The _Kelvinhaugh_ was lying in the Queen's Dock and the cab rattled
down the silent streets which glistened wet in the glow of the
gas-lamps. It was a typical Glasgow morning--dark, cheerless and with
a cold drizzle descending from the brooding skies. They passed
men--hands in pockets and shoulders hunched--hurrying through the rain
to their "wurrk." Dock policemen loafed under the eaves of the sheds,
standing like statues with their oilskin capes reflecting the vagrant
flickering of near-by gas jets. It was a ghastly morning to be going
to sea, and Donald's spirits were at a very low ebb. There was very
little romance in this sort of thing.
The clatter of hoofs stopped and the cabman hailed a passer-by. "Hey,
you! Whaur's th' _Kelvinhaugh_ lyin'?"
"Twa berths doon!" came the answer. The hoofs and wheels clattered
again and ceased a minute later. The Jehu came down from his "dickey."
"Yer shup's lyin' here, mister," he said. "Ah'll kerry yer box an'
gear tae th' gang-way."
Donald followed him through a cargo shed, dark and dismal in its
emptiness. Some sparrows were quarrelling up in the rafters and two
pigeons picked vagrant ears of corn from the bare stone floors. Over
at an open quayside door, a knot of people were standing, and through
the opening one got a glance of the gleaming wet mast of a ship and
vertical parallels of new manilla cordage. To this door the cabman
shouldered Donald's sea-chest and bed gear and tumbled it down at the
shore end of a narrow gang-way. "Ah'll hae tae leave ye here, mister,"
he said huskily. "Ah canny trust ma hoarse tae staund verra long....
Aye! that'll be two shullin' for you, sir! Thankye, mister, and a
pleasant voyage tae ye!"
The people around the gang-way turned and stared at the boy. There
were several shawled women among them, evidently seeing their men off,
and some of the men appeared to be very drunk. As Donald pushed
through them to get to the gang-way, a man laughed and said, "Make way
fur th' binnacle-boy!" Some of the women laughed also in a manner
which testified to the brand of "tea" they had been imbibing that
morning.
The gang-way was laid on the ship's rail and opposite the half-deck,
in the door of which a young fellow was standing looking at the dock.
Donald addressed him. "Will you give me a hand to get my chest and
bedding aboard?" The other growled an "Alright!" and came ashore. He
was a youth of about twenty--a big fellow with pleasant features--but
he had a glum look in his eyes, and there was a downward droop to his
mouth. He followed Donald and roughly elbowed a passage through the
group at the gang-way end. One of the shawled women blocked his way
with a challenging look on her coarse face, but the youth shouldered
her aside ruthlessly, saying, "Out of my way, you----!" Donald was
shocked at such treatment of a woman, but he was shocked still more by
the oath-besprinkled retort which came from the aggrieved one's lips.
Both lugged the chest up the gang-way, while the lady of the shawl
spoke her mind. "Ye lousy pair o' brass-bound poop ornaments!" she
shrieked. "Ah'd like tae gie ye a scud on yer bloody jaws, ye blankety
blank----" One of the drunks beside her whipped his wet cap off his
cropped skull and gave the virago a resounding slap across the mouth
with it. "Haud yer tongue, ye gabby----!" he growled, but he got no
further. With a wild shriek, she turned on him. Off went the shawl,
and a fiend of a woman, with tousled hair flying and practically
naked above the waist, dug her nails into cropped-head's ugly face and
scraped him from hair to chin. The two of them set-to in
earnest--swearing, clawing, punching and kicking like a pair of
wild-cats--and the others looked on without attempting to interfere.
Heavy footsteps came padding up the shed. "Chuck it! Here's the
polis!" cried someone, and a stalwart Highland policeman grasped the
combatants and swung them apart. "Lemme get at him!" howled the
woman--a shocking sight in her _deshabille_, but the policeman had her
by the arm and held her off in a mighty grip. "Is that your shup?" he
asked the man. "Aye, Ah'm sailin' in her!" growled the fellow, wiping
the mud and blood off his ugly face. The officer of the law released
the woman and marched the man up the gang-plank. At the rail of the
ship he roared, "Hey! tak' this fella aboard an' lock him up!" And he
swung him down on the barque's main-deck with no gentle hand. Someone
took the man and stowed him away.
Donald had seen his chest stowed inside the half-deck and had watched
the rumpus on the dock. "Isn't that awful?" he said, utterly shocked.
The glum-looking youth grunted. "That's nothing! You'll see worse'n
that some day!" Then the glum look faded somewhat and he regarded
Donald curiously. "You're a new chap?" he enquired. "First voyage,
eh?"
Donald nodded. "What's your name?" enquired the other.
"Donald McKenzie."
"Mine's Jack Thompson." Both boys shook hands. Donald felt that he
would like Thompson. They sat down at a small mess-table and talked.
Thompson had been at sea three and a half years. He had six months of
his time to serve and hoped to go up for his second mate's ticket by
the time the _Kelvinhaugh_ made a home port--"if she ever makes a home
port," he added gloomily.
"Why?" asked Donald. He had glanced around the ship and she seemed to
be a splendid vessel. Everything was brand-new and shining. "She seems
a fine ship!"
"Fine hell!" growled the other disgustedly. "She's nothing but a big
steel tank and a cheap one at that! A great big lumbering, clumsy,
four-posted box, built by the mile and cut off by the yard, that'll
give us merry blazes when we get outside. I can see what's before us.
She'll be dirty, wet, and a bloody work-house from 'way-back. That's
what she'll be. If I had of seen her before yesterday, I'd have
skipped--'pon my soul I would!"
Donald was not unacquainted with the idiosyncrasies of sailors, so he
put Thompson's pessimism down to a sailing-day grouch. They talked a
while and Donald learned that there would be two other apprentices who
would join the ship at Greenock--a port at the mouth of the Clyde.
These lads, together with Thompson and Captain Muirhead, had been
together on the barque _Dunottar_, but this ship had been run into and
sunk in the Irish Channel a few months back. The "Dun Line" people had
bought the _Kelvinhaugh_ on the stocks to take the lost vessel's place
in a charter for carrying railroad iron out to the Pacific Coast for
one of the Canadian railways. There had been four apprentices on the
_Dunottar_, but one of them was drowned when the ship went down. "A
first voyager, too," said Thompson, "but the ruddy young fool went
back to save some of his gear and got caught!"
"What kind of a man is Captain Muirhead?" enquired Donald.
"From what I've seen of him," replied the other bluntly, "I don't like
him much. He was only on the _Dunottar_ the voyage she went to the
bottom, and as she slid for Davy's Locker four days after leaving port
we didn't get time to get acquainted. He's a mean josser and a
bad-tempered one too. But what can you expect in one of these ships?
McKenzie only pays his skippers twelve pounds a month. Good men
wouldn't go to sea in them for that." Staring curiously at Donald, he
asked, "Your name is McKenzie. Are you any relation to the owner of
these hookers?"
"Yes," replied the other. "He's my uncle."
Thompson whistled and said aggressively, "Well, you can tell your
uncle next time you write to him that he's a lousy, miserable swine
and that his ships are the worst-fed, worst-rigged, rottenest,
under-manned hookers afloat! Wouldn't I jolly well like to have him
aboard one rounding Cape Stiff! He'd get a belly-full of it--the
blasted two-ends-and-the-bight of a skin-tight Glasgow miser!"
Donald was not surprised at this freely-expressed opinion of his
uncle, but he quickly disabused Thompson's mind of any intention of
writing him. "My uncle isn't in love with me, and probably doesn't
care two pins about me!" he said shortly.
Thompson laughed. "Oh, well," he said, "we're in for it now, and we've
got to stick it out. Now, sonny, I'm going to give you some tips.
First of all, I'm top-dog in this half-deck. I'm the senior apprentice
and what I say goes--in here. Remember that!" Donald nodded. "Now,"
continued the other, "you seem a nice little chap, so I'll take you in
hand. You take this upper bunk here and chuck your bed-sack and
blanket into it. These upper bunks are the best when the water is
sloshing in here a foot-and-half deep. Don't you give that bunk up on
any pretence. The others will have to take the lowers, whether they
like it or not. Serve 'em right for being 'last-minute-men' and not
joining the ship here." Donald hove his bedgear into the bunk.
Thompson glanced at the stuff and felt the blanket. "Where did you get
that junk? Your uncle fitted you out, ye say? God help ye! It has his
trademark--a Parish Rig, a donkey's breakfast and a bull-wool and
oakum blanket! I can see he don't love ye! Now, son, get those
brass-bound rags off and get into your working clothes. You'll have to
turn-to in a minute or so. We're waiting for the tugs and the Old
Man."
While Donald was changing his clothes the door opened and a tall man
about thirty years of age and clad in an oilskin coat and with a
badged cap on his head peered inside. He had a clean-cut face, an
aquiline nose, piercing grey eyes, a flowing reddish mustache, and he
was smoking a cigarette.
"Get ready, naow!" he said in a nasal drawl which bespoke his
nationality as American. "I'll want ye in a minute or so."
Thompson looked up from the chest he was unpacking. "Yes, sir, we'll
be ready, sir. And, Mr. Nickerson, sir, it's a dirty morning. Would
you care for a nip, sir!"
The other swung his sea-booted feet over the washboard, entered, and
closed the door. "Produce th' med'cine young feller," he drawled. "The
Old Man will be singin' out in a minute. Who the devil is this
nipper?" He indicated Donald with a jerk of his head.
"The new apprentice, sir," answered Thompson. "Just joined. First
voyager, sir."
The tall man fixed Donald with his gimlet eyes. "What's yer name,
nation, an' future prospects? Donald McKenzie, eh? Scotch, I cal'late,
an' goin' to be a sailor I reckon. Waal, let me tell ye, ye're a
bloody fool an' ye'll know it before ye've bin a dog-watch at sea. I'm
the mate of this bally-hoo of blazes, and my name's Judson Nickerson
and I hail from Nova Scotia. When you address me you say 'Mister' and
'sir,' and when I address you, you jump, see?" He thrust forth a
mighty fist and crushed Donald's hand in a vice-like clasp. "You be a
good boy, obey orders an' look spry, and we'll get along fine. Skulk,
sulk or hang back, and I'll make you wish you'd never been born!"
Thompson brought forth a bottle of whisky from his chest and handed it
to the mate, who tilted it to his lips and swallowed a noggin which
caused Donald to stare in amaze. Mr. Nickerson noticed the boy's
wide-opened eyes, and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand,
laughed. "Never seen a man drink, sonny?" he asked. "Cal'late afore
ye've made a voyage or two--ef ye live it out--ye'll drink a bottle at
a sitting." He swung outside again with a parting word to get ready.
Thompson took a swig at the bottle and put it back in the chest,
saying, "I'm not going to give you a slug, nipper. You'll learn quick
enough without me starting you off! Curse it! The only way to go to
sea is half-drunk anyway."
There were numerous shouts out on deck and sea-booted feet clattered
outside the half-deck door. The crew were being mustered. Mr.
Nickerson could be heard singing out, "Look slippy, naow, you damned
Paddy Wester! Get that gear away out o' that!" and "Bos'n! Bos'n!
Where in hell is that ruddy bos'n? Aft there an' git that hawser on
th' poop an' ready to pass daown to the tug!" Then came a kick at the
half-deck door. "Turn out, naow, an' single them lines aft here!"
"Aye, aye, sir!" cried Thompson, and he went out on deck followed by
Donald.
The grey dawn was dimming the light of the gas-jets and the morning
looked clammy and cold. A number of men were working around the
barque's decks, and there was a crowd of people on the dock looking
on. Up the poop ladder scrambled the two boys--Thompson leading--and
they proceeded to the port bitts--there to wrestle with a snakey wire
mooring hawser and drag it aboard through a quarter-chock. There was a
light in the cabin and it shone up through the skylight. McKenzie
thought it must be nice and warm and homey down below as he tugged on
the cold, wet wire, grimy with coal-dust, and hard on his tender
hands.
A big hulking fellow scrambled up the ladder and stood beside them.
Donald glanced at him. He had straw-colored hair and a broad, ugly,
clean-shaven face. "Vind dot blasted wire on der drum!" he growled at
the sweating boys. "Vy der blazes don't you use your brains! Fetch der
end oop here und vind her!" Thompson dragged the end of the wire to an
iron drum and wound while Donald "lighted" the hawser along. "Who's
that chap?" asked Donald, when the man had turned away.
"The ruddy Dutchman we have for a second greaser," replied Thompson
with an oath. "Mister Otto Hinkel--a square-head from Hamburg--and a
stinkin' 'yaw-for-yes' swine if there ever was one!"
Under the orders of the Nova Scotia mate, the two were kept busy at
various tasks, and within an hour of the time he had come aboard,
Donald began to be disillusioned. There was very little romance in
what he had seen, heard or done so far. Toiling and sweating in the
cold, wet and muck on the barque's decks, with drunken, fighting men
falling foul of them, and cursed at by officers--themselves ill
tempered and harassed--who seemed to be absolutely heartless and
apparently ready to enforce orders with a blow or a kick, Donald began
to recall his father's words, "It's a dog's life at the best of
times!" The scenes on the wharf disgusted him, and during a "knock
off" to gulp a mug of coffee in the half-deck, he witnessed another
dock-side altercation between two "ladies" who both appeared to have a
claim of some sort on a stolid Swede, who, drunk and hardly able to
stand, stood looking stupidly on.
"Ay tell ju," screamed one of them, "he's my hosbond dot man is! His
wages cooms to me!"
"Ye're a liar!" shouted the other, who was Scotch. "He merrit me two
years ago! Ah hae ma merridge-lines tae prove it, which is a thing you
havny got ye dirrty Dutch----" And she applied an epithet which
implied that the lady in question had never received the benefit of
clergy in lawful ratification. "Ah, ken ye, ya yalla-haired trollop!
Ye hae a boat-load o' husbands! There's yin in ivery shup that gaes
doon the Clyde----" And casting aside their shawls in the approved
Broomielaw fashion, both went for one another in a scratching and
hair-pulling contest of most disgusting savagery.
The big Highland dock-policeman sauntered up, and with a blasé
expression on his ruddy face tried to separate the combatants. They,
however, resented interference and attacked him. His helmet rolled
off, to be slyly kicked into the dock by one of the onlookers who
detested policemen, and the two women gave him a tough tussle.
Grabbing the Swedish damsel, he shoved the Scottish maid on her back
in the mud, and blew his whistle. Another policeman ran up. "Pit yer
cuffs on that Moll lyin' doon an' bring the barra'," said the
helmetless one. "We'll tak them baith to the offis!" The prostrate
woman was evidently too drunk to rise, but kicked and struggled
fiercely as the policeman snapped the handcuffs on her wrists. Then
she lay in the mud with the rain pouring on her naked shoulders,
weeping and cursing, while her opponent struggled in the officer's
iron grip. In a few minutes the other policeman appeared with a long,
coffin-like hand-cart on two wheels. The lady in the mud was hoisted
into it, kicking and screaming, and effectually confined by means of
two straps. With one officer pushing the hand-cart, and the other
dragging the Scandinavian woman, the procession started up the shed,
followed by the "boos" and groans of the spectators.
The man who was the cause of all the row suddenly seemed to wake up.
Reaching around the back of his belt, he pulled out a sheath-knife,
and shouting, "Ay kill dot feller!" staggered, brandishing the knife,
after the policemen. Mr. Nickerson had been calmly watching the fracas
from the poop, but when he saw the man moving off, he sprang from the
poop rail to the dock, and in two or three long strides, reached the
belligerent Swede. In less time than it takes to relate, he had
knocked the fellow to the ground, and had twisted the knife out of his
hand and sent it spinning along the stone floor of the shed. Then with
a mighty heave, he jerked the man to his feet, rushed him up the
gang-way, and then hove him from the height of the to'gallant rail to
the deck. Leaping after the now thoroughly cowed sailor, the mate
booted him into the fore-castle, and then, pensively pulling at his
mustache, walked nonchalently aft along the main-deck to the poop,
utterly oblivious to the cries of "Bucko!" "Yankee bruiser!" "Come up
here an' try yer fancy tricks an' we'll pit a heid on ye!" which came
from the coterie on the quayside.
Donald was nauseated by the sights he had witnessed and the manner in
which Mr. Nickerson had handled the Swedish sailor frightened him with
its brutality. He could hear the heavy thud of the mate's boots as
they were driven into the ribs and back of the man, and it sickened
his sensitive soul.
"Ye're looking white about the gills, kid!" remarked Thompson
sarcastically. "What's worrying ye?"
"Mister Nickerson--and that sailor!" mumbled Donald.
"Huh!" said the other coolly. "He handled him fine! That's the proper
Yankee fashion, though I guess our Old Man wouldn't like to see the
mate hustle them like that around the dock. Liable to get into
trouble. This is a British ship and the authorities won't stand for
manhandling if it can be proved."
It was broad daylight now and the two tugs were alongside. The Blue
Peter was flying at the fore, and the Red Ensign from the jigger gaff.
Captain Muirhead and the pilot appeared on the poop--the former in his
square-topped bowler hat. Coming to the break of the poop, the skipper
sung out to the mate, "All hands aboard, mister?"
"Two men short, sir!" answered the mate. "Shipping master says he'll
try and locate them and send them daown to Greenock!"
The master grunted, "We'll no get them, that's sure. Weel, we hae tae
get oot o' this. Staund-by fur lettin' go fore'n aft. Send a hond tae
th' wheel!"
Mr. Nickerson motioned to Thompson. "Go'n take the wheel, you! I
cal'late there ain't a sober man in th' fo'c'sle. An' you, nipper," he
said to Donald, "jest stand-by under the break ontil I want ye. Ye're
not much account yet awhile!"
The tow-boat whistled for the swing-bridge at the dock entrance to
open, and slowly dragged the deep-laden barque away from the quay. As
the single mooring lines were cast off, the onlookers gave a few
"Hurrays!" and the women and men yelled to the members of the crew.
"Ta, ta, Joak! Bring me hame a parrot--yin that can talk!" "So long,
Gus! Look oudt for dot mate! He's a nigger-driver!" Mr. Nickerson was
up on the fo'c'sle-head rousing his Jacks around, and he came in for a
number of complimentary epithets. The cook lounged in the door of his
galley and as they passed through the swing-bridge piers, he waved his
apron at the crowd of workmen waiting to cross and shouted the
time-honored outwardbounder's fare-ye-well, "Urray for the pier 'ead
an' th' bloody stiy-at-'omes!"
"Ye may well say it, Slushy!" bawled a man on the pier. "For I'm
thinkin' ye'll be payin' yer debts wi' th' foretopsail-sheet an' maybe
the polis is lookin' for ye!" The shot evidently went home for cookie
vanished.
Out through the dock walls went the barque, just as the shipyard
whistles were blowing for eight o'clock, and with the stern tug
straightening her out in the river channel, the ship responded to the
pull of the hawser ahead and glided down to the sea.
Donald tramped up and down under the break of the poop keeping himself
warm, and in one of his turns he espied a female figure, waving a
handkerchief, standing near the Kelvinhaugh Ferry slip. He waved in
return. It was his mother, and he leaned over the high rail and
watched her until the rainy mist veiled them from each other. Then he
turned inboard with a lump in his throat and tears in his eyes. He was
feeling miserable, and oh, so lonely! Leaning his head against the
rail he began to cry.
"Vot de hell is de matter mit you, boy?" cried a strident voice from
above. Donald turned to see the German second mate looking down at him
from the poop rail.
"Nothing, sir!"
"Den if nodings is de matter," growled the other, "you yust belay dot
weepings or I gif you somedings to weep for! You go forrard dere und
haul down dot Blue Peter und bring it aft here und be damned smardt
aboudt it!"
Three hours a member of a ship's company and Donald was pretty well
sick of it all. Nothing of the glory, adventure and romance of the sea
and ships had yet unfolded itself to his eyes. No! all he had seen was
sordid wharf-side bickerings, evil women and sodden men; dirty menial
work and cruel words; autocratic authority, brutality and a scoffing
callousness for fine feelings. He thought of these things as he coaxed
the outward-bound bunting down and clear of the mazy web of rigging
aloft, but with the sight of the sky and the soaring spars and the
river gulls, came new heart and determination, and he murmured to
himself, "Others have gone through it and came out all right. My daddy
came through it all right, and so shall I!"