Tramping on Life. Harry 1883-1960 Kemp
and mates' mess … the afternoon, polishing brass on the poop and officers' bridge, under the supervision of Karl, the former cabin boy.
"Well, how do you like it?" asked the cook, as he stirred something in a pot, with a big wooden ladle.
"Fine! but when are we sailing?"
"In about three days we drop down to Bayonne for a cargo of White Rose oil and then we make a clean jump for Sydney, Australia."
"Around Cape Horn?" I asked, stirred romantically at the thought.
"No. Around the Cape of Good Hope."
Early in the afternoon of the day before we left the dock, as I was polishing brass on deck, my father appeared before me, as abruptly as a spirit.
"Well, here he is, as big as life!"
"Hello, Pop!"
I straightened up to ease a kink in my back.
"You had no need to hide this from me, son; I envy you, that's all, I wish I wasn't too old to do it, myself … this beats travelling about the country, selling goods as a salesman. It knocks my dream of having a chicken farm all hollow, too. … "
He drew in a deep breath of the good, sunny harbour air. Sailors were up aloft, they were singing. The cook was in his galley, singing too. There were gulls glinting about in the sun.
"Of course you know I almost made West Point once … had the appointment … if it hadn't been for a slight touch of rheumatism in the joints … " he trailed off wistfully.
"We've never really got to know each other, Johnnie."
I looked at him. "No, we haven't."
"I'm going to start you out right. Will the captain let you off for a while?"
"The cook's my boss … as far as my time is concerned. I'm cabin boy."
My father gave the cook a couple of big, black cigars. I was allowed shore leave till four o'clock that afternoon. …
"—you need a little outfitting," explained my father, as we walked along the dock to the street. …
"I've saved up a couple of hundred dollars, which I drew out before I came over."
"But, Father. … "
"You need a lot of things. I'm going to start you off right. While you were up in the cabin getting ready to go ashore I had a talk with the cook. … I sort o' left you in his charge—"
"But I don't want to be left in anyone's charge."
"—found out from him just what you'd need and now we're going to do a little shopping."
I accompanied my father to a seamen's outfitting place, and he spent a good part of his two hundred buying needful things for me … shirts of strong material … heavy underwear … oilskins … boots … strong thread and needles … and a dunnage bag to pack it all away in. …
We stood together on the after-deck again, my father and I.
"Now I must be going," he remarked, trying to be casual. He put a ten dollar bill in my hand.
"—to give the boys a treat with," he explained … "there's nothing like standing in good with an outfit you're to travel with … and here," he was rummaging in his inside pocket … "put these in your pocket and keep them there … a bunch of Masonic cards of the lodge your daddy belongs to … if you ever get into straits, you'll stand a better chance of being helped, as son of a Mason."
"No, Father," I replied, seriously and unhumorously, "I can't keep them."
"I'd like to know why not?"
"I want to belong to the brotherhood of man, not the brotherhood of the Masons."
He looked puzzled for a moment, then his countenance cleared.
"That's all right, Son … you just keep those cards. They might come in handy if you find yourself stranded anywhere."
When my father turned his back, with a thought almost prayerful to the spirit of Shelley, I flung the Masonic cards overboard.
After dusk, the crew poured en masse to the nearest waterfront saloon with me. The ten dollars didn't last long.
"His old man has lots of money."
Our last night at the pier was a night of a million stars.
The sailmaker, with whom I had become well acquainted, waddled up to me. He was bow-legged. He waddled instead of walked. We sat talking on the foreward hatch. …
"I'm glad we're getting off to-morrow," I remarked.
"—we might not. We lack a man for the crew yet."
"—thought we had the full number?"
"We did. But one of the boys in your party strayed away … went to another saloon and had a few more drinks … and someone stuck him with a knife in the short ribs … he's in the hospital."
"But can't Captain Schantze pick up another man right away?"
"The consulate's closed till ten to-morrow morning. We're to sail at five … so he can't sign on a new sailor before … of course he might shanghai someone … but the law's too severe these days … and the Sailors' Aid Society is always on the job … it isn't like it used to be."
But in spite of what the sailmaker had told me, the captain decided to take his chance, rather than delay the time of putting forth to sea. Around ten o'clock, in the full of the moon, a night-hawk cab drew up alongside the ship where she lay docked, and out of it jumped the first mate and the captain with a lad who was so drunk or drugged, or both, that his legs went down under him when they tried to set him on his feet.
They tumbled him aboard, where he lay in an insensate heap, drooling spit and making incoherent, bubbling noises.
Without lifting an eyebrow in surprise, the sailmaker stepped forward and joined the mate in jerking the man to his feet. The captain went aft as if it was all in the day's work.
The mate and the sailmaker jerked the shanghaied man forward and bundled him into a locker where bits of rope and nautical odds and-ends were piled, just forward of the galley.
In the sharp but misty dawn we cast our moorings loose. A busy little tug nuzzled up to take us in tow for open sea.
We were all intent on putting forth, when a cry came from the port side. The shanghaied man had broken out, and came running aft … he stopped a moment, like a trapped animal, to survey the distance between the dock and the side … measuring the possibilities of a successful leap.
By this time the first and second mates were after him, with some of the men … he ran forward again, doubled in his tracks like a schoolboy playing tag … we laughed at that, it was so funny the way he went under the mate's arm … the look of surprise on the mate's face was funny … Then the man who was pursued, in a flash, did a hazardous thing … he flung himself in the air, over the starboard side, and took a long headlong tumble into the tugboat. …
He was tied like a hog, and hauled up by a couple of ropes, the sailmaker singing a humorous chantey that made the boys laugh, as they pulled away.
This delayed the sailing anyhow. The mist had lifted like magic, and we were not far toward Staten Island before we knew a fine, blowing, clear day, presided over, in the still, upper spaces, by great, leaning cumulus clouds. They toppled huge over the great-clustered buildings as we trod outward toward the harbour mouth. …
The pilot swung aboard. The voyage was begun.
The coast of America now looked more like a low-lying fringe of insubstantial cloud than solid land.
My heart sank. I had committed myself definitely to a three-months' sea-trip … there was no backing out, it was too far to swim ashore.
"What's wrong, Johann," asked the captain, "are you sea-sick already?" He had noticed my expression as he walked