In the course of the next few moments, while the little vessel was being
got under way, and while the Ridgeways' “Petrel” gleamed off into the
blue distance, Wilbur made certain observations.
The name of the boat on which he found himself was the “Bertha Millner.”
She was a two-topmast, 28-ton keel schooner, 40 feet long, carrying
a large spread of sail--mainsail, foresail, jib, flying-jib, two
gaff-topsails, and a staysail. She was very dirty and smelt abominably
of some kind of rancid oil. Her crew were Chinamen; there was no mate.
But the cook--himself a Chinaman--who appeared from time to time at the
door of the galley, a potato-masher in his hand, seemed to have some
sort of authority over the hands. He acted in a manner as a go-between
for the Captain and the crew, sometimes interpreting the former's
orders, and occasionally giving one of his own.
Wilbur heard the Captain address him as Charlie. He spoke pigeon English
fairly. Of the balance of the crew--the five Chinamen--Wilbur could make
nothing. They never spoke, neither to Captain Kitchell, to Charlie,
nor to each other; and for all the notice they took of Wilbur he might
easily have been a sack of sand. Wilbur felt that his advent on the
“Bertha Millner” was by its very nature an extraordinary event; but the
absolute indifference of these brown-suited Mongols, the blankness of
their flat, fat faces, the dulness of their slanting, fishlike eyes
that never met his own or even wandered in his direction, was uncanny,
disquieting. In what strange venture was he now to be involved, toward
what unknown vortex was this new current setting, this current that had
so suddenly snatched him from the solid ground of his accustomed life?
He told himself grimly that he was to have a free cruise up the bay,
perhaps as far as Alviso; perhaps the “Bertha Millner” would even make
the circuit of the bay before returning to San Francisco. He might
be gone a week. Wilbur could already see the scare-heads of the daily
papers the next morning, chronicling the disappearance of “One of
Society's Most Popular Members.”
“That's well, y'r throat halyards. Here, Lilee of the Vallee, give a
couple of pulls on y'r peak halyard purchase.”
Wilbur stared at the Captain helplessly.
“No can tell, hey?” inquired Charlie from the galley. “Pullum disa lope,
sabe?”
Wilbur tugged at the rope the cook indicated.
“That's well, y'r peak halyard purchase,” chanted Captain Kitchell.
Wilbur made the rope fast. The mainsail was set, and hung slatting and
flapping in the wind. Next the for'sail was set in much the same manner,
and Wilbur was ordered to “lay out on the ji'boom and cast the gaskets
off the jib.” He “lay out” as best he could and cast off the gaskets--he
knew barely enough of yachting to understand an order here and
there--and by the time he was back on the fo'c'sle head the Chinamen
were at the jib halyard and hoisting away.
“That's well, y'r jib halyards.”
The “Bertha Millner” veered round and played off to the wind, tugging at
her anchor.
“Man y'r windlass.”
Wilbur and the crew jumped once more to the brakes.
“Brake down, heave y'r anchor to the cathead.”
The anchor-chain, already taut, vibrated and then cranked through the
hawse-holes as the hands rose and fell at the brakes. The anchor came
home, dripping gray slime. A nor'west wind filled the schooner's sails,
a strong ebb tide caught her underfoot.
“We're off,” muttered Wilbur, as the “Bertha Millner” heeled to the
first gust.
But evidently the schooner was not bound up the bay.
“Must be Vallejo or Benicia, then,” hazarded Wilbur, as the sails grew
tenser and the water rippled ever louder under the schooner's forefoot.
“Maybe they're going after hay or wheat.”
The schooner was tacking, headed directly for Meiggs's wharf. She came
in closer and closer, so close that Wilbur could hear the talk of the
fishermen sitting on the stringpieces. He had just made up his mind that
they were to make a landing there, when--
“Stand by for stays,” came the raucous bark of the Captain, who had
taken on the heel. The sails slatted furiously as the schooner came
about. Then the “Bertha Millner” caught the wind again and lay over
quietly and contentedly to her work. The next tack brought the schooner
close under Alcatraz. The sea became heavier, the breeze grew stiff and
smelled of the outside ocean. Out beyond them to westward opened
the Golden Gate, a bleak vista of gray-green water roughened with
white-caps.
“Stand by for stays.”
Once again as the rudder went hard over, the “Bertha Millner” fretted
and danced and shook her sails, calling impatiently for the wind,
chafing at its absence like a child reft of a toy. Then again she
scooped the nor'wester in the hollow palms of her tense canvases and
settled quietly down on the new tack, her bowsprit pointing straight
toward the Presidio.
“We'll come about again soon,” Wilbur told himself, “and stand over
toward the Contra Costa shore.”
A fine huge breath of wind passed over the schooner. She heeled it
on the instant, the water roaring along her quarter, but she kept her
course. Wilbur fell thoughtful again, never more keenly observant.
“She must come about soon,” he muttered uneasily, “if she's going to
stand up toward Vallejo.” His heart sank with a sudden apprehension. A
nervousness he could not overcome seized upon him. The “Bertha Millner”
held tenaciously to the tack. Within fifty yards of the Presidio came
the command again:
“Stand by for stays.”
Once more, her bows dancing, her cordage rattling, her sails flapping
noisily, the schooner came about. Anxiously Wilbur observed the bowsprit
as it circled like a hand on a dial, watching where now it would point.
It wavered, fluctuated, rose, fell, then settled easily, pointing toward
Lime Point. Wilbur felt a sudden coldness at his heart.
“This isn't going to be so much fun,” he muttered between his teeth. The
schooner was not bound up the bay for Alviso nor to Vallejo for grain.
The track toward Lime Point could mean but one thing. The wind was
freshening from the nor'west, the ebb tide rushing out to meet the ocean
like a mill-race, at every moment the Golden Gate opened out wider, and
within two minutes after the time of the last tack the “Bertha Millner”
heeled to a great gust that had come booming in between the heads,
straight from the open Pacific.
“Stand by for stays.”
As before, one of the Chinese hands stood by the sail rope of the jib.
“Draw y'r jib.”
The jib filled. The schooner came about on the port tack; Lime Point
fell away over the stern rail. The huge ground swells began to come
in, and as she rose and bowed to the first of these it was precisely as
though the “Bertha Millner” were making her courtesy to the great gray
ocean, now for the first time in full sight on her starboard quarter.
The schooner was beating out to sea through the Middle Channel. Once
clear of the Golden Gate, she stood over toward the Cliff House, then on
the next tack cleared Point Bonita. The sea began building up in deadly
earnest--they were about to cross the bar. Everything was battened down,
the scuppers were awash, and the hawse-holes spouted like fountains
after every plunge. Once the Captain ordered all men aloft, just in time
to escape a gigantic dull green roller that broke like a Niagara over
the schooner's bows, smothering the decks knee-deep in a twinkling.
The wind blew violent and cold, the spray was flying like icy
small-shot. Without intermission the “Bertha Millner” rolled and plunged
and heaved and sank. Wilbur was drenched to the skin and sore in every
joint, from being shunted from rail to mast and from mast to rail again.
The cordage sang like harp-strings, the schooner's forefoot crushed
down into the heaving water with a hissing like that of steam, blocks
rattled, the Captain bellowed his orders, rope-ends flogged the hollow
deck till it reverberated like a drum-head. The crossing of the bar was
one long half-hour of confusion and discordant sound.
When they were across the bar the Captain ordered the cook to give the
men their food.
“Git for'rd, sonny,” he added, fixing Wilbur with his eye. “Git for'rd,
this is tawble dee hote, savvy?”
Wilbur crawled forward on the reeling deck, holding on now to a mast,
now to a belaying-pin, now to a stay, watching his chance and going on
between the inebriated plunges of the schooner.
He descended the fo'c'sle hatch. The Chinamen were already there,
sitting on the edges of their bunks. On the floor, at the bottom of the
ladder, punk-sticks were burning in an old tomato-can.
Charlie brought in supper--stewed beef and pork in a bread-pan and a
wooden kit--and the Chinamen ate in silence with their sheath-knives and
from tin plates. A liquid that bore a distant resemblance to coffee was
served. Wilbur learned afterward to know the stuff as Black Jack, and
to be aware that it was made from bud barley and was sweetened with
molasses. A single reeking lamp swung with the swinging of the schooner
over the centre of the group, and long after Wilbur could remember the
grisly scene--the punk-sticks, the bread-pan full of hunks of meat,
the horrid close and oily smell, and the circle of silent, preoccupied
Chinese, each sitting on his bunk-ledge, devouring stewed pork and
holding his pannikin of Black Jack between his feet against the rolling
of the boat.
Wilbur looked fearfully at the mess in the pan, recalling the chocolate
and stuffed olives that had been his last luncheon.
“Well,” he muttered, clinching his teeth, “I've got to come to it sooner
or later.” His penknife was in the pocket of his waist-coat, underneath
his oilskin coat. He opened the big blade, harpooned a cube of pork,
and deposited it on his tin plate. He ate it slowly and with savage
determination. But the Black Jack was more than he could bear.
“I'm not hungry enough for that just now,” he told himself. “Say, Jim,”
he said, turning to the Chinaman next him on the bunk-ledge, “say, what
kind of boat is this? What you do--where you go?”
The other moved away impatiently.
“No sabe, no sabe,” he answered, shaking his head and frowning.
Throughout the whole of that strange meal these were the only words
spoken.
When Wilbur came on deck again he noted that the “Bertha Millner” had
already left the whistling-buoy astern. Off to the east, her sails
just showing above the waves, was a pilot-boat with the number 7 on her
mainsail. The evening was closing in; the Farallones were in plain sight
dead ahead. Far behind, in a mass of shadow just bluer than the sky, he
could make out a few twinkling lights--San Francisco.
Half an hour later Kitchell came on deck from his supper in the cabin
aft. He glanced in the direction of the mainland, now almost out of
sight, then took the wheel from one of the Chinamen and commanded, “Ease
off y'r fore an' main sheets.” The hands eased away and the schooner
played off before the wind.
The staysail was set. The “Bertha Millner” headed to southwest, bowling
easily ahead of a good eight-knot breeze.
Next came the order “All hands aft!” and Wilbur and his mates betook
themselves to the quarterdeck. Charlie took the wheel, and he and
Kitchell began to choose the men for their watches, just as Wilbur
remembered to have chosen sides for baseball during his school days.
“Sonny, I'll choose you; you're on my watch,” said the Captain to
Wilbur, “and I will assoom the ree-sponsibility of your nautical
eddoocation.”
“I may as well tell you at once,” began Wilbur, “that I'm no sailor.”
“But you will be, soon,” answered the Captain, at once soothing and
threatening; “you will be, Mister Lilee of the Vallee, you kin lay to
it as how you will be one of the best sailormen along the front, as our
dear friend Jim says. Before I git throo with you, you'll be a sailorman
or shark-bait, I can promise you. You're on my watch; step over here,
son.”
The watches were divided, Charlie and three other Chinamen on the port,
Kitchell, Wilbur, and two Chinamen on the starboard. The men trooped
forward again.
The tiny world of the schooner had lapsed to quiet. The “Bertha Millner”
was now clear of the land, that lay like a blur of faintest purple
smoke--ever growing fainter--low in the east. The Farallones showed but
their shoulders above the horizon. The schooner was standing well
out from shore--even beyond the track of the coasters and passenger
steamers--to catch the Trades from the northwest. The sun was setting
royally, and the floor of the ocean shimmered like mosaic. The sea
had gone down and the fury of the bar was a thing forgotten. It was
perceptibly warmer.
On board, the two watches mingled forward, smoking opium and playing
a game that looked like checkers. Three of them were washing down the
decks with kaiar brooms. For the first time since he had come on board
Wilbur heard the sound of their voices.
The evening was magnificent. Never to Wilbur's eyes had the Pacific
appeared so vast, so radiant, so divinely beautiful. A star or two
burned slowly through that part of the sky where the pink began to fade
into the blue. Charlie went forward and set the side lights--red on
the port rigging, green on the starboard. As he passed Wilbur, who was
leaning over the rail and watching the phosphorus flashing just under
the surface, he said:
“Hey, you go talkee-talk one-piecey Boss, savvy Boss--chin-chin.”
Wilbur went aft and came up on the poop, where Kitchell stood at the
wheel, smoking an inverted “Tarrier's Delight.”
“Now, son,” began Kitchell, “I natch'ly love you so that I'm goin' to
do you a reel favor, do you twig? I'm goin' to allow you to berth aft in
the cabin, 'long o' me an' Charlie, an' beesides you can make free of
my quarterdeck. Mebbee you ain't used to the ways of sailormen just
yet, but you can lay to it that those two are reel concessions, savvy?
I ain't a mush-head, like mee dear friend Jim. You ain't no water-front
swine, I can guess that with one hand tied beehind me. You're a toff,
that's what you are, and your lines has been laid for toffs. I ain't
askin' you no questions, but you got brains, an' I figger on gettin'
more outa you by lettin' you have y'r head a bit. But mind, now, you get
gay once, sonny, or try to flimflam me, or forget that I'm the boss of
the bathtub, an' strike me blind, I'll cut you open, an' you can lay to
that, son. Now, then, here's the game: You work this boat 'long with
the coolies, an' take my orders, an' walk chalk, an' I'll teach you
navigation, an' make this cruise as easy as how-do-you-do. You don't,
an' I'll manhandle you till y'r bones come throo y'r hide.”
“I've no choice in the matter,” said Wilbur. “I've got to make the best
of a bad situation.”
“I ree-marked as how you had brains,” muttered the Captain.
“But there's one thing,” continued Wilbur; “if I'm to have my head a
little, as you say, you'll find we can get along better if you put me
to rights about this whole business. Why was I brought aboard, why are
there only Chinese along, where are we going, what are we going to do,
and how long are we going to be gone?”
Kitchell spat over the side, and then sucked the nicotine from his
mustache.
“Well,” he said, resuming his pipe, “it's like this, son. This ship
belongs to one of the Six Chinese Companies of Chinatown in Frisco.
Charlie, here, is one of the shareholders in the business. We go down
here twice a year off Cape Sain' Lucas, Lower California, an' fish for
blue sharks, or white, if we kin ketch 'em. We get the livers of these
an' try out the oil, an' we bring back that same oil, an' the Chinamen
sell it all over San Francisco as simon-pure cod-liver oil, savvy?
An' it pays like a nitrate bed. I come in because it's a Custom-house
regulation that no coolie can take a boat out of Frisco.”
“And how do I come in?” asked Wilbur.
“Mee dear friend Jim put a knock-me-out drop into your Manhattan
cocktail. It's a capsule filled with a drug. You were shanghaied, son,”
said the Captain, blandly.
*****
About an hour later Wilbur turned in. Kitchell showed him his bunk with
its “donkey's breakfast” and single ill-smelling blanket. It was located
under the companionway that led down into the cabin. Kitchell bunked
on one side, Charlie on the other. A hacked deal table, covered with
oilcloth and ironed to the floor, a swinging-lamp, two chairs, a rack of
books, a chest or two, and a flaring picture cut from the advertisement
of a ballet, was the room's inventory in the matter of furniture and
ornament.
Wilbur sat on the edge of his bunk before undressing, reviewing the
extraordinary events of the day. In a moment he was aware of a movement
in one of the other two bunks, and presently made out Charlie lying on
his side and holding in the flame of an alcohol lamp a skewer on which
some brown and sticky stuff boiled and sizzled. He transformed the stuff
to the bowl of a huge pipe and drew on it noisily once or twice. In
another moment he had sunk back in his bunk, nearly senseless, but with
a long breath of an almost blissful contentment.
“Beast!” muttered Wilbur, with profound disgust.
He threw off his oilskin coat and felt in the pocket of his waistcoat
(which he had retained when he had changed his clothes in the fo'c'sle)
for his watch. He drew it out. It was just nine o'clock. All at once an
idea occurred to him. He fumbled in another pocket of the waistcoat and
brought out one of his calling-cards.
For a moment Wilbur remained motionless, seated on the bunk-ledge,
smiling grimly, while his glance wandered now to the sordid cabin of the
“Bertha Millner” and the opium-drugged coolie sprawled on the “donkey's
breakfast,” and now to the card in his hand on which a few hours ago he
had written:
“First waltz--Jo.”