The Project Gutenberg eBook ofWide Courses

The Project Gutenberg eBook ofWide CoursesThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: Wide CoursesAuthor: James B. ConnollyRelease date: October 22, 2004 [eBook #13836]Most recently updated: October 28, 2024Language: EnglishCredits: E-text prepared by Audrey Longhurst, Josephine Paolucci, Joshua Hutchinson, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WIDE COURSES ***

This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.

Title: Wide CoursesAuthor: James B. ConnollyRelease date: October 22, 2004 [eBook #13836]Most recently updated: October 28, 2024Language: EnglishCredits: E-text prepared by Audrey Longhurst, Josephine Paolucci, Joshua Hutchinson, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team

Title: Wide Courses

Author: James B. Connolly

Release date: October 22, 2004 [eBook #13836]Most recently updated: October 28, 2024

Language: English

Credits: E-text prepared by Audrey Longhurst, Josephine Paolucci, Joshua Hutchinson, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WIDE COURSES ***

The Project Gutenberg eBook, Wide Courses, by James Brendan Connolly

My boy wanted to do the divin', but 'twas me that went down.My boy wanted to do the divin', but 'twas me that went down.

My boy wanted to do the divin', but 'twas me that went down.

JAMES BRENDAN CONNOLLY

AUTHOR OFOUT OF GLOUCESTER,THE SEINERS,THE DEEP SEA'S TOIL,THE CRESTED SEAS,AN OLYMPIC VICTOR,OPEN WATER, ETC.

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS

1912

The WreckerLaying The Hose-Pipe GhostThe Seizure Of The "Aurora Borealis"Light-Ship 67Captain BlaiseDon Quixote Kieran, Pump-ManJan TingloffCogan Capeador

My boy wanted to do the divin', but 'twas me that went down

He brings out the blue-book and shows the boson

Sam made a couple of tremendous swipes, and then down went theAurora'scaptain and one of his crew

By and by he caught an answering call

After a long look I saw that he did not resume his narrative. By that I knew that the stranger was troubling him

There she was, theDancing Bess, holding a taut bowline to the eastward. And there were the two frigates, but they might as well have been chasing a star

"Don't call me a mutineer, captain—I've disobeyed no order"

He said he hoped they'd meet again next day and bowed himself out

[pg 1]

Sometimes the notion comes to me while I'm talkin' to people that maybe I don't make myself clear, and it's been so for some time now—the things I see in my mind fadin' away from me at times, like ships in a fog. And that's strange enough, too, if what people tell me so often is true—that it used to be so one time that the office clerks would correct their account-books by what I told 'em out of my head. But sometimes—not often—things come back to me, like to-day—maybe because 'tis a winter day and a gale o' wind drivin' the sea afore it in the bay below there. Things come to me then—like pictures—wind and sea and fog and the wrecks on a lee shore.

In my business—but of course you know—runnin' after wrecks, from Newfoundland to Cuba, I had to be days and maybe weeks away from home—which was no harm when I had no more home than a room in a sailor's boardin'-house, and no harm later with Sarah. Even if anything happened to me, I used to feel that Sarah—that's my[pg 4]first wife—Sarah'd still have the two lads to hearten her and keep her busy; but 'twas different with—but there, my mind's off again....

Maybe some things—comforts, refinements—I might 'a' practised myself in, got used to 'em like, but could I see in those early days that I'd ever have a grand home—me who'd been cast away at fourteen—even if I'd had time? It was to be able to do without comforts—to make a pleasure out o' hardship—that meant success almost as much as knowin' the business. And I did know my business in those days—or people lied a lot. And it always meant more to me—the name of bein' the great wrecker—than all the money I made, and in those last few years I made plenty of it—I did that. Me who once slaved for six dollars a month as boy in a Bangor coaster. And I mind how I used to look back and say—or was it somebody tellin' me?—that 'twas a great day for me and mine when the old lumber schooner wrecked herself on Peaked Hill Bar—because when she was hove down I was hove into a bigger world. Once in my pride I used to cherish praise like that—but sometimes now I'm not so sure.

And this man, an upstandin' handsome man—no one that knew him but spoke well of him, to me anyway, for I would not allow aught else after I come to know him. Since that last wreck it seems[pg 5]to me I've listened to other talk of him, but that's not so clear to me ... my brain, as I say, clouds up like on things that happened since.

No one ever met Her—my second wife, that is—but said she was beautiful and good—said so to me, anyway. It is true—but that came afterward, like the other talk, and it's not too clear in my mind what they did say. But he came to me and I liked him. And he liked me, too ... I think he did. He'd heard of me, he said, and would I examine his yacht—theRamesesthat was—to see if any damage had been done—she'd grounded comin' in by Romer Shoal the day before. There'd be too much delay to put her in dry dock, and he wanted to sail soon's could be—if she was sound—on her regular winter West India cruise. 'Twas in January, a fine clear day, and I said, all right, I'd send my oldest boy down and look at her. My oldest boy—but you know him? Aye, a grand lad. Both grand lads. Modelled off their mother, the pair of them. If I'd only a daughter like her ... the woman she was! A wife for a seafarin' man. "Watch and watch I've stood wi' ye," she said, goin'—"watch and watch, but I'm no good to see the lights nor to grip the wheel longer. The sight's gone and the strength, Matt. Watchmate, bunkmate, and shipmate I've been to ye, but ye're in smooth water now ... and no longer ye'll need[pg 6]me." A daughter to stand by you she'd be. All my money I'd give for one such.

And while he was in the office She came in. "Ah-h!" he said—and then, "Your daughter, captain?" I said, "No—my wife," maybe o'er-proudly. I was not ashamed of my years, for it's not years but age—leastwise so I'd always held—that sets a man back. Those lads of twenty-five or thirty, I could wear them down like chalk whetstones. Maybe she heard—I don't know; but she didn't let on she did. My proud days those were—my office in the big building by the Battery. You remember? Aye, a grand place—the name in fine letters on the door, and on the window the picture of my big wreckin'-tug, the best-geared afloat and cost the most—a sailor's fortune just in her—yes—and I'd named it for Her. And 'twas to that same office I used often to come straight from my rough seawork. She used to come there to take me to drive. Me, who'd been a castaway sailor-boy—but I could afford all these things then. I could afford anything She wanted. And She wanted the fine office, and so it was fitted up with fine desks and clerks, though it wasn't what the clerks put in their account-books that kept my business goin'. There were those who said that I'd pay the price some day for tryin' to carry so many things in my head, but small heed I paid to[pg 7]them—and 'twasn't in those days my memory dimmed.

There was but little damage to the yacht's bottom—a small matter to find that out—though the skipper he carried was no master of craft. So many of them like that, too. To face the sea like men is not what they're after, not to take winter or summer as it comes, rough or smooth—no—but always the smooth water and soft winds. But he did not sail for the West Indies that day, nor that week, nor winter—something'd gone wrong with the machinery. No concern of mine that. There were those who said later—but that was when my head begun to trouble me—as it does now sometimes, as I said. There was a time, when Sarah was alive, before we had even the old ship's cabin on the end of the old dock by way of an office, when I carried my business in a wallet in my breast pocket—that is, what we didn't carry in our heads—but the mother of those two lads, she was with me then. That's long ago.

A most interestin' man he was. As I say, he made no West India cruise that winter—the machinery kept gettin' out of order—but he made a few trips with me—wreckin' trips—for I still looked after the big jobs myself. There were those who used to say that if I'd only learned to stand by and look on long enough to train a good man to take[pg 8]my place in the deep divin', that I'd be goin' yet. Maybe so, but maybe, too, they didn't know it all. I'd yet to meet a man who would do my work half as well as I could myself—never but one, and she was a woman and could do her part better—Sarah, my first wife, and her kind aren't livin' now.

He was not so soft, this yacht man, as I used to think. He stood the rough winter trips with me well. I learned to like him—rarely. I could talk to him about the work, and he'd try to understand—as so few of his kind would. He understood better after he'd been some trips with me, and I came to love him—almost. When I was away on those trips, my wife would be at home—until the time her aunt took sick. I recollect her speakin' of her aunt—or did I? No matter. She lived out West somewhere, and didn't want her to marry me—or so I made out. I didn't go too deep into it. When she hinted that she hadn't told me of her aunt before for fear of hurtin' my feelin's, it was enough. Women feel things more than men, and no use to rake 'em over. I knew I was a rough man, not the kind many women folks might take to—I never quite got over Her likin' me—nor did a whole lot of people—and 'twas natural a woman of the kind her aunt must be, didn't like her marryin' a man like me. But no matter; her aunt[pg 9]was bein' reconciled, she used to write me, and when your wife is makin' up to her only livin' relative, and she dyin', it's no time to be exactin'. So she stayed on in the West. I've forgotten where—Chicago maybe?—too far, anyway, for me to go to her, because I had to stand ready in my business to leave at a minute's notice. A gale c'd rise in an hour, the coast be cluttered with wrecks in one day. And there were so many big people, steamboat people and big shippin' firms, who counted on me, would 'a' been disappointed, you see, if I wasn't on deck when needed. It's something, after all, to be honest in your work all your life, not leave it to careless helpers.

He lost his interest in the wreckin' after a while, and natural, too. He hadn't to build up his family's name or provide a livin' for anybody by it. And her aunt still lingered, she wrote. And then I wrote that I would give up the business if she said so, and go out there. I could begin again—there was great shippin' on the lakes—better sell out a hundred wreckin' plants than be so much apart, for it's terrible to be comin' from the sea and never find the woman afore ye. But she telegraphed to wait, she would be home soon, and she wanted to see me, too, about something partic'lar. That was the night before the Portland breeze—in the year o' the war with Spain—yes, '98[pg 10]that would be, the year thePortlandwent down on Middle Bank with all on board. A foolish loss that, and nobody ever went to jail for it; but it's mostly that way, nobody sufferin' for it—but the families o' the lost ones—when passenger ships go down at sea.

There was half a dozen steamboat firms telegraphin' and telephonin' the morning after that storm, and I had to leave without waitin' till she got home. There was a wreck off Cape Cod, and that kept me away a week, and I was hurryin' back by way of Boston. And I saw him—me hurryin' up Atlantic Avenue to take the train and him headed for the docks. I hailed him. There was a rumor—'twas in the papers—that I'd gone down with the wreck I'd been workin' on off Cape Cod—Chatham way—but of course no one who knew me well believed it. But he must've believed it, for—"What, you!" he says—not even puttin' in the "Captain" that he never before forgot. I missed that little word from him—and he didn't look at me the same—him that had always such a friendly way with me. He seemed to be in a great hurry, and so I left him without more talk. He did not even tell me that theRameseswas in the harbor and he leavin' on her, but the thought of that came later.

I had to stop off at Newport, to get things started[pg 11]for another wreck there, and that took me the rest of that day and the next, and then I was all ready to take the night boat for New York, but my oldest boy came hurryin' down the dock to me, and an old lady—no—not so old, but lookin' old—with him. And they told me how theRameses, that had left Boston the morning before, 'd been wrecked off Gay Head durin' the night and sunk; and this was his mother, and she wanted me to go to the wreck right away and see if I could find and bring up his body.

I wanted to go home—a week of days and nights—and I was tired, too, and not easy to tire me in those days, but I thought of him and the trust he had in the skipper that didn't know his business, and I looks at my boy and at his mother, and Sarah's face came to me; and who's to gainsay a woman whose son lies drowned? So my boy and me we put out that night and was there next morning in our big wreckin'-tug.

'Twas a cold day, but clear, only there was a big sea runnin', makin' it dangerous, everybody said, to be lyin' alongside her. And, I suppose because o' that, my boy wanted to do the divin', but 'twas me that went down and fastened the chains so she wouldn't slip off into the deep water; and then I came up to rest, and it was while I was up restin' that the chains slipped and she slid off and on to[pg 12]a ledge twenty fathoms down. Twenty fathoms is deep water for divin'—but one or two 'd been that deep before, and what one man has done another can do—and I'd promised the mother to bring her son home to her.

I went down and made fast the chains again, and then I went inside her to make one job of it, though I'd told the lad I'd come up after I'd made fast the chains. I needed no pilot—I'd been on her often enough—though I did find use for the patent electric hand-light I'd carried. Down the big staircase I went, through the big saloon, and toward his quarters I felt my way—through the fine cabin and the marble bath-room and his own room—all as rich and comfortable as in his own home ashore.

It was deep down, as I said—maybe too deep to be stayin' so long—but I'd never known what it was to give up on a job, and I kept on.

I found him ... and he wasn't alone.

And hard enough it was on me, for never a hint had I of it. 'Twas my boy hauled me up that day. No signal o' mine, but I was gone so long he feared I'd come to harm below.

When I found myself better I made ready to go down again, for once you've promised to do a thing there's nothin' but to do it. But just as they were about to slip my helmet on, me with my foot on[pg 13]the ladder, the chain that was holding her slipped again, and into two hundred fathoms she went—too deep for any diver in this world ever to raise her.

I thought of his mother and I grieved for her, and it was the first job, too, that ever I'd messed.

"Never mind," says my son. "Twas me, not you. Nobody that knows you, father, will blame you." A great lad that, and his brother, too—off their mother's model—both of 'em. Sarah said I'd never have to worry about them, and I haven't, but I wish she'd lived to have the joy of them.

I don't remember much more of that, but when I got back to the office there was a letter from her. But I never read it. Nothing it could tell me then that I hadn't already guessed.

'Isn't often now it comes so to me, things being' generally dim in my mind, as I say, slipping away and drawing nigh, like ships in a lifting fog-but to-day—like that day—a winter's day and sunny and cold—with the seas running like white-maned ponies before the gale in the bay below there—as it is now—always on a day like this it comes clearer to me.

[pg 15]

Sometimes, for one reason or another, or perhaps without reason at all, it just happens. So, say a handful of gossiping yeomen find themselves together, and when that comes about, from some member (if the session stretches to any length at all) is sure to come a story of particular interest to the guild; and perhaps it ought to be explained that a yeoman's story is never mistaken in the Navy for a stoker's, a gunner's, a quartermaster's; never for anybody's but a yeoman's.

One night, a pleasant-enough night topside, but an even pleasanter night below, at least in our part of the ship below. A few of us were gathered in the flag office, where Dalton, the flag yeoman, sometimes allowed us to call when his admiral was ashore. Getting on toward middle-age was Dalton, with a head of gray-flecked hair and an old-time school-master's face. A great fellow for books.

In the flag office store-room, which to get into he had only to lift a hatch in the deck under his revolving chair and let himself drop, he had a young library, which after-hours he, used to delve into for[pg 18]anybody's or everybody's benefit. He was particularly strong on folk-lore, and could dig up a few fat volumes any time on the folk-lore of any nation we had ever heard of. He liked to lie flat on the coffer-dam to read, with a row of tin letter-files under his head for a rest, the electric bulb and its shade so adjusted as to throw all the light on the page of his book. He had done a lot of reading and writing in his time, and his eyes were getting a little watery. If he had had his way he would have been an author. In the hours of many a night-watch he had tried his hand at little sketches; but somehow or other he could not catch on, he said. Perhaps if he had tried to write as he talked, tell the things just as they popped into his mind, he would have been luckier; but that wasn't literature, he said, and so most of his written things read like one of Daniel Webster's speeches. We could listen to him talking all night long; but when he brought out one of his manuscripts, it was good-night and hammocks for all hands.

Taps had gone this night, and so it should have been lights out and everybody below turned in; but this, as I said, was the admiral's office, and only separated from the admiral's cabin by a bulkhead; and even the busiest of Jimmy-Legs don't come prowling into the cabin country of a flagship after taps. And the flag lieutenant and the[pg 19]flag secretary were pretty savvy officers who never by any accident came bumping in on Dalton's parties at the wrong time.

There came a knock at the door, and following the knock came the captain's yeoman. Nothing wrong with the captain's yeoman, except that his bow name was Reginald and he was rather fat for a sailor. Also he had ambitions, which was all right too, only we knew that privately he looked on the rest of us as a lot of loafers who would never rise to our opportunities. He'd been wearing his first-class rating badge a month now, and before his enlistment was out he intended to be a chief petty officer; which was why he was working after-hours. But the captain's yeoman, this particular captain's yeoman, has nothing to do with the story, except that his errand set Dalton off on a new tack.

The captain's yeoman had come for a little advice. He always was after advice—or information. A department document had come into the office that day with seventeen endorsements on it, and it had him bluffed. We all laughed at the face he drew. "But," said Dalton, turning on us, "so would most of you be bluffed if one of those winged-out documents came at you for the first time. But you're foolish, son Reginald, to be worrying over any little thing like that. Seventeen endorsements![pg 20]What's seventeen endorsements? I wonder what you'd think if you'd—Sit down there and listen to me, and perhaps it'll be time well spent. If you don't learn enough from it to get that C.P.O. you're after, then—Well, I won't call you any names here now. Listen."

Now this story of Dalton's is a classic among yeoman, and only a yeoman should tell it; but not even a yeoman, no matter how gifted he may be with letter file or typewriter, has a rating to tell a story—no, no more than anybody else aboard ship. Some of us had heard the story before, and it had always been mangled in the telling, through the teller not knowing all the facts, or having perhaps never met any of the principal characters in it. But Dalton not only knew the tale from beginning to end; he was, though he would never admit it in a crowd, himself concerned in it. And now when he began to relate the history of the famous length of hose-pipe, we knew that he would have it right.

"I was in—well, call her the cruiserSavannah—this time—"

"Were you a yeoman, Dallie?"

"Yes, a yeoman, bright Reggie boy; what else d' y' think I'd be—a signal-girl? A good old ship, theSavannah, and were tied up to the dock at the Navy Yard."

[pg 21]

"Boston yard, was it, Dallie?"

"Never mind what yard it was, son. And I'll name no names, either, and then by no accident will there be a general court-martial coming to me some day. There were three of four other ships fitting out at the same time, and after a while these other three ships got their stores aboard and proceeded to sea, leaving a lot of old gear behind them on the dock.

"We were making ready to pipe water into our ship, when Mr. Kiley, our boson, always a forehanded chap, thought it all a pity to have to use our bran-new hose for that kind of work. You all know how hose gets lying chafing around with people stepping on it, carts and wagons running over it, coal-dust grinding into it, and so on. A pity, our boson thought, to subject our nice new hose to that kind of abuse, when in the condemned heap on the dock there was a length of hose that would do the work, and he put it up to Mr. Renner, the officer of the deck at the time.

"Now Mr. Renner was a new-made ensign, and we all of us here been long enough in the service to know how it is about a middy that's just got his commission. We all know how it is with ourselves when we first get our C.P.O.—except you, Reggie, and you'll get yours some day. Am I right? Sure I am. If there's one thing on earth[pg 22]we're going to do then, it's to live up to regulations.

"No, we'll never again remember so much about rules and regulations as we do then. No catching us in anything irregular; no sir. And so with Mr. Renner, the new-made ensign. He brings out the blue-book and shows the boson. 'Look,' he says. 'Paragraph fourteen thousand four hundred and forty-two,' or whatever it was. 'Hose,' he goes on to read, 'is expendible property, to be surveyed and wiped off the property-books by condemning to the scrap-heap and sold in the open market to the highest bidder. There,' says our new-made ensign to our boson, 'what it says. And according to that, the admiral himself couldn't take that hose from that scrap-heap without authority. No, not if it was no more than an old shoe-lace, he couldn't.'

"'But that won't fill our water-tanks, and I'd like to use that hose, sir,' says the boson.

"'M-m!' says Mr. Renner. 'M-m! now if Mr. Shinn was aboard—' Mr. Shinn was our executive. 'But Mr. Shinn is ashore. However, I'll tell you what; I will speak to the captain about it,' and he steps inside the bulkhead and writes a message to the skipper.

He brings out the blue-book and shows the bosonHe brings out the blue-book and shows the boson

He brings out the blue-book and shows the boson

"Now our skipper was a good old soul, and thought a lot of his boson, and wanted to do everything[pg 23]he could to help him out, but also, like a good many other good old captains in the service, he'd forgotten a lot of this stuff about regulations. Ordinarily—say, if 'twas anything to be done out to sea—he'd have said, 'Why, of course, Kiley; go ahead and do it,' But this was in a navy yard, ashore, and when he gets a note with something about regulations in it, he begins to haul to.

"And many a good sea-going old skipper is bluffed the same way about anything that spells regulations, you betcher. So now our good old skipper begins to tumble his hair and pull his moustache and look again at Mr. Renner's note. At last he tells the messenger to say to Mr. Renner that he will look into it and let him know.

"Another hour of studying, and the captain calls in his new yeoman that—"

"Was that you, Dallie?"

"Never mind—and cut out the personal questions, Reggie son. And remember you don't rate any more questions than anybody else here. I'm telling you the story, and I'll tell all that's good for you and just the way it happened.

"Now if this yeoman had been better acquainted with his skipper, he'd have been of some use just then. He might have suggested, in a way any of us can at times without interfering, or jarring an officer, even as topsided as a captain, how the thing[pg 24]could be fixed up without any correspondence game. But this new yeoman hadn't yet learned what his captain's steaming radius was. And the captain, having regulations on his brain and not getting the hint at the psychological time, he dictates a regulation communication to the commandant of the yard, which the new yeoman frames up just as he was told. It was a letter inquiring of the commandant the status of the condemned hose in question, and could it not be loaned for temporary use, to be returned in due season—say, next day? and so forth.

"Now the commandant was a good old soul, too, and nothing would have pleased him better than to accommodate his old friend and classmate, the captain of theSavannah; but seeing this thing come to him in such formal style, and himself being just off a three-years' cruise, and always a little doubtful about these port regulations, anyway, and wanting to do things up in a seaman-like way, he turns to his chief clerk and says, 'What do we do about this?'

"Now what the commandant meant and what he would have said, if he'd put it in more words, was: 'I want theSavannahto have the use of that condemned hose, but I suppose there are certain formalities to be observed, and your business is to know what these formalities are. Here, you attend[pg 25]to these formalities, but see that theSavannahgets the use of the hose.' That's about how he would have put it aboard ship, but he hadn't quite savvied this shore-going chief clerk at his elbow. Toward him he didn't have that same sea-going feeling that he'd have toward one of his old ship's crew.

"And the chief clerk wasn't the kind that lost sleep trying to make trouble for anybody; but he was the combination of being twenty-five years on one job and having a manager of a wife—an upstanding, marine-sergeant sort of a woman, with the beam and bows of a battleship, and an eye—oh, an eye!—and the chief clerk and his missus, they'd just finished paying for their house over in the city, and they'd had to scrimp and scrape for the Lord knows how many years to get it paid for, and there was a marriageable daughter to provide for, and his wife never let him forget that he mustn't risk their real estate or jeopardize his job or the marrying prospects of the daughter, who was just getting to where she was making a lot of desirable acquaintances. There was a young staff officer, a passed assistant surgeon, within easy range, and there was a young paymaster above the horizon, and no telling but they might yet capture one of the line, and that was all the old lady needed to be happy. But if papa was shifted to another[pg 26]city, they'd have to sell the house at a sacrifice and start making friends, all over again. They say that the chief clerk used to get his instructions every morning like it was the uniform of the day. Above all things he must never do anything that the department or any superior officer could ever censure him for.

"He was a little man, the chief clerk, with an upturned moustache he was always flattening fan-wise. 'Heels' they used to call him at the yard, because he was so sensitive about his height that he wore regular female opera-singer's heels on his shoes. Some said his wife made him wear them. Even then he only came up to the top of her ear. Well, Heels considers things now, and recollecting that this would come under the jurisdiction of the captain of the yard, and that the captain of the yard had his little spells, he says to the commandant, 'I think, sir, we'll have to refer it.'

"'Refer it? To who?'

"'To the captain of the yard, sir.'

"'Captain of the—D'y' mean theSavannahcan't use that bit of rotten old hose without authority?'

"'Well, sir, you see it is like this. You see, sir, I have to do things the way they are laid down for me. TheSavannahcould, perhaps, use that section of hose, especially if you say so, sir, but—'

[pg 27]

"'But what?'

"'But if, sir, the captain of the yardshouldlearn it, as he might, sir, and heshouldfeel slighted, or if an inspector should happen along when it was in use, and discover that the items in the scrap-heap did not tally with his list, that there was a section of hose missing, that it was being used without authority by theSavannah—'

"'Oh, you and your coulds and your shoulds!' snaps the commandant. 'Give me sea duty in place of any of these shore billets any time. Aboard ship I have only to nod my head to my executive officer and a thing's done; but here—O Lord! But go ahead, make out a request, or requisition, or warrant, or whatever's necessary, and let's have it fixed up.'

"And Heels, who used to be in the army when he was young, but didn't like—or, rather, Mrs. Heels didn't like—to be told of it, he snaps his heels together, starts his arm as if to salute, but stops in time, says, 'Yes, sir,' goes off to his little desk, and typewrites Endorsement No. 1 to the back of the captain of theSavannah'sletter, gets the commandant's signature, and sends the messenger with it to the captain of the yard.

"And right here was when it really got under way. You see, if the commandant had 'phoned over to the captain of the yard and said in an off-hand,[pg 28]fine-day sort of way, 'I suppose it will be all right to let theSavannahhave that hose for a day or two, won't it?' why, the captain of the yard would have said, 'Why, yes, sir, let 'em have it.' But he hadn't yet sized up this new commandant. He only knew he had the reputation of being a martinet aboard ship, and now came this formal letter with its endorsement and right away the yard captain said to himself, 'He's a strict one—an endorsement on it already, and thatSavannahcaptain, he must be a strict one, too. What are they trying to do—trying to catch me below when I ought to be on deck? I guess not.' He had heard of chaps that you thought you were safe with and you stretched a point or two to help them out, one of those little things that anybody would think would get by all right; and then, when something went wrong, they'd turn around and say, 'Why did you allow this?' and you had no authority to show why you did allow it. There was that last case at League Island, and a friend of his, only the year before. There were two damaged rubber raincoats and a pair of old rubber boots, and the commandant that time had said to his friend: 'See here, I'm tired of looking at those things. Why don't you auction 'em off some day and get rid of 'em?' And the captain of the yard's friend got busy and hectographed letters were mailed to all[pg 29]the junk-dealers in the city, and posted in the post-office and custom-house corridors, and the sale advertised in the local papers, according to the law. And after the sixty days required by the law, they were auctioned off with some other junk. There were thirteen people attended the sale, but only one bid, and that from a little stooped fellow with the beard of a prophet, who offered sixty-seven cents for the lot, and took it off in a two-wheeled hand-cart he'd brought with him. And they turned in the sixty-seven cents, together with the bill for advertising—six dollars and seventy-five cents—and considered they had done quite a stroke of business. But back comes a letter from the Bureau of Profit and Loss—or so the captain of the yard said he thought it was—wanting to know who gave them authority to advertise and sell the property of the United States without authority; and before the inquiry was concluded there were three of them rolled through a G.C.M., and the captain of the yard's friend was broke. And writing him about it, his friend had closed his letter with: 'Don't ever, on your life, have anything to do with any condemned property without you know where you're at every minute.'

"And this yard captain didn't intend to, and so he added Endorsement No. 2, saying he had no authority, and returned it to the commandant, who[pg 30]sent it back, with Endorsement No. 3, asking to be informed, and so on, and the yard captain tacked on Endorsement No. 4, respectfully suggesting that in compliance with regulations, page 11,336, section 142, paragraphs 24-27, or whatever it was, that it be referred to the Bureau of Replies and Queries at Washington. Which it was, and they returned it to the yard, this time to the yard master, for further and more specific information. And the yard master, after locking it in his safe and going home and sleeping on it overnight, glued on an endorsement that you couldn't have convicted a fish of swimming by, and hoisted it over to the yard captain bright and early in the morning.

"By this time the yard captain was beginning to believe that some politician was after his job, and if so—Well, they'd have to snap 'em over pretty fast to catch him playing too far off his base, and he slid it back to the Bureau of Replies and so forth, who passed it on to the Bureau of Odds and Ends, where it steamed in and out among a lot of swivel-chairs, who were not to be upset easily. They put in a couple of heavy-eyed weeks on it, and rolled it back finally to the commandant for further information. Above all, before an intelligent judgment could be rendered, they especially desired to be informed where the hose came from originally.

[pg 31]

"Well, the poor commandant didn't know where the hose came from originally. It might be from any one of three ships that had been lying to in the dock just before theSavannah'srequest was received; a battleship, a cruiser, and a beef-boat they were. But he supposed he had to do something about it, and so he looked up the latest orders. The beef-boat was due back in the yard in a few days; but she rated only a lieutenant-commander. The battleship had the rank: a two-starred red flag from her main. She was about as far away as she could be when last heard from; but no matter; rank had to be served. The commandant begging leave to be informed passed it on to her. Did she know anything about the section of hose in question, and if so, what? And forwarded it, care of postmaster at Manila, P.I. And when it came back—after thirty or forty thousand miles of travel that was—the battleship didn't know anything about the section of hose referred to. Nor did the cruiser, which was in the Mediterranean when caught, only she having lighter heels and hopping around more, it took eight months to get her. There was still the beef-boat, which in the meantime had gone to sea and returned home again, and was now again to sea, on her way to the China station. They went for her, and after a stern chase that lasted through six months and[pg 32]two typhoons and all kinds of monsoons and trades, they got her; whereat she begged leave to say that at the time of her collision with the collierAriadne(for details of which see letter to Secretary of the Navy on such a day and month of such a year) many files of papers were lost. And evidently whatever pertained to the section of hose in question was among the lost files; for certainly among the existing files there was no reference to any section of condemned hose-pipe. It took three months more to get that back to the yard, and by that time the old commandant had been retired for age and a new commandant had fallen heir to it.

"The new head read all the endorsements, by now forty-eight, and pondered over them. For perhaps three days he paced the yard with it, without being able to see where it concerned him; but he was very fond of puzzling things out, and thinking he saw a way out of this, he forwarded it to the old commander of theSavannah, who now had a battleship, theTexarkhoma, which was in winter quarters with the battle fleet at Guantanamo, Cuba, from where he figured on getting an answer in three weeks at least. But before the mail reached Guantanamo, theTexarkhomahad been detached by cable and ordered to the West Coast by way of South-American ports. The commandant at Guantanamo thought he might overtake theTexarkhoma[pg 33]at Rio Janeiro, and forwarded the packet to the American minister there. But having meantime got another cable from the department to hurry and make a steaming test of the cruise, theTexarkhomahad stopped only long enough in Rio to coal ship, and so the packet missed her there. On to her next stop, Punta Arenas in Magellan Straits, the minister forwarded it, but the flying battleship, with her stops three thousand miles apart, was moving along faster than the mail steamers, which were stopping every few hundred miles. So they missed her in the Straits, and again at Callao. Not till she lay to anchor in San Francisco Bay did they overtake her, and then her commander had only to say that he didn't know where the hose came from originally; but he didn't see that it mattered, as the necessity for the use of the hose no longer existed.

"I might say that the captain's yeoman, having by now come to understand his skipper, drew up that particular endorsement, and he thought it pretty hot stuff", and that it would end the whole matter. And so did the new commandant back in the yard when he got it, and he shipped it on to the Bureau of Heavy Jobs with a flourish. But did it? Not much. Down there the swivel-chairs revolved a few more hundred times and they discussed it over a few dozen lunches, and then back[pg 34]it came with a new touch. Why did the necessity no longer exist? they asked, and shipped it by mistake to the new commandant.

"'And how the hell do I know?' says the new commandant, but not in writing, and passes it on to the oldSavannahcaptain, who was now rear-admiral, with a division in the East waiting him to come and hoist his pennant. And so again it was a chase of theTexarkhoma, which was on her way to the PhilippinesviaHonolulu and way ports. They were too late for her at Honolulu, and at Guam, and again at Yokohama; but they overhauled her at Hong-kong, where she'd been lying at anchor for a week.

"The admiral had a lot of mail that morning in Hong-kong harbor, but nothing to speed up his brain till he came to the hose-pipe thing. 'Twas then he went up on the quarter-deck and did a Marathon for an hour or so, while the officer of the deck and every blessed marine and flat-foot on duty stepped softly till he ducked below again.

"By and by, in his cabin, the admiral presses the buzzer, and in comes his trusty yeoman, the same he'd carried from the days of theSavannah, and to him the admiral says: 'Willoughby'—call him Willoughby—' Willoughby, how long you been in the service?'

"'Nineteen years, sir.'

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