I had the second trick at the wheel that watch, from ten o'clock till
midnight. I came panting and sweating to the task, keenly relishing
the chance of resting. For there was to be no "farming" away the night
watches in the _Golden Bough_; the second mate had kept us upon the
dead run from one job to another, and I sensed this was the routine of
the ship.
It was a fine, clean smelling night of moon and stars, and brisk
breeze. The wind had freshened since day, and the vessel was stepping
out and showing the paces that made her famous. She had an easy helm;
one of those rare craft that may be said to steer herself. I had time
to think, and receive impressions, as I half lounged at the wheel. The
round moon brightened the world, the west pyramids of canvas above me
bellied taut, the cordage wrung a stirring whistle from the wind, the
silver spray cascaded on the weather deck. I watched the scene with
delight, drank in the living beauty of that ship, and felt the witchery
the _Golden Bough_ practiced upon sailors' minds steal over and possess
me. Aye, she was a ship! I was soon to curse my masters, and the very
day I was born, but never, after that night, did I curse the ship. I
loved her. I felt the full force that night of a hoary sea axiom,
"Ships are all right. 'Tis the men in them."
I was surprised not to see Captain Swope upon the poop. According to
the gossip I had heard at the Knitting Swede's, this eight to twelve
watch was Yankee Swope's favorite prowling time. But he did not
appear; indeed, he had not shown himself since he had so ignominiously
surrendered the deck to Newman. I was not disappointed. I shouldn't
have cared if he remained below the entire voyage.
But I did see the lady that watch. When Mister Lynch, and his
familiars (of whom more anon), had gone forward to a job, she suddenly
stepped out of the companion hatch and flitted aft towards me. Then,
when she was close enough to discern my features by the reflection from
the binnacle lights, she stopped. I heard a sort of gasping sigh that
meant, I knew, disappointment, and she moved over to the rail, and
stood staring at the sea.
I knew what was wrong. She had, in the darkness, mistaken my very
respectable bulk for Newman's gigantic body. She had expected to find
Newman at the wheel; she was eager for a private word with him.
I watched her, with my head half turned on my shoulder. Aye, but it
thrilled me, the sight of her! You will call me a romantic young fool,
but it was not that. It was no thrill of desire, no throb of passion
for her beauty, though she was fair enough, in all faith, as she stood
there in the moonlight. It was something bigger, something deeper, a
wave of sympathy and pity that surged through my being, a feeling I had
never before felt during my savage young life. A pretty pass, you say,
when the ignorant foc'sle Jack pities the captain's wife? Aye, but the
very beasts of the field might have pitied the wife of Yankee Swope.
Her body seemed so slender and childlike. Too fine and dainty to hold
the woe of a hell-ship, and, Heaven knew, what private sorrow besides.
She did not know I was observing her, or else her great trouble caused
her to forget my presence, for she suddenly buried her face in her
hands, and her shoulders commenced to heave. It stabbed me to the
quick, the sight of that noiseless grief. My eyelids smarted, and my
throat bulged uncomfortably. What was her trouble? Swope? Had he
hurt her? Was the talk I had heard at the Swede's correct, did that
black devil beat the lady? My hands grasped the wheel spokes fiercely,
as though I had Swope's sleek throat between my fingers.
I heard Mister Lynch coming aft. I thought the lady would not wish him
to see her weeping, and since she did not seem to hear the approach, I
called softly to her, "Lady! They come!"
She straightened, and, after a second, came swiftly to me. She bent
her face within the narrow radius of the binnacle lights, and her eyes
looked straight into mine. Aye, and the misery and suffering I saw in
those great eyes!
"God bless you, boy," she whispered. "You are his friend? Tell him I
come forward in the morning. Tell him--for my sake--as he loves his
life--to look behind him when he walks in the dark!"
With that she turned and sped to the hatch, and was gone below. And up
the poop ladder tramped Lynch, with the two tradesmen following him.
I have mentioned these two familiars of the second mate before, and I
had better explain them.
The _Golden Bough_ carried neither junior officers, nor bo'suns, an
unusual circumstance, considering the size and character of her crews.
Instead, she carried two sailmakers and two carpenters, and these
tradesmen lived by themselves in the round-house, ate aft at a special
table, and, save when emergency work prevented, stood watch and watch.
They stood their night watches aft, with the officer on deck. This
arrangement--unique in all my sea experience--provided three men,
awake, armed and handy, throughout the night. It worried us a good
deal, this arrangement, when, in due time, we began to talk of mutiny.
But I was not talking, or even thinking, of mutiny this night, or for
many nights. Nothing was further from my thoughts. Mutiny is a
serious business, a hanging business, the business of scoundrels, or
the last resort of desperate men. I knew the consequences of mutiny,
so did the others, squareheads and stiffs, and we had not been
sufficiently maltreated to make us ripe for such an undertaking.
But there was mutiny in the air on the _Golden Bough_ from that very
first day or the voyage. I was soon to learn that there was plenty of
rebellious spirit forward, and shrewd, daring fellows eager to lead,
because of piratical greed. Also, she was a hell-ship. It was part of
a hell-ship's routine to thump the crew to the raw edge of mutiny, and
keep them there.
You must understand the _Golden Bough_, and to understand her you must
understand the knock-down-and-drag-out system in vogue on board a good
many American ships of that day, and later. A hell-ship was not just
the result of senseless brutality on the part of the officers. She was
the product of a system. The captain rode high in his owner's esteem
when he could point to the golden results of his stern rule at sea; the
bucko mates were specifically hired to haze the crew, and drew extra
large pay for the job.
It was, of course, a matter of dollars. If the owners did not have to
pay wages to the crew, they would save money, wouldn't they? I suppose
some sleek-jowled, comfortable pillar of church and society first
thought of it, and whispered it into his skipper's ear. And the
skipper whispered it to his mates, and they made that ship so hot the
crew cleared out at the first port or call, leaving their wages behind.
So was the hell-ship born.
For instance: We were thirty men before the mast in the _Golden Bough_,
signed on for the voyage at $25 a month. Of course, we didn't get any
of this wage until the voyage was completed, until the vessel returned
to an American port. Think of the saving to the owners if we deserted
in Hong Kong. They would have no labor bill, practically, for working
the ship from America to China, no labor bill during the months ere she
was ready for sea again. Then when ready to leave Hong Kong, Swope
would ship a new crew, haze them as we were being hazed, and they would
clear out at the next port.
That system worked. It was a money saver, and lasted till the
ascendency of steam, and the passage of tardy laws, ended it. Why,
some skippers--like Yankee Swope---boasted they never paid off a crew.
Talk about efficiency, and reducing overhead costs! Some of those old
windjammer skippers could swap yarns with these factory experts of
to-day, I tell you!
Of course, not all American ships, or even a majority of them, adopted
this system. But enough did to give American ships an evil name among
sailors that has endured to the present day.
And this evil name helped sustain the system. It completed a kind of
vicious circle. The crew ran away from the hell-ship, and spread the
evil fame of the vessel over the five oceans. Sailors then would not
willing ship in her--save, of course, a few adventuresome young fools,
like myself, who sought glory--and the skipper found himself putting to
sea with a mob of stiffs in his foc'sle.
Often he had trouble getting stiffs. In some ports, where the crimping
system was not developed, the hell ship waited for months for a crew.
In other ports, like San Francisco, where the boarding master's will
was the law of sailortown, the captain paid over his blood money, and
the boarding master delivered him his crew, drunk, drugged and
sandbagged. When he got to sea he would find his crew composed chiefly
of the very scum of the waterside, a mode of unlicked, lawless
ruffians, and his bucko mates would need all their prowess to keep them
subordinate. Hazing such a mob was the only way to manage them. Also,
it made them run away and leave their wages behind.
But there were degrees of "heat" in the hell-ships. The bucko mates
usually contented themselves with working the men at top speed,
depriving them of their afternoon watches below, and thumping the
stiffs, because they were lubberly at their work. This treatment was
sufficiently severe to produce the desired results. This was normal
hell-ship style. The few sailors, in the crew, providing they were
willing, rarely received more than verbal abuse.
Now, brutality feeds upon itself. Some officers, after living under
the system for a time, became perfect fiends. They came to enjoy
beating up men. In some ships, the dressing down of the crew was a
continuous performance, and sailors, as well as stiffs, caught it.
As in the _Golden Bough_. God's truth, there was blood spilt every
watch! Always, after the first day out, did the foc'sle bunks contain
a miserable wretch or two laid up because of a manhandling.
Yet we of the starboard watch were comparatively lucky. Mister Lynch,
our officer, was what I may call a normal bucko. He hazed for the
results rather than for the pleasure of hazing, though I think he did
get some satisfaction out of thumping the men. You feel a fine thrill
when you see a half dozen huskies cringe away before you with fear in
their eyes. I imagine it is the same thrill a wild animal tamer feels
as he faces his beasts. I felt this fascinating sensation many times
after I had become a mate of ships. Lynch had no mercy on the stiffs
of our watch; he hammered the rudiments of seamanship into them with
astonishing speed. He cuffed a knowledge of English into the
squareheads. But he kept his hands off Newman and me, not because he
was afraid of us--I don't think Lynch feared anything--but because we
knew our work and did it. Oh, I got mine, and with interest, in the
_Golden Bough_, but not from Lynch.
The mate was a different type. He was all brute, was Fitzgibbon, and
sailors and stiffs alike caught it from him. A natural bully, and,
like most such, at heart craven.
Lynch used his bare fists upon the men, Fitz used brass knuckles. I
don't think Lynch ever bothered to carry a gun in the daytime.
Fitzgibbon never stirred on deck without a deadly bulge in his coat
pocket. Lynch stalked among us by night or day, alone, and unafraid.
After dark, the mate never stirred from the poop unless Sails and Chips
were at his heels. Lynch was a bluff, hard man; Fitzgibbon was a
cruel, sly beast.
And Swope! Well, I cannot explain or judge his character. It would
take a medical man to do that, I think. He was his two mates rolled
into one, plus brains. He had fed a certain strong Sadistic element in
his nature until inflicting pain upon others had become his chief
passion. I can imagine his perverted soul living in former lives--as a
Familiar of the Inquisition, or the red-clad torturer of some medieval
prince. But explain him, no. I will tell his ending, you may judge.
But, of course, I was not musing upon the economy of hell-ships, or the
characters of bucko mates, during the balance of that trick at the
wheel. The lady's message to Newman possessed my mind.
When I went forward at eight bells, I immediately called Newman aside,
and delivered her words. He listened in silence, and his face grew
soft. He squeezed my hand, and whispered somewhat brokenly, "Thank
you, Jack"--an exhibition of emotion that startled as much as it
pleased me, he being such a stern man.
Then, when I repeated the latter part of the lady's message, "Tell him
. . . to look behind him when he walks in the dark," his features
hardened again, and I heard him mutter, "So, that is his game!"
"What is?" I asked.
He did not answer for a moment, and I turned away towards my bunk. But
at that he reached out a detaining hand.
"You are a big man, Shreve," he said. "Not such a difference in our
sizes but that a man might mistake us after dark. Keep your weather
eye lifted, lad; you, too, must look behind when you walk in the dark."
"And what shall I look for?" asked I.
"Death," he said.