When Matt Peasley's Yankee combativeness, coupled with the accident of
birth in the old home town of Cappy Ricks, gained for him command of
the Blue Star Navigation Company's big barkentine, Retriever, he lacked
eight days of his twenty-first birthday. He had slightly less beard than
the average youth of his years; and, despite the fact that he had been
exposed almost constantly to salty gales since his fourteenth birthday,
he did not look his age. And of all the ridiculous sights ashore or
afloat the most ridiculous is a sea captain with the body of a Hercules
and the immature features of an eighteen-year-old boy.
Indeed, such a great, soft, innocent baby type was Matt Peasley that
even the limited sense of humor possessed by his motley crew forbade
their reference to him, after custom immemorial, as the Old Man. The
formal title of captain seemed equally absurd; so they compromised by
dubbing him Mother's Darling.
“If,” quoth Mr. Michael Murphy, chief kicker of the Retriever, over a
quiet pipe with Mr. Angus MacLean, the second mate, as the vessel lay at
anchor in Grays Harbor, “Cappy Ricks had laid eyes on Mother's Darling
before ordering him to Seattle to go up for his master's ticket, the old
fox would have scuttled the ship sooner than trust that baby with her.”
“Ye'll nae be denying the lad kens his business,” Mr. MacLean declared.
“Aye! True enough, Mac; but 'twould be hard to convince Cappy Ricks o'
that. Every skipper in his employ is a graybeard.”
“Mayhap,” the canny MacLean retorted. “That's because t'owd boy's
skippers have held their berths ower long.”
But Mr. Murphy shook his head. He had come up from before the mast
in the ships of the Blue Star Navigation Company, and since he had
ambitions he had been at some pains to acquaint himself with the
peculiarities of the president of that corporation.
“Give Cappy Ricks one look into Matt Peasley's face and I'll be
skippering the Retriever,” he declared.
And in this he was more than half right, for Cappy Ricks had never met
Matt Peasley, and when the Old Man made up his mind that he wanted the
boy to skipper his barkentine, the Retriever, he was acting entirely on
instinct. He only knew that in Matt Peasley he had a man who had shipped
out before the mast and returned from the voyage in command of the ship,
and naturally such an exploit challenged recognition of the most signal
nature--particularly when, in its performance, the object of Cappy's
admiration had demonstrated that he was possessed of certain sterling
attributes which are commonly supposed to make for success in any walk
of life.
Since Matt Peasley had accomplished a man's work it never occurred to
Cappy Ricks to consider that the object of his interest might be a boy.
Young he knew him to be--that is to say, Cappy figured the rascal to be
somewhere between thirty and thirty-five.
Had he known, however, that his prospective captain had but recently
attained his majority the Old Man would have ascribed Matt Peasley's
record-breaking voyage from Cape Town to Grays Harbor as sheer luck,
and forthwith would have set Master Matthew down for a five-year
apprenticeship as first mate; for Cappy was the product of an older day,
and held that gray hairs and experience are the prime requisites for a
berth as master.
Any young upstart can run coastwise, put in his service sailing a
ship from headland to headland, and then take a course in a navigation
school, where in six weeks he can cram sufficient navigation into his
thick head to pass the inspectors and get a master's ticket; but for
offshore cruising Cappy Ricks demanded a real sailor and a thorough
business man rolled into one.
Mother's Darling had returned to Grays Harbor from a flying visit to
Seattle, where two grizzled old ex-salts, the local inspectors, had put
him through a severe examination to ascertain what he knew of Bowditch
on Navigation and Nichols on Seamanship. Naturally he did not know as
much as they thought he should; but, out of sheer salt-water pride in
the exploit of a stripling and in deference to a letter from Cappy Ricks
requesting them to waive further probation as chief mate and issue Mr.
Peasley his master's license if they found him at all competent--this
in order that the said Peasley might take command of his barkentine, the
Retriever, forthwith--the inspectors concluded to override the rules of
the Department of Commerce, and gave Matt Peasley his master's license.
Upon his return from Seattle, Matt called at the telegraph office in
Hoquiam and received his loading instructions from the owners. His heart
beat high with youthful importance and the joy of victory as he almost
ran to the water front and engaged a big gasoline launch to take him
aboard the Retriever and then kick her into the mill dock at Cosmopolis.
His ship was not where he had left her, however, and after an hour's
search he discovered her several miles up the Chehalis river. Murphy
was on deck, gazing wistfully at the house and wishing he had some white
paint, when Matt Peasley came aboard. Even before the latter leaped to
the deck Mr. Murphy knew the glad tidings--knew them, in fact, the
very instant the boy's shining countenance appeared above the rail. The
skipper was grinning fatuously and Mr. Murphy grinned back at him.
“Well, sir,” he greeted young Matt, “I see you're the permanent skipper.
I congratulate you.”
“Thank you, Mike. And I hope you will have no objection to continuing in
your berth as first mate. I realize I'm pretty young for an old sailor
like you to be taking orders from--”
“Bless your soul, sir,” Mr. Murphy protested; “of course I'll stick with
you! Didn't you whale the big Swede Cappy Ricks sent to Cape Town
to kick you out of your just due?” He reaffirmed his loyalty with a
contemptuous grunt.
“What are you doing way up the river?” the captain demanded.
“Oh, that's a little liberty I took,” the mate declared. “You're new to
this coast; and, of course, when they ordered us to Grays Harbor I knew
we weren't going to be able to go on dry dock, because there isn't any
dry dock here. So, while you were in Seattle, I had a gasoline tug tow
us up-river. We've been lying in fresh water four days, sir, and that'll
kill most of the worms on her bottom.”
“Hereafter,” said Matt Peasley, “you get ten dollars a month above the
scale. Thank you.”
Mr. Murphy acknowledged his appreciation.
“Any orders, sir?” he continued.
Matt Peasley showed him Cappy Ricks' telegram and Mr. Murphy nodded
his approval. He had been in port nearly a week and the whine of the
sawmills and the reek of river water had begun to get on his nerves. He
was ready for the dark blue again.
“There's something wrong about our cargo, I think,” Matt remarked
presently.
“Why, sir?”
“Why, down at the telegraph office this morning I met the master of the
schooner, Carrier Dove, and when I told him my orders he snickered.”
“Huh! Well, he ought to know what he snickered about, sir. The Carrier
Dove just finished loading at Weatherby's mill,” Mr. Murphy replied.
“She's a Blue Star craft and bound for Antofagasta also. Her skipper's
Salvation Pete Hansen, and it would be just like that squarehead to
dodge a deckload of piling and leave it for us.”
“Well, whatever it was it amused him greatly. It must be worse than a
deckload of piling.”
“There's nothing worse in the timber line, unless it's a load underdeck,
sir. You take a sixty-foot pile with a fourteen-inch butt and try to
shove it down through the hatch, and you've got a job on your hands.
And after the hold is half filled you've got to quit loading through the
hatch, cut ports in your bows, and shove the sticks in that way. It's
the slowest loading and discharging in the world; and unless you drive
her between ports and make up for the lost time you don't make a good
showing with your owners--and then your job's in danger. Ship owners
never consider anything except results.”
“Well,” the captain answered, “in order not to waste any more time than
is absolutely necessary, call Mr. MacLean and the cook, and we'll go
for'd and break out the anchor.”
Immediately on his arrival from Cape Town, Matt Peasley had paid off
all his foremast hands, leaving the two mates and the cook the only men
aboard the vessel. He joined them now in a walk around the capstan;
the launch hooked on and the Retriever was snaked across the harbor to
Weatherby's mill. And, while they were still three cables' length
from the mill dock, Mr. Murphy, who had taken up his position on the
topgallant forecastle, to be ready with a heaving line, suddenly raised
his head and sniffed upwind.
The captain had the wheel and Mr. MacLean was standing aft waiting to
do his duty by the stern line. Presently he, too, raised his head and
sniffed.
“I see you got it too, Mac,” Mr. Murphy bawled.
“Aw, weel,” Mr. MacLean replied; “Why worrit aboot a bridge till ye hae
to cross it? D'ye ken 'tis oors?”
“What are you two fellows talking about and why are you sniffing?” Matt
Peasley demanded.
“I'm sniffing at the same thing Salvation Pete Hansen laughed about,”
the mate answered. “I'll bet you a uniform cap we're stuck with a cargo
of creosoted piling--and hell hath no fury like a creosoted pile.”
When the vessel had been made fast to the mill dock Matt Peasley walked
forward to meet his mate.
“What about this cargo of ours?” he demanded. “Remember, I'm new to the
lumber trade on this coast. I have never handled any kind of piling.”
“Then, sir, you're going to get your education like the boa constrictor
that swallowed the nigger--all in one long, slimy bite.”
He gazed at his boyish skipper appraisingly.
“No,” he murmured to himself; “I can't do it. I like you for the way you
whaled that big Swede in Cape Town, but this is too much.”
“Why, I don't find the odor so very unpleasant,” the master declared;
“in fact, I rather like it, and I know it's healthy, because I remember,
when my brother Ezra had pneumonia, they burned creosote in the room.”
“Oh, nobody objects to the smell particularly, sir, though it's been my
experience that anybody can cheapen a good thing by overuse--and we have
three months of that smell ahead of us. It's the taste that busts my
bobstay.”
“Why, what do you mean?”
“Well, you see, sir, the odor of creosote is so heavy it won't float in
the air, but just settles down over everything, like mildew on a pair
of boots. So it gets in the stores and you taste it. You can store flour
below deck aft and creosoted piling on deck for'd--and you won't be out
two weeks before that flour is spoiled. Same way with the tea, coffee,
sugar, mush, salt-horse--everything. It all tastes of creosote; and then
the damned stuff rubs off on the ship and ruins the paintwork. And if
the crew happen to have any cuts or abrasions on their hands they're
almost certain to get infected with the awful stuff, and you'll be
kept busy doctoring them. Then, the first thing, along comes a gale and
you're shorthanded, and there's the devil to pay.”
“Aye!” Mr. MacLean interrupted solemnly. “I dinna care for creosote
mysel', sir; so, wi' your kind permission, I'll hae ma time--an' I'll
hae it noo.”
Matt Peasley bent upon the recalcitrant Scotchman a withering glare.
“Very well, Mr. MacLean,” he said presently, “I never could sail in the
same ship with a quitter; so you might as well go now, when we can part
good friends.” He turned to Mr. Murphy. “How about you, Mike? Are you
going to run out on me, too?”
Now, as between the Irish and the Scotch, history records no
preponderance of courage in either, for both are Gaels and a comparison
is difficult.
However, Scotchmen are a conservative race and will walk round a fight
rather than be forced into it, while all that is necessary to make an
Irishman fight is to impugn his courage.
Mr. Murphy had seen the fight ahead of the Retriever and he did not
blame Mr. MacLean for side-stepping it. Indeed, he had intended pursuing
the same course; but Matt Peasley, by his latest remark, had rendered
that impossible. To desert now would savor of dishonor; and, moreover,
Matt Peasley, though master, had called him by his Christian name. Mr.
Murphy touched his forelock respectfully.
“I am not Scotch,” he announced, with a slight emphasis on the pronoun.
“Shame on you, Angus MacLean--ditching the skipper like that!”
“Sticks an' stones may break ma bones, but names'll never hur-rt
me,” Mr. MacLean retorted. “I tell ye I dinna care for creosote in ma
porridge.” And he followed Matt Peasley aft, where the latter paid him
off and gave him five minutes to pack and get off the ship. Immediately
after supper the cook followed the second mate; but, since the former
was a Jap and probably the worst marine cook in the world, his departure
occasioned no heartache.
“We'll board at the mill cook-house until we're loaded, Mike,” Matt
Peasley informed the mate. “They have a good Chink up there.”
Mr. Murphy sighed as he loaded his pipe and struck a match for it.
“It does look to me, sir,” he replied, with that touch of conscious
superiority so noticeable in the Celt, “as though Cappy Ricks might have
slipped this cargo to a Dutchman.”
The Retriever commenced taking on cargo at seven o'clock the following
morning, with Mr. Murphy on shipboard and Matt Peasley on the dock
superintending the gang of stevedores. Ordinarily the masters of lumber
freighters ship their crews before commencing to load, in order that
sailors at forty dollars a month may obviate the employment of an equal
number of stevedores at forty cents an hour; but Mr. Murphy, out of his
profound experience, advised against this course, as tending to spread
the news of the Retriever's misfortune and militate against securing a
crew when the vessel should be loaded and lying in the stream ready for
sea. Men employed now, he explained, would only desert. The thing to
do was to let a Seattle crimp furnish the crew, sign them on before the
shipping commissioner in Seattle, bring them aboard drunk, tow to sea,
and let the rascals make the best of a bad bargain.
The hold was about half filled, and the ship carpenters were at work
cutting ports in the Retriever's bows, when Matt Peasley discovered that
the mill did not have in hand any order for lumber to be used as stowage
to snug up the cumbersome cargo below decks and keep it from rolling and
working in a seaway. Accordingly he wired his owners as follows:
Cosmopolis, Washington, July 7, 19--.
Blue Star Navigation Company,
258 California St.,
San Francisco, California.
No stowage.
Peasley.
Cappy Ricks having deliberately conspired to hang a series of dirty
cargoes on his newest skipper, for the dual purpose of teaching Matt
Peasley his place and discovering whether he was worthy of it, grinned
evilly when he received that two-word message; and, not to be out-done
in brevity, he dictated this answer:
San Francisco, California, July 7, 19--.
Captain Matthew Peasley,
Master Barkentine Retriever,
Care Weatherby's mill, Cosmopolis, Wash.
Know it.
Blue Star Navigation Company.
Matt Peasley's cheeks burned when he read that message. Indeed, could
Cappy Ricks have been privileged to hear the terse remarks his telegram
elicited, there is no doubt he would have sent Mr. Skinner up to the
custom-house immediately to file a certificate of change of master.
“Ha!” Mr. Murphy snorted when Matt showed him the message. “I get the
old sinner now. This is to be a grudge fight, Captain Matt. You wished
yourself onto him in Cape Town against his will, and now he's made up
his mind that so long as you wanted the job it's yours--only he'll
make you curse the day you ever moved your sea chest into the skipper's
cabin. He's going to send us into dogholes to load and open roadsteads
to discharge; and if he can find a dirty cargo anywhere we'll get it.
But it's carrying a grudge too far not to give us stowage.”
“Well, it's his ship,” Matt Peabody declared passionately. “If the
old thief can gamble on good weather I guess I can gamble on my
seamanship--and yours.”
The mate inclined his head at the delicate compliment; and Matt,
observing this, decided that a few more of the same from time to time
would do much to alleviate a diet of creosote.