By Joe, I've got a real sea yarn to tell you now. Wait a minute till
I light my pipe, and I'll tell you about the voyage of the _Cæsarea_.
She was my first German ship. With a cargo bound for Melbourne, we
set sail from Hamburg. My friend Nauke was aboard, and again we were
comrades. The captain was a clever sailor, but an old skinflint.
The cook, who on German ships is called "Smutje"--smudgy, smutty--was
a good fellow, but was keen to please the miserly captain. Together,
they did wonders in skimping our food. On Monday we got peas, on
Tuesday beans, on Wednesday, for a change, yellow peas, on Thursday
brown beans, on Friday "blue Henry," which looked like coffee beans,
but smaller, on Saturday corned beef (bully beef), and on Sunday, as
a Sabbatical delicacy, we got a special dish called "plum and
dumplings." The fare never changed, and we were always hungry. Very
good, Smutje, you were an excellent fellow at heart, but that
penny-squeezing captain made a son-of-a-gun of a sea cook out of you,
and you are the hero of this tale.
One day I was sitting on a topyard. I could hear Smutje down in the
galley whistling "My Heart Is Like a Beehive," which was a song hit
of those days. I whistled along with him. My heart was like a
bee-hive, and girls were the bees and one of them was the queen bee.
I could see her floating in front of me. Yes, it was the same fairy
princess of my dreams whom I had seen in imagination from the deck of
the _Niobe_ on that first voyage when we sighted the Isle of
Fuerteventura in the Canaries. My fairy princess lived on that
distant tropic island of waving palms and white houses. So I
whistled as loud as I could the same tune that Smutje was whistling,
"My Heart Is Like a Beehive."
"What is that?"
I couldn't trust my eyes. I saw two arms thrust from the galley.
They supported a big tray, which they thrust on to the skylight of
the galley. The tray was heaped with a big stack of pancakes. What?
A thousand miles out at sea, and pancakes fresh and warm?
I slid down the rope, and tiptoed to the galley. I took that stack
of pancakes from the plate and slipped them inside my shirt, against
my breast. Then I climbed to the yardarm again. Whew! By Joe,
those pancakes were hot! They were burning into my flesh. When I
was halfway up the mast I thought I should fall down, but I kept
saying over and over, "Phelax, you are a sailor now, and a sailor
never winces." When I was aloft I laid the pancakes on the yard, and
ate them as fast as I could. There were fourteen of those pancakes.
Smutje was still whistling. "Ah, but just wait, you old sea cook,
and see what kind of a beehive your heart is in a few minutes!"
Two arms were thrust out of the galley, and very carefully, so the
flapjacks might not slide off, the empty platter was lowered. Next a
long shrill whistle and then a smothered cry:
"My flap jacks!"
Smutje came climbing to the roof of the galley, thinking that perhaps
with the rolling of the ship the flapjacks had slid off the plate.
Then he roared, cursing:
"Damned pack of thieves."