The Russian full-rigged ship _Niobe_, bound for Fremantle, Australia,
was an old craft, dirty and mean. I have seen many another like her,
but she was a classic. Her captain, too, was something of a classic.
When old Peter spoke to him about taking me, although I had no
permission from my parents, he replied:
"I will take him provided he doesn't want any pay!"
I didn't want any pay, but should have preferred a more
agreeable-looking shipmaster. He had a sour, sallow face with a long
goatee, half Mephisto, half Napoleon III. He hated Germans.
I knew no Russian. The others knew no German, except the captain.
He knew it brokenly, just enough to abuse me. The helmsman spoke a
little English. I had learned a few words of English in school. I
never did learn Russian. That language has always been a puzzle to
me. During the long trip of eighty days on the _Niobe_ I was among
people whose talk between themselves, and nearly all of whose speech
addressed to me, I couldn't understand.
I discovered the helmsman's knowledge of English the first day out.
I was delighted to find that here was at least one sailor with whom I
could converse. He asked me questions. What was my father?
"A farmer," I replied.
"Well, then," quoth he, "it will be just the right thing if I appoint
you chief inspector."
That sounded important, and I walked a little stiffly as he led me
down the deck. We came to a pig pen where there were half a dozen
large and particularly filthy porkers. The chief inspector's office
was that of cleaning the pig sty.
"And besides," the helmsman added cordially, "I will appoint you
superintendent of the starboard and larboard pharmacies." I promptly
discovered that in the language of the sea a pharmacy was a latrine.
In cleaning the sty, I was not allowed to let the pigs out. I had to
go in there with them, and it was very narrow quarters. The
unspeakably dirty animals rubbed against me constantly while I
laboured with pail and brush. The sewage was so deep that it filled
my shoes. I had only two pairs of trousers. Soap and water were not
to be wasted. I grew filthier than the pigs. And then there were
the "clinics."
Everyone kicked me because I looked like a pig and smelled like one.
They called me "Pig." For food I had to go around and eat what the
sailors left on their plates. They said that was the way pigs were
fed. For breakfast, instead of coffee and rolls, there was vodka
with stale bread to soak in it. I got the leavings of this. The
salted meat, of which I got the scraps, was so strong that I could
scarcely force it down my throat. I often thought of that bill of
fare from the Fuerst Bismarck, which had lingered in my thoughts. I
had made a mistake there, by Joe.
I was afraid of the masts. I dreaded the thought of going aloft.
But I said to myself that I must get used to it. So I climbed
desperately every day, a little higher, a little higher, always
practising. Finally, one day, I got to the crow's nest, halfway to
the top. I thought that was fine. I felt so proud I called down for
the others to see where I was.
"Any old sea cook can get that far," the helmsman shouted back
scornfully.
That hurt me and made me all the more determined to learn how to go
aloft as the sailors did. I kept trying, and I watched the other
apprentices skipping nimbly high up in the rigging.
We had a storm rounding the Cape of Good Hope, followed by a heavy
swell. All the sails had been reefed except the storm sail, and we
were ready to set the main topsail. Eager to show how much I had
learned about going aloft, I climbed up to help unfurl the canvas. I
forgot old Peter's advice: one hand for the ship, the other for
yourself. The sail, filled with a sudden gust of wind, blew out like
a balloon. I fell. I grabbed hold of the gasket, the rope that
holds the sail to the yard, but it burned through my hands. I
dropped ninety feet on to the braces, the ropes that hold the yard.
If I had struck the deck, I would have been killed. At that moment
the ship heaved with a swelling wave, and I was thrown out into the
sea.
The _Niobe_ was tearing along with a speed of eight knots. I came up
astern. The wash in her wake swirled me around, but I could see a
sailor throwing me a life preserver. I couldn't find it. The waves
were too high. I sank, and when I came up I saw the ship a long,
long distance away, it seemed. I threw off my heavy oilskins and sea
boots, although there seemed little use trying to save myself by
swimming. Even if they did put out a lifeboat, they would never be
able to find me in that heavy sea.
Above me hovered several albatross, those huge white birds that seem
to think everything floating is for them to eat. They swooped down
upon me. I was ready to sink, but still had enough strength to fight
at them, waving with one hand and then another. A great white form
swooped down. A bird's talons seized a human hand. And I in turn
clutched at it. A drowning man grasps a straw, even a bird. The
albatross beat the air with its wings, frantically trying to rise. I
still kept my grip on its claw. The huge bird was keeping me afloat.
Then the albatross began to strike at my hand with its beak. It hurt
and wounded me badly. I have the scars on my hand to this day.
Still I held on.
"Phelax," I said to myself, "you will never get back to your ship,
but maybe another ship will find you if you don't let go."
The other albatross were flying above, circling around, watching the
strange proceedings.
It seemed to me as though my hand had been torn away by the repeated
striking of that beak. Then, all at once, a swell lifted me high
above the other waves, and I saw a lifeboat coming. I let go of the
albatross, and he was glad to get away, by Joe. He shot up into the
air to join his companions. That bird had saved my life, and so had
his friends. The sailors could never have found me had they not seen
those birds hovering above me. They knew that I must be swimming
there.
In the boat I said to myself that I supposed the captain would be
happy to see me back again. When we came alongside, he stood up
there above, pointing down at me.
"You, you ----! Come up here! I wish to ---- you had stayed out
there and that we were rid of you! Look, my sails are blown away,
blown away."
In the commotion caused by my going overboard, he had lost two sails.
I sat down there in the little boat with the blood flowing out of my
hand and trembling. The sea was high, and the lifeboat danced up and
down while the sailors made vain efforts to swing it over the davits.
In a wild toss the boat rose as high as the ship's gunwales. I was
so excited that I made a crazy jump, hit the deck, and was knocked
unconscious.
A moment later, the boat was smashed against the ship's side. The
sailors were pitched into the water, nine of them. For a while, it
seemed that some of them would drown, and it was only after a
struggle that the last of them managed to catch a rope and clamber on
deck.