verdammt nonsings!” bawled Hinkel sixty feet below. Captain Muirhead was pacing to windward absolutely unconcerned and scarcely bestowing a glance at the boy clutching the precarious gaff. Several of the men, working in the waist, knocked off to watch the performance and the bos’n growled, “Gaudy shame! That boy can’t shin that greasy gaft. A ruddy work-up job, that what I calls it. They’re hazin’ that nipper.”
Nervous and somewhat apprehensive as to his ability to get out to the gaff-end, Donald essayed it once more. Gripping the spar with all his strength, he made a desperate effort and halted for breath a few feet short of the vangs out and above him. The swaying was worse out there and he was almost exhausted. Hanging on to the gaff was as hard as climbing out on it, so, perspiring and fearful, he made another shuffle. At the moment when he had almost reached the gaff-end, the weather vang carried away; the gaff swung to loo’ard and Donald was hurled violently off the spar. He cleared the poop rail by a few inches in his descent and plunged head-first into the sea.
Martin, the bos’n, had been waiting for just such an eventuality and he was up the poop ladder in a flash, and had thrown one of the poop life-buoys over. Without waiting for orders, the man at the wheel put the helm down and the barque was coming sluggishly up into the wind, with canvas rustling and banging. “Keep her off! Keep her off!” bawled the Old Man. “Damn an’ blast ye!Who told ye tae pit her doon? Dae ye want tae tak’ th’ sticks oot o’ her—”
The mate, in shirt and trousers, suddenly appeared aft and elbowed the captain away from the wheel. His lean face was convulsed with fury. “You white-livered hound!” he roared. “Ye’d leave that kid t’ drown, would ye? Not ef I know it! Ease yer helm down!” The captain stood, astounded, red-faced and gasping, while Hinkel ran for’ard to do something or get out of the way.
Nickerson leaped to the break of the poop. “Back yer mainyard!” he bawled. “Aft here an’ git the quarter-boat away! Rouse out the hands—cook an’ all! Aloft you, Jenkins, and keep him in sight!” Under the spur of his curses the men skipped around, and the life-boat was out of the chocks, swung out and lowered away in record time. Six men, led by Martin, the bos’n, swarmed down into her, and soon had the oars shipped and manfully pulled away in the direction indicated by Jenkins up in the jigger-rigging.
“D’ye see him, boy?”
“Yes, sir,” Jenkins answered. “He’s got hold of the ring-buoy and is about half a mile away off the beam.”
“How’s th’ boat headin’? Kin they see him?”
“They’re heading right for him, sir!” replied the apprentice.
Captain Muirhead came to himself at this juncture—he had remained beside the wheel seemingly petrified by the mate’s action in countermanding his orders—and he walked over to Mr. Nickerson with a face dark with rage. “Mr. Nickerson,” he said, in a harsh, tense voice, “Ah’ll log you for this, by Goad! It’s bliddy mutiny—no less! It’s—” He stopped at a loss for words in his passion. The Nova Scotian gave him a contemptuous glance. “You log an’ be damned to you!” he said coolly. “You an’ your ‘take th’ sticks out of her’ in a moderate breeze!” Then with a strange look in his eyes, he peered truculently into the captain’s face. “There’s something blame’ fishy about this!” he said significantly. “What are you up to? Are you trying to get rid of that kid?” Then threateninglyhe added, “Let me tell you, sir, that if anything happens to that nipper aboard this ship, I’ll haveyoujugged for it. I’ve got friends in Vancouver who’ll take you in hand, sir, an’ you’ll find they’re rough an’ ready on that part o’ the West Coast!”
The captain, with suddenly subdued expression on his face, was about to say something, but evidently thought better of it. Instead he remarked quietly, “When ye get yer boat aboard, pit her on her course again. If th’ laud wants a drap o’ whusky, Ah’ll gie ye some for him.” Then apologetically, “Ah got a bad fricht, an’ didny ken whit was happenin’ when Ah gied th’ man th’ order.” And as he turned away, Nickerson stared at him curiously and muttered, “Liar!”
Donald’s plunge into the sea knocked the breath out of him for a moment, but when he came up, gasping and half-stunned, he saw, as in a dream, a life-buoy being thrown over the barque’s taff-rail. When he regained his bearings he swam for it, and succeeded in reaching and hanging on to the circle of canvassed cork. He held on for an indefinite period, during which time he saw theKelvinhaughcoming to the wind, and rising on top of a swell, he made out a quarter-boat pulling towards him. He shouted several times, and in a daze, heard voices. “Here he is! Steady all! Easy starboard! Pull port! ’Vast pulling all!” Then he was grabbed by the arms and hauled aboard the boat, where he lay on the bottom boards and vomited the salt water he had swallowed.
Feeling sick and shaky, he was carried into the half-deck, and Thompson and the steward took his clothes off and rolled him up in warm blankets and put him in his bunk. He was given a stiff drink of hot whisky and almost immediately went off to sleep, and the talk of the other apprentices at tea only woke him after he had slept like a log for almost five hours.
“How’re ye feeling, nipper?” enquired Thompson kindly. “Good? That’s fine. Ye’re gettin’ to be a reg’lar hell-diver, you are, and, my eye! didn’t you cause a rare rumpus!” And he told what had happened after Donald had taken the plunge. “That measly squarehead of aHinkel is trying to do for you!” added the senior apprentice solemnly. “You should have seen him when the mate came up on deck an’ shoved the Old Man away from the wheel. The big Dutchman runs for’ard yelling in Doytch an’ what th’ blazes he was saying nobody knew. I think he was running away from Nickerson. If you wanted to see a reg’lar genuine ‘stand-‘em-up-and-knock-‘em-down,’ ‘give-me-none-of-yer-sass’ Western Ocean bucko look on a man’s face, it was on the mate’s when he called the Old Man ‘a white-livered hound!’ I guess Hinkel thought he would layhimout with a capstan-bar, so he skedaddled!”
Donald had got his clothes from the galley, where they had been dried by the cook, and was sitting in the apprentice’s berth talking with Jenkins, when Mr. Nickerson looked in. He gave Donald a sharp glance. “Nipper,” he said, curtly, “you’ll come in my watch after this. Jenkins will go in the second mate’s.”
The mate had just come from for’ard after questioning the bos’n. “Them spanker vangs, sir, were all right when I examined them day afore yest’day, sir,” Martin had said. “The tackles are brand new and there ain’t been nothin’ to cause a chafe or enough strain to strand th’ rope. Them strands, sir, were filed or scraped, sir, to make believe they was chafed or wore, and I thinks, sir, as how that second mate did it.”
“And the signal halliards?”
“They was alright, sir. Th’ Old Man, sir, jest made a slippery bend on th’ flag, I guess, and it carried away an’ un-rove.”
Mr. Nickerson nodded. “You jest keep your tongue between your teeth, Bose, an’ don’t open your trap about th’ matter to anybody. I’ll look into this.” And he walked to the half-deck and gave Donald a change of watch.
Donaldwas to go on duty with the mate’s, or port watch, at midnight, but he was awakened suddenly at six bells by loud shouting on deck and the violent careening of the ship. Hinkel could be heard bawling, “Ledt go royal und to’gallundt halliards and clew up! All handts!” Then Jenkins opened the half-deck door for a second and yelled, “Roll out! Look alive!” and mingled with his shout came the booming roar of wind, the swash of heavy water and the thunder of slatting canvas.
“A ruddy pampero!” cried Thompson, leaping from his bunk and pulling on his boots. “Jump, kid, she’s on her beam ends!” Donald dropped to the sloping floor of the berth, hauled his boots on the wrong feet, and sprang after Thompson into the darkness. When he got outside he cannoned into someone running aft, who cursed him and vanished in the howling blackness. The lee scuppers were a boiling froth of water waist deep, and up aloft the canvas was thundering as the royal and t’gallant yards came down by the run. The ship was over on her port side at an alarming angle, and for a minute Donald could do nothing but hang on to the mizzen gear, gasping and dazed, until he got his bearings.
The German second mate was barking commands from the break of the poop when something banged aloft. A voice shouted, “Maint’gallan’s’l’s gone!” Then Thompson grabbed him by the arm. “Bear a hand haulin’ upyer mains’l!” he roared, and Donald scrambled for’ard along the sloping decks and hauled on the gear with a mob of “hey-ho’ing,” swearing men. Then the mate appeared—(the captain was on the poop)—and he gave tongue. “What in hell are you all adoin’ here?” he snarled. “Aloft an’ stow th’ fore an’ main r’yals you boys! Git some beef on those bunt-lin’s, you hounds, or I’ll kick some go in you! None of yer ‘You pull now, Bill, I pulled last’ work here!”
From the height of the main-royal-yard, Donald could see the water to windward white with foam. The stars were shining clear and bright to the westward, but all was black in the eastern sky and the wind blew in savage gusts, which gave them a hard tussle in subduing the bellying, slatting canvas. By the time they had got the two royals confined in the gaskets, the barque had come to an even keel and was running before the blast under six topsails and foresail.
The crew had hauled up the cross’-jack, mainsail, and hauled down the fore-and-aft sails and were aloft stowing the big t’gallan’s’ls as the barque swung off, staggering and rolling scuppers under in the cross sea which was running, and as soon as the boys came down from the royal yards, the mate chased them up the mast again to help furl the mizzen-upper-topsail, which had been let go. On the completion of this job, and when the crew were pretty well exhausted with pulling, hauling and lifting, Thompson voiced the opinion of all hands: “God help us when we strike some real wind and have to get the muslin off her in a hurry,” he said gloomily. “Those big yards and sails will take charge of us then. We’ll have to let the canvas blow away and pay for it.”
“Pay for it?” queried Donald innocently. “What d’ye mean?”
The senior apprentice laughed grimly. “I was referring to the old yarn about a ’prentice boy who had a rich father. The mate ordered him up one-time to stow the mizzen-royal in a squall. The kid squints aloft and didn’t like the look of the job, so he says to the mate, ‘Oh,let it blow away, sir; father will pay for it!’ That’s what we’ll have to do on this hooker, I’m thinking. I shiver when I think of handling those big courses and tops’ls of ours in a real Cape Horner. We’ll catch it down there and no blushing error! If we only hadmenfor’ad instead of flabby-muscled dock-rats we might get through, but it’ll be all hands every time there’s a job o’ work.”
“How about that donkey engine?” queried Donald. “Isn’t that supposed to help in the heavy work?”
Thompson laughed sarcastically. “A fat lot you know, nipper!” he cried. “Your lousy Scotch ship-owner puts in a donkey and cuts down the crew, but he gives orders to the skipper that the donkey is not to be used except on extra-special occasions. The donkey is the greatest curse of sailormen these days and the owner reaps the benefit. He cuts down the crew on the work it issupposedto do, and saves money in port by using it for loading and discharging cargo. That’s your labor-saving donkey for you!”
The two boys were in the half-deck changing their wet clothing and donning their oilskins for a “stand-by” until their watch was called at midnight, but Mr. Nickerson looked in and ordered them out. “Bear a hand an’ get that maint’gallan’s’l unbent from the yard an’ sent down. It’ll put ye in trim for Cape Stiff!”
The “pampero” was the first real dusting the barque had tackled, and the old timers shook their heads ominously and muttered dread prophecies of times to come. In the weight of the squalls blowing, and under heavy weather sail, she made a dirty job of it, and it took two men at the wheel, sweating, to try and steady her. Big seas piled up astern and, overtaking the sluggish, deep-laden barque, broke on both quarters and crashed aboard—filling the decks from fo’c’sle-head to poop deck. “A ruddy half-tide rock!” growled the men as they worked in water, waist-deep, handling the remains of the maint’gallan’s’l, a brand-new heavy weather sail, which had split in several places. “Cheap gear for a cheap ship!” commented the sailmaker.
By the time the pampero had blown its edge off, Donaldreturned to his binnacle-trimming and time-keeping job on the poop, and the barque, braced sharp up and with lower stays’ls set, was plunging and diving on her course to the Falklands and Cape Horn. There was a cold bite to the wind that Donald had never felt before—precursor of the bitter windy latitudes they were running into—and he scrambled into the kindly lee of the chart-house. The lee port-hole was open and Donald could hear the angry voice of the captain laying down the law to the second mate. “Ye wur asleep on watch, mister,” he was saying, “or ye’d ha’ seen that squall makin’ up. It’s a wonder tae me ye didny jump th’ masts oot of her.... She was in th’ thick of it afore ye sung out. Ye’re a damned worthless sojer—that’s whit ye are—an’ yer spell in jyle has made ye forget all th’ seamanship ye iver knew....” Donald opened his eyes. “Spell in jail?” He wondered, and as he had no respect for either the Old Man or Hinkel, he kept his ears agog for more. “Don’t gie me ony back chat!” the skipper was shouting, “or I’ll dis-rate ye an’ send ye forrard.... an’ ye know what th’ men’ll dae if they ken ye wur th’ man what....” The boy strained his ears to catch the remainder of the sentence when the mate’s strident voice interrupted with—“Boy! boy! Where’n Tophet has that ruddy young sojer skulked to? Oh, ye’re there, are ye? D’ye know it’s five minutes of eight bells? Look smart, naow, an’ call th’ starboard watch or I’ll trim yer hair for ye!”
Life under Mr. Nickerson’s command was Heaven compared to his watches with the bullying German, and Donald experienced a revival of spirits at the change. Not that the Nova Scotian was an easy task-master. By no means! But Nickerson was too much of a man to bully and ill-treat a boy, though he was not so particular with the ’fore-mast hands. He was a “driver” in every sense of the word and kept Thompson and McKenzie up to the mark, but he never set them at useless “work-up” jobs. Thompson, as an apprentice almost out of his time, he did not interfere with much—Thompson was an able fellow, anyway, and would make a smart officer when he got his ticket—butDonald was the mate’s particular protégé, and many a time the lad wished he did not stand so high in the officer’s favor.
“Boy,” said the mate one afternoon a day or two after the pampero, “I want to see ef ye’ve lost yer nerve after floppin’ off that there gaff th’ other day. Naow, son, d’ye think ye kin shin up to that main truck an’ reeve off a signal halliard?” Donald stared up at the dizzy height of the main-mast to where the truck capped it—a good one hundred and eighty feet above deck—and felt some trepidation at the thought of the job. Nickerson was watching him narrowly. “Haow abaout it, boy?” he said.
“Yes, sir!” answered Donald after a moment’s hesitation. “I’ll go up, sir!”
“Well, then, ask th’ bos’n to give ye a coil o’ signal halliard stuff an’ shin it up. Sharp, naow!” Everything with the mate was “Look alive!” “Jump!” or “Nip along, you!” with a few blistering oaths added to put the proper amount of “go” into the command. Anything moving slow was the officer’sbete noir, and the men used to remark that he “sh’d ha’ bin a ruddy ingine-driver on a perishin’ mail train!”
Donald moved “sharp” and started aloft. There was a light breeze and enough swell to cause the masts to sway in an arc of ten degrees. He made the royal yard without difficulty—he had been up there often before and under worse conditions—and after his climb up the Jacob’s ladder, he rested with his feet on the yard and held on to the eyes of the royal rigging. From this giddy perch he had a wonderful view of the ship one hundred and fifty feet below, and the fore-shortening of her hull from this height made him feel as if this weight aloft would cause her to capsize. Below him the sails bellied out in a succession of snow-white curves—full and rounded with the wind and each silently pulling the ship along—and the spreading rigging looked like a spider’s web radiating from where he stood. All around was sea and sky and the wake of the barque could be seen making a foamy path through the greeny-blue of ocean, with a few sea-birdswheeling above it. A gull sailed past him—squawking as if in jealous anger at the boy invading its ethereal realm, then the mate’s stentorian voice floated up from below, “Nip up, naow! Ye’ve bin sight-seein’ long enough!”
Glancing up at the thrusting height of the sky-sail pole to the truck thirty feet above, a slight wave of fear came over him—an aftermath of his jigger-gaff experience—and he closed his eyes for a moment until his nerve returned. There was no skys’l yard crossed on theKelvinhaughand no means of getting up to the truck save by shinning up the greasy pole with the aid of the skys’l back-stay. With the halliard in his teeth, he took a long breath and grasping the stay with one hand and encircling the mast with his left arm and his legs, he started up and reached the eyes of the skys’l rigging, perspiring and gasping. From the eyes of the rigging, the pole up-thrust, smooth and bare, for about eight feet and, gulping a deep breath, he wriggled and grasped the smooth spar with his two hands. In a few seconds he brought the round sphere of the truck on a level with his head, and hanging on to the mast with legs and his left arm, he took the halliard from between his teeth and thrust it up through the sheave in the truck with his free hand.
By this time he was almost exhausted with the effort of the climb and holding the weight of his body on the greasy spar with one arm. But though he had thrust the end of the halliard up through the sheave, he had yet to bring the end down through the pulley hole, and this called for a hand to hold the line and another to reeve it down through. The rolling of the ship was swaying the mast, and, as he hung desperately on to loo’ard, the dead-weight of his body almost wrenched the muscles out of his shoulders and arms. The swinging of the mast was nauseating him in his excited condition, and he felt his strength gradually ebbing. The breath was hissing through his clenched teeth in rapid gasps; his heart was pounding fiercely, and his imagination began to picture horrid visions of him hurtling through the air and crashing to the deck.
“I’ve got to do it! I’ve got to do it!” he panted, andmaking a supreme effort he thrust the line into his left hand, and reaching over the truck with the other, pushed the end down and through. Grasping this in his teeth, he slid down the pole, caught the skys’l backstay and swung down to the spreader of the cross-trees.
Exhausted, sick and shaky, he sat on the spreader for a few moments until breath and composure was restored, and then he came down on deck and belayed the halliard. Mr. Nickerson was smoking a clay pipe and leaning back in a corner of the poop rail when he mounted the ladder and reported, “Halliard’s rove, sir!” The mate looked quizzically at him for a second, and taking the pipe from his mouth, remarked, “Ye were a hell of a long time doin’ it!” After accomplishing what, to Donald, seemed a most hazardous and herculean feat, this was all the praise he got. It was the way of the sea!
In the night watch the mate called Donald over to him. It was a quiet evening—cold but clear, and with a moderate breeze blowing. “Son,” he said, “would you go aloft again to-morrow an’ reeve another signal halliard?”
“Yes, sir!” answered the boy bravely, and wondering what was coming.
“Y’ain’t scared?”
“Not now, sir. I was while I was up there, but I won’t be next time.” Nickerson seemed pleased. “That’s why I sent you up, boy,” he said. “I wanted to see if your nerve was good. You’ll do, son!” He puffed away at his pipe for a spell.
“What d’ye cal’late makes the Old Man an’ Hinkel treat you the way they do? S’pose ye spin me something of how ye come to go to sea.” He spoke kindly.
McKenzie told him in a short narration the events which were responsible for his being on theKelvinhaugh. The mate plied him with questions and grunted at the answers. “So yer old man was skipper of theAnsonia, was he?” he ejaculated one time during the boy’s story.
“Yes, sir! Did you know him?” Donald had not mentioned theAnsonia. Nickerson affected not to hear. “Go on with yer yarn,” he growled, and when Donald hadfinished, he asked, “This Hinkel, naow. Hev ye ever seen him afore? No? D’ye know anything about him?”
“Well—er—I’m not sure,” said the boy doubtfully, “except what I overheard the other night.” And in answer to the officer’s queries, he told him of the “spell in jail” and “if the men knew you were the man” fragments which had come to his ears through the open port. Mr. Nickerson was greatly interested. “Humph!” he commented. “Said he’d been in jail did he?” Then he straightened up with a jerk and slapped the rail with his hand and the smack made Donald jump. “I’ve got him, by thunder! I’ve got him dead to loo’ard this time!” he ejaculated. “I knew I wasn’t far out when I told him the other night I had his flag and number!” Then quietly he said, “Son, did ye ever hear the story about the shipOrkney Islesand a little ’prentice boy name of Willy McFee? No? Well, alright! Ask McLean to step aft here a moment and you skin along and see what time it is instead of yarning here. Hump yourself naow!” Donald “humped”—smiling at the young officer’s peculiar manner.
Holding on down the South American coast, theKelvinhaughbegan to prepare for the ordeal ahead. Her winter weather canvas had already been bent, and the carpenter was busy re-wedging the hatches and with his crony, the bos’n, getting the ship’s gear chocked, lashed and restowed. They went about their work with ominous head-shakings, and the ordinary seamen were beginning to exhibit signs of nervousness with the ceaseless recital of the barque’s faults and the Horn in winter, which the old-timers were forever croaking about. In the dog-watches, there was less yarning and skylarking around the fore-hatch, and oilskins, re-patched and re-oiled, hung in the sun around the fore-rigging—unmistakable forecasts of dirty weather ahead in the coming days.
In the half-deck, the boys spent their evenings yarning and playing cards—all but McKenzie, who was busy overhauling his wretched kit. Moore had a splendid outfit of everything in the way of oil-clothes and warm clothing, so he didn’t worry—neither did he offer to augment Donald’smeagre rig. Thompson and Jenkins had a miscellaneous collection of clothing sadly in need of overhaul, but they were young and thoughtless. The Horn didn’t scare them! No, by Jupiter,theywere rough and tough and had hair on their chests—they would start straightening out their gear in plenty of time. When she crossed forty-five south it would be time enough to make and mend for fifty-five! So they bragged, but it was safe bragging, as they knew they’d have the captain’s slop chest to fall back on. Thompson had rounded the Horn before, but he did it in summer from Australia, and with a brave west wind astern. He’d never experienced the passage in winter, and he was not impressed. McKenzie was an “old woman” for his pains, they said, but Donald preferred to heed the advice of men like Martin and McLean and to prepare, as the bos’n and chips were preparing the ship. They weren’t doing that for nothing. Not by a long shot!
So he stitched and patched and oiled and did the best he could with his shoddy gear, and the best was not enough. He knew it, but he did not complain. One may growl about the ship, the weather, the mates and things extraneous, but lamentations about one’s bodily ills or aches, the work one has to do, a wetting or a freezing, is bad form aboard ship and receives no sympathetic hearing. “Serve you dam’ well right. What did you come to sea for?” is the invariable answer to such whines.
The barque crossed “forty-five” in a chilly blow, and for two days they had wild tussles aloft with wet, heavy canvas, and severe knockings about on flooded decks hauling on clewing-up gear or braces, downhauls and halliards. Then the “hairy chesters” began to get busy, but the time had gone when oilskins could be re-oiled and dried in the sun. The days were shortening rapidly and the sun’s warmth was becoming nullified by the chill of the high latitudes. Each knot they reeled off to the south’ard saw the sea changing from a warm blue to a frigid green, and azure skies to a gloomy lead-colored pall, solid with potential gales.
Captain Muirhead was nervous—all hands could seethat. He spent more time on deck and hovered between barometer and binnacle, and when the ship came up with fifty degrees south, he ordered the royal yards sent down on deck—much to the unvoiced scorn of the mate—and theKelvinhaughwas now reduced in canvas to nothing above her big single topgallantsails.
Nickerson sneered mentally. “How does the looney think she’s agoin’ to make her westing under these clipped kites? All right to send down yards in a light ship, but this heavy drogher.... Huh! Ef it was some of th’ Bluenosers or Saint John packets I’ve sailed in, they ratch her around under skys’ls, by Jupiter! No wonder these limejuicers never make a passage when they have these careful old women in command of them. Huh!”
They wallowed down past the Falklands in remarkably fine weather for the latitude, and headed for Cape St. John on Staten Island—easternmost sentinel to the stormy Horn. There was no doubt now of the times ahead. Snow had fallen once or twice, and ice had formed on deck and lower rigging in early morning hours, but the gales...?
“I don’t like this,” growled Martin to Donald one dog-watch, as they peered at the yellow sunset over towards the Fuegian coast. There was a long rolling sea coming up from the south’ard, with the push of the Pacific Antarctic drift, and the wind had been “knocking her off” all the afternoon, until the yards were braced “on the back-stays.” There was a chilly spite in the breeze, which was beginning to pipe up a mournful note in the wire standing rigging, and the south was a black wall, in which sea and sky merged as one. “There’s dirt acomin’ afore long ef I know the signs, but that ruddy Dutch greaser don’t know enough to strip her for it. Ef I was you youngster, I’d go’n turn in right now an’ catch up on sleep, for, mark me well, it’ll be Cape Stiff afore mornin’!”
Donald took the bos’n’s advice and, refusing to join the little game of “nap” which the half-deckers were playing for plug-tobacco stakes, he rolled into his bunk and slept, but not before he had placed his boots and oilskins in a handy place.
He was in the midst of a delightful dream some hours later, wherein he was a spectator watching a young, lean, hawk-nosed pirate, strangely like Mr. Nickerson, prodding his Uncle David, Captain Muirhead and Hinkel down a plank out-thrust from the side of theKelvinhaugh. At the barque’s jigger-gaff flew a black flag, upon which was the skull and cross-bones in white. Uncle David was screaming for mercy, and Nickerson was jabbing him in the back with the point of a huge cutlass. Then the scene changed and the mate was pouring bags of golden sovereigns into his lap and telling him to take them home to his mother. “Buy a castle, son,” he was saying, “and one with beautiful trees and gardens with wonderful flowers—flowers with nice smells to them—geraniums, roses, honey-suckles, rhododendrons, mignonettes, and don’t forget pansies, pretty velvet-petaled pansies—” There came a frightful lurch of the ship which flung him rudely against the steel wall of the berth, a roaring of a big wind on deck and the staggering crash of heavy seas cascading over the rails. Guttural yells sounded from the poop. “Led go to’gallundt halliards!” and someone bawled through the half-deck ventilator. “All out for God’s sake!” In the dark, Donald grabbed his boots and oilskins and Thompson shouted, “Hell’s bells! Strike a light someone! Here’s Cape Horn!”
Theyjumped out on deck into a wind that nearly took their breath away, and it was as black as the inside of a tar-pot, save where the sheen of the foam to loo’ard illuminated the darkness. Spray and sleet slashed through the air, and the wind was as keen as the edge of a knife—a squall that shrieked in the tautened weather rigging, and which was playing a devil’s tattoo with the clewed-up canvas aloft, and orders were being volleyed from the bridge which ran clean from the poop to the fo’c’sle head. “Haul up yer cro’jack! Haul up yer mains’l! Aloft an’ stow!”
The combers were crashing over the weather rail in solid cascades, and the scupper-ports were not large enough to carry it off. As the big logy barque did not rise to the seas, the lee side of the main-deck was awash to the height of the to’gallant rail, and in this bitter, swirling brine the crew, manning the furling gear, tugged on the swollen ropes—slipping, washed along and sliding on the sloping decks—in water up to their waists, while the mate, leaning over the bridge rail, cursed and flayed them to herculean exertions with bitter jibes and frightful threats.
The four apprentices and an ordinary seaman went up to the mizzen-t’gallan’s’l, the yard of which had been braced to spill the sail already clewed up, and with Thompson at the bunt, singing out, they dug their fingers into the hard, wet canvas in an effort to catch hold andpick it up. “Now, my sons!” bawled the senior apprentice. “All together! Sock it to her! Dig your claws into the creases an’ hook her up! What th’ hell’s a bit of canvas anyway to five husky men!” But picking up the sail in other blows and picking it up in a Cape Horn snifter is a horse of another color. Twice they had it almost on the yard, and twice the squall slatted it away from them. Donald’s fingers were bleeding at the nails and his hands were numb with the cold, while the ordinary seaman with him on the weather yard-arm was cursing and whining with the chill and the strenuous labor. “Pick it up, damn you, pick it up!” shouted Thompson. “Now, boys, all together!” They dug in, hauled the canvas up bit by bit, and had almost got it on the yard and ready to pass the gaskets, when Moore gasped, “Aw, t’ hell with it!” and let his portion of sail go. The wind ballooned the loosened fold and whipped the canvas out of the others’ straining fingers. Thompson gave a growl of rage and instantly clawed his way along the foot-rope and jack-stay to where Moore hung inside of Jenkins at the lee yard-arm. “You miserable skulking hound!” he yelled, kicking Moore savagely with his rubber-booted foot. “I’ve a—(kick)—dashed good—(kick)—mind to—(kick)—boot you into the—(kick)—ruddy drink! You dare let go again while a kid like McKenzie, half your weight, holds on!”
Whimpering and crying like a baby, Moore bent over the yard while Jenkins at the lee yard-arm encouraged him by further threats, and the five began their muzzling work again. “Now then, my sons, up with her!” yelled Thompson. Beating at the stiff canvas with numb and bleeding fingers, they fought like devils for hold while the sleet slashed at their faces and the cold caused their oilskins to become as rigid as though cut from tin. A hundred feet above the ship, they struggled desperately on precarious, swaying foot-ropes, leaning over the jerking yard and using both hands and trusting to finger-hold to prevent being blown or hurled off. It was strenuous work—work which called for tenacity of purpose and the exercise of every ounce of strength, and when, after taking a yard armat a time, they finally got the sail rolled up and secured by the turns of the gaskets, they scrambled into the cross-trees, breathless and utterly exhausted. Bitter work for boys, truly! But they would be called to more desperate tasks ere theKelvinhaughmade to the west’ard of the Horn!
They scrambled down on deck to be greeted by Mr. Nickerson. “Where’n Tophet hev you lazy young hounds bin to? Stowin’ th’ mizzen-t’gallan’s’l, eh? Why, curse yez, I’ve a mind t’ set it again an’ give ye some sail drill!” Scant praise for strenuous accomplishments! As Donald came aft again—dodging the seas which were, ever and anon, tumbling over the rail—he felt miserably wet and cold under his oil-skins and jumped into the half-deck to examine himself. In spite of the marline which he had tied around his wrists and over his boots, and the “soul-and-body” lashing around his waist, his cheap oilskins allowed the water to soak through the shoddy fabric, and as wet-resisters, they were worthless. Having no others to wear, he had, perforce, to put up with the discomfort and pray for fine weather.
During the middle watch the wind stiffened and theKelvinhaughwas making heavy weather of the going. The captain was on the poop watching the ship, and as Donald passed to loo’ard of him to make it four bells, he had evidence that the Old Man had been having a nip. The mate, a long, rangy statue in an oilskin coat, sou’westered and sea-booted, lounged in his favorite corner sucking away at a dry clay pipe and watching the straining leach of the mizzen upper-tops’l. It was snowing by now and the flakes could be seen driving athwart the ship in the light of the skylights and the binnacle. The skipper turned from the rail over which he had been leaning, and called the mate to him. Donald, pacing to loo’ard, heard snatches of the conversation down the wind. “That fella Hinkel,” the Old Man was saying. “No worth his saut as a second mate. He canna be trusted ... canna dae his wark. When this blow cam’ on her he was snoozin’ somewheres ... doesna ken a squall when he sees th’ signs ... nae guid!”
The mate’s nasal voice advised, “Hoof th’ square-head scum forrad!” “Aye! Ah’m thinkin’ so.... Ye might take him in hond, mister, an’ shunt him oot. Ah’ll make the entry in th’ log ... incompetent an’ derelict in duty ... that’s th’ ticket. Tell him at eight bells ... an’ we’ll pit Martin in his place ... auld hand and a smert man.... Thompson’s too young.” Donald could see the tall figure of the mate straighten up and a saturnine laugh came from his direction. “I’ll shunt him, sir!” he said.
When Donald called the watch prior to eight bells, he told Thompson the news he had overheard. “Breaking the second mate, is he?” ejaculated Thompson, gleefully tugging his boots on again over wet stockings. “Jerusalem! I wouldn’t miss the fun for a farm. I’m going to hang around for a bit afore turning in.” They slipped out in the wake of Moore and Jenkins and just reached the poop-break in time to hear a furious altercation on the deck above. The second mate was shouting, “Send me forrad? Send me forrad? Ju candt do id! I my work know id!” “Ye’re a damned bluff from A to Zee!” came Mr. Nickerson’s nasal bawl. “Ye’re a boy-bully—a ruddy, no-account squarehead from Heligoland or Hamburg! You’re a common A.B. from this minute, Dutchy, an’ ef ye don’t move along off this poop an’ forrad where ye belong I’ll help ye with th’ toe of my boot! Shift naow! Look nippy!”
There was a sound of oaths and blows in the darkness—a stamp of sea-booted feet—a guttural curse—and a bulky form came hurtling down the poop ladder. It was Hinkel, and the boys could see his face—ferocious in the light from a port-hole. He had been thrown clear down on the main-deck from the poop, and before he could pick himself up, Nickerson came flying down on the hand-rails with his sea-booted feet clear of the steps. In his dive down the ladder, he landed on the ex-second mate’s prone body, and commenced booting him in a manner supposed to have passed away with the Western Ocean packet-ships.
“You sojer! You no-sailor, you! You slab-sided gaffero’ Fielding’s gang! I’ll work yer old iron up, my son!”—and he kicked Hinkel into the lee scuppers, where the fellow wallowed in the water attempting to rise to his feet. “I got yer number, you German sauerkraut! I had it the night you jammed McKenzie into th’ hen-coop! It’s an old trick o’ yours, ain’t it? Well, here’s something—(kick-kick)—for poor little McFee—(kick-kick)—an’ yer hen-coop dodge on theOrkney Isles!” He knocked off, panting, while Hinkel scrambled to his feet and looked sullenly at the avenging Nickerson.
The men had gathered aft, wondering spectators of the scene, and the mate swung around and addressed them. “This joker here is dis-rated an’ sent forrad. He’s an A.B. from naow out! He’s th’ squarehead what served two years in San Quentin penitentiary in ’Frisco for killing a boy named McFee on the shipOrkney Isles! Naow, ye know th’ hound, an’ ye’ll know haow t’ treat him!” Then to Hinkel, “Forrad, you scum, or I’ll help ye! Th’ stoo’ard’ll shoot yer duds aout in th’ morning!” And Hinkel, with all the fight kicked out of him, slunk away from the mate’s vicinity and disappeared into the darkness.
In the half-deck, after they had pulled off their wet clothes, Thompson and Donald discussed this momentous incident. “And who was McFee?” enquired the latter. Thompson wrung out a soaked shirt and hung it up. “From what I have heard, he was a young first-voyager on a Glasgow ship called theOrkney Isles. He wasn’t a bright kid—I think he was soft in the nut a bit—but he was a ’prentice on that hooker bound from London to ’Frisco ‘bout three years or so ago. It appears that her second mate—(this Hinkel, I suppose, though he wasn’t called Hinkel then. His name was Hemelfeldt, I think)—got adown on the kid and almost bullied the life out of him. Off the Horn, the youngster refused to do something, and this swine jammed him into the hen-coop and kept him there the whole of a bitter, freezing watch. The boy had no coat or oilskins on, and he was almost frozen to death. He took ill, but this bucko hauled him out of hisbunk and made him work around in the wet and the cold at various work-up jobs, and the little beggar took pneumonia and died. When the ship got to ’Frisco, the other ’prentices and some of the men complained to the authorities, and Hinkel or Hemelfeldt was arrested, convicted and sentenced to two years in a California prison. The way he ill-used that kid was the talk of the Coast at that time. That’s the yarn as I know it, and I tell you, son, I wouldn’t care to be in Hinkel’s shoes from now on. Between the mate and the hands for’ard, his life will be merry hell from ‘naow aout’—as Nickerson says!”
Now commenced a period which Donald and all the hands never wished to experience again. The savagery of the Horn latitudes in winter-time buffeted them in all its bitter hellishness, and the heavily laden barque was smashed and banged about in a manner which beggars description. Gale succeeded gale, with all their concomitants of bitter cold, driving sleet and snow, and tremendous seas. Twice they sighted the lonely light on Cape St. John, and twice they were driven back to flounder in the big combers and rips of Burdwood Bank, hove-to under scanty canvas. During the lulls in the gales they would get sail on her and attempt to make their westing, but the trailing log would only record a few miles in the desired direction before a blast of wind and snow would call for strenuous clipping of theKelvinhaugh’swings. “Clew up! Haul down! Let go! All hands! Aloft and furl!” became dreaded and commonplace commands. On certain tantalizing occasions the wind came away fair for a slant and the crew would have a breathing spell, praying and hoping that they would get around “this time,” but a fresh gale would strike in from another quarter and the weary watch below would be roused from slumber by the raucous hail of “All hands wear ship!” And wearing ship was the easiest way to tack her, and an operation which theKelvinhaughmade a dirty job of. As the helm was put up in the smooths, the barque would expose her long, deep broadside to the mountainous combers, and she seldom wore ’round without shipping it green the whole length of her. In paying off,and in coming to the wind on the other tack, the big four-master swung around so slow that she courted destruction, and several times, the crew, huddled together on the comparative safety of the poop, never expected to see her emerge from boarding combers which would bury her completely from fo’c’sle-head to poop-break.
Added to the cruelty of the weather were the long, dark hours of the high latitudes in mid-winter, and what little daylight there existed was as gloomy as night with lowering, leaden skies and the black squalls slashing out of the west. It was here, in the “stand-by” latitudes, in fifty-five south, that Donald McKenzie had all the romantic ideals of sea-faring knocked out of him. It was here where he learned that he had come to sea to be disillusioned and that romance existed mainly in the printed page, the picture and the imagination of boys and poets. The man who writes and sings best of the sea is the man who has been but little acquainted with the hardship and monotonous drudgery of a sailor’s life. Young McKenzie came to sea to realize the romance he dreamed of. He had run from fifty-five north to fifty-five south and retrospection failed to bring out any phase of his life on theKelvinhaughas being anything other than desperately hard work, relieved by spells of tiring monotony. He slept and ate in a steel tank with white painted walls pierced by starboard and port doors and two port-holes, and furnished with a deal table and two plank seats. Four bunks, two uppers and two lowers, completed the furnishings of this combined bedroom, dining room and parlor. True, there was a small bogey stove, but this was more of an ornament than an article of utility. There was no fuel supplied to keep it alight, and only on rare occasions (when the boys stole some coal from the donkey-boiler room, or when some chips and shakings could be secured) was a fire ever kindled in it. In this cubby-hole, jammed up with four sea-chests, suitcases, sea-boots on the floor and oilskins and clothing on the walls, the four lads, “gentlemen rope-haulers,” lived during their hours of relief from duty. The unsheathed steel walls and overhead beams dripped moisture, whichmade rusty streaks from the rivet-heads, or dropped on the upper bunks or to the floor—there to add their quota of damp discomfort to the salt water which squirted through the jambs of the door every time she shipped a “green” one.
Chiseled into one of the overhead beams ran the legend—“Certified to accommodate four seamen.” Thompson, with the aid of an indelible ink pencil had altered this to a more fitting rendition—“Certified tosuffocatefour seamen,” and in the stormy latitude of fifty-five south, with doors and ports tight shut, and bedding, blankets and clothing sopping wet and exuding their own peculiar aroma, mixed with those of the parrafin-oil lamp, tobacco reek, food, boot-grease and damp oilskins, the amended version was nearer the truth.
McKenzie’s companions, also, were “hard-bitten,” or had become so through the environment. Clad in filthy garments, and unwashed through lack of fresh water and opportunity, they wolfed their wretched food, cursed and blasphemed and bullied one another in a manner that would have shocked their parents. There was little consideration given them by their superiors and they, in turn, had but little consideration for each other, though all, except Moore, would do what they could for a ship-mate in sharing clothing and tobacco. It was a rough comradeship, but a true one, nevertheless, and while such weaknesses as sympathy or sentiment were tabooed, yet each would stand by each in a pinch or time of peril.
For a boy brought up as Donald had been, he had shaped up remarkably well. He had been bullied and knocked about a great deal more than any of the other apprentices on theKelvinhaugh, but hardship seemed to have toughened him and he stood the physical grind as well as the best—sure evidence of untainted blood and wiry stock of Highland forebears. Mentally, he had received the greatest gruelling, but, in addition to quick wit and keen intelligence, he had the rare faculty of adaptability, and without losing his finer feelings or allowing them to become demoralized, he fitted himself to his environment,but kept a leash on his talk and actions which may be summed up in Thompson’s characterization of him—“a dashed clean, plucky little nipper who always plays the game!”
Clean, plucky, and “playing the game”—a delicately nurtured lad—a mother’s boy—but bred from good stock and holding to his ideals with true Scotch tenacity—was Donald McKenzie. The romantic aspect of a sea life had faded away, but there still remained the thought that he, a lad of sixteen had done things, could do things, that strong, grown men ashore would hesitate and refuse to tackle. The bitter grind of seafaring tempered his boyishness and taught him self-reliance and courage; the rigor of the discipline had taught him to obey without question, and when a man can obey, he is fitting himself for command. He had gone through the first degree; had been initiated into the great fraternity of seafarers, and he knew seafaring for what it was—shorn of its false romance—a gruelling grind which called for men of courage, men who were willing to cut themselves adrift from the comforts and allurements of the land, and who became as a race apart. With romance shattered, he was willing to stick to the end, to go through the mill until he reached the goal where he could take something from the sea which had exacted so much from him. It had ruthlessly claimed his father and seared the soul of his mother, but he, an apprentice seaman, was learning its ways, its varying moods, and as a seaman, he was acquiring the sea-cunning and strategy to use it for his will. That was his new ideal. He would take something from the sea which had already exacted so much from him!