Faith Wing fitted easily into the life aboard the _Sally Sims_, as the
whaler worked eastward before starting on the long southward slant that
would bring her at last to her true hunting grounds. The mates saw her
daily as a pleasant figure in the life of the cabin; the boat-steerers
and the seamen and greenies caught glimpses of her, now and then, when
she sat on deck with sewing, or a book, or with idle hands and
thoughtful eyes. Faith, on her part, studied the men about her, and
watched over Noll, and gave herself to the task of being a good wife and
helpmate to him.
The first weeks of the cruise were arduous ones, as they are apt to be
on a whaler; for of the whole crew, more than half were green hands
recruited from the gutters, the farms, the slums.... Weak men, in many
cases; rotted by wrong living; slack-muscled, jangle-nerved. Weak men
who must be made strong; for there is no place for weakness in a
whaler's crew.
It was the task of the mates to make these weaklings into men. The
greenies must learn the rigging; they must learn their duties in
response to each command; they must be drilled to their parts in the
boats and prepared for the hunts that were to come. Your novice at sea
has never an easy time of it; he learns in a hard school, and this is
apt to be especially true upon a whaler. While the methods of the
officers differed according to the habit of the officer, they were never
gentle.
Cap'n Wing watched over all this, took a hand here and there. And Faith,
quietly in the background, saw a new Noll, saw in each of the officers a
man she had never seen ashore.
Noll was the master, the commander. When his voice bellowed along the
decks, even the greenest man leaped and desperately strove in his
efforts to obey. Noll was the dominant man; and Faith was pleasantly
afraid of him and his roaring tones.... She loved being afraid of
him....
There were four officers aboard the _Sally Sims_. These four, with
Roy--in his capacity of ship's boy--lived with Noll and Faith in the
main cabin. They were Faith's family. Big Henry Ham, the mate, was a man
of slow wit but quick fist; a man with a gift of stubbornness that
passed for mastery. The men of his watch, and especially the men of his
boat, feared him acutely. He taught them this fear in the first week of
the cruise, by the simple teachings of blows. Thereafter he relaxed this
chastisement, but held a clenched fist always over their cowering heads.
He had what passed for a philosophy of life, to justify this. When Faith
asked him, pleasantly, one day, whether it was necessary to strike the
men, he told her with ponderous condescension that no other measures
would suffice.
"They've no proper brains at all, ma'am," he explained. "Their brains is
all in their faces; and when they don't jump at the word, your fist in
their mouth jumps them. And next time, they jump without it. That's the
whole thing of it, ma'am."
And he added further: "They're children, ma'am." He smiled slyly. "When
you've babies of your own, you'll understand. Take the switch to 'em,
ma'am, till they learn what it is. Then they'll mind without, and
things'll go all smooth."
He was, after a fashion, a Pecksniffian man, this Henry Ham. Faith did
not like him, but she found it hard not to respect him. He was, after
all, efficient.
Dan'l Tobey, the second mate, was a man of another sort. Faith was
startled and somewhat amused to find what a difference there was between
Dan'l afloat and Dan'l ashore. Ashore, he was a round-faced, freckled,
sandy-haired boy with no guile in him; an impetuous, somewhat helpless
and inarticulate boy. Afloat, he was a man; reticent, speaking little,
speaking to the point when he spoke at all.... Shrewd, reading the
character of his men, playing upon them as a musician plays upon his
instruments. Of the five men in his boat, not one but might have whipped
him in a stand-up fight. Nevertheless, he ruled them. This one he
dominated by cutting and sarcastic words that left the man abashed and
helpless; that one he flattered; another he joked into quick
obedience.... The fourth, a surly giant who might have proved
unmanageable, he gave into the keeping of his boat-steerer, a big
Islander called Yella' Boy. He taught Yella' Boy to fear the man,
provoked a fight between them in which the giant was soundly whipped,
and thereafter used the one against the other and kept them both in
balance eternally. Dan'l had, Faith decided, more mental ability than
any man aboard--short of her Noll. He ruled by his wits; and this the
more surprised her because she had always thought Dan'l more than a
little stupid. She watched the unfolding of the new Dan'l with keenest
interest as the weeks dragged by.
James Tichel, the third mate, was a thin little old man given to
occasional bursts of tigerish rage in which he was the match for any man
aboard. In his second week, he took the biggest man in his boat and beat
him into a helpless, clucking wreck of bruises. Thereafter, there was no
need for him to strike a second time. Faith wondered whether these rages
to which the little man gave way were genuine, whether he gave way
because he chose to do so. In the cabin, he was distinguished for a dry
and acid wit. Faith did not like him, even when she guessed the secret
fear of the little man that he was passing his usefulness, that he was
growing too old to serve. He told her, once, in a moment of confidence,
that he had sailed as third mate for fourteen years, and once as
second....
"But never as mate; nor as skipper, ma'am," he mourned.
She tried to comfort him. "You will, some day," she told him. "Every
man's chance must come...."