THE SEND-OFF.
The _Port Edes_ had gained the name of an unlucky ship. She had slain
three men in her building; she had crushed another to death the day
before she left the slips; and, though only three years in the water, she
had already maimed enough hands from various crews to make her a full
complement. Some vessels are this way; from no explainable cause there
seems to be a diabolic fatality about them.
It is not to be supposed that sailormen rush to join a craft of this
sinister reputation. Although they are called asses in the bulk, they
are only asses in part. They always try for the best berths first. But
because there are not enough of these to go round; and because, thanks to
the Dago and the Dutchman, there are not sufficient berths of any sort
whatever to supply all aspirants; it is always possible to man any vessel
which a Board of Trade official will pass through a dock gates.
Just as no man is ever successful in anything without due cause, so
_per contra_ few sailormen are down on their luck except through some
peculiar trait of incapacity. So that on your unpopular ship, be she
tramp-steamer, or eke weeping wind-jammer, you do not get much pick of a
crew. You have to put up with what other people have left, and it does
not take you long to learn that your beauties have not been rejected for
their excellences.
It was this way on the _Port Edes_. Forward and aft, engine-hold and
pantry, each man on board of her had his private sea-failings. Between
them they lacked wakefulness, eyesight, decision, strength of fist,
strength of language, seamanship, and common sobriety. Amongst the
deck-hands there were virulent sea-lawyers; in the stokeholds there was
_âmes damnées_ wanted by several Governments. The engineers were skilful
in gaining the smallest possible knottage per ton of coal; the mates were
all slipshod navigators, untrustworthy even to correct a compass and
useless to drive a truculent crew.
Over all was Owen Kettle, master mariner. Whatever his failings might
be (and the index of them tailed out), they did not show prominently at
the head of such a ship’s company. Like all men in the merchant marine,
he had been bred in the roughest school; but, unlike his successful
brethren, he had not graduated later on to the smooth things of a
well-manned passenger liner. For his sins he had remained the pitiful
knock-about skipper, a man with knife-edged words always ready on the lip
of his teeth, a leaden whistle in one jacket-pocket, and a lethal weapon
in the other. He was an excellent seaman and navigator—a man capable of
going an entire voyage without taking off his clothes or enjoying one
watch of regular sleep. Whilst in command at sea, he credited himself
with the powers of a Czar, and was entirely unscrupulous in gaining
ends which expediency or his owners laid down for him; and though not
physically powerful, he had the pluck of a dog, and an unholy reputation
for marksmanship. Taking into allowance these qualifications, it may
be understood that for the handling of such a menagerie of all-nation
scoundreldom and incapacity as bunked in the S. S. _Port Edes_, no better
man than Owen Kettle breathed in either hemisphere.
The crew signed their marks on the articles at the shipping office in
the Sailors’ Home, and went off grumbling to get rid of their advances.
Later, most of them turned up on the steamer; some with their worldly
goods done up in dunnage sacks (which look to the uninitiated like
pillow-slips); some apparently possessing nothing but the squalid raiment
they stood up in. There was not one of them dressed like a sailor,
according to the conventional idea, yet most of them had made their
bread upon the seas since early boyhood, which shows what conventional
ideas are sometimes worth. They were most of them oldish men, and looked
even older than their years.
The engineers came on board early, for the most part in scrubby blue
serge, and sour black temper. They grumbled at the mess-room in broad
Glaswegian, prophesied evil (in advance) about the capacities of the
mess-room steward and the ship’s cook, dumped their belongings into their
various rooms, and changed to apparel more suitable for tail-twisting in
the unclean regions below. Then they went on duty, quarreled with the
donkeyman who was making steam for the winches, and proceeded to split up
their crew of firemen and trimmers into watches, and apportion them to
furnace doors and bunkers.
The three mates, the boatswain, and the carpenter were also on board
betimes, most of them large-headed with recent libations, and feeling
cantankerous accordingly. There was a small general cargo being
shipped for New Orleans, and it gave these worthy officers ease to
find occasional acid fault with the stevedore’s crew or the crane men
on the wharf; but, for the most part, they shuffled about the decks in
easy slippers, attending to the various ship duties in massive sneering
silence.
Patrick Onslow came into the chart-house on the bridge-deck, closing the
door behind him. “A cheery, amiable crowd you’ve collected,” he said.
“Aren’t they?” replied Captain Kettle from a sofa locker. “They’re just
a terror of a crew. You wait till we get to sea, and they start on
mischief. My mate’s a cur; he wouldn’t stand up to a Chinaman. And the
rest of the after-guard is much of a pattern—picked that way on purpose.
Oh, I tell you, Mr. Onslow, that I stand alone, and I shall have my hands
full. But let ’em start, the brutes. I’ll haze them. It isn’t a new sort
of tea-party, this, with me.”
“You’re going into it with your eyes open, anyway.”
“Oh don’t you make any error, sir,” said Kettle. “I know my job. And if I
warn you, it’s because you’ll see things for yourself, and perhaps join
in at them. I don’t go and tell everybody. Not much. They think ashore
I’ve got a real soft thing on this time. Why, do you know, Mr. Onslow,”
he added, with a thin, sour grin, “my old woman wanted to come with me
for the trip. She said it was so long since she’s had a whiff of outside
air, that now I’d such a tidy steamboat under me, she couldn’t miss the
chance. Yes, sir; and she said she’d bring one of the kids with her that
wanted to be a sailor, like his daddy! I tell you, she was that took on
the idea she’d hear no refusal; and I had to write a letter to owners,
and get them to wire back a ‘No’ she could read for herself. It’d look
well set to music, that tale, wouldn’t it? Sort of jumpy music, you know,
with a yo-heave-humbug chorus to it, same as all sailors’ songs have that
you hear in the halls.”
Onslow shrugged his shoulders. “What can you expect at the price?” he
asked. “This isn’t a twelve-pound-a-month berth; and you’ve threshed
across the Atlantic in a worse ship for less.”
“Don’t you mistake me,” retorted Kettle. “I’m working for full value
received; and there’s many an old sailor’d like to be in my shoes, if he
only knew. I’m not grumbling at the berth, only when a man’s on a racket
of this kind, it’s a bit hard on him to have a wife and kids he’s fool
enough to be fond of. It’s an ugly amusement, lying to them like a play
actor, when you know it’s ten chances to one you’ll never see English mud
again. That’s the way it cuts, though I suppose you’ll think it all a
sailor’s grumble. Perhaps you aren’t a married man?”
“No; I’m not.”
“But you’ve got people who care for you?”
Onslow gave the ghost of a smile, and then laughed. “No,” he said, “I
can’t even boast of that. Acquaintances are mine in thousands; but
friends—well, all friendship has its breaking strain. I’m a bit like that
comfortable, contemptible person, the Miller of the Dee. I believe I did
care for somebody once; and she made me think she cared for me. Probably
she lied, because, under persuasion, she went off with another man. Bah!
though, what does it matter? Kettle, we’re talking rank sentiment, and
that’s an unprofitable employment for men engaged on a piece of delicate
business. And—here’s a gentleman come to tell me that the consignment of
specie is just commencing to arrive. Now, captain, the stuff’ll be in
iron-bound boxes, and you and I have got to weigh each one separately,
and check the invoice. Then we’re to act as our own stevedores, and stow
half of it in the cabin next my room, and half of it across the alley-way
next the mate’s.”
“Why divide it?”
“Because the weight is big, and it would give your steamer a heavy list
to starboard.”
“Oh, as to that, never mind. We can easily bring her up again with a
trimming tank; and I shouldn’t feel comfortable if any of the stuff was
in that room next the mate’s. You see, Mr. Onslow, any one on board can
go down that alley-way. In fact, it’s the only road from end to end of
the ship, unless you go up over the bridge deck. And I’d not guarantee
but what the bait wouldn’t make some of them beauties try and tamper
with the door. It’s big enough to smudge the honesty of an archbishop,
if he was only earning four pounds a month. Now, the room next yours has
iron walls, and opens only into the inner cabin. There’s a good lock on
it already, and if I make the carpenter bend on four more, you’ll have a
strong-room the Bank of England might boast about.”
“That sounds sensible,” commented the envoy from the bank.
“Very well,” said Onslow, “I believe it is the best plan. Now, if you
please, we’ll have the weighing-machine in the main cabin, and if you,
sir, will instruct your men to bring in the boxes one by one, I’ll
satisfy myself that they agree with the tally, and Captain Kettle shall
build them up in the state-room before us both. It’s a very responsible
job we have upon us, and the more counter-checkings and precautions we
can put into it the better for our several reputations.”
It was a responsible job. Not every day is specie to the tune of half a
million British sovereigns shipped from a Liverpool dock; and because
gold-boxes are made in a conventional pattern, the shipment was spotted,
and crowds gathered to stare at the cased-in wealth.
As staring dumbly is dry work, self-appointed orators amongst the
crowd naturally distributed gratis their own private opinions upon the
situation; and, according to their luck or eloquence, these attracted
larger or smaller audiences. No one took them very seriously, and they
for the most part treated the subject in a jocular vein. It was not till
Captain Kettle and the Mersey pilot had gone on to the upper bridge, and
the mate on the fore-deck had cast off the first bow-fast, that a prophet
arose who spoke of the gold shipment in another key.
He was a wild, unkempt, knock-kneed man, who attracted first attention by
tying a crimson handkerchief to an umbrella and brandishing it above his
head. Being on the face of him a creature who never, if he could avoid
it, put his hand to honest labor, he naturally addressed the crowd at
large as “Fellow workers.” These things awoke a slight humorous interest;
and because the man had the gift of glib and striking speech, the crowd
continued to listen after the first pricking up of their ears.
The man’s discourse need not be reported in detail. He was an anarchist,
red, rampant, and ruthless; and by means of arguments, some warped, some
fair enough, he pointed out to his hearers that the mission of the _Port
Edes_ was another knife-thrust of capital into the ribs of labor. The
statement met with a very mixed reception, but the anarchist silenced
both the jeers and the applause with a beseeching wave of his hand, and
followed along the curb of the wharf the steamer, which was commencing to
float towards the dock gates. He spoke to those on board her now rather
than to his more immediate following, and unclean faces stared at him
from over the line of bulwarks.
“To any man of you who values life,” he cried, “I offer a solemn warning.
That ship is doomed; she will sink in mid-ocean, blown apart by our
petards, and her ill-gotten cargo will be hurled out of capital’s reach
forever. Those who are misguided enough to be her guardians will be blown
into space. Listen, you men of her crew. Jump on the pier-head yonder as
she passes into the basin, and take the consequences. The brutal laws of
this country will hurl you into prison; but better a season dragging out
a martyr’s sentence, than death as an enemy to the workers’ cause.”
At this point the strong right hand of the law descended on to the
speaker’s elbow; and then, because he attempted to resist, the
willing right knee of the law jerked up suddenly into the small of
that anarchist’s back; after which he was haled ignominiously to a
police-station, and the place of his speaking knew him no more.
But the fellow’s threats had not been without their result. Every hand
on the _Port Edes_’ deck had heard them distinctly, and disquiet arose
under the belts of nine out of ten. The mates grew nervous and the men
inattentive; and, from the bridge, Captain Kettle’s voice and whistle
kept ringing out with biting clearness. As it was, only one man attempted
to put the warning into practical effect. He was a miserable, half-clad
wretch, a coal-trimmer by rating, already repentant of the spell of
physical toil which he had signed on for.
Passing through the lock-gates into the basin, the steamer’s port quarter
swung gently towards the wall. A sailor, in readiness, dropped from
above and ran aft with the lanyard of a cork fender. The trimmer jumped
on the bulwarks, and one might have thought that he was going to bear
a hand—an unnecessary hand. The sailor did so, and cursed him for his
officiousness. The donkeyman, however, who was oiling the after-winch,
had other ideas on the subject, and stood by for a rush. So it befell
when that trimmer was getting himself ready for a spring back on the
quay-head, the donkeyman’s long legs took him rapidly across the red iron
decks, and when the trimmer was already in mid-air, the donkeyman’s huge
paw descended upon the slack of his black breeches, and drew him back as
though he possessed the weight of a feather pillow. Whereat the crowd at
the pier-head yelled with delighted laughter, and the dingy steamer made
her way stolidly on to the muddy waters of the Mersey ebb, which bubbled
against the lip of the walls beyond.
“Curse you!” snarled the trimmer, “what’s that for?”
“Because we’re short-manned in the stokehold already, me son; an’ if
there’s a hand goes, it’s meself that’ll have to stand watch and watch in
his place. Havin’ got you, I shall be a jintleman now, and slape in my
bed at night all the way to New Orleans. See that?”
“This mucky old tramp’ll be blowed up sure’s death, and I shall be
killed.”
“Well, bless me!” retorted the donkeyman; “who’d miss you if you was
killed—always supposing you weren’t wanted for our furnaces? Here, get
up, you half-baked scum of the workhouse, and tumble below. Thank your
stars the old man hasn’t seen you from the bridge. But don’t give me any
more of your lip, or I’ll report you to him and the chief to boot. Now,
_mosey_.”
The coal-trimmer blew his nose on his gray neck-handkerchief, and
shambled off below, muttering. The donkeyman returned to his winch,
unbent the chain, and sent it down into the adjacent hold. Then he
retired to the poop deck-house, where he lived with the carpenter and
boatswain, and offered to bet those worthies (who had just come in for
dinner) that Captain Kettle shot some one on board before the _Port Edes_
tied up against New Orleans levee.
“He’s a just holy terror, our old man,” observed the donkeyman
cheerfully. “I sailed with him once before, and he unbent a
quartermaster’s front teeth with the bridge telescope before we were
three days out. With the smudgy crowd we’ve got here now, it’s a pound
to a brick they start him moving, even sooner than that. Not that I mind
myself. Sea’s dull enough as a general thing, and I like to see a bit
of life throwing about. And at that game, little Red Kettle’s good as a
Yankee skipper any day.”