canned beef, and a bit of fresh beef, and some coffee and tea, and a box
of hard bread----”
“And all in the----”
“In the dory, yes.”
“All right. Stand by and over they go.”
And the Skipper and Jerry stood by and took them as they came down and
piled them all in the dory, to the wonder of all who saw. “And send the
bill to the man I told you--he’s the owner. And ’twould be servin’ him
no more than right if you charged him good and high, for a man that
would ask men to go to sea in a circus vessel like this--sure he
deserves no better.”
As they were about to push off, the steamer captain lowered down another
case. “Of bouillon,” he said, “for yourself, Captain--for the nerve of
you. And here’s for the boys to have a drink,” and tossed down a quart
of whiskey.
“Thank ye kindly,” said Coleman, and he and Jerry pulled off.
From the steamer they watched them anxiously, expecting to see them
swamped and lost. But not so. There is an art in managing a loaded dory
in a heavy sea.
Their shipmates greeted them affectionately. “And I’ll begin with the
bully soup, Skipper,” said the cook. “’Twill be the quickest made.”
And the cook did that, putting the twenty-four quarts into one immense
boiler, and they finished it in the first rush. Then the Skipper drew
the cork out of the bottle of whiskey.
“A nice man, that steamer captain,” said Coleman, “but not much
judgment. ‘Tell the boys to have a drink on me,’ he says, and that same
was good of him. But one quart among twenty-two men! Oh, Lord!”
“Lord forgive him,” said Jerry, “’tisn’t enough for an aggravation.”
After that, and a good warming-up and drying out of wet clothes, they
went on deck and turned to as if it was canoeing on the Charles River
they were. They coaxed the _Celestine_ along, always with an eye to her
weak side. And the wind came fair, and the first thing they knew--no
more than a couple of days more of careful night and day work it
was--they found themselves abreast of Boston lightship. And here a tug
bore down and hailed them.
“You’re lookin’ in bad shape. Will I heave a line aboard?”
“Will you? I don’t know. How much to the wharf?”
“Oh, about five hundred dollars, I guess.”
“You guess, do you? Well, I’ll make a guess you won’t.”
“Well, what d’y’ say to two fifty?”
“No, nor one fifty--nor a single fifty, nor the half of fifty. We’ve
beat two hundred and odd mile this way, and I cal’late we can make ten
mile more to the dock.”
“Come two hundred miles in that rig?”
[Illustration: A tug bore down and hailed them.]
“Yes, sir--from Georges--and could come it again.”
“From Georges--in the weather we’ve had? Angel Gabriel! I’ll take you up
for nothing.”
“No, no, you won’t. We’ll give you what’s due you--ten dollars.”
“All right--ten dollars.”
And so the _Celestine_ came back to T Dock. And an appreciative
aggregation of connoisseurs in seamanship were there to greet her. But
the crew of the _Celestine_: It did not take them long to hustle ashore
after she was tied up--and they all had their bags with them. No more of
her for them, thank you.
And Coleman? After a look over to Eastern Packet Pier to see that his
own _Maggie_ was still there, Coleman hurried up the dock and headed for
the bar of the saloon that is nearest the south side of T Dock, there to
consummate the second of the rites without which he could conceive no
trip to be lucky.
The bartender set down the glass of water and the glass empty and the
bottle with the horse and rider on the outside. Coleman raised the
bottle. But looking about him before he drank and observing the wistful
crowd, he set his filled glass down again and drew his old wallet from
his pocket, and from there dug out a bill. It was a five-dollar
bill--they all saw it, with the V in plain sight. That, Coleman laid
down on the bar, and motioning back over his shoulder, said heartily,
“Let ye all come up--and have a drink on the _Maggie Joyce_--the
_Maggie_ for me from this out.”
“And how about that new one, Captain?” said one when the rush was over
and a dozen throats had been properly sluiced.
“That one, is it? That one! The wicked-- I won’t say it, but if ever I
set foot on her deck again may-- That one--why, ’tis bad as pickin’ up a
painted drab on the street and your own decent wife to home. Let ye
drink again--d’y’ hear me?” And not a man of them but heard.
The Truth of the Oliver Cromwell
Martin Carr did a fine thing that afternoon. Martin and John Marsh were
hauling trawls, when a sea capsized their dory. The same sea washed them
both clear of the dory. John Marsh could not swim. It looked as if he
had hauled his last trawl, and so beyond all question he had, but for
Martin, who seized one of their buoy-kegs, which happened to bob up near
by, and pushed it into John’s despairing arms. “Hang on for your life,
John!” said Martin, and himself struck out for the dory, knowing that
the buoy could not support two. It was perhaps forty feet to the bottom
of the dory--not a great swim, that; but this was a winter’s day on the
Grand Banks, and a man beaten back by a rough sea and borne down by the
weight of heavy clothing, oilskins, and big jack-boots. When he had
fought his way to the dory he had to wait a while before he dared try to
climb up on it, he was that tired; and after he got there he found no
strap to the plug, and so nothing to hang on to. He remembered then that
he and John had often spoken of fixing up a strap for the plug, but had
never fixed it.
“My own neglect,” muttered Martin, “and now I’m paying for it.”
Clinging to the smooth planking on the bottom of the dory was hard work
that day, and becoming harder every minute, for the sea was making. And
there was John to keep an eye on. “How’re you making out, Johnnie-boy?”
he called.
“It’s heavy dragging, but I’m all right so far,” John answered.
“And how is it with you now, Johnnie-boy?” he called in a little while
again.
“I can hang on a while yet, Martin.”
“Good for you!” said Martin to that.
“Can you see the vessel?” asked John after another space.
“He’s giving out, and I see no vessel,” thought Martin, but answered
cheerily, “Aye, I see her.”
“And how far away is she, and what’s she doing?”
Aloud Martin said, “Five or six miles, maybe, up to wind’ard; and she’s
taking aboard all but the last dory, and there’s men gone aloft to look
for us.” But under his breath, “And God forgive me if I go to my death
with that lie on my lips; but ’tis no deeper than my lips--no deeper.”
Then they waited and waited, until John said, “Martin, I’ll have to go
soon-- I can’t hang on much longer.”
“Bide a while, Johnnie-boy--bide a while. Dory-mates we’ve been for many
a trip--bide a while with me now, Johnnie.”
But Martin knew that it would be for but a little while for John--for
them both, if help did not come soon. Scanning the sea for whatever hope
the sea might give, he saw the trawl-line floating on the water. That
was the line that ran from their anchor somewhere on the bottom to the
buoy-keg to which John was clinging. If he could but get hold of that
line he could draw John to the dory, with a better chance to talk to
him--to put heart into him, for Johnnie was but a lad, no more than five
and twenty.
To get the line, he would have to swim; and to swim any distance in that
rising and already bad sea he would have to cast off most of his
clothing. And with most of his clothing gone he would not last too long.
Certainly if the vessel did not get them by dark, he would never live
through the night. He would freeze to death--that he knew well. But
could he live through the night, anyway? And even if he could-- But what
was the good of thinking all night over it? He pulled off his boots,
untied his oilskins, hauled off his heavy outer woollens.
“Johnnie-boy, can you hang on a while longer?”
“I dunno, Martin-- I dunno. Where’s the vessel?”
“She’s bearing down, John.” And with the thought of that second lie on
his lips Martin scooped off for the buoy-line, which, after a battle, he
grabbed and towed back to the dory. It was a hard fight, and he would
have liked well to rest a while; but there was Johnnie. So in he hauled
many a long fathom of slack ground-line, with gangings and hooks, and
after that the buoy-line. He sorrowfully regarded the fine fat fish that
he passed along; every hook seemed to have a fish on it. “Man, man, but
’twas only last night I baited up for ye in the cold hold of the
vessel--baited with the cold frozen squid, and my fingers nigh
frost-bitten.” But every hook was bringing him nearer to his dory-mate.
He felt the line tauten at last. “Have a care now, Johnnie, while I draw
you to me,” and hauled in till Johnnie was alongside.
But “Good-by,” said Johnnie ere yet Martin had him safe.
“Not yet, Johnnie-boy,” said Martin, and reached for him and held him
up and lashed him to the buoy. “You can rest your arms now, lad,” he
said, and Johnnie gratefully let go.
“’Tis made of iron a man should be that goes winter trawling,” said
Martin, and up on the bottom of the dory he climbed again, this time
with infinite difficulty.
They had had the leeward berth and now were farthest from the vessel,
and by this time it was dark. But Martin knew the Skipper would not give
them up in a hurry, as he explained to John. And by and by they saw the
torches flare up.
“Wait you, John,” said Martin then, “and save your strength. I’ll hail
when I think they’re near enough to hear.” Which he did, in a voice that
obeyed the iron will and carried far across the waters.
Then the vessel saw them and bore down, the Skipper to the wheel and the
men lining the rail.
“Be easy with John,” said Martin to the man who first stretched his arms
out and remarked, “I’m thinking he’s nigh gone.”
“_Nigh_ gone? He _is_ gone,” as they lifted John aboard.
“But all right with him now,” they said as they passed him along the
deck. “And how is it with yourself, Martin?” they asked him as he was
about to step over the rail.
“Fine and daisy,” said Martin. “How is it yourself, boy?” stepping
jauntily up, and then, unable longer to stand, falling flat on the deck.
Seeing how it had been with him, they made him go below also, which he,
with shipmates helping, did; and also, later, put on the dry shift of
clothes they made ready. In the middle of it all he asked, “Where’s
Johnnie?”
“In his bunk--and full of hot coffee--where you’ll be in a minute.”
“The hell I will! there’s my dory yet to be hoisted in.”
“Your dory, Martin? Why, she’s in, drained dry and griped long ago.”
“What! and me below? And dory in already? What was it? Did I fall
asleep, or what? Lord! but it’s an old man I must be getting. I
wouldn’t’ve believed it. In all my time to sea, that’s the first time
ever I warn’t able to lift hand to tayckles and my own dory hoisting
in.” He made for the companion-way, but so weak was he that he fell back
down the companion-way when he tried to make the deck.
But a really strong man recuperates rapidly. An hour later Martin was
enjoying a fine hot supper, while the crew sat around and hove questions
at him. They asked for details, and he gave them, or at least such of
them as had become impressed on his mind; particularly did he condemn,
in crisp phrases, the botheration of boots that leaked and the need of a
second plug-strap on the bottom of a dory. “There ought to be a new law
about plug-straps,” said Martin.
“Did ever a man yet come off the bottom of a dory and not speak about
the plug-straps?” commented one.
“And leaky boots is the devil,” affirmed another--a notorious talker
this one, who bunked up in the peak, where he could be dimly seen now,
his head out of his bunk that his voice might carry the better. “I
bought a pair of boots in Boston once--a Jew up on Atlantic Avenue----”
“In Heaven’s name, will you shut up, you and your Atlantic Avenue boots?
We’ll never hear the end of those boots.”
The man in the peak subsided, and he who had quelled him, near to the
stove and smoking a pipe, went on for himself: “And what were you
thinkin’ of, Martin, when you thought you were goin’?”
“Or did you think any time that you was goin’?” asked somebody else.
“Indeed and I did, and a dozen times I thought it--and that ’twas a
blessed cold kind of a day for a man to be soaking his feet in the
ocean.”
“And yet”--the lad in the peak was in commission again--“and yet warn’t
it some professor said in that book that somebody was reading out of the
other day--warn’t it him said that salt water ain’t nigh so cold as
fresh. Is it, Martin?”
“As to that,” answered Martin, “I dunno. But I wish ’twas that
professor’s feet, not mine, was astraddle the bottom of that dory--not
to wish him any harm. But winter’s day and the wind no’therly, I found
it cold enough.”
“I went into a Turkish bath parlor in New York one time,” came the
conversational voice from the peak, “and hot? My Lord----”
“The man,” said the next on watch, taking his mitts from the line above
the stove--“the man that’d talk about hot Turkish baths on a night like
this to sea-- Turkish baths, and, Lord in heaven, two good long hours up
there----” He halted to take a sniff up the companion-way. “Two
hours--what ought to be done with the like o’ him?”
The man by the stove, who a while before had vanquished the lad in the
peak, took his pipe long enough from his mouth to observe, “And for four
years now, to my knowledge, he’s been tryin’ to tell how hot ’twas in
that Turkish bath.”
“Hit him with a gob-stick,” suggested the cook--“or this rolling-pin.”
He was flattening out pie-crust.
“A gob-stick or a rolling-pin,” said the next on watch, “is too good for
him. Here, take this,” and passed the cook’s hatchet along the lockers.
The opening and closing of the hatch after the watch had gone on deck
admitted a blast of air that made the man in the bunk nearest the steps
draw up his legs. The flame in the lamp flared, whereat the original
inquirer got up to set the lamp chimney more firmly over the base of the
burner, and before he sat down put the question again. How did Martin
feel when he thought he was sure enough going. “The last fifteen or
twenty minutes or so I bet you did some thinkin’--didn’t you, Martin?”
“A little,” admitted Martin, and with a long arm gaffed another potato.
“Toward the end of it the sea did begin to take on a gray look that I
know now was grayer than any mortal sea ever could’ve been.”
“And what were you thinkin’ of then, Martin?”
“What was I thinking of? What-- Lord, but these apple dumplings are great
stuff, aren’t they? You don’t want to let any of those dumplings get
past you, Johnnie. Never mind how used-up you feel, come out of your
bunk and try ’em. Five or six good plump dumplings inside of you and
you’ll forget you ever saw a dory.”
“He’s asleep, Martin.”
“Is he? Well, maybe ’tis just as well. ’Twas a hard drag for poor John
to-day. What was I thinking of? you asked me. Well, I’ll tell you what I
was thinking of. You know what store I set by a good razor. I’d go a
hundred mile for a good razor--a _good_ razor--any time. You all know
that, don’t you?”
“Yes--yes----”
“Well, this last time out I brought aboard as fine a looking razor as
ever a man laid against his face. Oh, I saw you all eying it the last
time I took it out. Don’t pretend-- I know you. It’s right there in my
diddy-box, and before I turn in to-night it’s a good scrape I’m going to
give myself with it--yes. Well, when Johnnie’d said ‘Good-by,
Martin’--said it for the second time--‘Good-by, Martin, don’t mind me
any more, look out for yourself’--said that, and I’d said, ‘Hold on a
little longer’ to him for about the tenth time--well, about that time,
when I did begin to think we were sure enough going--with it coming on
dark and no sign of the vessel in sight--then it was I couldn’t help
wondering who in hell aboard the vessel was going to get that razor.”
When everybody had done laughing, and after two or three had told how
they felt when they were on the bottom of a dory, the persistent one
asked again, “Martin, but you must’ve had some close calls in your
time?”
“My share--no more.” He was taking a look around the table as he
spoke--a lingering, regretful look--and then he gave up any further
thought of it. “Ah-h,” he sighed, “but I cert’nly took the good out of
that meal,” and leaning against the nearest bunk-board--his own--drew
out his pipe from beneath the mattress. “My share and no more,” he
repeated, and reached across to the shelf in his bunk and drew forth a
plug of tobacco. He cut off the proper quantity and rolled it around
between his palms the proper length of time before he spoke again. With
the pipe between his teeth he had to speak more slowly. “Any man that’s
been thirty years trawling will nat’rally have a few things happen to
him. To-day makes the third time I’ve been on the bottom of a dory, and
cold weather each time--just my blessed luck--cold weather each
time”--three times he blew through the stem of his pipe--“and I don’t
want to be there the fourth. Eddie-boy, hand me a wisp out of the broom
at your elbow.”
While Martin was cleaning out his pipe somebody put the question
generally. Would they rather be on the bottom of a dory out to sea, or
on a vessel piled up on the rocky shore somewhere?
“On the rocks for me.”
“And for me.”
“Yes, a chance to get ashore from a wreck, but the bottom of a dory with
the sea breaking over you, and it cold maybe--cert’nly it’s never any
too warm--wr-r-h!”
There seemed to be no doubt of what they would take for their choice.
“And yet,” commented Martin when the last word had been said, “I dunno
but the closest call ever I had was when the _Oliver Cromwell_ went
ashore and was lost off Whitehead.”
“Cripes, but I’m glad I warn’t on her. A bad business that--a bad
business. Hand me that plate, will you, Martin”--this from the cook.
“Sure, boy--here y’are--an armful of plates. Cook on a fisherman’s the
last job I’d want--you’re never done. And you’re right it was a bad
business, cook. When you’ve seen nineteen men washed over one after the
other, every man--every man but one, that is--putting up the divil’s own
fight for his life before he went-- I dunno but what it must be worse
than going down at sea altogether, all hands in one second, with no
chance at all--though that must be hard enough, too.”
Silence for a while, and then Martin continued: “If I had it to do over
again”--two long puffs--“to do it over and be lost instead of saved, I
dunno but what I’d rather founder at sea myself. Nineteen men
lost--eighteen good men-- Lord, but ’twas cruel!”
Martin, with his head back, was gazing thoughtfully up at the
deck-beams. A gentle leading question, and he resumed.
“We left Gloucester that trip with the Skipper’s-- But to tell that story
right a man ought to begin away back. But will you give me a match,
somebody?”
He lit up again, and then settled himself snugly between the edge of the
table and his bunk-board, after the manner of a man who is in for a long
sitting-out. Once he really started there were but few interruptions.
The loss of the _Cromwell_ was a serious affair, and nobody broke in
thoughtlessly; and only when Martin would stop to refill his pipe, or to
light up again when he found he had let it go out, did he make any halt
himself.
* * * * *
“What the Hoodleys of Cape Ann were, and are still,” began Martin, “of
course all of you, or most all of you, anyway, know. Or maybe some of
you don’t know. Well, they were a hard crowd--but didn’t know it--the
kind of people that whenever they got to talking about their own kind,
never had any tales to prove maybe that there was even the lightest bit
of wit or grace or beauty among them; no, none of that for the Hoodleys
of Cape Ann. But to show you what thrifty, hard-headed fore-people they
had, they could spin off, any of ’em, a hundred little yarns, almost any
day, as if anybody on earth that knew those of them that were alive
would ever doubt what the dead-and-gone ones must’ve been. Hard they
were--even neighbors that didn’t take life as a dream of poetry said
that much of them. Hard they were--man, yes--the kind that little
children never toddled up to and climbed on to their knees, nor a man in
hard luck by any mistake ever asked the loan of a dollar of--the kind
that never a man walked across the street to shake hands with. That’s
the kind they were. Take ’em all in all, I guess that the Hoodleys were
about as hard a tribe as you’d find in all Essex County--surely ’tisn’t
possible there were any harder. And yet you couldn’t pick a flaw in ’em
before the law. They were honest. Everybody had to say that for
them--paying their debts, their just debts--as they put it
themselves--and collecting their own dues, don’t fear, and a great
respect for the letter of the law--for the letter of it. And I mind
they used to boast that for generations their people had kept clear of
the poorhouses, and that all had been church-members in good standing.
Well, not exactly all; for, to be exact and truthful--they themselves
used to put it that way--there was one here and there that had
broken away. But such had been rare, as one of them--a strong
church-member--used to put it, and the devil is ever active; and
speaking of the devil, this particular member’d go on, there is always
the blistering pit for the unrighteous. That last I s’pose he thought he
ought to put in, because everybody knew that of all the people that fell
from grace, the wickedest, the most blasphemous, the most evil of all
evil livers had been those of the Hoodleys that had back-slided. Once
they went to the bad they cert’nly went beyond all hope; and nobody did
they curse out more furiously than their own people every time they did
start in.
“Well, the Hoodleys weren’t a seafaring people originally. They moved
over to Gloucester, y’see, at one particular time when everybody was
expecting in some way to make money out of fishing. George Hoodley was a
lad then--seventeen--with the hard kind of a face and the awkward body
that everybody nat’rally looked for in one of his breed. And he had the
kind of a mind, I cal’late, that his father would like a boy of his to
have. Well, George signed right away for a boy’s wages with a prudent
master--old Sol Tucker it was--that went in the _Distant Shore_ so long.
They used to say that Sol wore the same pair of jack-boots out of her
that he had when he first went aboard, and there was eighteen years
between his first and last trips in her. I mind the jack-boots--and they
were cert’nly well patched when I saw them--though no more than twelve
year old then. That’ll give you an idea of Sol. And George Hoodley put
in thirteen years with Sol, and thirteen long hard drags of years they
must’ve been. I misdoubt that any of us here could’ve stood those
thirteen--no, sir, not for vessel’s, skipper’s, and hand’s share
together. Well, George stood it, and I don’t b’lieve he ever knew he was
missing anything in life. But he had something to show for it, as he’d
say himself. When he left old Sol he was able to buy a half interest and
go master of a good vessel. I went with him in her--the _Harding_--two
trips--just two, no more.”
Martin halted to light up again, and somebody asked, “Warn’t it the
_Harding_, Martin, that had the small cabin?”
“Yes, the smallest, they say, that ever was seen in a fisherman. Just
about room to stand between the steps and the stove and between the
stove and the bulkhead again; and not much better for’ard--a forec’s’le
so small that the crew used to say they had to go on deck to haul on
their oilskins. She was all hold. Well, while he was in the _Harding_
George made a great reputation for all kinds of carefulness. Most men
that went with him said he was altogether too careful for any mortal
use; and maybe that was so. But his savings kept piling up, and there
was plenty of other careful men to ship with him and abide by him.