I
When first the legend of the Unlucky “Altisidora” began to take its
place in the great unwritten book of the folk-lore of the sea, old
shellbacks (nodding weather-beaten heads over mugs and glasses in a
thousand sailortown taverns from Paradise Street to Argyle Cut) were
wont to put forward a variety of theories accounting for her character,
according to the particular taste, creed, or nationality of the
theorizer for the time being.
Her keel was laid on a Friday.... Someone going to work on her had met a
red-haired wumman, or a wumman as skenned (this if the speaker were a
Northumbrian) and hadn’t turned back.... Someone had chalked “To Hell
with the Pope” (this if he were a Roman Catholic) or, conversely, “To
Hell with King William” (in the case of a Belfast Orangeman) on one of
her deck beams.... There was a stiff ’un hid away somewheres inside her,
same as caused all the trouble with the “Great Eastern.”... And so on,
and so forth, usually finishing up with the finely illogical assertion
that you couldn’t expect nothink better, not with a jaw-crackin’ name
like that!
Anyhow, unlucky she was, you couldn’t get away from it! Didn’t she
drownd her first skipper, when he was going on board one night in
’Frisco Bay? Didn’t her second break his neck in Vallipo, along of
tumbling down an open hatch in the dark? Come to that, didn’t she kill a
coupler chaps a week when she was buildin’ over in Wilson’s Yard,
Rotherhithe? Didn’t she smash up a lumper or two every blessed trip she
made? Hadn’t she got a way of slipping fellers overboard that sneaky and
sly-like no one knowed they was gone until it come coffee time and they
wasn’t there?... Say the skipper was drunk--well, ain’t skippers gone on
board canned up afore now and _not_ been drownded?... Say it was
somebody’s business to see that there hatch was covered or else a light
left alongside of it--well, ain’t hatches been left open in other ships
without folks walkin’ into ’em into the dark?... Say it was only two
fellers as was killed workin’ on her--well, ain’t there been plenty o’
ships built what _nobody_ got killed workin’ on? Answer me that!...
So the Unlucky “Altisidora” she became from London River to the
Sandheads--a legend to endure in many an ancient memory long after her
bones were rust.
* * * * *
It was in the South-West India Dock that Anderton first set eyes on
her--the sun going down behind Limehouse Church tower in a great flaming
splendour, and lighting up the warehouses, and the dock, and the huddle
of shipping, with an almost unearthly glory.
Anderton was in great spirits. He had waited a long and weary while for
a ship; haunting the docks and the shipping offices by day, and
spending his evenings--for he had no friends in London and no money to
spare for the usual shore diversions--in the dark little officers’
messroom at the Sailors’ Home in Well Street and the uninspiring society
of a morose mate from Sunderland, who passed the time toasting lumps of
cheese over the fire in order--so he confided to Anderton in a rare
burst of eloquence--to get his money’s worth out of the damn place. So
that when there dropped suddenly, as it were out of the summer heavens,
the chance of going as second mate in the “Altisidora” he fairly trod on
air.
It happened in this wise. He had spent a desolating morning tramping
round the docks, offering his valuable services to shipmasters who were
sometimes indifferent, sometimes actively offensive, but without
exception entirely unappreciative. He was beginning to feel as if the
new second mate’s ticket of which he had been so inordinately proud were
a possession slightly less to his credit than a convict’s
ticket-of-leave. Two yards of bony Nova Scotian, topped by a sardonic
grin, had asked him if he had remembered to bring his titty-bottle
along; and a brawny female, with her hands on her hips, bursting forth
upon him from a captain’s cabin, inquired if he took the ship for an
adjectived day nursery.
He had just beaten a hasty retreat after this last devastating encounter
with what dignity he could muster, and was all but resolved to give up
the fruitless quest and ship before the mast, when he heard a voice
behind him shouting “Mister! Hi, mister!”
At first Anderton took no notice. For one thing, he was far too much
taken up with his own concerns to be much interested in the outside
world; for another, he was not long enough out of his apprenticeship to
recognize at once the appellation of “Mister” as one likely to apply to
himself. And in any case there seemed no reason at all why the hail
should be intended for him. It was not, therefore, until it had been
repeated several times, each time a shade more insistently, until,
moreover, he realized that there was no one else in sight or earshot for
whom it could conceivably be intended, that the fact forced itself upon
his consciousness that he was the “Mister” concerned, and he stopped to
let the caller come up with him. He did so puffing and blowing. He was a
round, insignificant little man, whom Anderton remembered now having
seen talking to the mate of one of the ships he had visited earlier in
the day.
“I say,” he gasped, as soon as he was within speaking distance, “aren’t
you--I mean to say, don’t you want a second mate’s berth?”
Did he want a second mate’s berth, indeed? Did he want the moon out of
the sky--or the first prize in the Calcutta Sweep--or the Cullinan
diamond--or any other seemingly unattainable thing? He retained
sufficient presence of mind, however, not to say so, and (he hoped) not
to look it either, admitting, with a creditable attempt not to sound too
keen on it, that he did in fact happen to be on the look out for such an
opening.
“Ah, that’s good,” said the stranger, “because, as a matter of fact,
I--it’s most unfortunate, but my second mate’s met with an accident, and
the ship sails to-morrow. Could you join to-night?”
Manage it? Anderton repressed an impulse to execute a double shuffle on
the edge of the dock, to fling his arms round the little man’s neck and
embrace him, to cast his cap upon the stones and leap upon it. Instead,
he said, with the air of one conferring a favour, that he rather thought
he might.
“All right, then ... ship ‘Altisidora’ ... South-West India Dock ... ask
for Mr. Rumbold ... tell him you’ve seen me ... Captain Carter.”
Anderton stood staring after his new captain for several minutes after
his stubby figure had disappeared among the sheds. The thing was
incredible. It was impossible. It must be a dream. Here, only two
minutes before, he had been walking along seriously meditating the
desirability of taking a plunge into the murky waters of the London
Docks, and in the twinkling of an eye, as it were, the whole aspect of
life had been changed by a total stranger offering him--more, positively
thrusting upon him--the very thing he had trudged the docks in search of
until his boot-soles were nearly through.
If he had had time to reflect upon this bewildering gift thrown at him
by wayward fortune it might have occurred to him that--like so many of
that freakish dame’s bounties--there was a catch in it somewhere. He
might have thought, for example, that it was, to say the least, a
surprising fact that--at a time when he knew from bitter personal
experience that the supply of highly qualified and otherwise eminently
desirable second mates evidently greatly exceeded the demand--a
distracted skipper should be rushing round the docks looking for one.
But no such idea as yet damped the first fine flush of his triumph. Why,
indeed, should it? The ship’s name conveyed no sinister meaning to his
mind. He had never heard of her reputation; if he had, he wouldn’t have
cared a button.
He was, as it happened, destined to get the first hint of it within a
very few minutes. Just outside the dock gates he ran into Dick Charnock,
who had been senior apprentice in the old “Araminta” when Anderton was a
first voyager. Charnock was now mate--chief officer he called
himself--of a stinking little tub of a steam tramp plying to the
Mediterranean ports; and Anderton, remembering the airs he had been wont
to give himself in bygone days, took a special pleasure in announcing
his good fortune.
Charnock blew his cheeks out and said:
“O-oh--_her_!”
“Well?” said Anderton a trifle huffily. “What about her?”
No one likes to have cold water poured upon an exultant mood. “Beast!”
he thought. “Jealous--that’s what’s the matter with him!”
“Oh, nothing--nothing!” Charnock replied hastily. “I was just thinking
about something else, that’s all!”
This was so obviously a lie that it only made matters worse, and they
parted a trifle coolly; Anderton refusing an invitation to enjoy the
pleasures of London that evening, as displayed at Wilson’s Music Hall,
at which he would fairly have jumped less than an hour ago.
The morose mate was still sitting in the messroom, surrounded by his
customary aura of “frizzly dick,” when he got back to Well Street and
burst in upon him with his news.
He withdrew the fork from the fire, carefully inspected its burden and
after an interval of profound thought remarked:
“O-oh--_her_!”
His “O-oh--_her_” was, if anything, more pregnant with meaning than
Charnock’s.
“Well?” snapped Anderton. He was by now getting thoroughly exasperated.
“Well? What about ‘Oh--her ‘? What’s wrong with her anyway?”
The mate thoughtfully blew the ashes off his latest culinary triumph and
thrust it into his mouth.
“She’s no’ got a gude name!” he said, indistinctly, but none the less
darkly.
“Not a good name--what’s that mean, pray?” demanded Anderton angrily.
“Just that,” said the mate laconically, and went on toasting cheese.
Anderton flung out of the room in a rage. By this time his first
enthusiasm over his unexpected good fortune had received a decided
check, and it was with distinctly mixed feelings that he made his way
Poplar-wards to make personal acquaintance with his new ship.
What was the meaning behind all these dark hints? Was this mysterious
“Altisidora” a tough ship--a hell-ship? Her skipper didn’t look like it,
though, of course, one had heard of captains who had the Jekyll-and-Hyde
touch about them--butter wouldn’t melt in their mouths ashore, but they
turned into raging devils as soon as they were out of soundings. Anyhow,
he was ready enough for such contingencies. He had been reckoned the
best boxer in the ship as an apprentice, and he would rather welcome
than otherwise an opportunity of displaying his prowess with his
fists.... Was she perhaps a hungry ship? He reflected with a grin that
he had received ample training in the art of tightening his belt in the
old “Araminta.” ... Slow--well, a slow ship had her compensations in the
way of a thumping pay-roll. He remembered the long faces the crew of his
old ship had pulled when the dead horse was not out before she was on
the Line.... Ah, well, he supposed he should know soon enough. One thing
was certain, if she were the most unseaworthy tub in the world, he had
no intention of turning back. His situation had been desperate enough to
call for a desperate remedy.
There was some kind of a small disturbance--a street row of some
sort--in progress just outside the dock gate, and, despite his
impatience to see his new ship, Anderton stopped to see what was
happening.
A queer little scarecrow of a man was standing in the roadway, shaking
his clenched fists in denunciation towards the soaring spars of a lofty
clipper, whose poles, rising above the roofs of the warehouses, seemed
to stab the sunset sky.
“Oh, ye beauty! Oh, ye murdhering bitch!” he shouted. “Lovely ye look,
don’t ye? Who’d think to see ye that ye had it in ye to kill the bes’
shipmate ever a man had?”
A passing policeman, thumbs in belt, casting a kindly Olympian eye on
the little man, tapped him on the shoulder.
“All right--all right now--move on! Never mind about that now, Johnny!
Can’t do with you making your bother ’ere!”
The little man whirled round on him furiously.
“Johnny! Johnny is it? Isn’t it Johnny I’m talkin’ about, the bes’
shipmate ever a man had--smashed like a rotten apple, and no cause at
all for him to fall--oh, ye villain--oh, ye----”
Olympus grew slightly impatient.
“Come now, move on! Can’t do with you creatin’ no bother! Move on, I
tell you, if you don’t want me to appre’end you!”
The little man shuffled off, still muttering to himself, and pausing now
and again in his zigzag progress along the road to flourish his fists at
those contemptuous spars stabbing the sunset. The policeman, catching
Anderton’s eye, tapped his forehead significantly.
“Case o’ Dhoolallie tap, as we used to say in Injer,” he observed.
“Round ’ere nearly every day, ’e is, carryin’ on same as you saw.
Chronic!”
Anderton asked him where the “Altisidora” was berthed. A look--was it of
surprise?--flitted across his stolid countenance. Anderton could have
sworn he was going to say “O-oh--her!” But he didn’t. He only said,
“Right straight a’ead--can’t miss ’er----”
There were quite a number of ships in the dock, of which in those days a
fair proportion were still sailing ships--ships from the Baltic with
windmills sticking up amidships, Dagoes with brightly painted
figureheads and Irish pennants everywhere, Frenchmen with their look of
Gallic smartness and their standing rigging picked out in black and
white; she was none of these anyway.
Anderton’s eye dwelt longingly on the tall clipper whose spars he had
already seen soaring above the sheds. There, now, was the very ship of
his dreams! He thought life could hold no higher bliss for a sailorman
than to stand upon her poop--to control her, to guide her, to see the
whole of her lovely height and grace moving in obedience to his
commands. He sighed a little at the thought, as he continued to scan the
vista of moored shipping with eyes that hoped and yet feared to find
what they sought.
“Right straight ahead.” She couldn’t be far off now--why, his ship must
be lying at the very next berth to the beautiful clipper.
But there wasn’t a next berth: the tall beauty was lying in the very
corner of the dock. Already the straggle of letters among the gilt
scrollwork on her bow had begun to suggest a wild hope he daren’t let
himself entertain. But now it wasn’t a hope--it was a certainty! This
_was_ his ship--this dream, this queen, this perfect thing among ships!
Why, her name was like a song--why hadn’t it struck him before?--and she
was like a song ... the loveliest thing, Anderton thought, he had ever
seen ... rising up there so proud and stately above them all ... her
bare slender skysail poles soaring up, up until the little rosy dapple
in the evening sky seemed almost like a flight of tropical birds resting
on her spars. She dwarfed everything else in the dock. Anderton had
thought his last ship, the ship in which he had served his time, lofty
enough; yet now she seemed almost stumpy by comparison.
He climbed the gangway and stepped on board. The steward, a hoarse
Cockney with a drooping moustache under a pendulous red nose, and an
expression of ludicrous melancholy which would have been worth a fortune
to a music-hall artist, came out of his little kennel of a pantry to
show him his room, and lingered a while, exuding onions and
conversation.
“Nice room, sir, ain’t it? Orl been done right froo.... ’Ard lines on
the ovver young feller, weren’t it? Coo! Cargo slings giv’ way when he
was right underneaf--a coupler ’underweight bung on top of ’im! Coo!
Didn’t it jus’ make a mess of ’im? Not ’arf....”
So that was what had happened to his mysterious predecessor! Well, it
was an ill wind that blew nobody good, Anderton reflected. Poor beggar
... still he couldn’t help it ... and after all----
And it _was_ a nice room--no denying that! Heaps of room for his things,
he thought, remembering the little cramped half-deck of the “Araminta”
which he had shared with five other apprentices three short months ago.
The ship belonged to a period which had not yet learned the art of
cutting down its accommodation to the very last possible inch. Her
saloon was a grand affair, with a carved sideboard and panelling of
bird’s-eye maple, and a skylight with stained glass in it, and all the
rest of her fittings were to match. It looked as if he were going to be
in clover!
A series of tremendous crashes, accompanied by the falling of a heavy
body, broke in upon the steward’s remarks, and he started and looked
round, his toothpick poised in mid-mouth.
“Coo!” he exclaimed. “’Ere comes our Mister Rumbold--and ain’t he
pickled, too?... Not ’arf!”
He vanished discreetly into his pantry as the originator of the
disturbance came ricochetting along the alleyway, finally bringing up
against the door-jamb of Anderton’s room, where he came to a precarious
stand.
He was a man on the shady side of middle age, with a nose which had once
been aquiline and a sandy-white moustache yellowed with tobacco. The
impression he gave--of a dissipated cockatoo--was heightened by the
rumpled crest of stiff hair which protruded from beneath the shore-going
straw hat which he wore halo-fashion, like a saint on the spree, pushed
well back from his forehead.
“’Lo!” he observed with owl-like gravity. “You--comin’ shee long’f us?”
Anderton said he believed he was.
The mate reflected a minute and then said succinctly:
“Gorrelpyou!”
Not being able on the spur of the moment to think of a really
satisfactory answer to this rather surprising remark, Anderton took
refuge in silence, and went on stowing his gear.
“I said ‘Gorrelpyou!’” repeated Mr. Rumbold presently, with a decided
touch of pugnacity in his tone.
Anderton supposed it was up to him to say something, so he said:
“Yes, I know. But why?”
“’Cos--thiship--thishipsh--unlucky--‘Alshdora’!” replied the
mate. “Thashwy. Unlucky--‘Alshdora’! ’N if any man shaysh I’m
drunk--then I shay--my lorshangemmen, I shmit if I can shay
unlucky--unlucky--‘Alshdora’--I’m perfec’ly shober.... I’m perfec’ly
shober--‘n I’m goin’ bed!”
At this point he let go of the door-jamb to which he had been holding,
and proceeded with astonishing velocity on a diagonal course along the
alleyway, concluding by sprawling all his length on the floor of the
saloon.
“Wash marry thiship,” he enunciated gravely, sitting up and rubbing his
head. “Furnishershall over blushop. Tablesh--chairsh--sho on. Mush make
inquirations into thish--morramomin’!”
Here he again collapsed on to the floor, from which he had been slowly
raising himself as he spoke; then, apparently deciding to abandon the
attempt to resume the perpendicular, he set off at a surprising pace on
all fours, and Anderton’s last glimpse of him was the soles of his boots
as he vanished into his cabin.
He finished stowing his possessions, and then went ashore to make one or
two small purchases. The sun was not quite gone, and the greater part of
the dock was still flooded with rosy light. But the Unlucky “Altisidora”
lay now all in shadow, except for the gilt vane at her main truck which
flashed back the last rays of sunset. She looked aloof, alone, cut off
from her fellows by some mysterious and unmerited doom--a ship under a
dark star.