Captains Courageous

“Um! Guess I’d ruther clean up, Dad.”

  “Don’t doubt it. Ye wun’t, though. Dress daown! Dress daown! Penn’ll pitch while you two bait up.”

  “Why in thunder didn’t them blame boys tell us you’d struck on?” said Uncle Salters, shuffling to his place at the table. “This knife ’s gum-blunt, Dan.”

  “Ef stickin’ out cable don’t wake ye, guess you’d better hire a boy o’your own,” said Dan, muddling about in the dusk over the tubs full of trawl-line lashed to windward of the house. “Oh, Harve, don’t ye want to slip down an’ git ’s bait?”

  “Bait ez we are,” said Disko. “I mistrust shag-fishin’ will pay better, ez things go.”

  That meant the boys would bait with selected offal of the cod as the fish were cleaned—an improvement on paddling barehanded in the little bait-barrels below. The tubs were full of neatly coiled line carrying a big hook each few feet; and the testing and baiting of every single hook, with the stowage of the baited line so that it should run clear when shot from the dory, was a scientific business. Dan managed it in the dark, without looking, while Harvey caught his fingers on the barbs and bewailed his fate. But the hooks flew through Dan’s fingers like tatting on an old maid’s lap. “I helped bait up trawl ashore ’fore I could well walk,” he said. “But it’s a putterin’ job all the same. Oh, Dad!” This shouted towards the hatch, where Disko and Tom Platt were salting. “How many skates you reckon we’ll need?”

  “’Baout three. Hurry!”

  “There’s three hundred fathom to each tub,” Dan explained; “more’n enough to lay out to-night. Ouch! ’Slipped up there, I did.” He stuck his finger in his mouth. “I tell you, Harve, there ain’t money in Gloucester ’u’d hire me to ship on a reg’lar trawler. It may be progressive, but, barrin’ that, it’s the putterin’est, slimjammest business top of earth.”

  “I don’t know what this is, if ’tisn’t regular trawling,” said Harvey sulkily. “My fingers are all cut to frazzles.”

  “Pshaw! This is just one o’ Dad’s blame experiments. He don’t trawl ’less there’s mighty good reason fer it. Dad knows. Thet’s why he’s baitin’ ez he is. We’ll hev her saggin’ full when we take her up er we won’t see a fin.”

  Penn and Uncle Salters cleaned up as Disko had ordained, but the boys profited little. No sooner were the tubs furnished than Tom Platt and Long Jack, who had been exploring the inside of a dory with a lantern, snatched them away, loaded up the tubs and some small, painted trawl-buoys, and hove the boat overboard into what Harvey regarded as an exceedingly rough sea. “They’ll be drowned. Why, the dory’s loaded like a freight-car,” he cried.

  “We’ll be back,” said Long Jack, “an’ in case you’ll not be lookin’ for us, we’ll lay into you both if the trawl’s snarled.”

  The dory surged up on the crest of a wave, and just when it seemed impossible that she could avoid smashing against the schooner’s side, slid over the ridge, and was swallowed up in the damp dusk.

  “Take ahold here, an’ keep ringin’ steady,” said Dan, passing Harvey the lanyard of a bell that hung just behind the windlass.

  Harvey rang lustily, for he felt two lives depended on him. But Disko in the cabin, scrawling in the log-book, did not look like a murderer, and when he went to supper he even smiled dryly at the anxious Harvey.

  “This ain’t no weather,” said Dan. “Why, you an’ me could set thet trawl! They’ve only gone out jest far ’nough so’s not to foul our cable. They don’t need no bell reelly.”

  “Clang! clang! clang!” Harvey kept it up, varied with occasional rub-a-dubs, for another half-hour. There was a bellow and a bump alongside. Manuel and Dan raced to the hooks of the dory-tackle; Long Jack and Tom Platt arrived on deck together, it seemed, one half the North Atlantic at their backs, and the dory followed them in the air, landing with a clatter.

  “Nary snarl,” said Tom Platt as he dripped. “Danny, you’ll do yet.”

  “The pleasure av your comp’ny to the banquit,” said Long Jack, squelching the water from his boots as he capered like an elephant and stuck an oil-skinned arm into Harvey’s face.

  “We do be condescending to honour the second half wid our presence.” And off they all four rolled to supper, where Harvey stuffed himself to the brim on fish-chowder and fried pies, and fell fast asleep just as Manuel produced from a locker a lovely two-foot model of the Lucy Holmes, his first boat, and was going to show Harvey the ropes. Harvey never even twiddled his fingers as Penn pushed him into his bunk.

  “It must be a sad thing—a very sad thing,” said Penn, watching the boy’s face, “for his mother and his father, who think he is dead. To lose a child—to lose a manchild!”

  “Git out o’ this, Penn,” said Dan. “Go aft and finish your game with Uncle Salters. Tell Dad I’ll stand Harve’s watch ef he don’t keer. He’s played aout.”

  “Ver’good boy,” said Manuel, slipping out of his boots and disappearing into the black shadows of the lower bunk. “Expec’ he make good man, Danny. I no see he is any so mad as your parpa he says. Eh, wha-at?”

  Dan chuckled, but the chuckle ended in a snore.

  It was thick weather outside, with a rising wind, and the elder men stretched their watches. The hour struck clear in the cabin; the nosing bows slapped and scuffed with the seas; the foc’sle stove-pipe hissed and sputtered as the spray caught it; and the boys slept on, while Disko, Long Jack, Tom Platt, and Uncle Salters, each in turn, stumped aft to look at the wheel, forward to see that the anchor held, or to veer out a little more cable against chafing, with a glance at the dim anchor-light between each round.

  CHAPTER 4

  HARVEY WAKED to find the “first half” at breakfast, the foc’sle door drawn to a crack, and every square inch of the schooner singing its own tune. The black bulk of the cook balanced behind the tiny galley over the glare of the stove, and the pots and pans in the pierced wooden board before it jarred and racketed to each plunge. Up and up the foc’sle climbed, yearning and surging and quivering, and then, with a clear, sickle-like swoop, came down into the seas. He could hear the flaring bows cut and squelch, and there was a pause ere the divided waters came down on the deck above, like a volley of buckshot. Followed the woolly sound of the cable in the hawse-hole; and a grunt and squeal of the windlass; a yaw, a punt, and a kick, and the We’re Here gathered herself together to repeat the motions.

  “Now, ashore,” he heard Long Jack saying, “ye’ve chores, an’ ye must do thim in any weather. Here we’re well clear of the fleet, an’ we’ve no chores—an’ that’s a blessin’. Good night, all.” He passed like a big snake from the table to his bunk, and began to smoke. Tom Platt followed his example; Uncle Salters, with Penn, fought his way up the ladder to stand his watch, and the cook set for the “second half.”

  It came out of its bunks as the others had entered theirs, with a shake and a yawn. It ate till it could eat no more; and then Manuel filled his pipe with some terrible tobacco, crotched himself between the pawl-post and a forward bunk, cocked his feet up on the table, and smiled tender and indolent smiles at the smoke. Dan lay at length in his bunk, wrestling with a gaudy, gilt-stopped accordion, whose tunes went up and down with the pitching of the We’re Here. The cook, his shoulders against the locker where he kept the fried pies (Dan was fond of fried pies), peeled potatoes, with one eye on the stove in event of too much water finding its way down the pipe; and the general smell and smother were past all description.

  Harvey considered affairs, wondered that he was not deathly sick, and crawled into his bunk again, as the softest and safest place, while Dan struck up, “I don’t want to play in your yard,” as accurately as the wild jerks allowed.

  “How long is this for?” Harvey asked of Manuel.

  “Till she get a little quiet, and we can row to trawl. Perhaps to-night. Perhaps two days more. You do not like? Eh, wha-at?”

  “I should have been crazy sick a week ago, but it doesn’t seem to upset me now—much.”

&n
bsp; “That is because we make you fisherman, these days. If I was you, when I come to Gloucester I would give two, three big candles for my good luck.”

  “Give who?”

  “To be sure—the Virgin of our Church on the Hill. She is very good to fishermen all the time. That is why so few of us Portugee men ever are drowned.”

  “You’re a Roman Catholic, then?”

  “I am a Madeira man. I am not a Porto Pico boy. Shall I be Baptist, then? Eh, wha-at? I always give candles—two, three more when I come to Gloucester. The good Virgin she never forgets me, Manuel.”

  “I don’t sense it that way,” Tom Platt put in from his bunk, his scarred face lit up by the glare of a match as he sucked at his pipe. “It stands to reason the sea’s the sea; and you’ll get jest about what’s goin’, candles or kerosene, fer that matter.”

  “’Tis a mighty good thing,” said Long Jack, “to have a frind at coort, though. I’m o’ Manuel’s way o’ thinkin’. About tin years back I was crew to a Sou’ Boston market-boat. We was off Minot’s Ledge wid a northeaster, butt first, atop of us, thicker’n burgoo. The ould man was dhrunk, his chin waggin’ on the tiller, an’ I sez to myself, ‘If iver I stick my boat-huk into T-wharf again, I’ll show the saints fwhat manner o’ craft they saved me out av.’ Now, I’m here, as ye can well see, an’ the model of the dhirty ould Kathleen, that took me a month to make, I gave ut to the priest, an’ he hung ut up forninst the altar. There’s more sense in givin’ a model that’s by way o’ bein’ a work av art than any candle. Ye can buy candles at store, but a model shows the good saints ye’ve tuk trouble an’ are grateful.”

  “D’you believe that, Irish?” said Tom Platt, turning on his elbow.

  “Would I do ut if I did not, Ohio?”

  “Wa-al, Enoch Fuller he made a model o’ the old Ohio, and she’s to Calem museum now. Mighty pretty model, too, but I guess Enoch he never done it fer no sacrifice; an’ the way I take it is——”

  There were the makings of an hour-long discussion of the kind that fishermen love, where the talk runs in shouting circles and no one proves anything at the end, had not Dan struck up this cheerful rhyme:

  “Up jumped the mackerel with his stripèd back.

  Reef in the mainsail, and haul on the tack;

  For it’s windy weather——”

  Here Long Jack joined in:

  And it’s blowy weather;

  When the winds begin to blow, pipe all hands together!”

  Dan went on, with a cautious look at Tom Platt, holding the accordion low in the bunk:

  “Up jumped the cod with his chuckle-head,

  Went to the main-chains to heave at the lead;

  For it’s windy weather,” etc.

  Tom Platt seemed to be hunting for something. Dan crouched lower, but sang louder:

  “Up jumped the flounder that swims to the ground.

  Chuckle-head! Chuckle-head! Mind where ye sound!”

  Tom Platt’s huge rubber boot whirled across the foc’sle and caught Dan’s uplifted arm. There was war between the man and the boy ever since Dan had discovered that the mere whistling of that tune would make him angry as he heaved the lead.

  “Thought I’d fetch yer,” said Dan, returning the gift with precision. “Ef you don’t like my music, git out your fiddle. I ain’t goin’ to lie here all day an’ listen to you an’ Long Jack arguin’ ’baout candles. Fiddle, Tom Platt; or I’ll learn Harve here the tune!”

  Tom Platt leaned down to a locker and brought up an old white fiddle. Manuel’s eye glistened, and from somewhere behind the pawl-post he drew out a tiny, guitar-like thing with wire strings, which he called a machette.

  “’Tis a concert,” said Long Jack, beaming through the smoke. “A reg’lar Boston concert.”

  There was a burst of spray as the hatch opened, and Disko, in yellow oilskins, descended.

  “Ye’re just in time, Disko. Fwhat’s she doin’ outside?”

  “Jest this!” He dropped on to the lockers with the push and heave of the We’re Here.

  “We’re singin’ to kape our breakfasts down. Ye’ll lead, av course, Disko,” said Long Jack.

  “Guess there ain’t more’n ’baout two old songs I know, an’ ye’ve heerd them both.”

  His excuses were cut short by Tom Platt launching into a most dolorous tune, like unto the moaning of winds and the creaking of masts. With his eyes fixed on the beams above, Disko began this ancient, ancient ditty, Tom Platt flourishing all round him to make the tune and words fit a little:

  “There is a crack packet—crack packet o’ fame,

  She hails from Noo York, an’the Dreadnought’s her name.

  You may talk o’your fliers—Swallow-tail and Black Ball—

  But the Dreadnought’s the packet that can beat them all.

  “Now the Dreadnought she lies in the River Mersey,

  Because of the tug-boat to take her to sea;

  But when she’s off soundings you shortly will know

  (Chorus.)

  She’s the Liverpool packet—O Lord, let her go!

  “Now the Dreadnought she’s howlin’ crost the Banks o’

  Newfoundland,

  Where the water’s all shallow and the bottom’s all sand.

  Sez all the little fishes that swim to and fro:

  (Chorus.)

  ‘She’s the Liverpool packet—O Lord, let her go!’”

  There were scores of verses, for he worked the Dreadnought every mile of the way between Liverpool and New York as conscientiously as though he were on her deck, and the accordion pumped and the fiddle squeaked beside him. Tom Platt followed with something about “the rough and tough McGinn, who would pilot the vessel in.” Then they called on Harvey, who felt very flattered, to contribute to the entertainment; but all that he could remember were some pieces of “Skipper Ireson’s Ride” that he had been taught at the camp-school in the Adirondacks. It seemed that they might be appropriate to the time and place, but he had no more than mentioned the title when Disko brought down one foot with a bang, and cried, “Don’t go on, young feller. That’s a mistaken jedgment—one o’ the worst kind, too, becaze it’s catchin’ to the ear.”

  “I orter ha’ warned you,” said Dan. “Thet allus fetches Dad.”

  “What’s wrong?” said Harvey, surprised and a little angry.

  “All you’re goin’to say,” said Disko. “All dead wrong from start to finish, an’ Whittier he’s to blame. I have no special call to right any Marblehead man, but ’tweren’t no fault o’ Ireson’s. My father he told me the tale time an’ again, an’ this is the way ’twuz.”

  “For the wan hundredth time,” put in Long Jack under his breath.

  “Ben Ireson he was skipper o’ the Betty, young feller, comin’ home frum the Banks—that was before the war of 1812, but jestice is jestice at all times. They f’und the Active o’ Portland, an’ Gibbons o’ that town he was her skipper; they f’und her leakin’ off Cape Cod Light. There was a terr’ble gale on, an’ they was gettin’ the Betty home’s fast as they could craowd her. Well, Ireson he said there warn’t any sense to reskin’ a boat in that sea; the men they wouldn’t hev it; and he laid it before them to stay by the Active till the sea run daown a piece. They wouldn’t hev that either, hangin’ araound the Cape in any sech weather, leak or no leak. They jest up stays’l an’ quit, nat’rally takin’ Ireson with ’em. Folks to Marblehead was mad at him not runnin’ the risk, and becaze nex’ day, when the sea was ca’am (they never stopped to think o’ that), some of the Active’s folks was took off by a Truro man. They come into Marblehead with their own tale to tell, sayin’ how Ireson had shamed his town, an’so forth an’so on; an’ Ireson’s men they was scared, seein’ public feelin’ agin’ ’em, an’ they went back on Ireson, an’ swore he was respons’ble for the hull act. ’Tweren’t the women neither that tarred and feathered him—Marblehead women don’t act that way—’twas a passel o’ men an’ boys, an’ they carted him araound town in an
old dory till the bottom fell aout, and Ireson he told ’em they’d be sorry for it some day. Well, the facts come aout later, same’s they usually do, too late to be any ways useful to an honest man; an’ Whittier he come along an’ picked up the slack eend of a lyin’ tale, an’ tarred and feathered Ben Ireson all over onct more after he was dead. ’Twas the only time Whittier ever slipped up, an’ ’tweren’t fair. I whaled Dan good when he brought that piece back from school. You don’t know no better, o’ course; but I’ve give you the facts, hereafter an’ evermore to be remembered. Ben Ireson weren’t no sech kind o’ man as Whittier makes aout; my father he knew him well, before an’ after that business, an’ you beware o’ hasty jedgments, young feller. Next!”

  Harvey had never heard Disko talk so long, and collapsed with burning cheeks; but, as Dan said promptly, a boy could only learn what he was taught at school, and life was too short to keep track of every lie along the coast.

  Then Manuel touched the jangling, jarring little machette to a queer tune, and sang something in Portuguese about “Nina, innocente!” ending with a full-handed sweep that brought the song up with a jerk. Then Disko obliged with his second song, to an old-fashioned creaky tune, and all joined in the chorus. This is one stanza:

  “Now Aprile is over and melted the snow,

  And outer Noo Bedford we shortly must tow;

  Yes, out o’ Noo Bedford we shortly must clear,

  We’re the whalers that never see wheat in the ear.”

  Here the fiddle went very softly for a while by itself, and then:

  “Wheat-in-the-ear, my true-love’s posy blowin’;

  Wheat-in-the-ear, we’re goin’ off to sea;

  Wheat-in-the-ear, I left you fit for sowin’;

  When I come back a loaf o’ bread you’ll be!”

  That made Harvey almost weep, though he could not tell why. But it was much worse when the cook dropped the potatoes and held out his hands for the fiddle. Still leaning against the locker door, he struck into a tune that was like something very bad but sure to happen whatever you did. After a little he sang, in an unknown tongue, his big chin down on the fiddle-tail, his white eyeballs glaring in the lamp-light. Harvey swung out of his bunk to hear better; and amid the straining of the timbers and the wash of the waters the tune crooned and moaned on, like lee surf in a blind fog, till it ended with a wail.