"Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea Part 8

The huge mate was getting the worst of the unexpected battle, and Captain Bacon approached cautiously. His right hand had come out of his pocket, armed with large bra.s.s knuckles; but before he could use them his dazed and astonished first officer went down under the rain of blows. It was then, while the victor waited for him to rise, that the bra.s.s knuckles impacted on his head, and he, too, went down, to lie quiet where he fell. The other young man had arisen by this time, somewhat shocked and unsteady in movement, and was coming bravely toward the captain; but before he could reach him his arms were pinioned from behind by Mr. Hansen, who had run up the p.o.o.p steps.

"What is dis, onnyway?" he asked. "Mudiny, I d.i.n.k?"

"Let go," said the other, furiously. "You shall suffer for this, you scoundrels. Let go of my arms." He struggled wildly; but Mr. Hansen was strong.

Mr. Knapp had regained his feet and a few of his faculties. His conqueror was senseless on the deck, but this other mutineer was still active in rebellion. So, while the approving captain looked on in bra.s.s-knuckled dignity, he sprang forward and struck, with strength born of his rage and humiliation, again and again at the man helpless in the arms of Mr. Hansen, until his battered head sank supinely backward, and he struggled no more. Then Mr. Hansen dropped him.

"Lay aft, here, a couple o' hands," thundered the captain from the break of the p.o.o.p, and two awe-struck men obeyed him. The whole crew had watched the fracas from forward, and the man at the wheel had looked unspeakable things; but no hand or voice had been raised in protest. One at a time they carried the unconscious men to the forecastle; then the crew mustered aft at another thundering summons, and listened to a forceful speech by Captain Bacon, delivered in quick, incisive epigrams, to the effect that if a man aboard his s.h.i.+p--whether he believed himself s.h.i.+pped or shanghaied, a sailor, a priest, a policeman, or a dry-nurse--showed the slightest hesitation at obeying orders, or the slightest resentment at what was said to him, he would be punished with fists, bra.s.s knuckles, belaying-pins, or handspikes,--the officers were here for that purpose,--and if he persisted, he would be shot like a mad dog. They could go forward.

They went, and while the watch on deck, under the supervision of the second mate, finished coiling down the tow-line, the watch below finished their breakfast, and when the stricken ones had recovered consciousness, advised them, unsympathetically, to submit and make the best of it until the s.h.i.+p reached Hong-Kong, where they could all "jump her" and get better berths.

"For if ye don't," concluded an Irishman, "I take it ye'll die, an'

take sam wan of us wid ye; fur this is an American s.h.i.+p, where the mates are hired fur the bigness o' their fists an' the hardness o'

their hearts. Look pleasant, now, the pair o' ye; an' wan o' ye take this hash-kid back to the galley."

The larger of the two victims sprang to his feet. He was stained and disfigured from the effects of the bra.s.s knuckles, and he looked anything but "pleasant."

"Say, Irish," he said angrily, "do you know who you 're talkin' to?

Looks as though you don't. I'm used to all sorts of guff from all sorts of men, but Mr. Breen here----"

"Johnson," interrupted the other, "wait--it's of no account now. This man's advice is sound. No one would believe us, and we can prove nothing. We are thoroughly helpless, and must submit until we reach a consular port, or something happens. Now, men," he said to the others, "my name is Breen. Call me by it. You, too, Johnson. I yield to the inevitable, and will do my share of the work as well as I can. If I make mistakes, don't hesitate to criticize, and post me, if you will.

I'll be grateful."

"But I'll tell you one thing to start with," said Johnson, glaring around the forecastle: "we'll take turns at bringin' grub and cleanin'

up the forecastle. Another thing: I've sailed in these wind-jammers enough to know my work; and that's more than you fellows know, by the looks of you. I don't want your instructions; but Mr. Breen, here--Breen, I mean" (a gesture from the other had interrupted him)--"Breen's forgotten what you and I will never learn, though he might not be used to pullin' ropes and swabbing paint-work. If I find one o' you pesterin' him, or puttin' up any jobs, I'll break that man's head; understand me? Any one want to put this thing to the test, now?"

He scanned each man's face in turn; but none showed an inclination to respond. They had seen him fight the big first mate. "There's not the makin' of a whole man among you," he resumed. "You stand still while three men do up two, when, if you had any nerve, Mr. ---- Breen, here, might be aft, 'stead o' eatin' cracker-hash with a lot o' dock-rats and beach-combers. He's had better playmates; so 've I, for that matter, o'

late years."

"Johnson, keep still," said the other. "It doesn't matter what we have had, who we were or might be. We're before the mast, bound for Hong-Kong. We may find a consul at Anjer; I'm not sure. Meanwhile, I'm Breen, and you are Johnson, and it is no one's business what we have been. I'm not anxious for this matter to become public. I can explain to the department, and no one else need know."

"Very good, sir."

"No; not 'sir.' Keep that for our superiors."

Johnson grumbled a little; then Mr. Hansen's round Swedish face appeared at the door.

"Hi, you in dere--you big feller--you come out. You belong in der utter watch. You hear? You come out on deck," he called.

"Aye, aye, sir," said Johnson, rising sullenly.

"All the better, Johnson," whispered Breen. "One can keep a lookout all the time. Keep your eyes open and your mouth shut."

So for these two men the work of the voyage began. The hard-headed, aggressive Johnson, placed in the mate's watch, had no trouble in finding his place, and keeping it, at the top of the cla.s.s. He ruled the a.s.sorted types of all nations, who worked and slept with him, with sound logic backed by a strong arm and hard fist, never trying to conceal his contempt for them.

"You mixed nest o' mongrels," he would say, at the end of some petty squabble which he had settled for them, "why don't you stay in your own country s.h.i.+ps? Or, if you must sign in American craft, try to feel and act like Americans. It's just this same yawping at one another in the forecastles that makes it easy for the buckoes aft to hunt you. And that's why you get your berths. No skipper 'll s.h.i.+p an American sailor while there's a Dutchman left in the s.h.i.+ppin'-office. He wouldn't think it safe to go to sea with too many American sailors forward to call him down and make him treat 'em decent. He picks a Dago here, and a Dutchman there, and all the Sou'wegians he sees, and fills in with the rakin's and sc.r.a.pin's o' h.e.l.l, Bedlam, and Newgate, knowin' they'll hate one another worse than they hate him, and never stand together."

To which they would respond in kind, though of lesser degree, always yielding him the last word when he spoke it loud enough.

But Breen, in the second mate's watch, had trouble with his fellows at first. They could not understand his quiet, gentlemanly demeanor, mistaking it for fear of them; so, unknown to Johnson, for he would not complain, they subjected him to all the petty annoyances which ignorance may inflict upon intelligence. Though he showed a theoretical knowledge of s.h.i.+ps and the sea superior to any they had met with, he was not their equal in the practical work of a sailor. He was awkward at pulling ropes with others, placing his hands in the wrong place and mixing them up in what must be a concerted pull to be effective. His hands, unused to labor, became blistered and sore, and he often, unconsciously perhaps, held back from a task, to save himself from pain. He was an indifferent helmsman, and off Hatteras, in a blow, was sent from the wheel in disgrace. He did not know the ropes, and made sad mistakes until he had mastered the lesson. He could box the compa.s.s, in his own way; for instance, the quarter-points between north-northeast and northeast by north he persisted in naming from the first of these points instead of from the other, as was seamanlike and proper; and the same with the corresponding sectors in the other quadrants. Once, at the wheel, when the s.h.i.+p was heading southeast by south half-south, he had been asked the course, and answered: "South-southeast half-east, sir." For this he was profanely admonished by the captain and ridiculed by the men. Johnson had made the same mistake, but corrected himself in time, and nothing was said about it; but Breen was bullied and badgered in the watch below,--the lubberly nomenclature becoming a byword of derision and contempt,--until, patience leaving him, he doubled his sore fingers into fists one dog-watch, and thrashed the Irishman--his most unforgiving critic--so quickly, thoroughly, and scientifically that persecution ceased; for the Irishman had been the master spirit of the port forecastle.

But the captain and mates were not won over. Practical Johnson--an able seaman from crown to toe--knew how to avoid or forestall their abuse; but Breen did not. The very presence of such a man as he before the mast was a continuous menace,--an insult to their artificial superiority,--and they a.s.sailed him at each mistake with volleys of billingsgate that brought a flush to his fine face and tears to his eyes; later, a deadly paleness that would have been a warning to tyrants of better discrimination. Once again, while being rebuked in this manner, his self-control left him. With white face and blazing eyes he darted at Mr. Knapp, and had almost repeated Johnson's feat on the p.o.o.p when an iron belaying-pin in the hands of the captain descended upon him and broke his left arm. Mr. Knapp's fists and boots completed his tutelage, and he was carried to his bunk with another lesson learned. Johnson, swearing the while, skilfully set the broken bones and made a sling; then, by tactful wheedling of the steward, secured certain necessaries from the medicine-chest, with hot water from the galley; but open a.s.sistance was refused by the captain.

Breen, scarcely able to move, held to his bunk for a few days; then, the first mild skirts of the trade-wind being reached, the mate drove him to the wheel, to steer one-handed through the day, while all hands (in the afternoon) worked in the rigging. But the trade-wind freshened, and his strength was not equal to the task set for it. With the men all aloft and the two mates forward, the s.h.i.+p nearly broached to one day, and only the opportune arrival of Captain Bacon on deck saved the spars. He seized the wheel, ground it up, and the s.h.i.+p paid off; then a whole man was called to relieve him, and the incompetent helmsman was promptly and properly punished. He was kicked off the p.o.o.p, and his arm, as a consequence, needed resetting.

Johnson had been aloft, but there was murder in his dark eyes when he came down at supper-time. Yet he knew its futility, and while bandaging the broken arm earnestly explained, as Breen's groans would allow, that if he killed one the other two would kill him, and nothing would be gained. "For they've bra.s.s knuckles in their pockets, sir," he said, "and pistols under their pillows. We haven't even sheath-knives, and the crew wouldn't help."

Whereupon, an inspired Russian Finn of the watch remarked: "If a man know his work an' do his work, an' gif no back lip to te mates, he get no trupple mit te mates. In my country s.h.i.+ps----" The dissertation was not finished. Johnson silently knocked him down, and the incident closed.

But they found work which the crippled man could do, after a short "lying up." With the steward's washboard, he could wash the captain's soiled linen, which the steward would afterward wring out and hang up.

He refused at first, but was duly persuaded, and went to work in the lee scuppers amids.h.i.+ps. Johnson made a detour on his way to the main-rigging, and muttered: "Say the word, sir, and I 'll chance it. No jury'd convict."

"No, no; go aloft, Johnson. I'm all right," answered Breen, as he bent over the distasteful task.

Johnson climbed the rigging to the main-royalyard, which he was to sc.r.a.pe for reoiling, and had no sooner reached it than he sang out:

"Sail oh! Dead ahead, sir. Looks like an armored cruiser o' the first cla.s.s."

"Armored cruiser o' the first cla.s.s?" muttered the captain, as he carried his binoculars to the weather rail and looked ahead. "More 'n I can make out with the gla.s.ses."

If three funnels, two masts, two bridges, and two sets of fighting-tops indicate an armored cruiser of the first cla.s.s, Johnson was right.

These the oncoming craft showed plainly even at seven miles' distance.

Fifteen minutes later she was storming by, a half-mile to windward; a beautiful picture, long and white, with an incurving ram-bow, with buff-colored turrets and superstructure, and black guns bristling from all parts of her. The Stars and Stripes flew from the flagstaff at the stern; white-clad men swarmed about her decks, and one of them, on the forward bridge, close to a group of officers, was waving by its staff a small red-and-white flag. Captain Bacon brought out the American ensign, and with his own hands hoisted it to the monkey-gaff on the mizzen, dipped it three times in respectful salute, and left it at the gaff-end. Then he looked at the cruiser, as every man on board was doing except the man was.h.i.+ng clothes in the lee scuppers. His business was to wash clothes, not to cross a broad deck and climb a high rail to look at pa.s.sing craft; but, as he washed away, he looked furtively aloft, with eyes that sparkled, at the man on the mainroyalyard.

Johnson was standing erect on the small spar, holding on with his left hand to the royal-pole,--certainly the most conspicuous detail of the whole s.h.i.+p to the eyes of those on board the cruiser,--and with his right hand he was waving his cap to the right and left, and up and down. There was method in his motions, for when he would cease, the small red-and-white flag on the cruiser's bridge would answer, waving to the right and left, and up and down.

A secondary gun spoke from a mids.h.i.+p sponson, and Captain Bacon exclaimed enthusiastically, "Salutin' the flag," and again dipped his ensign. Then, after an interval, during which it became apparent that the cruiser had altered her course to cross the s.h.i.+p's stern, there was seen another tongue of flame and cloud of smoke, and something seemed to rush through the air ahead of the s.h.i.+p. But it was a splash of water far off on the lee bow which really apprised them that the gun was shotted. At the same time a string of small flags arose to the signal-yard, and when Captain Bacon had found this combination in his code-book, he read with amazement: "Heave to or take the consequences."

By this time the cruiser was squarely across his wake, most certainly rounding to for an interview.

"Heave to or take the consequences!" he exclaimed. "And he's firin' on us. Down from aloft, all hands!" he roared upward; then he seized the answering pennant from the flag-locker and displayed it from the rail, begrudging the time needful to hoist it. The men were sliding to the deck on backstays and running-gear, and the mates were throwing down coils of rope from the belaying-pins.

"Man both main clue-garnets, some o' you!" yelled the captain. "Clue up! Weather main-braces, the rest o' you! Slack away to looward! Round wi' the yards, you farmers--round wi' 'em! Down wi' the wheel, there!

Bring her up three points and hold her. H----l an' blazes, what's he firin' on me for?"

Excitedly, the men obeyed him; they were not used to gun fire, and it is certainly exciting to be shot at. Conspicuous among them was Johnson, who pulled and hauled l.u.s.tily, shouting exuberantly the formless calls which sailors use in pulling ropes, and smiling sardonically. In five minutes from the time of the second gun the yards were backed, and, with weather leeches trembling, the s.h.i.+p lay "hove to," drifting bodily to leeward. The cruiser had stopped her headway, and a boat had left her side. There were ten men at the oars, a c.o.c.kswain at the yoke-ropes, and with him in the stern-sheets a young man in an ensign's uniform, who lifted his voice as the boat neared the lee quarter, and shouted: "Rig a side-ladder aboard that s.h.i.+p!"

He was hardly more than a boy, but he was obeyed; not only the side-ladder, but the gangway steps were rigged; and leaving the c.o.c.kswain and bow oarsman to care for the boat, the young officer climbed aboard, followed by the rest--nine muscular man-of-war's-men, each armed with cutla.s.s and pistol, one of them carrying a hand-bag, another a bundle. Captain Bacon, as became his position, remained upon the p.o.o.p to receive his visitor, while the two mates stood at the main fife-rail, and the s.h.i.+p's crew cl.u.s.tered forward. Johnson, alert and attentive, stood a little in the van, and the man in the lee scuppers still washed clothes.

"What's the matter, young man?" asked the captain from the break of the p.o.o.p, with as much of dignity as his recent agitation would permit.

"Why do you stop my s.h.i.+p on the high seas and board her with an armed boat's crew?"

"You have an officer and seaman of the navy on board this s.h.i.+p,"

answered the ensign, who had been looking about irresolutely. "Produce them at once, if you please."

"What--what----" stuttered the captain, descending the p.o.o.p steps; but before more was said there was a sound from forward as of something hard striking something heavy, and as they looked, they saw Captain Bacon's bucket of clothes sailing diagonally over the lee rail, scattering a fountain of soapy water as it whirled; his late laundryman coming toward them with head erect, as though he might have owned the s.h.i.+p and himself; and Johnson, limping slightly, making for the crowd of blue-jackets at the gangway. With these he fraternized at once, telling them things in a low voice, and somewhat profanely, while the two mates at the fife-rail eyed him reprovingly, but did not interrupt.

Breen advanced to the ensign, and said, as he extended his hand: "I am Lieutenant Breen. Did you bring the clothing? This is an extremely fortunate meeting for me; but I can thank you--you and your brother officers--much more gracefully aboard the cruiser."

The officer took the extended hand gingerly, with suspicion in his eyes. Perhaps, if it had not been thoroughly clean from its late friction with soap and water, he might have declined taking it; for there was nothing in the appearance of the haggard, ragged wreck before him to indicate the naval officer.