A Man in the Open. Roger Pocock
can turn around, she's nurse and doctor. She's got to be queen, and the schooner's a sea palace, when we suddenly discovered she only signed as cook.
Now we're asleep at eleven knots on a beam wind, and Key West wide on the starboard bow, the same being in the second dog-watch when I'm invited aft. There's the old man setting in the captain's place, there's mother at the head of the table sewing, and she asks me to sit in the mate's seat as if I was chief officer instead of master's dog.
"Son," says she—queer, little, soft chuckle, "son. You'll never guess."
I'm sort of sulky at having riddles put.
Then the old man gets red to the gills, giggling. He slaps hisself on his fat knee and wriggles. Then he up and kisses mother with a big smack right on the lips.
"Can't guess?" says mother.
"I'm the old man," he giggles, "she's the old woman." Then he reached out his paw. "Put her there, son!" says he; "what's yer name, boy?"
He'd a hand like a bear trap. "Smith!" I squealed. "Smith!"
"Fact," says he. "Fill yourself a goblet of that 'ere sherry wine, with some sugar. Drink, you cub, to Captain and Mrs. Smith. Now off with ye, and pass the bottle forrard."
There's me chuck-a-block with shyness, spluttering wine, dumb as a fish 'cause I've only one mouth to my face; then I'm to the foc'sle, tellin' the boys there's mutiny on the high seas with the cook commanding, and we're flying the aurora borealis for a flag, till we load a cargo of stars, and clears for paradise.
Next day, or next week, or maybe the Monday following, the ship's got a headache, with the sky sitting down on the mastheads, the sea like oil, the sheets slapping the shadows on the deck, where the tar boils, and our feet is like overdone toast.
We sailors is off our feed, and Pierre Legrandeur telling his beads till they get pitched overboard for luck. Old man's in a stinking temper, mother abed with sick headache, first mate like a wounded seal, the second has a touch of the sun, and bo's'n got a water-pup on his neck. We stows every stitch of canvas, sets a storm stays'l reefed to the size of a towel, everything on deck's lashed solid, and the glass is lookin' sicker'n ever. Then dad says we'd best take precautions, so he tries to house the top-masts, and sends down for a drum of oil.
The sky's like copper edged with sheet lightning, then there's scud in a hurry overhead, the horizon folding in, and a funnel-shaped cloud to the southard wrapping up the sky. There's no air, and I noticed the binnacle alight, so it must have been nigh dark under that funnel cloud. Just as it struck, some one called out "All aboard!" and I heard the mate yell, "You mean, all overboard!"
Couldn't see much at first, as I was busy getting mother out of the drowned cabin. When I'd passed a halyard round her and the stump of the mizzen, I'd just breathing time. The sea was flattened, white under black sky, and what was left of us was mostly blowing about. I felt sorry for Pierre—gone after his rosary beads, and Mick, too—he'd owed me a dollar. I missed the masts some, and the bowsprit. Galley gone, too, and the good old dinghy staved to kindlings. The ship's cat was mewing around with no curling-up corner left.
Dad was just taking command again of what remained. No use shouting either, so he hung on and beckoned. The masts overside were battering holes in us, until we cut adrift. Then to the pumps, but that was sort of ex officio just to keep us warm. Working's warmer than waiting.
Being timber-laden we couldn't sink, which was convenient. But, as mother said, there wasn't any grub on the roof, and we couldn't go down-stairs. For instance, we wanted a drink of water.
Well, now, we been three days refreshing our parched mouths with beer stories, when a fishing vessel comes along smelling salvage. Happens he's one of them felucca-rigged dago swine out of Invicta, Texas. Daresn't tow a hair-brush across a wash pail for fear of getting fouled in his own hawser. But he's a champion artist at gesticulations, so he'd like to get his picture in the papers for rescuing shipwrecked mariners. His charges was quite moderate, too, for a breaker of water and some fancy grub—until we seen the bill.
I never knew till then that our old man was owner. Of course that's all right, only he'd run astern with his insurance. That's why he'd stay with the ship, so it's no good talking. As to mother, she come aboard the feluccy, ship's cat in her arms, and a sort of cold, dumb, going-to-be-good-and-it's-killin'-me sort of smile. She bore up brave until she struck the number-one smell in the dago's cabin. "It's too much," she says, handing me the cat, "too much. I'm goin' back to drown clean."
She kissed me, and went back aboard the wreck.
But I was to stay with our sailors aboard the dago, to fetch Invicta quick, and bring a tug. Dad trusted me, even to play the coward and quit him. I dread to think back on that passage of four days to the port of Invicta.
Now in them days I was fifteen, and considered homely. The mouth I got would be large for a dog, smile—six and three-quarters. Thar ashore at Invicta, I'd still look sort of cheerful, so all them tug skippers took me for a joke. It was four days and three nights since I'd slept, so I suppose I'd look funny wanting to hire a tug.
I showed power of attorney, wrote in indelible pencil on dad's old dicky cravat, but the tugs expected cash, and the agents went back on me.
There was our sailors playing shipwrecked heroes, which is invited to take refreshments, and tell how brave they'd been, raising the quotations on tugs up to ten thousand dollars. Better have a whisky to lessen that smile before it takes cramp, they'd say. And mother's voice seems to call out of the air.
Nothin' doing Saturday nights at the office, tug crews all ashore, but the port will get a move on Monday. Trust grown men to know more'n a mere boy. Keep a stiff upper lip, cheer up and have a drink. The glass is down, the gulls is flying inland, thar's weather brewing. I seen in my mind the sprays lash over the wreck.
It was dark when I went to the wharves with Captain McGaw to see the Pluribus Unum. He'd show me a tug cheap at ten thousand cash—stores all complete, steam up, engineer on the premises, though he'd stepped ashore for a drink. Cute cabin he'd got on the bridge, cunning little glory-hole forrard. Why, everything was real handy, so that I only had to bat him behind the ear with a belaying-pin, and he dropped right down the fore hatch. All I wanted now was a navigating officer I could trust.
Which brings me to Mr. McMillan, our own second mate, buying a dozen fried oysters in a card box with a wire handle, all for twenty-five cents, though the girl seemed expecting a kiss.
"Hello, Frankie," says I, slapping him on the back. A foremast hand can make his officer act real dignified with less. "Say, Mac! D'ye know what Greed done?" I grabbed his oysters. "Greed, he choke puppy," says I, and in my mind I seen the gulls wheel round the wreck, where something's lying huddled. "Come on, puppy!" says I, waving Frankie down street with them oysters, so all the traffic pauses to admire, and our second officer is running good. More things I said, escorting him maybe a mile aboard of the Pluribus Unum. And there I ate them oysters while he was being coarse and rude, but all the time I seen the wreck heave sick and sodden on the swell of the gulf, the circling gulls, and how they dove down, pecking at a huddle of torn clothes beside the wheel.
Up thar on the tug's masthead I was owning to being in the wrong, while Frankie Mac was promising faithful to tear my hide off over my ears when I'm caught.
"Please, sir," says I, "it ain't so much the oysters worries me. It's this yer Cap'n McGaw I done embezzled. Cayn't call it kidnaped 'cause he's over sixty, but I stunned him illegal with a belaying-pin, and I hears him groaning—times when you stops to pant."
But Frankie Mac wouldn't believe one word until he went down in the fore peak to inquire, while I applied the hatch, and battened down.
So you see I'd got a tug, and the crew aboard, so the next thing was to take in the hawsers, shove off, and let her drift on the ebb.
It's a caution to see how many taps and things besets an engine-room, all of 'em heaps efficient. The first thing I handled proved up plenty steam, for my left arm was pink and blisters for a week. Next I found a tap called bilge-valve