Читать книгу Red Lion and Blue Star - John Arthur Barry - Страница 4

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Yah! Don't talk to me about your new-fangled ships with their new-fangled patents!" exclaimed a stout-set, red-faced, grizzled man as he munched his cheese and biscuit and washed it down with copious draughts of rum and water. "Wood's good enough for me," he continued, in a rumbling, husky tone of voice. "I'm sick o' the sight o' your flash steel clippers with their double-barrelled yards and double-barrelled skippers."

"Meaning me and my ship, I suppose, Captain Bolger?" asked a tall, fair, gentlemanly-looking man dressed in a fashionably cut suit of tweed, tan shoes, and straw hat with broad blue riband.

"If you like to take the application to yourself you're welcome, Captain Wayland-Ferrars," retorted the other, with a snort, and a marked pause at the hyphen. "But there's lots more dandy sailors and dandy ships besides yours. Still, the Turpsansicahurry's a case in point. What is she but a cursed iron tank built out o' plates that a shark could shove his snout through? An' she's neither wholesome to look at nor good to sail, except by a fluke. Paint over iron-rust, steel an' iron and soft timber. London mixture—neither fish, fowl, nor red herrin'! Donkey engine amidships, an' monkey poop aft. Sheer like a Chinee junk; stiff as a bandbox and tender as a rotten tooth; broom-handles for yards, and marlinspike for bowsprit. Yah! Fair stinks, too, o' science all over. An' with it all, a poor thing; cheap and nasty. Why, I wouldn't swap the Mary Johnson for a baker's dozen of such."

"You're very insulting, sir," said the other man, flushing hotly, "and but that your age renders you privileged, and the liquor you've drunk has probably affected your brain, I should certainly call you to account for your words."

"Haw! haw!" roared the other, turning his fiery face round to the crowd in the bar. "D'ye hear him? Coffee an' pistols for two in the Botanic Gardens to-morrow morning. Five-an'-forty year, boy and man, I've used the sea. And now to be told that I'm drunk by a new-fangled whipper-snapper like that, whose scientific head can't stand nothing stronger than 'Haw, lemon squash, if you please, Susan.'"

"Oh, go on board your old tub, do," said the captain of the Terpsichore, angrily, "and don't come here to pick quarrels with your betters."

Flop, as he finished speaking, came the rum and water into his face, whilst the old sea-dog, struggling in the grasp of a dozen hands, was vainly endeavouring to get at the other, on his part going through the same performance.

And this was how the historic feud commenced between the two ships in the bar of the Custom House Hotel on the Circular Quay of Sydney, New South Wales.

Here, as the sun travelled over the foreyard arm, sundry masters of craft lying near were accustomed to meet for a drink and a snack before the one o'clock gun called them to dinner. Men of the new seamanship, mostly, but with a sprinkling of others who, like Bolger, swore by their wooden clippers, had been with difficulty induced to give double topsails a trial, but drew the line at two topgallant yards; and to whom the sight of a patent log, or a lead, or a Thompson compass, was like that of a red rag to a bull.

And where amongst other places the show pinched was in the fact that the Terpsichore had now, for the first time, beaten the Mary Johnson on the outward passage. They were both regular traders to Port Jackson; and, hitherto, luck had been on the side of the Mary—a fine specimen of the Aberdeen-built clipper, now nearly extinct under the Red Ensign, and as great a contrast to the Terpsichore as could be well imagined. The former belonged to a line known from the device on its house-flag as the "Red Lion." The steel ship was one of a fleet of cargo-carriers familiar to seafarers for a similar reason by the name of "Blue Star." But Captain Bolger's employers were in a very small way of business compared to their rivals of the Blue Star, who, in addition to sailers, owned a dozen big ocean tramp steamers.

Hence they could afford to underbid the Red Lions in the matter of freights. Through their Sydney agents they had, indeed, just done so; and that fact, added to the slow passage, had been chiefly responsible for old Bolger's outbreak of temper towards Wayland-Ferrars—a representative of that new school of shipmasters he so thoroughly disliked—apart from all considerations of rivalry between their respective employers. And, into the bargain, he regarded the captain of the Terpsichore as a mere fine weather sailor, one of those products of a training-ship and high-class Board of Trade examinations who know more theoretically about cyclone centres, ocean currents, hydrography, and kindred subjects than the practical part of their profession.

And something of all this he muttered and growled as friends held him back whilst Wayland-Ferrars got away. The latter, although hurt and indignant at the insult put thus publicly upon him, knew that nothing was to be gained by fighting the old fellow, either there or at law. And, anyhow, stalwart six-and-twenty cannot with any grace punch the head of sixty, no matter how hot, rash, and abusive the latter may be. So, actually, there seemed nothing to be done but grin and bear it, and keep as clear of the captain of the Mary Johnson as possible.

Not that Bolger had the reputation of being a quarrelsome man, even in his cups. On the contrary, he was respected and liked by most of those who had relations with him, and whose verdict amounted to "honest and good-hearted—if a bit rough." The fact of the matter was that Bolger was behind his time—a very sad situation for most men to be placed in, and a sailor perhaps more than all. And the old man was bewildered at the changes taking place around him. Visiting another ship, the chances were that things about the deck would catch his eye of whose uses, and very names even, he was totally ignorant—and preferred to remain so. Also men were masters now at ages that in his day would have been thought preposterous.

Of course, as was to be expected in "Sailor Town," the news of the row in the bar of the Custom House Hotel spread amongst the sea-folk living in their ships stuck about in the sequestered wharves and jetties that poke out into the harbour from Woolloomooloo Bay to Pyrmont Bridge. But inasmuch as there were very few men of the old order in port just then, the captain of the Terpsichore came in for much of the sympathy he undoubtedly deserved, with the result that old Bolger was practically sent to Coventry by the other skippers.

As it happened, the two vessels were lying at the north-west corner of the quay, and no distance apart. Also, mirabile dictu, the majority of their crews were British. And as was only natural, these men presently took sides, showing their partisanship in the only way possible to them, viz., assaulting each other at every decent opportunity. Not very often through the week did such chances offer, but on Saturday nights when the crews met, coming back in the small hours from "up town," the din of battle woke the whole quay, and brought men to see the fun from all the great English, French, and German mail steamers lying around.

The captain of the Mary Johnson, one imagines, was rather pleased than otherwise at this state of affairs. He had a more powerful crew than the Terpsichore—losing men, this latter ship, on account of her patent labour-saving appliances, for some of which she ought really to have been allowed extra hands. As for Captain Wayland-Ferrars, he seldom slept on board between Friday night and the beginning of the week; so he never saw his gangway nettings on the quiet Sabbath mornings full of incapable, and sometimes sorely pummelled, Terpsichores. Perhaps his officers should have reported the facts. But they refrained from doing so. And if the captain wondered how his usually quiet and peaceable chief mate appeared at times with black eyes; and noticed that the second mate and the boatswain, too, bore similar pugilistic marks and contusions, he asked no questions. All his spare thoughts and moments were occupied with the courtship he was carrying on at Springwood, in the mountains. Next trip they were to be married; and there was nothing particularly requiring his presence on board.

Presently the two vessels finished discharging, and hauling out into the stream began to preen themselves for the homeward flight.

The Terpsichore was a well-found ship, with no lack of white and red lead, oil, turps, and varnish in her paint-lockers. So that, with her pink composition bends running to topsides of a delicate grey, broken by a line of eighteen black and white ports, she soon began to look a fine spot of colour. All her spars with the exception of topgallant and royal masts, boom and gaff, were painted a deep buff. And land-people crossing Johnstone's Bay in the ferry-boats invariably exclaimed, "Oh, what a pretty ship!" taking no notice of the Mary Johnson. But seafarers seldom gave the Terpsichore a second glance, keeping their regards on the fine old clipper with her beautiful yacht-like lines, clean run, bright, tapering spars, and spacious poop and topgallant forecastle. By scraping and tarring and scrubbing and polishing, poor old Bolger did all he could. But even then she looked worn and weather-beaten for lack of that paint his employers had not thought themselves able to afford. Unable at length to stand it any longer, the old man bought the stuff out of his own pocket. And presently, as his vessel swung to her anchors, all dark, glistening green, with just a narrow gilt beading running around it, stem and stern, lower masts and yards of spotless white, her other spars scraped and oiled till the Oregon pine shone like mahogany, he felt easier in his mind. And looking up at the Red Lion blowing from the main royal pole, and then at the Blue Star yonder, showing black out of its white ground over the shimmering metal gimcrack with the outrageous name, he swore to make such a run home as would let people know the difference between newfangled ships commanded by new-fangled skippers with double-barrelled names and a skipper and ship of the good old-fashioned sort.

At last Bolger's agents had got him freight, and it seemed that both vessels would be starting for home about the same time. Fortunately they were loading at far apart wharves. But, still, whenever a Lion and a Star met, singly or in company, there would be ructions. Thus amongst the sea-folk along the foreshores the interest was kept alive, and not a few bets were made and taken on the possible race. Bolger, it appeared, had announced his intention to his few cronies at the midday lunch either to beat the Terpsichore home or lose his spars.

As for the latter's captain, he only laughed when told of this, taking no heed. He had other fish to fry up Springwood way. Since the day of the quarrel he had never set eyes on Bolger. Nor did he wish to. Neither for the Mary Johnson nor her skipper did he mean to bother himself; and he declined all wagers with respect to a race, saying, what was perfectly true, that he didn't care which ship got home first. All the same, he had privately made up his mind to break the record. But not on account of Bolger and his bragging; only because the quicker he was home and back again the sooner would the Springwood episode find fitting close.