TWO KINDS OF HAND-SHAKES
Mr. Gull, the second mate, was already on deck when we arrived, and I
expected to continue our pleasantries of the early morning. He looked
hard at us and said nothing, and then I knew Hawkson had put in a word
for me, for no second mate could otherwise have resisted the temptation
of taking it out of an able-bodied seaman, no matter how able-bodied he
might be. I was informed shortly that I was made gunner, and was
henceforth in charge of the barque’s battery to see that it was kept in
order. But there was no more room aft for any more petty officers. Henry
and Watkins occupied the only remaining room, on account of the space
occupied by the passengers and their luggage. Jorg, the Finn, I found
was the carpenter, but he also had to share the forecastle.
Before going below, Hawkson summoned all hands, and he and Gull went
through the old form of choosing the watches.
“Bos’n,” said Hawkson, addressing Richards, “you may muster the men
aft.”
“Ay, ay, sir,” said the man-o’-war’s man, and he touched his cap with
his hand like in the old days aboard the frigate when I had seen him
speak to the officer of the deck.
It was something of a surprise to me, and also to the rest, to find the
man who had served under me as second mate as bos’n of that crowd. It
made me think that perhaps I might dispute the position with him, for I
was a navigator and capable of working the ship’s position to a fairly
accurate extent, and old Peter Richards was only a plain able seaman.
But I soon saw why he had been chosen. He was a trained man and used to
the discipline of a fighting ship, and there were plenty of navigators
aft. He was very sober and quiet in his manner this day, and I wondered
at it, for I was under the impression he had been fooled into going
aboard like the rest of us.
“How is it, Peter,” I asked, as he came near me, “are you going to give
me my orders?”
“Yes, and I advise you to obey them without making trouble for
yourself,” said he, quietly. “You came into the ship with your eyes wide
open. Now stand to it. I told you I’d follow you and take care of you.”
He said the last part of his speech with just a suspicion of a smile
lurking about the corners of his mouth, and I was not in the humour to
be laughed at.
“All right, my cock,” said I, “if you are one of the officers and know
the destination of this hooker, you will oblige me by telling me her
port of destination. If you don’t, I might be tempted to argue the
question with you. You are not pretty, Peter, when you smile.”
“Don’t think I would tackle you, Heywood,” said he, looking sternly at
me. “You’ve been aboard a fighting craft, and know just what I’ll do if
you don’t turn to when I say. I don’t know any more about this vessel
than you do, except--well, except that I wouldn’t have picked her out as
a choice of ships. If you had used your eyes before you signed on, you
could have seen she was something irregular. Brace up and do what you’re
told until you find out what you’re in for.”
Then he went along to get the rest of the crew.
The men who had temporarily gone below to get their morning meal, and
who had remained below as the port watch, were now lined up with those
on deck, and Hawkson began by choosing a huge fellow named Jones. He was
a big, burly, red-headed Welshman. Then Gull chose Bill in spite of his
appearance. And so it went until each had an equal number of men on a
side, Jorg going into the starboard, and myself into the port watch, for
we were in the forecastle with the rest, while Richards slung his
hammock in Hawkson’s room. I started on the forward guns, and spent the
rest of the day polishing.
The weather was fine and it was exhilarating to sit in the gun-port to
windward and watch the old barque go. The land had now entirely
disappeared to the eastward, and we were rapidly drawing off.
The barque was very fast. With a breeze of not more than twelve knots,
she was running a full nine knots, seeming hardly to disturb the smooth
sea. Her wake was clean, and only the steady pouring of her bow-wave
whitened her path.
I sat for hours rubbing the muzzles of the guns with whale-oil and dust,
and, as I did so, I watched the flaking foam of the side-wash spread
away with its musical hiss and tinkle. Down deep in the blue below a
piece of weed now and then flashed past, looking like an eel or snake as
the sunlight wavered upon it. It was a warm, lazy day, and I pondered
long upon the strange turn of fortune that had suddenly placed me upon
the old barque with her sinister past and mysterious future. Here she
was all fitted out for a long voyage, but without any cargo to speak of,
and that little stowed in such a manner that it was easy of access.
I gazed aloft at the fine rigging, and noted how well her canvas was
cut. Every sail was fitted as aboard a man-o’-war, and all her running
gear was of new hemp line of the finest grade, totally unlike the loose
laid stuff they used for clew-lines, bunt-lines, leach-lines, and even
braces aboard the ordinary western ocean merchantmen. Hawkson had the
yards trimmed in a shipshape and seamanlike manner, and the grease or
varnish upon them brought out the grain of the wood. They were large for
a vessel of five hundred ton. High above, the mainroyal swung across a
cloud-flecked zenith, a small white strip, while beneath, in regular
rotation, stretched the t’gallantsail, topsail, and mainsail into
increasing size until across the main-yard the distance must have been
full seventy feet or more.
The breeze hummed and droned under the foot of the great mainsail,
sounding restful and pleasant with the easy roll of the vessel.
I was thinking how easy it would be to desert the ship at Providence
Harbour, in the Bahamas, and return to the States. It was but a few
days’ run from there to Savannah, and plenty of small vessels would be
bound over at this time of the year. It was degrading to have to polish
brass like a common foremast hand. However, if I tired of it, I was
really only working my way home. That was the best way to look at it.
But the thought of home changed the half-formed purpose. What was there
in the name for me? Only a poor old mother living in a bit of a house,
with a negro girl I had brought from Jamaica some years before. They
were dependent entirely upon me and the little money I had saved to eke
out an existence, the girl doing all the work and caring for the aged
mother. If I went back, there would be only one more to draw on the
small hoard, and I might not get another berth very soon. Here was a
very proper ship, rigged almost like a man-o’-war, and evidently bound
on some special mission. Perhaps there was money to be made. At all
events, there would be little lost by staying in her, for the pay in
American ships was almost as poor as the English.
While I thought over these matters, I watched the two passengers, who
were lounging aft on the quarter, smoking long clay pipes and drinking
ale from a tankard filled from a keg in the lazarette. They certainly
appeared well-to-do people, and, if they were part-owners, there was
little doubt from their manners that they were used to living as
gentlemen of wealth and position.
Bill came down from aloft along the weather main-rigging above me, where
he had been fastening chafing-gear on the backstays at the point the
topsail-yard would touch. He saw me gazing aft while I rubbed, and he
dropped somewhat ostentatiously upon the deck to attract my attention.
“Welcome, hey?” he said.
“Of course,” I answered, holding out a greasy hand. “Why not?”
“Well, I’ve no grudge, John,” said he. “You licked me fair enough.”
“You haven’t come for another one?” I asked, smiling.
“No,” he said, grasping my fingers in a tarry grip, “no, I believe
you’re all right. I youst wanted to ask what you t’ought of the
passengers. They say they’re part-owners. Now, I’ve been in American
ships ten years and more, an’ I never t’ought to go in a wessel not
knowin’ youst where she’s bound, did you?”
“How did you come to ship in her?” I asked.
“Oh, I signed all right. I youst saw she was a fine wessel an’ the pay
good,--more’n a mate of an old country wessel,--so I t’ought it all
right. Only I’d youst like to find out, friend John, where she’s bound
for,--I mean what port.”
“The first is Nassau, but we’re signed for some place in the South
Atlantic or Pacific, and unless you’re going to cut and run, or make a
pier-head jump, you’ll land in some of the South Sea Islands for
certain,” said I. “Who got you to come aboard?”
“A little fellow youst like a fox,--Henry they called him; he hasn’t
been on deck yet much. I t’ought he’d be a bit backward turnin’
out--There he is now, comin’ out on the main-deck. If you soak him one,
I’ll stand by, for it would youst serve him right, or if you youst stand
by, I’ll attend to it, hey?”
“No use, Bill,” I answered; “there’ll be enough of real sure fracases
before we’re on the beach again. Let him alone. It will only make
trouble aft, and then the whole after-guard will be for putting us
through. I’ll look out he don’t put his face in the forecastle, but he’s
third mate, and he belongs aft. These vessels are not like American
ships. A fellow don’t take rating by his hands, and if you whollop an
officer it only means trouble. I like your style, Bill, and, if there’s
trouble, I’ll stick close to you; but there won’t be any unless you make
it.”
Bill held out his big fist again and squeezed mine. There was an honest
look in his blue eyes I liked, albeit they were pretty well draped in
black from the discipline of the early morning. We were friends from
that moment, and I never had cause to regret that hand-shake.
Henry saw us looking at him and came forward. He was afraid of nothing
on a ship’s deck, and, if he were a tricky little sea-wolf, he was as
grim as any in the forests of the New England shores. He swung up his
hand to his cap as he reached me, but took no notice of Bill. I kept on
rubbing the breech of the gun and took no notice, for I was still a
trifle sore at the way he had treated me.
“Mister Heywood, I saluted you, sir,” said Henry, stopping.
“So you did,” I answered, “and it does great credit to that mother of
yours that your manners are proper. I always return the salute of an
honest man, though it’s hardly necessary aboard ship, especially
merchant vessels.”
“Now, see here, Heywood, what’s the use of keeping up a grudge? I got
you into a good ship, didn’t I? And, if you ain’t mate, you’re gunner.”
“If I had a grudge, I would wring your neck, Henry,” I answered, calmly.
“No fear, Hi say,” he answered, smiling, and held out his hand. “Put ’er
there and we’ll call it even, hey?”
I held out my hand, for there was really little use keeping up a bad
feeling aboard. I might as well see the joke and bear a hand with the
rest. I held out a greasy paw to signify all was well.
The next instant his long fingers, which I had at first noticed on the
pier, closed upon mine like a steel vice, and I involuntarily cried out
with the pain. Such a grip! There was nothing human about it, and I felt
my bones cracking.
“Let go!” I roared, and Bill sprang upon him at the same instant.
But Henry grabbed his arm before he could strike, and there we stood
like two boys for an instant, unable to move, with the keen-faced rascal
between us. Before either could strike with the disengaged hand, Henry
cast us loose with a laugh.
“Don’t you try it,” he grinned, as he passed forward.