Part 3

The routine was always the same. Before he plunged me into the tank he would roll me on the deck. Then he made me turn somersaults, and box with him. My share of the boxing might be described as down again, up again. As soon as I could get to my feet he would tumble me over with his pawlike hand, and keep that up for about ten minutes. If I cried or protested at all against that rough treatment I got a sound slap on my bottom to “knock that nonsense out of you.” Then came the great moment when, warm and glowing, I was plopped into cold sea water to strike out blindly, and in vain. Holding his hand under my back, Father told me to throw out my stomach and bend my head back to balance. I couldn’t understand how that would help me float because when I put my head back I got my mouth and ears and eyes full of salt water. Then he explained it in words to penetrate my infant comprehension.

“Throw your head back and puff your stomach up until YOU CAN SEE YOUR BELLY-BUTTON.”

Then it became a game, and in my eagerness to see if I could puff my stomach up high enough for me to see that portion of my anatomy, I achieved the art of floating. While I was thus absorbed in watching myself perform, Father took his bracing hand from under my back and left me to my own resources. Once I had learned to float, swimming came easy and I soon outgrew the limitations of the four foot tank. I didn’t think I had, but Father did. The next port we arrived in was Newcastle, Australia, and he chose that harbor to polish off my swimming ability.

When he looked for me to begin another lesson he found me playing with a tame gooney on the deck, perfectly contented. A gooney is a species of gull, dull grey in coloring, and a bit larger than the common seagull. Father had snagged him on a big hook baited with a piece of salt pork, pulled him aboard and clipped his wings so he could not fly away. When we first got him the gooney tried to bite, but by feeding him a few days he became tame, and quite a fascinating toy for me. We had named him “Salt Pork.”

We were playing a game called “Grub” which Stitches had invented for us. “Grub” was a unique game in that it gave me my first philosophy of doing things for myself and increased my propelling powers immensely. The rules for “Grub” were simple. A line was drawn on the poop deck with chalk behind which Salt Pork and I lined up. The goal was a piece of bread on the rail aft by the wheel. At a given signal from Stitches he let go of Salt Pork and off we both went across the deck after the grub; me, a hungry kid and Salt Pork, a ravenous sea bird. I crawled on all fours after it and the gooney ran with webbed feet. If I got there first I ate the bread on the spot as fast as I could cram it down my gullet or Salt Pork would have grabbed it right out of my hand. If Salt Pork got it first I couldn’t get it away from him because he’d swallow it whole without even chewing it.

“Say, Stitches,” called Father from the gangway, “let’s give Joan a lesson in keeping her mouth shut!” He undressed me and took me to the fo’c’s’le head. Two of the crew were cooling off with a nice swim under the shadow of the bowsprit. He called to them to keep an eye on me and without further warning he threw me fifteen feet into the water below. I thought I had sunk to the bottom of the world and would never come up. When I finally did I was so frightened that I started to yell and was rewarded with a mouthful of salt water. There was nothing to hang on to, so I had to swim. My father and Stitches on the jibboom above laughed at my struggle. Of course there was no danger for me as the two sailors could have pulled me out in an instant. It seems useless to add that I learned to swim in deep water very rapidly.

Father, evidently satisfied that Lesson Number One in practical nautical knowledge was a success, remarked to Stitches:

“See how quick she shut her mouth when she hollered about nothing! If every woman could learn to keep her mouth shut at the age of two they’d be better off.”

Every day after that, during the weeks we were in Newcastle, I was thrown overboard. I came to love it and soon was a strong swimmer with an instinct for action instead of noise!

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[Illustration]

4 In which I learn that young ladies must not take baths in gentlemen’s drinking water

From the time I was two years old until about my sixth birthday nothing startling impressed itself on my baby mind. Ours was just the usual routine of a trading schooner: Seattle to Sydney with lumber and from Sydney it was “bound to the South Sea Islands for copra,” loaded with red calico, cheap knives, soap, tinfoil, anything shiny to catch the eyes and thrill the hearts of the natives.

We cruised from island to island picking up half a ton of copra here, a quarter ton there until we had filled the hold, and for a deck load we got generally about five hundred bundles of sandalwood. Of course we took lots of smaller stuff, but copra and sandalwood were our staples from the islands.

Copra—the word itself is common to sea traders, but to landlubbers it is a strange expression found in stories of the South Seas.

Copra is the meat of coconuts dried in the sun. The natives break open the nuts and lay them out on woven mats to rot. The rotting process in the tropic heat brings out the oils and acid of the coconut. It takes about three months of drying process to make the copra rotten enough to be ready for market. The natives load it in bales of reeds and carry it off the island in canoes to waiting ships.

In appearance copra is dark brown and fibrous. No copra is first class until it is so putrid that vermin infest it. The stench of it is almost unbearable. In its ripe stage copra is highly explosive. During the war many uses were found for the stuff. The waste of its matter was used for ammunition, the oils to preserve foods for the soldiers, and the acids were invaluable in surgery.

One of the most common uses of copra is in the manufacture of linoleum and some forms of paper. I often wonder when people are walking on the linoleum in their homes if they realize that the substance of it came from the savage islands of the South Seas.

In trading between the islands, Australia and the States in my early years our greatest rival and bug-bear was the barkentine, _Mary Winklemund_, a three-master under the command of Captain Swanson. A barkentine by reason of its rig, square yards on the fore mast, is naturally faster than a schooner and the _Mary Winklemund_ for years won every race with the _Minnie A. Caine_, whether it was from Hawaii to New Zealand or from Samoa to Seattle. My father and Captain Swanson were rivals, both in shouting the praise of their ships and in pride of their navigation, but Swanson had the edge. He would beat us by a few hours, by a few days, and on occasion by two months. Father always blamed the bad winds and incompetent sailors, and said that Swanson was afraid to carry as big a load as we for fear of sinking. But in spite of his alibis, the fact remained that in every nautical endeavor Swanson made us look like a leaking lifeboat in a hurricane.

Naturally to a man of Father’s combative temperament being beaten was bad enough, but Captain Swanson, not content with winning, never let a chance go by to rub in the victory with heavy-handed sea humor. As a result Father, I believe, would have run his ship on the rocks or jumped overboard himself, if thereby he could have scored on that “goddamned, squareheaded Sea Hog,” as he always delicately described his rival. How Father did even up the score stuck in my mind because it was combined with the memory of my first attempt at the age of six to get rich quick.

We were anchored in Double Bay, Sydney, my sixth winter, and Swanson sent word to Father to come aboard the _Mary Winklemund_ for dinner. Father sent back word that he would accept free grub even on the _Winklemund_. I was delighted, for I welcomed any opportunity to get off our own vessel. As we were leaving in a small boat to scull over to the _Winklemund_ Father turned to me and said:

“Swanson is trying to show off to me what good grub they serve on his packet. I’ll paddle you if you dare eat like you enjoy it.”

When we boarded the _Mary Winklemund_ by means of a Jacob’s ladder thrown over the side, Captain Swanson met us. He showed us around his ship which was newly painted white from stem to stern. He pointed out the ship’s fine points, not forgetting to tell just where and how much she excelled ours. Father was getting madder and madder all the time and I was afraid he would blow up and go back without waiting for dinner.

“And just to show you how much better and cheaper I manage my ship,” concluded Captain Swanson, “look at this.” He reached into a barrel and brought out a small piece of something that looked like dirty marshmallow.

“See that, Captain?” he boasted. “Well, I had a whole barrel of it. Used it to oil down the masts this trip, saved me buying oil. Maybe if you was to oil down the sticks on your ship you could sail faster.”

Father took the substance from his hand, and smelled it, and looked up. I was surprised to see all the mad had gone out of his face.

“Got any more of this?” he asked, and there was a twinkle in his eye.

“Naw, I ain’t got no more. When we struck hot weather it stunk to high heaven so I throwed it over the side.”

“How much have you got left?”

“Just about a bucketful in this barrel,” he answered. “And I told the ship’s chandler he could have it. He asked me for it.”

“The hell you say,” observed my father, and I thought I saw him smile. “You’re a smart old barnacle, aren’t you, Swanson?” Swanson puffed in pride, and led the way to the dining saloon. There before us was a meal intended to impress Father with its luxuriousness. I looked at it glumly, remembering Father’s words, “I’ll paddle you if you eat like you enjoy it.” How could anybody eat all that food and not show enjoyment? He must have seen what was in my mind for he slapped me on the shoulder, exclaiming: “Forget it, Joan. Eat all you can and enjoy every bit of it. I’m going to.”

I had my mouth full before they were in their chairs, but, once squared away, I never saw Father eat so much or enjoy it so heartily. When he finished he pushed back his chair, looked at Swanson and burst out laughing.

“What’s so funny?” asked Swanson uncomfortably.

“Nothing, you big squarehead, but do you know what that grease is you threw overboard?”

“Naw. I found it floating off the Gilbert Islands. Saw some sea birds picking at it, so I put off a boat and investigated. Looked like good grease so I hauled a couple of barrels aboard and used it like I told you to grease down the masts.”

“They’re fine sticks, Swanson,” grinned Father. “They ought to be, greased down with a hundred thousand dollars worth of ambergris.”

Swanson gulped and turned pale. His eyes were almost popping out of his head.

“Huh? Ambergris?” he gasped.

“Yes, ambergris!” shouted Father. “Worth thirty-two dollars an ounce. And you threw a barrel of it overboard. You threw away a fortune, you goddamned, ignorant, stingy squarehead.” And Father lay back in his chair and roared with laughter.

Swanson was livid now. “You think you’re smart, don’t you?” he yelled. “Only don’t forget this—there was twice as much stuff there as I took. I know where it is and I’ll go back and get it.”

“Good luck,” laughed Father, “if you can find it again you’re entitled to it.”

“I’ll find it,” were the grim parting words of the squarehead Captain.

Going back in the small boat to our ship I asked Father what ambergris was.

“Whale vomit,” he answered.

I couldn’t see what was so funny about Swanson throwing away whale vomit so I persisted in questioning further.

“What’s it good for?”

“Joan, ambergris is worth thirty-two dollars an ounce. He threw away about sixty thousand dollars worth just through ignorance.”

“Well, what’s the good of whale vomit? Why is it worth money?”

“Perfume companies use it as the base for rare perfume. And I wish to Christ I could find some.”

“Why don’t you try and find what Captain Swanson left?”

“Because anybody but an old fool like Swanson would know that sea birds eat ambergris. What he left is gone long ago. I only hope he does hunt it. It will keep him off the trade route for six months.”

And that is exactly what happened. Captain Swanson spent six months looking for his ambergris and found nothing. But Father told the story in every port and nowhere Swanson went did seafolk allow him to forget it.

I couldn’t forget ambergris either. If Swanson could find it why couldn’t we? There must be some way of locating it.

But the more I thought the more discouraged I became. A few barrelsful of ambergris in a whole ocean—not much chance of finding that. Then like a flash the idea came to me. It was so simple I wondered why Stitches or Father or some other sea captain had not thought of it. All I had to do was just to make the whales in the ocean sick at their stomach and they would belch forth ambergris enough to fill our ship. And that much I figured would be worth millions and millions and Father would never have to worry about bad trading seasons or port charges any more. We put to sea in a week and were headed for the Union Group of islands about twenty-eight degrees latitude South, one hundred and sixty-seven degrees longitude West. There ought to be some whales around there. I thought if I poisoned the water in the sea all the whales would be sick. The only drawback to my scheme was that I didn’t have any poison, so I made some of my own.

I begged an empty codfish keg from the cook and poured some cold split pea soup in it. I hated split pea soup so I was sure that was poison. Then I emptied the spittoon from the wheel which was full of tobacco juice and spit into the soup. To this I added tar and some dead rats. The finishing touch was some dead cockroaches. I caught them and mashed them up in the mixture, and then, positive that I had concocted a potion to ruin all the whales, I waited for nightfall.

About ten o’clock that night I slipped to the lee rail and dumped my poison into the sea, and waited. For hours, I waited, straining my eyes against the darkness, searching the water for some signs of ambergris to float. At four bells I turned in, and spent the rest of my night at my porthole looking for a promise of a seasick whale, but of course there was none. My scheme to poison the entire ocean failed, and when the cook found that I had wasted a pot full of good pea soup, I got a licking for my effort. To this day the only consolation I have for my failure is that when I detect rare perfume on beautiful ladies, I speculate with pleasure as to what they would think if they knew the base of their scent was whale vomit!

As long as I was a baby the sailors thought me a grand toy to play with and make a fuss over but when I grew old enough to become a bother their kindly attitude was frequently subject to change.

Of course it is the common belief that when a captain has a girl aboard ship the sailors slay each other to get the captain’s beautiful daughter—that her very presence on shipboard uplifts them and inspires them to lofty ideals.

That might be the case in novels, but in real life it is far more practical! Never in all my experience did any sailor attempt any act of violence to gain my favor. Their acts of violence, at times, were directed against me instead.

It was on our next voyage after Father squared accounts with Captain Swanson that I saw my first real mutiny and felt what it was like to have an entire ship’s crew against one. It all came about in the most natural way from being caught in the doldrums with a short water supply.

Our ship carried our fresh water supply in a tank under the fo’c’s’le head and in two iron tanks lashed on the poop deck just aft of the spanker mast. These tanks contained in all about five thousand gallons of water, to be used by sixteen people over a period of from eighty to one hundred and twenty days at sea. It was a precious commodity and it was guarded zealously by the cook whose job it was to portion it out daily, three cups to a person. In the tropics the water became so hot and stagnant that “wigglers” came out in it. Wigglers are small worms which hatch in the water. It is an old maritime law that every “off-shore” vessel must carry a certain amount of lime juice as a preventative against scurvy. A drop of lime juice in a mug of water kills the wigglers and thus enables the consumer to drink water without live stock in it. To this day old English sailing ships are referred to as “lime juicers,” and that name came down to them from the old custom.

We had been out eighty-three days from Mukelteo, bound for Brisbane, Australia, with a million feet of lumber. The water supply ran very low, and the residue was so alive with tiny wigglers and germs that it was like a death warrant to drink it. The cook came aft and told Father that a plague would come on the ship from that water. The stench of it was terrible. Even the rats were boldly searching the decks for something fresh. We were in the doldrums, about eleven degrees south of the Equator. The ship just wallowed in the glassy sea, and seemed to crack and shrivel in the heat. There was no shade anywhere. The sails hung limp and useless, like unstarched linens. The bedbugs and roaches seemed to multiply by the million.

“All hands on deck,” ordered my father, and the mate repeated his order to the men sleeping below. In a few minutes the entire crew were on deck.

“There’s no more water, men, until we hit a rain squall. The glass is down and I look for a squall, so stand by with kegs and catch all the rain you can if you want fresh water.”

There was a mad hurry to get kegs to catch the rain. The men brought everything from salt pork barrels to empty tomato tins and placed them under the booms and scuppers. The cook and a sailor put a barrel under the drain on the main deck just below the poop deck to catch the water that washed down the poop.

No sailor tried to sleep any more. They sat huddled in the scuppers looking thirstily at the deceitful clouds that drifted by and disappeared to the horizon with their refreshing cargoes.

Night came, and still no sign of rain. Just at sunset, at about a quarter point off the starboard bow, appeared the end of a rainbow, dipping right into the sea and making an arch of vivid colors, which dissolved into the mist of a rain squall a mile away. It was aggravatingly near, and the men bent every inch of sail to hurry the ship into its midst to catch some of its rain, but just within a hundred yards of it, the little gust of wind died, and once more the sails hung limp and impotent.

That night for dinner we had a sticky mess of salt dried codfish. Its odour was so bad from the intense heat that the only way it could be swallowed was to smother it with mustard and hold your breath, to kill the smell.

“This damn stuff stinks,” observed the mate, whereupon he proceeded to pick out the remnants of fish from his teeth with the prongs of his fork. I was just old enough to recognize the expression on my father’s face as a sign of trouble.

“Yeh? Well any time you get disgruntled about the menu on this packet, just write me a letter and I’ll file it in my correspondence.” The mate’s remark, however, spoiled his appetite and he shoved the dish of ill smelling fish at the cabin-boy.

“Chuck that overboard.”

For my dinner I had boiled lentils, which only accentuated my thirst, as the salt fish had increased the men’s.

At sea a very little thing will start a feeling of mutiny, and thirsty, dried-up men, scorched by heat and discouraged by no winds and bad food, are like dynamite to handle. They started to quarrel among themselves, viciously. Father anticipated trouble. Right after dinner he sent me to my bunk.

“And if you hear anything on deck, you stay below,” he added and swung up to the poop deck. He searched the horizon for some sign of a storm to bring relief. If another day passed and no fresh water fell, there was no foretelling what uprising would occur. The sky was red, and the old legend, “Red sky at night, sailor’s delight” gave no promise that the morning would bring water.

Father heard the men mumbling in the scuppers, for in some way they blamed him for their plight. Old Stitches, whose loyalty to father was like iron, came up on the poop deck beside him, and casually started to smoke his pipe. Beneath his nonchalance were grim, tight lips. He knew there was going to be trouble, and he wanted Father to know he was still swinging a belaying pin on his side.

I could feel something was going on that I didn’t understand, and whenever I felt there was something being kept from me I just had to find out about it. So after I had been sent to bed, I sneaked back on deck and hid out of sight of Father. Nobody on the ship was asleep. I could hear the men stirring and grumbling for’ard.