AUSTRALIA'S STORY
Following Frenchy's sickness, Australia and I chummed together as
Frenchy, by common consent, was allowed to perch on a coil of rope on
the main hatch just forward of the mast during the night watches, the
mate winking at this whenever the weather was not too bad.
On such nights Australia and I would stump the wet deck and we got
to be very good friends. Unlike so many of the crew, I remember his
name, John Roth, and from what he told me at various times I knew
that he had come from a good family, as such things go, people in
easy circumstances. His grandfather had settled in England, coming
originally from southern Germany, and his father had taken over and
extended a business founded at that time. Roth had received a good
education, evidently, though he was of a shiftless temperament and
his talk savored of the fo'c'sle and not the schools. He unburdened
himself as we tramped the deck and I found him to be a charming
companion and much deeper than was my idea of the devil-may-care
deserter from the _Falls of Ettrick_, who had impressed me as a sort of
scatterbrained ne'er-do-well, when we first bumped against each other
in the fo'c'sle of the _Fuller_, for my bunk was ahead of his, as we
settled down in that first mixup, months before.
[Illustration: Australia]
"I'll tell you, Felix, there's lots of blokes who have had less chances
than me, and is well off today. I always got in the way of trouble and
you bet trouble never missed me once."
This sounded like something new, so I kept my mouth closed instead of
replying after the usual manner of deck chums making conversation.
"When my father died," went on Australia, after a long pause, "my
brother took the management of the business. He was in the building
trade and doing very well at it, supporting mother, two sisters,
brother and myself. My brother James had quit school and was helping
father at the time of his death. I was at school near Winchester, much
to my disgust, for I hated school and wanted to go to sea." Australia
paused. He was strangely sober and we paced on deck for a turn or two
in silence. Then he continued, and I remember how his words came
slowly but with a long-forgotten attention to choice and grammar.
"On the settlement of the estate of my father a small legacy of four
hundred pounds was left me, and with the business safe in the care
of my brother I felt at liberty to quit school and go to sea. I had
an idea that I would settle down somewhere with my money and be a
gentleman planter, or something like that. At any rate, I cashed in
and, with more money in my pocket than was good for me, put to sea in
the fo'c'sle of a ship out of London bound for Melbourne. I'll call
her the _Iverclyde_, that's near enough. They shipped me 'ordinary,'
and when I handed the mate a five-quid note, as I asked for the job,
he was sure he had hooked a fool, or a lunatic. The rest of my fortune
I carried in a wallet in the bottom of my chest, a place no one would
ever think of searching for money.
"The _Iverclyde_ was an iron ship, a wet ship, if you know what I mean.
We was drowned and we was starved, but never overworked. Once the crowd
went aft and told the mate they wanted to put the main topgans'l on
her, as she was rolling so. The mate he says, 'All right, Bo'sun, set
the main topgallant sail,' and that is the way we worked.
"We ran into Table Bay, with a sprung bowsprit, lifted loose of the
gammoning when she was taken aback while the mate was sleeping against
the binnacle. This was my chance, and by use of another note, I got
smuggled ashore with a suit of dirty dungaree and a big bundle of
damp Bank of England notes, leaving the rest of my kit behind. I soon
got some decent clothes, and put up at the Royal Hotel. The life in
Cape Town suited me, I made friends among a fast bunch, spent the
filthy, and enjoyed the air of mystery that surrounded me. No one ever
suspected that I was from the _Iverclyde_, though I saw our captain
walk by the hotel once; in fact I was very safe there.
"Shortly after the ship left, I found that I was being shadowed. Some
bloke was always in my wake. I tried to get him and blow him to a dog
watch of drinks and find out his game, but it was no use. When they
saw I was on to them, for they watched every move I made, and I was
spending free, the gentleman aft gives the signal and I am arrested.
It seems that an embezzler was wanted and they had me spotted for
the game. Not knowing the lay they was on, I did not get my story
straight at first, thinking they was still after me for deserting the
_Iverclyde_. This was bad. They chucked me in jail and kept me there
for three months, lifting what was left of my wad. 'I say, is this all
that's left?' the officer exclaims, counting the notes. They expected
to pick up about ten thousand pounds.
"When the correctness of my story was proved, they let me go. I heard
that the blackleg they was after was caught in Calcutta.
"Sure, they let me out and gave me what was left of my wad. Almost half
gone, but then I had three months of lodging and tucker free and a
little over two hundred saved. I was a wiser one after that, but I was
still a fool, which was something I did not find out till later.
"In order to get away from Cape Town, and at the same time follow my
idea of settling down in some warm climate where a man can become a
planter and have a lot of blacks do the work for him, I shipped before
the mast on the Dutch bark _Java_, out of Amsterdam, bound for Batavia.
This craft had put in short of water and several hands who had died on
the passage down to the Cape. The _Java_ was unlucky. The most unlucky
tub that ever sailed, except the _Flying Dutchman_, but unlucky enough
for any real ship. We winds up in a typhoon, a hundred miles west of
the Sunda Strait. The masts went by the board and at the end of the
blow, after two days of pumping and praying, a steamer picks us up. She
was bound for Singapore. The second mate of the steamer, a young fellow
from London, decided he wanted to work the _Java_ into port, his idea
being Anjer. The skipper says 'all right' and he called for volunteers.
As I said, I was still a fool, so I joined five other men and with the
young second mate we was put on board the _Java_; I was the only one of
her own crew and this scared me. Them Dutchmen knew when they were well
off; and they stayed aboard the steamer.
"The second mate of the steamer did not know exactly what to do. He
said, 'We will get up a jury mast,' but there was nothing to make a
jury mast out of. The steamer was far down on the horizon when we found
by sounding the well that the old tub was gaining water fast. After
that we did nothing but pump. We pumps for the best part of a week. I
don't remember what we ate, or if we did not eat. The crowd on board
curses our young skipper, and pumps. They kept on pumping because we
found the long boat that we depended upon stove in and all of the
thwarts smashed.
"At the end of the week another blow comes up from the West. 'So
long, good old London Town,' one of our fellows sings out. 'The hell
with dyin' tired,' and he drops the pump handle and sits down. We all
do the same, and the second mate, who took his trick along with the
rest, says, 'I guess you are right; we might as well rest a bit before
swimming.'
"We rested all afternoon and till late at night. I had my wad in a
pouch at my belt and each of us had two life belts. We ate a little;
the young second mate found a small beaker of rum in the cabin and we
had some of that, and some hard bread and a hunk of cheese. I drank
very little rum; I was afraid of going to sleep.
"At about midnight we caught the beach. We were in the breakers before
we knew it and when she struck, the sea breached over her and away we
went. I lost my two life belts the first thing and made up my mind to
die, but I held my breath. Might as well die with my lungs full of air
I figured as I went over and over. The water was warm, and I did not
mind it. Before I knew where I was, I washed up on the beach and was
lucky enough to get clear of the undertow. All I had on was a pair of
torn pants and my belt with the soaked notes. Not a sign was to be
had of any of the salvage crew, and the beach for miles was strewn
with bits of wreckage. At daylight I was met by a man coming out from
behind a clump of small trees. He was dressed in dirty white clothes
and had a young beard. I told him the yarn of the wreck and asked him
where I was. He directed me to Anjer, about thirty miles east along the
coast. I asked him if he could give me some clothes. He said yes, if I
would wait where I was he would be back in about two hours.
"Well, to make a long story short, as they say, I waited, being a
natural born fool and not knowing any better. Still," and Australia
paused in his extraordinary tale, "I don't think anyone else would
have done different. I was so glad about meeting this man that I
carefully unrolled a wet five-pound note and set it out on a rock to
dry, weighting it with a little stone. I wanted to square him for his
trouble.
"About noon my man shows up. He has a suit of white cotton clothes that
were not any too new, a pair of shoes, brogans, they call them, and a
straw sun helmet. He also gave me a half loaf of bread, after I handed
him the five-quid note. This took his breath away, so he got reckless.
"About two miles out of Anjer I was met by two constables. They ran at
me so fast that I knew there was something wrong and before I could
say Jack Robinson they had the bracelets on me, and was going through
my pockets for weapons. They got the wad, and that settled me. 'Gawd,'
I says, 'what am I in for now?' My clothes was stripped off of me in
the jail, and took as evidence, I found out later. When my shoes came
off, my left foot, for I wore no sox, was a dull red, like rust--this
was blood.
"'You are charged with murdering the keeper of the Fourth Point Light!'
"'Great Gawd!' I cries, 'what next!'
"Well, they has me, and no mistake. I am a British subject and I set
up a roar. The Consul was called, and I tried my best to get him to
believe my story. It was no go. 'Bally rot!' he says.
"I was sent to Batavia, and held for murder. Fortunately my story
about what happened in Cape Town was verified in an unexpected manner
or things would have gone hard with me. What saved me was a newspaper
story of my jail term in that port, my belt of money, and my hard
luck in being taken for the crook. This tallied with my yarn when I
gave an account of myself, and the fact that the _Java_ had sailed,
as I said, and the story of the salvage crew put on her, sent on from
Singapore when the steamer arrived, helped me. The British Consul
took up matters, and by spending the greater part of what I had left,
funds that were again at my disposal, I cleared myself. However, in the
meantime, my people in England had got the story of my being a murderer
with full details of the horrible deed. It killed my mother, who was
in feeble health. Nothing of the clearing up ever reached the other
members of my family and to them I am a murderer to this day.
"I left Batavia on a tramp steamer bound for Sydney, a wiser young
fellow than ever before, also a much poorer one, for I had just two
pounds in my pocket when I went ashore.
"My narrow escapes had the effect of making me restless. In the next
two years I worked at every trade and calling that I could lay my hands
to. I tried sheepherding, I went into the bush and tried farming,
working as a laborer. I worked as a blacksmith in Sydney after picking
up something of the trade travelling with a small circus. In Melbourne
I started a very good business in peddling milk. I gave this up as soon
as it began to pay me and I could afford the help to make it easier.
Again I shipped to sea. News of my mother's death had reached me, and I
worked my way back to England. My brother had married and would have
nothing to do with me. My name was never mentioned in his home. Both
of my sisters had married and moved away, one to Scotland and one to
America--Canada, I think. Then I went to Liverpool and shipped on the
iron bark _Falls of Ettrick_. Now that is my story. Rotten, eh? Well,
I hope some day to settle down, and quit this thing for good. I have
cheated the rope out of a good stiff by helping along the murderer with
five-quid, and nearly paid for it with my own neck; I almost got mine a
number of times before and since. If I had a decent chance I could make
good, if I only could settle down and stick."
"You ought to get married; that would settle you, Australia, old boy,"
I offered, somewhat taken aback at the recital, for it was poured out
from the heart. I knew that a strange sort of adventurer was telling me
the things closest to his soul. What I said jarred.
"Married? Say, kid, I've tried that game. Yes, sir, I've been married
twice, and I suppose they could jail me for that, too."
"Twice?"
"You bet. Once in Melbourne, and again in London, when I came home and
found I was a murderer yet."
"What happened to your wives?"
"I don't know. Guess they are married again, leastways the one in
London is. She was no good. Thought I was a rich bushman and wanted to
get in on the wad. But the wife in Melbourne was decent. I should have
stuck; that was when I was in the milk business." Australia paused.
"I hope she sold that for a decent figure. You see she was expecting
something, and--oh, rats--what am I saying----"
"Weather main brace!" sang out the mate, and in a moment we were
tailing to the rope, and Fred and Black Joe were wailing in the night
as we swigged at it. The watch was nearly over and Mr. Zerk was working
the sleep out of us. As for me, I was wide awake. Australia never
mentioned his story again, except to say in an offhand way that it was
all a lie about being married twice. "I just wanted to see how far I
could go with you," he said.
Australia was a wiry chap of medium size, full of life and a distinct
ornament to the fo'c'sle. He was never at a loss for a witty retort
and his sallies at the expense of the mate--during the watch below of
course--furnished endless amusement. He always shaved in port except
for a diminutive mustache, but at sea he sported a growth of beard,
merely trimming this with a large pair of scissors such as tailors use
for cutting heavy cloth, a murderous weapon that he carried in a canvas
sheath nailed to the inside cover of his sea chest.
Unlike sailors on shorter runs, and that hybrid animal, the deckhand
in steam, the sailor on board a deepwater ship has a sense of home. He
occupies the same bunk for a year or more at a time, and in spite of
the way he is robbed, or perhaps I should say, was robbed, he carried
a small accumulation of household goods, things that the crimps and
boarding masters did not consider worth while stealing. Every bunk in a
measure reflected the personal taste of the owner.
Australia was one of the few men on board the _Fuller_ who owned a
mirror. When he wanted to nail this up under the lamp in the fo'c'sle,
there was a storm of protest, and the damning implement of an effete
civilization was again restored to his chest. A mirror was only
permissible on rare occasions when a man shaved; otherwise it was
taboo.