I
“As we eat, so shall we work.”
Almost immediately after leaving Amsterdam old Paterson had set up his
insistent croak; from his hammock under the poop when the roaring
officers called the shifting watches, on the sleety deck and aloft
in the wind-taut rigging, and the last thing at night in the great
cabin, even at the solemn moment of common prayer, when his captain
and master slowly read the form of evening supplication, this ancient
and discontented shellback continually muttered his plaint to wind and
waves and willing and unwilling ears, “As we work, so shall we eat.”
If looks could kill, the poor cook of the _George_ would long since
have perished amid his pots and pans, for it was when, at the appointed
times, or as the emergencies of the ship demanded, old Paterson rolled
with his pannikin and mess-kid to the galley that his obsessing whine
became a shriek and his filmy eye burned upon the humble dispenser
of the victuals with a consuming hate. Not that the cook, in himself,
offended old Paterson, but because he became a symbol of oppressive
shipmasters and exacting shipowners who sought to pare another penny of
profit from the stringy stomachs of their ’foremasting slaves.
Justice would indeed be blindfolded, nay, have no eyes at all, if she
could not see that old Paterson had some cause for complaint. Little
meat and less bread; rum thimbled out as reluctantly as a small boy
dividing his lollipops under compulsion; a menu, in fact, made up of
tepid water tinctured to the point of tantalizing with suggestions of
what might, under proper conditions, have been food, made meager fare
for men lashed into crying hunger by the snapping sea gales.
And when still a long way from Santa Cruz, in the Azores, whither
the _George_ was bound, the twenty-four men of the crew were put on
“short allowance”, old Paterson, with his croak, became a soloist now
supported by a chorus. “Short allowance”--certainly, an artful misuse
of the comparative degree--had always been short, and in truth could
only be called shortest.
At Santa Cruz they sluggishly laded the ship with beeswax, and although
the chandlers pressed importunately about the skipper, he gave no
orders for any considerable increase in the provisions for the homeward
voyage. Were they to make the journey back on that misnamed “short
allowance?” It rather looked as though they would. Cargo was stuffed
into the hold in plenty, but no fresh sides of beef came to cheer
the toiling seamen; no flour, no bread, nothing but a few bottles of
wine which, however, went into the great cabin and the custody of the
thrifty key. Perhaps provisions would come aboard when the loading was
done; at least the younger and less sophisticated men hoped, but old
Paterson shook his earrings and clubbed pigtail. He had followed the
sea long enough to know the character of his ship.
Among the officers of the ship, the men had but one whom they could
look upon as a friend,--John Gow, the second mate, a youngish man
from the Orkney Islands. A capable sailor was John Gow, yet never too
busy to sympathize a moment with the miseries of his men, nor too
much the officer to spend a kindly word on an outcast crew. But what
could a second mate do? Was he not simply a block for his superiors to
kick with the expectancy that he would pass the compliment on to his
subordinates? Exactly.
“As we eat, so shall we work.” John Gow heard the slogan spreading like
a kind of vocal slow match to the powder magazine of disaster and only
smiled.
When the beeswax and other cargo was in, the unmistakable notice of
departure appeared in the formal reception by the captain of his
charterers. The gentlemen came aboard in their best clothes and were
escorted to the quarter-deck, where an awning had been spread against
the sun, and a cluster of wine bottles glowed with their purple
prophecy of comfort. From the waist and forward, eyes of envy and
dislike turned furtively on the pleasant company aft, merry now in the
exchange of compliments.
“We’re starting,” cried a youth, plaintively, “and there’s no victuals
aboard.”
Old Paterson was not going home on an empty belly. If he knew anything
in this world, he knew that much. Around him clumped a group of seamen,
and somehow, probably with little premeditation, they suddenly started
aft and shocked their captain by intruding on the sanctity of the
quarter-deck. The merchants leaned back from their bottles and looked
as though they thought the end of the world had come. Simply unheard of!
Old Paterson bowed and scraped politely. “Cap’n,” he began, with the
habitually humble voice before authority, “we’re on short allowance. We
hope your honor ain’t agoin’ home without proper victuals aboard.”
His supporters growled their amen. The captain, hardly holding himself
in from hurling a chair, a bottle, a tackle block or anything handy at
the presumptuous faces before him, rose up and frigidly replied that
there was a steward aboard who had the care of the provisions and all
complaints would be properly redressed. The tarry gang tumbled back to
their proper sphere, leaving the captain in a muddle of embarrassment
and suspicion,--embarrassment for his fractured dignity, suspicion
because the intrusion indicated a perhaps germinating rebellion.
Old Paterson leered at his guard of honor. “As we eat, so shall we
work.”
The merchants in polite course quitted the ship, and the captain,
without commenting on the incident of the afternoon, ordered the
anchor up and the sails shaken out. They were starting, and there
was not a square meal for one, let alone twenty-four men aboard.
Short--shorter--shortest allowance all the way home.
The crew lagged at their work; particularly old Paterson, who crawled
into the shrouds so sluggardly that the captain marked him, and in
round sea terms demanded why he did not get to unfurling the sails more
seamanlike. Old Paterson turned like an aged rattlesnake.
“As we eat, so shall we work.”
The captain caught the mutter, and so did John Gow, the second mate.
The captain prudently did nothing about it; the second mate grinned and
gazed innocently out at the greenish sea.