SHE IS ALARMED BY WHAT IS SAID BY THE OFFICERS
The convict ship _Childe Harold_ drove steadily down the North Atlantic
with the trade-wind, and then, losing those prosperous gales something
north of the Equator, crept stealthily through a wide, white, gleaming
zone of calms, blurred with fainting catspaws as a mirror is dimmed by
the breath. No incident of any sort broke the profound monotony of the
routine of shipboard life. Captain Barrett and the subaltern killed the
time by firing at a mark with pistols, by cards, chess, deck quoits,
fishing for sharks, and the like. Their duties were trifling. The
sergeant of the guard seemed to do all the work. The discipline of the
sea had the regularity of the tick of a clock. Sights were punctually
taken, the log hove, the watch relieved--so it went on. The crew came
and went to the sound of Balls’s pipe or to the warning voice of the
officer of the watch.
I was now looking very close into the sea life, and was of opinion
that it was a sickening, tedious calling. The atmosphere of romance
which had coloured my early thoughts of it, got from my father’s and
his friends’ merry or wild or exciting yarns, had perished out of my
mind long before we were up with the Equator, as the term is. The
captain was burdened with enormous responsibilities. The safety of a
large, valuable ship freighted with human lives was dependent upon
him, and his pay was perhaps less than the wages of a head-waiter of
a City tavern. The mates were at the mercy of the captain, who could
break them if he chose, send them forward to do common sailor’s work
and ruin them. They lived without friendship. One was superior to the
other. The captain addressed them only on matters of ship work, and
talked familiarly with nobody but the doctor and military officers.
There were three mates. Two of them led lives as lonely as the ship’s
figure-head; the third, who was a person of no consequence, would carry
his pipe into the boatswain’s or apprentices’ berth, and so kill time
for himself.
I had not guessed that this was the life of the deep when I used to
listen to the ocean talk of my father’s friends at Stepney or view the
ships in the Thames, and create a fairy sea with rich skies and spicy
breezes for them to sail over. It was my acquaintance, however, with
the forecastle side of the life that completely ruined my idealism. I
could not wonder that sailors should be the mutinous and growling dogs
they are represented when I peeped into the forecastle and smelt the
smells and blinked at the gloom and beheld the damp and the dirt, the
half-clad figures of men who had shipped without a shift of clothes and
whose wage would not bring them within hail of the slop-chest; when
I saw the lumps of green pork or blue and iron beef carried from the
galley into the forecastle along with the slush-thick peasoup or the
dingy, bolster-hard duff at which any famished mongrel of the London
streets might hiccough.
‘Is it the same everywhere at sea?’ I once asked Will.
‘No,’ he answered, ‘the crew are well fed and well treated aboard
us--comparatively speaking,’ he added, with a grin.
‘And do you like the life?’ said I.
‘The country must have sailors, young woman?’
‘I would rather be a convict,’ said I.
‘Yet it was not always thus, you know, my pretty Mary Jane,’ he
exclaimed, singing. ‘When Butler was a sailor you nailed your heart to
the foremast; now he’s a convict you want to clank it through life, eh?’
‘It was not always thus, Mary Jane, because I had never been to sea.
I read in books and listened to talk and painted on clouds. Now I am
at sea. I have watched the life and swear that I would rather take a
convict’s discipline along with a convict’s chances than be a foremast
hand.’
My work was light, and this was a wonderful mercy, seeing that I had
been made a cuddy-servant without anybody knowing I was a girl. I
washed glasses, fetched and carried dishes, cleaned knives and plate
and so on. This was no more than housemaid’s work, down even to the
scrubbing of the deck, which was the same as washing the floor of a
room. Added to this, I slept alone in a comfortable cabin and had all
such conveniences as a young woman who masquerades as a boy could need.
I was nearly of Will’s height, and his clothes fitted me, and when the
weather grew very hot I wore his flannel shirts, serge jacket buttoned
up to conceal my figure, and white drill trousers. I also got him to
buy me a new grass hat from one of the sailors, and thus attired, I
looked the smartest, sauciest young fellow that ever stepped the decks
of a ship. The captain and the mates knew how I came by the clothes I
wore, and asked no questions.
The Woolwich apparel remained in the upper bunk. Long before this I had
opened it and inspected the contents, and found every article as I had
packed it. It was a very large bundle; it contained my hat and bodice
and skirt and the under-linen and shoes I had removed when I dressed
myself as a boy.
Meanwhile the doctor was highly satisfied with the progress the convict
school-classes were making. He would come to the table and rub his
hands and declare, with one of his grave smiles, that since such and
such a date So-and-so--and here, perhaps, he would give the initials
of a convict or quote several examples by their initials only--had got
the Lord’s Prayer by heart and was beginning to pronounce words of two
and even three syllables. I am sure he was a benevolent, good, pious
man, but repulsive to my sympathies by sternness and officialism and,
perhaps, by the thought that Tom was under him, in his power, of no
more account than the rest of the prisoners, many of whom were being
transported for vile and some for diabolical crimes.
I’d keep my ears open to hear if he spoke of Tom; but he never uttered
my sweetheart’s name nor indicated him by any fashion of his own.
Strange to relate, one of his favourites was now the prize-fighter
Barney Abram. It puzzled me to imagine by what acts this man Abram
had succeeded in gaining the doctor’s good opinion and confidence.
Certainly during service no man was so attentive as the prize-fighter.
I see him now with his head slightly on one side, his eyes fixed upon
the doctor with an expression of half-complacent admiration, as though
what he heard was not only doing him good but amazing him with the
beauty and eloquence with which it was delivered. Then I gathered that
Barney was very zealous in the school-work. I remember the doctor
telling Captain Barrett that the tears stood in the prize-fighter’s
eyes whilst he expressed his gratitude for the opportunities provided
by the discipline of the convict ship for improving his understanding
and qualifying him to think and reason as a rational, responsible
being. Captain Barrett looked silently at the doctor through his
eye-glass; but immediately the doctor had quitted the table the captain
turned to Lieutenant Chimmo and spoke in a low voice, and then they
both laughed wildly. Indeed, the subaltern beat upon the table as
though he would suffocate.
I remember again, one afternoon, that I was sent with a tray of
seltzer and glasses to the poop. The commander of the ship was seated
in company with the doctor and the two military men. An awning was
stretched overhead, and its shadow was pleasant with the breath of a
small breeze off the beam, and it danced with a strange pulsing of
lights from the diamond twinkling of the brilliant blue sea.
We had by this time crossed the Equator; I believe our latitude was
about three degrees south. Sentries paced the fore part of the poop as
usual; the sentry forward sheltered himself in the gloom of the corner
of sail; a few convicts were lounging in a lifeless manner betwixt the
barricades. Tom was one of the convicts. He sat at the foot of the
mainmast in the shadow of it with his elbows on his knees, his brows
betwixt his clenched fists, his head hanging down, his eyes rooted to
the deck, his whole posture extraordinary with its suggestion of that
sort of grief which turns a man into stone.
Captain Sutherland and the others sat near the foremost skylight that
stood but a short distance from the break of the poop. The captain told
me to put the tray down on the skylight and fetch a bottle of brandy.
I returned with the brandy and a corkscrew, when, just as I was about
to draw the cork, the doctor lifted his hand, and with an odd pleased
look, bade me stand still and make no noise. Then it was that I heard a
sound of singing; the melody was a hymn, but I cannot give it a name; I
have since believed it was the air of a well-known hymn sung to words
which were written by some convict converted into an honest man by the
doctor during a previous voyage.
I judged by the volume of sound that about ten men sang; they sat under
the hatch where the gratings made a frame like a bird-cage, otherwise
we should not have heard them. They sang well, in good time, and one
deep voice was noticeable for its manner of working into the singing in
a harmonising way as though the fellow knew music.
Captain Barrett asked a question.
‘Hush, I beg of you,’ said the doctor, with a face of grave
satisfaction.
No one could have listened to the voice of the finest Italian
opera-singer of the day with more relish and ardent attention than the
doctor to the chanting of the convicts.
The singing ceased. I stood at a little distance, with the brandy and
the corkscrew, waiting to be told to draw the cork.
‘Whose was that deep voice?’ said Captain Barrett.
‘Barney Abram’s,’ answered the doctor.
‘Was it a Christian hymn they sang?’ asked Captain Barrett.
‘Certainly,’ responded the doctor. ‘Do you suppose that I would allow
any other sort of hymn to be sung in this ship?’
‘What’s Barney’s creed?’ said the subaltern.
‘He’s coming right,’ answered the doctor, severely. And then turning to
Captain Sutherland, he exclaimed: ‘I know you take an interest in these
matters. You will be gratified to learn that Abram expressed a wish
yesterday to be received into our Church.’
‘Indeed!’ said Captain Sutherland.
‘That could only be done by a bishop or a clergyman, I suppose?’ said
the subaltern.
The doctor, without answering, left the poop, walked to the main-hatch
and addressed some words to the men at the bottom of it.
‘What’s your opinion of Barney’s conversion?’ said Captain Sutherland
to Captain Barrett.
‘My opinion is,’ answered the other, ‘that I shall give instructions
for the sentries to keep an extra sharp eye upon him.’
‘Now the hymn’s over, suppose we get that cork drawn?’ said the
subaltern.
I started on the captain of the ship turning to look at me. My eyes had
been fastened upon Tom, who, on the doctor approaching the hatchway,
had risen and gone to the rail, and stood there looking out to sea. The
convicts came up in divisions to breathe the air. It was so burning
hot that the doctor had stopped the walking exercise. Tom’s division
happened to be up, and my eyes were rooted to his pale face as he stood
looking over the rail into the dim blue distance, when I was startled
by Captain Sutherland turning upon me.
‘Draw that cork,’ said he; ‘I had forgotten you.’ And he said to
Lieutenant Chimmo, but he did not mean that I should hear him: ‘Do you
observe that this lad is always at one’s elbow when the convicts are
under discussion?’
This speech brought some colour into my face; I was sensible that I
blushed and was deeply vexed that I did so. All three watched me draw
the cork out of the brandy bottle. I poured brandy into the tumblers
and filled them up with foaming seltzer and handed the draughts to the
gentlemen. Captain Barrett looked me hard in the face when I handed him
his tumbler. My fears made me find detection in his stare; I thought to
myself in his heart this man has found out that I am a woman.
I went toward the companion hatch to re-enter the cuddy; Lieutenant
Chimmo said loudly, as though indifferent whether I heard or not: ‘What
a devilish good-looking chap he is! He blushes like a girl.’
‘There’s a mystery about the youngster,’ said Captain Barrett. ‘He
puzzles me.’
I did not catch what the captain let fall, but feeling alarmed and
eager to know if more was said, I ran hastily down the companion steps
and posted myself under the open foremost skylight.
‘What makes you think so?’ I heard Lieutenant Chimmo say.
‘He seems too stoutly built for a lad,’ answered Captain Barrett.
‘I’ve met young fellows more girlish-looking than that lad,’ exclaimed
Captain Sutherland. ‘The apprentice, Johnstone, I understand, knows all
about him. Johnstone is of respectable stock. His father is a solicitor
near the Tower; I’ve never done business with him, but he has helped
many a poor gentleman of the jacket out of difficulties.’
The subaltern spoke of several effeminate officers whom he had met
with in various places. He mentioned one Captain Dawson, who, he said,
was called Pretty Polly. He wore his hair parted down the middle; it
was a rich auburn and waved, and the fellows of his regiment tried to
persuade him to let it grow to see to what length it would descend. He
had no hair except eyebrows and eyelashes upon his face; his complexion
was amazingly delicate, much more so than young Marlowe’s. He blushed
readily; his voice was a contralto, and when he sang you thought you
were listening to a woman.
This reminded Captain Barrett of a girlish-looking cornet named
Sheridan. Then Captain Sutherland furnished an instance of a singularly
effeminate second mate; after which, amid frequent sippings of brandy
and seltzer and puffing of paper cigars, the conversation went again to
Barney Abram, thence to other matters; whereupon, satisfied that they
had done with the topic of girlish-looking boys, I went to the pantry,
breathing a little more freely, though still somewhat uneasy, for I was
afraid of the meaning I had found in the stare that Captain Barrett had
regarded me with.