The White Squall Part 16

Davis didn't like to see them taking it easy in this fas.h.i.+on, so, catching hold of a marlinespike which someone had left on top of the cabin skylight, he began rapping the rail at the break of the p.o.o.p with it.

"Come, rouse up there, you lubbers!" he cried. "I'm not going to allow any caulking in my watch, no matter what the first mate chooses to let you do. Tumble up!"

The men stretched themselves and rose up grumbling, whereupon Davis pitched upon Jackson, who had been asleep under the long-boat and was the last to show a leg, not hearing the second mate's call until a messmate awoke him.

"Hi, you, Jackson!" he roared out. "I'll give you something to cure your laziness! I'll haze you, I will, you hound! Get a bucket of grease from the cook's caboose and slush the mainmast down."

"I'm no hound, sir!" retorted Jackson angrily, drawing himself up to his full height and flaring up angrily at Davis' uncalled-for abuse. "The mast doesn't need slus.h.i.+ng; it was only done over the day before yesterday."

"What, you dare to answer me, you mutinous dog!" roared out Davis, raised to a pitch of fury by the seaman not recognising, as he thought, his authority as second mate and officer of the watch. "I tell you what, you shall slush that mast down from the main-truck to the bitts; and look sharp about it, too, or I'll make you!"

"Make me!" repeated Jackson scornfully. "I'd like to see you lay a finger on me!"

Davis fairly foamed at the mouth with pa.s.sion at this, the more particularly as the other men, grouped below in the waist, were sn.i.g.g.e.ring and pa.s.sing sly jokes from one to another about the affair.

He started to go down the p.o.o.p-ladder, brandis.h.i.+ng the marlinespike savagely, with the evident intention of attacking Jackson and trying to compel him to obey his orders, utterly unnecessary and vindictive as they were; but, what from having been drinking heavily of late and the fresh air and exposure to the sun having increased the intoxicating effect of the rum which he doubtless had just swallowed before coming on deck to take charge of the watch, he reeled off the ladder as soon as he got to the bottom--falling down all of a heap right in front of the cabin door at the very moment that Captain Miles, who had been roused up by the altercation, was coming out to see what all the noise was about.

"Mr Davis!" cried the captain sternly. "What is the matter?"

The second mate scrambled to his feet, but he could not hold himself steady and he only muttered some utterly incomprehensible words, his power of speech vanis.h.i.+ng with his equilibrium.

"I dunno, canshay," he murmured helplessly.

"Faugh!" exclaimed Captain Miles in accents of the deepest disgust.

"The man is dead drunk. Take him away at once to the fo'c's'le some of you. He doesn't come into my cabin again if I know it!"

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

BAD WEATHER.

Later on in the afternoon, some couple of hours or so after he had been carried into the forecastle, Davis, sobered down by his rest, came aft again. He did not, however, enter the cabin or go up on the p.o.o.p, but remained hanging about the waist, as if uncertain what to do, evidently "smelling a rat," as the saying goes.

Captain Miles was prepared for this, Moggridge, the boatswain, who had made many voyages with him, and in whom he placed implicit trust, having related all that had occurred; so, although he saw Davis approach, he waited a while till the watch was relieved, when, advancing to the break of the p.o.o.p, he hailed the whilom second mate below.

"Davis!" he cried, "I have got something to say to you."

The other had lost all his defiant air now and looked very sheepish and crest-fallen--so much so, indeed, that he seemed unable at first to answer the captain.

"Yes, sir," said he at last, looking up and then dropping his eyes again in an instant, unable to stand the captain's straightforward glance.

"I'm sorry to have to say," continued Captain Miles, speaking slowly and distinctly, so that every word he uttered was heard fore and aft the s.h.i.+p, "that you, a responsible officer of this vessel, came on duty three hours ago in a state of intoxication. The fault would have been bad enough in one of the ordinary hands, but is doubly so in a man having charge of the lives of those on board and the safety of the s.h.i.+p and cargo. Besides, it is not merely on a single occasion that you have so grossly behaved, as I have noticed of late that you have been several times under the influence of liquor."

"But, Captain Miles, sir," interrupted Davis at this point. However, the captain soon silenced him.

"Hear me out, sir," he cried, his voice getting sterner and more energetic. "Not only have you given way to that cursed habit of drink, but you have also, I have perceived--for I've had my eye upon you when you have little known it--exercised your authority over the crew in a most unmanly and tyrannical fas.h.i.+on. Now, I have always prided myself on the fact of my s.h.i.+p being a comfortable one, and I have never found a hand who has sailed with me once objecting to s.h.i.+p for a second voyage if I wanted him. This I have achieved by treating the men as I would wish to be treated myself, and not by bullying and hazing them unnecessarily as you have done repeatedly, especially this afternoon when you relieved the port watch."

The captain paused here a moment, and I declare I felt quite ashamed for Davis being thus spoken to before all the men; but he did not seem to mind it much, for he began to resume his old b.u.mptious manner, shrugging his shoulders in a careless way and glaring round at the listeners as if he would have liked to eat them.

"I was drunk then," was all he said, however, in extenuation of the last offence with which the captain had charged him.

"That is no excuse for your conduct," replied Captain Miles; "in my opinion it rather puts it in a worse light. I have nothing further to add, save that I deeply regret ever having promoted you from your station forwards. You are a good sailor, I'll say that for you, but you haven't got the sort of stuff in you that officers are made of! The only thing I can now do, to atone for my error of judgment in mistaking my man, is to send you back again to your old place in the fo'c's'le, where I think you'll find yourself far more at home than you were on the p.o.o.p. Davis, you are no longer second mate of the _Josephine_! I disrate you on account of your unfitness for the post, and you will now return to your former rating, as I have restored your name to the list of the crew. You will be in Mr Marline's watch, and I hope you'll do your duty as well as you used before I brought you aft."

He did not say any more; and Davis, without answering a single word, slunk forwards towards the forecastle, anxious, apparently, to hide himself from observation. Although he had tried to brave it out when the captain first began to speak to him, even his hardened nature had to succ.u.mb before the contemptuous looks of the men he had so long bullied, the more especially as they now openly displayed their joy at his abas.e.m.e.nt.

Thus ended the first act of the little drama; and I then noticed that Captain Miles turned to Mr Marline, with whom he exchanged a short whispered conversation. After this he advanced again to the break of the p.o.o.p, and hailed for a second time the lower deck.

"Jackson!" he called out.

"Aye, aye, sir!" instantly responded the stalwart young Cornishman, coming out from amidst the others who had gathered in a cl.u.s.ter in the waist to watch the progress of the row between the captain and Davis.

Jackson quite overtopped the rest of the crew by a foot; and, as he walked up to the foot of the p.o.o.p-ladder, with his fine head thrown well back on his broad shoulders, he seemed afraid of looking no man in the face--presenting a marked contrast to his late antagonist, whom he pa.s.sed on his way aft.

"I have summoned you, Jackson," began Captain Miles--speaking out distinctly as before, so that all hands could hear--"to inform you that Mr Marline and myself think you are the best man on board to fill the vacant post of second mate just vacated by Davis. I have been told of your recent altercation with that person when he was in authority over you; but, taking into consideration your previous good conduct and prompt obedience to the orders of myself and Mr Marline on all occasions, as well as your general proficiency as an able seaman, we have not allowed this little matter to affect our decision, and I have no doubt you will in future discharge your duty as ably as an officer of the s.h.i.+p as you have hitherto done as a foremast hand. You had better, therefore, move your chest aft and take the second cabin next to the steward's pantry, hitherto occupied by Davis, whom I have just disrated and sent to fill your place in the fo'c's'le. Men," added the captain, raising his voice a little higher, "you will please consider _Mister_ Jackson to be the second mate of the _Josephine_, and treat him respectfully as such."

No one seemed more surprised at the ending of the affair than the newly- promoted foremast hand.

Twirling his cap in his two hands and fidgeting first on one leg and then on the other, he looked the very picture of confusion.

When he was told to come forwards, he expected no doubt to have been called to account for his insubordination, whereas here he was actually selected to fill Davis's billet!

He couldn't make it out at all, and stared open mouth upwards at the p.o.o.p unable to utter a word of thanks or anything.

"Come up here, Mr Jackson," said Captain Miles kindly, seeing how dumbfounded he looked; wherefore, the modest fellow, actually blus.h.i.+ng at the unexpected honour bestowed on him, mounted the p.o.o.p-ladder in a much more gingerly fas.h.i.+on than he would have done if he had been told to take his trick at the wheel or exercise some sailor's job aft.

However, as soon as he got alongside the captain and Mr Marline, they both shook hands with him, in order to give him a proper welcome to his new station, and the steward singing out a few minutes afterwards that dinner was ready, he was invited down into the cabin to "christen" his promotion, as it were, by partaking of that meal, in token of his being admitted to a social equality with his superior officers.

I may add, too, that if his sudden rise in rank was unexpected, Jackson did not take long to settle down to his new duties, proving himself ere long a much better officer in every way than his predecessor. The men, too, were not in the least jealous of his being placed over them, but executed his orders with alacrity; for, he exercised his authority judiciously, remembering his former position--albeit he was ever a rigid and impartial disciplinarian.

"After a storm comes a calm," says the old adage, but the reverse of this axiom holds equally good at sea.

It was so, at all events, in our instance; for, after our ten days of stagnation on the rolling ocean, a change came almost as suddenly as the calm had set in, the weather breaking towards the close of the very day that had witnessed the downfall of Davis and Jackson's elevation to the dignity of the p.o.o.p.

Every evening during the continuance of the calm, as I think I have mentioned, the sun went down below the horizon like a ball of fire, while a thick misty fog afterwards enveloped the sea; but this day when we came on deck after dinner, about the middle of the second dog watch, the sky, for a wonder, was quite clear, and the glorious...o...b..sank to rest with some of that old splendour of his which I had noticed when we were threading our way amongst the islands. Long after he had disappeared, too, from view the heavens were lit up with a ruby radiance which was reflected below in the water, making it look like a crimson ocean.

"We're going to have a change at last, Marline," said Captain Miles rubbing his hands together. "It is better late than never!"

"Aye," responded the first mate who stood by the binnacle; "the question, though, is, what change?"

"Hang it, man," exclaimed the captain testily, "anything is preferable to this confounded calm."

"Well, I don't quite agree with you there," said Mr Marline drily; "there is such a thing as changing for the worse. Have you looked at the gla.s.s, eh?"

"'Pon my word, I have not once glanced at it this evening! Dear me, what on earth could I have been thinking of?" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the captain in a sort of apologetic way, darting down instantly below to consult his unfailing guide, the barometer, which I suppose he had looked at so vainly for many days past that he had given up the instrument as incorrigible.

In another moment, however, he was on deck again, rubbing his hands as triumphantly together as before.

"Pooh, nonsense, Marline!" he cried, "you're an old croaker, saying that the change would possibly be for the worse! Why, the gla.s.s is rising, man, rising steadily; and, I've no doubt we'll have a splendid breeze ere nightfall, and glorious weather."