It is a long traverse from Papeete in the Societies to the Little Coral
Sea--from 100 west longitude to 150 east longitude--as the crow flies
the equivalent to a voyage across the Atlantic. But the _Kittiwake_ did
not go as the crow flies. David Grief's numerous interests diverted
her course many times. He stopped to take a look-in at uninhabited Rose
Island with an eye to colonizing and planting cocoa-nuts. Next, he paid
his respects to Tui Manua, of Eastern Samoa, and opened an intrigue for
a share of the trade monopoly of that dying king's three islands. From
Apia he carried several relief agents and a load of trade goods to the
Gilberts. He peeped in at Ontong-Java Atoll, inspected his plantations
on Ysabel, and purchased lands from the salt-water chiefs of
northwestern Malaita. And all along this devious way he made a man of
Aloysius Pankburn.
That thirster, though he lived aft, was compelled to do the work of a
common sailor. And not only did he take his wheel and lookout, and heave
on sheets and tackles, but the dirtiest and most arduous tasks were
appointed him. Swung aloft in a bosun's chair, he scraped the masts and
slushed down. Holystoning the deck or scrubbing it with fresh limes
made his back ache and developed the wasted, flabby muscles. When
the _Kittiwake_ lay at anchor and her copper bottom was scrubbed with
cocoa-nut husks by the native crew, who dived and did it under water,
Pankburn was sent down on his shift and as many times as any on the
shift.
“Look at yourself,” Grief said. “You are twice the man you were when you
came on board. You haven't had one drink, you didn't die, and the poison
is pretty well worked out of you. It's the work. It beats trained nurses
and business managers. Here, if you're thirsty. Clap your lips to this.”
With several deft strokes of his heavy-backed sheath-knife, Grief
clipped a triangular piece of shell from the end of a husked
drinking-cocoa-nut. The thin, cool liquid, slightly milky and
effervescent, bubbled to the brim. With a bow, Pankburn took the natural
cup, threw his head back, and held it back till the shell was empty. He
drank many of these nuts each day. The black steward, a New Hebrides boy
sixty years of age, and his assistant, a Lark Islander of eleven, saw to
it that he was continually supplied.
Pankburn did not object to the hard work. He devoured work, never
shirking and always beating the native sailors in jumping to obey a
command. But his sufferings during the period of driving the alcohol out
of his system were truly heroic. Even when the last shred of the poison
was exuded, the desire, as an obsession, remained in his head. So it
was, when, on his honour, he went ashore at Apia, that he attempted to
put the public houses out of business by drinking up their stocks in
trade. And so it was, at two in the morning, that David Grief found him
in front of the Tivoli, out of which he had been disorderly thrown by
Charley Roberts. Aloysius, as of old, was chanting his sorrows to the
stars. Also, and more concretely, he was punctuating the rhythm with
cobbles of coral stone, which he flung with amazing accuracy through
Charley Roberts's windows.
David Grief took him away, but not till next morning did he take him
in hand. It was on the deck of the _Kittiwake_, and there was nothing
kindergarten about it. Grief struck him, with bare knuckles, punched him
and punished him--gave him the worst thrashing he had ever received.
“For the good of your soul, Pankburn,” was the way he emphasized his
blows. “For the good of your mother. For the progeny that will come
after. For the good of the world, and the universe, and the whole race
of man yet to be. And now, to hammer the lesson home, we'll do it all
over again. That, for the good of your soul; and that, for your mother's
sake; and that, for the little children, undreamed of and unborn, whose
mother you'll love for their sakes, and for love's sake, in the lease
of manhood that will be yours when I am done with you. Come on and take
your medicine. I'm not done with you yet. I've only begun. There are
many other reasons which I shall now proceed to expound.” The brown
sailors and the black stewards and cook looked on and grinned. Far from
them was the questioning of any of the mysterious and incomprehensible
ways of white men. As for Carlsen, the mate, he was grimly in accord
with the treatment his employer was administering; while Albright, the
supercargo, merely played with his mustache and smiled. They were men
of the sea. They lived life in the rough. And alcohol, in themselves as
well as in other men, was a problem they had learned to handle in ways
not taught in doctors' schools.
“Boy! A bucket of fresh water and a towel,” Grief ordered, when he had
finished. “Two buckets and two towels,” he added, as he surveyed his own
hands.
“You're a pretty one,” he said to Pankburn. “You've spoiled everything.
I had the poison completely out of you. And now you are fairly reeking
with it. We've got to begin all over again. Mr. Albright! You know that
pile of old chain on the beach at the boat-landing. Find the owner, buy
it, and fetch it on board. There must be a hundred and fifty fathoms of
it. Pankburn! To-morrow morning you start in pounding the rust off of
it. When you've done that, you'll sandpaper it. Then you'll paint it.
And nothing else will you do till that chain is as smooth as new.”
Aloysius Pankburn shook his head.
“I quit. Francis Island can go to hell for all of me. I'm done with your
slave-driving. Kindly put me ashore at once. I'm a white man. You can't
treat me this way.”
“Mr. Carlsen, you will see that Mr. Pankburn remains on board.”
“I'll have you broken for this!” Aloysius screamed. “You can't stop me.”
“I can give you another licking,” Grief answered. “And let me tell you
one thing, you besotted whelp, I'll keep on licking you as long as my
knuckles hold out or until you yearn to hammer chain rust. I've taken
you in hand, and I'm going to make a man out of you if I have to kill
you to do it. Now go below and change your clothes. Be ready to turn
to with a hammer this afternoon. Mr. Albright, get that chain aboard
pronto. Mr. Carlsen, send the boats ashore after it. Also, keep your eye
on Pankburn. If he shows signs of keeling over or going into the shakes,
give him a nip--a small one. He may need it after last night.”
V
For the rest of the time the _Kittiwake_ lay in Apia Aloysius Pankburn
pounded chain rust. Ten hours a day he pounded. And on the long stretch
across to the Gilberts he still pounded.
Then came the sandpapering. One hundred and fifty fathoms is nine
hundred feet, and every link of all that length was smoothed and
polished as no link ever was before. And when the last link had received
its second coat of black paint, he declared himself.
“Come on with more dirty work,” he told Grief. “I'll overhaul the other
chains if you say so. And you needn't worry about me any more. I'm not
going to take another drop. I'm going to train up. You got my proud
goat when you beat me, but let me tell you, you only got it temporarily.
Train! I'm going to train till I'm as hard all the way through, and
clean all the way through, as that chain is. And some day, Mister David
Grief, somewhere, somehow, I'm going to be in such shape that I'll lick
you as you licked me. I'm going to pulp your face till your own niggers
won't know you.”
Grief was jubilant.
“Now you're talking like a man,” he cried. “The only way you'll ever
lick me is to become a man. And then, maybe--”
He paused in the hope that the other would catch the suggestion.
Aloysius groped for it, and, abruptly, something akin to illumination
shone in his eyes.
“And then I won't want to, you mean?”
Grief nodded.
“And that's the curse of it,” Aloysius lamented. “I really believe I
won't want to. I see the point. But I'm going to go right on and shape
myself up just the same.”
The warm, sunburn glow in Grief's face seemed to grow warmer. His hand
went out.
“Pankburn, I love you right now for that.”
Aloysius grasped the hand, and shook his head in sad sincerity.
“Grief,” he mourned, “you've got my goat, you've got my proud goat, and
you've got it permanently, I'm afraid.”