The flying-fishes could have dispensed with the _Bonadventure_. During
the night, sixteen or so had come aboard, to be seized by the apprentices
for breakfast; I saw with surprise how one had been driven and wedged
between the steam-pipes. In looks, when they were out of their element,
despite their large mild eyes, their long "wings" closed into a sort of
spur, being light spines webbed with a filmy skin, despite too the
purple-blue glowing from the dark back, they did not seem remarkable. But
under the hot and shining morning, where the _Bonadventure's_ sheering
bows alarmed the shoals into flight, they were seen more justly. In ones
and twos and crescents and troops they skimmed away, sometimes with their
dark backs and white undersides appearing as fishes, sometimes in the sun
nothing more than volleys of light-curved silvery darts. They turned in
the air at sharp angles without apparently losing their speed, which
was such that often one heard the water hiss as they entered it again.
The morning that they first came in numbers, it happened that the salt
fish for breakfast was relieved by reminiscences.
"You reminded me of Captain Shank just now, chief."
"Indeed--why?"
"When you ran your hand along the table for the treacle.... He used to
think the treacle was put aboard for him. He told the second mate off for
eating too much of it--said it wasn't really for his use. After that we
all began to eat the stuff like blazes."
"You must have had some funny captains in this line."
"He was. He'd come up sometimes on the bridge and sit down in the wheel
and start making noises to himself. He'd sit there with his old chin
drooping and say, '... I knew it.... Haw, haw.... The silly old b----....
Bless my soul....' for twenty minutes. I'd go away from the wheel for
fear of laughing out--and then he'd go somewhere else and do it."
"Davy Jones got him at the finish, didn't he?"
"--And a dam'd fine ship too."
"It was her maiden trip."
"What happened to her?"
"Ran ashore."
"Both the boats capsized."
"She had the most valuable cargo I ever heard of." A pause.
"Old Shank used to ask for it, though. Once in the Gulf of Mexico he was
down below, and the ship was on the course he'd given. (He never used
to take any notice of deviation.) The second mate heard breakers, you
could hear them quite plain, and not very far off; so he turns the ship
a little, and goes down to tell Shank. Old Shank jumped up and stormed
and stamped, and rushed up on the bridge roaring, '_Am I to be taught
after forty-eight years at sea by a set of b---- schoolboys?_' and had
her put back to the old course again. And then he walked off. You could
hear him snapping his teeth. Presently he stopped. You could see the
breakers now, the phosphorescence of them. '_What's that?_' he whipped
out, '_What's that?_ My God.'"
"He was one of the white-haired boys in the office, what's more."
"His officers saved him."
"Well, one night he gave me a course, and the last thing he said to me
on the bridge was, 'It's up to you to keep her there.' I soon found we
were going to fall on land, and I changed the course. And as it was, we
passed three-quarters of a mile inside the lightship. I went down to his
room and told him. 'Why, you damn'd fool,' he started off; he nearly
went mad. 'But I've hauled her out,' I said, 'I hauled her out.' And
then he yelled, 'Changed her course without orders, did you?' and so on."
"Well, the office made a pet of him. Some people get away with it."
"After my trip with him, the whole crew refused to sail with him again.
And the mate went up to Shields to join a new ship. And when he got there,
he found Shank had joined her as skipper!"
We came into the Doldrums, and I felt none too well. "Cold, worse; heat,
worse," became my diary's keynote. The steward also complained of a
persistent cold. Six bottles--six--of his own medicine since we left Barry
had not cured him. This notable Cardiff Irishman was always pleased to
answer questions about this cold of his, and they became suspiciously
frequent. Then his solemn face would grow still more solemn, his voice
of office would take on a pleasing melancholy, and he would shake his
grey head with dolorous realizations. Nevertheless, his stores being just
below my cabin, I grew accustomed to his morning rejuvenate roarings
from the threshold at the avarice of the modern sailor. It seemed that at
such times he was momentarily free of his illness.
He, nevertheless, at present, added his good word to the general approval
of the cook. The bread was universally admired, the pea-soup also. This
popularity did not cause any alteration in the melancholy orientalism
of its deserver. He looked forth from his galley with the same wooden
countenance. He was the thinnest man I think I ever saw.
His macaroni, however, appeared to fall under a general taboo. It was
"eschewed." Bicker, the most assiduous tale-teller, seized it as the
chance for describing an old shipmate's misfortune. It was in Italy: "He
was keen on seeing all the sights, so we asked him if he'd seen the
macaroni plantation. He said he'd like to. We told him to take the
tram out of the town and walk on another mile or so, when he'd see the
trees with macaroni growing on them like lace--natural lace. And he
went. But the best of it was that he'd sent a card home the day before
to say, 'To-morrow I am going to see the macaroni plantation.'" This,
which if true was stranger than fiction, elicited recollections of
fool's-errands in the shipyards ("Run and get a capful of nailholes,"
"Ask the storekeeper for a brass hook and a long stay"), which kept
us at table until the steward groaned aloud.
I led a lazy life. There was not much reason for being active. My
afternoon walk might reach as far as the fo'c'sle, in which lay a
kindly miscellany of wire, hemp and manila ropes in coils, and an aroma of
paint and tar was never absent. The heat, however, seemed intenser in
this house than in the open. Clouds and a little rain soon vanished,
and the sea was one long flame towards the sun. White uniforms were in
vogue. For me, the half-closed eye, with a flying-fish or two sometimes
glittering to awake its notice, in any corner out of the sun, was an
occupation. The unfortunate boatswain and his men were chipping paint,
clanging and banging in the heat; or I would see him perching on the
bulwarks directing some aerial operation, and a sailor seated in the
"bosun's chair" being hauled up the mast. They rested from Saturday noon
until Monday morning. Now, more than ever, the lot of the engineers
and firemen seemed unacceptable. The blaze, the fierce blue sea, and
a flagging breeze became a routine now. The rains of the Doldrums were
not much in evidence; a short shower, flying over the clay-coloured
water, might come towards evening.
Incidents were few. The sight of the flying-fishes still starting up and
skimming, veering and spurting into a safe distance from the intruder,
was no longer one for my absorbed watch. I woke up, heavy-headed, one
morning to find that Meacock had suspended one of these poor creatures
from my roof; there he hung swaying in the little breeze that there
was, in parched and doleful manner, and ever and anon turning upon me, who
felt much in his condition, his mild and magnificent eye. I threw him out
with sympathy. At night the boobies shrieked round the lights on the
masts, and appeared at morning flying over the water. Once the sleep of
the just was broken by profane language and scuffling in the passage
outside--a rat hunt. Boat drill took its turn one afternoon, the siren
summoning all hands available to their posts. I was questioned about
Colonel Lawrence, at intervals, having seen him in the flesh; and the
publisher of his _Life_ was expected to be named by me. I said that I
believed he himself would write his Memoirs. But this was not the thing.
A book about him by some one who knew how to paint the lily and improve on
possibility was what was sought. I think I could design a satisfactory
coloured cover.
The morning bucket was a transient happiness. To disturb the "gradual
dusky veil" now unescapable, since the bunkers were now chiefly filled
with coal-dust, was not too simple in a limited space, with limited hot
water. My porthole, looking over those fuming bunkers, had to be shut
at all hours. According to everybody, the _Bonadventure_ was "a dirty
ship"; although it seemed unlikely that a carrier of coal by thousands of
tons should be clean.
She at least began to please the chief with his coveted "Ten knots";
and at dinner on the seventeenth day out, he asked whether anyone had
seen a disturbance in the water. The old gentleman was expected. I was
sorry that he did not come, after all, with his "baptism," shave, and
medicine (and I believe other rites), when at about four in the afternoon
the _Bonadventure_ crossed the Equator; but old customs can scarcely be
eternal. The steward's cough mixture was the only medicine I got that
day. Neptuneless, the ship furrowed a sea almost silent, and evening
came on tranquilly among woolpacks of warm-kindled colouring.