HOMEWARD BOUND
It was Saturday, nearly two weeks after my arrival in Yokohama, that I
saw a chance to escape from Japan. The American consul had promised to
speak for me to the captain of a fast mail steamer to sail a few days
later.
Early the following Monday, the last day of July, I turned in at the
American consul’s office just as two men stepped out. One was the
vice-consul; the other, a large man of some fifty years, wearing
thick-rimmed spectacles and a broad-brimmed felt hat. His black hair was
unusually long. I supposed he was a missionary, and stepped aside to let
him pass. The vice-consul, however, catching sight of me as he shook the
stranger’s hand, beckoned to me.
“By the way,” he said, speaking to the stranger; “here is an American
sailor who wants to work his passage to the States. Can’t you take him
on, captain?”
Captain, indeed! Of what? The fast mail steamer, perhaps. I stepped
forward eagerly.
“Umph!” said the stranger, looking me over. “On the beach, eh? Why, yes;
he can come on board and I’ll set him at work.”
“Good!” cried the vice-consul. “There you are! Now don’t loaf and make
us ashamed to ask a favor of the captain next time.”
“Go get something to eat,” said the captain, “and wait for me on the
pier.”
I raced away to the Home to invite one of the “boys” I had met there to
a farewell luncheon, then returned to the place of meeting. The day was
stormy, and a dozen downpours drenched me as many times during the seven
hours that I waited. Toward nightfall the captain drove up in a
’rickshaw, and we stepped into his launch.
Ten minutes later I should have given much to have been able to spring
back on the wharf. The launch raced at full speed out across the harbor,
past the last steamer riding at anchor, and turned toward the open sea.
Where in the name of Father Neptune was she bound? I wiped the water
from my eyes and gazed in astonishment at the fast disappearing shore.
The last ship was already behind. The higher waves of the outer bay
caught our tiny boat as she slipped through the mouth of the
break-water, and sent me waltzing about the slippery deck. Was the
long-haired captain a lunatic who had chosen a launch for a sea voyage?
Then all at once I understood, and gasped with dismay. Far off through
the driving rain appeared the towering masts of the sailing-vessels, and
that one toward which we were headed had her sails bent, ready for
starting. That vice-consul had sentenced me to work my way home on a
sailing-vessel!
Dusk was settling over the harbor when the launch bumped against the
ship’s side. Several seamen, sprawling about the deck, sprang to their
feet as I poked my head over the bulwarks.
“Hooray!” bawled a loud voice. “A new shipmate, lads. Turn out an’ see.”
Sailors dressed and half dressed stumbled out on the deck; and in the
twinkling of an eye I was surrounded by all hands and the cook.
The cook gave me leave to dry my uniform in the galley, and I went to
the forecastle to tell my story to the excited crew.
[Illustration: When I arrived in Yokohama I found the city decorated in
honor of Secretary Taft’s party, which, with Miss Roosevelt, arrived
July 25, 1905. The arch through which they drove to the station is made
of evergreens.]
“It’s a ragged deal t’ ’ave t’ work your passage ’ome on a wind-jammer,”
cried one of the seamen, when I had finished. “Howsomever, ’ere you are,
an’ it’s no use kickin’ after you’re ’ung.
“This tub?” he went on, in answer to my question about the ship. “She’s
the _Glenalvon_, English built, as you can see wi’ your eyes shut, solid
enough, being all iron but ’er decks; but that’s all can be said for
’er. This crowd shipped on ’er from England two years ago with loaded
saltpeter for Yokohama, and she’s bound now for the States all right—to
load wheat for ’ome, like ’nough. Maybe it’ll take a month to get
there.”
By the time my clothes were dry the second mate came forward to tell me
what my work was to be, and I turned in with my new mess-mates. It
barely seemed possible that I had fallen asleep, when there came a
banging on the iron door of the sailors’ room and a noisy shout of:
“All hands! Up anchor, ho!”
With only five minutes to jump into our clothes, we tumbled out
hurriedly. Twenty-two men and boys, their heads still heavy with sleep,
grasped the bars of the capstan—the wheel that pulled up the anchor. For
four hours we marched round and round the creaking thing. One man at a
proper machine could have raised the anchor in ten minutes; but the
_Glenalvon_ had not so much as a donkey-engine.
Dawn found us still treading around in a circle in time to a mournful
song sung by long-winded members of the crew. The sun rose, and the
sweat ran in streams along the bars. Hunger gnawed us inwardly. The
captain went ashore for his morning outing, a steamer slipped by us, and
I caught myself gazing sorrowfully away across the bay at the city we
were about to leave behind.
Then all at once the second mate, peering over the side, raised a hand.
“Shake ’em out!” he bellowed. “All hands! Man the wheel!”
The crew sprang into the rigging and climbed the masts. We loosened a
dozen sails, and, leaving a man on each mast to fasten the ropes, slid
down on deck again. Then came a harder task, to raise the upper
topsail-yards—timbers that kept the sails stretched out to their full
width. Every man on board pulled on the rope; even then we were not
enough. The heavy iron yard rose, but only inch by inch; and every pull
seemed to yank our arms half out of their sockets.
It was finally fastened in place, however. Then, breaking up into
smaller groups, the crew raised more timbers, and, when we turned in for
breakfast an hour late, weak and ugly from hunger, the _Glenalvon_ was
ready to sail.
“At least,” I told myself, rubbing my aching arms between mouthfuls of
watery soup, “we’re off, and the worst is over.”
Which only proved how little I knew of the queer ways of “wind-jammers.”
Refusing to hire a tug, our captain was determined to beat his way out
of Tokyo harbor by tacking back and forth against the wind that blew
steadily in at the mouth of the bay. A bellow called us on deck before
breakfast was half over, to go about ship again. A few more mouthfuls,
and we were at it again. But it was of no use. The wind blew stronger
and held us back; the bay was narrow. On the third time across the
captain moved too near the shore, lost his head, and roared out an
order:
“Let go the anchor!”
The anchor dropped with a mighty roar and rattle of chain; sails came
down with a run; ropes screamed through the blocks; the topsails fell
with a crash; sails swelled out and snapped in the breeze with the boom
of cannon; blocks fell about our heads; ropes and chains of every size
threshed about the decks, snatching us off our feet and slashing us in
the face; men and goats sprawled about the deck. It seemed as if an
earthquake had struck us, and in three minutes the work of five toilsome
hours had been utterly undone.
When the uproar ceased we began the work of restoring things to order
again—furled the sails, raised yards, coiled up the thousand and one
ropes that carpeted the deck, attended to many other tasks. To most
people this would have seemed work enough for one day. But after less
than a half hour for dinner we were called out once more and sent over
the side with our paint-pots.
Exactly the same thing happened to us the next day, and the next. Day
after day the wind blew steadily in at the mouth of the harbor, holding
us there.
A week went by. A ship that had long ridden at anchor near the
_Glenalvon_ was towed out to sea and sailed away. The fast mail steamer
glided by so close that one of the “boys” whom I had known at the
Sailors’ Home waved to me from her deck. A dozen ships went in and out,
and still the white cone of Fujiyama gazed down upon us. The harbor of
Yokohama came to be a sight hateful to all on board. The crew was worn
out in body and spirit, and I began to give up hope of ever again
setting foot on land.
But our skipper was forced to hire a tug at last. On the morning of
August eleventh we turned out to raise the anchor for the tenth time.
The skipper had been rowed ashore the afternoon before, and a tug was
waiting to take us out of the harbor. Late in the day she dropped us
outside the narrows, and when night fell the _Glenalvon_ was tossing on
the open sea.
We had no time to feel dull on the trip across. First of all, the breeze
that had held us bottled up in the harbor for twelve days increased to a
heavy gale. For more than a week it blew steadily from the same
direction. Rain poured constantly. Lashed by the storm, the sea rose
mountain high, and the ship reared like a cow-boy’s broncho, or lay on
her side like a mortally wounded creature.
[Illustration: A Yokohama street decorated for the Taft party.]
There was no standing on the deck. The best pair of sea legs failed to
do it. We moved like mountain goats on a mountain-peak, springing from
post to railing and from railing to stairway, or dragging ourselves hand
over hand along the ropes. After a time the wind changed in direction so
often that every square of canvas had to be furled, rolled up, and
shaken out again a dozen times a day. The bellow ordering us about was
forever ringing in our ears. We lived in the rigging, like apes in
tree-tops.
The wind, the pouring rain, and the sudden gales continued for weeks.
The weather turned bitter cold. Unable to hold her course, the
_Glenalvon_ ran “by the wind” far to the north. One night in the second
week out, a goat froze to death. With only my khaki uniform, I should
have suffered the same fate had it not been for the kindness of a
shipmate who allowed me to use a “dead man’s gear” which he was afraid
to wear.
To tell of all the hardships and misfortunes that befell us during that
voyage would make this story too long. We slept in wooden bins on sacks
filled with bits of straw and lashed ourselves fast to keep from being
thrown out on the deck. The kind of beds we had mattered little, though,
for we were not in them much of the time. The food fell so low that we
had to get along on half rations; which was well, perhaps, for what was
left had been on board more than two years. The biscuits in one cask
opened toward the end of the voyage, were stamped with the date of 1878.
Looking forward to an easy passage, the captain had rigged out the ship
in her oldest suit of sails. One by one, the fury of the wind tore them
to ribbons. The bursting of canvas sounded above the roar of every
storm. As each sail went, new ones of double-weight canvas were dragged
from the locker and raised on high to the top of the mast. It was
dangerous work to hang on away up there while bending a sail on the icy
poles, with the wind howling about you, the foot-rope slippery, and
every line frozen stiff, while the ship swung back and forth far below
like a cork on the end of a stick. Every old sail was carried away
before that unchanging wind, and even the new canvas was sometimes
split.
On the eighth of September we found that, after all our work, we had
covered just sixty miles! But on that day the wind changed, and our
vessel caught the breeze on her beam and raced homeward like a steamer.
On the nineteenth day of September some one said that we were nearing
port. Several of the seamen declared that the voyage was not half over;
but, for all that, everybody began to get excited. In the middle of the
afternoon the mate gave an order to get the anchor over the side. He did
not have to repeat the command. The men rushed to the work, laughing
childishly. In a short time the anchor swung in place, and we waited
impatiently for signs of land.
But the best pair of eyes could not have made out a mountain a ship’s
length away in the fog that enveloped us. For two days we beat up and
down the coast, not knowing just where we were, while the crew nibbled
stale biscuits in helpless rage.
On the twenty-first the gale died down to a quieter breeze, and in the
early afternoon the fog thinned and lifted, and a mighty cheer from the
watch brought every man tumbling from his bunk. A few miles off before
us a rocky highland rose slowly, throwing off the gray mist like a giant
freeing himself of a flowing garment. A tug hovering near the shore
spied the flapping canvas of the _Glenalvon_, and darted out to meet us.
We were near the entrance to Puget Sound.
All night long the tug strained at the ropes of our vessel. In the
afternoon we dropped anchor in a quiet bay close off a wooded shore
decorated by several wigwams.
The next morning I began work with the crew as usual, and toiled from
daylight to dark. No hint that I was to be freed from duty having
reached me by the next afternoon, I marched forward and asked for my
discharge.
“What’s your hurry?” demanded the captain. “I’ll sign you on at full
wages and you can make the trip home in her.”
“Thank you kindly, sir,” I answered, “but I’m home now, once I get
ashore.”
“Aye!” snorted the captain. “And in three days you’ll be on the beach
and howling to sign on again. Turn to with the crew until she’s tied up
in Tacoma, and I’ll give you your discharge.”
I told him plainly that I could not wait. I wanted to go ashore at once.
“Huh! That’s it!” growled the master. “Every man jack of you with the
price of a drink coming to him is ready to desert if a shift of work
turns up. Well, to-morrow is Sunday. I’ll get some money when I go
ashore, and pay you off on Monday morning. But I’ll have to set you down
on the records as a deserter.”
“Very good, sir,” I answered.
Fifty-seven days after boarding the _Glenalvon_ I bade farewell to her
crew. Dressed in a khaki uniform and an ancient pair of sea-boots that
had cost me four messes of plum-duff, I landed with the captain at a
rocky point on the farther side of the bay. He marched before me until
we reached the door of a lonely tavern, then turned and dropped into my
hand seven and a half dollars.
“You must be back on board by to-morrow night,” he said.
“Eh!” I gasped.
“Oh, I have to tell you that,” snapped the skipper, “or I can’t set you
down as a deserter,” and, pushing aside the swinging doors before him,
he disappeared.
I plodded on toward the city of Victoria. The joy of being on land once
more—above all, of being my own master—was so keen that it was with
difficulty that I kept myself from cutting a caper in the public street.
I was really in a foreign land still; yet how everything about made me
think of the fatherland from which I had been so long absent. The wooden
sidewalk drumming under my boots; the cozy houses, roofed with shingles
instead of tiles, and each standing far back from the street on its own
green lawn; the tinkle of cow-bells in neighboring pastures—a hundred
little unimportances, that I had hardly noticed when I lived among them,
stood forth to call up memories of the years gone by. In Victoria each
passer-by seemed like a long-lost friend, so familiar did each look in
face, clothing, and actions. All that day, as often as I heard a voice
behind me, I whirled about and stared at the speaker, utterly astonished
that he should be speaking English.
I caught the night boat for Seattle, and landed at midnight in my native
land, after an absence of four hundred and sixty-six days.
For two days following I did little but sleep. Then I boarded a train
one evening to continue eastward, landing in Spokane the second night
thereafter. My wages as a seaman being nearly spent, I stopped a week in
Spokane, where I helped build cement sidewalks. At the end of that time
I shipped as a railway laborer to Paola, Montana.
The train halted at midnight at the station named ——, a lonely shanty in
a wild mountain gorge.
The next morning I went on to Havre. While stepping from one of its
restaurants, a ranchman accosted me. He put me in charge of seven
carloads of cattle, and when night fell I was speeding eastward again.
Six days later I turned the animals over to the tender mercies of a
packing-house in Chicago, and on the morning of October fourteenth
walked into the home of my parents.
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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
1. Changed “Sidra” to “Sidon” on p. 92.
2. Silently corrected typographical errors.
3. Retained anachronistic and non-standard spellings as printed.
4. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.