"A FRIEND IN NEED."
Jorrocks had no option but, first, to proceed to pinion us, and then tie
us separately to the windlass, using us as kindly as he could in the
operation and with a sympathising expression on his face--that said as
plainly as looks could speak, "I am really very sorry for this; but I
told you what you might expect, and I can't help it!"
He afterwards went aft to the skipper's cabin, bringing forwards from
thence a stout piece of cord, with the ends frayed into lashes like
those of a whip, which had evidently seen a good deal of service. This
"cat" he handed deferentially to the commander of the brig; who, seizing
it firmly in his right fist, and holding the handspike still in his
left, as if to be prepared for all emergencies, began to lay stroke upon
stroke on our shoulders with a dexterity which Dr Hellyer would have
envied, without being able to rival.
It was the most terrible thrashing that either Tom or myself had ever
experienced before; and, long ere the skipper's practised arm had tired,
our fortitude broke down so, that we had fairly to cry for mercy.
"You'll never stow yourself away on board my brig again, will you?"
asked our flagellator of each of us alternately, with an alternate lash
across our backs to give emphasis to his question, making us jump up
from the deck and quiver all over, as we tried in vain to wriggle out of
the lashings with which we were tied.
"No, I won't," screamed out Tom, the tears running down his cheeks from
the pain of the ordeal. "I'll promise you never to put my foot within a
mile of her, if you let me off!"
"And so will I, too," I bawled out quickly, following suit to Tom.
I can really honestly aver that we both meant what we said, most
sincerely!
"All right then, you young beggars; that'll do for your first lesson.
The thrashing will pay your footing for coming aboard without leave.
Jorrocks, you can cut these scamps down now, and find them something to
do in the fo'c's'le--make 'em polish the ring-bolts if there's nothing
else on hand!"
So saying, the skipper, satisfied with taking our passage money out of
our hides, walked away aft; while Jorrocks began to cast loose our
lashings, with many whispered words of comfort, which he was afraid to
utter aloud, mixed up with comments on the captain's conduct.
"He's a rough customer to deal with--as tough as they make 'em," said
he, confidentially, removing the last bight round Tom's body and setting
him free; "but, he's all there!"
"So he is," said Tom, with much decision, rubbing his sore shoulders.
"I will vouch for the truth of that statement!"
"And, when he says he'll do a thing, he allys does it," continued
Jorrocks, in testimony to the skipper's firmness of purpose.
"He won't flog _me_ again," said Tom, savagely, in answer to the
boatswain's last remark.
"Nor me," I put in.
"Ah, you'd better keep quiet till you're ashore ag'in," advised our
friend, meaningly. "You won't find much more harm in him than you've
done already; and bye-and-bye, when he's got used to seeing you about,
he'll be as soft and easy as butter."
"Oh yes, I can well believe that!" said Tom, ironically; but then,
acting on the advice of Jorrocks, although more to save him from getting
into a scrape on our behalf, than from any fear of further molestation
from the skipper, against whom our hearts were now hardened, we bustled
about the fo'c's'le, pretending to be awfully busy coiling down the
slack of the jib halliards, and doing other odd jobs forward.
Up to this time, neither of us had an opportunity of casting a glance
over the vessel to see where she was, our attention from the moment we
gained the deck having been entirely taken up by the proceedings of the
little drama I have just narrated, which prevented us from making any
observations of the _mise en scene_, whether inboard or over the side.
Now, however, having a chance of looking about me, my first glance was
up aloft; and I noticed that the brig was under all plain sail, running
before the wind, which was almost dead aft. Being "light," that is
having no cargo on board beyond such ballast as was required to ensure
her stability when heeling over, she was rolling a good deal, lurching
from side to side as her canvas filled out to the breeze, with every
fresh puff of air.
Away to the left, over our port beam, I could see land in the distance,
which Jorrocks told me was the North Foreland--near Margate--a place
that I knew by name of course, although this information did not give me
any accurate idea of the brig's whereabouts; but, later on in the day,
when the vessel had run some fifteen or twenty miles further, steering
to the north-east, with the wind to the southward of west, we passed
through a lot of brackish mud-coloured water, close to a light-ship,
that my friend the boatswain said was the Kentish Knock, midway between
the mouth of the Thames and wash of the Humber, and it was only then
that I realised the fact, that we were running up the eastern coast of
England and were well on our way to Newcastle, for which port, as I've
intimated before, we were bound.
"Hurrah!" exclaimed Tom, when I mentioned this to him. "We'll soon then
be able to give that brute of a skipper the slip. I won't stop on board
this horrid brig a minute longer than I can help, Martin, you may be
certain!"
"Avast--belay that!" interposed Jorrocks, who was close behind, and
heard this confession. "Don't you count your chickens afore they're
hatched, young master! Take my word for it, the skipper won't let you
out of his sight 'fore you've paid him for your grub and passage."
"But how can he, when we've got no money?" asked Tom.
"That makes no difference," said Jorrocks, with an expressive wink that
spoke volumes. "You'll see if he don't make you work 'em out, and
that'll be as good to him as if you paid him a shiner or two. You jest
wait till we gets to Noocastle, my lad, and I specs you'll larn what
coal-screening is afore you've done with it."
"And what if we refuse?" inquired Tom, to whom this grimy prospect did
not appear over-pleasant.
"Why, there'll be larruping," replied the boatswain, significantly, with
another expressive wink, and Tom was silenced; but, it was only for a
moment, as he looked up again the instant afterwards with his usual
bright expression.
"Perhaps it will be wisest to make the best of a bad job, Martin, eh?"
he said, cheerfully. "We have only to thank ourselves for getting into
this scrape, and the most sensible thing we can do now is to grin and
bear whatever we've got to put up with."
This exactly agreed with my own conclusions, and I signified my assent
to the sound philosophy of Tom's remark with my usual nod; but, as for
Jorrocks, he was completely carried away with enthusiasm.
"Right you are, my hearty!" he cried, wringing Tom's hand in the grip of
his brawny fist as if he would shake it off. "That's the sort o' lad
for me! You've an old head on young shoulders, you have--you'll get on
with the skipper, no fear; and me and my mates will make you both as
com'able aboard as we can; theer, I can say no better, can I?"
"No," replied Tom, in an equally hearty tone.
The _Saucy Sall_ being only of small tonnage, she had a correspondingly
small crew, seven men and a boy--including the skipper and Jorrocks, and
excluding ourselves for the present--comprising "all hands."
Of this number, one was aft now, taking his turn at the wheel, with the
skipper standing beside him, while a couple of others were lounging
about, ready to slacken off or haul taut the sheets; and the remainder,
whose watch below it was, were seeing to the preparations for dinner--a
savoury smell coming out from the fo'c's'le heads, that was most
appetising to Tom and me, who were both longing to have once more a good
hot meal.
Presently, the skipper shouted out something about "making it eight
bells," whereupon Jorrocks took hold of a marlinspike, which he had
seemingly ready for the purpose, striking eight sharp, quick blows on a
little bell hanging right under the break of the little topgallant
fo'c's'le, with which the old-fashioned coaster was built.
"That's the pipe down to dinner," he said to us in explanatory fashion.
"Come along o' me, and I'll introduce you to yer messmates in proper
shipshape way!"
Thereupon, we both followed Jorrocks into the dark little den in the
fore-part of the vessel, with which Tom had first made acquaintance the
night we went on board, after escaping from Dr Hellyer's, now four days
since--a long while it seemed to us, although only so short an interval,
from the experiences we had since gained, and our entirely new mode of
life. The place was small and dark, with bunks ranged along either
side, and a stove in the centre, at which one of the hands, selected as
cook, was just giving a final stir to a steaming compound of meat,
potatoes, and biscuit, all stewed up together, and dubbed by sailors
"lobscouse."
Most of the crew I already knew, from my visits to the brig during
vacation time; but, Tom being a comparative stranger--albeit all of them
had witnessed the "striking proof" of the honour the skipper considered
our coming on board had done him--Jorrocks thought best to introduce us
in a set speech, saying how we were "a good sort, and no mistake"; and
that, although we were the sons of gentlemen, who had "runned away from
school," we were going to shake in our lot with them "like one of
theirselves."
This seemed to go down as well as the stew, of which we were cordially
invited to partake, that disappeared rapidly down our famished throats;
and, thenceforth, we were treated with that good fellowship which seems
natural to those who follow the sea--none attempting to bully us, or
take advantage of our youth, and all eager to complete our nautical
education to the best of their ability. Perhaps this was principally on
account of Jorrocks constituting himself our friend and patron, and
keeping a keen eye on our interests in the food department, so as to see
that we had a fair share of what was going; but, at any rate, thus it
was, for, with the exception of the skipper, we had no reason to
complain of the treatment of any one on board the brig, from the time we
joined her in the surreptitious manner I have described, to the moment
of our leaving her.
Towards evening, the wind shifting more to the westwards and bearing on
our quarter, the yards had to be braced round a bit and the jib sheet
hauled in taut to leeward, giving Tom and me an opportunity of showing
our willingness to bear a hand. Otherwise, however, until we arrived at
Newcastle there was little to do in the way of trimming sails, as the
wind was fair all the way, giving no occasion for reefing or furling
canvas until we got into port. I don't believe, either, we were out of
sight of land once during the progress of the voyage; for, the skipper,
like the commanders of most coasting craft, hugged the shore in
navigating to and fro between the different places for which he was
bound, never losing sight of one prominent landmark or headland till he
could distinguish the next beyond, in the day-time, and steering by the
lighthouses and floating beacons, by night.
If times had been easy for us so far, when we arrived at Newcastle we
had terrible work to balance our good fortune in this respect.
Talk of galley slaves! no unfortunate criminals chained to the oar in
the old days of that aquatic mode of punishment ever went through half
what poor Tom and I did at this great coal centre of the north--none at
least could have suffered so much in body and spirit from the effects of
a form of toil, to which the ordinary labour of a negro slave on a Cuban
plantation would be as nothing!
The skipper never allowed us once to leave the vessel to go ashore,
although all the other hands went backwards from brig to land as it
seemed to please them, without any restraint being apparently put on
their movements; but, whether our stern taskmaster was afraid of our
"cutting and running" before he had his pound of flesh out of us, or
whether he feared being called to account under the terms of the
Merchant Shipping Act for having us on board without our names being on
the brig's books as duly licensed apprentices, when he might have been
subjected to a penalty, I know not. The fact remains, that there he
kept us day and night as long as we remained taking in a fresh cargo of
coals. We never once set foot on land during our stay in port.
And the work!
We did not have to carry the bags of coal, as the rest of the crew did,
from the wharf to the gangway of the vessel, as then we might have been
seen; but we had to bear a hand over the hatches to shunt the bags down
into the hold, into which we were afterwards sent with rakes and shovels
to stow the rough lumps into odd holes and corners and make a smooth
surface generally, until the brig was chock full to the deck-beams, when
we couldn't even creep in on our hands and knees to distribute the cargo
further!
This job being finished, the hatches were battened down, and the brig
made sail again for the south.
This time, our destination was further along the coast westwards, the
collier brig proceeding to Plymouth instead of returning to our previous
port of departure--a circumstance which rejoiced us both greatly, as we
should not have liked to have been landed again at the place we had
left: Dr Hellyer, perhaps, would have been more pleased to see us than
we should have been to meet him!
The wind, on our return trip, was still westerly, and consequently
against us; so I had no reason to complain of any lack of instruction in
seamanship on this part of the voyage. It was "tacks and
sheets"--"mainsail haul"--and "bout-ship"--"down anchor" as the tide
changed, and "up with it!" again, when the flood or ebb was in our
favour--all the way from the Mouse Light to Beachy Head!
In performing these various nautical manoeuvres, I had plenty of
exercise aloft, so that my previous teaching, when I used to go down to
the quay in the summer vacations on being left alone at school, stood me
now in good stead; and in a little while I became really, for a lad of
my years, an expert seaman, able to hand, reef, steer, and take a watch
with any on board, long before we got to Plymouth!
But, it was not so with Tom.
The coal business, he thought, having no turn for colliery work, was bad
enough; but, when it came to have to go aloft in a gale of wind and take
in sail on a dark night, with the flapping canvas trying to jerk one off
the yard, Tom acknowledged that he had no stomach to be a sailor--he
preferred gymnastics ashore!
Although, otherwise, I had found him bold and fearless to desperation,
he now evinced a nervous timidity about mounting the rigging that I
didn't think he had in him. It seemed utterly unlike the dauntless Tom
of old acquaintanceship on land.
He said that he really "funked" going aloft, for it made his head swim
when he looked down. I told him that if he got in the habit of looking
down at the water below whenever he ascended the shrouds, instead of its
only making his head swim, as he now complained, it would inevitably
result in his entire self being forced to do so! However, he said he
could not possibly help it, and really I don't believe he could.
Some people are so constituted.
The upshot was that the skipper, noticing his inefficiency in the work
of the ship, made him his cabin boy, in place of the lad who had
hitherto occupied that enviable position, and whom he now sent forward
amongst the other hands in the fo'c's'le.
But the change did not bring any amelioration to poor Tom's lot. It was
"like going from the frying-pan into the fire;" for, now, my unfortunate
chum, being immediately under the control of the skipper, who was a
surly, ill-tempered brute at bottom, he paid him out for his laziness in
"shirking work," as he termed the constitutional nervousness that he was
powerless to fight against--Tom coming in for "more kicks than
halfpence" by his promotion to the cabin, and having "purser's
allowance" of all the beatings going, when the skipper was in one of his
tantrums.
I got into a serious row with the brute for taking Tom's part one day.
In his passion, the skipper knocked me down with his favourite
handspike, giving me a cut across my temple, the scar of which I'll
carry to my grave. My interference, however, saved Tom and myself any
further ill-treatment, as I bled so much from the blow he gave me and
was insensible so long, that the men thought the skipper had killed me.
They accordingly remonstrated so forcibly with him on the subject that
he promised to let us both alone for the future, at least so far as the
handspike was concerned.
Fortunately, however, we were not much longer at the mercy of the
brute's temper; for, the morning after this, we reached Beachy Head,
anchoring there to await the ebb tide down Channel, and the wind
chopping round to the north-eastwards, made it fair for us all the way,
enabling us to fetch Plymouth within three days.
Here, no sooner had the brig weathered Drake Island, anchoring inside
the Cattwater, where all merchant vessels go to discharge their cargoes,
than the skipper at once gave us notice to quit, almost without warning.
"Be off now, you lazy lubbers," he cried, motioning us down into the
_Saucy Sall's_ solitary boat, which had been got over the side, and
which, with Jorrocks in charge of it, was waiting to take us ashore.
"I'm glad to get rid of such idle hands; and you may thank your stars
I've let you off so cheaply for your cheek in stowing yourselves away
aboard my brig! You may think yourselves lucky I don't give you in
charge, and get you put in gaol for it!"
"You daren't," shouted back Tom, defiantly, as soon as he was safely
down in the stern-sheets of the dinghy. "If you wanted to give us in
charge, you ought to have done so in Newcastle, instead of making us
work there for you like niggers. I've a great mind to have you up
before the magistrates for your ill-treatment!"
This appeared to shut up the skipper very effectively, for he didn't
offer a word in reply; and, presently, Jorrocks landed us at the jetty
stairs, close inside the Cattwater.
Our old friend seemed quite sorry to part with us; and, knowing our
destitute condition, he kindly presented us with the sum of five
shillings, which he said was a joint subscription from all hands, who
had "parted freely" when they learnt that we were about to be turned
adrift from the brig, but which I believe mainly came out of his own
pocket.
"Good-bye, my lads," were his last words. "Keep your pecker up, and if
you'll take the advice of an old sailor, I'd recommend you to write to
your friends and go home."
"Much he knows of my Aunt Matilda!" I said to Tom, as we watched the
good-hearted fellow pulling back to the old tub on board of which we had
passed through so much. "If he were acquainted with all the
circumstances of the case I don't think he'd advise my going home at all
events!"
"I'm not quite sure of that, Martin," replied Tom, who was now
thoroughly tired of everything connected with the sea, vowing that,
after the experience he had gained, he would not go afloat again, to be
made "Lord High Admiral of England!"
"Well, we'll deliberate about it," said I, as we turned away from the
jetty and walked towards the town, where our immediate intention was to
enter a coffee-shop and get a substantial breakfast out of the funds
which Jorrocks had so thoughtfully provided us with.
Here, Tom's fate was soon decided; for, we had not long been seated in a
small restaurant where we had ordered some coffee and bread-and-butter,
which were the viands we specially longed for, than an advertisement on
the front page of an old copy of the _Times_ caught my eye.