THE FIRING OF JAKE
The street was blazing with the morning light, and, turning a corner,
a puff of wind from the bay hit George in the face. It carried with
it a scent of tar, oakum and bilge, and it was like the breath of the
great god Adventure himself, the god of morning and unknown places and
strange happenings.
It felt good to be alive, and the clearing up of a ratty old yacht with
Hank Fisher, seemed the joyfullest business on earth. Hank had hit a
big nail on the head. Money would have spoiled this show—just as it
spoils most shows.
They passed along the wharf till they reached Sullivan’s. Hank dumped
his bundle and came to the side and George, following him, saw Jake.
Jake was fishing.
“Hullo,” said Hank.
“Hullo,” said Jake.
“Caught anything?” said Hank.
“Naw—fish ain’t bitin’.”
“Well, I’m sorry for that, for I’ve taken over the fishing rights.
Jake, you’re fired, the yacht’s mine, I’ve taken her over and you’ve
got to get.”
“Y’ mean to say you’ve bought her?”
“Nope. Mr. Tyrebuck has loaned her to me. It’s all the same, you’ve got
to get. Here’s his letter, want to read it?”
He dropped the typewritten letter down and Jake spelled over it. Then
he said: “And how about the pay due to me, you goin’ to settle?”
“Nope—McCallum’s will pay you. Better go to them, they’ll be glad to
see you for I told them what you said about her.”
“And what did I say about her?”
“Told me her spars were carrots and her planking mush.”
“That’s a damned lie,” said Jake, “and if there’s law to be had in
’Frisco, I’ll have you for it, b’gob.”
“Told me she’d open out first beam sea—now then, you dog-eyed
squateroo, get your dunnage and clear, pronto.”
George had never seen Hank heated until this. His eyes blazed and his
lean face filled with venom as he looked down on the man who had tried
to crab the _Wear Jack_.
Jake tried to meet his gaze, failed, collected his dunnage, drew in his
fishing line and scrambled ashore.
“If there’s law to be had in ’Frisco, I’ll have you for this,” cried he.
Hank dropped the bundle of overalls on to the deck and they followed
it.
“Swab,” said Hank.
Then they put on the overalls. Hank started his cleaning up with an
axe. There was an axe lying in the starboard scuppers, and, seizing it,
he made for the old dinghy.
“Go hunt for a mop,” he cried to the other. “I saw one down below.
Can’t dump this old bath tub into the harbour as she is or there’ll be
trouble. B’sides I want exercise.”
He began to set the rotten planks flying with the axe, whilst George
fetched the mop, also a bucket, which, under the direction of the
perspiring Hank, he fastened to a rope so that they could dip up water
for deck swilling. The remains of the dinghy overboard, they turned to
on the raffle; rope ends, dead and done blocks, old newspapers, bits of
coal.
“Why, look you here,” said Hank, holding up one of the blocks, “look at
the size of it. It must have belonged to a three-master as old as the
ark. That guy’s been hunting the wharves for old raffle to dump aboard
her and make a litter; stick it in the sail room for evidence if he
starts any law bother. Now, gimme that bucket.”
The swilling and swabbing of the deck began and continued till
the dowels showed up in the planking. Then they rested and smoked
cigarettes. It was now noon, and George, as he sat on the coaming of
the cabin skylight, resting and watching the planking dry in the sun,
felt uplifted. Since leaving the army he hadn’t done a hand’s turn of
honest work, simply because he could not find any work to do. There
are a surprising number of rich people out of work owing to no fault
of their own, unemployed men and women with big bank balances starving
for employment. The war was a simple Godsend to these. It supplied them
with a reason and an initiative. Hank had supplied George with both
these things.
Then, now that the decks were cleared up, the _Wear Jack_ began to
speak to him as only a ship can speak to a man. She was no longer a
dirty hulk but a live thing awakening from sleep, a thing with the
mobility of a bird, a sister of the sea and the wind. He had been on
many a yacht and many a steamboat as guest or passenger, but this was
the first ship he had ever got close to. The work with the mop and
bucket, the knowledge that he would soon be helping to rig her and
handle her, the sight of her now that she was cleaning up, the very
smell of her, all combined to work the charm. He went below to heave
the old block into the sail room and when he came on deck again Hank
was up like a cat in the rigging, hunting for rotten ratlines, a knife
between his teeth.
At one o’clock Farintosh appeared with the sandwiches; at five o’clock
they knocked off. They had cleared and cleaned the deck, made an
overhaul of the rigging, cleared and cleaned the cabin, and cleaned the
bathroom and lavatory.
“I’ll start on the rigging to-morrow,” said Hank. “It’s all sound but
a few ropes and ratlines—Christopher!”
“What?”
“I’ve fired the watchman and who’s to look after her?”
“Oh, she won’t hurt.”
“Won’t hurt! Why, if you fell asleep on these wharves, they’d have your
back teeth before you woke and you wouldn’t feel them pulling them.
Why, these hooligans, if they didn’t strip her, they’d camp in her, and
then she’d be no more mortal use till she was boiled. No. I guess I’ll
have to stick to her.”
“Stick to her!” cried George, “you mean to say, sleep here?”
“Yep. What’s wrong? The old bunk bedding will do me and the nights are
warm. To-morrow I’ll get a man to look after her for a few hours in the
evening whilst I get my dunnage aboard. Come along ashore with me while
I get some grub and a toothbrush.”
He slipped out of his overalls and they climbed ashore.
“She won’t take any harm for an hour or two by herself,” said Hank.
They found a street of shops boasting a drug store. Here Hank bought
his toothbrush, then he bought a German sausage, some bread, six small
apples and two bottles of tonic water, also an evening paper from a
yelling newsboy. Then he remembered that he would want a candle to
read the newspaper by and went into a ships chandler’s to buy one,
leaving George outside.
George glanced at the paper, then he spread it open hurriedly and stood
reading it, heedless of the passersby or the people who jostled him.
Hank, coming out of the store with his candle, looked over George’s
shoulder and this is what he read, in scare headlines across a double
column of print:
HANK FISHER OF
THE BOHEMIAN
CLUB GOES AFTER
THE DUTCHMAN
* * * * *
Joe Barrett Loses on the Deal But
Comes Up Smiling at Josh Tyrebuck
and Bud du Cane
* * * * *
Then came the details. The dollar tossed at the Bay Club, which gave
Hank two thousand dollars’ worth of goods for nothing, the loan of
the _Wear Jack_ by Tyrebuck and George du Cane’s participation in the
business.
George felt as though all his clothes had suddenly been stripped off
him there in the street. Hank whistled.
Then he said: “That’s Barrett. Lord, I might have known. He didn’t toss
fair, he wanted me to win, and now, look! He’s got the goods, five
thousand dollars’ worth of advertising for a thousand dollars’ worth
of bully beef and canned t’matoes. It won’t cost him more than that,
for he’s giving me the stuff at retail prices. And now it will be all
over the town and all over the waterside.”
“Curse him,” said George. His lips were dry. There was a jocular
tone in that confounded press notice that cast a blight on everyone
concerned except Joe Barrett. Joe, though he was the only loser of
money in the business up to the present was, in some extraordinary way,
put on a pedestal as a sport, whilst the others ran round the plinth
like figures of fun.
“It’s him and his publicity man, Josh Scudder, who’ve done it,” said
Hank. “I can tell Josh’s hand in it—it’s his style. Well, there it is,
it can’t be helped. I’d planned to slip out quiet and come back with a
brass band playing Dutchland under alles and Vanderdecken in leg irons;
now the blanket’s stripped off us clean. We’ll be laughed at from Hell
to Hoboken if we don’t make good. We’re on the toboggan full speed, no
use grabbing at the snow. There’s only one way out—we’ve gotta get the
Dutchman.”