Bertie Fortescue was twenty-three, he weighed twelve stone, was
rather fatter than he should have been, and wore an eyeglass. His
father was good to him, his mother spoiled him, he had not been to a
public school, and had never had a thrashing in his life. He
believed in himself, in clothes and money, and imagined he was born
to rule men. He was trying, it was for the first time, in the
steamship _Pilgrim_ of 6000 tons register, owners Fortescue and Son
of Liverpool, bound from New Orleans to Cape Town with a cargo of
mules and horses for the British Government. The _Pilgrim_ was three
days out from the mixed mouths of the Mississippi, and already there
was the devil to pay and no pitch hot.
'Trouble, didn't I smell trouble like a gas-works?' said Bob Wadd.
'It stuck out a foot while we were lyin' at the Picayune Tier. And
just as soon as I heerd old Fortescue was took sick, and that dear
Bertie was goin' to come with us to manage these blighted
'orse-keepers, I knewed cyclones would be nothing to the ructions
that was in sight. And look at the old man!'
He appealed to his shipmates to look, in their minds, at the skipper,
and say what they thought of him. Wadd objected to Captain
Scantlebury's white hair, to his meek manner, to his way of walking,
which was a waddle, to his religion, to everything that was his.
'Sings 'ymns, don't 'e?' said Wadd scornfully, 'preaches, don't 'e?
And don't drink neither, oh no! Reads the _Pilgrim's Progress_, a
reg'lar child's book!'
'Gahn, it's a log-book he wrote hisself about this packet,' said
Green, as they sat in the fo'c'sle in the second dog-watch, with the
rest of the men listening.
'You're an ignorant man, Green,' replied Wadd; 'I'd fair despise to
argue with you about books. 'Owsever, 'ere we are, out to sea, and
the skipper and mates dunno where they are with this 'oly crowd of
'orse-keepers, and dear young Bertie walkin' about among 'em with his
revolver out and his eyes starin' and usin' delicate language to 'em.
There's trouble right ahead, and hany moment there may be bloodshed.'
For once a foremast growler hit the situation off to a T. And no one
else did, except some of the mixed gathering who had shipped in the
_Pilgrim_, one to every seventeen horses, to look after them on their
way to the war.
'It's almost peaceful now,'said the skipper, 'it was a great and
blessed relief to send the carpenters ashore. Their hammering drove
me mad. How are you getting along with the horse-keepers, Mr.
Fortescue?'
Bertie Fortescue nodded drily.
'I've got 'em to rights,' he said; 'they see already they can't
impose on me. I let 'em see right off that I carried a revolver and
meant to stand no nonsense. With men of their class it's no use
being soft sawdery, is it?'
Old Scantlebury might be soft, but he was not quite a fool or without
experience.
'I wouldn't be too hard on 'em, Mr. Fortescue,' he said anxiously,
'they're a very tough lot.'
'I'll show 'em I'm tougher,' said Bertie firmly, as he stuck his
eyeglass in his eye. 'They'll not impose on me. They respect me
already. I can see it.'
The holy gang that respected him were shrieking for'ard at that very
moment over Mr. Herbert Fortescue, of Messrs. Fortescue & Son. For
as it happened, there were several humourists among them as well as
several who ought to have been hanged, and the jokers leavened the
whole lump so that there was peace at present, if the row was to come
later.
'Hell,' said Arizona Bill, 'did you ever see such a thing as thishyer
Fortescue?'
'I should smile,' replied a man from Michigan, 'by the holy Mackinaw,
he's a daisy, Fortescue! What'll we call him, boys?'
'Oh, call him Bertie, that's his name too,' cried some one from
British Columbia. 'The next time he gives me taffy, I'll say, "Dry
up, Bertie!"'
Arizona grinned.
'Boys, it's Bertie all the time. Did you pipe his gun? That elegant
dude with a gun! Bought it for us, boys. And his voice, too.
"Hee'ar, men, pawss this aw--rope throo this--aw--thing, aw!" Oh, he
makes me sick! Does he know a horse from a mewel! Oh, ain't he
tender, and so green and juicy! But that thing, and a gun, is what
fetches me every time. He'll shorely be pullin' it down on one of
us, onless one of these mustangs kindly plants his heels in his
stomach and lays him out.'
There were plenty of mustangs equal to the job if they hadn't been
moored so close. For the _Pilgrim's_ fifteen hundred mixed rakings
and scrapings of Texas included many able equine gymnasts, many
supremely skilled kickers, many that looked for some one to bite as
if indeed all flesh was grass. There were real horses on board;
there were imitations; some had pedigrees and were unsound, some had
no pedigrees and were no sounder; some had teeth and some hadn't.
There were mustangs, 'Kieutans,' bronchos, ponies. Some could be
ridden, some no one could ride. They could, however, be sold, and
England bought them. They were black and grey, white and brown, and
bay and sorrel. There were 'painted' horses, or Pintos, skewbalds
and piebalds; there were claybanks, and true buckskins, some with
black and some with silver tails and manes; some half-hairless,
patchy, some with heads like battered fiddles, some with rumps like
ancient hatstands; some were blind, some wall-eyed, some were fat and
some thin, some worth dollars, others worth cents, but all costing
gold because the British Empire was in the market shouting for
horses, and yelling 'I'll take all you've got!'
But if the horses were mixed brutes, the men that looked after them
were no less a marvellous collection of terrible uniques. Old Bob
Wadd reckoned them up.
'There's Texans 'ere, and some from Arizona, and half a dozen
bleeding Mexicans, and three real Dutchmen, and two Danes and a Finn,
and some real Spaniards and a one-eyed blackguard from Vennyzweela,
and seven nigs, and a bally Kanaka, and several English and three
Irish, and two Kanucks and three Canadian Frenchmen. That's all I've
marked off, but bimeby, I expects a Greek, and a Rooshian, and a
Prooshan, and a Turk, and a Chinaman will turn up. Oh, they've the
'oliest lot of unhung pirates I ever see on board a ship or on a
wharf! And dear, dear Bertie 'as the management of 'em! Shipmates,
mark my words, you'll 'ave a tale to pitch when you 'ops ashore out
of this horse-packet as'll curl hair equal to any curlin' tongs. The
first time it blows and the 'orses begin to kick and peg out, Bertie
and these shinin' gems out of the jool-case they calls Noo Orl'ans,
will be 'aving awful arguments on the main deck. I smells trouble
afar off like, as I said afore, from a gasworks or a candle factory.'
The two mates said the same. They said it to themselves. They said
it to the 'old man.' The first mate groaned to the second greaser,
and even to the third.
'Forder, I opine there will be serious difficulties yet between this
young Fortescue and these horse-keepers.'
Mr. White always 'opined'; it was as favourite a word with him as
'exploit' is with a socialist orator, or as 'transpire' is with a
third-rate journalist.
'I opine there will be serious difficulty,' repeated the chief.
'Would you mind, sir, if I told you my opinion of Mr. Fortescue?'
asked the second.
'Not in the least,' said Mr. White.
'Then I think he's the biggest ass I ever set eyes on,' said the
disgusted Forder, 'and I hope some of that bally gang will take away
that glass eye of his and his revolver and throw 'em both overboard.'
'I opine it would do him good,' said Mr. White pensively.
'I'm darn well sure it would, sir,' said Forder; 'I could have put up
with old Mr. Fortescue, though I never knew any good come from havin'
owners on board, but his son and heir gives me the hump. It's bad
enough havin' a cargo of horses, and worse havin' these pit scrapin's
to tend 'em, but Mr. Bertie makes me tired. If he gets into trouble
with these Texans for'ard, the old man can read him out of it with
hymns and the _Pilgrim's Progress_ for all I care. I've been in the
West, and I know he can't bull-doze this crowd. Oh, he makes me
weary!'
When there is trouble in a ship, there's trouble for all hands. And
trouble was certainly breezing up to windward, because the _Pilgrim_
struck in on a southern edge of a cyclonic disturbance coming up from
the eastward on its way north-west, and the westerly gale that played
with them made matters extremely lively for every one. It was the
purest misfortune for all on board the _Pilgrim_ that Bertie was not
sick, though he had never been in bad weather before. It increased
his good opinion of himself, which stood in no need of any increase.
He swaggered as if he were an old salt, and had been pickled in the
year of Trafalgar.
'All these brutes forward are sick, Captain Scantlebury,' said Bertie
haughtily. 'They are a lot of useless scum--aw. Those that aren't
ill don't know a horse from a mule, and those that know a mule from a
horse are too ill to know themselves from a bale of hay.'
'Don't be too hard on 'em, sir,' urged the old skipper. 'This won't
last long, and when they get over bein' sick, they'll be all right.'
'If I was as soft--aw--as you want me to be,' said Bertie, 'they'd
walk over the lot of us. I've just booted three to work, and I'll
boot the rest in about three minutes, or I'll know the reason why,
confound them!'
He went forward along the main deck and interviewed some of his men.
Among them he interviewed one Arizona Bill, who was in a state of
collapse to which he had long been a stranger. As he explained
later, sea-sickness was an illness which resembled the results of
drink combined with cholera and a few other very fatal diseases, and
it took all the stiffening out of a man.
'Get up and get to work,' said Bertie pitilessly.
'Not much,' said poor Arizona, 'I'm dyin'-- Oh!'
He said 'Oh' several times.
'Get up, or I'll kick thunder out of you,' said Bertie.
Even in collapse a gleam came in Arizona's eye.
'Don't you kick me, Bertie, or I'll kill you when I'm well,' he said.
And Forder came along just in time to prevent Bertie doing what he
said. Forder grabbed him by the arm.
'You don't know what you're aimin' at, sir,' said Forder. 'Do you
reckon they'll be sick the whole passage, Mr. Fortescue? If you want
to kick any one, go and kick a Dutchman.'
Bertie wrenched his arm loose.
'Confound you, sir, let go my arm! What the devil do you mean by
interfering with me, sir? I'll sack you in Cape Town the very moment
we get there. He--he called me _Bertie_!'
'Sack? be hanged,' said Forder. 'And did he call you Bertie? Well,
you are Bertie, aren't you? But you're green too, or you wouldn't
threaten to boot an American of that sort.'
'You don't know who you're talking to,' said Bertie furiously. 'For
two pins I'd knock you down.'
Forder walked for'ard.
'Oh, go to bed,' he said contemptuously. But in less than ten
minutes he was interviewing the 'old man,' and explaining how he had
saved Mr. Fortescue's life. The skipper abused him severely.
'I shall be compelled to take the very severest steps with you, Mr.
Forder,' piped the old man.
'You can't do worse, sir, than send me for'ard and fire me at Cape
Town and mark me D.R.,' said Forder in the civilest tone, 'and I'm
ready to shift my dunnage for'ard right now, sir. But I tell you
that Mr. Fortescue won't get to Cape Town at all if he plays up with
those chaps for'ard.'
'I can take care of myself,' roared Bertie, 'and I don't require your
advice.'
'You'll get no more of it,' said Forder.
'There, there,' said the skipper, 'of course you'll get no more of
it, Mr. Fortescue. Mr. Forder says you won't. That will do, Forder.
I am exceedingly displeased, outraged, annoyed. But as you have
apologised you can go.'
Forder opened his mouth, shut it again, scratched his head, looked at
Bertie, sighed, and went down the port poop ladder very slowly. When
he reached the deck he walked across to his own berth, put his head
inside, and swore vigorously. After this relief he went for'ard
again.
'I don't care what trouble there is,' he said, 'so long as it ain't
bloody trouble. I'll have a yarn with this Arizona chap as soon as
he stops sayin' "Oh," so bad. I ain't bin in Texas myself, flat
footin' it over the ties, without knowin' the breed.'
He did know them, and it is very possible that his hard-earned
knowledge turned a tragedy into a comedy, and helped to make a man of
the owner's son, instead of a very good-looking corpse. For it must
be owned that Bertie was not a bad-looking young fellow, and had the
makings of a man in him under his conceit.
The wind took off that night, for the centre of the cyclone moved
steadily to the north-west, while the _Pilgrim_ was heading more to
the south of east, with Trinidad on her starboard quarter. Forder's
watch below that night was from eight to twelve, and he took the
chance of seeing Arizona Bill, who had now ceased to say 'Oh,' and
was saying 'Ah' with a sense of deep relief as he lay on a hay bale,
and wondered what folly had brought him to sea when there was so much
solid prairie in Arizona.
'How are you makin' it?' asked Forder.
Arizona sighed.
'Why, sir, I'm of opinion I shan't actuly die this time. But I've a
mighty strange feelin' of a void within that I've no rek'lection of
experiencin' since I was three days without hash in the neighbourhood
of the Californian mountings. Thishyer sea-sick business is a holy
terror, and some new to me. I'd admire to see my enemies takin' a
hand in the game while I stood out.'
'To-morrow you'll be as fit as a fiddle,' said Forder, 'it'll do you
good--scrape out your limbers, so to speak.'
Arizona shook his towzled head.
'Well, sir, I'd ruther be done good to more gently, for if thishyer's
a cure for indigestion as the cook reckons, it should be a root cure
and no fatal error. And now I rek'lects it was you as stopped that
boy Bertie from doin' suthin' he'd ha' bin mighty sorry for! Sir, I
thank you! I was mighty sick at that moment, and I felt near my
latter end, and was helpless as a babe.'
Forder grinned.
'Excuse my smilin', partner,' he said, 'but somehow I can't help it
when I think of people bein' sea-sick.'
Arizona sighed.
'Grin, my son, I ain't complainin'. It makes me smile to see a
tenderfoot tackle a buckin' horse. I reckon I'm a tenderfoot at sea.'
'Do you know Fort Worth?' asked Forder.
'Do I know my dear yearthly home from the cold clouds of heaven?'
asked Arizona contemptuously. 'I know Fort Worth like ez if it wuz
my pants. Wuz you ever thar?'
'Ay,' said Forder, 'I was flat bust there, and slung hash for a month
at Canadian Pete's.'
Arizona held out a limp hand.
'Shake, pard,' he said. And Forder shook.
'I reckoned as there wuz somethin' not so green about you ez the
others,' said Arizona. 'Havin' been in Texas is a great deal, oh,
it's a great deal towards an eddication. But Arizona----'
'I was in Arizona too,' said Forder, 'at Tombstone!'
'I'm dod-busted,' cried Arizona, quite forgetting he was ill, 'squat
alongside and tell us what you wuz doing over to Tombstone. This is
real pie, ain't it? I yearns strangely over the plains of Arizona.
Shake again! Tombstone, waal, I'm doggoned! Did you know Red Pete?'
'No, but----'
'Or Apache Adams, him without ears? Geronimo ear-marked him.'
'I've seen him,' said Forder.
And they let right into a yarn about Arizona and the Apaches, and
Adams and Red Pete, and Ginger Simpson and Two-thumbed Thompson till
the stars came out.
'But about this Mr. Fortescue?' said Forder, when the well of
reminiscence was about dry. 'I want to know what the trouble will
be?'
Arizona Bill looked exceedingly disagreeable. He would have
impressed a member of the Peace Society very unfavourably.
'Bertie's goin' to die, I reckon,' he said simply. 'He cayn't
survive long, if my opinion is worth a cent. He kicked three of the
boys, though one don't count bein' a Dutchman, and he used language,
which the Governor of no State could pardon, to Ben Wilkins.'
Forder nodded.
'Damn young ass,' he said, 'but, Arizona, let him down light. If any
one shoots him, he'll be hung. This is a British ship, and he'll be
tried at Cape Town, not in Tombstone.'
'If he fell overboard,' said Arizona, 'there's seventy of us here to
try. He don't know what dynamite he's monkeyin' with.'
'That's so,' said Forder, 'he don't know, and might be taught.
You're the top dog in this crowd, ain't you?'
'I might be,' said Arizona cautiously.
'And you'd oblige me if you could?'
'I would, you're a white man,' said Arizona, 'even if you are an
Englishman.'
Forder, who thoroughly understood the Western attitude towards
Englishmen, took no notice of the last part of Arizona's declaration.
'Then treat him like the baby that he is.'
'Eh, what, smack him, for instance?' said Arizona eagerly.
'Anything you like, except kill him, my son.'
'I see,' said Arizona, 'take his gun from him, and so on.'
'I'm givin' no advice,' replied Forder.
'That's all hunky, I tumble to the racket,' said Arizona. 'I reckons
he sets a high value on that glass eye of his, eh?'
'It looks like it,' said Forder.
'We'll kapsualla it, as B.C. Bob says, and give it to the Major. He
let on he'd worn 'em once. He wuz in your British Army, and now he's
the toughest hoodoo on board.'
'Oh, give it the Major then,' said Forder, and he went off.
He met Bertie on the main deck, and they passed as if they were
strangers in the Strand.
'Oh, go to bed,' said Forder to himself. But he knew he had done a
good deed.
'Haw, bumptious ass, haw,' said Bertie, who had no notion how
grateful he ought to be to the man who knew Texas and Arizona, and
the pride of those who grow upon the high plateaus of the South-West.
He didn't know for several days, and the reason for his remaining
ignorant was the comic spirit that endures in man in all the strange
places of the world and sea, and makes laughter flourish on the
barrenest soil.
There were twelve hundred horses and mules on board, and though they
were packed a bit over-closely there was plenty of ventilation, and
at least half the men in charge knew a horse from a harmonium. As
the men who knew were naturally the bosses by birth and education,
having been mostly born in Texas and educated on the prairie, the
unlearned learned because they had to. It was not an unhappy ship
for the horses, even though Bertie knew as much about them as he did
about men. What was due to Arizona and Ben Wilkins and half a dozen
others he put down to himself. And he was much surprised at the
peculiar change which came over the whole horse crowd as soon as they
ran into good weather and went along on an even keel. For the first
ten days every one had been sick and sorry and savage, and now the
main deck and the 'tween-decks fairly rang with laughter.
'Aw, they've come to their bearings,' said Bertie, who liked sea
terms, which he sometimes used quite accurately. 'I think, Captain
Scantlebury, that the men are very amenable after all; my
severity--aw--with them when they were complaining of sea-sickness
did them good. That fellow they call Arizona Bill has a very good
idea of handling horses, and I can see he now thoroughly understands
that I am not to be scared or imposed upon.'
The skipper was obsequiously glad to hear it.
'Ah, sir, I always said to your father that you knew what's what,
even as a boy. Dear, dear me, to think I remember you when you
weighed no more than half a hundred. Going through life is a strange
Pilgrim's Progress, sir, and here we are in the _Pilgrim_ goin'
straight ahead in a calm sea, all so peaceful and so happy, that I
could sing a hymn all the way to Cape Town with horses. Oh, but
war's a sad, sad thing.'
'Old ass,' said the brutal Forder, whose watch on deck it was, 'which
is the biggest, the old man or Bertie, tires me to calculate. I'd
rather work out lunars with a monkey-wrench than try to take the
altitude of these asses. He's got 'em down fine, has he? Sing hymns
all the way to the Cape, eh? Oh, my stars! We'll be hard and fast
ashore on a reef of woe in a twinkle. The horse-crowd's devilish
merry this night!'
And so they were. For after their supper the unholiest gang of them
all was gathered on the fore-hatch on the orlop deck, and they made
the horses, who twisted their necks round to see what was going on,
wonder more than ever what strange animals men were. Arizona lay on
the hatch, and with him was Ben Wilkins. The Major, who indeed had
been an officer in a crack cavalry regiment, chewed tobacco while
resting against the coamings. Seth Evans and Missouri Jack were
among the crowd. So were the Mexicans, though they sat aloof.
Manuel, the one-eyed blackguard from Venezuela, was there too. And
in the background were the Dutchmen, who included real Hollanders,
Danes, a Swede named Hans, and a Finn known as Tubby when he was
called anything. A dozen lanterns cast a glimmering and unequal
light on this party in Tophet. Arizona had the floor, so to speak.
He was very fluent.
'Boys,' said Arizona, 'air we all in this?'
'To bee sure!' said Ben Wilkins, 'the man that ain't goes out with
the muck next mucking-out, if I'm any authority on the doings in this
ole packet!'
'Don't discourage any of us,' said Arizona. 'Ben, you're too fiery.
I've known men that'd die sooner than be encouraged your way. Your
talk inspires a sperrit of rebellion in the brave. Let us confine
ourselves to the programme which is entitled as a drayma, "The Takin'
Down of Bertie." Bertie, boys, is the boss.'
'Boss o' blazes!' said Ben.
'Oh, shucks!' said Arizona, 'do dry up and let me orate. Am I the
orator or ain't I? If I'm the orator let me orate in peace; if I
ain't, I'll stand out and be as silent as the grave. I was
talkin'--aw--about dear Bertie--aw--who walks round with a new
silvery gun, a forty-five frontier pistol, in his nice clean hands,
in order to reduce this unholy crowd to a proper sense o' their
subordination. Who is it carries a nice new gun, boys?'
'Bertie carries a nice new gun,' said the crowd, shrieking with
laughter.
'Bertie's paw owns thishyer horse-packet, and is some sick in New
Orl'ans right now,' went on Arizona, 'but if his son, who'll own this
_Pilgrim_ when he paysses in his checks, was to be filled up with
lead, the ole man would be some disgruntled. Who's sick paw would be
some disgruntled if Bertie was to stop lead, boys?'
'Bertie's paw would be some disgruntled,' answered the crowd.
'Does we, the kind and peaceful crowd that looks after horses, need
guns to subdue our bloodthirsty instincts?' asked Arizona. 'Far from
it, boys. We come from the calm prairies of Texas and sunny Arizona,
where peace flourishes for ever and no man dies without askin' for
death, except in some fatal instances that may be looked on as
accidents. We are all sorts here, Texans, Arizonians, Californians,
Henglishmen, Kanucks, Mexicanos, but all serenely devoted to the
cause of peace. Who's the disturbing influence here, waltzing round
with a gun, boys?'
'Bertie is,' said the crowd unanimously.
'Who is it that says "aw" to freeborn citizens of the United States,
to men from Chihuahua, to down-trodden subjects of the King of
England and the Emperor of Prussia?'
'Bertie does,' affirmed the crowd.
'And looks at sons of the prairie and the mountain through a piece of
glass, which the Major here discarded years ago. Who does that?'