BARNES ADVISES AND DAVE RESOLVES
Just as the spinning dory reached the vortex, a change came over the
turbulent water. The fiercest suction seemed to have spent itself.
The whirlpool became a dozen smaller eddies, each with its rapidly
revolving current, and though the dory danced from one point of danger
to another it remained afloat. Loose spars and gear from the derelict
began to shoot up to the surface.
“Let her have it now, lads,” shouted the bo’sun. “This’ll be our only
chance of getting any one who went down.”
A minute later both dorys were over the place where the _Miriam_ had
sunk, and two unconscious forms were soon lifted out of the water.
“There’s two more somewhere,” Mr. Quick shouted across, as a number
of men in each boat began to apply artificial respiration to the
half-drowned victims.
Dave, happening to look a little way from the scene of the tragedy,
noticed something awash on the surface for a moment.
“There’s a man over there, Mr. Grimes,” he yelled to the bo’sun, and
the dory was urged across the intervening space.
“Sure enough there is,” said Grimes, as they drew near. “You’ve got
quick eyes, lad. If this chap has any kick left in him he’ll owe his
life to you.”
The man’s form was just sinking again when they got hold of it with a
boat hook. He was a deck hand named Hawke, who had gone out of his way
on more than one occasion to do an act of kindness to the boy.
For nearly half an hour the dorys cruised about the scene of the
disaster, in the hope of picking up the remaining member of the crew,
but the sea had claimed her toll; and for some days afterward there
brooded over the ship an air of gloom, the missing man having been not
only a good sailor but a popular comrade.
The rest of the voyage, until they made their first stop, at New
Orleans, was uneventful. Dave was bitterly disappointed to find that,
as they were only to remain in port a few hours, nobody was allowed
ashore, and he left the gate of Louisiana with only a confused memory
of docks. The weather remained favourable in the Gulf and the Caribbean
Sea; and the boy settled down to ship’s routine during the long run to
Cape Horn, where the _Pacific Queen_ ran into a furious gale, which
battered her for four days. It was Dave’s first experience of really
bad weather, and with it came more seasickness, for the ship sometimes
lay over at an angle of forty-five degrees, or seemed to be trying to
stand on her nose as she slid down the mountainous seas. Green waves
were shipped, but little damage was done, everything movable having
been securely lashed.
The cook had a miraculous faculty of keeping on his feet and
manipulating dishes and pans when by all known laws of gravitation he
should have been sprawling. The first time Dave was jerked off his
legs by a violent roll of the ship Barnes hurled a stream of invective
at him, performing wondrous gymnastics with his bushy eyebrows and
balancing a stew-pan on the galley stove the while.
“Do you want me to hold you up,” he fumed, “as well as do all the
work in this galley? This comes of goin’ to sea with babies! It’s a
cradle you ought to have. Me and the mate will take turns rockin’ you
to sleep. I’d never have come aboard this packet if I’d known you’d
be―― Come here,” he added, softening suddenly, noticing a red stain on
Dave’s shirt-sleeve. “You’re an idiot, that’s what you are. Why didn’t
you tell me you’d hurt yourself?”
He rolled up the boy’s sleeve and found a cut which, while not serious,
was causing considerable pain. With a tenderness that even Dave had not
suspected Barnes capable of, the cook bathed and bandaged it, leaving
the dinner to take care of itself until he had finished.
“Allus keep the dirt out of a cut, kid,” he said, “if you haven’t got
brains enough to keep out of cutting yourself, which you haven’t.”
As that day wore on the sea grew worse, and Barnes quietly took on to
his own shoulders a good many of the boy’s duties, for in spite of his
incessant, vitriolic grumbling, he knew well enough that Dave was a
willing worker, and an exceptionally useful one considering that he was
a “first tripper.” Moreover it was only with difficulty now, in spite
of his many years of experience, that Barnes could move about while the
ship was playing such antics.
“You’d better turn in, youngster,” he said during the evening.
“There’s nothing much for you to do.”
“Thanks, Mr. Barnes,” Dave said limply, profoundly grateful for the
chance of getting to his bunk. He was making his way for’ard and
feeling extremely sick, when he encountered Mr. Quick. The wild sea
had aroused all the man-driving quality in the mate, who promptly put
the lad to cleaning the chain-locker, which happened to be the most
disagreeable task he could think of at the moment.
David Hallard came of stubborn stock, and the situation had to be
pretty desperate for him to admit to himself that he was beaten, but
by the time he was able to crawl into his berth he had a craving to
be home, in his own bed, in the house that did not sway and try to
turn somersaults, and where there were no chain-lockers. It was the
worst hour of the gale, and Dave, though not actually frightened, was
more than a little awed. Added to that, his arm hurt a good deal.
And besides the seasickness, which alone was enough to make him
intensely miserable, he had the recent memory of Mr. Quick’s deliberate
unkindness.
The rolling of the steamer kept him awake for hours, during which
he made a grim resolution. After that his mind became easier and he
dropped off to sleep.
Next morning, to his great joy, the boy found the gale had almost
abated, and though a heavy sea was still running, the ship was riding
much more easily. His resolution involved one point which puzzled him,
and after a while he decided to consult the cook.
“I want to ask your advice, Mr. Barnes,” he said. “I’ve made up my mind
to do something.”
“What d’you take me for?” snapped Barnes, bustling about the galley.
“Do I look like a walkin’ encyclopedia? I’m too busy to fiddle about
with kids, anyway.”
The boy did not answer but went on steadily with his work.
Barnes continued to bustle, making perhaps a trifle more noise than was
absolutely necessary with his pans, and glancing occasionally in the
direction of his youthful assistant. At last he coughed awkwardly.
“What’s worryin’ you, Dave?” he asked, puffing out his red cheeks. He
liked the boy more than he was aware of, and took a fatherly pride in
giving him advice.
“Oh, only this, I’ve decided to leave the ship when we get to Auckland.”
Barnes stared and blinked his queer-looking eyes.
“Pity to do that,” he said. “By rights you ought to take the ship with
you. Isn’t the steam heat to your satisfaction, or is it ’cos you
haven’t got a private bath-room?”
Dave knew Barnes well enough by now to ignore his sarcasm.
“I’ll be real sorry to go and leave you, Mr. Barnes,” the lad went on,
“but Mr. Quick has never forgotten me upsetting that soup over his
legs, and he’s got it in for me.”
“I know,” the cook said. “That’s one of his playful little habits. It’s
the vinegar in him. But don’t forget, sonny, you might go further an’
fare worse.”
“Maybe,” Dave agreed ruefully, “but if I have my way, I’ll try to be
under a mate whose legs I haven’t upset hot soup over. Here is what I
want to know, though. This boat goes on to Australian ports and the
crew are paid off at Brisbane, aren’t they?”
“If we ever get there.”
“Well, how can I get my pay at Auckland?”
“You want some new clothes, don’t you?” Barnes said. “There’s nothing
in the slop-chest for kids. I’ll put in a word for you, and they’ll
advance you as much money as you’ve earned up to the time we hit New
Zealand.”
This relieved Dave’s mind considerably, because all the cash he
possessed was one dime, one nickel and four cents; and though he had
sufficient confidence to leave the ship at Auckland and find another
berth, he very naturally disliked the notion of finding himself in a
strange land, many thousands of miles from Aunt Martha’s flapjacks,
with a large appetite and only nineteen cents in his pocket.
Realizing that the more he knew about his new profession the more
easily he would be likely to obtain another ship in New Zealand, Dave
learnt all he could during the next few weeks, and here he found a
valuable tutor in Hawke. The sailor spent many hours of his watch below
teaching the boy some of the simpler arts of his craft, including
splicing and the tying of those baffling knots which form such an
important part of a nautical education. Hawke would also have pressed
some of his possessions on Dave as a mark of gratitude for what the
boy had done when he was in the water, but these Dave firmly refused,
accepting only Hawke’s clasp knife as a souvenir.
Very little occurred to relieve the monotony of the voyage through the
Southern Pacific. Dave, however, had not been at sea long enough to get
over the novelty of it all. They had left Cape Horn about four thousand
miles astern when the look-out one day reported a sail on the port bow.
An hour later Captain Chisholm altered his course, observing that the
ship was flying a signal for assistance. As the _Pacific Queen_ drew
near it was seen that the distressed vessel was a bark named the _Polly
E. Perkins_, with every stitch of canvas set. There was very little
wind and the sails flapped lazily. The _Polly E. Perkins_ reported that
she had been nearly two months beating her way from New Zealand against
adverse winds, and was now running out of water. The crew was already
on short rations. Captain Chisholm sent a supply of the precious liquid
and then, on learning that he could render no further assistance,
steamed once more westward, leaving the bark to resume her trying trip.
“Take my tip and never sign on an old wind-jammer,” Barnes said to Dave
as the other vessel dropped astern. “It’s a dog’s life on a steamer,
anyway, but I’d hate to tell you what it’s like on them floatin’
coffins.”
Dave smiled, remembering that the old mariner with the paint brush
at Brooklyn had spoken disparagingly of the “new-fangled steam
contraptions.”
“Hang you for a lubber,” spluttered the cook, “laughin’ at me that’s
old enough to be teaching your grandfather. If you don’t hop off this
ship when we touch Auckland I’ll report you to the cap’n and have you
fired for impidence.”
“I was only thinking of another sea-going man, older than you, who said
he preferred sailing craft,” said Dave, whereupon the cook proceeded to
tell some horrifying stories of wind-jammers that had drifted into that
strange region known as the Sargasso Sea and remained there helpless
for years until the starving crew fought among one another, even for
the rats in the hold, before they perished miserably.
“But if they all died how do you know they fought for the rats?” Dave
asked.
“The cap’n has to enter such things in the log,” replied Barnes acidly,
determined not to be beaten. “I remember the time, when I was a
youngster at sea, when people who asked half as many silly questions as
you do would have been put in irons and fed on salt water.”
As the _Pacific Queen_ neared Auckland, Dave wound up a long letter
which he had been writing to his father, bit by bit, ever since he left
Brooklyn. It was characteristic of the lad that he said very little of
such hardships as he had encountered. He explained that he was going to
join another ship, and added hopefully that he would find one homeward
bound if possible, little dreaming of the strange adventures that were
before him ere he could cross the threshold of his home again.