Ah reckoned. Ah didn't hear the chyarge, but thyar was th' Dutchman
with 's head awl bandaged up--faked up, Ah guess. Th' Jedge ses t' th'
prisoner, 'Did yew strike this man?' Yewr man answers, 'Inteed to
goodness, yer 'anner, he looks 's if somebody 'd struck 'm!' Wi' that
a laugh wint raound, an' yewr man tells 's story." (James's Doric was
returning to him, and the twang of his "u's" became less pronounced.)
"He had bin in hospital, he said, wasn't very strong--here th' Dutchman
looks up, wonderin' like--had ta'en a drap o' drink wi' a man he met in
'sailor-town.' There wis talk aboot a joab ashore, an' they were in
Mertin's tae see aboot it, an' yer man sees this Mertin pit somethin'
i' th' drink. He didna like the looks o't, he said, so he ups an' gies
Mertin yin on th' heid wi' a 'schooner' gless. That wis a' he kent
aboot it, an' th' Dutchman begood his yarn. Oot o' his
kind-hertedness, he'd gie'n th' pris'ner a gless or twa, fower at th'
maist, when th' thankless villain ups an' ca's 'm names an' belts 'm on
th' heid wi' a gless. 'Pit drugs i' th' drink?' Naethin' o' th' kind!
He wis jist takin' a fly oot o't wi' the haunle o' a spune.
"A bad business, says Kelly, a bad business! There's faur too miny av
thim British sailormin makin' trouble on th' Front. It's tin dallars,
says he, tin dallars 'r fourteen days!
"Ah saw Daly git up frae th' sate an' he his a long confab wi' yer man,
but jist then yer auld watchman tramps in, an' efter speirin' aboot he
ups an' peys th' fine, an' they let yer man oot. Ah seen th' twa o'
them gang aff wi' Daly, an' Ah couldna verra weel ha'e onythin' tae dae
wi' them when he wis bye."
This was James's news; he was not surprised to learn that they had not
returned to the ship, and, as he passed on, on his way to the jetty
steps, muttered, "Weel, it's a gey peety they had that five dollars
ower much, for Ah doot they'll baith be under th' 'Blue Peter' before
th' morn's mornin'."
When we knocked off for the day we were soon ashore looking for the
wanderers, and early found plain evidence that they had been
celebrating John's 'convalescence' and release. An Italian
orange-seller whom we met had distinct memory of two seafaring
gentlemen purchasing oranges and playing 'bowls' with them in the
gutter of a busy street; a Jewish outfitter and his assistants were
working well into the night, rearranging oilskins and sea-boots on the
ceiling of a disordered shop, and a Scandinavian dame, a vendor of
peanuts, had a tale of strange bargainings to tell.
Unable to find them, we returned to the ship. One of us had to keep
Martin's watch, and the Mate was already on the track of the affair
with threatenings of punishment for the absent watchman.
About ten we heard a commotion on the dock side, and looked over to see
the wanderers, accompanied by all the 'larrikins' of 'sailor-town,'
making for the ship. Two policemen in the near background were there
to see that no deliberate breach-of-the-peace took place.
Martin, hard-headed Old Martin, who stood drink better than the
Welshman, was singing '_Bound away to the West'ard in th' Dreadnought
we go_' in the pipingest of trebles, and Welsh John, hardly able to
stand, was defying the Dutch, backed by numberless Judge Kellys, and
inviting them to step up, take off their jackets and come on.
XII
ON THE SACRAMENTO
After our cargo was discharged we left Mission Wharf for an anchorage
in the Bay, and there--swinging flood and ebb--we lay in idleness.
There were many ships in the anchorage, and many more laid up at
Martinez and Saucilito, for the year's crop was not yet to hand, and
Masters were hanging back for a rise in freights. There we lay, idle
ships, while the summer sun ripened the crops and reared the golden
grain for the harvest--the harvest that we waited to carry round the
roaring Horn to Europe. Daily we rowed the Old Man ashore, and when he
returned from the Agent's office, we could tell by the way he took a
request (say, for a small advance "to buy a knife") that our ship was
still unchartered, and likely to be so for some time.
To a convenient wharf the gigs of each ship came every morning, and
from then to untold hours of the night the jetty steps were well worn
by comings and goings. Some of the Captains (the man-driving ones, who
owed no man a moment) used to send their boats back to the ship as soon
as they landed, but a number kept theirs at the wharf in case messages
had to be sent off. We usually hung around at the jetty, where there
were fine wooden piles that we could carve our barque's name on when
our knives were sharp enough. With the boats' crews from other ships
we could exchange news and opinions, and quarrel over points in
seamanship.
Those amongst us who had often voyaged to 'Frisco, and others who had
been long in the port, were looked upon as 'oracles,' and treated with
considerable respect. The _Manydown_ had been sixteen months in
'Frisco, and her boys could easily have passed muster as Americans.
They chewed sweet tobacco ("malassus kyake," they called it), and swore
Spanish oaths with freedom and abandon. Their gig was by far the
finest and smartest at the jetty, and woe betide the unwitting 'bow'
who touched her glossy varnished side with his boat-hook. For him a
wet swab was kept in readiness, and their stroke, a burly ruffian, was
always willing to attend to the little affair if it went any farther.
Our Captains came down in batches, as a rule, and there would be great
clatter of oars and shipping of rowlocks as their boats hauled
alongside to take them off. Rivalry was keen, and many were the
gallant races out to the anchorage, with perhaps a little sum at stake
just for the honour of the ship.
We had about a month of this, and it was daily becoming more difficult
to find a decently clear space on the piles on which to carve
'_Florence_, of Glasgow.' One day the Old Man returned at an unusual
hour, and it was early evident that something was afoot; he was too
preoccupied to curse Hansen properly for being away from the boat on
business of his own, and, instead of criticising our stroke and telling
us what rotten rowers we were, as was his wont, he busied himself with
letters and papers. We put off to the ship in haste, and soon the news
went round that we were going up-river to Port Costa, to load for home.
Old Joe Niven was the medium through whom all news filtered from the
cabin, and from him we had the particulars even down to the amount of
the freight. We felt galled that a German barque, which had gone up a
week before, was getting two and twopence-ha'penny more; but we took
consolation in the thought of what a fine crow we would have over the
'Torreador's,' who were only loading at forty-five and sixpence, direct
to Hull.
On board we only mustered hands enough to do the ordinary harbour work,
and raising the heavy anchors was a task beyond us; so at daybreak next
morning we rowed round the ships to collect a crew. The other Captains
had promised our Old Man a hand, here and there, and when we pulled
back we had men enough, lusty and willing, to kedge her up a hill.
There was mist on the water when we started to 'clear hawse'--the
thick, clammy mist that comes before a warm day. About us bells
clattered on the ships at anchor, and steamers went slowly by with a
hiss of waste steam that told of a ready hand on the levers. Overhead,
the sky was bright with the promise of a glorious day, but with no mind
to lift the pall from the water, it looked ill for a ready passage. We
had four turns of a foul hawse to clear (the track of a week's calms),
and our windlass was of a very ancient type, but our scratch crew
worked well and handy, and we were ready for the road when the screw
tug _Escort_ laid alongside and lashed herself up to our quarter. They
tow that way on the Pacific Coast--the wily ones know the advantage of
having a ship's length in front of them to brush away the 'snags.'
A light breeze took the mist ''way down under,' and we broke the
weather anchor out with the rousing chorus of an old sea song:
Old Storm-along, he's dead a-an' gone,
(_To my way-ay, Storm-alo-ong;_)
O-old Storm-along, he's dead a-an' gone,
(_Aye! Aye! Aye! Mister Storm-along._)
Some friends of the Captain had boarded us from the tug, eager for the
novelty of a trip up-river in a real Cape Horner. One elderly lady was
so charmed by our 'chantey,' that she wanted the Captain to make us
sing it over again. She wondered when he told her that that was one
thing he could not do. With the rare and privileged sight of frocks on
the poop, there was a lot of talk about who should go to the wheel.
Jones worked himself into it, and laid aft in a clean rig when the Old
Man called for a hand to the wheel. There he made the most of it, and
hung gracefully over the spokes with his wrists turned out to show the
tattoo marks.
The skipper of the tug came aboard our ship to pilot up the river, and
he directed the movements of his own vessel from our poop deck. We
passed under the guns of rocky Alcatraz, and stood over to the wooded
slopes and vineyards of Saucilito, where many 'laid-up' ships were
lying at the buoys, with upper yards down and huge ballast booms lashed
alongside. Here we turned sharply to the norrard and bore up the broad
bosom of Sacramento--the river that sailormen make songs about, the
river that flows over a golden bed. Dull, muddy water flowing swiftly
seawards; straight rip in the channel, and a race where the high banks
are; a race that the Greek fishermen show holy pictures to, when the
springs are flowing!
With us, the tide was light enough, and our Pilot twisted her about
with the skill and nonchalance of a master hand. One of our
passengers, a young woman who had enthused over everything, from the
shark's tail on the spanker-boom end ("Waal--I never!") to the curl of
the bo'sun's whiskers ("Jest real sweet!"), seemed greatly interested
at the frequent orders to the steersman.
"Sa-ay, Pilot!" she said, "Ah guess yew must know every rock 'bout
hyar?"
"Wa-al, no, Miss, ah kyan't say 's Ah dew," answered Palinurus; "but Ah
reckon tew know whar th' deep wa-r-r is!"
As we approached the shallows at the head of San Pablo Bay, the Old Man
expressed an opinion as to the lack of water, and the Pilot again
provided a jest for the moment.
"Oh, that's awl right, Cap.; she's only drawin' twelve feet, 'n Ah kin
tak' 'r over a damp meadow 'n this trim!"
We met a big stern-wheel ferry bound down from Benicia with a load of
freight wagons. She looked like an important junction adrift.
Afterwards we saw a full-rigged ship towing down, and when near we made
her out to be the _Torreador_, ready for sea. This was a great
disappointment to us, for we had looked forward to being with her at
Port Costa. Now, our long-dreamt-of boat-race was off (with our boat's
crew in first-class trim, too!), and amid the cheering as we met and
passed on, we heard a shrill and unmistakable '_cock-a-doodle-doo!_'
which we remembered with indignation for many a day. Tall and stately
she looked, with her flags a-peak and everything in trim: yards all
aloft, and squared to an inch and her sails rolled up without crease
like the dummy covers on the booms of a King's yacht. A gallant ship,
and a credit to the flag she flew.
We passed many floating tree trunks and branches in the river. The
snows had come away from the Sierras, and there was spate on
Sacramento. We rode over one of the 'snags' with a shudder, and all
our jack-easy Pilot said was, "Guess that'll take some 'f th' barnacles
off 'r battum, bettr'r a week's sojerin' with the patent scrubber!"
All the same he took very good care that his own craft rode free of
obstruction.
Rounding a bend, we came in sight of our rendezvous, but Port Costa
showed little promise from the water-side, though the sight of our old
friends, the _Crocodile_, the _Peleus_, and the _Drumeltan_, moored at
the wharf cheered us. Two or three large mills, with a cluster of
white houses about, composed the township; a large raft-like ferry
which carried the 'Frisco mail trains bodily across the river
contributed to its importance, but there was nothing else about the
place to excite the remark of even an idle 'prentice boy.
A little way up-stream was a town, indeed; a town of happy memories.
Benicia, with its vineyards and fruit gardens, and the low, old houses,
alone perhaps in all California to tell of Spain's dominion. A town of
hearty, hospitable folk, unaffected by the hustle of larger cities; a
people of peace and patience, the patience of tillers of the vine.
Off Martinez, where the river is wide, we canted ship, and worked back
to Port Costa against the tide. We made fast at the ballast wharf, and
our borrowed crew, having completed their job, laid aft to receive the
Captain's blessing, and a silver dollar to put in their pockets. Then
they boarded the tug, and were soon on their way back to 'Frisco.
When Jones came from the wheel, he had great tales to tell of the
attentions the ladies had paid him. He plainly wished us to understand
that he'd made an impression, but we knew that was not the way of it,
for Old Niven had told Eccles that the pretty one was engaged to be
married to the ship's butcher, down in 'Frisco, a fairy Dutchman of
about fifteen stone six.
XIII
HOMEWARD
In a Sunday morning, while Benicia's bells were chiming for early Mass,
we cast off from the wharf at Port Costa and towed down Sacramento.
Though loaded and in sea trim, we were still short of a proper crew, so
we brought up in 'Frisco Bay to complete our complement.
Days passed and the boarding-masters could give us no more than two
'rancheros' (who had once seen the sea from Sonoma Heights), and a
young coloured man, a sort of a seaman, who had just been discharged
from Oakland Jail. The Old Man paid daily visits to the Consul, who
could do nothing--there were no men. He went to the boarding-houses,
and had to put up with coarse familiarity, to drink beer with the scum
of all nations, to clap scoundrels on the back and tell them what sly
dogs they were. It was all of no use. The 'crimps' were
crippled--there were no men.
"Wa-al, Cap.," Daly would say to the Old Man's complaint, "what kin we
dew? I guess we kyan't make men, same's yewr bo'sin 'ud make
spunyarn.... Ain't bin a darned soul in this haouse fer weeks as cud
tell a clew from a crojeck. Th' ships is hangin' on ter ther men like
ole blue! Captens is a-given' em chickens an' soft-tack, be gosh, an'
dollars fer 'a drunk' on Sundays.... When they turns 'em to, it's,
'Naow, lads, me boys! When yew'r ready, me sons!' ... A month a-gone
it was, 'Out, ye swine! Turn aout, damn ye, an' get a move on!' ...
Ah, times is bad, Cap.; times is damn bad! I ain't fingered an advance
note since th' _Dharwar_ sailed--a fortnight ago! Hard times, I guess,
an' we kyan't club 'em aboard, same's we use ter!"
A hopeless quest, indeed, looking for sailormen ashore; but ships were
expected, and when the wind was in the West the Old Man would be up on
deck at daybreak, peering out towards the Golden Gate, longing for the
glad sight of an inward bounder, that would bring the sorely needed
sailors in from the sea.
A week passed, a week of fine weather, with two days of a rattling
nor'west wind that would have sent us on our way, free of the land,
with a smother of foam under the bows. All lost to us, for no ships
came in, and we lay at anchor, swinging ebb and flood--a useless hull
and fabric, without a crew to spread the canvas and swing the great
yards!
Every morning the Mate would put the windlass in gear and set
everything in readiness for breaking out the anchor; but when we saw no
tug putting off, and no harbour cat-boats tacking out from the shore
with sailors' bags piled in the bows, he would undo the morning's work
and put us to 'stand-by' jobs on the rigging. There were other loaded
ships in as bad a plight as we. The _Drumeltan_ was eight hands short
of her crew of twenty-six, and the Captain of the _Peleus_ was
considering the risk of setting off for the Horn, short-handed by
three. Sailors' wages were up to thirty and thirty-five dollars a
month, and at that (nearly the wage of a Chief Mate of a 'limejuicer')
there were no proper able seamen coming forward. Even the 'hobos' and
ne'er-do-weels, who usually flock at 'Frisco on the chance of getting a
ship's passage out of the country, seemed to be lying low.
One evening the ship _Blackadder_ came in from sea. She was from the
Colonies; had made a long passage, and was spoken of as an extra
'hungry' ship--and her crew were in a proper spirit of discontent. She
anchored near us, and the Old Man gazed longingly at the fine stout
colonials who manned her. He watched the cat-boats putting off from
the shore, and smiled at the futile attempts of the ship's Captain and
Mates to keep the 'crimps' from boarding. If one was checked at the
gangway, two clambered aboard by the head, and the game went merrily on.
"Where's she from, Mister?" said the Old Man to the Mate who stood with
him. "Did ye hear?"
"Newcastle, New South Wales, I heard," said Mr. Hollins. "Sixty-five
days out, the butcher said; him that came off with the stores this
morning."
"Sixty-five, eh! Thirty o' that for a 'dead horse,' an' there'll be
about six pound due the men; a matter o' four or five pound wi' slop
chest an' that! They'll not stop, Mister, damn the one o' them' ...
Ah, there they go; there they go!" Sailors' bags were being loaded
into the cat-boats. It was the case of:
_The grub was bad, an' th' wages low,_
_An' it's time--for us--t' leave 'r!_
"Good business for us, anyway," said the Old Man, and told the Mate to
get his windlass ready for 'heaving up' in the morning.
Alas! he left the other eager shipmasters out of his count. The
Captain of the _Drumeltan_ raised the 'blood-money' to an unheard-of
sum, and two days later towed out to sea, though the wind was W.S.W.
beyond the Straits--a 'dead muzzler'!
A big American ship--the _J. B. Flint_--was one of the fleet of
'waiters.' She was for China. 'Bully' Nathan was Captain of her (a
man who would have made the starkest of pirates, if he had lived in
pirate times), and many stories of his and his Mates' brutality were
current at the Front. No seaman would sign in the _Flint_ if he had
the choice; but the choice lay with the boarding-master when 'Bully'
Nathan put up the price.
"Give me gravediggers or organ-grinders, boys, if ye kyan't get
sailormen," he was reported to have said. "Anything with two hands an'
feet. I guess I'm Jan--K.--Nathan, and they'll be sailormen or
'stiffs' before we reach aout!" No one knew where she got a crew, but
while the Britishers were awaiting semi-lawful service, Jan K. slipped
out through the night, getting the boarding-house runners to set sail
for him before they left the _Flint_ with her crew of drugged
longshoremen. At the end of the week we got three more men. Granger,
a Liverpool man, who had been working in the Union Ironworks, and,
"sick o' th' beach," as he put it, wanted to get back to sea again.
Pat Hogan, a merry-faced Irishman, who signed as cook (much to the joy
of Houston, who had been the 'food spoiler' since McEwan cleared). The
third was a lad, Cutler, a runaway apprentice, who had been working
ashore since his ship had sailed. It was said that he had been
'conducting' a tramcar to his own immediate profit and was anxious. We
were still six hands short, but, on the morning after a Yankee clipper
came in from New York, we towed out--with three prostrate figures lying
huddled among the raffle in the fo'cas'le.
* * * * *
We raised the anchor about midnight and dawn found us creeping through
the Golden Gate in the wake of a panting tug. There was nothing to
see, for the morning mist was over the Straits, and we had no parting
view of the harbour. The siren on Benita Point roared a raucous
warning as we felt our way past the Head; and that, for us, was the
last of the land.
When we reached the schooner and discharged our Pilot, it was still a
'clock calm,' and there was nothing for it but to tow for an offing,
while we put the canvas on her in readiness for a breeze.
At setting sail we were hard wrought, for we were still three hands
short of our complement, and the three in the fo'cas'le were beyond
hope by reason of drug and drink. The blocks and gear were stiff after
the long spell in harbour. Some of the new men were poor stuff. The
Mexican 'rancheros' were the worst; one was already sea-sick, and the
other had a look of despair. They followed the 'crowd' about and made
some show of pulling on the tail of the halyards, but they were very
green, and it was easy to work off an old sailor's trick on
them--'lighting up the slack' of the rope, thus landing them on the
broad of their backs when they pulled--at nothing! We should have had
pity for them, for they never even pretended to be seamen; but we were
shorthanded in a heavy ship, and the more our arms ached, the louder
grew our curses at their clumsy 'sodgerin'.'
One of the three in the fo'cas'le 'came to' and staggered out on deck
to see where he was. As he gazed about, dazed and bewildered, the
Mate, seeing him, shouted.
"Here, you! What's yer name?"
The man passed his hand over his eyes and said, "Hans."
"Well, Hans, you git along to the tops'l halyards; damn smart's th'
word!"
With hands to his aching head, the man staggered drunkenly. Everything
was confusion to him. Where was he? What ship? What voyage? The
last he remembered would be setting the tune to a Dago fiddler in a
gaudy saloon, with lashings of drink to keep his feet a-tripping. Now
all was mixed and hazy, but in the mist one thing stood definite, a
seamanlike order: "Top'sl halyards! Damn smart!" Hans laid aft and
tallied on with the crowd.
Here was a man who had been outrageously used.
Drugged--robbed--'shanghai-ed'! His head splitting with the foul
drink, knowing nothing and no one; but he had heard a seamanlike order,
so he hauled on the rope, and only muttered something about his last
ship having a crab-winch for the topsail halyards!
About noon we cast off the tug, but there was yet no wind to fill our
canvas, and we lay as she had left us long after her smoke had vanished
from the misty horizon.
At one we were sent below for our first sea-meal. Over our beef and
potatoes we discussed our new shipmates and agreed that they were a
weedy lot for a long voyage. In this our view was held by the better
men in the fo'cas'le and, after dinner, the crew came aft in a body,
headed by Old Martin, who said "as 'ow they wanted t' speak t' th'
Captin!"
The Old Man was evidently prepared for a 'growl' from forward, and took
a conciliatory stand.
"Well, men? What's the trouble? What have you to say?" he said.
Old Martin took the lead with assurance. "I speaks for all 'ans,
Captin," he said.... "An' we says as 'ow this 'ere barque is
short-'anded; we says as 'ow there's three empty bunks in th'
fo'cas'le; an' two of th' 'ans wot's shipped ain't never bin aloft
afore. We says as 'ow--with all doo respeck, Captin--we wants yer t'
put back t' port for a crew wot can take th' bloomin' packet round the
'Orn, Sir!"
Martin stepped back, having fired his shot, and he carefully arranged a
position among his mates, so that he was neither in front of the 'men'
or behind, where Houston and the cook and the 'rancheros' stood.
The Old Man leaned over the poop-rail and looked at the men
collectively, with great admiration. He singled out no man for
particular regard, but just admired them all, as one looks at soldiers
on parade. He moved across the poop to see them at a side angle; the
hands became hotly uncomfortable.
"What's this I hear, men? What's this I hear?"
("As fine a crowd o' men as ever I shipped, Mister," a very audible
aside to the Mate.) "What's this I hear? D'ye mean t' tell me that
ye're afraid t' be homeward bound in a well-found ship, just because
we're three hands short of a big 'crowd'?"
"Wot 'bout them wot ain't never been aloft afore," muttered Martin,
though in a somewhat subdued voice.
"What about them?" said the Old Man. "What about them? Why, a month
in fo'cas'le alongside such fine seamen as I see before me" (here he
singled out Welsh John and some of the old hands for a pleasant smile),
"alongside men that know their work." (Welsh John and the others
straightened themselves up and looked away to the horizon, as if the
outcome of the affair were a matter of utter indifference to them.)
"D'ye tell me a month alongside men that have sailed with me before
won't make sailors of them, eh? _Tchutt_, I know different....
Sailors they'll be before we reach the Horn." (Here one of the
potential 'sailors' ran to the ship's side, intent on an affair of his
own.)
The men turned to one another, sheepish.
"Ye know well enough we can't get men, even if we did put back to
port," continued the Old Man. "They're no' t' be had! Ye'll have to
do yer best, and I'll see" (a sly wink to the Mate) "that ye ain't put
on. Steward!"
He gave an order that brought a grin of expectation to the faces of all
''ans,' and the affair ended.
A wily one was our Old Jock!