Читать книгу American Captain - Эдисон Маршалл - Страница 7

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The long watch was almost over. Every soul of the ship’s company had been lost, and all her dead except three had been washed on shore or found in the surf. Of these three missing, only one was my very own—my brother Jesse, seventeen and the next youngest to me. He and two shipmates were still at sea in a way of thinking more strange than any dream; but they would have come in hours ago unless caught in the reefs, and now the falling wind was in the northwest, and the tide was going out.

In the last glimmer of the sun, Captain John Phillips came to a little place on the beach where I kept watch and vigil. I touched my cap to him and waited for him to speak. He was slow to begin, but when the words came forth, their tone was man-to-man and their burden plain.

“Can ye give me ear, Homer Whitman?”

“Aye, sir.”

“Homer Whitman, the loneliest night I pray ye’ll ever spend lies before ye, but I’d not want ye to feel that ye are all alone, because you’re not. Of heaven’s ministers I can say naught. ’Tis not my place or within my knowledge. But ye’ll be thought upon in a hundred prayers, more like a thousand, that will rise up from the town tonight, and ye’ll have a place in many a kind heart. And not only from those who know ye and your loved ’nes will feel for ye. Good folk everywhere who hear of your loss will be mindful of ye, and especially they that follow the sea. For mark ye, Homer Whitman, they are, in some way I cannot tell ye, your brethren. Aft or ’fore the mast, there’s a bond amongst us all.”

He paused, and I spoke.

“I thank you, Cap’n Phillips.”

“Now I’ve a question to ask ye, the answer to which I must have before I can say more.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

“Will this make ye hate the sea?”

“Nay, sir. How could it, when Pa followed it, and his pa before him, and my mother’s father and brother?”

“I thought not. Love of it, for all its cruel ways, is in your blood and bone. Still, there’s a question of fit time to say what I’ve in mind, whether now, or later. Most folk would have me wait till ye’ve watched and prayed over your dead and heard the reading from Holy Writ, and seen ’em returned to the ground. I reckon ’tis more fitting, for ’tis in the way of business, and yet more than business, if I judge aright.”

“Cap’n, I’ll ask you to speak now, whatever it is, if you’ll oblige me.”

“Then I will. I think it will be some comfort to ye, when ye need it sore. Ye’ve no home now, Homer Whitman, for an empty house is not a home, and ye have no kinfolk by blood closer than second cousins, now that your ma’s brother was lost a-whaling. But I offer ye a home aboard my ship.”

I could not speak, but Captain Phillips saw me nod my head. Instead of looking at my twisted face, he took his silver watch from his pocket and glanced at the dial.

“Ye can go aboard for biscuits and coffee as soon as ye come up to the town. There’ll be plenty of neighbors to stay with your dead that little while, and they’d want ye to if they knew; for ye’ve gone all day without a bite in your stomach, and ye need strength of body to uphold the faith of your soul. Tomorrow night ye can sleep in the fo’c’sle. James Porter—ye know him as ’Giny Jim, the cook—will keep ye company, and the men of the shore watch too. There ye can live till we’re ladened and set sail.”

“But you mean, don’t you, Cap’n, I can sail with you?”

“Blast my thick tongue! It was what I was trying to tell ye, Homer Whitman! Ye can make the Vindictive your home, at sea and in port, as long as ye serve her well and ’tis your desire. There’ll be no business ye need stay for. My partner, Eli Morton, will look after it as faithful as his own. I’ll sign ye as man ’fore the mast. Ye’ll not be favored, for this is America, and we sail ’neath the Stars and Stripes, and every man has right to get ahead if he can make it, but ye’ll receive your due in pay and promotion. And ’tis a snug ship as well as a tidy one, as ye know yourself. And I’ve got a friendship crew.”

He fixed his eyes on mine.

“What say you, Homer Whitman?” he asked.

By that compulsion, my eyes cleared and the choke went out of my throat.

“I’ll serve you and the ship as well as I’m able, Cap’n Phillips, and I thank you kindly.”

“Then ’tis done. Now the dusk grows, and I’ll leave ye. And may ye be of strong heart for the dark night ahead.”

His hand lay briefly on my shoulder before he turned away. I wished that Pa and Mama and my older brother Silas—and Jesse too, whose manly form the sea had not yet given up—could see the fatherly gesture. If they could, wherever they were gone, they would be a little less bereaved over leaving me, having more reason to believe I would get along well.