Читать книгу Reminiscences of a Raconteur, Between the '40s and the '20s - George H. Ham - Страница 14

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In a vain but fairly honest endeavor to ascertain exactly what particular line of industry would be most suitable to ensure my future comfort and welfare, I embarked as an A. B. sailor before the mast. My father-in-law was the owner of a small fleet of schooners which plied on Lakes Ontario and Erie. My first voyage on the Pioneer was very successful. I didn’t get seasick, fall overboard, or start a mutiny, could furl or unfurl the mizzen mast sails, handle a tiller in a—well—in a way, and would gleefully have carolled a “Life on the Ocean Wave”, or warbled “Sailing”, which was so popular amongst the boys in ’85, if it had been composed then, and I couldn’t get the tune of the other one. A sailor’s life was a long drawn out sweet dream when we had far away breezes; at other times when the boisterous winds blew furiously, it was a nightmare. The Pioneer was sunk somewhere off Port Hope, but all hands were easily rescued. Then Capt. Allen and Mary, the cook, who was the captain’s wife and myself were transferred to the Marysburg, a larger schooner, which used to labor creakingly along as if there wasn’t any oil procurable to quiet her noisy timbers. One day in the early ’70’s we tried to make Cleveland harbor, when a hurricane came up, and we scampered across the lake and thought we had found shelter behind Long Point. Lake Erie is very shallow, and I can readily testify that we could see its very muddy bottom when the waves rolled sky-high. No fires could be lighted and we rationed on stale cold food for a while. Reaching the haven, the kitchen fire was started, and preparations made for a much needed square meal. But before that could be prepared, the anchor let go, the vessel lurched, I grabbed the cook-stove, and Mary doused the fire with a couple of pails of water. It was no snug harbor for the Marysburg which lurched furiously to starboard and very unlady-like started out for the open lake. Then there was a regular go-as-you-please. The Marysburg pitched and heaved. I only heaved. I would have given a million dollars if I could only have been put ashore in a swamp without any compass—but I didn’t happen to have anywhere near that sum about me. Sailors, who are proverbially high rollers in the spending line when ashore, seldom have that much money on board ship. But the Marysburg and I were high-rollers all the same just then, and took every watery hurdle. If it hadn’t been for the nauseating mal-de-mer, I honestly believe I would have thoroughly enjoyed the excitement. As it was I merely listlessly looked upon the wild scenes as an unconcerned spectator; I knew if I were drowned I never would be hanged. But the storm spent its fury, and once out of troubled waters, down came the main mast, and the big anchor got up all by itself and jumped overboard. I threw up my hat—about the last thing I did throw up. Then I learned something about the law of averages—a vessel has to sustain a certain amount of damages to obtain any insurance. When the vessel arrived at Port Colborne, the claim for damages went through like a shot.

When we were eating our first real meal in the cabin, the Captain quietly remarked that if I, who had recovered from my temporary disability, could handle the tiller or the sails in the same way I handled my knife and fork, I would soon be amongst the greatest mariners of the age, and would soon be a distinguished officer in Her Majesty’s navy. Shiver my timbers, how I might have won the war and fame and a tin-pot title and a pension!

That reminds me that when Port Dalhousie was reached I went to a barber shop for a shave. My face had been nicely lathered, when I noticed the barber making furious flourishes through the air with his razor. Naturally I asked him what he was doing, and he told me he was cutting their heads off. Then he gave another slash at the, to me, invisible objects with heads on, and still another and another. It dawned upon me that he was seeing things that can only be seen by a man with the D.T.’s. “Hold on,” I said, as I rubbed the lather off my face with a towel, “Let me help you”, and arising from the chair I said confidentially to him, “Say, old man, don’t you think we could do the job better if we had a little drink?” This appealed to him favorably and we started out for a nearby saloon, where he ordered brandy and soda and poured out a stiff ’un while I tried to drink a glass of lager, and skipped out and never stopped running until I laid down exhausted in the fo’castle of the Marysburg. That was the closest shave I ever had.