BILL HAYDEN
More than two-score years and ten have come and gone since that day when I,
Benjamin Lathrop, put out from Salem harbor, a green hand on the ship
Island Princess, and in them I have achieved, I think I can say with due
modesty, a position of some importance in my own world. But although
innumerable activities have crowded to the full each intervening year,
neither the aspirations of youth nor the successes of maturity nor the
dignities of later life have effaced from my memory the picture of myself,
a boy on the deck of the Island Princess in April, 1809.
I thought myself very grand as the wind whipped my pantaloons against my
ankles and flapped the ribbons of the sailor hat that I had pulled snugly
down; and I imagined myself the hero of a thousand stirring adventures in
the South Seas, which I should relate when I came back an able seaman at
the very least. Never was sun so bright; never were seas so blue; never was
ship so smart as the Island Princess.
On her black hull a nicely laid band of white ran sheer from stem to stern;
her bows swelled to meet the seas in a gentle curve that hinted the swift
lines of our clippers of more recent years. From mainmast heel to truck,
from ensign halyard to tip of flying jib-boom, her well-proportioned masts
and spars and taut rigging stood up so trimly in one splendidly
coördinating structure, that the veriest lubber must have acknowledged her
the finest handiwork of man.
It was like a play to watch the men sitting here and there on deck, or
talking idly around the forecastle, while Captain Whidden and the chief
mate conferred together aft. I was so much taken with it all that I had no
eyes for my own people who were there to see me off, until straight out
from the crowded wharf there came a young man whom I knew well. His gray
eyes, firm lips, square chin, and broad shoulders had been familiar to me
ever since I could remember.
As he was rowed briskly to the ship, I waved to him and called out, "O
Roger--ahoy!"
I thought, when he glanced up from the boat, that his gray eyes twinkled
and that there was the flutter of a smile on his well-formed lips; but he
looked at me and through me and seemed not to see me, and it came over me
all at once that from the cabin to the forecastle was many, many times the
length of the ship.
With a quick survey of the deck, as if to see who had spoken, yet seeming
not to see me at all, Roger, who had lived all his life within a cable's
length of the house where I was born, who had taught me to box the compass
before I learned my ABC's, whose interest in my own sister had partly
mystified, partly amused her younger brother--that very Roger climbed
aboard the Island Princess and went on into the cabin without word or sign
of recognition.
It was not the first time, of course, that I had realized what my chosen
apprenticeship involved; but the incident brought it home to me more
clearly than ever before. No longer was I to be known as the son of Thomas
Lathrop. In my idle dreams I had been the hero of a thousand imaginary
adventures; instead, in the strange experiences I am about to relate, I was
to be only the ship's "boy"--the youngest and least important member of
that little isolated community banded together for a journey to the other
side of the world. But I was to see things happen such as most men have
never dreamed of; and now, after fifty years, when the others are dead and
gone, I may write the story.
When I saw that my father, who had watched Roger Hamlin with twinkling eyes
ignore my greeting, was chuckling in great amusement, I bit my lip. What if
Roger _was_ supercargo, I thought: he needn't feel so big.
Now on the wharf there was a flutter of activity and a stir of color; now a
louder hum of voices drifted across the intervening water. Captain Whidden
lifted his hand in farewell to his invalid wife, who had come in her
carriage to see him sail. The mate went forward on the forecastle and the
second mate took his position in the waist.
"Now then, Mr. Thomas," Captain Whidden called in a deep voice, "is all
clear forward?"
"All clear, sir," the mate replied; and then, with all eyes upon him, he
took charge, as was the custom, and proceeded to work the ship.
While the men paid out the riding cable and tripped it, and hove in the
slack of the other, I stood, carried away--foolish boy!--by the thought
that here at last I was a seaman among seamen, until at my ear the second
mate cried sharply, "Lay forward, there, and lend a hand to cat the
anchor."
The sails flapped loose overhead; orders boomed back and forth; there was
running and racing and hauling and swarming up the rigging; and from the
windlass came the chanteyman's solo with its thunderous chorus:--
"Pull one and all!
Hoy! Hoy! Cheery men.
On this catfall!
Hoy! Hoy! Cheery men.
Answer the call!
Hoy! Hoy! Cheery men.
Hoy! Haulee!
Hoy! Hoy!!!
Oh, cheery men!"
As the second anchor rose to the pull of the creaking windlass, we sheeted
home the topsails, topgallantsails and royals and hoisted them up, braced
head-yards aback and after-yards full for the port tack, hoisted the jib
and put over the helm. Thus the Island Princess fell off by the head, as we
catted and fished the anchor; then took the wind in her sails and slipped
slowly out toward the open sea.
Aft, by the lee rail, I saw Roger Hamlin watching the group, a little apart
from the others, where my own people had gathered. My father stood half a
head above the crowd, and beside him were my mother and my sister. When I,
too, looked back at them, my father waved his hat and I knew his eyes were
following me; I saw the flutter of white from my mother's hand, and I knew
that her heart was going out with me to the uttermost parts of the earth.
Then, almost timidly, my sister waved her handkerchief. But I saw that she
was looking at the quarter-deck.
As land fell astern until it became a thin blue line on the western
horizon, and as the Island Princess ran free with the wind full in her
sails, I took occasion, while I jumped back and forth in response to the
mate's quick orders, to study curiously my shipmates in our little kingdom.
Now that we had no means of communication with that already distant shore,
we were a city unto ourselves.
Yonder was the cook, a man as black as the bottom of his iron pot, whose
frown, engraved deeply in his low forehead, might have marked him in my
eyes as the villain of some melodrama of the sea, had I not known him for
many years to be one of the most generous darkies, so far as hungry small
boys were concerned, that ever ruled a galley. The second mate, who was now
in the waist, I had never seen before--to tell the truth, I was glad that
he held no better berth, for I disliked the turn of his too full lips.
Captain Whidden and the chief mate, Mr. Thomas, I had known a long time,
and I had thought myself on terms of friendship with them, even
familiarity; but so far as any outward sign was concerned, I might now have
been as great a stranger to either as to the second mate.
We were twenty-two men all told: four in the cabin--Captain Whidden, Mr.
Thomas, Mr. Falk, and Roger, whose duties included oversight of the cargo,
supervision of matters purely of business and trade in foreign ports, and a
deal of clerical work that Captain Whidden had no mind to be bothered with;
three in the steerage--the cook (contrary, perhaps, to the more usual
custom), the steward, and the carpenter; and fourteen in the forecastle.
All in all I was well pleased with my prospects, and promised myself that I
would "show them a thing or two," particularly Roger Hamlin. I'd make a
name for myself aboard the Island Princess. I'd let all the men know that
it would not take Benjamin Lathrop long to become as smart a seaman as
they'd hope to see.
Silly lad that I was!
Within twenty minutes of that idle dream the chain of circumstances had
begun that was to bring every man aboard the Island Princess face to face
with death. Like the small dark cloud that foreruns a typhoon, the first
act in the wild drama that came near to costing me my own life was so
slight, so insignificant relatively, that no man of us then dreamed of the
hidden forces that brought it to pass.
On the forecastle by the larboard rigging stood a big, broad-shouldered
fellow, who nodded familiarly at the second mate, cast a bit of a leer at
the captain as if to impress on the rest of us his own daring and
independence, and gave me, when I caught his eye, a cold, noncommittal
stare. His name, I shortly learned, was Kipping. Undeniably he was
impudent; but he had, nevertheless, a mild face and a mild manner, and when
I heard him talk, I discovered that he had a mild voice; I could find no
place for him in the imaginary adventures that filled my mind--he was quite
too mild a man.
I perceived that he was soldiering at his work, and almost at the same
moment I saw the mate come striding down on him.
"You there," Mr. Thomas snapped out, "bear a hand! Do you think you're
waiting for the cows to come home?"
"No-o-o, sir," the mild man drawled, starting to walk across the deck.
The slow reply, delivered with a mocking inflection, fanned to sudden
laughter chuckles that the mate's words had caused.
Mr. Thomas reddened and, stepping out, thrust his face close to the
other's. "You try any of your slick tricks on me, my man," he said slowly
and significantly, "you try any of your slick tricks on me, and so help me,
I'll show you."
"Ye-e-es, sir," the man replied with the same inflection, though not so
pronounced this time.
Suddenly the deck became very still. The listeners checked their laughter.
Behind me I heard some one mutter, "Hear that, will you?" Glancing around,
I saw that Captain Whidden had gone below and that Mr. Thomas was in
command. I was confident that the mild seaman was mocking the mate, yet so
subtle was his challenge, you could not be sure that he actually was
defiant.
Although Mr. Thomas obviously shared the opinion of the men, there was so
little on which to base a charge of insubordination or affront that he
momentarily hesitated.
"What is your name?" he suddenly demanded.
"Kipping, sir," the mild man replied.
This time there was only the faintest suggestion of the derisive
inflection. After all, it might have been but a mannerism. The man had such
a mild face and such a mild manner!
"Well, Kipping, you go about your work, and after this, let me warn you,
keep busy and keep a civil tongue in your head. We'll have no slick tricks
aboard this ship, and the sooner you men realize it, the easier it will be
for all hands."
Turning, the mate went back to the quarter-deck and resumed his station by
the weather rail.
While his back was toward us, however, and just as I myself, who had
listened, all ears, to the exchange of words between them, was turning to
the forecastle, I saw--or thought I saw--on Kipping's almost averted face
just such a leer as I had seen him cast at the captain, followed, I could
have taken my oath, by a shameless wink. When he noticed me gazing at him,
open-mouthed, he gave me such another cold stare as he had given me before
and, muttering something under his breath, walked away.
I looked aft to discover at whom he could have winked, but I saw only the
second mate, who scowled at me angrily.
"Now what," thought I, "can all this mean?" Then, being unable to make
anything of it, I forgot it and devoted myself industriously to my own
affairs until the hoarse call of "All hands on deck" brought the men who
were below tumbling up, to be summoned aft and addressed by the captain.
Apparently Captain Whidden was not aware that there was a soul on board
ship except himself. With his eyes on the sea and his hands clasped behind
him, he paced the deck, while we fidgeted and twisted and grew more and
more impatient. At last, with a sort of a start, as if he had just seen
that we were waiting, he stopped and surveyed us closely. He was a fine
figure of a man and he affected the fashions of a somewhat earlier day.
A beaver with sweeping brim surmounted his strong, smooth-shaven face, and
a white stock, deftly folded, swathed his throat to his resolute chin. Trim
waistcoat, ample coat, and calmly folded arms completed his picture as he
stood there, grave yet not severe, waiting to address us.
What he said to us in his slow, even voice was the usual speech of a
captain in those times; and except for a finer dignity than common, he did
not deviate from the well-worn customary phrases until he had outlined the
voyage that lay before us and had summed up the advantages of prompt,
willing obedience and the penalties of any other course. His tone then
suddenly changed. "If any man here thinks that he can give me slovenly work
or back talk and arguing," he said, "it'll be better for that man if he
jumps overboard and swims for shore." I was certain--and I still am--that
he glanced sharply at Kipping, who stood with a faint, nervous smile,
looking at no one in particular. "Well, Mr. Thomas," he said at last,
"we'll divide the watches. Choose your first man."
When we went forward, I found myself, as the green hand of the voyage, one
of six men in the starboard watch. I liked the arrangement little enough,
for the second mate commanded us and Kipping was the first man he had
chosen; but it was all in the day's work, so I went below to get my jacket
before eight bells should strike.
The voices in the forecastle suddenly stopped when my feet sounded on the
steps; but as soon as the men saw that it was only the boy, they resumed
their discussion without restraint.
"I tell you," some one proclaimed from the darkest corner, "the second
mate, he had it all planned to get the chief mate's berth this voyage, and
the captain, he put him out no end because he wouldn't let him have it.
Yes, sir. And he bears a grudge against the mate, he does, him and that sly
friend of his, Kipping. Perhaps you didn't see Kipping wink at the second
mate after he was called down. I did, and I says to myself then, says I,
'There's going to be troublous times ere this voyage is over.' Yes, sir."
"Right you are, Davie!" a higher, thinner voice proclaimed, "right you are.
I was having my future told, I was, and the lady--"
A roar of laughter drowned the words of the luckless second speaker, and
some one yelled vociferously, "Neddie the fortune-teller! Don't tell me
he's shipped with us again!"
"But I tell you," Neddie persisted shrilly, "I tell you they hit it right,
they do, often. And the lady, she says, 'Neddie Benson, don't you go
reckless on this next voyage. There's trouble in store,' she says.
'There'll be a dark man and a light man, and a terrible danger.' And I paid
the lady two dollars and I--"
Again laughter thundered in the forecastle.
"All the same," the deep-voiced Davie growled, "that sly, slippery--"
"Hist!" A man raised his hand against the light that came faintly from on
deck.
Then a mild voice asked, "What are you men quidding about anyway? One of
you's sitting on my chest."
"Listen to them talk," some one close beside me whispered. "You'd think
this voyage was all of life, the way they run on about it. Now it don't
mean so much to me. My name's Bill Hayden, and I've got a little wee girl,
I have, over to Newburyport, that will be looking for her dad to come home.
Two feet long she is, and cute as they make them."
Aware that the speaker was watching me closely, I perfunctorily nodded. At
that he edged nearer. "Now I'm glad we're in the same watch," he said. "So
many men just cut a fellow off with a curse."
I observed him more sharply, and saw that he was a stupid-looking but
rather kindly soul whose hair was just turning gray.
"Now I wish you could see that little girl of mine," he continued. "Cute?
there ain't no word to tell you how cute she is. All a-laughing and
gurgling and as good as gold. Why, she ain't but a little old, and yet she
can stand right up on her two little legs as cute as you please."
I listened with mild interest as he rambled on. He seemed such a friendly,
homely soul that I could but regard him more kindly than I did some of our
keener-witted fellow seamen.
Now we heard faintly the bell as it struck, _clang-clang, clang-clang,
clang-clang_. Feet scuffled overhead, and some one called down the hatch,
"Eight bells, starbow-lines ahoy!"
Davie's deep voice replied sonorously, "Ay-ay!" And one after another we
climbed out on deck, where the wind from the sea blew cool on our faces.
I had mounted the first rung of the ladder, and was regularly signed as a
member of the crew of the Island Princess, bound for Canton with a cargo of
woolen goods and ginseng. There was much that puzzled me aboard-ship--the
discontent of the second mate, the perversity of the man Kipping (others
besides myself had seen that wink), and a certain undercurrent of
pessimism. But although I was separated a long, long way from my old
friends in the cabin, I felt that in Bill Hayden I had found a friend of a
sort; then, as I began my first real watch on deck at sea, I fell to
thinking of my sister and Roger Hamlin.