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LITTLE BLUE BOOK NO. 1169
Edited by E. Haldeman-Julius
Stories of Ships
and the Sea
Jack London
HALDEMAN-JULIUS COMPANY
GIRARD, KANSAS
Copyright, 1922,
By Charmian London.
Reprinted by Arrangement.
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
CONTENTS
Page
Chris Farrington: Able Seaman 5
Typhoon Off the Coast of Japan 17
The Lost Poacher 25
The Banks of the Sacramento 40
In Yeddo Bay 54
STORIES OF SHIPS AND THE SEA
CHRIS FARRINGTON: ABLE SEAMAN
"If you vas in der old country ships, a liddle shaver like you vood pe
only der boy, und you vood wait on der able seamen. Und ven der able
seaman sing out, 'Boy, der water-jug!' you vood jump quick, like a shot,
und bring der water-jug. Und ven der able seaman sing out, 'Boy, my
boots!' you vood get der boots. Und you vood pe politeful, und say
'Yessir' und 'No sir.' But you pe in der American ship, and you t'ink
you are so good as der able seamen. Chris, mine boy, I haf ben a
sailorman for twenty-two years, und do you t'ink you are so good as me?
I vas a sailorman pefore you vas borned, und I knot und reef und splice
ven you play mit topstrings und fly kites."
"But you are unfair, Emil!" cried Chris Farrington, his sensitive face
flushed and hurt. He was a slender though strongly built young fellow of
seventeen, with Yankee ancestry writ large all over him.
"Dere you go vonce again!" the Swedish sailor exploded. "My name is
Mister Johansen, und a kid of a boy like you call me 'Emil!' It vas
insulting, und comes pecause of der American ship!"
"But you call me 'Chris'!" the boy expostulated, reproachfully.
"But you vas a boy."
"Who does a man's work," Chris retorted. "And because I do a man's work
I have as much right to call you by your first name as you me. We are
all equals in this fo'castle, and you know it. When we signed for the
voyage in San Francisco, we signed as sailors on the _Sophie Sutherland_
and there was no difference made with any of us. Haven't I always done
my work? Did I ever shirk? Did you or any other man ever have to take a
wheel for me? Or a lookout? Or go aloft?"
"Chris is right," interrupted a young English sailor. "No man has had to
do a tap of his work yet. He signed as good as any of us and he's shown
himself as good--"
"Better!" broke in a Novia Scotia man. "Better than some of us! When we
struck the sealing-grounds he turned out to be next to the best
boat-steerer aboard. Only French Louis, who'd been at it for years,
could beat him. I'm only a boat-puller, and you're only a boat-puller,
too, Emil Johansen, for all your twenty-two years at sea. Why don't you
become a boat-steerer?"
"Too clumsy," laughed the Englishman, "and too slow."
"Little that counts, one way or the other," joined in Dane Jurgensen,
coming to the aid of his Scandinavian brother. "Emil is a man grown and
an able seaman; the boy is neither."
And so the argument raged back and forth, the Swedes, Norwegians and
Danes, because of race kinship, taking the part of Johansen, and the
English, Canadians and Americans taking the part of Chris. From an
unprejudiced point of view, the right was on the side of Chris. As he
had truly said, he did a man's work, and the same work that any of them
did. But they were prejudiced, and badly so, and out of the words which
passed rose a standing quarrel which divided the forecastle into two
parties.
* * * * *
The _Sophie Sutherland_ was a seal-hunter, registered out of San
Francisco, and engaged in hunting the furry sea-animals along the
Japanese coast north to Bering Sea. The other vessels were two-masted
schooners, but she was a three-master and the largest in the fleet. In
fact, she was a full-rigged, three-topmast schooner, newly built.
Although Chris Farrington knew that justice was with him, and that he
performed all his work faithfully and well, many a time, in secret
thought, he longed for some pressing emergency to arise whereby he could
demonstrate to the Scandinavian seamen that he also was an able seaman.
But one stormy night, by an accident for which he was in nowise
accountable, in overhauling a spare anchor-chain he had all the fingers
of his left hand badly crushed. And his hopes were likewise crushed, for
it was impossible for him to continue hunting with the boats, and he was
forced to stay idly aboard until his fingers should heal. Yet, although
he little dreamed it, this very accident was to give him the
long-looked-for-opportunity.
One afternoon in the latter part of May the _Sophie Sutherland_ rolled
sluggishly in a breathless calm. The seals were abundant, the hunting
good, and the boats were all away and out of sight. And with them was
almost every man of the crew. Besides Chris, there remained only the
captain, the sailing-master and the Chinese cook.
The captain was captain only by courtesy. He was an old man, past
eighty, and blissfully ignorant of the sea and its ways; but he was the
owner of the vessel, and hence the honorable title. Of course the
sailing-master, who was really captain, was a thorough-going seaman. The
mate, whose post was aboard, was out with the boats, having temporarily
taken Chris's place as boat-steerer.
When good weather and good sport came together, the boats were
accustomed to range far and wide, and often did not return to the
schooner until long after dark. But for all that it was a perfect
hunting day, Chris noted a growing anxiety on the part of the
sailing-master. He paced the deck nervously, and was constantly sweeping
the horizon with his marine glasses. Not a boat was in sight. As sunset
arrived, he even sent Chris aloft to the mizzen-topmast-head, but with
no better luck. The boats could not possibly be back before midnight.
Since noon the barometer had been falling with startling rapidity, and
all the signs were ripe for a great storm--how great, not even the
sailing-master anticipated. He and Chris set to work to prepare for it.
They put storm gaskets on the furled topsails, lowered and stowed the
foresail and spanker and took in the two inner jibs. In the one
remaining jib they put a single reef, and a single reef in the mainsail.
Night had fallen before they finished, and with the darkness came the
storm. A low moan swept over the sea, and the wind struck the _Sophie
Sutherland_ flat. But she righted quickly, and with the sailing-master
at the wheel, sheered her bow into within five points of the wind.
Working as well as he could with his bandaged hand, and with the feeble
aid of the Chinese cook, Chris went forward and backed the jib over to
the weather side. This with the flat mainsail, left the schooner hove
to.
"God help the boats! It's no gale! It's a typhoon!" the sailing-master
shouted to Chris at eleven o'clock. "Too much canvas! Got to get two
more reefs into the mainsail, and got to do it right away!" He glanced
at the old captain, shivering in oilskins at the binnacle and holding on
for dear life. "There's only you and I, Chris--and the cook; but he's
next to worthless!"
In order to make the reef, it was necessary to lower the mainsail, and
the removal of this after pressure was bound to make the schooner fall
off before the wind and sea because of the forward pressure of the jib.
"Take the wheel!" the sailing-master directed. "And when I give the
word, hard up with it! And when she's square before it, steady her! And
keep her there! We'll heave to again as soon as I get the reefs in!"
Gripping the kicking spokes, Chris watched him and the reluctant cook go
forward into the howling darkness. The _Sophie Sutherland_ was plunging
into the huge head-seas and wallowing tremendously, the tense steel
stays and taut rigging humming like harp-strings to the wind. A buffeted
cry came to his ears, and he felt the schooner's bow paying off of its
own accord. The mainsail was down!
He ran the wheel hard-over and kept anxious track of the changing
direction of the wind on his face and of the heave of the vessel. This
was the crucial moment. In performing the evolution she would have to
pass broadside to the surge before she could get before it. The wind was
blowing directly on his right cheek, when he felt the _Sophie
Sutherland_ lean over and begin to rise toward the sky--up--up--an
infinite distance! Would she clear the crest of the gigantic wave?
Again by the feel of it, for he could see nothing, he knew that a wall
of water was rearing and curving far above him along the whole weather
side. There was an instant's calm as the liquid wall intervened and shut
off the wind. The schooner righted, and for that instant seemed at
perfect rest. Then she rolled to meet the descending rush.
Chris shouted to the captain to hold tight, and prepared himself for the
shock. But the man did not live who could face it. An ocean of water
smote Chris's back and his clutch on the spokes was loosened as if it
were a baby's. Stunned, powerless, like a straw on the face of a
torrent, he was swept onward he knew not whither. Missing the corner of
the cabin, he was dashed forward along the poop runway a hundred feet
or more, striking violently against the foot of the foremast. A second
wave, crushing inboard, hurled him back the way he had come, and left
him half-drowned where the poop steps should have been.
Bruised and bleeding, dimly conscious, he felt for the rail and dragged
himself to his feet. Unless something could be done, he knew the last
moment had come. As he faced the poop, the wind drove into his mouth
with suffocating force. This brought him back to his senses with a
start. The wind was blowing from dead aft! The schooner was out of the
trough and before it! But the send of the sea was bound to breach her to
again. Crawling up the runway, he managed to get to the wheel just in
time to prevent this. The binnacle light was still burning. They were
safe!
That is, he and the schooner were safe. As to the welfare of his three
companions he could not say. Nor did he dare leave the wheel in order to
find out, for it took every second of his undivided attention to keep
the vessel to her course. The least fraction of carelessness and the
heave of the sea under the quarter was liable to thrust her into the
trough. So, a boy of one hundred and forty pounds, he clung to his
herculean task of guiding the two hundred straining tons of fabric amid
the chaos of the great storm forces.
Half an hour later, groaning and sobbing, the captain crawled to Chris's
feet. All was lost, he whimpered. He was smitten unto death. The galley
had gone by the board, the mainsail and running-gear, the cook, every
thing!
"Where's the sailing-master?" Chris demanded when he had caught his
breath after steadying a wild lurch of the schooner. It was no child's
play to steer a vessel under single reefed jib before a typhoon.
"Clean up for'ard," the old man replied "Jammed under the fo'c'sle-head,
but still breathing. Both his arms are broken, he says and he doesn't
know how many ribs. He's hurt bad."
"Well, he'll drown there the way she's shipping water through the
hawse-pipes. Go for'ard!" Chris commanded, taking charge of things as a
matter of course. "Tell him not to worry; that I'm at the wheel. Help
him as much as you can, and make him help"--he stopped and ran the
spokes to starboard as a tremendous billow rose under the stern and
yawed the schooner to port--"and make him help himself for the rest.
Unship the fo'castle hatch and get him down into a bunk. Then ship the
hatch again."
The captain turned his aged face forward and wavered pitifully. The
waist of the ship was full of water to the bulwarks. He had just come
through it, and knew death lurked every inch of the way.
"Go!" Chris shouted, fiercely. And as the fear-stricken man started,
"And take another look for the cook!"
Two hours later, almost dead from suffering, the captain returned. He
had obeyed orders. The sailing-master was helpless, although safe in a
bunk; the cook was gone. Chris sent the captain below to the cabin to
change his clothes.
After interminable hours of toil day broke cold and gray. Chris looked
about him. The _Sophie Sutherland_ was racing before the typhoon like a
thing possessed. There was no rain, but the wind whipped the spray of
the sea mast-high, obscuring everything except in the immediate
neighborhood.
Two waves only could Chris see at a time--the one before and the one
behind. So small and insignificant the schooner seemed on the long
Pacific roll! Rushing up a maddening mountain, she would poise like a
cockle-shell on the giddy summit, breathless and rolling, leap outward
and down into the yawning chasm beneath, and bury herself in the smother
of foam at the bottom. Then the recovery, another mountain, another
sickening upward rush, another poise, and the downward crash. Abreast of
him, to starboard, like a ghost of the storm, Chris saw the cook dashing
apace with the schooner. Evidently, when washed overboard, he had
grasped and become entangled in a trailing halyard.
For three hours more, alone with this gruesome companion, Chris held the
_Sophie Sutherland_ before the wind and sea. He had long since forgotten
his mangled fingers. The bandages had been torn away, and the cold, salt
spray had eaten into the half-healed wounds until they were numb and no
longer pained. But he was not cold. The terrific labor of steering
forced the perspiration from every pore. Yet he was faint and weak with
hunger and exhaustion, and hailed with delight the advent on deck of the
captain, who fed him all of a pound of cake-chocolate. It strengthened
him at once.
He ordered the captain to cut the halyard by which the cook's body was
towing, and also to go forward and cut loose the jib-halyard and sheet.
When he had done so, the jib fluttered a couple of moments like a
handkerchief, then tore out of the bolt-ropes and vanished. The _Sophie
Sutherland_ was running under bare poles.
By noon the storm had spent itself, and by six in the evening the waves
had died down sufficiently to let Chris leave the helm. It was almost
hopeless to dream of the small boats weathering the typhoon, but there
is always the chance in saving human life, and Chris at once applied
himself to going back over the course along which he had fled. He
managed to get a reef in one of the inner jibs and two reefs in the
spanker, and then, with the aid of the watch-tackle, to hoist them to
the stiff breeze that yet blew. And all through the night, tacking back
and forth on the back track, he shook out canvas as fast as the wind
would permit.
The injured sailing-master had turned delirious and between tending him
and lending a hand with the ship, Chris kept the captain busy. "Taught
me more seamanship," as he afterward said, "than I'd learned on the
whole voyage." But by daybreak the old man's feeble frame succumbed,
and he fell off into exhausted sleep on the weather poop.
Chris, who could now lash the wheel, covered the tired man with blankets
from below, and went fishing in the lazaretto for something to eat. But
by the day following he found himself forced to give in, drowsing
fitfully by the wheel and waking ever and anon to take a look at things.
On the afternoon of the third day he picked up a schooner, dismasted and
battered. As he approached, close-hauled on the wind, he saw her decks
crowded by an unusually large crew, and on sailing in closer, made out
among others the faces of his missing comrades. And he was just in the
nick of time, for they were fighting a losing fight at the pumps. An
hour later they, with the crew of the sinking craft were aboard the
_Sophie Sutherland_.
Having wandered so far from their own vessel, they had taken refuge on
the strange schooner just before the storm broke. She was a Canadian
sealer on her first voyage, and as was now apparent, her last.
The captain of the _Sophie Sutherland_ had a story to tell, also, and he
told it well--so well, in fact, that when all hands were gathered
together on deck during the dog-watch, Emil Johansen strode over to
Chris and gripped him by the hand.
"Chris," he said, so loudly that all could hear, "Chris, I gif in. You
vas yoost so good a sailorman as I. You vas a bully boy und able
seaman, und I pe proud for you!
"Und Chris!" He turned as if he had forgotten something, and called
back, "From dis time always you call me 'Emil' mitout der 'Mister'!"
TYPHOON OFF THE COAST OF JAPAN
_Jack London's First Story, Published at the Age of Seventeen._
It was four bells in the morning watch. We had just finished breakfast
when the order came forward for the watch on deck to stand by to heave
her to and all hands stand by the boats.
"Port! hard a port!" cried our sailing-master. "Clew up the topsails!
Let the flying jib run down! Back the jib over to windward and run down
the foresail!" And so was our schooner _Sophie Sutherland_ hove to off
the Japan coast, near Cape Jerimo, on April 10, 1893.
Then came moments of bustle and confusion. There were eighteen men to
man the six boats. Some were hooking on the falls, others casting off
the lashings; boat-steerers appeared with boat-compasses and
water-breakers, and boat-pullers with the lunch boxes. Hunters were
staggering under two or three shotguns, a rifle and heavy ammunition
box, all of which were soon stowed away with their oilskins and mittens
in the boats.
The sailing-master gave his last orders, and away we went, pulling three
pairs of oars to gain our positions. We were in the weather boat, and so
had a longer pull than the others. The first, second and third lee boats
soon had all sail set and were running off to the southward and
westward with the wind beam, while the schooner was running off to
leeward of them, so that in case of accident the boats would have fair
wind home.
It was a glorious morning, but our boat steerer shook his head ominously
as he glanced at the rising sun and prophetically muttered: "Red sun in
the morning, sailor take warning." The sun had an angry look, and a few
light, fleecy "nigger-heads" in that quarter seemed abashed and
frightened and soon disappeared.
Away off to the northward Cape Jerimo reared its black, forbidding head
like some huge monster rising from the deep. The winter's snow, not yet
entirely dissipated by the sun, covered it in patches of glistening
white, over which the light wind swept on its way out to sea. Huge gulls
rose slowly, fluttering their wings in the light breeze and striking
their webbed feet on the surface of the water for over half a mile
before they could leave it. Hardly had the patter, patter died away when
a flock of sea quail rose, and with whistling wings flew away to
windward, where members of a large band of whales were disporting
themselves, their blowings sounding like the exhaust of steam engines.
The harsh, discordant cries of a sea-parrot grated unpleasantly on the
ear, and set half a dozen alert in a small band of seals that were ahead
of us. Away they went, breaching and jumping entirely out of water. A
sea-gull with slow, deliberate flight and long, majestic curves circled
round us, and as a reminder of home a little English sparrow perched
impudently on the fo'castle head, and, cocking his head on one side,
chirped merrily. The boats were soon among the seals, and the bang!
bang! of the guns could be heard from down to leeward.
The wind was slowly rising, and by three o'clock as, with a dozen seals
in our boat, we were deliberating whether to go on or turn back, the
recall flag was run up at the schooner's mizzen--a sure sign that with
the rising wind the barometer was falling and that our sailing-master
was getting anxious for the welfare of the boats.
Away we went before the wind with a single reef in our sail. With
clenched teeth sat the boat-steerer, grasping the steering oar firmly
with both hands, his restless eyes on the alert--a glance at the
schooner ahead, as we rose on a sea, another at the mainsheet, and then
one astern where the dark ripple of the wind on the water told him of a
coming puff or a large white-cap that threatened to overwhelm us. The
waves were holding high carnival, performing the strangest antics, as
with wild glee they danced along in fierce pursuit--now up, now down,
here, there, and everywhere, until some great sea of liquid green with
its milk-white crest of foam rose from the ocean's throbbing bosom and
drove the others from view. But only for a moment, for again under new
forms they reappeared. In the sun's path they wandered, where every
ripple, great or small, every little spit or spray looked like molten
silver, where the water lost its dark green color and became a dazzling,
silvery flood, only to vanish and become a wild waste of sullen
turbulence, each dark foreboding sea rising and breaking, then rolling
on again. The dash, the sparkle, the silvery light soon vanished with
the sun, which became obscured by black clouds that were rolling swiftly
in from the west, northwest; apt heralds of the coming storm.
We soon reached the schooner and found ourselves the last aboard. In a
few minutes the seals were skinned, boats and decks washed, and we were
down below by the roaring fo'castle fire, with a wash, change of
clothes, and a hot, substantial supper before us. Sail had been put on
the schooner, as we had a run of seventy-five miles to make to the
southward before morning, so as to get in the midst of the seals, out of
which we had strayed during the last two days' hunting.
We had the first watch from eight to midnight. The wind was soon blowing
half a gale, and our sailing-master expected little sleep that night as
he paced up and down the poop. The topsails were soon clewed up and made
fast, then the flying jib run down and furled. Quite a sea was rolling
by this time, occasionally breaking over the decks, flooding them and
threatening to smash the boats. At six bells we were ordered to turn
them over and put on storm lashings. This occupied us till eight bells,
when we were relieved by the mid-watch. I was the last to go below,
doing so just as the watch on deck was furling the spanker. Below all
were asleep except our green hand, the "bricklayer," who was dying of
consumption. The wildly dancing movements of the sea lamp cast a pale,
flickering light through the fo'castle and turned to golden honey the
drops of water on the yellow oilskins. In all the corners dark shadows
seemed to come and go, while up in the eyes of her, beyond the pall
bits, descending from deck to deck, where they seemed to lurk like some
dragon at the cavern's mouth, it was dark as Erebus. Now and again, the
light seemed to penetrate for a moment as the schooner rolled heavier
than usual, only to recede, leaving it darker and blacker than before.
The roar of the wind through the rigging came to the ear muffled like
the distant rumble of a train crossing a trestle or the surf on the
beach, while the loud crash of the seas on her weather bow seemed almost
to rend the beams and planking asunder as it resounded through the
fo'castle. The creaking and groaning of the timbers, stanchions, and
bulkheads, as the strain the vessel was undergoing was felt, served to
drown the groans of the dying man as he tossed uneasily in his bunk. The
working of the foremast against the deck beams caused a shower of flaky
powder to fall, and sent another sound mingling with the tumultuous
storm. Small cascades of water streamed from the pall bits from the
fo'castle head above, and, joining issue with the streams from the wet
oilskins, ran along the floor and disappeared aft into the main hold.
At two bells in the middle watch--that is, in land parlance one o'clock
in the morning;--the order was roared out on the fo'castle: "All hands
on deck and shorten sail!"
Then the sleepy sailors tumbled out of their bunk and into their
clothes, oilskins and sea-boots and up on deck. 'Tis when that order
comes on cold, blustering nights that "Jack" grimly mutters: "Who would
not sell a farm and go to sea?"
It was on deck that the force of the wind could be fully appreciated,
especially after leaving the stifling fo'castle. It seemed to stand up
against you like a wall, making it almost impossible to move on the
heaving decks or to breathe as the fierce gusts came dashing by. The
schooner was hove to under jib, foresail and mainsail. We proceeded to
lower the foresail and make it fast. The night was dark, greatly
impeding our labor. Still, though not a star or the moon could pierce
the black masses of storm clouds that obscured the sky as they swept
along before the gale, nature aided us in a measure. A soft light
emanated from the movement of the ocean. Each mighty sea, all
phosphorescent and glowing with the tiny lights of myriads of
animalculae, threatened to overwhelm us with a deluge of fire. Higher
and higher, thinner and thinner, the crest grew as it began to curve and
overtop preparatory to breaking, until with a roar it fell over the
bulwarks, a mass of soft glowing light and tons of water which sent the
sailors sprawling in all directions and left in each nook and cranny
little specks of light that glowed and trembled till the next sea washed
them away, depositing new ones in their places. Sometimes several seas
following each other with great rapidity and thundering down on our
decks filled them full to the bulwarks, but soon they were discharged
through the lee scuppers.
To reef the mainsail we were forced to run off before the gale under the
single reefed jib. By the time we had finished the wind had forced up
such a tremendous sea that it was impossible to heave her to. Away we
flew on the wings of the storm through the muck and flying spray. A wind
sheer to starboard, then another to port as the enormous seas struck the
schooner astern and nearly broached her to. As day broke we took in the
jib, leaving not a sail unfurled. Since we had begun scudding she had
ceased to take the seas over her bow, but amidships they broke fast and
furious. It was a dry storm in the matter of rain, but the force of the
wind filled the air with fine spray, which flew as high as the
crosstrees and cut the face like a knife, making it impossible to see
over a hundred yards ahead. The sea was a dark lead color as with long,
slow, majestic roll it was heaped up by the wind into liquid mountains
of foam. The wild antics of the schooner were sickening as she forged
along. She would almost stop, as though climbing a mountain, then
rapidly rolling to right and left as she gained the summit of a huge
sea, she steadied herself and paused for a moment as though affrighted
at the yawning precipice before her. Like an avalanche, she shot forward
and down as the sea astern struck her with the force of a thousand
battering rams, burying her bow to the cat-heads in the milky foam at
the bottom that came on deck in all directions--forward, astern, to
right and left, through the hawse-pipes and over the rail.
The wind began to drop, and by ten o'clock we were talking of heaving
her to. We passed a ship, two schooners and a four-masted barkentine
under the smallest canvas, and at eleven o'clock, running up the spanker
and jib, we hove her to, and in another hour we were beating back again
against the aftersea under full sail to regain the sealing ground away
to the westward.
Below, a couple of men were sewing the "bricklayer's" body in canvas
preparatory to the sea burial. And so with the storm passed away the
"bricklayer's" soul.
THE LOST POACHER
"But they won't take excuses. You're across the line, and that's enough.
They'll take you. In you go, Siberia and the salt mines. And as for
Uncle Sam, why, what's he to know about it? Never a word will get back
to the States. 'The _Mary Thomas_,' the papers will say, 'the _Mary
Thomas_ lost with all hands. Probably in a typhoon in the Japanese
seas.' That's what the papers will say, and people, too. In you go,
Siberia and the salt mines. Dead to the world and kith and kin, though
you live fifty years."
In such manner John Lewis, commonly known as the "sea-lawyer," settled
the matter out of hand.
It was a serious moment in the forecastle of the _Mary Thomas_. No
sooner had the watch below begun to talk the trouble over, than the
watch on deck came down and joined them. As there was no wind, every
hand could be spared with the exception of the man at the wheel, and he
remained only for the sake of discipline. Even "Bub" Russell, the
cabin-boy, had crept forward to hear what was going on.
However, it was a serious moment, as the grave faces of the sailors bore
witness. For the three preceding months the _Mary Thomas_ sealing
schooner, had hunted the seal pack along the coast of Japan and north to
Bering Sea. Here, on the Asiatic side of the sea, they were forced to
give over the chase, or rather, to go no farther; for beyond, the
Russian cruisers patrolled forbidden ground, where the seals might breed
in peace.
A week before she had fallen into a heavy fog accompanied by calm. Since
then the fog-bank had not lifted, and the only wind had been light airs
and catspaws. This in itself was not so bad, for the sealing schooners
are never in a hurry so long as they are in the midst of the seals; but
the trouble lay in the fact that the current at this point bore heavily
to the north. Thus the _Mary Thomas_ had unwittingly drifted across the
line, and every hour she was penetrating, unwillingly, farther and
farther into the dangerous waters where the Russian bear kept guard.
How far she had drifted no man knew. The sun had not been visible for a
week, nor the stars, and the captain had been unable to take
observations in order to determine his position. At any moment a cruiser
might swoop down and hale the crew away to Siberia. The fate of other
poaching seal-hunters was too well known to the men of the _Mary
Thomas_, and there was cause for grave faces.
"Mine friends," spoke up a German boat-steerer, "it vas a pad piziness.
Shust as ve make a big catch, und all honest, somedings go wrong, und
der Russians nab us, dake our skins and our schooner, und send us mit
der anarchists to Siberia. Ach! a pretty pad piziness!"
"Yes, that's where it hurts," the sea lawyer went on. "Fifteen hundred
skins in the salt piles, and all honest, a big pay-day coming to every
man Jack of us, and then to be captured and lose it all! It'd be
different if we'd been poaching, but it's all honest work in open
water."
"But if we haven't done anything wrong, they can't do anything to us,
can they?" Bub queried.
"It strikes me as 'ow it ain't the proper thing for a boy o' your age
shovin' in when 'is elders is talkin'," protested an English sailor,
from over the edge of his bunk.
"Oh, that's all right, Jack," answered the sea-lawyer. "He's a perfect
right to. Ain't he just as liable to lose his wages as the rest of us?"
"Wouldn't give thruppence for them!" Jack sniffed back. He had been
planning to go home and see his family in Chelsea when he was paid off,
and he was now feeling rather blue over the highly possible loss, not
only of his pay, but of his liberty.
"How are they to know?" the sea-lawyer asked in answer to Bub's previous
question. "Here we are in forbidden water. How do they know but what we
came here of our own accord? Here we are, fifteen hundred skins in the
hold. How do they know whether we got them in open water or in the
closed sea? Don't you see, Bub, the evidence is all against us. If you
caught a man with his pockets full of apples like those which grow on
your tree, and if you caught him in your tree besides, what'd you think
if he told you he couldn't help it, and had just been sort of blown
there, and that anyway those apples came from some other tree--what'd
you think, eh?"
Bub saw it clearly when put in that light, and shook his head
despondently.
"You'd rather be dead than go to Siberia," one of the boat-pullers said.
"They put you into the salt-mines and work you till you die. Never see
daylight again. Why, I've heard tell of one fellow that was chained to
his mate, and that mate died. And they were both chained together! And
if they send you to the quicksilver mines you get salivated. I'd rather
be hung than salivated."
"Wot's salivated?" Jack asked, suddenly sitting up in his bunk at the
hint of fresh misfortunes.
"Why, the quicksilver gets into your blood; I think that's the way. And
your gums all swell like you had the scurvy, only worse, and your teeth
get loose in your jaws. And big ulcers forms, and then you die horrible.
The strongest man can't last long a-mining quicksilver."
"A pad piziness," the boat-steerer reiterated, dolorously, in the
silence which followed. "A pad piziness. I vish I vas in Yokohama. Eh?
Vot vas dot?"
The vessel had suddenly heeled over. The decks were aslant. A tin
pannikin rolled down the inclined plane, rattling and banging. From
above came the slapping of canvas and the quivering rat-tat-tat of the
after leech of the loosely stretched foresail. Then the mate's voice
sang down the hatch, "All hands on deck and make sail!"
Never had such summons been answered with more enthusiasm. The calm had
broken. The wind had come which was to carry them south into safety.
With a wild cheer all sprang on deck. Working with mad haste, they flung
out topsails, flying jibs and staysails. As they worked, the fog-bank
lifted and the black vault of heaven, bespangled with the old familiar
stars, rushed into view. When all was shipshape, the _Mary Thomas_ was
lying gallantly over on her side to a beam wind and plunging ahead due
south.
"Steamer's lights ahead on the port bow, sir!" cried the lookout from
his station on the forecastle-head. There was excitement in the man's
voice.
The captain sent Bub below for his night-glasses. Everybody crowded to
the lee-rail to gaze at the suspicious stranger, which already began to
loom up vague and indistinct. In those unfrequented waters the chance
was one in a thousand that it could be anything else than a Russian
patrol. The captain was still anxiously gazing through the glasses, when
a flash of flame left the stranger's side, followed by the loud report
of a cannon. The worst fears were confirmed. It was a patrol, evidently
firing across the bows of the _Mary Thomas_ in order to make her heave
to.
"Hard down with your helm!" the captain commanded the steersman, all the
life gone out of his voice. Then to the crew, "Back over the jib and
foresail! Run down the flying jib! Clew up the foretopsail! And aft here
and swing on to the main-sheet!"
The _Mary Thomas_ ran into the eye of the wind, lost headway, and fell
to courtesying gravely to the long seas rolling up from the west.
The cruiser steamed a little nearer and lowered a boat. The sealers
watched in heartbroken silence. They could see the white bulk of the
boat as it was slacked away to the water, and its crew sliding aboard.
They could hear the creaking of the davits and the commands of the
officers. Then the boat sprang away under the impulse of the oars, and
came toward them. The wind had been rising, and already the sea was too
rough to permit the frail craft to lie alongside the tossing schooner;
but watching their chance, and taking advantage of the boarding ropes
thrown to them, an officer and a couple of men clambered aboard. The
boat then sheered off into safety and lay to its oars, a young
midshipman, sitting in the stern and holding the yoke-lines, in charge.
The officer, whose uniform disclosed his rank as that of second
lieutenant in the Russian navy went below with the captain of the _Mary
Thomas_ to look at the ship's papers. A few minutes later he emerged,
and upon his sailors removing the hatch-covers, passed down into the
hold with a lantern to inspect the salt piles. It was a goodly heap
which confronted him--fifteen hundred fresh skins, the season's catch;
and under the circumstances he could have had but one conclusion.
"I am very sorry," he said, in broken English to the sealing captain,
when he again came on deck, "but it is my duty, in the name of the tsar,
to seize your vessel as a poacher caught with fresh skins in the closed
sea. The penalty, as you may know, is confiscation and imprisonment."
The captain of the _Mary Thomas_ shrugged his shoulders in seeming
indifference, and turned away. Although they may restrain all outward
show, strong men, under unmerited misfortune, are sometimes very close
to tears. Just then the vision of his little California home, and of the
wife and two yellow-haired boys, was strong upon him, and there was a
strange, choking sensation in his throat, which made him afraid that if
he attempted to speak he would sob instead.
And also there was upon him the duty he owed his men. No weakness before
them, for he must be a tower of strength to sustain them in misfortune.
He had already explained to the second lieutenant, and knew the
hopelessness of the situation. As the sea-lawyer had said, the evidence
was all against him. So he turned aft, and fell to pacing up and down
the poop of the vessel over which he was no longer commander.
The Russian officer now took temporary charge. He ordered more of his
men aboard, and had all the canvas clewed up and furled snugly away.
While this was being done, the boat plied back and forth between the two
vessels, passing a heavy hawser, which was made fast to the great
towing-bitts on the schooner's forecastle-head. During all this work
the sealers stood about in sullen groups. It was madness to think of
resisting, with the guns of a man-of-war not a biscuit-toss away; but
they refused to lend a hand, preferring instead to maintain a gloomy
silence.
Having accomplished his task, the lieutenant ordered all but four of his
men back into the boat. Then the midshipman, a lad of sixteen, looking
strangely mature and dignified in his uniform and sword, came aboard to
take command of the captured sealer. Just as the lieutenant prepared to
depart his eye chanced to alight upon Bub. Without a word of warning, he
seized him by the arm and dropped him over the rail into the waiting
boat; and then, with a parting wave of his hand, he followed him.
It was only natural that Bub should be frightened at this unexpected
happening. All the terrible stories he had heard of the Russians served
to make him fear them, and now returned to his mind with double force.
To be captured by them was bad enough, but to be carried off by them,
away from his comrades, was a fate of which he had not dreamed.
"Be a good boy, Bub," the captain called to him, as the boat drew away
from the _Mary Thomas's_ side, "and tell the truth!"
"Aye, aye, sir!" he answered, bravely enough by all outward appearance.
He felt a certain pride of race, and was ashamed to be a coward before
these strange enemies, these wild Russian bears.
"Und be politeful!" the German boat-steerer added, his rough voice
lifting across the water like a fog-horn.
Bub waved his hand in farewell, and his mates clustered along the rail
as they answered with a cheering shout. He found room in the
stern-sheets, where he fell to regarding the lieutenant. He didn't look
so wild or bearish after all--very much like other men, Bub concluded,
and the sailors were much the same as all other man-of-war's men he had
ever known. Nevertheless, as his feet struck the steel deck of the
cruiser, he felt as if he had entered the portals of a prison.
For a few minutes he was left unheeded. The sailors hoisted the boat up,
and swung it in on the davits. Then great clouds of black smoke poured
out of the funnels, and they were under way--to Siberia, Bub could not
help but think. He saw the _Mary Thomas_ swing abruptly into line as she
took the pressure from the hawser, and her side-lights, red and green,
rose and fell as she was towed through the sea.
Bub's eyes dimmed at the melancholy sight, but--but just then the
lieutenant came to take him down to the commander, and he straightened
up and set his lips firmly, as if this were a very commonplace affair
and he were used to being sent to Siberia every day in the week. The
cabin in which the commander sat was like a palace compared to the
humble fittings of the _Mary Thomas_, and the commander himself, in gold
lace and dignity, was a most august personage, quite unlike the simple
man who navigated his schooner on the trail of the seal pack.
Bub now quickly learned why he had been brought aboard, and in the
prolonged questioning which followed, told nothing but the plain truth.
The truth was harmless; only a lie could have injured his cause. He did
not know much, except that they had been sealing far to the south in
open water, and that when the calm and fog came down upon them, being
close to the line, they had drifted across. Again and again he insisted
that they had not lowered a boat or shot a seal in the week they had
been drifting about in the forbidden sea; but the commander chose to
consider all that he said to be a tissue of falsehoods, and adopted a
bullying tone in an effort to frighten the boy. He threatened and
cajoled by turns, but failed in the slightest to shake Bub's statements,
and at last ordered him out of his presence.
By some oversight, Bub was not put in anybody's charge, and wandered up
on deck unobserved. Sometimes the sailors, in passing, bent curious
glances upon him, but otherwise he was left strictly alone. Nor could he
have attracted much attention, for he was small, the night dark, and the
watch on deck intent on its own business. Stumbling over the strange
decks, he made his way aft where he could look upon the side-lights of
the _Mary Thomas_, following steadily in the rear.
For a long while he watched, and then lay down in the darkness close to
where the hawser passed over the stern to the captured schooner. Once
an officer came up and examined the straining rope to see if it were
chafing, but Bub cowered away in the shadow undiscovered. This, however,
gave him an idea which concerned the lives and liberties of twenty-two
men, and which was to avert crushing sorrow from more than one happy
home many thousand miles away.
In the first place, he reasoned, the crew were all guiltless of any
crime, and yet were being carried relentlessly away to imprisonment in
Siberia--a living death, he had heard, and he believed it implicitly. In
the second place, he was a prisoner, hard and fast, with no chance to
escape. In the third, it was possible for the twenty-two men on the
_Mary Thomas_ to escape. The only thing which bound them was a four-inch
hawser. They dared not cut it at their end, for a watch was sure to be
maintained upon it by their Russian captors; but at this end, ah! at his
end--
Bub did not stop to reason further. Wriggling close to the hawser, he
opened his jack-knife and went to work. The blade was not very sharp,
and he sawed away, rope-yarn by rope-yarn, the awful picture of the
solitary Siberian exile he must endure growing clearer and more terrible
at every stroke. Such a fate was bad enough to undergo with one's
comrades, but to face it alone seemed frightful. And besides, the very
act he was performing was sure to bring greater punishment upon him.
In the midst of such somber thoughts, he heard footsteps approaching. He
wriggled away into the shadow. An officer stopped where he had been
working, half-stooped to examine the hawser, then changed his mind and
straightened up. For a few minutes he stood there, gazing at the lights
of the captured schooner, and then went forward again.
Now was the time! Bub crept back and went on sawing. Now two parts were
severed. Now three. But one remained. The tension upon this was so great
that it readily yielded. Splash the freed end went overboard. He lay
quietly, his heart in his mouth, listening. No one on the cruiser but
himself had heard.
He saw the red and green lights of the _Mary Thomas_ grow dimmer and
dimmer. Then a faint hallo came over the water from the Russian prize
crew. Still nobody heard. The smoke continued to pour out of the
cruiser's funnels, and her propellers throbbed as mightily as ever.
What was happening on the _Mary Thomas_? Bub could only surmise; but of
one thing he was certain: his comrades would assert themselves and
overpower the four sailors and the midshipman. A few minutes later he
saw a small flash, and straining his ears heard the very faint report of
a pistol. Then, oh joy! both the red and green lights suddenly
disappeared. The _Mary Thomas_ was retaken!
Just as an officer came aft, Bub crept forward, and hid away in one of
the boats. Not an instant too soon. The alarm was given. Loud voices
rose in command. The cruiser altered her course. An electric
search-light began to throw its white rays across the sea, here, there,
everywhere; but in its flashing path no tossing schooner was revealed.
Bub went to sleep soon after that, nor did he wake till the gray of
dawn. The engines were pulsing monotonously, and the water, splashing
noisily, told him the decks were being washed down. One sweeping glance,
and he saw that they were alone on the expanse of ocean. The _Mary
Thomas_ had escaped. As he lifted his head, a roar of laughter went up
from the sailors. Even the officer, who ordered him taken below and
locked up, could not quite conceal the laughter in his eyes. Bub thought
often in the days of confinement which followed that they were not very
angry with him for what he had done.
He was not far from right. There is a certain innate nobility deep down
in the hearts of all men, which forces them to admire a brave act, even
if it is performed by an enemy. The Russians were in nowise different
from other men. True, a boy had outwitted them; but they could not blame
him, and they were sore puzzled as to what to do with him. It would
never do to take a little mite like him in to represent all that
remained of the lost poacher.
So, two weeks later, a United States man-of-war, steaming out of the
Russian port of Vladivostok, was signaled by a Russian cruiser. A boat
passed between the two ships, and a small boy dropped over the rail upon
the deck of the American vessel. A week later he was put ashore at
Hakodate, and after some telegraphing, his fare was paid on the
railroad to Yokohama.
From the depot he hurried through the quaint Japanese streets to the
harbor, and hired a sampan boatman to put him aboard a certain vessel
whose familiar rigging had quickly caught his eye. Her gaskets were off,
her sails unfurled; she was just starting back to the United States. As
he came closer, a crowd of sailors sprang upon the forecastle head, and
the windlass-bars rose and fell as the anchor was torn from its muddy
bottom.
"'Yankee ship come down the ribber!'" the sea-lawyer's voice rolled out
as he led the anchor song.
"'Pull, my bully boys, pull!'" roared back the old familiar chorus, the
men's bodies lifting and bending to the rhythm.
Bub Russell paid the boatman and stepped on deck. The anchor was
forgotten. A mighty cheer went up from the men, and almost before he
could catch his breath he was on the shoulders of the captain,
surrounded by his mates, and endeavoring to answer twenty questions to
the second.
The next day a schooner hove to off a Japanese fishing village, sent
ashore four sailors and a little midshipman, and sailed away. These men
did not talk English, but they had money and quickly made their way to
Yokohama. From that day the Japanese village folk never heard anything
more about them, and they are still a much-talked-of mystery. As the
Russian government never said anything about the incident, the United
States is still ignorant of the whereabouts of the lost poacher, nor has
she ever heard, officially, of the way in which some of her citizens
"shanghaied" five subjects of the tsar. Even nations have secrets
sometimes.
THE BANKS OF THE SACRAMENTO
"And it's blow, ye winds, heigh-ho,
For Cal-i-for-ni-o;
For there's plenty of gold so I've been told,
On the banks of the Sacramento!"
It was only a little boy, singing in a shrill treble the sea chantey
which seamen sing the wide world over when they man the capstan bars and
break the anchors out for "Frisco" port. It was only a little boy who
had never seen the sea, but two hundred feet beneath him rolled the
Sacramento. "Young" Jerry he was called, after "Old" Jerry, his father,
from whom he had learned the song, as well as received his shock of
bright-red hair, his blue, dancing eyes, and his fair and inevitably
freckled skin.
For Old Jerry had been a sailor, and had followed the sea till middle
life, haunted always by the words of the ringing chantey. Then one day
he had sung the song in earnest, in an Asiatic port, swinging and
thrilling round the capstan-circle with twenty others. And at San
Francisco he turned his back upon his ship and upon the sea, and went to
behold with his own eyes the banks of the Sacramento.