THREE STRANDS OF A YARN
As in a council of war, the youngest spoke first. “Mates!” said he,
“here be three of us, all run for the same port, and never a one sported
bunting. I ain’t a chap, I ain’t, as must be brought to afore he’ll show
his number. When I drinks with a man I likes to fit his name on him
ship-shape, so here’s my sarvice to you messmates both! They calls me
Slap-Jack. That’s about what they calls _me_ both ashore and afloat.”
It was absolutely necessary after such an exordium that more liquor
should be brought in, and a generous contention immediately arose between
the three occupants of the tap-room as to who should pay for it; at
once producing increased familiarity, besides a display of liberality
on the part of the eldest and first comer, who was indeed the only one
possessing ready money. Butter-faced Bob being summoned, the jugs were
replenished and Slap-Jack continued his remarks.
“I’ve been cruising about ashore,” said he, between the whiffs of his
pipe, “and very bad weather I made on it standing out over them Downs,
as they calls ’em, in these here latitudes. Downs, says I, the Downs is
mostly smooth water and safe anchorage; but these here Ups and Downs
is a long leg and a short one, a head wind and an ebb tide all the
voyage through. I made my port, though, d’ye mind me, my sons, at last,
and—and—well, we’ve all had our sweethearts in our day, so we’ll drink
her health by your leave. Here’s to Alice, mates! and next round it shall
be _your_ call, and thank ye hearty.”
So gallant a toast could not but be graciously accepted. The second
comer, however, shook his head while he did it justice, and drank, so
to speak, under protest, thereby in no measure abating the narrator’s
enthusiasm.
“She’s a trim-built craft is my Alice,” continued the other reflectively.
“On a wind or off a wind, going large or close hauled, moored in dock or
standing out in blue water, there’s not many of ’em can show alongside
of she. And she’s weatherly besides, uncommon weatherly she is. When I
bids her good-bye at last, and gives her a bit of a squeeze, just for a
reminder like, she wipes her eyes, and she smiles up in my face, and,
‘God bless you, Jack!’ says she; ‘you won’t forget me,’ says she; ‘an’
you’ll think of me sometimes, when it’s your watch on deck; and as for
me, Jack, I’ll think of you every hour of the day and night till you
comes back again; it won’t be so very long first.’ She’s heart of oak,
is that lass, mates, and I wouldn’t be here now but that I’m about high
and dry, and that made me feel a bit lubberly, d’ye see, till I got under
weigh for the homeward trip; an’ you’ll never guess what it was as raised
my spirits, beating to windward across them Downs, with a dry mouth and
my heart shrunk up to the size of a pea.”
“A stiff glass of grog nor’-nor’-west?” suggested the oldest sailor, with
a grunt. “Another craft on the same lines, with new sails bent and a lick
of fresh paint on,” snarled the second, whose opinion of the fair sex,
derived chiefly from seaport towns, was none of the highest.
“Neither one nor t’other,” replied Slap-Jack, triumphantly. “Scalding
punch wouldn’t have warmed my heart up just then, and I wasn’t a-goin’
to clear out from Alice like that, and give chase to a fresh sail just
because she cut a feather across my fore-foot. It was neither more nor
less than a chap swinging in chains; a chap as had been swinging to
all appearance so long he must have got used to it, though I doubt he
was very wet up there in nothing but his bones. He might have been a
good-looking blade enough when he began, but I can’t say much for his
figure-head when I passed under it for luck. It wanted painting, mates,
let alone varnish, and he grinned awful in the teeth of the wind. So I
strikes my topmast as I forges ahead, and I makes him a low bow, and,
says I, ‘Thank ye kindly, mate,’ says I, ‘for putting it in my mind,’
says I; ‘you’ve been “on the account,” in all likelihood, and that’s
where I’ll go myself next trip, see if I won’t;’ and I ask your pardon,
by sons, for you’re both older men than me by a good spell, if that isn’t
the trade for a lad as looks to a short voyage and good wages, every man
for himself, grab what you see, an’ keep all you can?”
Thus appealed to, the elder seaman felt bound to give an opinion; so he
cleared his throat and asked huskily—
“Have you _tried_ it, mate? You seems like a lad as has dipped both hands
in the tar-bucket, though you be but young and sarcy. Look ye, now, you
hoisted signals first, an’ I ain’t a-going to show a false ensign, I
ain’t. You may call me Bottle-Jack; you won’t be the first by a many, and
I ain’t ashamed o’ my name.”
The next in seniority then removed the pipe from his lips, and smiting
the table with a heavy fist, observed, sententiously—
“And me, Smoke-Jack, young man. It’s a rum name, ain’t it, for as smart a
foretopman as ever lay out upon a yard? but I’ve yarned it, that’s what I
sticks to. I’ve yarned it. Here’s your health, lad; I wish ye well.”
The three having thus gone through all the forms necessary to induce a
long and staunch friendship amongst men of their class, Slap-Jack made a
clean breast of it, as if he had known his companions for years.
“I _have_ tried it, mates,” said he; “and a queer game it is; but I
don’t care how soon I try it again. I suppose I must have been born a
landsman somehow, d’ye see? though I can’t make much of that when I
come to think it over. It don’t seem nat’ral like, but I suppose it was
so. Well, I remember as I runned away from a old bloke wot wanted to
make me a sawbones—a sawbones! and I took and shipped myself, like a
young bear, aboard of the ‘Sea Swallow,’ cabin-boy to Captain Delaval.
None o’ your merchantmen was the ‘Sea Swallow,’ nor yet a man-o’-war,
though she carried a royal ensign at the gaff, and six brass carronades
on the main-deck. She was a waspish craft as ever you’d wish to see,
an’ dipped her nose in it as though she loved the taste of blue water,
the jade!—wet, but weatherly, an’ such a picture as you never set eyes
on, close-hauled within five points of the wind. First they gammoned
me as she was a slaver, and then a sugar-merchant’s pleasure-boat, and
sometimes they said she was a privateer, with letters of marque from the
king; but I didn’t want to know much about that; King George or King
Louis, it made no odds, bless ye; I warn’t a goin’ to turn sawbones, an’
Captain Delaval was _my_ master, that was enough for me! Such a master
he was, too! No seaman—not he. His hands were as white as a lady’s,
an’ I doubt if he knew truck from taffrail; but with old Blowhard, the
master, to sail her, and do what the skipper called swabbing and dirty
work, there wasn’t a king’s officer as ever I’ve heard of could touch
him. Such a man to fight his ship was Captain Delaval. I’ve seen him run
her in under a Spanish battery, with a table set on deck and a awning
spread, and him sitting with a glass of wine in his hand, and give his
orders as cool and comfortable as you and me is now. ‘Easy, Blowhard!’
he’d sing out, when old ‘Blow’ was sweating, and cursing, and stamping
about to get the duty done. ‘Don’t ye speak so sharp to the men,’ says
he; ‘spoils their ear for music,’ says he. ‘We’ll be out o’ this again
afore the breeze falls, and we’ll turn the fiddles up and have a dance in
the cool of the evening.’ Then he’d smile at me, and say, ‘Slap-Jack, you
little blackguard, run below for another pineapple; not so rotten-ripe
as the last;’ and by the time I was on deck again, he’d be wiping his
sword carefully, and drawing on his gloves—that man couldn’t so much as
whistle a hornpipe without his gloves; and let who would be _second_ on
board the prize, be she bark, schooner, brig, galleon, or square-rigged
ship, Captain Delaval he would be _first_. Look ye here, mates: I made
two voyages with Captain Delaval, and when I stepped on the quay at
Bristol off the second—there! I was worth a hundred doubloons, all in
gold, besides as much silk as would have lined the foresail, and a
pair of diamond earrings that I lost the first night I slept ashore. I
thought, then, as perhaps I wasn’t to see my dandy skipper again, but I
was wrong. I’ve never been in London town but once, an’ I don’t care if I
never goes no more. First man I runs against in Thames Street is Captain
Delaval, ridin’ in a cart with his hands tied; and old Blowhard beside
him, smelling at a nosegay as big as the binnacle. I don’t think as old
‘Blow’ knowed me again, not in long togs; but the skipper he smiles, and
shows his beautiful white teeth as he was never tired of swabbing and
holystoning, and ‘There’s Slap-Jack!’ says he; ‘Good-bye, Slap-Jack;
I’ll be first man over the gunwale in this here scrimmage, too,’ says
he, ‘for they’ll hang me first, and then Blowhard, when he’s done with
his nosegay.’ I wish I could find such another skipper now; what say ye,
mates?”
Smoke-Jack, who was sitting next him, did not immediately reply. He was
obviously of a logical and argumentative turn of mind, with a cavilling
disposition, somewhat inclined to speculative philosophy; such a
character, in short, as naval officers protest against under the title of
a lawyer. He turned the matter over deliberately ere he replied, with a
voluminous puff of smoke between each sentence—
“Some likes a barky, and some wouldn’t touch a rope in any craft but a
schooner; and there’s others, again, swears a king’s cutter will show her
heels to the liveliest of ’em, with a stiffish breeze and a bobble of
sea on. I ain’t a-goin’ to dispute it. Square-rigged, or fore-and-aft,
if so be she’s well-found and answers her helm, I ain’t a-goin’ to say
but what she’ll make good weather of it the whole voyage through. Men
thinks different, young chap; that’s where it is. Now you asks me _my_
opinion, and I’ll give it you, free. I’m a old man-of-war’s man, I am.
I’ve eat the king’s biscuit and drank the king’s allowance ever since I
were able to eat and drink at all. Now I’ll tell you, young man, a-cause
you’ve asked me, free. The king’s sarvice is a good sarvice; I ain’t
a-goin’ to say as it isn’t, but for two things: there’s too much of one,
and too little of the other. The fuss is the work, and the second is the
pay. If they’d halve the duty, and double the allowance, and send all
the officers before the mast, I ain’t goin’ to dispute but the king’s
sarvice would be more to my fancy than I’ve ever found it yet. You see
the difference atwixt one of our lads when he gits ashore and the Dutch!
I won’t say as the Dutchman is the better seaman, far from it; though
as long as he’s got a plank as’ll catch a nail, an’ a rag as’ll hold
a breeze, he’ll weather it _somehow_; nor I won’t say but what Mynheer
is as ugly a customer as a king’s ship can get alongside of, yard-arm
to yard-arm, and let the best man win! But you see him ashore! Spree,
young man? Why, a Dutchman _never_ has his spree out! You take and hail
a man before the mast, able seaman or what not, when he’s paid off
of a cruise—and mind ye, he doesn’t engage for a long spell, doesn’t
Mynheer—and he’ll tow you into dry dock, and set you down to your grub,
and blow you out with _schnaps_ as if he was a admiral. Such a berth as
he keeps ashore! Pots and pans as bright as the Eddystone; deck scoured
and holystoned, till you’d like to eat your rations off of it. Why, Black
Sam, him as was boatswain’s mate on board of the ‘Mary Rose,’ sitting
with me in the tap of the Golden Lion, at Amsterdam, he gets uneasy,
and he looks here and there an’ everywhere, first at the white floor,
then at the bright stove, turning his quid about and about, till at last
he ups and spits right in the landlord’s face. There _was_ a breeze
then! I’m not a-goin’ to deny it, but Sam he asks pardon quite gentle
and humble-like, ‘for what could I do?’ says he; ‘it was the only dirty
place I could find in the house,’ says he. Young chap, I’m not a-goin’
to say as you should take and ship yourself on board a Dutchman; ’cause
why—maybe if he struck his colours and you was found atween decks, you’d
swing at the yard-arm, but if you be thinking of the king’s sarvice, and
you asks my advice, says I, think about it a little longer, says I. Young
chap, I gives you _my_ opinion, free. What say you, messmate? Bear a hand
and lower away, for I’ve been payin’ of it out till my mouth’s dry.”
Bottle-Jack, who did not give his mouth a chance of becoming dry, took a
long pull at the beer before he answered; but as his style was somewhat
involved, and obscured besides by the free use of professional metaphors,
applied in a sense none but himself could thoroughly appreciate, I will
not venture to detail in his own words the copious and illustrative
exposition on which he embarked.
It was obvious, however, that Bottle-Jack’s inclinations were adverse to
the regular service, and although he would have scouted such a notion,
and probably made himself extremely disagreeable to the man who broached
it, there was no question the old sailor had been a pirate, and deserved
hanging as richly as any ghastly skeleton now bleaching in its chains
and waving to the gusts of a sou’-wester on the exposed sky-line of
the Downs. By his own account he had sailed with the notorious Captain
Kidd, in the ‘Adventure’ galley, originally fitted out by merchants and
traders of London as a scourge for those sea-robbers who infested the
Indian Ocean, and whose enormities made honest men shudder at their bare
recital. The ‘Adventure,’ manned by some of the most audacious spirits
to be procured from the banks of the Thames and the Hudson, seemed, like
her stout commander, especially qualified for such a purpose. She carried
heavy guns, was well found in every respect, and possessed the reputation
of a fast sailer and capital sea boat. Kidd himself was an experienced
officer, and had served with distinction. He was intimately acquainted
with the eastern seas, and seemed in all respects adapted for an
expedition in which coolness, daring, and unswerving honesty of purpose
were indispensable qualifications.
Accordingly, Captain Kidd sailed for the Indian coast, and Bottle-Jack,
by his own account, was boatswain’s mate on board the ‘Adventure.’
There is an old proverb, recommending the selection of a “thief to
catch a thief,” which in this instance received a new and singular
interpretation. Kidd was probably a thief, or at least a pirate, at
heart. No sooner had he reached his destination off the coast of Malabar,
than he threw off his sheep’s clothing, and appeared at once the
master-wolf in the predatory pack he was sent to destroy. Probably the
temptation proved too much for him. With his seamanship, his weight of
metal, and his crew, he could outsail, out-manœuvre, and outfight friends
and foes alike. It soon occurred to him that the former were easy and
lucrative prizes, the latter, bad to capture, and often not worth the
trouble when subdued. It was quicker work to gain possession at first
hand of silk and spices, cinnamon and sandal-wood, gold, silver, rum,
coffee, and tobacco, than to wait till the plunder had been actually
seized by another, and then, after fighting hard to retake it, obtain
but a jackal’s share from the Home Government. In a short space of
time there was but one pirate dreaded from the Cape of Good Hope to the
Straits of Malacca, and his name was Kidd.
From Surat down to the mouth of the Tap-tee, Captain Kidd ruled like a
petty sovereign; Bottle-Jack, if he was to be believed, like a grand
vizier. Not only did they take tax and toll from every craft that swam,
but they robbed, murdered, and lorded it as unmercifully on dry land.
Native merchants, even men of rank and position, were put to torture,
for purposes of extortion, by day; peasants burned alive in their huts
to illuminate a seaman’s frolic by night. Her crew behaved like devils
broke loose ashore, and the ‘Adventure,’ notwithstanding a certain
discipline exacted by her commander, was, doubtless, a hell afloat.
Money, however, came in rapidly. Kidd, with all his crimes, possessed the
elements of success in method, organisation, and power of command. His
sailors forgot the horrors they had inflicted and their own degradation
when they counted the pile of doubloons that constituted their share of
plunder. Amongst the swarm of rovers who then swept the seas, Captain
Kidd was considered the most successful, and even in a certain sense,
notwithstanding his enormities, the most _respectable_ of all.
Bottle-Jack did not appear to think the relation of his adventures in
any way derogatory to his own credit. He concluded with the following
peroration, establishing his position in the confident tone of a man who
is himself convinced of its justice:—
“Wot I says, is this here. The sea was made for them as sails upon it,
and you ain’t a-goin’ to tell me as it can be portioned out into gardens
an’ orchards, and tobacco plantations, like the dirt we calls land. Werry
well, if the sea be free, them as sails upon it can make free with wot
it offers them. If in case now, as I’m look-out man, we’ll say, in the
maintop, and I makes a galleon of her, for instance, deep in the water
under easy sail, you’re not to tell me as because she shows Spanish
colours I’m not to take what I want out of her. Stow that, mates, for
it’s clean nonsense! The way old Kidd acted was this here—First, he
got her weather-gage; then he brought her to with a gun, civil and
reasonable; arter that, whether she showed fight, or whether she showed
friendly, he boarded her, and when he’d taken all he wanted, captain,
crew, and passengers just walked the plank, easy and quiet, and no words
about it.”
“And the craft?” asked Slap-Jack, breathless with interest in the old
pirate’s reminiscences.
“Scuttled her!” answered the other, conclusively. “Talking’s dry work.
Let’s have some more beer.”