XIII
HOMEWARD
In a Sunday morning, while Benicia's bells were chiming for early Mass,we cast off from the wharf at Port Costa and towed down Sacramento.Though loaded and in sea trim, we were still short of a proper crew, sowe brought up in 'Frisco Bay to complete our complement.
Days passed and the boarding-masters could give us no more than two'rancheros' (who had once seen the sea from Sonoma Heights), and ayoung coloured man, a sort of a seaman, who had just been dischargedfrom Oakland Jail. The Old Man paid daily visits to the Consul, whocould do nothing--there were no men. He went to the boarding-houses,and had to put up with coarse familiarity, to drink beer with the scumof all nations, to clap scoundrels on the back and tell them what slydogs they were. It was all of no use. The 'crimps' werecrippled--there were no men.
"Wa-al, Cap.," Daly would say to the Old Man's complaint, "what kin wedew? I guess we kyan't make men, same's yewr bo'sin 'ud makespunyarn.... Ain't bin a darned soul in this haouse fer weeks as cudtell a clew from a crojeck. Th' ships is hangin' on ter ther men likeole blue! Captens is a-given' em chickens an' soft-tack, be gosh, an'dollars fer 'a drunk' on Sundays.... When they turns 'em to, it's,'Naow, lads, me boys! When yew'r ready, me sons!' ... A month a-goneit was, 'Out, ye swine! Turn aout, damn ye, an' get a move on!' ...Ah, times is bad, Cap.; times is damn bad! I ain't fingered an advancenote since th' _Dharwar_ sailed--a fortnight ago! Hard times, I guess,an' we kyan't club 'em aboard, same's we use ter!"
A hopeless quest, indeed, looking for sailormen ashore; but ships wereexpected, and when the wind was in the West the Old Man would be up ondeck at daybreak, peering out towards the Golden Gate, longing for theglad sight of an inward bounder, that would bring the sorely neededsailors in from the sea.
A week passed, a week of fine weather, with two days of a rattlingnor'west wind that would have sent us on our way, free of the land,with a smother of foam under the bows. All lost to us, for no shipscame in, and we lay at anchor, swinging ebb and flood--a useless hulland fabric, without a crew to spread the canvas and swing the greatyards!
Every morning the Mate would put the windlass in gear and seteverything in readiness for breaking out the anchor; but when we saw notug putting off, and no harbour cat-boats tacking out from the shorewith sailors' bags piled in the bows, he would undo the morning's workand put us to 'stand-by' jobs on the rigging. There were other loadedships in as bad a plight as we. The _Drumeltan_ was eight hands shortof her crew of twenty-six, and the Captain of the _Peleus_ wasconsidering the risk of setting off for the Horn, short-handed bythree. Sailors' wages were up to thirty and thirty-five dollars amonth, and at that (nearly the wage of a Chief Mate of a 'limejuicer')there were no proper able seamen coming forward. Even the 'hobos' andne'er-do-weels, who usually flock at 'Frisco on the chance of getting aship's passage out of the country, seemed to be lying low.
One evening the ship _Blackadder_ came in from sea. She was from theColonies; had made a long passage, and was spoken of as an extra'hungry' ship--and her crew were in a proper spirit of discontent. Sheanchored near us, and the Old Man gazed longingly at the fine stoutcolonials who manned her. He watched the cat-boats putting off fromthe shore, and smiled at the futile attempts of the ship's Captain andMates to keep the 'crimps' from boarding. If one was checked at thegangway, two clambered aboard by the head, and the game went merrily on.
"Where's she from, Mister?" said the Old Man to the Mate who stood withhim. "Did ye hear?"
"Newcastle, New South Wales, I heard," said Mr. Hollins. "Sixty-fivedays out, the butcher said; him that came off with the stores thismorning."
"Sixty-five, eh! Thirty o' that for a 'dead horse,' an' there'll beabout six pound due the men; a matter o' four or five pound wi' slopchest an' that! They'll not stop, Mister, damn the one o' them' ...Ah, there they go; there they go!" Sailors' bags were being loadedinto the cat-boats. It was the case of:
_The grub was bad, an' th' wages low,_ _An' it's time--for us--t' leave 'r!_
"Good business for us, anyway," said the Old Man, and told the Mate toget his windlass ready for 'heaving up' in the morning.
Alas! he left the other eager shipmasters out of his count. TheCaptain of the _Drumeltan_ raised the 'blood-money' to an unheard-ofsum, and two days later towed out to sea, though the wind was W.S.W.beyond the Straits--a 'dead muzzler'!
A big American ship--the _J. B. Flint_--was one of the fleet of'waiters.' She was for China. 'Bully' Nathan was Captain of her (aman who would have made the starkest of pirates, if he had lived inpirate times), and many stories of his and his Mates' brutality werecurrent at the Front. No seaman would sign in the _Flint_ if he hadthe choice; but the choice lay with the boarding-master when 'Bully'Nathan put up the price.
"Give me gravediggers or organ-grinders, boys, if ye kyan't getsailormen," he was reported to have said. "Anything with two hands an'feet. I guess I'm Jan--K.--Nathan, and they'll be sailormen or'stiffs' before we reach aout!" No one knew where she got a crew, butwhile the Britishers were awaiting semi-lawful service, Jan K. slippedout through the night, getting the boarding-house runners to set sailfor him before they left the _Flint_ with her crew of druggedlongshoremen. At the end of the week we got three more men. Granger,a Liverpool man, who had been working in the Union Ironworks, and,"sick o' th' beach," as he put it, wanted to get back to sea again.Pat Hogan, a merry-faced Irishman, who signed as cook (much to the joyof Houston, who had been the 'food spoiler' since McEwan cleared). Thethird was a lad, Cutler, a runaway apprentice, who had been workingashore since his ship had sailed. It was said that he had been'conducting' a tramcar to his own immediate profit and was anxious. Wewere still six hands short, but, on the morning after a Yankee clippercame in from New York, we towed out--with three prostrate figures lyinghuddled among the raffle in the fo'cas'le.
* * * * *
We raised the anchor about midnight and dawn found us creeping throughthe Golden Gate in the wake of a panting tug. There was nothing tosee, for the morning mist was over the Straits, and we had no partingview of the harbour. The siren on Benita Point roared a raucouswarning as we felt our way past the Head; and that, for us, was thelast of the land.
When we reached the schooner and discharged our Pilot, it was still a'clock calm,' and there was nothing for it but to tow for an offing,while we put the canvas on her in readiness for a breeze.
At setting sail we were hard wrought, for we were still three handsshort of our complement, and the three in the fo'cas'le were beyondhope by reason of drug and drink. The blocks and gear were stiff afterthe long spell in harbour. Some of the new men were poor stuff. TheMexican 'rancheros' were the worst; one was already sea-sick, and theother had a look of despair. They followed the 'crowd' about and madesome show of pulling on the tail of the halyards, but they were verygreen, and it was easy to work off an old sailor's trick onthem--'lighting up the slack' of the rope, thus landing them on thebroad of their backs when they pulled--at nothing! We should have hadpity for them, for they never even pretended to be seamen; but we wereshorthanded in a heavy ship, and the more our arms ached, the loudergrew our curses at their clumsy 'sodgerin'.'
One of the three in the fo'cas'le 'came to' and staggered out on deckto see where he was. As he gazed about, dazed and bewildered, theMate, seeing him, shouted.
"Here, you! What's yer name?"
The man passed his hand over his eyes and said, "Hans."
"Well, Hans, you git along to the tops'l halyards; damn smart's th'word!"
With hands to his aching head, the man staggered drunkenly. Everythingwas confusion to him. Where was he? What ship? What voyage? Thelast he remembered would be setting the tune to a Dago fiddler in agaudy saloon, with lashings of drink to keep his feet a-tripping. Nowall was mixed and hazy, but in the mist one thing stood definite, aseamanlike order: "Top'sl halyards! Damn smart!" Hans laid aft andtallied on with the crowd.
Here was a m
an who had been outrageously used.Drugged--robbed--'shanghai-ed'! His head splitting with the fouldrink, knowing nothing and no one; but he had heard a seamanlike order,so he hauled on the rope, and only muttered something about his lastship having a crab-winch for the topsail halyards!
About noon we cast off the tug, but there was yet no wind to fill ourcanvas, and we lay as she had left us long after her smoke had vanishedfrom the misty horizon.
At one we were sent below for our first sea-meal. Over our beef andpotatoes we discussed our new shipmates and agreed that they were aweedy lot for a long voyage. In this our view was held by the bettermen in the fo'cas'le and, after dinner, the crew came aft in a body,headed by Old Martin, who said "as 'ow they wanted t' speak t' th'Captin!"
The Old Man was evidently prepared for a 'growl' from forward, and tooka conciliatory stand.
"Well, men? What's the trouble? What have you to say?" he said.
Old Martin took the lead with assurance. "I speaks for all 'ans,Captin," he said.... "An' we says as 'ow this 'ere barque isshort-'anded; we says as 'ow there's three empty bunks in th'fo'cas'le; an' two of th' 'ans wot's shipped ain't never bin aloftafore. We says as 'ow--with all doo respeck, Captin--we wants yer t'put back t' port for a crew wot can take th' bloomin' packet round the'Orn, Sir!"
Martin stepped back, having fired his shot, and he carefully arranged aposition among his mates, so that he was neither in front of the 'men'or behind, where Houston and the cook and the 'rancheros' stood.
The Old Man leaned over the poop-rail and looked at the mencollectively, with great admiration. He singled out no man forparticular regard, but just admired them all, as one looks at soldierson parade. He moved across the poop to see them at a side angle; thehands became hotly uncomfortable.
"What's this I hear, men? What's this I hear?"
("As fine a crowd o' men as ever I shipped, Mister," a very audibleaside to the Mate.) "What's this I hear? D'ye mean t' tell me thatye're afraid t' be homeward bound in a well-found ship, just becausewe're three hands short of a big 'crowd'?"
"Wot 'bout them wot ain't never been aloft afore," muttered Martin,though in a somewhat subdued voice.
"What about them?" said the Old Man. "What about them? Why, a monthin fo'cas'le alongside such fine seamen as I see before me" (here hesingled out Welsh John and some of the old hands for a pleasant smile),"alongside men that know their work." (Welsh John and the othersstraightened themselves up and looked away to the horizon, as if theoutcome of the affair were a matter of utter indifference to them.)"D'ye tell me a month alongside men that have sailed with me beforewon't make sailors of them, eh? _Tchutt_, I know different....Sailors they'll be before we reach the Horn." (Here one of thepotential 'sailors' ran to the ship's side, intent on an affair of hisown.)
The men turned to one another, sheepish.
"Ye know well enough we can't get men, even if we did put back toport," continued the Old Man. "They're no' t' be had! Ye'll have todo yer best, and I'll see" (a sly wink to the Mate) "that ye ain't puton. Steward!"
He gave an order that brought a grin of expectation to the faces of all''ans,' and the affair ended.
A wily one was our Old Jock!
The Mate was indignant at so much talk.... "A 'clip' under the ear forthat Martin," he said, "would have settled it without all thatpalaver"; and then he went on to tell the Old Man what happened when hewas in the New Bedford whalers.
"Aye, aye, man! Aye, aye," said Old Jock, "I know the Yankee game,Mister--blood an' thunder an' belayin' pins an' six-ounceknuckle-dusters! Gun play, too, an' all the rest of it. I know thatgame, Mister, and it doesn't come off on my ship--no' till a' else hasbeen tried."
He took a turn or two up and down the poop, whistling for a breeze.Out in the nor'-west the haze was lifting, and a faint grey line ofruffled water showed beyond the glassy surface of our encircling calm.
"Stan' by t' check th' yards, Mister," he shouted, rubbing hishands.... "Phe ... w! Phe ... w! Phe ... w! encouraging."