THE FIRE AND THE FARM
The quartermaster knocked smartly, and came into the chart-house, and
Captain Kettle's eyes snapped open from deep sleep to complete
wakefulness.
"There's some sort of vessel on fire, sir, to loo'ard, about five miles
off."
The shipmaster glanced up at the tell-tale compass above his head.
"Officer of the watch has changed the course, I see. We're heading
for it, eh?"
"Yes, sir. The second mate told me to say so."
"Quite right. Pass the word for the carpenter, and tell him to get port
and starboard lifeboats ready for lowering in case they're wanted. I'll
be on the bridge in a minute."
"Aye, aye, sir," said the quartermaster, and withdrew into the darkness
outside.
Captain Owen Kettle's toilet was not of long duration. Like most master
mariners who do business along those crowded steam lanes of the Western
Ocean, he slept in most of his clothes when at sea as a regular habit,
and in fact only stripped completely for the few moments which were
occupied by his morning's tub. If needful, he could always go out on
deck at a second's notice, and be ready to remain there for twenty-four
hours. But in this instance there was no immediate hurry, and so he
spent a full minute and a half over his toilet, and emerged with washed
hands and face, sprucely brushed hair and beard, and his person attired
in high rubber thigh-boots and leather-bound black oilskins.
The night was black and thick with a drizzle of rain, and a heavy breeze
snored through the _Flamingo's_ scanty rigging. The second mate on the
bridge was beating his fingerless woollen gloves against his ribs as a
cure for cold fingers. The first mate and the third had already turned
out, and were on the boatskids helping the carpenter with the housings,
and overhauling davit falls. On that part of the horizon against which
the _Flamingo's_ bows sawed with great sweeping dives was a streaky,
flickering yellow glow.
Kettle went on to an end of the bridge and peered ahead through the
bridge binoculars. "A steamer," he commented, "and a big one too; and
she's finely ablaze. Not much help we shall be able to give. It will be
a case of taking off the crew, if they aren't already cooked before we
get there." He looked over the side at the eddy of water that clung to
the ship's flank. "I see you're shoving her along," he said to the
second mate.
"I sent word down to the engine-room to give her all they knew the
moment we raised the glow. I thought you wouldn't grudge the coal, sir."
"No, quite right. Hope there aren't too many of them to be picked off,
or we shall make a tight fit on board here."
"Funny we should be carrying the biggest cargo the old boat's ever had
packed into her. But we shall find room to house a few poor old
sailormen. They won't mind much where they stow, as long as they're
picked up out of the wet. B-r-r-rh!" shivered the second mate, "I
shouldn't much fancy open-boat cruising in the Western Ocean
this weather."
Captain Kettle stared on through the shiny brass binoculars. "Call all
hands," he said quietly. "That's a big ship ahead of us, and she'll
carry a lot of people. God send she's only an old tramp. At those
lifeboats there!" he shouted. "Swing the davits outboard, and pass your
painters forward. Hump yourselves, now."
"There's a lot of ice here, sir," came a grumbling voice out of the
darkness, "and the boats are frozen on to the chocks. We've got to
hammer it away before they'll hoist. The falls are that froze, too, that
they'll not render--"
"You call yourself a mate and hold a master's ticket, and want to get a
ship of your own!"--Kettle vaulted over the rail on to the top of the
fiddley, and made for his second in command. "Here, my man, if your
delicate fingers can't do this bit of a job, give me that marlinspike.
By James! do you hear me? Give up the marlinspike. Did you never see a
boat iced up before? Now then, carpenter. Are you worth your salt? Or am
I to clear both ends in this boat by myself?"
So, by example and tongue, Captain Kettle got his boats swung outboard,
and the _Flamingo_, with her engines working at an unusual strain,
surged rapidly nearer and nearer to the blaze.
On shore a house on fire at any hour draws a crowd. At sea, in the bleak
cold wastes of the water desert, even one other shipload of sympathizers
is too often wished for vainly. Wind, cold, and breakdowns of machinery
the sailor accepts with dull indifference; shipwrecks, strandings, and
disease he looks forward to as part of an inevitable fate; but fire
goes nearer to cowing him than all other disasters put together; and the
sight of his fellow-seamen attacked by these same desolating flames
arouses in him the warmest of his sympathy, and the full of his
resourcefulness. Moreover, in Kettle's case, he had known the feel of a
ship afire under his own feet, and so he could appreciate all the better
the agony of these others.
But meanwhile, as the _Flamingo_ made her way up wind against the
charging seas, a fear was beginning to grip the little shipmaster by the
heart that was deep enough to cause him a physical nausea. The burning
steamer ahead grew every minute more clear as they raced toward her. She
was on fire forward, and she lay almost head-on toward them, keeping her
stern to the seas, so that the wind would have no help in driving the
flames aft, and making her more uninhabitable.
From a distance it had been hard to make out anything beyond great
stacks of yellow flame, topped by inky, oily smoke, which drove in thick
columns down the wind. As they drew nearer, and her size became more
apparent, some one guessed her as a big cargo tramp from New Orleans
with cotton that had overheated and fired, and Kettle took comfort from
the suggestion and tried to believe that it might come true.
But as they closed with her, and came within earshot of her syren, which
was sending frightened useless blares across the churning waters, there
was no being blind to the true facts any longer. This was no cargo boat,
but a passenger liner; outward bound, too, and populous. And as they
came still nearer, they saw her after-decks black and wriggling with
people, and Kettle got a glimpse of her structure and recognized the
vessel herself.
"The _Grosser Carl_," he muttered, "out of Hamburg for New York. Next
to no first-class, and she cuts rates for third and gets the bulk of the
German emigrant traffic. She'll have six hundred on her this minute, and
a hundred of a crew. Call it seven hundred all told, and there's hell
waiting for them over yonder, and getting worse every minute. Oh, great
James! I wonder what's going to be done. I couldn't pack seventy of them
on the old _Flam_ here, if I filled her to bursting."
He clapped the binoculars to his eyes again, and stared diligently round
the rim of the night. If only he could catch a glimpse of some other
liner hurrying along her route, then these people could be saved easily.
He could drop his boats to take them till the other passenger ship came
up. But the wide sea was empty of lights; the _Flamingo_ and the
_Grusser Carl_ had the stage severely to themselves; and between them
they had the making of an intolerable weight of destiny.
The second mate broke in upon his commander's brooding. "We shall have a
nice bill for Lloyds this journey."
Kettle made no answer. He continued staring moodily at the spouting
flames ahead. The second mate coughed. "Shall I be getting derricks
rigged and the hatch covers off?"
Kettle turned on him with a sudden fierceness. "Do you know you're
asking me to ruin myself?"
"But if we jettison cargo to make room for these poor beggars, sir, the
insurance will pay."
"Pay your grandmother. You've got a lot to learn, my lad, before you're
fit to take charge of a ship, if you don't know any more than that about
the responsibility of the cargo."
"By Jove! that's awkward. Birds would look pretty blue if the bill was
handed in to them."
"Birds!" said Kettle with contempt. "They aren't liable for sixpence.
Supposing you were travelling by train, and there was some one else's
portmanteau in the carriage, and you flung it out of the window into a
river, who do you suppose would have to stand the racket?"
"Why, me. But then, sir, this is different."
"Not a bit. If we start in to jettison cargo, it means I'm a ruined man.
Every ton that goes over the side I'll have to pay for."
"We can't leave those poor devils to frizzle," said the second mate
awkwardly.
"Oh, no, of course we can't. They're a pack of unclean Dutchmen we never
saw before, and should think ourselves too good to brush against if we
met them in the street, but sentiment demands that we stay and pull them
out of their mess, and cold necessity leaves me to foot the bill. You're
young, and you're not married, my lad. I'm neither. I've worked like a
horse all my life, mostly with bad luck. Lately luck's turned a bit.
I've been able to make a trifle more, and save a few pounds out of my
billets. And here and there, what with salvage and other things, I've
come in the way of a plum. One way and another I've got nearly enough
put by at home this minute to keep the missis and me and the girls to
windward of the workhouse, even if I lost this present job with Birds,
and didn't find another."
"Perhaps somebody else will pay for the cargo we have to put over the
side, sir."
"It's pretty thin comfort when you've got a 'perhaps' of that size, and
no other mortal stop between you and the workhouse. It's all very well
doing these things in hot blood; but the reckoning's paid when you're
cold, and they're cold, and with the Board of Trade standing-by like the
devil in the background all ready to give you a kick when there's a
spare place for a fresh foot." He slammed down the handle of the
bridge-telegraph, and rang off the _Flamingo's_ engines. He had been
measuring distances all this time with his eye.
"But, of course, there's no other choice about the matter. There's the
blessed cause of humanity to be looked after--humanity to these blessed
Dutch emigrants that their own country doesn't want, and every other
country would rather be without. Humanity to my poor old missis and the
kids doesn't count. I shall get a sludgy paragraph in the papers for the
_Grosser Carl_, headed 'Gallant Rescue,' with all the facts put upside
down, and twelve months later there'll be another paragraph about a
'case of pitiful destitution.'"
"Oh, I say, sir, it won't be as bad as all that. Birds will see you
through."
"Birds will do a fat lot. Birds sent me to work up a connection in the
Mexican Gulf, and I've done it, and they've raised my screw two pound a
month after four years' service. I jettison the customers' cargo, and
probably sha'n't be able to pay for half of it. Customers will get mad,
and give their business to other lines which don't run foul of blazing
emigrant packets."
"Birds would never dare to fire you out for that."
"Oh, Lord, no! They'd say: 'We don't like the way you've taken to wear
your back hair, Captain. And, besides, we want younger blood amongst our
skippers. You'll find your check ready for you in the outer office.
Mind the step!'"
"I'm awfully sorry, Skipper. If there's anything I can do, sir--"
Captain Kettle sighed, and looked drearily out at the blazing ship and
the tumbled waste of sea on which she floated. But he felt that he had
been showing weakness, and pulled himself together again smartly. "Yes,
there is, my lad. I'm a disappointed man, and I've been talking a lot
more than's dignified. You'll do me a real kindness if you'll forget all
that's been said. Away with you on to the main deck, and get hatches
off, and whip the top tier of that cargo over the side as fast as you
can make the winches travel. If the old _Flamingo_ is going to serve out
free hospitality, by James! she shall do it full weight. By James! I'd
give the beggars champagne and spring mattresses if I'd got 'em."
Meanwhile, those on the German emigrant steamer had seen the coming of
the shabby little English trader with bumping hearts. Till then the
crew, with (so to speak) their backs up against a wall, had fought the
fire with diligence; but when the nearness of a potential rescuer was
reported, they discovered for themselves at once that the fire was
beyond control. They were joined by the stokehold gangs, and they made
at once for the boats, overpowering any officer who happened to come
between them and their desires. The limp, tottery, half-fed, wholly
seasick emigrants they easily shoved aside, and these in their turn by
sheer mass thrust back the small handful of first-class passengers, and
away screamed out the davit tackles, as the boats were lowered full of
madly frightened deck hands and grimy handlers of coal.
Panic had sapped every trace of their manhood. They had concern only
for their own skins; for the miserables remaining on the _Grosser Carl_
they had none. And if for a minute any of them permitted himself to
think, he decided that in the Herr Gott's good time the English would
send boats and fetch them off. The English had always a special gusto
for this meddling rescue work.
However, it is easy to decide on lowering boats, but not always so easy
to carry it into safe fact if you are mad with scare, and there is no
one whom you will listen to to give the necessary simple orders. And, as
a consequence, one boat, chiefly manned by the coal interest, swamped
alongside before it could be shoved clear; the forward davit fall of
another jammed, and let it dangle vertically up and down when the after
fall overhauled; and only one boat got away clear.
The reception which this small cargo of worthies met with surprised
them. They pulled with terrified haste to the _Flamingo_, got under her
lee, and clung desperately to the line which was thrown to them. But to
the rail above them came the man who expected to be ruined by this
night's work, and the pearls of speech which fell from his lips went
home through even their thick hides.
Captain Kettle, being human, had greatly needed some one during the last
half-hour to ease his feelings on--though he was not the man to own up
to such a weakness, even to himself--and the boat came neatly to supply
his want. It was long enough since he had found occasion for such an
outburst, but the perfection of his early training stood him in good
stead then. Every biting insult in his vocabulary, every lashing word
that is used upon the seas, every gibe, national, personal, or
professional, that a lifetime of hard language could teach, he poured
out on that shivering boat's crew then.
They were Germans certainly, but being an English shipmaster, he had, of
course, many a time sailed with a forecastle filled with their
nationality, and had acquired the special art of adapting his abuse to
the "Dutchman's" sensibilities, even as he had other harangues suited
for Coolie or Dago mariners, or even for that rare sea-bird, the English
sailorman. And as a final wind-up, after having made them writhe
sufficiently, he ordered them to go back whence they came, and take a
share in rescuing their fellows.
"Bud we shall trown," shouted back one speaker from the wildly jumping
boat.
"Then drown, and be hanged to you," shouted Kettle. "I'm sure I don't
care if you do. But I'm not going to have cowards like you dirtying my
deck-planks." He cast off the line to which their boat rode under the
steamer's heaving side. "You go and do your whack at getting the people
off that packet, or, so help me James! none of you shall ever see your
happy Dutchland again."
Meanwhile, so the irony of the fates ordered it, the two mates, each in
charge of one of the _Flamingo's_ lifeboats, were commanding crews made
up entirely of Germans and Scandinavians, and pluckier and more careful
sailormen could not have been wished for. The work was dangerous, and
required more than ordinary nerve and endurance and skill. A heavy sea
ran, and from its crests a spindrift blew which cut the face like whips,
and numbed all parts of the body with its chill. The boats were tossed
about like playthings, and required constant bailing to keep them from
being waterlogged. But Kettle had brought the _Flamingo_ to windward of
the _Grosser Carl_, and each boat carried a line, so that the steam
winches could help her with the return trips.
Getting a cargo was, however, the chief difficulty. All attempt at
killing the fire was given up by this time. All vestige of order was
swamped in unutterable panic. The people on board had given themselves
up to wild, uncontrollable anarchy. If a boat had been brought
alongside, they would have tumbled into her like sheep, till their
numbers swamped her. They cursed the flames, cursed the sea, cursed
their own brothers and sisters who jostled them. They were the sweepings
from half-fed middle Europe, born with raw nerves; and under the sudden
stress of danger, and the absence of some strong man to thrust
discipline on them, they became practically maniacs. They were beyond
speech, many of them. They yammered at the boats which came to their
relief, with noises like those of scared beasts.
Now the _Flamingo's_ boats were officered by two cool, profane mates,
who had no nerves themselves, and did not see the use of nerves in other
people. Neither of them spoke German, but (after the style of their
island) presuming that some of those who listened would understand
English, they made proclamation in their own tongue to the effect that
the women were to be taken off first.
"Kids with them," added the second mate.
"And if any of you rats of men shove your way down here," said the chief
mate, "before all the skirt is ferried across, you'll get knocked on the
head, that's all. Savvy that belaying-pin I got in my fist? Now then,
get some bowlines, and sway out the ladies."
As well might the order have been addressed to a flock of sheep. They
heard what was said in an agonized silence. Then each poor soul there
stretched out his arms or hers, and clamored to be saved--and--never
mind the rest. And meanwhile the flames bit deeper and deeper into the
fabric of the steamer, and the breath of them grew more searching, as
the roaring gale blew them into strength.
"You ruddy Dutchmen," shouted the second mate. "It would serve you
blooming well right if you were left to be frizzled up into one big
sausage stew together. However, we'll see if kindness can't tame you a
bit yet." He waited till the swirl of a sea swung his boat under one of
the dangling davit falls, and caught hold of it, and climbed nimbly on
board. Then he proceeded to clear a space by the primitive method of
crashing his fist into every face within reach.
"Now then," he shouted, "if there are any sailormen here worth their
salt, let them come and help. Am I to break up the whole of this ship's
company by myself?"
Gradually, by ones and twos, the _Grosser Carl's_ remaining officers and
deck hands came shamefacedly toward this new nucleus of authority and
order, and then the real work began. The emigrants, with sea sights and
sea usage new to them, were still full of the unreasoning panic of
cattle, and like cattle they were herded and handled, and their women
and young cut out from the general mob. These last were got into the
swaying, dancing boats as tenderly as might be, and the men were bidden
to watch, and wait their turn. When they grew restive, as the scorching
fire drew more near, they were beaten savagely; the _Grosser Carl's_
crew, with the shame of their own panic still raw on them, knew no
mercy; and the second mate of the _Flamingo_, who stood against a davit,
insulted them all with impartial cheerfulness. He was a very apt pupil,
this young man, of that master of ruling men at the expense of their
feelings, Captain Owen Kettle.
Meanwhile the two lifeboats took one risky journey after another, being
drawn up to their own ship by a chattering winch, discharging their
draggled freight with dexterity and little ceremony, and then laboring
back under oars for another. The light of the burning steamer turned a
great sphere of night into day, and the heat from her made the sweat
pour down the faces of the toiling men, though the gale still roared,
and the icy spindrift still whipped and stung. On the _Flamingo_,
Captain Kettle cast into the sea with a free hand what represented the
savings of a lifetime, provision for his wife and children, and an
old-age pension for himself.
The _Grosser Carl_ had carried thirty first-class passengers, and these
were crammed into the _Flamingo's_ slender cabin accommodation, filling
it to overflowing. The emigrants--Austrians, Bohemians, wild Poles,
filthy, crawling Russian Jews, bestial Armenians, human _debris_ which
even soldier-coveting Middle Europe rejected--these were herded down
into the holds, as rich cargo was dug out by the straining winches, and
given to the thankless sea to make space for them.
"Kindly walk up," said Kettle, with bitter hospitality, as fresh flocks
of them were heaved up over the bulwarks. "Don't hesitate to grumble if
the accommodation isn't exactly to your liking. We're most pleased to
strike out cargo to provide you with an elegant parlor, and what's left
I'm sure you'll be able to sit on and spoil. Oh, you filthy, long-haired
cattle! Did none of you ever wash?"
Fiercely the _Grosser Carl_ burned to the fanning of the gale, and like
furies worked the men in the boats. The _Grosser Carl's_ own boat joined
the other two, once the ferrying was well under way. She had hung
alongside after Kettle cast off her line, with her people madly
clamoring to be taken on board; but as all they received for their pains
was abuse and coal-lumps--mostly, by the way, from their own
fellow-countrymen, who made up the majority of the _Flamingo's_
crew--they were presently driven to help in the salving work through
sheer scare at being left behind to drown unless they carried out the
fierce little English Captain's orders.
The _Flamingo's_ chief mate oversaw the dangerous ferrying, and though
every soul that was transshipped might be said to have had ten narrow
escapes in transit over that piece of tossing water, luck and good
seamanship carried the day, and none was lost. And on the _Grosser Carl_
the second mate, a stronger man, brazenly took entire command, and
commended to the nether gods all who suggested ousting him from that
position. "I don't care a red what your official post was on this ship
before I came," said the second mate to several indignant officers. "You
should have held on to it when you had it. I've never been a skipper
before, but I'm skipper here now by sheer right of conquest, and I'm
going to stay on at that till the blooming old ship's burnt out. If you
bother me, I'll knock your silly nose into your watch-pocket. Turn-to
there and pass down another batch of those squalling passengers into the
boats. Don't you spill any of them overboard either, or, by the Big
Mischief, I'll just step down and teach you handiness."
The second mate was almost fainting with the heat before he left the
_Grosser Carl_, but he insisted on being the last man on board, and then
guyed the whole performance with caustic gayety when he was dragged out
of the water, into which he had been forced to jump, and was set to
drain on the floor gratings of a boat.
The _Grosser Carl_ had fallen away before the wind, and was spouting
flame from stem-head to poop-staff by the time the last of the rescuers
and the rescued were put on the _Flamingo's_ deck, and on that
travel-worn steamboat were some six hundred and fifty visitors that
somehow or other had to be provided for.
The detail of famine now became of next importance. They were still five
days' steam away from port, and their official provision supply was only
calculated to last the _Flamingos_ themselves for a little over that
time. Things are cut pretty fine in these days of steam voyages to
scheduled time. So there was no sentimental waiting to see the _Grosser
Carl_ finally burn out and sink. The boats were cast adrift, as the
crews were too exhausted to hoist them in, and the _Flamingo's_ nose was
turned toward Liverpool. Pratt, the chief engineer, figured out to half
a ton what coal he had remaining, and set the pace so as to run in with
empty bunkers. They were cool now, all hands, from the excitement of the
burning ship, and the objectionable prospect of semi-starvation made
them regard their visitors less than ever in the light of men
and brothers.
But, as it chanced, toward the evening of next day, a hurrying ocean
greyhound overtook them in her race from New York toward the East, and
the bunting talked out long sentences in the commercial code from the
wire span between the _Flamingo's_ masts. Fresh quartettes of flags
flicked up on both steamers, were acknowledged, and were replaced by
others; and when the liner drew up alongside, and stopped with reversed
propellers, she had a loaded boat ready swung out in davits, which
dropped in the water the moment she had lost her way. The bunting had
told the pith of the tale.
When the two steamers' bridges were level, the liner's captain touched
his cap, and a crowd of well-dressed passengers below him listened
wonderingly. "Afternoon, Captain. Got 'em all?"
"Afternoon, Captain. Oh, we didn't lose any. But a few drowned their
silly selves before we started to shepherd them."
"What ship was it? The French boat would be hardly due yet."
"No, the old _Grosser Carl_. She was astern of her time. Much obliged to
you for the grub, Captain. We'd have been pretty hard pushed if we
hadn't met you. I'm sending you a payment order. Sorry for spoiling
your passage."
The liner captain looked at his watch.
"Can't be helped. It's in a good cause, I suppose, though the mischief
of it is we were trying to pull down the record by an hour or so. The
boat, there! Are you going to be all night with that bit of stuff?"
The cases of food were transshipped with frantic haste, and the boat
returned. The greyhound leaped out into her stride again the moment she
had hooked on, and shot ahead, dipping a smart blue ensign in salute.
The _Flamingo_ dipped a dirty red ensign and followed, and, before dark
fell, once more had the ocean to herself.
The voyage home was not one of oppressive gayety. The first-class
passengers, who were crammed into the narrow cabin found the quarters
uncomfortable, and the little shipmaster's manner repellent. Urged by
the precedent in such matters, they "made a purse" for him, and a
presentation address. But as they merely collected some thirty-one
pounds in paper promises, which, so far, have never been paid, their
gratitude may be said to have had its economical side.
To the riffraff in the hold, for whose accommodation a poor man's
fortune had been jettisoned, the thing "gratitude" was an unknown
emotion. They plotted mischief amongst themselves, stole when the
opportunity came to them, were unspeakably foul in their habits, and,
when they gave the matter any consideration at all, decided that this
fierce little captain with the red torpedo beard had taken them on board
merely to fulfil some selfish purpose of his own. To the theorist who
has sampled them only from a distance, these off-scourings of Middle
Europe are downtrodden people with souls; to those who happen to know
them personally, all their qualities seem to be conspicuously negative.
The _Flamingo_ picked up the landmarks of the Southern Irish coast, and
made her number to Lloyd's station on Brow Head, stood across for the
Tuskar, and so on up St. George's Channel for Holyhead. She flew a
pilot jack there, and off Point Lynus picked up a pilot, who, after the
custom of his class, stepped up over the side with a hard felt hat on
his head, and a complete wardrobe, and a selection of daily papers in
his pocket.
"Well, pilot, what's the news?" said Kettle, as the man of narrow waters
swung himself up on to the bridge, and his boat swirled away astern.
"You are," said the pilot. "The papers are just full of you, Captain,
all of them, from the _Shipping Telegraph_ to the London _Times_. The
Cunard boat brought in the yarn. A pilot out of my schooner took
her up."
"How do they spell the name? Cuttle?"
"Well, I think it's 'Kattle' mostly, though one paper has it 'Kelly.'"
"Curse their cheek," said the little sailor, flushing. "I'd like to get
hold of some of those blowsy editors that come smelling round the dock
after yarns and drink, and wring their necks."
"Starboard a point," said the pilot, and when the quartermaster at the
wheel had duly repeated the course, he turned to Kettle with some
amusement. "Blowsy or not, they don't seem to have done you much harm
this journey, Captain. Why, they're getting up subscriptions for you all
round. Shouldn't wonder but what the Board of Trade even stands you a
pair of binoculars."
"I'm not a blessed mendicant," said Kettle stiffly, "and as for the
Board of Trade, they can stick their binoculars up their trousers." He
walked to the other end of the bridge, and stood there chewing savagely
at the butt end of his cigar.
"Rum bloke," commented the pilot to himself, though aloud he offered no
comment, being a man whose business it was to keep on good terms with
everybody. So he dropped his newspapers to one of the mates, and applied
himself to the details of the pilotage.
Still, the pilot was right in saying that England was ringing with the
news of Kettle's feat. The passengers of the Cunarder, with nothing much
else to interest them, had come home thrilled and ringing with it. A
smart New Yorker had got a "scoop" by slipping ashore at Queenstown and
cabling a lavish account to the American Press Association, so that the
first news reached London from the States. Followed Reuter's man and the
Liverpool reporters on Prince's landing-stage, who came to glean copy as
in the ordinary course of events, and they being spurred on by wires
from London for full details, got down all the facts available, and
imagined others. Parliament was not sitting, and there had been no
newspaper sensation for a week, and, as a natural consequence, the
papers came out next morning with accounts of the rescue varying from
two columns to a page in length.
It is one of the most wonderful attributes of the modern Press that it
can, at any time between midnight and publishing hours, collate and
elaborate the biography of a man who hitherto has been entirely obscure,
and considering the speed of the work, and the difficulties which hedge
it in, these lightning life sketches are often surprisingly full of
accuracies. But let the frillings in this case be fact or fiction, there
was no doubt that Kettle and his crew had saved a shipload of
panic-stricken foreign emigrants, and (to help point the moral) within
the year, in an almost similar case, another shipload had been
drowned through that same blind, helpless, hopeless panic. The pride of
race bubbled through the British Daily Press in prosaic long primer and
double-leaded bourgeois. There was no saying aloud, "We rejoice that an
Englishman has done this thing, after having it proved to us that it was
above the foreigner's strength." The newspaper man does not rhapsodize.
But the sentiment was there all the same, and it was that which actuated
the sudden wave of enthusiasm which thrilled the country.
[Illustration: STRANGERS CAME UP AND WRUNG KETTLE'S UNWILLING HAND.]
The _Flamingo_ was worked into dock, and a cheering crowd surged aboard
of her in unrestrainable thousands. Strangers came up and wrung Kettle's
unwilling hand, and dropped tears on his coat-sleeve; and when he swore
at them, they only wept the more and smiled through the drops. It was
magnificent, splendid, gorgeous. Here was a man! Who said that England
would ever lose her proud place among the nations when she could still
find men like Oliver Kelly--or Kattle--or Cuttle, or whatever this man
was called, amongst her obscure merchant captains?
Even Mr. Isaac Bird, managing owner, caught some of the general
enthusiasm, and withheld, for the present, the unpleasant remarks which
occurred to him as suitable, touching Kettle's neglect of the firm's
interest in favor of a parcel of bankrupt foreigners. But Kettle himself
had the subject well in mind. When all this absurd fuss was over, then
would come the reckoning; and whilst the crowd was cheering him, he was
figuring out the value of the jettisoned cargo, and whilst pompous Mr.
Isaac was shaking him by the hand and making a neat speech for the ear
of casual reporters, poor Kettle was conjuring up visions of the
workhouse and pauper's corduroy.
But the Fates were moving now in a manner which was beyond his
experience. The public, which had ignored his bare existence before for
all of a lifetime, suddenly discovered that he was a hero, and that,
too, without knowing half the facts. The Press, with its finger on the
public's pulse, published Kettle literature in lavish columns. It gave
twenty different "eye-witnesses' accounts" of the rescue. It gave long
lists of "previous similar disasters." It drew long morals in leading
articles. And finally, it took all the little man's affairs under its
consideration, and settled them with a lordly hand.
"Who pays for the cargo Captain Kuttle threw overboard?" one paper
headed an article; whilst another wrote perfervidly about "Cattle ruined
for his bravery." Here was a new and striking side issue. Lloyds' were
not responsible. Should the week's hero pay the bill himself out of his
miserable savings? Certainly not. The owners of the _Grosser Carl_ were
the benefiting parties, and it was only just that they should take up
the expense. So the entire Press wired off to the German firm, and next
morning were able to publish a positive assurance that of course these
grateful foreigners would reimburse all possible outlay.
The subject of finance once broached, it was naturally discovered that
the hero toiled for a very meagre pittance, that he was getting on in
years, and had a wife and family depending on him--and--promptly, there
opened out the subscription lists. People were stirred, and they gave
nicely, on the lower scale certainly, with shillings and guineas
predominating; but the lists totalled up to £2,400, which to some
people, of course, is gilded affluence.
Now Captain Kettle had endured all this publicity with a good deal of
restiveness, and had used language to one or two interviewers who
managed to ferret him out, which fairly startled them; but this last
move for a public subscription made him furious. He spoke in the
captain's room of the hostelry he used, of the degradation which was
put on him, and various other master mariners who were present
entirely agreed with him. "I might be a blessed missionary, or
India-with-a-famine, the way they're treating me," he complained
bitterly. "If they call a meeting to give me anything, I'll chuck the
money in their faces, and let them know straight what I think. By James!
do they suppose I've got no pride? Why can't they let me alone? If the
_Grosser Carl_ people pay up for that cargo, that's all I want."
But the eternal healer, Time, soothed matters down wonderfully. Captain
Owen Kettle's week's outing in the daily papers ran its course with due
thrills and headlines, and then the Press forgot him, and rushed on to
the next sensation. By the time the subscription list had closed and
been brought together, the _Flamingo_ had sailed for her next slow round
trip in the Mexican Gulf, and when her captain returned to find a curt,
formal letter from a firm of bankers, stating that £2,400 had been
placed to his credit in their establishment, he would have been more
than human if he had refused it. And, as a point of fact, after
consulting with Madam, his wife, he transformed it into houses in that
terrace of narrow dwellings in Birkenhead which represented the rest of
his savings.
Now on paper this house property was alleged by a sanguine agent to
produce at the rate of £15 per annum apiece, and as there were
thirty-six houses, this made an income--on paper--of well over £500 a
year, the which is a very nice possession.
A thing, moreover, which Captain Kettle had prophesied had come to pass.
The "trade connection" in the Mexican Gulf had been very seriously
damaged. As was somewhat natural, the commercial gentry there did not
relish having their valuable cargo pitched unceremoniously to Neptune,
and preferred to send what they had by boats which did not contrive to
meet burning emigrant liners. This, of course, was quite unreasonable of
them, but one can only relate what happened.
And then the second part of the prophecy evolved itself naturally.
Messrs. Bird discovered from the last indent handed them that more paint
had been used over the _Flamingo's_ fabric than they thought consistent
with economy, and so they relieved Captain Kettle from the command,
handed him their check for wages due--there was no commission to be
added for such an unsatisfactory voyage as this last--and presented him
gratis with their best wishes for his future welfare.
Kettle had thought of telling the truth in print, but the mysterious law
of libel, which it is written that all mariners shall dread and never
understand, scared him; and besides, he was still raw from his recent
week's outing in the British Press. So he just went and gave his views
to Mr. Isaac Bird personally and privately, threw the ink-bottle through
the office window, pitched the box of business cigars into the fire, and
generally pointed his remarks in a way that went straight to Mr. Bird's
heart, and then prepared peacefully to take his departure.
"I shall not prosecute you for this--" said Mr. Isaac.
"I wish you dare. It would suit me finely to get into a police-court and
be able to talk. I'd willingly pay my 'forty shillings and' for the
chance. They'd give me the option fast enough."
"I say I shall not prosecute you because I have no time to bother with
law. But I shall send your name round amongst the shipowners, and with
my word against you, you'll never get another command so long as the
world stands."
"You knock-kneed little Jew," said Kettle truculently, "do you think I'm
giving myself the luxury of letting out at a shipowner, after knuckling
down to the breed through all of a weary life, unless I knew my ground?
I've done with ships and the sea for always, and if you give me any more
of your lip, I'll burn your office down and you in it."
"You seem pleased enough with yourself about something," said Mr. Isaac.
"I am," said Kettle exultantly. "I've chucked the sea for good. I've
taken a farm in Wharfedale, and I'm going to it this very week."
"Then," said Mr. Isaac sardonically, "if you've taken a farm, don't let
me wish you any further ill. Good-morning."
But Kettle was not to be damped out of conceit with his life's desire by
a few ill-natured words. He gave Mr. Isaac Bird his final blessing,
commenting on his ancestors, his personal appearance, his prospects of
final salvation, and then pleasantly took his leave. He was too much
occupied in the preliminaries of his new life to have much leisure just
then for further cultivation of the gentle art of insult.
The farm he had rented lay in the Wharfe Valley above Skipton, and,
though its acreage was large, a good deal was made up of mere moorland
sheep pasture. Luckily he recognized that a poetical taste for a rural
life might not necessarily imply the whole mystery of stock rearing and
agriculture, and so he hired a capable foreman as philosopher and guide.
And here I may say that his hobby by no means ruined him, as might
reasonably be expected; for in the worst years he never dropped more
than fifty or sixty pounds, and frequently he ran the place without
loss, or even at a profit.
But though it is hard to confess that a man's ideal comes short of his
expectations when put to the trial, I am free to confess that although
he enjoyed it all, Kettle was not at his happiest when he was attending
his crops or his sheep, or haggling with his fellow farmers on Mondays
over fat beasts in Skipton market.
He had gone back to one of his more practiced tastes--if one calls it a
taste--the cultivation of religion. The farm stood bleak and lonely on
the slope of a hillside, and on both flanks of the dale were other
lonely farms as far as the eye could see. There was no village. The
nearest place of worship was four miles away, and that was merely a
church. But in the valley beside the Wharfe was a small gray stone
chapel, reared during some bygone day for the devotions of some
forgotten sect. Kettle got this into his control.
He was by no means a rich man. The row of houses in Birkenhead were for
the most part tenanted by the wives of mercantile marine engineers and
officers, who were chronically laggard with their rent, and whom _esprit
de corps_ forbade him to press; and so, what with this deficit, and
repairs and taxes, and one thing and another, it was rarely that half
the projected £500 a year found its way into his banking account. But a
tithe of whatever accrued to him was scrupulously set aside for the
maintenance of the chapel.
He imported there the grim, narrow creed he had learned in South
Shields, and threw open the door for congregations. He was entirely in
earnest over it all, and vastly serious. Failing another minister, he
himself took the services, and though, on occasion, some other brother
was induced to preach, it was he himself who usually mounted the pulpit
beneath the sounding-board. He purchased an American organ, and sent his
eldest daughter weekly to take lessons in Skipton till she could play
it. And Mrs. Kettle herself led the singing.
Still further, the chapel has its own collection of hymns, specially
written, printed and dedicated to its service. The book is Captain
Kettle's first published effort. Heaven and its author alone know under
what wild circumstances most of those hymns were written.
The chapel started its new span of life with a congregation meagre
enough, but Sunday by Sunday the number grew. They are mostly
Nonconformists in the dales, and when once a man acquires a taste for
dissent, he takes a sad delight in sampling his neighbors' variations of
creed. Some came once and were not seen again. Others came and returned.
They felt that this was the loneliest of all modern creeds; indeed,
Kettle preached as much, and one can take a melancholy pride in splendid
isolation.
I am not sure that Captain Kettle does not find the restfulness of his
present life a trifle too accentuated at times, though this is only
inevitable for one who has been so much a man of action. But at any rate
he never makes complaint. He is a strong man, and he governs himself
even as he governs his family and the chapel circle, with a strong, just
hand. The farm is a model of neatness and order; paint is lavished in a
way that makes dalesmen lift their eyebrows; and the routine of the
household is as strict as that of a ship.
The house is unique, too, in Wharfedale for the variety of its contents.
Desperately poor though Kettle might be on many of his returns from his
unsuccessful ventures, he never came back to his wife without some
present from a foreign clime as a tangible proof of his remembrance, and
because these were usually mere curiosities, without intrinsic value,
they often evaded the pawn-shop in those years of dire distress, when
more negotiable articles passed irretrievably away from the family
possession. And with them too, in stiff, decorous frames, are those
certificates and testimonials which a master mariner always collects,
together with photographs of gratuitously small general interest.
But one might turn the house upside down without finding so carnal an
instrument as a revolver, and when I suggested to Kettle once that we
might go outside and have a little pistol practice, he glared at me, and
I thought he would have sworn. However, he let me know stiffly enough
that whatever circumstances might have made him at sea, he had always
been a very different man ashore in England, and there the
matter dropped.
But speaking of mementoes, there is one link with the past that Mrs.
Kettle, poor woman, never ceases to regret the loss of. "Such a
beautiful gold watch," she says it was too, "with the Emperor's and the
Captain's names engraved together on the back, and just a nice mention
of the _Gross of Carl_." As it happened, I saw the letter with which it
was returned. It ran like this:--
_To His Majesty the German Emperor,
Berlin, Germany
S.S. "Flamingo,"
Liverpool,
Sir,
I am in receipt of watch sent by your agent, the German
ambassador in London, which I return herewith. It is not my
custom to accept presents from people I don't know,
especially if I have talked about them. I have talked about
you, not liking several thing's you've done, especially
telegraphing about Dr. Jameson. Sir, you should remember that
man was down when you sent your wire and couldn't hit back.
Some of the things I have said about German deck hands you
needn't take too much notice about. They aren't so bad as
they might be if properly handled. But they want handling.
Likewise learning English.
My wife wants to keep your photo, so I send you one of hers
in return, so there shall be no robbery. She has written her
name over it, same as yours.
Yours truly,
O. Kettle (Master)._