OFF TO SEA
“Gone! Gone where?” asked the captain, with a frown of annoyance.
“I met him on the wharf and he said he’d left the ship, sir,” Dave
replied.
Suddenly the captain’s face wore a smile. The situation appeared to
amuse him.
“What d’you know about that!” he said, with a deep laugh. “You’ll get
on, son, if you’re always as smart as this. Come back and talk to me in
a week. From what I can see of you, I reckon you’ll fill the billet,
but I’m too busy to waste time on you now. Come along next Thursday,
and then I’ll run the rule over you.”
Dave’s heart beat a little faster than usual as he walked home. Nothing
had been farther from his mind earlier in the day than definitely to
ask for a job on a vessel. Now he was as good as booked to sail in a
week! In the excitement of the moment he had quite forgotten to ask
where the ship was bound for. All he knew was her name――the _Pacific
Queen_. As a matter of fact, he was not deeply concerned as to her
destination. Any point of the compass was equally satisfactory to him.
Perhaps he rather favored China or Japan, but any other old place would
do nearly as well. He felt supremely happy and much more important than
he ever remembered. Although he had not officially “signed on,” the
big captain with the deep laugh had said he would fill the billet, and
Dave was prepared to take the captain’s word for it. The only thing
that made him thoughtful was the fact that he would have to go without
telling his father or Aunt Martha. There did not seem to be any way out
of that difficulty. If he told Aunt Martha, she would make a fuss and
his father would hear of it, and Dave knew what that would lead to.
Captain Hallard had definitely said his son was not to go to sea until
the following year, and when Captain Hallard said a thing he meant
it. Dave weighed the whole situation up carefully on his way home and
decided the best thing was to disappear quietly to prevent a scene. He
would just leave a note for his dad, explaining matters, and promising
to return home immediately he got back to America.
That programme was all right in theory until he reached the house. As
soon as he entered the door he felt that Aunt Martha’s eyes were on
him, and that she somehow knew. As a matter of fact Aunt Martha did
glance at him, but not more closely than she always did. He was as
dear to her as her own son would have been. David tried to act in a
perfectly natural manner, but when a boy has just arranged to go to sea
on the impulse of the moment, he would be more than human if he failed
to show that something unusual was in the wind.
“What’s come over the lad?” Aunt Martha exclaimed after a while.
“You’re dancing around like a pea in a hot frying pan.”
This surprised Dave. He was under the impression that he was
exceptionally quiet.
“You’re all excited and worked up,” declared Aunt Martha. “I expect
you’ve been to one of these ball games or watching red Indians at the
movies, haven’t you?”
“No,” replied Dave, subsiding into a chair and making an iron
resolution not to move a muscle for five minutes at least.
“Then I guess you’re feverish. Why, I never saw your cheeks so flushed.”
Dave stood the ordeal well. He buried himself in a book, pretending to
read, but the words danced under his eyes. He, David Hallard, was a
sailor at last, or at least as good as a sailor. In seven short days
school and Brooklyn would be things of the past. He would be “outward
bound.” The words had a fine ring to them. There was to be no waiting
for twelve dreary months.
Dave lay awake many hours that night, and, with the first streaks of
dawn, crept quietly down the stairs, for he wanted to set his eyes on
the _Pacific Queen_ again. He felt an air of proprietorship in regard
to the vessel. Also, he half dreaded to find she had disappeared in the
night, and it was with positive relief that he saw her lying snugly
tied up at her berth.
He had learned in recent months to judge the cut of a vessel, and the
_Pacific Queen_ looked a trim craft to him. She was a single-screw
steel freighter that had not been launched more than three years.
No mail-boat that ever tore her way out of New York seemed half so
magnificent in Dave’s eyes as the _Pacific Queen_ lying at her moorings
that early summer morning. There was no sign of life on board except a
thin stream of smoke from the galley stack, and the boy stood feasting
his eyes on his future home for a full hour before a healthy appetite
sent him hurrying home to see what Aunt Martha had for breakfast.
The problem of what to take on the voyage puzzled him somewhat. There
were not many things he could take, as the money-box into which he
had been dropping dimes and five-cent pieces for a couple of years
contained only a few dollars. A large clasp-knife, of course, must be
included. Of that there was no question. Whoever heard of a sailor
without a clasp-knife? Dave was not absolutely certain what it was for,
but he knew it was indispensable, so he boldly laid out a dollar and a
half on a fearsome weapon with a bone handle. Fortunately, he had a new
pair of heavy shoes. One problem gave him many uneasy hours. His father
had once told him that when the time came for him to go to sea he could
have the binoculars that formed one of Captain Hallard’s souvenirs of
the sea. The clasp-knife was a treasure already, but those binoculars
were the crowning point of Dave’s desires. They had cost an awful lot
of money at one time and were not a necessary part of a boy’s outfit,
but Dave felt it would be a great thing to have them with him.
Choosing a suitable opportunity, he asked:
“Dad, do you remember saying I could have your glasses when the time
came?”
“Surely,” his father agreed, “and I hope you will remember always to
treat ’em as carefully as I have done. They’ve got fine lenses in them,
and I don’t know that I ever handled a better pair of binoculars in
my life. There’s many a sea-captain tramping round the ocean who’d
give a whole lot to own a pair of glasses like them, so you’ll have
to be careful or they will get stolen. Not that stealing is common on
board ship. It’s the unforgivable sin at sea. I have seen a man thrown
overboard and near drowned for taking what wasn’t his. All the same
you’ll have to keep your eyes open, but if you’ve still got them when
the time comes for you to be pacing the bridge they’ll be worth a
sight more to you than the junk you can pick up for good money at most
stores. When there’s a thick haze and you’re driving down on a vessel
that’s blowing her buzzer fit to wake the dead, you can’t tell which
direction the sound is coming from. The lives of everybody on board may
depend on your being able to spot the other boat. That’s when you want
a good pair of binoculars to see through.”
“Can I use them now just as if they were mine?” Dave put in anxiously.
He had a nice sense of honor. Nothing would have induced him to take
them on the _Pacific Queen_ without a favorable reply to this question.
“Why, I don’t see any objection,” Captain Hallard replied good-naturedly,
puffing away at his pipe. “Only, as I say, take care of them, and mind
you don’t scratch the lenses. They were given to me nigh on thirty years
ago by an old deep-sea pilot once when we were in the North Sea, making
Flushing on the Dutch coast. I was second mate at the time. It had been
blowing a regular gale, and we’d got to the lightship where the pilot
cutter was generally hanging around. Dark! You couldn’t see your hand
before you, away from a lamp; and there was a heavy ground swell
running. All of a sudden we saw the flare off the cutter, signalling
that a pilot was coming to us. It means fifty dollars at least for a few
hours’ work, so they’ll board you in a mighty bad sea if their small
boat can stand it. Our skipper didn’t reckon they could make it, but he
sent up a flare in answer, and pretty soon the dory bumped alongside
with two men at the oars besides the pilot. I’d slung a rope ladder over
and was standing by. The pilot got ready to catch hold of the ladder
when the ship wasn’t rolling extra hard. The dory was bobbing up and
down and I felt kind of nervous for the old man. He had boarded hundreds
of ships in the dark, but the sea is a queer thing, my lad. She’s always
waiting. You never know when she’s going to get you. Just as the pilot
was reaching out for the ladder a big wave caught us on the starboard
quarter and rolled us right over on top of the dory. It crumpled up like
an egg, and I made sure all three men in her must have been killed.
“I gave a yell up to the bridge, bent a line on to a stanchion, took
hold of one end of it, and slipped over the side. I could swim quite
a bit in those days, but I didn’t fancy paddling around in the North
Sea under such conditions without something to hang on to the old ship
by. I couldn’t see a thing, but presently I touched a man’s head. I
got one arm round him and when we were heaved on board we found it was
the pilot. He’d got a nasty bump on the forehead, and was dazed for a
while, but he came round after the skipper had given him a stiff glass
of grog. We never saw anything of the other men. Before we dropped the
pilot he gave me these binoculars that he had in his overcoat pocket,
saying he’d made up his mind to retire anyhow, and reckoned he could
take a hint from the sea as well as any man.”
At times Dave felt almost bursting with the desire to tell one of his
school friends the wonderful thing that was to happen on the following
Thursday, but he kept his own counsel and waited as patiently as he
could. On his last night at home he wrote two letters, one to his
father and one to Aunt Martha. The first ran:
Dear Dad:
I couldn’t wait, and I’m going to sea. Please forgive me. I’ll
take good care of the binoculars and write to you often.
Your loving son,
DAVID.
He propped the two letters up against the clock on the mantelpiece
and then went to bed in his own room for the last time, after packing
his few possessions in an old suitcase. Dave hardly dared close his
eyes lest he should sleep too long. Before it was light he slipped
on his clothes. The stairs creaked as he walked down them in his
stocking-feet, with his shoes in one hand and the suitcase in the
other. He dreaded waking either his father or Aunt Martha, and yet had
to fight with a desire to say good-by to them. He had to bite his lips
hard and a lump came into his throat when he passed his father’s door.
The lock and bolt on the front door took an eternity to manipulate in
the dark. His fingers seemed to be all thumbs. He had never noticed
before how much noise the key made in that lock. He wondered vaguely
how long it would be before he turned it again. Quite a lot had to
happen before then. The lump in his throat grew bigger. Not until he
had closed the door ever so softly, and stood on the path, did he
realize exactly how dear home was to him, or what a lot Aunt Martha had
done for him in her prim fashion. The great adventure was starting.
No, it had actually started! From that moment onwards he was to be a
wage-earner and a sailor.
For three hours Dave waited on the wharf, until there were signs of
life on the _Pacific Queen_. When Captain Chisholm turned out of his
berth he was told there was a boy waiting to see him.
“A boy!” he said. “What does he want?”
“Says you told him to come, sir. He’s been on deck since four o’clock.”
“Oh, I know,” said the captain. “Send him here.”
The master mariner was having breakfast when Dave was ushered in. He
had already ascertained that the boat was bound for Auckland, New
Zealand, and other Australasian ports.
“So you want to go to sea, eh?” the big man asked, attacking a pile of
bacon and eggs.
“Yes, sir,” Dave replied.
“Ever been afloat?”
“Not yet, sir.”
“What’s your name?”
“David Hallard.”
“How old?”
“Sixteen, sir.”
“Got a father?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What does he say about it?”
“He says I can be a sailor, sir,” he answered, after a moment’s
hesitation. “He was a ship’s master, but he’s got rheumatism now.”
“Well, you seem a smart enough lad. You’ll have to jump around a bit at
sea. We’ve no use for lazy folk here. Go and report to Mr. Quick, the
first mate. He will tell you what to do. He’s rough and ready, but he
knows his business. Don’t let him have to tell you twice and you’ll be
all right. We sail at noon. Run along now.”
Dave found that Mr. Quick was a very different type of man from the
captain. He seemed to bark instead of talking, nor did he appear to be
in a particularly pleasant frame of mind that morning. He had fiery
red hair and piercing eyes. Mr. Quick devoted precisely sixty seconds
to the new hand, during which he gave Dave some terse and emphatic
advice, after which he hustled him off to the galley, where he was
placed under the wing of Barnes, the ship’s cook.
“Well, and what have they sent to plague the life out of me now?”
Barnes asked in a high, squeaky voice. If Dave had not been trying
hard to make a good impression on every one he might have laughed,
for Barnes had the most comical face he had ever seen. In reality he
was good-natured enough, but for some reason he always tried to give
the impression that he was cranky and unapproachable, perhaps because
people had been taking advantage of his amiability for forty years at
sea. His fat cheeks were red, and his eyebrows stood out like two white
bushes. In spite of the greeting, Dave liked Barnes instinctively on
sight, and grew to like him still more in the course of time; and he is
a lucky person who makes a friend of the cook afloat.
“I’ve come to help you,” the boy said. “So far, I only know how to peel
potatoes, though.”
“Well, I sha’n’t be askin’ you to bake doughnuts or fry chickens for
the passengers yet a while,” the cook growled, “’cause there ain’t no
passengers this trip, and again there ain’t no chickens to fry. Ship’s
biscuits, cold, with plenty o’ weevils in ’em, is all the hands get
on this ship week-days. Sundays it’s different. We has to warm the
biscuits up into a puddin’ for a change.”
“Then what do we want a cook for?” asked Dave, with a grin.
“Look here, youngster, I’ll not stand for any impidence,” Barnes
declared, puffing out his cheeks and doing wonderful things with his
bushy eyebrows. “You’ll have a frying-pan about your ears in a brace of
shakes. Don’t stand there like a dummy! Why don’t you get to work? Do
you expect me to wash all them dishes?”
Dave whipped off his coat and started on the task with a celerity which
brought a grunt of satisfaction from the cook――a sound which Barnes
hastily strove to hide with a cough.
It occurred to the new hand that he might be able to extract some
information from the cook.
“Can you tell me what other duties I’ll have on board this boat, Mr.
Barnes, besides washing dishes?”
The cook glared at him.
“Not a thing, my son,” he said. “It’s one of the rules on this ship
that the boy isn’t allowed to do anything but wash dishes. When he’s
got through he has to part his hair in the middle and dine with the
skipper――if there isn’t some more dishes to wash, which there allus
is. What are you pesterin’ me with fool questions for, anyhow? Do you
take me for the navigatin’ officer or only the owner? Reach me that
frying-pan down and I’ll belay your ears with it.”
Dave promptly obeyed, and got a thump on the shoulders with it for
“more impidence.” After that, he was kept busy with various duties in
the galley until, for the first time in his life, he felt the peculiar
vibration of a ship’s engines. The propeller had begun its endless
song of “_chug-chug-a-chug_.”
Another Hallard had started on his first voyage.
“Can I go on deck a few minutes, Mr. Barnes, please?” he asked. The
idea of cutting up cabbages while the lights of his home town dropped
astern did not appeal to him.
“Why, yes, son,” the cook replied, working his eyebrows so ridiculously
that the boy had to laugh in spite of the curious feeling it gave him
to know that Aunt Martha was probably in tears at the moment and that
his dad was possibly watching that very ship from the window upstairs.
“Go right along. Don’t forget to ask Mr. Quick for a deck-chair and
plenty of cushions. You’ll need the cushions if Mr. Quick catches you
admirin’ the scenery.”
Dave slipped up the companion-way. Already they were steaming along at
seven or eight miles an hour, a thick trail of smoke hanging astern.
All was hustle and hurry on deck. The boy dodged out of the way of
the sailors, and, standing on a coil of rope, watched familiar scenes
disappear. It seemed difficult to realize that he was not dreaming. The
lump was there in his throat bigger than ever when he went back to the
galley, and something in his expression caught the watchful eye of the
cook.
“Never mind, laddie,” said Barnes. “This is your first trip, isn’t it?
Left the old folks behind, eh? We’ve all been through it. It’s a dog’s
life at sea, but you’ll be back eatin’ corn-beef an’ cabbage at home
afore you know it.”