Sonnie-Boy's People Part 27

And the first grocery store I come to I says to the man behind the counter: "How much for a ham?" And he says, quick and brisk, "Four thousand dollars," and I was most stunned, but I manages to slap a five-dollar gold piece down on the counter and I says, quick and brisk too: "In G.o.d's name gimme a bite out of it!" An' I had to hire two coolies to wheel the change back to the s.h.i.+p.

Well, the money values of that Tangarine place had me mesmerized, and when my time ran out a few weeks later I settles up with the paymaster and stands by to go over the side with my bag. The skipper he says: "Killorin, I'll be over here by'n'by and take you off. And you'll be glad to come, I'll wager." And I says, "Thank you, sir, but this is the dolsee far nanity country for me. With the number o' gold pieces I got in my pants pocket I oughter be able to pa.s.s the rest o' my days here,"

and with my big ticket and my bag I hit the beach in Tangarine, intendin' to go straight to the palace and get chummy with the new President first thing.

But I never got so far as the palace. Not that time. About a quarter-mile up from the beach was a joyous-lookin' hotel with shaded verandas all 'round and a banana grove in the yard, and on a second look a _cantina_ s.h.i.+nin' with mirrors and gla.s.ses and colored bottles on the ground floor, and on another look s.p.a.cious-lookin' suites o' rooms such as were befittin' to _senors_ of wealth and leisure on the floor above.

And over these premises I cast one sailor-like view, and through the for'ard gangway of that gla.s.s-mounted _cantina_ I hove my clothes-bag and myself followed after. There was also a roulette wheel, which didn't hurt the looks of the place either.

I felt so right to home that I anch.o.r.ed right there--oh, three or four or five or six days; maybe it was two weeks; but anyway--all that don't matter--when I steadied down so's to reason like the man o' sense my skipper always used to say I was at bottom, I was down on the beach and it was early in the mornin', and I was watchin' a lemon-colored sun trying to rise out of the smooth Caribbean sea, and I was wonderin'

where it was I'd mislaid my clothes-bag. I could account for everythin'

but my clothes-bag. But that don't matter either now. I never saw it again.

And while I sat there, not feelin' just like a high-score gun-captain after target-practice, I hears a light step behind me, and pretty soon I could feel an eye looking me over, and by'n'by a voice said: "A ver-ry fine good morning, sir."

"Is it?" I says, and I looks up to see who the cheerful party is. And there was a good-lookin', well-dressed, young, dark-complected chap, with a little bamboo cane which he kept stickin' into the sand.

And he looks at me again and says, plainly pleased and yet a little sad, too: "The Blues are in." And I says: "That so? Since when?" And he says: "Since last nigh-it. You did not hear, the revoloo-shee-onn?"

And I says: "I didn't--I must 'a' been takin' a nap." But I guessed it was a good thing; leastways they couldn't be any worse than the Reds--or was it the Yellow chaps were in last?

"No Yellow in Tangarine," he says.

"Ha, ha!" I says--"an authority."

"No Yellow--Blues and Reds only. And as for the Reds, bah! But the Blues, good--ver-ry good," and he pulls the cane out of the sand, lunges at the air, comes to a present, and says: "I salute you, sir." And I said: "And I al-so salute you, senor." And he says: "Americano?" And I said: "You betcher." And he said: "Of course. Ver-ry good. I have been one time in your country. I have studied the langooage there, yes.

Ver-ry fine, ver-ry fine. All American people ver-ry fine. All heroes.

Yes, yes, I think so. I have read it also in your books. But par-don, sir, what is it you do now?"

And I said I wasn't doing anything except makin' up my mind whether I'd go back to the navy or not, and if I did, how I'd get back.

"Ah-h, man-o'-war-man. I have thought so. You sail s.h.i.+p--navigate, yes?"

And I said I didn't know about navigatin', but I could sail a s.h.i.+p if I had to.

"I have thought so," he says. "Listen, please. While you--compose, is it not?--your brains, should you not wish to engage in privateerin'? It is ver-ry good wonderful opportune time now for that, while the Blues are in control and the Reds who are on the ocean know not of it."

"H'm, we kind o' lost the privateerin' habit in our country. How do you do it these days?" I says.

"Oh-h, sir, ver-ry sim-ple, ver-ry. My friend he is in the Blue cabinet.

A fine man, yes. He shall make for me all the privateerin' doc.u.ments I shall require. It is necessary only to request respectfully of him. Then we shall engage a small s.h.i.+p and you shall navigate her, and when we shall perceive other s.h.i.+ps, the same who shall display the Red flag, we shall display suddenly a Blue flag on our s.h.i.+p and capture them."

"And loot 'em?"

"Par-don, sir," says he, "but what is that lootem?"

"Why, whatever's in the s.h.i.+ps we capture. Don't we get everythin' we c'n find in 'em?"

"Oh, sir, of a surely, abso-lutely. It is the article of war. But"--he holds up a finger warnin'like--"as commander of the expedition I shall reserve to myself one article of any kind which shall be captured. One chest, one table, even"--he looked at me to see if I got this part--"even one prisoner, if I shall so desire."

"Well, that's all right, too," I said; "for I s'pose you're payin' for the outfittin' o' this expedition?" And he says he was. "Then it's a go," I says; "for I don't see but I might 's well be privateerin' an'

pickin' up a little loose loot as lyin' around on the beach wonderin'

where my eats are comin' from f'r the next few weeks."

So he brings me around and shows me a little brigantine, he'd chartered, and with three dusky lads for a crew and some grub and two big chests on her quarter-deck we sail out. And the first thing I says when we were clear o' the harbor was: "What's them chests for?" And he opens up one of 'em and says: "Behold, senor, your uniform!"

And I looks and there's five gold stripes on the sleeve of the coat to begin with. And draws it all out, pants and all, and I see it's an admiral's special full-dress uniform!

"For me?" I says.

"Certain-ly," he says. "You, senor, shall be an admiral. Why not?"

"Well," I says, "I don' know why not either, only it's some rank to start with. But what'll you be?" And at that he opens up the other chest and hauls out another uniform and holds it up f'r me to look at, and, pointin' to the insignia, he asks: "What rank shall such be?"

It was a general's uniform, and I tells him so.

"So?" he says. Then bowing to me: "Then I, senor, if you do not object, shall be a gen'ral."

"Sure--why not, senor?" I says. "And there's cert'nly some cla.s.s to the quarter-deck o' this brigantine. Let's get into 'em." And we got into 'em, an' gorgeous, oh, gorgeous, they were. An' rememberin' the market price o' hams when I was buyin' hams, I figured they must 'a' cost ten or fifteen million dollars apiece. And I hadn't been an hour in mine--solid gold almost, and a gold-mounted shappo and a gold belt and a dazzlin' sword--before I begins to appreciate what it was to be an admiral and to respect every admiral ever I'd sailed under--except maybe two or three--for bein' good enough to look at me at all while they were standing round deck in their uniforms. An' f'r the next hour I kept that crew hoppin' from one end of the brigantine to the other, just to see 'em hop when I gives an order with my admiral's uniform on.

But after I got so I could take off my shappo and draw my sword and look down at myself without swellin' up, I says to the gen'ral, "What d'y'say, senor gen'ral, to a little action?" and points to a lad quarterin' down the wind toward us with a Red flag up. "It's plain," I says, "he don't know the Blues is in. What d'y'say if we shake him up same as a real privateer--send a hot shot across his forefoot and make him haul his wind?"

"No, no," and the gen'ral shakes his head.

And soon there came another fellow inbound and with a Red flag up, but again the gen'ral said, "Paysheeons, paysheeons, senor admiral," and raises one hand to restrain my impulsive motions.

And four or five more pa.s.sed, all flyin' the Red flag. But no word from the gen'ral until toward the middle of the afternoon--and a hot afternoon it was. The gen'ral, with the gla.s.ses to his eyes, bounces into the air. "Ah-h!" and again, "Ah-h!" and points to her. "Now the fair prize-a, the rich prize-a!" he says, and draws deep breaths, and cinches up on his belt, and runs his fingers between his red and green and yellow gold-mounted collar and his neck, and runs below and takes a last look at himself in the mirror, and comes runnin' up on deck and calls out: "Senor admiral, you shall prepare the s.h.i.+p for combat!"

"Ay, ay, gen'ral!" I says and takes out my bosun's whistle, which I'd never turned in of a night without hangin' it 'round my neck, and which I now lifts from the breast of my gold-mounted coat, and pipes all hands to battle quarters. But the crew, except the one to the wheel, was under the rail, asleep, and so I had to enforce my pipin' with the flat of my sword. It'd been quicker to kick 'em, but, it bein' a hot day, I'd left off my shoes. And when they come awake I orders 'em to fly the battle-flag, which the gen'ral brings up from the bottom of his uniform chest, a fine large bright-blue thing, with stars and horned moons on it.

And then I makes ready a little old muzzle-loadin' gun, which was lashed in the waist, but pointin' over the port side, which happened to be the wrong side when we wanted to fire a shot across the enemy's bow. So we had to tack s.h.i.+p, which took about ten minutes, my crew not bein' A.

B.'s. But when we did fire, the noise and the splash of water the ball threw up was war enough for the enemy. She was about a 100-ton tradin'

schooner, and she came into the wind.

"Haul down your flag!" hollers the gen'ral in the Tangarine language, and one of their crew was goin' to haul it down, only for a stout little chap who came runnin' up out of her cabin and put his gla.s.ses on the gen'ral, and then rushes over and grabs the signal halyards from the man who was goin' to lower 'em, and hits him a clip in the neck at the same time--a sc.r.a.ppy chap he looked.

"He is there--it is heemself," says the gen'ral, excitedly. But to me, very courteous, he said: "Senor admiral, shall you manoeuvre the s.h.i.+p to approach the enemy, if you please?"

"Ay, ay, sir!" I says cheerily, and puts the brigantine alongside, and the pair of us, in our gorgeous uniforms, we leaps aboard.

"Surrender!" orders the gen'ral in a commandin' voice, but the sc.r.a.ppy little man he wouldn't. He yelled somethin' at his crew, and they got behind him. And there were four of them against me an' the gen'ral, for our brigantine started to drift away soon as we left her, and our spiggity crew couldn't get her alongside again.

There we were, us two heroes, marooned on the enemy's deck, in the most magnificent uniforms, but not another blessed thing to fight with except a couple o' gold-plated swords. But the little captain and his crew had only what loose things they could grab in a hurry--oars, deck-swabs, marlin-spikes, and one thing or another; but with them, without wastin'

any flourishes, they came at me an' the gen'ral, and we draws our swords.

"What d' y' say, will we have at 'em, gen'ral?" I says.

"As you say, senor admiral, have at 'em!" answers the gen'ral, and we haves at 'em.

But I soon begin to see we wasn't havin' at 'em in any great shape. Our swords had two backs but no edge. It was like hittin' 'em with barrel-staves. Fine grand echoes, but the echoes wasn't knockin' 'em down. And the gold-mounted uniforms were in the way, too--in my way, anyway. My gold-mounted collar was gettin' so tight after I'd warmed up to the work that I 'most choked.

"Have at 'em!" the gen'ral cried again, "but have great care for the old gentleman."