Part 27

“Not enough to wash your hands with, eh?” said the old man. “It looks to me as if there was plenty of water over the side, and I believe you’ve got enough salt-water soap. Is that all you’ve got to say?”

“It is, sor,” said Tim.

“Is there any one else in the same fix?” asked the skipper.

Coleman then stepped out and said the same thing about the food and water. Every one else seemed to find something mighty interesting in the deck-seams.

“All right. Mr. Goggins, you will see that the men are put on government allowance from now till I see fit to stop it. You can go forrad,” he added to the men.

It must be explained that on Yankee ships it is not customary to put men on the allowance prescribed by law as it is on foreign ships. On some of our ships the men are fed very well and on others miserably. We began here by giving all sorts of extra things to the men, apple-sauce, cheap jam, butter, etc., and when these “delicacies” ran out the men thought it strange, and then by and by, according to some of the most trustworthy of the sailors, the bread and meat themselves began to grow less and less. It would be much better if long-voyage American ships would adhere to the government allowance, and not give the men sweets one month and then suddenly stop them entirely; such a course always breeds discontent; and I have noticed that the mates have not been able to get any more work out of the men here even when they were luxuriating in their jam and butter, etc., than they did on the English “Mandalore,” where everything was weighed out to the ounce, and no “fixins.”

The serenity that ought to accompany a sea-voyage has been savagely dissipated, for go on deck and approach the wheel-house, and you instinctively recoil when you think that it perhaps contains a murderer. Go below to meals, and the smile vanishes from your face as your thoughts revert to the wounded man groaning in his dingy cavern. Over the ship hovers a silence such as falls upon a community when Death stalks through its midst. The men look grave, the mate gives his orders in low tones, and instead of the ringing chanties, the halliards are tautened up to a muffled “oh ho”; and the pumps would revolve in utter silence but for their own grinding clank.

As for the day, it was magnificent, and we continue to surge along over a sparkling ocean. Latitude, 4° 30′ south; longitude, 109° 58′ west.

+August 20+

After the excitement and turmoil incident to such an affair as happened yesterday, or rather the night before last, it is hard to get at the real facts of the case until the agitation calms down. Therefore it was not until a little while ago that we learned the truth about the row between Louis and Chips. It appears that before stowing away the heavy suit of sails when they had been unbent, some slight repairs were necessary on the lower foretop-sail. They were completed day before yesterday, and the sail was carefully rolled and tied up. The men were ordered to rinse the paint off their hands with kerosene, furnished them by the carpenter, so that they should leave no finger-marks on the white duck. Afterward, for some unknown reason, Louis wanted more oil, and personally went into the carpenter-shop to get it. Now, it is one of the strictest rules aboard all ships that no sailor shall ever enter the carpenter-shop in the absence of Chips; and when the latter, no doubt in an ugly mood, found Louis in there, he threw him out. After the fight the Frenchman was in a blind passion, and there were probably two reasons for his taking summary vengeance upon the second mate. In the first place, I have often seen him flush up with anger at the way in which some of the men have been treated, this being his first American ship; and he probably determined that if either mate laid hand on him unlawfully, he would show them that there was at least one man forward with the courage to defend himself. The second mate took him by the throat (Rarx admits that) while he, Louis, was quietly standing by the chicken-coop cutting off a plug of tobacco, being at the time perfectly well behaved, and the Frenchman, remembering his comrades, used his knife, ready in his hand. In the second place, the name which the second mate called him was the last straw. English, German, Scandinavian, and American sailors do not seem to care what they are called by the mates; but any one of the violent Latin races always resents this epithet with all the fury of which they are possessed. It is inconceivable, anyhow, why Rarx should have stirred up the row again. Chips ejected Louis from his shop. All right; he is there to guard that part of the ship, and did right in heaving him out of it; yet the second mate must needs rake it all up again two hours afterward, when he didn’t even see the original disturbance. Gradually I am beginning to lean toward the belief that Rarx and Louis have had a grudge against each other for a long time, and mayhap that little incident in the South Atlantic while the sails were being shifted, during which Rarx nearly threw the Frenchman off one of the mizzen-top-sail-yards, was not so much of an accident as it seemed.

By far the gravest question now is, was the knife that did the deed rusty? It was a sheath-knife such as all sailors carry in a little leathern scabbard by the hip. It must have been fairly bright, though, as there has been a great deal of use lately for sheath-knives in cutting away old chafing gear, and therein lies Rarx’s salvation. His sufferings are very great now; at long intervals he is somewhat easier, but he groans almost continuously in what seems to be excruciating agony, his breath comes in gasps, and perspiration oozes from his face in large beads, as he wallows and squirms in his narrow, hot bunk, almost crying aloud sometimes when the ship rolls.

And what of Louis? He has been removed to the lazarette and fastened, still handcuffed, to a thick stanchion. There he sits brooding in the gloom, for no light penetrates the apartment save by the booby-hatch that leads into it, secured with a chain heavy enough for a maintop-sail-sheet. He has, however, plenty of air and good food, including soft bread, which is no longer given to the men; but there is not space enough for him to stand upright in, a kneeling posture being the most elevated that he can assume. Still, there’s nothing else to do with him, for he certainly couldn’t be allowed at large. Three times a day the mate carries him his food, liberates him when he has finished and marches him forward, walking about five feet behind him, his hand gripping a pistol in his hip-pocket, ready for the least false move on the part of the Frenchman or any one else. The latter’s face is a study as he walks rapidly forward, his heavy, dark brows hanging sulkily over flashing eyes which he never raises from the deck. Through the midst of his shipmates he strides silently with bare feet, his immovable face shrouded in deep scowls, looking neither to the right nor left. They make way for him with averted heads as he passes through, followed by his jailer, and the men close up again as after the passage of a blood-hound in leash. Then in a moment back again he hurries along the deck, mounts the poop-ladder, descends into the dusky recess, holds out his hands, the irons are snapped on, with the chains between, and he is left for another five or six hours to muse in solitude upon his bloody deed. His face shows as yet no indication of relenting; but as day after day drags on in all its awful loneliness even his nature, however dauntless, must at last succumb to that most terrible of all punishments, solitary confinement.

As for the rest of the men, they have recovered somewhat and go about their work much as usual, bar the chanties, and I had lately another chance for a word with honest Paddy. “What do you think of this affair?” I asked him. “Well, I can’t say I’m surprised,” he answered. “How is that?” wishing to sound him. “Mr. Rarx has always seemed a pretty decent fellow.” “Decent fellow!” he replied. “Say, look here, I didn’t say much about him to you the other day, but I’ll tell you what now, there’s not a single man in the fo’c’s’l what’ll say a good word for him, ’ceptin’ that he’s a fine sailor-man. His temper’s hell,” he went on, and I expected to hear of some more fine examples of discipline, for we were on the fore-castle-head and not likely to be seen, when “Come, come, Paddy, this ain’t the dog-watch,” broke sharply in, and we perceived the stalwart shoulders of the bosun rise above the ladder, which, of course, ended the conversation.

My wife is rapidly recovering from her nervousness, having in this respect exhibited almost miraculous recuperative powers. What a trying, not to say a terrible, position for a woman to be placed in! What a miserable termination to a voyage undertaken solely for pleasure! Indeed, though, while we have enjoyed the sea as much, perhaps more, than we ever did before, there have been so many adverse conditions on board with which we have had to contend, that, after all, this is a more or less appropriate termination to the passage. When Louis was first put into the lazarette my wife didn’t like it at all, as our room adjoins it, though separated by a stout partition or bulkhead; we have allayed her fears, though, and we never hear so much as the clink of the chain from the Frenchman, even at night. It is fortunate that our relatives have no suspicion of our position.

We are now permanently three hands short, for old Neilsen is still so seedy that his most arduous tasks are making sennit and mats and pointing and putting Turk’s-heads on ropes. At noon we found that a strong southwesterly current had retarded us, and we are not as far north by half a degree as we supposed. Precisely the same weather conditions prevail, this great ocean being still in a state of absolute rest. The wind is now east; an advantage, as it allows every sail to draw. Latitude, 2° 49′ south; longitude, 112° 30′ west.

+August 21+

Mr. Rarx is somewhat improved, we think, and this afternoon he is not in so much pain. When I went in to see him yesterday I was shocked at his appearance. His face was swollen and puffed and glistening with perspiration; he twitched suddenly in jerks and was so exhausted that a dozen consecutive words wore him completely out. The worst of all, however, was his rambling speech, due to five-grain doses of opium; these seem to me to be prodigious amounts to administer, and perhaps account for the excessive cardiac palpitation from which he suffers. During breakfast this morning he had a dreadful spasm of pain, and we could hear him crying, “Oh, oh, oh, oh!” and it was miserable to see this powerful man stricken down at one blow.

Louis still conducts himself with the grim indifference of a Sioux Indian; his chains have been double-riveted and shackled, and an idea of the massiveness of the gear may be obtained when it is said that the stanchion to which he is secured is five inches square and only four feet high, that being the amount of head-room in the lazarette. The skipper has to stand the second mate’s watches now, which is hard on him, as he is suffering acutely from rheumatism. Lately, or since we took the southeast Trades, he has been most astonishingly affable. We don’t know what to think of him; his argumentativeness has disappeared and he insists on conversing pleasantly at meals; in short, he has assumed a gracious benignity as surprising as it is welcome, and it proves that he knows quite well how to talk and act, and that his surly manner is simply the result of a morose temper. I expect that he wants to leave a good impression on our minds at the end of the voyage.

Our southwesterly current gave rise to a most astounding lie from the mate, to illustrate what he believes to be the erratic movements of the currents in the North Pacific. The incident happened on a bark in the San Francisco-Honolulu trade, of which he was mate at the time. This vessel carried no freight, but did a large passenger trade, and always carried cows along for fresh milk. “Well, sir, wot I’m a-tellin’ yer of ’appened onct on the houtward passage; one of our cows took sick and died, and of course we ’ad to ’eave ’er over the side, which we did in the northeast Trades. We reached ’Onolulu all right, and started back ag’in for San Francisco, when one mornin’ in the Trades the cap’n he says to me, ‘Mr. Goggins,’ says he, ‘wot’s that?’ ‘Wot’s wot?’ says I. ‘That there,’ says ’e, a-pointin’ over the weather-quarter. I looked, sir, and strike me blind if there warn’t the body o’ that cow, and we two ’undred mile to the north’ard o’ where we chucked ’er hoverboard. She’d drifted there nearly dead ag’in the Trades in twenty-seven days.” When I told this singular experience to the old man, he said, “The principal thing that’s the matter with Goggins is that he’s a d---- old fool.” This being the first occasion on which I ever knew a captain to omit the handle to a mate’s name.

However, Captain Scruggs himself told us a strange story later; but as he is painfully accurate and never enlarges on facts or figures, it is most likely true. He was bound from Seattle to Manila, master of the “Judas Dowes,” and while rolling down through the southeast Trades he fell in with a German ship which asked for the longitude. They had a little talk together with the flags, and it turned out that she was from Vancouver for Callao and that she was then one hundred and nine days out. Nor was this the most remarkable part of the affair, for she was thirteen hundred miles out of her course! Her chronometers were out and she had been drifting about in the strong currents for weeks, working by dead-reckoning. But if this is extraordinary, what shall be said of the voyage of the ship “Ravenscrag,” which arrived at Callao not many months ago, one hundred and eighty-four days from New Whatcom! This place with the musical name is on Puget Sound, so that the distance which the “Ravenscrag” had to traverse was not more than six thousand miles in a straight line, yet so extremely difficult is it to make the coast of South America on account of the Trades that she was half a year at sea. Sailing ships have to practically cross the Pacific before they can fetch a port on the Peruvian coast. Another instance of the delay of this voyage is afforded by one of our rear-admirals, retired, who told me that he was once almost one hundred days from San Francisco to Callao in a training-ship, which shows that the long passage of the “Ravenscrag” was not due to indolence and bad navigation. The latter vessel’s voyage was infinitely more extraordinary in comparison than the “T. F. Oakes’s” passage of two hundred and fifty-nine days from Hong-Kong to New York.

It is a pity that vessels have to stand so far to the westward here when bound north in order to get the northeast Trades, but unless they do they will fall into a great calm region that extends from the Central American coast to the one hundred and twentieth meridian, and which reaches as far north as the thirtieth parallel. This is also a cyclonic zone, which, at certain seasons (particularly in September), renders the voyage from Panama to San Francisco a very dangerous one even for large steamers.

The longest voyage that it is possible to make both in time and distance is that from Great Britain or New York to the Japanese and Chinese ports during the northeast monsoon, when vessels sail completely around Australia and the whole length of the Asian coast to 35° north rather than beat up through the Sunda Straits, the total length of the voyage being twenty-one thousand miles. The following recent passages taken from London “Fair-play” serve to show the duration of the voyage in days:

“Ladakh,” New York to Hong-Kong 181 “Falls of Dee,” New York to Hong-Kong 182 “John R. Kelley,” New York to Hong-Kong 182 “Torrisdale,” New York to Hong-Kong 190 “Emily F. Whitney,” New York to Shanghai 197 “Musselcrag,” New York to Shanghai 197 “Ancona,” New York to Shanghai 240 “Eureka,” Philadelphia to Nagasaki 186 “George Curtis,” Philadelphia to Nagasaki 197 “Vimeira,” Philadelphia to Hiogo 189 “Englehorn,” Philadelphia to Yokohama 180

The “Whitney,” “Curtis,” “Kelley,” and “Eureka” are American ships, their average being one hundred and ninety days; the rest are English, with an average of one hundred and ninety-four, the miserable passage of the “Ancona” having spoiled the record of the Britishers. It will be seen, however, that not one of the ships went out in less than six months; compare this with the run of the American bark “St. James,” from New York to Shanghai, of ninety-eight days in the southwest monsoon, which was not a very wonderful passage.

The weather is as usual, save that there is a great increase in the humidity. Latitude, 1° south; longitude, 114° 40′ west.

+August 22+

North latitude! At nine o’clock this morning we crossed the equator in 115° 35′ west, and once more entered the Northern Hemisphere. Our passage of one hundred and three days from New York to this position is an average one, and we have yet twenty-seven days in which to reach San Francisco without breaking what the skipper says is his record of never having been at sea one hundred and thirty days.

A remarkable circumstance in connection with this part of the world is the low temperature of both sea and air; the former at noon was 77° and the latter only 70°, or about the same as the sea in August at New York. In the Indian and Atlantic Oceans the sea temperature at the equator is 84° and the air 86°.

We certainly made a fine run up from Cape Horn. Four weeks ago to-morrow we were in 60° south, and have, therefore, sailed thirty-six hundred miles of latitude and forty degrees of longitude in twenty-seven days. But the wind has been very, very light for twenty-four hours. We did only one hundred and one miles and just did contrive to wriggle across the line. Perhaps this is only a light spell in the Trades, as this wind at this season ought to carry us seven or eight degrees farther north.

Sufficient unto the day, etc. The memory of that miserable night last Wednesday is already beginning to grow dim. Mr. Rarx is improving; the terrific palpitation of his heart has ceased, and he has had much natural sleep lately. He did a strange thing last night in the middle watch: he got up out of his bed and sat for an hour in a chair; his heart was much relieved, he said, and he certainly does look better.

This being Sunday I had a long talk in the afternoon watch with MacFoy, who confirmed what Paddy said of Rarx’s temper. Then happening to mention Coleman, the bosun remarked, “He’s been pretty quiet since Mr. Rarx laid him out.” “Laid him out when?” I asked. “Why, didn’t you know he near killed him when we were towin’ to sea? No? Oh, dear! We were haulin’ aft the foresheet and Coleman turned his head to say a word to the man behind him, when the second mate come around the house and kicked him pretty hard in the legs. ‘What are yer kickin’ me for, sir? I didn’t do nothin’.’ ‘You lie,’ said Mr. Rarx. ‘What are you sayin’ to that man? Givin’ me back talk, too.’ Well, sir, with that he jumped on him when he was stoopin’ over, and I thought his ribs ’ud go afore he got through with him. Now, look; a bosun’s supposed to be on the mate’s side. But I say there’s no bit o’ use in a-smashin’ a man all up that didn’t deserve it, as I’ve seen dozens o’ times in American ships. I must say there’s some tough cases sails in Yankee ships, but whose fault is that? It’s the fault o’ the cap’ins and mates themselves. What man with a little bit o’ self-respec’s goin’ to allow himself to be knocked around the decks when he can sail in other ships, even if he is only a foremast hand? A dog won’t stand that, but he can run away from the man what beats him; but the sailor can’t. But the worst of the whole thing is that American mates don’t make any difference atween a blackguard and a man what’s doin’ his best. Some men’s got to be thumped, it’s the only way to handle ’em; but what’s the good o’ hittin’ a man with a block like the second mate did to Karl and then hazin’ him for the rest o’ the passage. It’s mighty little you know what’s been goin’ on here up forrad; they’ve kep’ it quiet, for I guess the old man told the mates not to let out afore you and the lady. But there was a hot time under the forecastle-head some days off the Horn. I was goin’ out in the ‘S. G. Alley’ a couple o’ year ago to Japan. ‘Black Taylor’ was mate of her, the toughest man in the toughest ship under the flag. We were makin’ sail off the Hook and there was a man surgin’ up on a rope at a capstan; the rope was wet and wouldn’t render easy, but paid out in short jerks, which, of course, the sailor couldn’t help. Taylor spotted him, and sung out that if he did it again he’d come over and fix him. In a minute or so the rope slipped an inch again, and with that Taylor runs over to him and kicks him into the water-ways, and was goin’ to lep on his stummick when the man all at once jumped up, whipped out a knife and drew it up the mate’s vest. His insides fell out on the deck and he died in a little while. Of course the ship couldn’t go to sea without a mate, so we turned back to New York. The sailor was jugged, and what d’ye think he got? Six months! He pleaded self-defence and Taylor’s black record decided the jury. I’ll bet this Frenchman of ours’ll get nothin’ at all if only one man’ll stand by him and tell what he’s seen Mr. Rarx do. I’ve sailed in a good many American ships, and in every one of them some one was cut up afore we got in. I’m thinkin’ o’ the Snug Harbor or you’d never see me in another one.” Latitude, 0° 7′ north; longitude, 115° 47′ west.

+August 23+