"How would you like to learn boxing?"
"Very much," I replied, "because if I knew how to spar, I would be
less likely to get a thrashing."
They took me to a school of boxing, where I was submitted to another
examination. They gave me six pounds sterling and agreed to train me
for the prize ring. In return, I was to box for Queensland,
exclusively.
That began a strenuous time for me. I was put to work with all kinds
of gymnastic apparatus to harden my body, particularly chest and
stomach, to resist blows. I went through three months of that kind
of training before I was allowed to try a boxing pass. Then I
practised sparring with an experienced boxer. I was told that, after
I had progressed far enough, I would be sent to San Francisco for
additional training and would make my debut there as "the Prize Boxer
of Queensland." It all looked very rosy. I liked boxing and do to
this day.
An American craft was in port, the _Golden Shore_ a four-masted
schooner plying between Queensland and Honolulu. She was later put
on the San Francisco-Vancouver-Honolulu run. They needed hands and
offered to take me as an able-bodied seaman at the excellent pay of
forty-five dollars a month. From cabin boy to able-bodied seaman in
one jump--that was an inducement, by Joe. The usual line of
succession is: cabin boy, yeoman, 'prentice seaman, able-bodied
seaman. I guess I was made to be a sailor, because that promotion
looked bigger than anything else in the world. I quit my boxing and
shipped aboard the _Golden Shore_.
In Honolulu I came upon a mystery, a fantastic mystery. It sounds
unbelievable. I, myself, cannot explain it. Someday I hope to meet
someone who can. One of the cabin boys aboard the _Golden Shore_ was
a German named Nauke. He was a violin maker by trade who had lost
all his money and put to sea. We became fast friends. At Honolulu,
Nauke invited me to go ashore with him. He brought along a can of
condensed milk, a delicacy he knew I liked. We went sightseeing, and
one of the sights was that of royalty. We stood outside of the
palace grounds and watched the Hawaiian potentate while he had tea.
He sat in a reed chair, and a couple of his wives stood beside him.
A well-dressed gentleman who seemed to be on a stroll came up to us
and began to talk to us in English.
"Don't waste your time on anything like that," he said. "Why not see
the hula-hula dance?"
Nauke and I said all right, because the hula-hula was just what we
did want to see.
The gentleman asked whether we had any better clothes to wear, to
which we responded that we had not.
"It doesn't matter," he said, "I will provide you with a suit each."
He took us to a carriage drawn by four mules, and we all got in. I
remarked to Nauke that the gentleman seemed to be a man of means.
The gentleman turned his head.
"You mustn't talk so much," he said in German.
We came to the sugar plantations outside the town. The carriage
stopped. Our host led us to a field path, until finally we came to a
European house that had an air of distinction. Young colts grazed
within a fence. Through the large windows of the stately villa I saw
a row of large black tables such as are used in Germany, in a lecture
room. Our host told Nauke to wait outside, and got a piece of cake
for him. I whispered to Nauke not to go away.
I felt very strange on entering the house. The man showed me into a
room next to the hall with the many tables. He was about to lock the
door. I asked him not to. In the room was a long black table like
those I had seen in the other room. The man said he was going
upstairs to get a measuring tape. While he was gone, I noticed that
under the table were two long narrow boxes with heavy locks on both
sides. What if I should end in one of those boxes! But I was
confident. What had I learned boxing for?
The stranger returned with a tape. He measured my arm. Unlike a
tailor, he measured from wrist to shoulder instead of from shoulder
to wrist.
"Thirty," he announced, repeated it once, and muttered several other
numbers between his teeth.
He pulled my coat halfway down my back, thus hindering my arms. He
remarked that the light was poor, and turned me so that my back was
toward the outer door. I could hear a creaking that told me someone
was moving behind that door. I noticed on the floor below the lower
part of the table a disorderly pile of old clothes which looked as
though they might be sailors' togs. The gentleman took off my belt
and laid it on the table. Attached to the belt was my knife case.
It was empty. I wondered where my knife might be. I remembered
having it that morning. I had peeled potatoes with it. My blood
froze as between empty bottles on the window sill I saw a chopped off
human thumb with a long sinew attached. The gentleman was about to
let down my trousers, which would have kept me from running.
I jerked my coat back into place, knocked the man down with a heavy
blow, grabbed my empty knife case from the table, kicked open the
nearest door to the open, and jumped out, shouting for Nauke. He
appeared, still munching his piece of cake. We ran out into the
plantation and threw ourselves down among the cane. There was the
sound of a whistle and of galloping horses and running men. They
were hunting for us along the roads. We groped our way among the
fields, and, after losing our way several times, finally reached the
beach.
We looked up an English-speaking policeman and told him our story.
He shrugged his shoulders and said it would take a special force of
detectives to discover how many sailors had mysteriously disappeared
on the islands. Our captain merely remarked that we deserved a good
thrashing for going ashore. We sailors on the ship laid a plan to
take the plantation by storm on the following Sunday, and gathered
our weapons for the raid. But on Friday a quarantine was proclaimed,
due to some infectious disease that was spreading, and the raid was
off. In later times, I often inquired about the strange
circumstance, and heard tales of white sailors disappearing on the
islands, but never a solution of the mystery.
On board the _Golden Shore_ was a lad named August from Winsen on the
Luhe, in Germany. He and I talked over the ever-beguiling idea of
serving a master no longer, but of being our own masters. We knew
that fishing was considered good on the western coast of North
America, and we determined to go into business for ourselves as
fishermen. The _Golden Shore_ took her course to Seattle, and there
we were informed that the fishing was best around Vancouver. At
Vancouver we looked things over and came to the conclusion that the
ideal thing would be to live in a boat and hunt and fish by turns.
That would be a state of perfect independence. We used what money we
had to buy a rifle. Now all we needed was a boat.
At the fishing village of Modeville, a number of sailboats were
moored off shore. They belonged to Indians and half-breeds, whose
camp fires we could see and whose savage dogs barked out fierce
alarms. It was about dusk. Cautiously, we launched one of the
canoes on the beach and paddled out to one of the sailboats that had
taken our fancy. We got aboard quietly and cut the anchor rope. The
boat was set lightly for drying. There was only a slight breeze, and
we drifted very slowly. Somebody ashore saw the boat drifting. A
canoe came paddling out in leisurely fashion. We gave the sail a
hoist to get up more speed. The men in the canoe noticed this at
once. They yelled and paddled hard. We were in a fix. But as we
passed out of the lee of the high mountains, we got a windfall, the
sail bellied out, and the boat scudded swiftly along. From the shore
they fired at us with rifles, but we were away.
We sailed to Seattle, and there the sailors of a German boat gave us
a supply of food and some white lead with which to paint our boat.
We hunted and fished and got along, and then grew tired of it. We
were honest lads, and tried to return our boat secretly to Modeville.
We were caught and haled before a Canadian judge. He was lenient and
put us on probation for a few weeks.
That was my first adventure at piracy.
In Vancouver I signed on the four-masted English ship, the _Pinmore_,
on which I was now to make the longest uninterrupted voyage of my
life. It took us two hundred and eighty-five days to sail from San
Francisco around the Horn to Liverpool. We had rations for a hundred
and eighty days, and sea water got into our water tanks. We lay in
calms for long periods on our way south, and then were held back by
long-continued storms off Cape Horn.
It was as though that ship harboured a devil. We did not meet a
single craft that we could ask for provisions. None of the rain
clouds that went drifting past came near enough to provide us with
water. Between the half rations and the brackish water in our tanks,
six men died of scurvy and beri-beri, and the rest were so ill with
these dread diseases that their abdomens and legs swelled up as
though with dropsy. We used only the storm sails. None of us was
able to climb into the rigging. When at length we sighted England
off the Scillys, the last portion of peas had been distributed, and
when the tug hove up to us in St. George's Channel we all cried,
"Water, water!" We drank all the water that we could hold, and still
we were thirsty. Our bodies were dried up. I was a fortnight in
hospital.
I gave the _Pinmore_ a willing farewell, hoping never to see her
again. Strange how coincidence turns. I did see her again, a long
time later, from the deck of my raider _Seeadler_.
V