CHRIS FARRINGTON: ABLE SEAMAN
"If you vas in der old country ships, a liddle shaver like you vood peonly der boy, und you vood wait on der able seamen. Und ven der ableseaman sing out, 'Boy, der water-jug!' you vood jump quick, like a shot,und bring der water-jug. Und ven der able seaman sing out, 'Boy, myboots!' you vood get der boots. Und you vood pe politeful, und say'Yessir' und 'No sir.' But you pe in der American ship, und you t'inkyou are so good as der able seamen. Chris, mine boy, I haf ben asailorman for twenty-two years, und do you t'ink you are so good as me?I vas a sailorman pefore you vas borned, und I knot und reef und spliceven you play mit topstrings und fly kites."
"But you are unfair, Emil!" cried Chris Farrington, his sensitive faceflushed and hurt. He was a slender though strongly built young fellow ofseventeen, with Yankee ancestry writ large all over him.
"Dere you go vonce again!" the Swedish sailor exploded. "My name isMister Johansen, und a kid of a boy like you call me 'Emil!' It vasinsulting, und comes pecause of der American ship!"
"But you call me 'Chris!'" the boy expostulated, reproachfully.
"But you vas a boy."
"Who does a man's work," Chris retorted. "And because I do a man's workI have as much right to call you by your first name as you me. We areall equals in this fo'castle, and you know it. When we signed for thevoyage in San Francisco, we signed as sailors on the _SophieSutherland_ and there was no difference made with any of us. Haven'tI always done my work? Did I ever shirk? Did you or any other man everhave to take a wheel for me? Or a lookout? Or go aloft?"
"Chris is right," interrupted a young English sailor. "No man has had todo a tap of his work yet. He signed as good as any of us, and he's shownhimself as good--"
"Better!" broke in a Nova Scotia man. "Better than some of us! Whenwe struck the sealing-grounds he turned out to be next to the bestboat-steerer aboard. Only French Louis, who'd been at it for years,could beat him. I'm only a boat-puller, and you're only a boat-puller,too, Emil Johansen, for all your twenty-two years at sea. Why don't youbecome a boat-steerer?"
"Too clumsy," laughed the Englishman, "and too slow."
"Little that counts, one way or the other," joined in Dane Jurgensen,coming to the aid of his Scandinavian brother. "Emil is a man grown andan able seaman; the boy is neither."
And so the argument raged back and forth, the Swedes, Norwegians andDanes, because of race kinship, taking the part of Johansen, and theEnglish, Canadians and Americans taking the part of Chris. From anunprejudiced point of view, the right was on the side of Chris. As hehad truly said, he did a man's work, and the same work that any of themdid. But they were prejudiced, and badly so, and out of the words whichpassed rose a standing quarrel which divided the forecastle into twoparties.
* * * * *
The _Sophie Sutherland_ was a seal-hunter, registered out of SanFrancisco, and engaged in hunting the furry sea-animals along theJapanese coast north to Bering Sea. The other vessels were two-mastedschooners, but she was a three-master and the largest in the fleet. Infact, she was a full-rigged, three-topmast schooner, newly built.
Although Chris Farrington knew that justice was with him, and that heperformed all his work faithfully and well, many a time, in secretthought, he longed for some pressing emergency to arise whereby he coulddemonstrate to the Scandinavian seamen that he also was an able seaman.
But one stormy night, by an accident for which he was in nowiseaccountable, in overhauling a spare anchor-chain he had all the fingersof his left hand badly crushed. And his hopes were likewise crushed, forit was impossible for him to continue hunting with the boats, and he wasforced to stay idly aboard until his fingers should heal. Yet, althoughhe little dreamed it, this very accident was to give him thelong-looked-for opportunity.
One afternoon in the latter part of May the _Sophie Sutherland_rolled sluggishly in a breathless calm. The seals were abundant, thehunting good, and the boats were all away and out of sight. And withthem was almost every man of the crew. Besides Chris, there remainedonly the captain, the sailing-master and the Chinese cook.
The captain was captain only by courtesy. He was an old man, pasteighty, and blissfully ignorant of the sea and its ways; but he was theowner of the vessel, and hence the honorable title. Of course thesailing-master, who was really captain, was a thorough-going seaman. Themate, whose post was aboard, was out with the boats, having temporarilytaken Chris's place as boat-steerer.
When good weather and good sport came together, the boats wereaccustomed to range far and wide, and often did not return to theschooner until long after dark. But for all that it was a perfecthunting day, Chris noted a growing anxiety on the part of thesailing-master. He paced the deck nervously, and was constantly sweepingthe horizon with his marine glasses. Not a boat was in sight. As sunsetarrived, he even sent Chris aloft to the mizzen-topmast-head, but withno better luck. The boats could not possibly be back before midnight.
Since noon the barometer had been falling with startling rapidity, andall the signs were ripe for a great storm--how great, not even thesailing-master anticipated. He and Chris set to work to prepare forit. They put storm gaskets on the furled topsails, lowered and stowedthe foresail and spanker and took in the two inner jibs. In the oneremaining jib they put a single reef, and a single reef in the mainsail.
Night had fallen before they finished, and with the darkness came thestorm. A low moan swept over the sea, and the wind struck the _SophieSutherland_ flat. But she righted quickly, and with the sailing-masterat the wheel, sheered her bow into within five points of the wind.Working as well as he could with his bandaged hand, and with the feebleaid of the Chinese cook, Chris went forward and backed the jib over tothe weather side. This with the flat mainsail, left the schooner hove to.
"God help the boats! It's no gale! It's a typhoon!" the sailing-mastershouted to Chris at eleven o'clock. "Too much canvas! Got to get twomore reefs into that mainsail, and got to do it right away!" He glancedat the old captain, shivering in oilskins at the binnacle and holding onfor dear life. "There's only you and I, Chris--and the cook; but he'snext to worthless!"
In order to make the reef, it was necessary to lower the mainsail, andthe removal of this after pressure was bound to make the schooner falloff before the wind and sea because of the forward pressure of the jib.
"Take the wheel!" the sailing-master directed. "And when I give theword, hard up with it! And when she's square before it, steady her! Andkeep her there! We'll heave to again as soon as I get the reefs in!"
Gripping the kicking spokes, Chris watched him and the reluctant cook goforward into the howling darkness. The _Sophie Sutherland_ wasplunging into the huge head-seas and wallowing tremendously, the tensesteel stays and taut rigging humming like harp-strings to the wind. Abuffeted cry came to his ears, and he felt the schooner's bow paying offof its own accord. The mainsail was down!
He ran the wheel hard-over and kept anxious track of the changingdirection of the wind on his face and of the heave of the vessel. Thiswas the crucial moment. In performing the evolution she would have topass broadside to the surge before she could get before it. The wind wasblowing directly on his right cheek, when he felt the _SophieSutherland_ lean over and begin to rise toward the sky--up--up--aninfinite distance! Would she clear the crest of the gigantic wave?
Again by the feel of it, for he could see nothing, he knew that a wallof water was rearing and curving far above him along the whole weatherside. There was an instant's calm as the liquid wall intervened and shutoff the wind. The schooner righted, and for that instant seemed atperfect rest. Then she rolled to meet the descending rush.
Chris shouted to the captain to hold tight, and prepared himself for theshock. But the man did not live who could face it. An ocean of watersmote Chris's back and his clutch on the spokes was loosened as if itwere a baby's. Stunned, powerless, like a straw on the face of atorrent, he was swept onward he knew not whither. Missing the corner ofthe cabin, he was dashed forw
ard along the poop runway a hundred feet ormore, striking violently against the foot of the foremast. A secondwave, crushing inboard, hurled him back the way he had come, and lefthim half-drowned where the poop steps should have been.
Bruised and bleeding, dimly conscious, he felt for the rail and draggedhimself to his feet. Unless something could be done, he knew the lastmoment had come. As he faced the poop, the wind drove into his mouthwith suffocating force. This brought him back to his senses with astart. The wind was blowing from dead aft! The schooner was out of thetrough and before it! But the send of the sea was bound to breach her toagain. Crawling up the runway, he managed to get to the wheel just intime to prevent this. The binnacle light was still burning. They weresafe!
That is, he and the schooner were safe. As to the welfare of his threecompanions he could not say. Nor did he dare leave the wheel in order tofind out, for it took every second of his undivided attention to keepthe vessel to her course. The least fraction of carelessness and theheave of the sea under the quarter was liable to thrust her into thetrough. So, a boy of one hundred and forty pounds, he clung to hisherculean task of guiding the two hundred straining tons of fabric amidthe chaos of the great storm forces.
Half an hour later, groaning and sobbing, the captain crawled to Chris'sfeet. All was lost, he whimpered. He was smitten unto death. The galleyhad gone by the board, the mainsail and running-gear, the cook,everything!
"Where's the sailing-master?" Chris demanded when he had caught hisbreath after steadying a wild lurch of the schooner. It was no child'splay to steer a vessel under single-reefed jib before a typhoon.
"Clean up for'ard," the old man replied. "Jammed under thefo'c'sle-head, but still breathing. Both his arms are broken, he says,and he doesn't know how many ribs. He's hurt bad."
"Well, he'll drown there the way she's shipping water through thehawse-pipes. Go for'ard!" Chris commanded, taking charge of things as amatter of course. "Tell him not to worry; that I'm at the wheel. Helphim as much as you can, and make him help"--he stopped and ran thespokes to starboard as a tremendous billow rose under the stern andyawed the schooner to port--"and make him help himself for the rest.Unship the fo'castle hatch and get him down into a bunk. Then ship thehatch again."
The captain turned his aged face forward and wavered pitifully. Thewaist of the ship was full of water to the bulwarks. He had just comethrough it, and knew death lurked every inch of the way.
"Go!" Chris shouted, fiercely. And as the fear-stricken man started,"And take another look for the cook!"
Two hours later, almost dead from suffering, the captain returned. Hehad obeyed orders. The sailing-master was helpless, although safe in abunk; the cook was gone. Chris sent the captain below to the cabin tochange his clothes.
After interminable hours of toil, day broke cold and gray. Chris lookedabout him. The _Sophie Sutherland_ was racing before the typhoonlike a thing possessed. There was no rain, but the wind whipped thespray of the sea mast-high, obscuring everything except in the immediateneighborhood.
Two waves only could Chris see at a time--the one before and the onebehind. So small and insignificant the schooner seemed on the longPacific roll! Rushing up a maddening mountain, she would poise like acockle-shell on the giddy summit, breathless and rolling, leap outwardand down into the yawning chasm beneath, and bury herself in the smotherof foam at the bottom. Then the recovery, another mountain, anothersickening upward rush, another poise, and the downward crash. Abreast ofhim, to starboard, like a ghost of the storm, Chris saw the cook dashingapace with the schooner. Evidently, when washed overboard, he hadgrasped and become entangled in a trailing halyard.
For three hours more, alone with this gruesome companion, Chris held the_Sophie Sutherland_ before the wind and sea. He had long sinceforgotten his mangled fingers. The bandages had been torn away, and thecold, salt spray had eaten into the half-healed wounds until they werenumb and no longer pained. But he was not cold. The terrific labor ofsteering forced the perspiration from every pore. Yet he was faint andweak with hunger and exhaustion, and hailed with delight the advent ondeck of the captain, who fed him all of a pound of cake-chocolate. Itstrengthened him at once.
He ordered the captain to cut the halyard by which the cook's body wastowing, and also to go forward and cut loose the jib-halyard and sheet.When he had done so, the jib fluttered a couple of moments like ahandkerchief, then tore out of the bolt-ropes and vanished. The_Sophie Sutherland_ was running under bare poles.
By noon the storm had spent itself, and by six in the evening the waveshad died down sufficiently to let Chris leave the helm. It was almosthopeless to dream of the small boats weathering the typhoon, but thereis always the chance in saving human life, and Chris at once appliedhimself to going back over the course along which he had fled. Hemanaged to get a reef in one of the inner jibs and two reefs in thespanker, and then, with the aid of the watch-tackle, to hoist them tothe stiff breeze that yet blew. And all through the night, tacking backand forth on the back track, he shook out canvas as fast as the windwould permit.
The injured sailing-master had turned delirious and between tending himand lending a hand with the ship, Chris kept the captain busy. "Taughtme more seamanship," as he afterward said, "than I'd learned on thewhole voyage." But by daybreak the old man's feeble frame succumbed, andhe fell off into exhausted sleep on the weather poop.
Chris, who could now lash the wheel, covered the tired man with blanketsfrom below, and went fishing in the lazaretto for something to eat.But by the day following he found himself forced to give in, drowsingfitfully by the wheel and waking ever and anon to take a look at things.
On the afternoon of the third day he picked up a schooner, dismasted andbattered. As he approached, close-hauled on the wind, he saw her deckscrowded by an unusually large crew, and on sailing in closer, made outamong others the faces of his missing comrades. And he was just in thenick of time, for they were fighting a losing fight at the pumps. Anhour later they, with the crew of the sinking craft, were aboard the_Sophie Sutherland_.
Having wandered so far from their own vessel, they had taken refuge onthe strange schooner just before the storm broke. She was a Canadiansealer on her first voyage, and as was now apparent, her last.
The captain of the _Sophie Sutherland_ had a story to tell, also,and he told it well--so well, in fact, that when all hands were gatheredtogether on deck during the dog-watch, Emil Johansen strode over toChris and gripped him by the hand.
"Chris," he said, so loudly that all could hear, "Chris, I gif in. Youvas yoost so good a sailorman as I. You vas a bully boy, und ableseaman, und I pe proud for you!
"Und Chris!" He turned as if he had forgotten something, and calledback, "From dis time always you call me 'Emil' mitout der 'Mister!'"