We who are aft, besieged in the high place, are stronger in numbers
than I dreamed until now, when I have just finished taking the ship’s
census. Of course Margaret, Mr. Pike, and myself are apart. We alone
represent the ruling class. With us are servants and serfs, faithful to
their salt, who look to us for guidance and life.
I use my words advisedly. Tom Spink and Buckwheat are serfs and nothing
else. Henry, the training-ship boy, occupies an anomalous
classification. He is of our kind, but he can scarcely be called even a
cadet of our kind. He will some day win to us and become a mate or a
captain, but in the meantime, of course, his past is against him. He is
a candidate, rising from the serf class to our class. Also, he is only
a youth, the iron of his heredity not yet tested and proven.
Wada, Louis, and the steward are servants of Asiatic breed. So are the
two Japanese sail-makers—scarcely servants, not to be called slaves,
but something in between.
So, all told, there are eleven of us aft in the citadel. But our
followers are too servant-like and serf-like to be offensive fighters.
They will help us defend the high place against all attack; but they
are incapable of joining with us in an attack on the other end of the
ship. They will fight like cornered rats to preserve their lives; but
they will not advance like tigers upon the enemy. Tom Spink is faithful
but spirit-broken. Buckwheat is hopelessly of the stupid lowly. Henry
has not yet won his spurs. On our side remain Margaret, Mr. Pike, and
myself. The rest will hold the wall of the poop and fight thereon to
the death, but they are not to be depended upon in a sortie.
At the other end of the ship—and I may as well give the roster, are:
the second mate, either to be called Mellaire or Waltham, a strong man
of our own breed but a renegade; the three gangsters, killers and
jackals, Bert Rhine, Nosey Murphy, and Kid Twist; the Maltese Cockney
and Tony the crazy Greek; Frank Fitzgibbon and Richard Giller, the
survivors of the trio of “bricklayers”; Anton Sorensen and Lars
Jacobsen, stupid Scandinavian sailor-men; Ditman Olansen, the
crank-eyed Berserk; John Hackey and Arthur Deacon, respectively hoodlum
and white slaver; Shorty, the mixed-breed clown; Guido Bombini, the
Italian hound; Andy Fay and Mulligan Jacobs, the bitter ones; the three
topaz-eyed dreamers, who are unclassifiable; Isaac Chantz, the wounded
Jew; Bob, the overgrown dolt; the feeble-minded Faun, lung-wounded;
Nancy and Sundry Buyers, the two hopeless, helpless bosuns; and,
finally, the sea-lawyer, Charles Davis.
This makes twenty-seven of them against the eleven of us. But there are
men, strong in viciousness, among them. They, too, have their serfs and
bravos. Guido Bombini and Isaac Chantz are certainly bravos. And
weaklings like Sorensen, and Jacobsen, and Bob, cannot be anything else
than slaves to the men who compose the gangster clique.
I failed to tell what happened yesterday, after Mr. Pike emptied his
automatic and cleared the deck. The poop was indubitably ours, and
there was no possibility of the mutineers making a charge on us in
broad daylight. Margaret had gone below, accompanied by Wada, to see to
the security of the port and starboard doors that open from the cabin
directly on the main deck. These are still caulked and tight and
fastened on the inside, as they have been since the passage of Cape
Horn began.
Mr. Pike put one of the sail-makers at the wheel, and the steward,
relieved and starting below, was attracted to the port quarter, where
the patent log that towed astern was made fast. Margaret had returned
his knife to him, and he was carrying it in his hand when his attention
was attracted astern to our wake. Mike Cipriani and Bill Quigley had
managed to catch the lazily moving log-line and were clinging to it.
The _Elsinore_ was moving just fast enough to keep them on the surface
instead of dragging them under. Above them and about them circled
curious and hungry albatrosses, Cape hens, and mollyhawks. Even as I
glimpsed the situation one of the big birds, a ten-footer at least,
with a ten-inch beak to the fore, dropped down on the Italian.
Releasing his hold with one hand, he struck with his knife at the bird.
Feathers flew, and the albatross, deflected by the blow, fell clumsily
into the water.
Quite methodically, just as part of the day’s work, the steward chopped
down with his knife, catching the log-line between the steel edge and
the rail. At once, no longer buoyed up by the _Elsinore’s_ two-knot
drag ahead, the wounded men began to swim and flounder. The circling
hosts of huge sea-birds descended upon them, with carnivorous beaks
striking at their heads and shoulders and arms. A great screeching and
squawking arose from the winged things of prey as they strove for the
living meat. And yet, somehow, I was not very profoundly shocked. These
were the men whom I had seen eviscerate the shark and toss it
overboard, and shout with joy as they watched it devoured alive by its
brethren. They had played a violent, cruel game with the things of
life, and the things of life now played upon them the same violent,
cruel game. As they that rise by the sword perish by the sword, just so
did these two men who had lived cruelly die cruelly.
“Oh, well,” was Mr. Pike’s comment, “we’ve saved two sacks of mighty
good coal.”
* * * * *
Certainly our situation might be worse. We are cooking on the
coal-stove and on the oil-burners. We have servants to cook and serve
for us. And, most important of all, we are in possession of all the
food on the _Elsinore_.
Mr. Pike makes no mistake. Realizing that with our crowd we cannot rush
the crowd at the other end of the ship, he accepts the siege, which, as
he says, consists of the besieged holding all food supplies while the
besiegers are on the imminent edge of famine.
“Starve the dogs,” he growls. “Starve ’m until they crawl aft and lick
our shoes. Maybe you think the custom of carrying the stores aft just
happened. Only it didn’t. Before you and I were born it was
long-established and it was established on brass tacks. They knew what
they were about, the old cusses, when they put the grub in the
lazarette.”
Louis says there is not more than three days’ regular whack in the
galley; that the barrel of hard-tack in the forecastle will quickly go;
and that our chickens, which they stole last night from the top of the
’midship-house, are equivalent to no more than an additional day’s
supply. In short, at the outside limit, we are convinced the men will
be keen to talk surrender within the week.
We are no longer sailing. In last night’s darkness we helplessly
listened to the men loosing headsail-halyards and letting yards go down
on the run. Under orders of Mr. Pike I shot blindly and many times into
the dark, but without result, save that we heard the bullets of
answering shots strike against the chart-house. So to-day we have not
even a man at the wheel. The _Elsinore_ drifts idly on an idle sea, and
we stand regular watches in the shelter of chart-house and jiggermast.
Mr. Pike says it is the laziest time he has had on the whole voyage.
I alternate watches with him, although when on duty there is little to
be done, save, in the daytime, to stand rifle in hand behind the
jiggermast, and, in the night, to lurk along the break of the poop.
Behind the chart-house, ready to repel assault, are my watch of four
men: Tom Spink, Wada, Buckwheat, and Louis. Henry, the two Japanese
sail-makers, and the old steward compose Mr. Pike’s watch.
It is his orders that no one for’ard is to be allowed to show himself,
so, to-day, when the second mate appeared at the corner of the
’midship-house, I made him take a quick leap back with the thud of my
bullet against the iron wall a foot from his head. Charles Davis tried
the same game and was similarly stimulated.
Also, this evening, after dark, Mr. Pike put block-and-tackle on the
first section of the bridge, heaved it out of place, and lowered it
upon the poop. Likewise he hoisted in the ladder at the break of the
poop that leads down to the main deck. The men will have to do some
climbing if they ever elect to rush us.
I am writing this in my watch below. I came off duty at eight o’clock,
and at midnight I go on deck to stay till four to-morrow morning. Wada
shakes his head and says that the Blackwood Company should rebate us on
the first-class passage paid in advance. We are working our passage, he
contends.
Margaret takes the adventure joyously. It is the first time she has
experienced mutiny, but she is such a thorough sea-woman that she
appears like an old hand at the game. She leaves the deck to the mate
and me; but, still acknowledging his leadership, she has taken charge
below and entirely manages the commissary, the cooking, and the
sleeping arrangements. We still keep our old quarters, and she has
bedded the new-comers in the big after-room with blankets issued from
the slop-chest.
In a way, from the standpoint of her personal welfare, the mutiny is
the best thing that could have happened to her. It has taken her mind
off her father and filled her waking hours with work to do. This
afternoon, standing above the open booby-hatch, I heard her laugh ring
out as in the old days coming down the Atlantic. Yes, and she hums
snatches of songs under her breath as she works. In the second
dog-watch this evening, after Mr. Pike had finished dinner and joined
us on the poop, she told him that if he did not soon re-rig his
phonograph she was going to start in on the piano. The reason she
advanced was the psychological effect such sounds of revelry would have
on the starving mutineers.
* * * * *
The days pass, and nothing of moment happens. We get nowhere. The
_Elsinore_, without the steadying of her canvas, rolls emptily and
drifts a lunatic course. Sometimes she is bow on to the wind, and at
other times she is directly before it; but at all times she is circling
vaguely and hesitantly to get somewhere else than where she is. As an
illustration, at daylight this morning she came up into the wind as if
endeavouring to go about. In the course of half an hour she worked off
till the wind was directly abeam. In another half hour she was back
into the wind. Not until evening did she manage to get the wind on her
port bow; but when she did, she immediately paid off, accomplished the
complete circle in an hour, and recommenced her morning tactics of
trying to get into the wind.
And there is nothing for us to do save hold the poop against the attack
that is never made. Mr. Pike, more from force of habit than anything
else, takes his regular observations and works up the _Elsinore’s_
position. This noon she was eight miles east of yesterday’s position,
yet to-day’s position, in longitude, was within a mile of where she was
four days ago. On the other hand she invariably makes northing at the
rate of seven or eight miles a day.
Aloft, the _Elsinore_ is a sad spectacle. All is confusion and
disorder. The sails, unfurled, are a slovenly mess along the yards, and
many loose ends sway dismally to every roll. The only yard that is
loose is the main-yard. It is fortunate that wind and wave are mild,
else would the iron-work carry away and the mutineers find the huge
thing of steel about their ears.
There is one thing we cannot understand. A week has passed, and the men
show no signs of being starved into submission. Repeatedly and in vain
has Mr. Pike interrogated the hands aft with us. One and all, from the
cook to Buckwheat, they swear they have no knowledge of any food
for’ard, save the small supply in the galley and the barrel of hardtack
in the forecastle. Yet it is very evident that those for’ard are not
starving. We see the smoke from the galley-stove and can only conclude
that they have food to cook.
Twice has Bert Rhine attempted a truce, but both times his white flag,
as soon as it showed above the edge of the ’midship-house, was fired
upon by Mr. Pike. The last occurrence was two days ago. It is Mr.
Pike’s intention thoroughly to starve them into submission, but now he
is beginning to worry about their mysterious food supply.
Mr. Pike is not quite himself. He is obsessed, I know beyond any doubt,
with the idea of vengeance on the second mate. On divers occasions,
now, I have come unexpectedly upon him and found him muttering to
himself with grim set face, or clenching and unclenching his big square
fists and grinding his teeth. His conversation continually runs upon
the feasibility of our making a night attack for’ard, and he is
perpetually questioning Tom Spink and Louis on their ideas of where the
various men may be sleeping—the point of which always is: _Where is the
second mate likely to be sleeping_?
No later than yesterday afternoon did he give me most positive proof of
his obsession. It was four o’clock, the beginning of the first
dog-watch, and he had just relieved me. So careless have we grown, that
we now stand in broad daylight at the exposed break of the poop. Nobody
shoots at us, and, occasionally, over the top of the for’ard-house,
Shorty sticks up his head and grins or makes clownish faces at us. At
such times Mr. Pike studies Shorty’s features through the telescope in
an effort to find signs of starvation. Yet he admits dolefully that
Shorty is looking fleshed-up.
But to return. Mr. Pike had just relieved me yesterday afternoon, when
the second mate climbed the forecastle-head and sauntered to the very
eyes of the _Elsinore_, where he stood gazing overside.
“Take a crack at ’m,” Mr. Pike said.
It was a long shot, and I was taking slow and careful aim, when he
touched my arm.
“No; don’t,” he said.
I lowered the little rifle and looked at him inquiringly.
“You might hit him,” he explained. “And I want him for myself.”
* * * * *
Life is never what we expect it to be. All our voyage from Baltimore
south to the Horn and around the Horn has been marked by violence and
death. And now that it has culminated in open mutiny there is no more
violence, much less death. We keep to ourselves aft, and the mutineers
keep to themselves for’ard. There is no more harshness, no more
snarling and bellowing of commands; and in this fine weather a general
festival obtains.
Aft, Mr. Pike and Margaret alternate with phonograph and piano; and
for’ard, although we cannot see them, a full-fledged “foo-foo” band
makes most of the day and night hideous. A squealing accordion that Tom
Spink says was the property of Mike Cipriani is played by Guido
Bombini, who sets the pace and seems the leader of the foo-foo. There
are two broken-reeded harmonicas. Someone plays a jew’s-harp. Then
there are home-made fifes and whistles and drums, combs covered with
paper, extemporized triangles, and bones made from ribs of salt horse
such as negro minstrels use.
The whole crew seems to compose the band, and, like a lot of
monkey-folk rejoicing in rude rhythm, emphasizes the beat by hammering
kerosene cans, frying-pans, and all sorts of things metallic or
reverberant. Some genius has rigged a line to the clapper of the ship’s
bell on the forecastle-head and clangs it horribly in the big foo-foo
crises, though Bombini can be heard censuring him severely on occasion.
And to cap it all, the fog-horn machine pumps in at the oddest moments
in imitation of a big bass viol.
And this is mutiny on the high seas! Almost every hour of my
deck-watches I listen to this infernal din, and am maddened into desire
to join with Mr. Pike in a night attack and put these rebellious and
inharmonious slaves to work.
Yet they are not entirely inharmonious. Guido Bombini has a respectable
though untrained tenor voice, and has surprised me by a variety of
selections, not only from Verdi, but from Wagner and Massenet. Bert
Rhine and his crowd are full of rag-time junk, and one phrase that has
caught the fancy of all hands, and which they roar out at all times,
is: “_It’s a bear_! _It’s a bear_! _It’s a bear_!” This morning Nancy,
evidently very strongly urged, gave a doleful rendering of _Flying
Cloud_. Yes, and in the second dog-watch last evening our three
topaz-eyed dreamers sang some folk-song strangely sweet and sad.
And this is mutiny! As I write I can scarcely believe it. Yet I know
Mr. Pike keeps the watch over my head. I hear the shrill laughter of
the steward and Louis over some ancient Chinese joke. Wada and the
sail-makers, in the pantry, are, I know, talking Japanese politics. And
from across the cabin, along the narrow halls, I can hear Margaret
softly humming as she goes to bed.
But all doubts vanish at the stroke of eight bells, when I go on deck
to relieve Mr. Pike, who lingers a moment for a “gam,” as he calls it.
“Say,” he said confidentially, “you and I can clean out the whole gang.
All we got to do is sneak for’ard and turn loose. As soon as we begin
to shoot up, half of ’em’ll bolt aft—lobsters like Nancy, an’ Sundry
Buyers, an’ Jacobsen, an’ Bob, an’ Shorty, an’ them three castaways,
for instance. An’ while they’re doin’ that, an’ our bunch on the poop
is takin’ ’em in, you an’ me can make a pretty big hole in them that’s
left. What d’ye say?”
I hesitated, thinking of Margaret.
“Why, say,” he urged, “once I jumped into that fo’c’s’le, at close
range, I’d start right in, blim-blam-blim, fast as you could wink,
nailing them gangsters, an’ Bombini, an’ the Sheeny, an’ Deacon, an’
the Cockney, an’ Mulligan Jacobs, an’ . . . an’ . . . Waltham.”
“That would be nine,” I smiled. “You’ve only eight shots in your Colt.”
Mr. Pike considered a moment, and revised his list. “All right,” he
agreed, “I guess I’ll have to let Jacobs go. What d’ye say? Are you
game?”
Still I hesitated, but before I could speak he anticipated me and
returned to his fidelity.
“No, you can’t do it, Mr. Pathurst. If by any luck they got the both of
us . . . No; we’ll just stay aft and sit tight until they’re starved to
it . . . But where they get their tucker gets me. For’ard she’s as bare
as a bone, as any decent ship ought to be, and yet look at ’em, rolling
hog fat. And by rights they ought to a-quit eatin’ a week ago.”