Читать книгу The Shellback's Progress - Baron Walter Runciman Runciman - Страница 5

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CAPTAIN PLUNKER

The Cauducas was a brig of 120 tons dead-weight. She was very old, very rotten, and very leaky, and was constantly employed carrying coals from a north-east coast port to France or London. The crew consisted of the master, mate, cook, and able seaman, and three apprentices, one of whom was cabin-boy. No one cared to inquire as to when and where she was built. Wherever paint and tar could be used to cover up defects it was liberally applied, but that did not prevent the water rushing into her holds, causing the crew to have to carry her with the pumps from port to port, as it were, in their arms. The winter voyages taxed their skill and endurance so that scores of times they were nearly forced to abandon her or allow the sea to cover the vessel and themselves. The old sailors used to say when they saw her making the port that she always "looked far off at a distance," a saying peculiar to that part of the country. And yet she out-lived many of the most handsome, well-built, modern ships of that time.

Captain Bourne, or "Plunker," as he was nicknamed, was a man of much dignity and superior presence, but like many of his contemporaries, he was very illiterate; indeed, I do not believe he could either read or write, and yet he was able to collect his freights and generally to conduct the finances entrusted to him with amazing accuracy. His age was between forty-five and fifty; he stood over six feet, and was finely proportioned. He had a moderately-sized head, broad forehead, strong clean-shaven chin, side board whiskers, and a profile which suggested the higher type of man. Under pronounced, overhanging eyebrows, there glowed a pair of medium-sized dark eyes, which at times were penetrating, and occasionally wore a sad, sympathetic look. His hands and feet betokened that he had sprung from a physical working race, though there was nothing of the animal about him, and in spite of a gruff, uncultured mannerism, he either had it naturally or had acquired almost a grammatical way of addressing people when he wished to assert what he obviously regarded as the dignity of his high calling. This effort to check a natural tendency to the common dialect was very comical, and yet no one ever thought of it as snobbish; the whole thing seemed to belong to him, and he couldn't be different if he wanted to. That was the impression people got of him. In an ordinary way when he was in port he wore a blue pilot morning suit and silk hat. The waistcoat was cut so as to show a good space of coloured shirt front, though on Sundays when in port and days of sailing and arrival, white shirts were worn; usually a stand-up collar with silk stock or some kind of soft neckerchief encircled his neck. He was weather-beaten, ruddy, and altogether rather pleasant to look at. He could navigate his vessel along the coast almost blindfold. Charts were rarely used by such nautical aborigines, as he and scores of his compeers disdained the very idea of being thought incapable of carrying all the knowledge in their heads that was necessary for the purposes of practical navigation. They had a perfect knowledge of the compass and the lead. The courses, cross-bearings, lights, buoys and beacons were all riveted in their memory, and it was a rare occurrence when their memories failed them.

Plunker had all the finer attributes of his class. His character was unimpeachable; he was abstemious, and unless his fiery temper was aroused by the sight of some supposed lack of seamanship on the part of his men or boys, or the idea of imposition on himself or his owner, he might have been considered religious, but never amiable. Parsimony was his besetting sin, and he carried this to the extent of feeding his crew in a way that brought him into frequent conflict with them. Indeed, the relations on one occasion were so strained that the apprentices were encouraged to conspire with some boys from other vessels to commit an act that would humiliate him in the eyes of the seafaring community and the public generally.

The old captain's pride in his ship and his position as her commander was a slavish passion. He could not endure any liberties to be taken with him, even by his employer or his equals on these two points. The boys of his own and other ships knew this so well that they planned an indignity that should lacerate his vanity. They knew he was very partial to what are known by sailors as "two-eyed steaks," and that never by any chance was he known to allow even his mate, much less any of the crew, to partake of them except on special occasions, when he distributed them himself. They were looked upon by him as a luxury, and were actually kept under lock and key. These peculiarities of his had often been freely spoken of, and now a conference of able-bodied seamen in embryo decided that there should be no further tolerance of parsimony and piety. It must be either one thing or the other. The elder members of this august coterie gave instructions that the sacred locker should be broken open and the contents thereof brought into their presence on the quarterdeck. Each of the party was sworn to secrecy in such a way that the dread of being haunted by unspeakable troubles during the balance of their lives would have prevented any breach of confidence, even had there been no higher sense of honour. The bloaters were extracted at night and handed over to the recognized authority. It was decided to decorate the vessel from topgallant trucks to mainrail by attaching the herring to the signal haulyards about three feet apart. Captain Bourne's beloved brig was forthwith then trimmed in her frill of red herrings, and the equivalent to a vote of thanks was unconventionally moved and carried for the fearless assistance and patriotic advice rendered by comrades who upheld the true national faith of being roundly fed with good joints of beef and plum or suet pudding. After a few appropriate remarks in anticipation of the trouble and sensation of the morrow, the young gentlemen dispersed, each going aboard his own ship, while those belonging to the Cauducas tumbled into their hammocks and were soon fast asleep. They rose at the usual hour the following morning, and while they were having breakfast angry and excited voices were heard alongside; and as they eagerly listened to the picturesque flow of profane language intermixed with a few eloquent remarks to God to forgive such irreverence, their minds were permeated with fear lest suspicion would fall on them during the paroxysm of alternate rage and godliness. Plunker was a powerful man, and when his anger was roused they knew by experience it was not safe to interject a word either of denial or assent; so they determined, when he called them to him, to pursue a policy of negativeness, and trust to Providence to deliver them from a position that was showing signs of serious consequences. While the irate commander was in the white heat of a tremendous peroration, and in the act of detaching the festoons of herring which he placed so much value on, his owner, who had come down to see his property, as was the custom in those early days, came laughing towards his much troubled captain and greeted him with the advice not to take the matter too seriously. It was obviously a practical joke intended for a purpose, and he apprehended the intention was to convey the idea that a liberal allowance of food should be served out to his crew, and that the luxury he placed so much value on should no longer be the object of his special care, but that he should take to heart the lesson just revealed to him, and allow his people to partake generously of that also. As the vessel was lying alongside a shipbuilding and repairing yard, a large crowd of workmen had congregated to see so unusual a display. Discourteous and jeering remarks were loudly spoken with the studied intention of reaching the ears of the master and owner, and the news of a revolutionary act having been committed within the precincts of an unyielding discipline spread like an electric flash through the little town, and the unknown perpetrators were eulogistically stamped as heroes.

No one knew better than this old-time shipmaster the amount of capital that would be squeezed out of the incident by the gossips, and no one recognized better than he the amount of odium that would stick to himself. The poor fellow had been stabbed in a tender spot, and those who knew him intimately foreshadowed a long period of bitter suffering for him. Indeed, there were those who openly stated that he would not long survive the insult to his professional authority. He intimated to his employer that it was his intention to forthwith hold a court-martial in his cabin, and requested him to take part in the investigation. The owner was a person gifted with a sense of humour. He laconically expressed his willingness to remain aboard, but refused to have anything to do with the official inquiry.

The mate's Christian name was Matthew, but he was commonly addressed as Matt. The dignity of Mr. was never by any chance applied to chief officers of this class of vessel, though quarter-deck manners were always strictly sustained so far as the captain was concerned. He was the only person who claimed the right of being addressed as "Sir," and he would brook no violation of its use. Matt, as he was called, was made the medium of communicating the master's wishes that the apprentices should meet him in his cabin immediately. The rugged officer was smitten with the comical aspect of his mission, though he carried it out in a strictly punctilious manner. These rough, uncouth men never wilfully offended the susceptibilities of their commanders, unless they became unbearably despotic, then they retaliated with unsparing vengeance. The three apprentices promptly obeyed the command given to them, and were ushered into the presence of their infuriated captain. They were each handsome, broad-shouldered athletes, with keen, sparkling, fearless eyes that indicated fearlessness. He made a short, jerky, almost inarticulate speech on the wickedness and indecency of committing an act of gross disrespect to the vessel, the owner and himself, all of whom should have been shielded from ridicule.

"I have had you brought to me," he said, "in order that I might learn from your own lips whether you are the perpetrators of this base robbery and vile insult to myself. I ask each of you, are you guilty of committing or assisting to commit this villainous insult on myself?"

The owner, who was standing in the steerage brimming over with the ludicrous character of the previous night's frivolity, was heard to chuckle and say: "What damned nonsense to ask such a silly question!"

CAPTAIN PLUNKER ASTONISHED.

Each of the lads stoutly denied having any knowledge of what had happened, whereupon Plunker called them "a set of damned lying mutineers, who ought to be swung to the yardarm." This phrase was commonly used at that time whenever it was thought necessary to emphasise displeasure. Sanguinary penalties were roundly threatened to them and to their scoundrelly accomplices. Leading questions were put in a more or less forceful way, but the boys determined to preserve a secretive and even aggressive aspect, which sent their burly commander into an ecstasy of violence. At last, despairing of getting any satisfaction, he told them to get out of his sight. And tradition says that he was never known to smile again; but the Cauducas became from that day one of the best found vessels, and her crew the best fed that sailed out of port. There was no more concealment or locking up, or doling out of Yarmouth bloaters, or any other thing. A great change had been wrought in the hitherto inexorable old man of the sea. His conduct became marked by a generosity that wiped out recollections of past meanness. His natural make-up prevented him from giving prominence to his better side, or of making himself endeared to those faithful men who spent a long life in his service, sharing his precarious fortunes in working and navigating a vessel that his contemporaries predicted would carry him and his crew to a tragic doom. Yet this man of icy exterior, blunt, uncouth and ofttimes vulgar manners, had beating within him as big a heart as ever was planted in a human breast. His men knew that there was a power about him that fascinated them. They could not call it affection, but it was something akin to it: a strong magnetism, indeed, that inspired their confidence and caused them to follow him into dangers that resembled the very jaws of death. It was never a thought of his to show any tender feelings. His susceptibilities would have been much offended could he have been presented with the idea that he had a soft place anywhere in his heart. This reluctance to be supposed effeminate was a characteristic of the age which caused many acts of injustice to be committed in order that the reputation for stern, slashing, devil-may-careness should be established, and many a fine fellow did violence to his whole nature by the desire to be considered a desperado.

This, however, never appeared to be an ambition of Captain Bourne. All he seems to have aimed at was to inspire his crew with an affection for his much beloved vessel, and not on any occasion or under any circumstances to be thought soft, or weak, or womanish. This of course could only be assumed, because he never conveyed his thoughts to anybody.

Long after the herring incident this little vessel was being loaded, waiting for favourable wind and water so that she might start on her voyage to Boulogne. She had been detained several weeks, when a fine N.E. wind and high tide enabled him to pass out of port. It was called in those days a sea tide, and several masters availed themselves of it to put to sea. Before this little fleet of collier brigs got as far south as Flamborough Head, it was blowing a fresh gale, and big lumps of sea were slashed over them. The pumps of the Cauducas were continually kept going, and there was much concern as to the crew being able to keep the water under. Her decks were opening and shutting, and her timbers were making suggestive noises. She scudded across Boston deeps under two close-reefed topsails and reefed foresail until abreast of Cromer high land, when the gale subsided, and before the Cockle light-ship was reached the wind had shifted into the south-south-east. With the help of the flood tide she was beaten through the Gat into Yarmouth roads, where the anchor was dropped, a good scope of chain run out, sails furled and ship pumped dry. Then the forecastle hands cast lots who should keep the first anchor watch. The hand who picked the shortest piece of matchwood had to accept the position of having to take the first two hours; then all the rest turned in.

The mate was always called at the turn of the tide to swing the vessel, so that the cable did not foul the anchor. This was done by a skilful manipulation of the yards and fore topmast staysail. Some mates had quite a genius for this piece of real seamanship. Others never got within the fringe of doing it successfully, and the result was that many a mishap occurred in consequence of cables fouling the anchor stock, or flukes, thereby pulling it out of the ground and causing it to drag. It was also the occasion of many bitter quarrels between master and mate. The former may have been a duffer at the manœuvre himself, but that did not bother him now that the position had changed. Even a consciousness of the mate's knowledge of his fallibility did not qualify his hostile remarks; indeed, the recollection of it never failed to increase his anger. As a matter of fact, the knack of doing it was a gift that no amount of training could create if it was not inborn. I have known apprentices, after they have been at sea a year or two, become really adepts at swinging ship at a single anchor, and many of the seamen prided themselves in being able to do it well. A more difficult task was that of preventing turns getting in the cable when riding with both anchors down, and in skilled hands it could very often be obviated. The thoughtful master or officer made a practice of coming on deck at irregular hours during the night while anchored in a roadstead, so that the men might become impressed with the idea of never relaxing their vigilance. Notwithstanding this care it was not an infrequent thing for the watch to be caught napping. On one occasion a collier brig had been windbound for several days in the Yarmouth roads. The mate was accustomed to pay nocturnal visits on deck, and had suspected that a great deal of napping was done before the galley fire, and he had his suspicion confirmed when coming up one night unexpectedly, and, stealthily making his way to the galley, he found both doors closed; no one was to be seen anywhere; he looked down into the forecastle and saw one hammock vacant, so he made his way to the galley again and listened, and heard someone snoring. He asked who was there several times and got no answer. He then tried the door, but the inmate had anticipated an invasion and had wedged it so that no one could open it from without. The mate was seized with a superstition, or exasperation, or both, so he drew a belaying pin from the rail, brought it strongly in contact with the door, and loudly asked who was there. A husky voice from within answered in broad Northumbrian accent: "Thor's neebody heor!" "Then by Gox," said the excited mate, "Ye'ar the beggar I've been luckin' for these last few neights!" The slumberer was the person who ought to have been pacing the deck. Needless to say, he became the object of much vituperation, and was never again trusted to look after the lives of his shipmates or the property of his employer. Similar incidents to this occurred on every collier vessel.

The Cauducas was several days windbound. The crew had repaired rigging, running gear, and sails that were damaged during the storm, and they now welcomed a change of wind which came, so that the voyage might be continued. The anchor was weighed, and every stitch of canvas was spread and bellied out with a strong flowing wind. By the time the Kentish Knock Lightship was reached the wind had increased so that the topgallant sails had to be furled and two reefs taken in the topsails. The North Foreland was passed and a course shaped for Boulogne. The wind had increased to a gale, and the sea in the Channel was as cross and as angry as it well could be. Every preparation was made for entering port; mooring ropes and cable chains were got on deck so that the anchors might be used if necessary. She was run well over towards the French Coast before she could be hove to to take a pilot aboard. This having been done, orders were given to square away for the harbour. The sea was breaking a good distance off, and the prospects for entering looked very ugly. The captain was at the tiller and was unusually agitated. The pilot's excitement remained subdued until the sinister commotion of seas was within easy distance. He then became voluble in his orders. The little vessel rushed into the merciless liquid breakers at great speed. One of them broke over the bluff of the bow, carrying the bulwarks away, and at the same time the cable chain was lurched over the side. The master rushed from side to side with the tiller, irrespective of the pilot's equally chaotic orders. The crew became alarmed for their safety, while the captain and pilot vied with each other for first place in exhortation to keep cool, but neither the one nor the other was cool. The pilot called out in very broken English "Port" and "Starboard" in quick succession. The master answered "Port" and "Starboard" each time the order was given, adding each time as an addendum, "Look at that blooming cable chain hanging over the side!" so that the confusion of orders and irrelevant responses to them became a menacing danger to safe navigation. The pilot swore in French at the captain, requesting him to steer the vessel and not to mind the—— chain being over the side, and the captain delivered himself in even more forceful language at the pilot for arrogance in dictating orders as to how he should conduct himself; and in order to minimise the guilt of hard swearing and to appease his conscience for having offended the God of the British people, as soon as it was uttered the pilot begged forgiveness, and then poured forth his anger in a flow of strong French adjectives. The crew, being well trained and accustomed to perils of this nature, did their part of the necessary work irrespective of orders. They saw, however, that trouble would come to them if the master could not be persuaded to forget that the cable chain was overboard, so they induced Matt to go and offer to give him a spell, and to everybody's surprise he was willing to give the steering into the hands of his mate, who knew as well as either himself or the pilot the way into the harbour.

The seas broke heavily over her until she entered the mouth of the harbour. A crowd of their fellow-townsmen from other vessels had come on to the pier with the object of rendering any assistance they could, and by their goodness and skill she was moored without the necessity of letting go the anchors or even breaking a ropeyarn. Plunker was very grateful to these fine fellows for the valuable service they had rendered. They knew that he was never effusive about any favours conferred upon him, so were content to receive a plain "Thank you." The local sailormen of that time used to caricature him running in confused frenzy from side to side of the quarterdeck with the tiller, and imitate the pilot and himself haranguing each other to keep cool, and immediately afterwards breaking out into violent attacks on each other's capacity for giving and receiving orders.

This strange being, at a time when he was passing through the peril of facing death, never lost the power of making his men feel that he was above their level. Even his undignified altercations with the pilot, and his mixed erratic exclamations on the subject that obviously troubled him, in no way diminished the awe in which he was regarded.

The vessel was moored alongside the quay, and great care was used in having the fenders properly placed, so that her aged planking would be preserved from chafing. Had she been the king's yacht, no greater attention could have been given to prevent this.

"THERE WERE MANY CALLERS."

The following morning there were many callers alongside, and many congratulations offered to the captain and his crew on a safe deliverance. There were shipbrokers, shipmasters, seamen and all grades of dockworkers; each of them showed a common desire to be unusually kind. The English vessels in port had their flags half-mast. Someone on the Cauducas asked the reason for this, and the reply came in subdued tones that the R—— had come in on the last flood, and her master reported having had very heavy weather crossing the Kent. Everything had been swept from the deck, and Captain Bourne's eldest son, who was serving as able-seaman, had been knocked off the lee foretopsail yardarm while assisting to close reef the topsail. He held on to the reef-earing as long as he could, but the flapping of the sail soon caused him to call out to his shipmates, "I can hold on no longer," and before any aid could be given he had slipped his hold and fallen into the sea, and the surges covered him over.

The news of his son's tragic end was communicated to Captain Bourne by his faithful mate, who pathetically, and with unconscious humour, exhorted his master not to give way to grief. "It is a bad job," said he, "but it would have been much worse had it been ourselves, and we were very near done for." His bereaved master was a man of very few words. He asked some particulars without apparent emotion, and then proceeded to his cabin, where he was found shortly afterwards praying in a simple, touching way to Almighty God that the body of his son might be picked up so that it might be taken to his home. He petitioned fervently that his younger boy might be spared to him. It seemed as though his communion with the Deity had given him a glimpse into futurity, or a presentiment of further bereavement. He was recalled to material things by being reminded by the cabin-boy that the mid-day meal was ready. He took his place at the table and proceeded to make inquiries as to whether the discharging of the cargo would commence that day. The mate informed him that he did not think there was any intention of doing so, whereupon he replied, "I must go ashore and stir them up." The masters and mates of the other vessels in port would have come in a body to condole with him for the loss of his son, but they knew that he loathed outward signs of soft emotion, and in any case would never allow sentiment, no matter how justifiable, to come between him and his business obligations.

He was well known in business circles for his devotion to the interests of his employers. That was his first and last thought, and when he went forth to do their business he wasted neither time nor words. He possessed a natural gift of diplomacy, and wrote no letters. He had the knack of conveying what he wanted to be at, and his quaint way of doing it, though it might amuse, always inspired the person who was addressed with the belief in his soundness, so that few men succeeded as he did in getting what he wanted. On the occasion of which I am writing, the merchants received him with obvious sympathy, and he was promised a quick dispatch. That night he got the boy to write a few lines to his wife at his dictation. They were very brief, very melancholy, very reverential. Here is the letter: