Читать книгу The Mutiny of the Flying Spray - Arthur Hunt Chute - Страница 5
ОглавлениеA MYSTERY SHIP
I was on hand at our shipping office, next morning, bright and early. Sitting up at a high desk, on a high-legged stool was about the most wearisome and tedious occupation that one could imagine. I was getting sick of the job, before I had been there half a day. But in spite of restlessness, I kept saying, “Spit on your hands, lad, you’ve got to stick.”
Scraters kept a hawk-like eye on everybody, and proved to be a slave driver, our only respite came when he went in for a palaver with the chief. Then, all hands would knock off abruptly for a whispered conversation, which ceased as soon as Scrater’s kill-joy countenance reappeared.
In one of the off times, my desk mate, Jones, cast a flood of light on the dreary and meaningless manifest sheet before me, by telling the prices that some of the items would fetch on the other side of the Horn.
“You talk about gold,” said Jones. “There’s gold, for you.”
“What d’ye mean?”
“Why, I was just thinking o’ what some o’ the items is going to fetch.”
Running his finger down the list, he began to estimate the California prices, which were then at the peak, because of the gold rush.
“Picks, forty-five dollars each.”
“Shovels, forty dollars.”
“Flour, a hundred dollars a barrel.”
“Boots, fifty dollars a pair.”
“Sugar, four dollars a pound.”
“Playing cards, five dollars a pack.”
“That’s pretty good profit for the old man,” I observed.
“Pretty good. I should smile. Everything this firm put their hand to turns to gold. Did you ever hear of their new clipper the Phantom?”
“Aye, I saw her sail for ’Frisco yesterday.”
“Well, there’s a gold-digger afloat for ye. She cost this firm seventy-two thousand to build, and already, in her brief time off the ways, she’s netted a clean profit of a hundred and fifty thousand. But I’ll tell you, Curtis, I wouldn’t own her in spite of all her profits.”
“Why?”
“Because she’s hoodooed. There’s been one continual run o’ bad luck for the Phantom ever since she left the ways. Those who know say that ain’t half o’ what’s in store for her.”
“But she’s one of the finest looking clippers I’ve ever seen.”
“That don’t mean nothin’. Ships are like women, some of the prettiest are also the trickiest. The Phantom was started wrong in the beginning.”
“How’s that?”
“Built too fast for the laws of God. There’s such a thing as rushing things just a little too much when ye’re after gain. Old Gertridge was out in California when the first rumors of gold came through. He saw that it meant an instantaneous boom in transportation, and hurrying back, overland, at once gave the order to build the Phantom. They started to lay down her keel on April first, and if ye’ll believe me, she was launched just sixty days later.”
“What?” I burst out, incredulously.
“Honest truth, only sixty days. Building a ship at a speed like that is just asking for it.
“Thirty days after her launching, the Phantom was loaded at fifty-five dollars a ton, and outbound for around the Horn.
“There was something kind of unholy in the way everything was rushed, and no one was surprised when, the day after her embarkation, she reappeared off Sandy Hook with her ensign at half-mast, and her skipper a corpse in his cabin, having been killed by the mizzen topmast yard crashing down upon him.
“With that burning gold fever that’s in his blood, Old Gertridge did not wait long enough for common decency, but rushed another skipper, Captain Calvin Peabody, into her, and shot her off to sea at once.
“Peabody was some sail-dragger, and ninety-seven days later he came storming through the Heads of San Francisco, making what was till then the fastest run around the Horn.
“From ’Frisco, he jumped the Phantom across the Pacific to Whampoa for tea. Loading at forty dollars a ton, she sailed for New York, passing down the China Seas and through the Formosa Channel, then, some time later, she appeared off Borneo, flying signals of distress.
“An American ship finally answered her signals, sending a mate aboard to find out what was the trouble. It was found that soon after leaving Whampoa the dreaded disease of beri-beri had broken out among the crew of the Phantom, until they were all dead or powerless to navigate from the ravages of the disease.
“At the request of Captain Peabody, sorely stricken, several volunteer seamen and an officer were put aboard the Phantom to sail her back to the nearest port.
“First of all, the greater part of the rescuing vessel’s crew were sent aboard the Phantom to clean her out. Fumigation had to be resorted to because the fo’c’sle and cabin were in a horrible state from dead bodies. The poor fellows that were still alive being too weak to bury their mates.
“With everything shipshape, and new sails bent, the volunteer seamen started to take the Phantom to Whampoa.
“Many more died on the way back, but in spite of the ghastly odds against him, Captain Peabody managed to bring his vessel safely into her port of departure. God only knows why he himself didn’t kick the bucket; they say it’s because he always drinks gunpowder in his rum. Anyway, he came through, alive and kicking.
“No Loss and Great Gain Gertridge have agents in China of their own kidney, who allow no let nor hindrance, even in the face of death. One month later, entirely reconditioned, with a fresh cargo of tea, Peabody took the Phantom out again in time to catch the height of the monsoon, and eighty-seven days out from Whampoa he was flying signals for a pilot off Sandy Hook.”
Somewhat aghast at this gruesome disclosure, I inquired:
“And is that the same lovely clipper that I saw outbound, yesterday morning?”
“Yes, the same one. A terrific money-maker, and an unhallowed man-killer. Just the kind of packet for a skinflint like Gertridge, who was born without any bowels of compassion.”
“And what about her Skipper,” I inquired, “I think I know him.”
“Oh, Peabody, he’s chucked the Phantom and gone over to another firm. When they get talking about the iniquity of his old command, he says, ‘The half has not been told.’
“Calvin Peabody, with the gunpowder in his rum, is hardly the man you’d expect to be scared of anything, but he sure is scared of the Phantom.”
