Three days before the Retriever finished loading, the captain wired a
trustworthy Seattle crimp recommended by Mr. Murphy, instructing him to
send down a second mate, eight seamen and a good cook--and to bring them
drunk, because the vessel was laden with creosoted piling. Captain Noah
Kendall, Matt's predecessor on the Retriever, had been raised on clipper
ships and as he grew old had allowed himself the luxury of a third mate,
to which arrangement Cappy Ricks, having a certain affection for Captain
Noah, had never made any objection; but something whispered to Matt
Peasley that the quickest route to Cappy's heart would be via a short
payroll, so he concluded to dispense with a third mate and tack ten
dollars a month extra on the pay-check of the excellent Murphy.
The Retriever was lying in the stream fully loaded when the crew
arrived, convoyed by the crimp's runner. In accordance with instructions
they were drunk, the crimp having furnished his runner with a two-gallon
jug of home-made firewater upon leaving Seattle. One man--the second
mate--was fairly sober, however, and while the launch that bore him to
the Retriever was still half a mile from the vessel the breezes brought
him an aroma which could not, by any possibility, be confused with the
concentrated fragrance of the eight alcoholic breaths being exhaled
around him. Muttering deep curses at his betrayal, he promptly leaped
overboard and essayed to swim ashore. The runner pursued him in the
launch, however, and gaffed him by the collar with a boat-hook; the
launch-man, for a consideration, aided the runner, and the unwilling
wretch was carried struggling to purgatory.
“Oh, look who's here!” Mr. Murphy yelled to the skipper, as
the bedraggled second mate was propelled forcibly up the ship's
companion-ladder to the waiting arms of the first mate. “Welcome home,
Angus, my lad.”
It was Mr. MacLean, their quondam second mate, cast back on the deckload
of the Retriever by the resurgent tide of maritime misfortune. Mr.
Murphy sat down and held himself by the middle and laughed until the
tears ran down his ruddy cheeks, while Matt Peasley joined heartily in
the mirth. The unfortunate Mr. MacLean also wept--but from other causes,
to wit--grief and rage.
“I'm happy to have you with us again, Mr. MacLean,” Matt saluted the
second mate. “While your courage and loyalty might be questioned, your
ability may not. So the crimp swindled you, eh? Told you he wanted you
for another ship and then switched the papers on you, eh?”
“You should never trust a crimp, Angus,” Mr. Murphy warned him. “And you
should never do business with them unless you're cold sober. Let this be
a lesson to you, my lad. Never be a drinking man and you'll never have
to go to a crimp for a snug berth. Run along to your old room, now,
Angus, and shift into some dry clothes, if you expect to finish the
voyage.”
“I'll gie ye ma worrd I'll desert in th' discharrgin' port!” Mr. MacLean
burred furiously. “Ye hae me noo, body an' bones--”
“Aye, and we'll keep you, Angus. Have no fear of that. And you'll not
desert in the discharging port. I'll see to that,” Matt Peasley assured
him.
When the last man had been assisted aboard Matt signaled for the tug he
had engaged. By the time she had hooked on and towed them over the bar
three of the seamen were sober enough to assist the skipper and the
mates in getting all plain sail, with the exception of the square sails,
on her, and, with a spanking nor'west breeze on her quarter she rolled
away into the horizon.
Despite the fact that the Retriever's bottom was rather foul with marine
growth, and the further fact that her master had to lay her head under
her wing in a blow which, with an ordinary cargo, he would have bucked
right into, the run to Antofagasta was made in average time. And when
Matt Peasley went ashore to report by cable to his owners he discovered
that Cappy Ricks had provided him with a cargo of nitrate for Makaweli.
“What did I tell you, sir?” Mr. Murphy growled when the captain informed
him of the owners' orders. “I tell you, sir, the dirtiest cargo Cappy
Ricks can find is too good for us. Praise be, the worst we can get at
Makaweli is a sugar cargo.”
Mr. Murphy's grudge against nitrate lay in the annoyance incident to
taking on the cargo properly. Nitrate is very heavy and cannot, like
sugar, be loaded flush with the hatches, thus rendering shifting of the
cargo impossible. In loading nitrate a stout platform must be erected
athwart ship, above the keelsons, in order that the foundation of the
cargo may be laid level; for, as the sacked nitrate is piled, the pile
must be drawn in gradually until the sides meet in a peak like a roof.
It must then be braced and battened securely with heavy timbers from
each side of the ship, in order that the dead weight may be held in the
center of the ship and keep her in trim. Woe to the ship that shifts a
cargo of nitrate in a heavy gale; for it is a tradition of the sea that,
once a vessel rolls her main yard under, she will not roll it back, and
ultimately is posted at Lloyd's as missing.
When the cargo was out Mr. Murphy went ashore and purchased a lot of
Chinese punk, which he burned in the hold, with the hatches battened
down, while Mr. MacLean, who had once been a druggist's clerk, and who,
by the way, had concluded to stay by the ship, sloshed down the decks
with an aromatic concoction mixed by a local apothecary. The remnant of
their spoiled stores Matt Peasley, like a true Yankee, sawed off to good
advantage on a trustful citizen of Antofagasta, and credited the ship
with the proceeds; after which he got his nitrate aboard and squared
away for the Hawaiian Islands.
The run to Makaweli was very slow, for the ship was logy with the grass
and barnacles on her bottom. At Makaweli he found a sugar cargo awaiting
him for discharge at Seattle; and, thanks to the northwest trades at her
quarter, the Retriever wallowed home reasonably fast.