CHAPTER XII
THE FIRE AND THE FARM
The quartermaster knocked smartly, and came into the chart-house, andCaptain Kettle's eyes snapped open from deep sleep to completewakefulness.
"There's some sort of vessel on fire, sir, to loo'ard, about five milesoff."
The shipmaster glanced up at the tell-tale compass above his head."Officer of the watch has changed the course, I see. We're headingfor it, eh?"
"Yes, sir. The second mate told me to say so."
"Quite right. Pass the word for the carpenter, and tell him to get portand starboard lifeboats ready for lowering in case they're wanted. I'llbe on the bridge in a minute."
"Aye, aye, sir," said the quartermaster, and withdrew into the darknessoutside.
Captain Owen Kettle's toilet was not of long duration. Like most mastermariners who do business along those crowded steam lanes of the WesternOcean, he slept in most of his clothes when at sea as a regular habit,and in fact only stripped completely for the few moments which wereoccupied by his morning's tub. If needful, he could always go out ondeck at a second's notice, and be ready to remain there for twenty-fourhours. But in this instance there was no immediate hurry, and so hespent a full minute and a half over his toilet, and emerged with washedhands and face, sprucely brushed hair and beard, and his person attiredin high rubber thigh-boots and leather-bound black oilskins.
The night was black and thick with a drizzle of rain, and a heavy breezesnored through the _Flamingo's_ scanty rigging. The second mate on thebridge was beating his fingerless woollen gloves against his ribs as acure for cold fingers. The first mate and the third had already turnedout, and were on the boatskids helping the carpenter with the housings,and overhauling davit falls. On that part of the horizon against whichthe _Flamingo's_ bows sawed with great sweeping dives was a streaky,flickering yellow glow.
Kettle went on to an end of the bridge and peered ahead through thebridge binoculars. "A steamer," he commented, "and a big one too; andshe's finely ablaze. Not much help we shall be able to give. It will bea case of taking off the crew, if they aren't already cooked before weget there." He looked over the side at the eddy of water that clung tothe ship's flank. "I see you're shoving her along," he said to thesecond mate.
"I sent word down to the engine-room to give her all they knew themoment we raised the glow. I thought you wouldn't grudge the coal, sir."
"No, quite right. Hope there aren't too many of them to be picked off,or we shall make a tight fit on board here."
"Funny we should be carrying the biggest cargo the old boat's ever hadpacked into her. But we shall find room to house a few poor oldsailormen. They won't mind much where they stow, as long as they'repicked up out of the wet. B-r-r-rh!" shivered the second mate, "Ishouldn't much fancy open-boat cruising in the Western Oceanthis weather."
Captain Kettle stared on through the shiny brass binoculars. "Call allhands," he said quietly. "That's a big ship ahead of us, and she'llcarry a lot of people. God send she's only an old tramp. At thoselifeboats there!" he shouted. "Swing the davits outboard, and pass yourpainters forward. Hump yourselves, now."
"There's a lot of ice here, sir," came a grumbling voice out of thedarkness, "and the boats are frozen on to the chocks. We've got tohammer it away before they'll hoist. The falls are that froze, too, thatthey'll not render--"
"You call yourself a mate and hold a master's ticket, and want to get aship of your own!"--Kettle vaulted over the rail on to the top of thefiddley, and made for his second in command. "Here, my man, if yourdelicate fingers can't do this bit of a job, give me that marlinspike.By James! do you hear me? Give up the marlinspike. Did you never see aboat iced up before? Now then, carpenter. Are you worth your salt? Or amI to clear both ends in this boat by myself?"
So, by example and tongue, Captain Kettle got his boats swung outboard,and the _Flamingo_, with her engines working at an unusual strain,surged rapidly nearer and nearer to the blaze.
On shore a house on fire at any hour draws a crowd. At sea, in the bleakcold wastes of the water desert, even one other shipload of sympathizersis too often wished for vainly. Wind, cold, and breakdowns of machinerythe sailor accepts with dull indifference; shipwrecks, strandings, anddisease he looks forward to as part of an inevitable fate; but firegoes nearer to cowing him than all other disasters put together; and thesight of his fellow-seamen attacked by these same desolating flamesarouses in him the warmest of his sympathy, and the full of hisresourcefulness. Moreover, in Kettle's case, he had known the feel of aship afire under his own feet, and so he could appreciate all the betterthe agony of these others.
But meanwhile, as the _Flamingo_ made her way up wind against thecharging seas, a fear was beginning to grip the little shipmaster by theheart that was deep enough to cause him a physical nausea. The burningsteamer ahead grew every minute more clear as they raced toward her. Shewas on fire forward, and she lay almost head-on toward them, keeping herstern to the seas, so that the wind would have no help in driving theflames aft, and making her more uninhabitable.
From a distance it had been hard to make out anything beyond greatstacks of yellow flame, topped by inky, oily smoke, which drove in thickcolumns down the wind. As they drew nearer, and her size became moreapparent, some one guessed her as a big cargo tramp from New Orleanswith cotton that had overheated and fired, and Kettle took comfort fromthe suggestion and tried to believe that it might come true.
But as they closed with her, and came within earshot of her syren, whichwas sending frightened useless blares across the churning waters, therewas no being blind to the true facts any longer. This was no cargo boat,but a passenger liner; outward bound, too, and populous. And as theycame still nearer, they saw her after-decks black and wriggling withpeople, and Kettle got a glimpse of her structure and recognized thevessel herself.
"The _Grosser Carl_," he muttered, "out of Hamburg for New York. Nextto no first-class, and she cuts rates for third and gets the bulk of theGerman emigrant traffic. She'll have six hundred on her this minute, anda hundred of a crew. Call it seven hundred all told, and there's hellwaiting for them over yonder, and getting worse every minute. Oh, greatJames! I wonder what's going to be done. I couldn't pack seventy of themon the old _Flam_ here, if I filled her to bursting."
He clapped the binoculars to his eyes again, and stared diligently roundthe rim of the night. If only he could catch a glimpse of some otherliner hurrying along her route, then these people could be saved easily.He could drop his boats to take them till the other passenger ship cameup. But the wide sea was empty of lights; the _Flamingo_ and the_Grusser Carl_ had the stage severely to themselves; and between themthey had the making of an intolerable weight of destiny.
The second mate broke in upon his commander's brooding. "We shall have anice bill for Lloyds this journey."
Kettle made no answer. He continued staring moodily at the spoutingflames ahead. The second mate coughed. "Shall I be getting derricksrigged and the hatch covers off?"
Kettle turned on him with a sudden fierceness. "Do you know you'reasking me to ruin myself?"
"But if we jettison cargo to make room for these poor beggars, sir, theinsurance will pay."
"Pay your grandmother. You've got a lot to learn, my lad, before you'refit to take charge of a ship, if you don't know any more than that aboutthe responsibility of the cargo."
"By Jove! that's awkward. Birds would look pretty blue if the bill washanded in to them."
"Birds!" said Kettle with contempt. "They aren't liable for sixpence.Supposing you were travelling by train, and there was some one else'sportmanteau in the carriage, and you flung it out of the window into ariver, who do you suppose would have to stand the racket?"
"Why, me. But then, sir, this is different."
"Not a bit. If we start in to jettison cargo, it means I'm a ruined man.Every ton that goes over the side I'll have to pay for."
"We can't leave those poor devils to frizzle," said the second mateawkwardly.
/> "Oh, no, of course we can't. They're a pack of unclean Dutchmen we neversaw before, and should think ourselves too good to brush against if wemet them in the street, but sentiment demands that we stay and pull themout of their mess, and cold necessity leaves me to foot the bill. You'reyoung, and you're not married, my lad. I'm neither. I've worked like ahorse all my life, mostly with bad luck. Lately luck's turned a bit.I've been able to make a trifle more, and save a few pounds out of mybillets. And here and there, what with salvage and other things, I'vecome in the way of a plum. One way and another I've got nearly enoughput by at home this minute to keep the missis and me and the girls towindward of the workhouse, even if I lost this present job with Birds,and didn't find another."
"Perhaps somebody else will pay for the cargo we have to put over theside, sir."
"It's pretty thin comfort when you've got a 'perhaps' of that size, andno other mortal stop between you and the workhouse. It's all very welldoing these things in hot blood; but the reckoning's paid when you'recold, and they're cold, and with the Board of Trade standing-by like thedevil in the background all ready to give you a kick when there's aspare place for a fresh foot." He slammed down the handle of thebridge-telegraph, and rang off the _Flamingo's_ engines. He had beenmeasuring distances all this time with his eye.
"But, of course, there's no other choice about the matter. There's theblessed cause of humanity to be looked after--humanity to these blessedDutch emigrants that their own country doesn't want, and every othercountry would rather be without. Humanity to my poor old missis and thekids doesn't count. I shall get a sludgy paragraph in the papers for the_Grosser Carl_, headed 'Gallant Rescue,' with all the facts put upsidedown, and twelve months later there'll be another paragraph about a'case of pitiful destitution.'"
"Oh, I say, sir, it won't be as bad as all that. Birds will see youthrough."
"Birds will do a fat lot. Birds sent me to work up a connection in theMexican Gulf, and I've done it, and they've raised my screw two pound amonth after four years' service. I jettison the customers' cargo, andprobably sha'n't be able to pay for half of it. Customers will get mad,and give their business to other lines which don't run foul of blazingemigrant packets."
"Birds would never dare to fire you out for that."
"Oh, Lord, no! They'd say: 'We don't like the way you've taken to wearyour back hair, Captain. And, besides, we want younger blood amongst ourskippers. You'll find your check ready for you in the outer office.Mind the step!'"
"I'm awfully sorry, Skipper. If there's anything I can do, sir--"
Captain Kettle sighed, and looked drearily out at the blazing ship andthe tumbled waste of sea on which she floated. But he felt that he hadbeen showing weakness, and pulled himself together again smartly. "Yes,there is, my lad. I'm a disappointed man, and I've been talking a lotmore than's dignified. You'll do me a real kindness if you'll forget allthat's been said. Away with you on to the main deck, and get hatchesoff, and whip the top tier of that cargo over the side as fast as youcan make the winches travel. If the old _Flamingo_ is going to serve outfree hospitality, by James! she shall do it full weight. By James! I'dgive the beggars champagne and spring mattresses if I'd got 'em."
Meanwhile, those on the German emigrant steamer had seen the coming ofthe shabby little English trader with bumping hearts. Till then thecrew, with (so to speak) their backs up against a wall, had fought thefire with diligence; but when the nearness of a potential rescuer wasreported, they discovered for themselves at once that the fire wasbeyond control. They were joined by the stokehold gangs, and they madeat once for the boats, overpowering any officer who happened to comebetween them and their desires. The limp, tottery, half-fed, whollyseasick emigrants they easily shoved aside, and these in their turn bysheer mass thrust back the small handful of first-class passengers, andaway screamed out the davit tackles, as the boats were lowered full ofmadly frightened deck hands and grimy handlers of coal.
Panic had sapped every trace of their manhood. They had concern onlyfor their own skins; for the miserables remaining on the _Grosser Carl_they had none. And if for a minute any of them permitted himself tothink, he decided that in the Herr Gott's good time the English wouldsend boats and fetch them off. The English had always a special gustofor this meddling rescue work.
However, it is easy to decide on lowering boats, but not always so easyto carry it into safe fact if you are mad with scare, and there is noone whom you will listen to to give the necessary simple orders. And, asa consequence, one boat, chiefly manned by the coal interest, swampedalongside before it could be shoved clear; the forward davit fall ofanother jammed, and let it dangle vertically up and down when the afterfall overhauled; and only one boat got away clear.
The reception which this small cargo of worthies met with surprisedthem. They pulled with terrified haste to the _Flamingo_, got under herlee, and clung desperately to the line which was thrown to them. But tothe rail above them came the man who expected to be ruined by thisnight's work, and the pearls of speech which fell from his lips wenthome through even their thick hides.
Captain Kettle, being human, had greatly needed some one during the lasthalf-hour to ease his feelings on--though he was not the man to own upto such a weakness, even to himself--and the boat came neatly to supplyhis want. It was long enough since he had found occasion for such anoutburst, but the perfection of his early training stood him in goodstead then. Every biting insult in his vocabulary, every lashing wordthat is used upon the seas, every gibe, national, personal, orprofessional, that a lifetime of hard language could teach, he pouredout on that shivering boat's crew then.
They were Germans certainly, but being an English shipmaster, he had, ofcourse, many a time sailed with a forecastle filled with theirnationality, and had acquired the special art of adapting his abuse tothe "Dutchman's" sensibilities, even as he had other harangues suitedfor Coolie or Dago mariners, or even for that rare sea-bird, the Englishsailorman. And as a final wind-up, after having made them writhesufficiently, he ordered them to go back whence they came, and take ashare in rescuing their fellows.
"Bud we shall trown," shouted back one speaker from the wildly jumpingboat.
"Then drown, and be hanged to you," shouted Kettle. "I'm sure I don'tcare if you do. But I'm not going to have cowards like you dirtying mydeck-planks." He cast off the line to which their boat rode under thesteamer's heaving side. "You go and do your whack at getting the peopleoff that packet, or, so help me James! none of you shall ever see yourhappy Dutchland again."
Meanwhile, so the irony of the fates ordered it, the two mates, each incharge of one of the _Flamingo's_ lifeboats, were commanding crews madeup entirely of Germans and Scandinavians, and pluckier and more carefulsailormen could not have been wished for. The work was dangerous, andrequired more than ordinary nerve and endurance and skill. A heavy searan, and from its crests a spindrift blew which cut the face like whips,and numbed all parts of the body with its chill. The boats were tossedabout like playthings, and required constant bailing to keep them frombeing waterlogged. But Kettle had brought the _Flamingo_ to windward ofthe _Grosser Carl_, and each boat carried a line, so that the steamwinches could help her with the return trips.
Getting a cargo was, however, the chief difficulty. All attempt atkilling the fire was given up by this time. All vestige of order wasswamped in unutterable panic. The people on board had given themselvesup to wild, uncontrollable anarchy. If a boat had been broughtalongside, they would have tumbled into her like sheep, till theirnumbers swamped her. They cursed the flames, cursed the sea, cursedtheir own brothers and sisters who jostled them. They were the sweepingsfrom half-fed middle Europe, born with raw nerves; and under the suddenstress of danger, and the absence of some strong man to thrustdiscipline on them, they became practically maniacs. They were beyondspeech, many of them. They yammered at the boats which came to theirrelief, with noises like those of scared beasts.
Now the _Flamingo's_ boats were officered by two cool, profane mates,
who had no nerves themselves, and did not see the use of nerves in otherpeople. Neither of them spoke German, but (after the style of theirisland) presuming that some of those who listened would understandEnglish, they made proclamation in their own tongue to the effect thatthe women were to be taken off first.
"Kids with them," added the second mate.
"And if any of you rats of men shove your way down here," said the chiefmate, "before all the skirt is ferried across, you'll get knocked on thehead, that's all. Savvy that belaying-pin I got in my fist? Now then,get some bowlines, and sway out the ladies."
As well might the order have been addressed to a flock of sheep. Theyheard what was said in an agonized silence. Then each poor soul therestretched out his arms or hers, and clamored to be saved--and--nevermind the rest. And meanwhile the flames bit deeper and deeper into thefabric of the steamer, and the breath of them grew more searching, asthe roaring gale blew them into strength.
"You ruddy Dutchmen," shouted the second mate. "It would serve youblooming well right if you were left to be frizzled up into one bigsausage stew together. However, we'll see if kindness can't tame you abit yet." He waited till the swirl of a sea swung his boat under one ofthe dangling davit falls, and caught hold of it, and climbed nimbly onboard. Then he proceeded to clear a space by the primitive method ofcrashing his fist into every face within reach.
"Now then," he shouted, "if there are any sailormen here worth theirsalt, let them come and help. Am I to break up the whole of this ship'scompany by myself?"
Gradually, by ones and twos, the _Grosser Carl's_ remaining officers anddeck hands came shamefacedly toward this new nucleus of authority andorder, and then the real work began. The emigrants, with sea sights andsea usage new to them, were still full of the unreasoning panic ofcattle, and like cattle they were herded and handled, and their womenand young cut out from the general mob. These last were got into theswaying, dancing boats as tenderly as might be, and the men were biddento watch, and wait their turn. When they grew restive, as the scorchingfire drew more near, they were beaten savagely; the _Grosser Carl's_crew, with the shame of their own panic still raw on them, knew nomercy; and the second mate of the _Flamingo_, who stood against a davit,insulted them all with impartial cheerfulness. He was a very apt pupil,this young man, of that master of ruling men at the expense of theirfeelings, Captain Owen Kettle.
Meanwhile the two lifeboats took one risky journey after another, beingdrawn up to their own ship by a chattering winch, discharging theirdraggled freight with dexterity and little ceremony, and then laboringback under oars for another. The light of the burning steamer turned agreat sphere of night into day, and the heat from her made the sweatpour down the faces of the toiling men, though the gale still roared,and the icy spindrift still whipped and stung. On the _Flamingo_,Captain Kettle cast into the sea with a free hand what represented thesavings of a lifetime, provision for his wife and children, and anold-age pension for himself.
The _Grosser Carl_ had carried thirty first-class passengers, and thesewere crammed into the _Flamingo's_ slender cabin accommodation, fillingit to overflowing. The emigrants--Austrians, Bohemians, wild Poles,filthy, crawling Russian Jews, bestial Armenians, human _debris_ whicheven soldier-coveting Middle Europe rejected--these were herded downinto the holds, as rich cargo was dug out by the straining winches, andgiven to the thankless sea to make space for them.
"Kindly walk up," said Kettle, with bitter hospitality, as fresh flocksof them were heaved up over the bulwarks. "Don't hesitate to grumble ifthe accommodation isn't exactly to your liking. We're most pleased tostrike out cargo to provide you with an elegant parlor, and what's leftI'm sure you'll be able to sit on and spoil. Oh, you filthy, long-hairedcattle! Did none of you ever wash?"
Fiercely the _Grosser Carl_ burned to the fanning of the gale, and likefuries worked the men in the boats. The _Grosser Carl's_ own boat joinedthe other two, once the ferrying was well under way. She had hungalongside after Kettle cast off her line, with her people madlyclamoring to be taken on board; but as all they received for their painswas abuse and coal-lumps--mostly, by the way, from their ownfellow-countrymen, who made up the majority of the _Flamingo's_crew--they were presently driven to help in the salving work throughsheer scare at being left behind to drown unless they carried out thefierce little English Captain's orders.
The _Flamingo's_ chief mate oversaw the dangerous ferrying, and thoughevery soul that was transshipped might be said to have had ten narrowescapes in transit over that piece of tossing water, luck and goodseamanship carried the day, and none was lost. And on the _Grosser Carl_the second mate, a stronger man, brazenly took entire command, andcommended to the nether gods all who suggested ousting him from thatposition. "I don't care a red what your official post was on this shipbefore I came," said the second mate to several indignant officers. "Youshould have held on to it when you had it. I've never been a skipperbefore, but I'm skipper here now by sheer right of conquest, and I'mgoing to stay on at that till the blooming old ship's burnt out. If youbother me, I'll knock your silly nose into your watch-pocket. Turn-tothere and pass down another batch of those squalling passengers into theboats. Don't you spill any of them overboard either, or, by the BigMischief, I'll just step down and teach you handiness."
The second mate was almost fainting with the heat before he left the_Grosser Carl_, but he insisted on being the last man on board, and thenguyed the whole performance with caustic gayety when he was dragged outof the water, into which he had been forced to jump, and was set todrain on the floor gratings of a boat.
The _Grosser Carl_ had fallen away before the wind, and was spoutingflame from stem-head to poop-staff by the time the last of the rescuersand the rescued were put on the _Flamingo's_ deck, and on thattravel-worn steamboat were some six hundred and fifty visitors thatsomehow or other had to be provided for.
The detail of famine now became of next importance. They were still fivedays' steam away from port, and their official provision supply was onlycalculated to last the _Flamingos_ themselves for a little over thattime. Things are cut pretty fine in these days of steam voyages toscheduled time. So there was no sentimental waiting to see the _GrosserCarl_ finally burn out and sink. The boats were cast adrift, as thecrews were too exhausted to hoist them in, and the _Flamingo's_ nose wasturned toward Liverpool. Pratt, the chief engineer, figured out to halfa ton what coal he had remaining, and set the pace so as to run in withempty bunkers. They were cool now, all hands, from the excitement of theburning ship, and the objectionable prospect of semi-starvation madethem regard their visitors less than ever in the light of menand brothers.
But, as it chanced, toward the evening of next day, a hurrying oceangreyhound overtook them in her race from New York toward the East, andthe bunting talked out long sentences in the commercial code from thewire span between the _Flamingo's_ masts. Fresh quartettes of flagsflicked up on both steamers, were acknowledged, and were replaced byothers; and when the liner drew up alongside, and stopped with reversedpropellers, she had a loaded boat ready swung out in davits, whichdropped in the water the moment she had lost her way. The bunting hadtold the pith of the tale.
When the two steamers' bridges were level, the liner's captain touchedhis cap, and a crowd of well-dressed passengers below him listenedwonderingly. "Afternoon, Captain. Got 'em all?"
"Afternoon, Captain. Oh, we didn't lose any. But a few drowned theirsilly selves before we started to shepherd them."
"What ship was it? The French boat would be hardly due yet."
"No, the old _Grosser Carl_. She was astern of her time. Much obliged toyou for the grub, Captain. We'd have been pretty hard pushed if wehadn't met you. I'm sending you a payment order. Sorry for spoilingyour passage."
The liner captain looked at his watch.
"Can't be helped. It's in a good cause, I suppose, though the mischiefof it is we were trying to pull down the record by an hour or so. Theboat, there! Are you going to be all night with that bit of stuff?"
>
The cases of food were transshipped with frantic haste, and the boatreturned. The greyhound leaped out into her stride again the moment shehad hooked on, and shot ahead, dipping a smart blue ensign in salute.The _Flamingo_ dipped a dirty red ensign and followed, and, before darkfell, once more had the ocean to herself.
The voyage home was not one of oppressive gayety. The first-classpassengers, who were crammed into the narrow cabin found the quartersuncomfortable, and the little shipmaster's manner repellent. Urged bythe precedent in such matters, they "made a purse" for him, and apresentation address. But as they merely collected some thirty-onepounds in paper promises, which, so far, have never been paid, theirgratitude may be said to have had its economical side.
To the riffraff in the hold, for whose accommodation a poor man'sfortune had been jettisoned, the thing "gratitude" was an unknownemotion. They plotted mischief amongst themselves, stole when theopportunity came to them, were unspeakably foul in their habits, and,when they gave the matter any consideration at all, decided that thisfierce little captain with the red torpedo beard had taken them on boardmerely to fulfil some selfish purpose of his own. To the theorist whohas sampled them only from a distance, these off-scourings of MiddleEurope are downtrodden people with souls; to those who happen to knowthem personally, all their qualities seem to be conspicuously negative.
The _Flamingo_ picked up the landmarks of the Southern Irish coast, andmade her number to Lloyd's station on Brow Head, stood across for theTuskar, and so on up St. George's Channel for Holyhead. She flew apilot jack there, and off Point Lynus picked up a pilot, who, after thecustom of his class, stepped up over the side with a hard felt hat onhis head, and a complete wardrobe, and a selection of daily papers inhis pocket.
"Well, pilot, what's the news?" said Kettle, as the man of narrow watersswung himself up on to the bridge, and his boat swirled away astern.
"You are," said the pilot. "The papers are just full of you, Captain,all of them, from the _Shipping Telegraph_ to the London _Times_. TheCunard boat brought in the yarn. A pilot out of my schooner tookher up."
"How do they spell the name? Cuttle?"
"Well, I think it's 'Kattle' mostly, though one paper has it 'Kelly.'"
"Curse their cheek," said the little sailor, flushing. "I'd like to gethold of some of those blowsy editors that come smelling round the dockafter yarns and drink, and wring their necks."
"Starboard a point," said the pilot, and when the quartermaster at thewheel had duly repeated the course, he turned to Kettle with someamusement. "Blowsy or not, they don't seem to have done you much harmthis journey, Captain. Why, they're getting up subscriptions for you allround. Shouldn't wonder but what the Board of Trade even stands you apair of binoculars."
"I'm not a blessed mendicant," said Kettle stiffly, "and as for theBoard of Trade, they can stick their binoculars up their trousers." Hewalked to the other end of the bridge, and stood there chewing savagelyat the butt end of his cigar.
"Rum bloke," commented the pilot to himself, though aloud he offered nocomment, being a man whose business it was to keep on good terms witheverybody. So he dropped his newspapers to one of the mates, and appliedhimself to the details of the pilotage.
Still, the pilot was right in saying that England was ringing with thenews of Kettle's feat. The passengers of the Cunarder, with nothing muchelse to interest them, had come home thrilled and ringing with it. Asmart New Yorker had got a "scoop" by slipping ashore at Queenstown andcabling a lavish account to the American Press Association, so that thefirst news reached London from the States. Followed Reuter's man and theLiverpool reporters on Prince's landing-stage, who came to glean copy asin the ordinary course of events, and they being spurred on by wiresfrom London for full details, got down all the facts available, andimagined others. Parliament was not sitting, and there had been nonewspaper sensation for a week, and, as a natural consequence, thepapers came out next morning with accounts of the rescue varying fromtwo columns to a page in length.
It is one of the most wonderful attributes of the modern Press that itcan, at any time between midnight and publishing hours, collate andelaborate the biography of a man who hitherto has been entirely obscure,and considering the speed of the work, and the difficulties which hedgeit in, these lightning life sketches are often surprisingly full ofaccuracies. But let the frillings in this case be fact or fiction, therewas no doubt that Kettle and his crew had saved a shipload ofpanic-stricken foreign emigrants, and (to help point the moral) withinthe year, in an almost similar case, another shipload had beendrowned through that same blind, helpless, hopeless panic. The pride ofrace bubbled through the British Daily Press in prosaic long primer anddouble-leaded bourgeois. There was no saying aloud, "We rejoice that anEnglishman has done this thing, after having it proved to us that it wasabove the foreigner's strength." The newspaper man does not rhapsodize.But the sentiment was there all the same, and it was that which actuatedthe sudden wave of enthusiasm which thrilled the country.
STRANGERS CAME UP AND WRUNG KETTLE'S UNWILLING HAND.]
The _Flamingo_ was worked into dock, and a cheering crowd surged aboardof her in unrestrainable thousands. Strangers came up and wrung Kettle'sunwilling hand, and dropped tears on his coat-sleeve; and when he sworeat them, they only wept the more and smiled through the drops. It wasmagnificent, splendid, gorgeous. Here was a man! Who said that Englandwould ever lose her proud place among the nations when she could stillfind men like Oliver Kelly--or Kattle--or Cuttle, or whatever this manwas called, amongst her obscure merchant captains?
Even Mr. Isaac Bird, managing owner, caught some of the generalenthusiasm, and withheld, for the present, the unpleasant remarks whichoccurred to him as suitable, touching Kettle's neglect of the firm'sinterest in favor of a parcel of bankrupt foreigners. But Kettle himselfhad the subject well in mind. When all this absurd fuss was over, thenwould come the reckoning; and whilst the crowd was cheering him, he wasfiguring out the value of the jettisoned cargo, and whilst pompous Mr.Isaac was shaking him by the hand and making a neat speech for the earof casual reporters, poor Kettle was conjuring up visions of theworkhouse and pauper's corduroy.
But the Fates were moving now in a manner which was beyond hisexperience. The public, which had ignored his bare existence before forall of a lifetime, suddenly discovered that he was a hero, and that,too, without knowing half the facts. The Press, with its finger on thepublic's pulse, published Kettle literature in lavish columns. It gavetwenty different "eye-witnesses' accounts" of the rescue. It gave longlists of "previous similar disasters." It drew long morals in leadingarticles. And finally, it took all the little man's affairs under itsconsideration, and settled them with a lordly hand.
"Who pays for the cargo Captain Kuttle threw overboard?" one paperheaded an article; whilst another wrote perfervidly about "Cattle ruinedfor his bravery." Here was a new and striking side issue. Lloyds' werenot responsible. Should the week's hero pay the bill himself out of hismiserable savings? Certainly not. The owners of the _Grosser Carl_ werethe benefiting parties, and it was only just that they should take upthe expense. So the entire Press wired off to the German firm, and nextmorning were able to publish a positive assurance that of course thesegrateful foreigners would reimburse all possible outlay.
The subject of finance once broached, it was naturally discovered thatthe hero toiled for a very meagre pittance, that he was getting on inyears, and had a wife and family depending on him--and--promptly, thereopened out the subscription lists. People were stirred, and they gavenicely, on the lower scale certainly, with shillings and guineaspredominating; but the lists totalled up to L2,400, which to somepeople, of course, is gilded affluence.
Now Captain Kettle had endured all this publicity with a good deal ofrestiveness, and had used language to one or two interviewers whomanaged to ferret him out, which fairly startled them; but this lastmove for a public subscription made him furious. He spoke in thecaptain's room of the hostelry he used, of the degradation which w
asput on him, and various other master mariners who were presententirely agreed with him. "I might be a blessed missionary, orIndia-with-a-famine, the way they're treating me," he complainedbitterly. "If they call a meeting to give me anything, I'll chuck themoney in their faces, and let them know straight what I think. By James!do they suppose I've got no pride? Why can't they let me alone? If the_Grosser Carl_ people pay up for that cargo, that's all I want."
But the eternal healer, Time, soothed matters down wonderfully. CaptainOwen Kettle's week's outing in the daily papers ran its course with duethrills and headlines, and then the Press forgot him, and rushed on tothe next sensation. By the time the subscription list had closed andbeen brought together, the _Flamingo_ had sailed for her next slow roundtrip in the Mexican Gulf, and when her captain returned to find a curt,formal letter from a firm of bankers, stating that L2,400 had beenplaced to his credit in their establishment, he would have been morethan human if he had refused it. And, as a point of fact, afterconsulting with Madam, his wife, he transformed it into houses in thatterrace of narrow dwellings in Birkenhead which represented the rest ofhis savings.
Now on paper this house property was alleged by a sanguine agent toproduce at the rate of L15 per annum apiece, and as there werethirty-six houses, this made an income--on paper--of well over L500 ayear, the which is a very nice possession.
A thing, moreover, which Captain Kettle had prophesied had come to pass.The "trade connection" in the Mexican Gulf had been very seriouslydamaged. As was somewhat natural, the commercial gentry there did notrelish having their valuable cargo pitched unceremoniously to Neptune,and preferred to send what they had by boats which did not contrive tomeet burning emigrant liners. This, of course, was quite unreasonable ofthem, but one can only relate what happened.
And then the second part of the prophecy evolved itself naturally.Messrs. Bird discovered from the last indent handed them that more painthad been used over the _Flamingo's_ fabric than they thought consistentwith economy, and so they relieved Captain Kettle from the command,handed him their check for wages due--there was no commission to beadded for such an unsatisfactory voyage as this last--and presented himgratis with their best wishes for his future welfare.
Kettle had thought of telling the truth in print, but the mysterious lawof libel, which it is written that all mariners shall dread and neverunderstand, scared him; and besides, he was still raw from his recentweek's outing in the British Press. So he just went and gave his viewsto Mr. Isaac Bird personally and privately, threw the ink-bottle throughthe office window, pitched the box of business cigars into the fire, andgenerally pointed his remarks in a way that went straight to Mr. Bird'sheart, and then prepared peacefully to take his departure.
"I shall not prosecute you for this--" said Mr. Isaac.
"I wish you dare. It would suit me finely to get into a police-court andbe able to talk. I'd willingly pay my 'forty shillings and' for thechance. They'd give me the option fast enough."
"I say I shall not prosecute you because I have no time to bother withlaw. But I shall send your name round amongst the shipowners, and withmy word against you, you'll never get another command so long as theworld stands."
"You knock-kneed little Jew," said Kettle truculently, "do you think I'mgiving myself the luxury of letting out at a shipowner, after knucklingdown to the breed through all of a weary life, unless I knew my ground?I've done with ships and the sea for always, and if you give me any moreof your lip, I'll burn your office down and you in it."
"You seem pleased enough with yourself about something," said Mr. Isaac.
"I am," said Kettle exultantly. "I've chucked the sea for good. I'vetaken a farm in Wharfedale, and I'm going to it this very week."
"Then," said Mr. Isaac sardonically, "if you've taken a farm, don't letme wish you any further ill. Good-morning."
But Kettle was not to be damped out of conceit with his life's desire bya few ill-natured words. He gave Mr. Isaac Bird his final blessing,commenting on his ancestors, his personal appearance, his prospects offinal salvation, and then pleasantly took his leave. He was too muchoccupied in the preliminaries of his new life to have much leisure justthen for further cultivation of the gentle art of insult.
The farm he had rented lay in the Wharfe Valley above Skipton, and,though its acreage was large, a good deal was made up of mere moorlandsheep pasture. Luckily he recognized that a poetical taste for a rurallife might not necessarily imply the whole mystery of stock rearing andagriculture, and so he hired a capable foreman as philosopher and guide.And here I may say that his hobby by no means ruined him, as mightreasonably be expected; for in the worst years he never dropped morethan fifty or sixty pounds, and frequently he ran the place withoutloss, or even at a profit.
But though it is hard to confess that a man's ideal comes short of hisexpectations when put to the trial, I am free to confess that althoughhe enjoyed it all, Kettle was not at his happiest when he was attendinghis crops or his sheep, or haggling with his fellow farmers on Mondaysover fat beasts in Skipton market.
He had gone back to one of his more practiced tastes--if one calls it ataste--the cultivation of religion. The farm stood bleak and lonely onthe slope of a hillside, and on both flanks of the dale were otherlonely farms as far as the eye could see. There was no village. Thenearest place of worship was four miles away, and that was merely achurch. But in the valley beside the Wharfe was a small gray stonechapel, reared during some bygone day for the devotions of someforgotten sect. Kettle got this into his control.
He was by no means a rich man. The row of houses in Birkenhead were forthe most part tenanted by the wives of mercantile marine engineers andofficers, who were chronically laggard with their rent, and whom _espritde corps_ forbade him to press; and so, what with this deficit, andrepairs and taxes, and one thing and another, it was rarely that halfthe projected L500 a year found its way into his banking account. But atithe of whatever accrued to him was scrupulously set aside for themaintenance of the chapel.
He imported there the grim, narrow creed he had learned in SouthShields, and threw open the door for congregations. He was entirely inearnest over it all, and vastly serious. Failing another minister, hehimself took the services, and though, on occasion, some other brotherwas induced to preach, it was he himself who usually mounted the pulpitbeneath the sounding-board. He purchased an American organ, and sent hiseldest daughter weekly to take lessons in Skipton till she could playit. And Mrs. Kettle herself led the singing.
Still further, the chapel has its own collection of hymns, speciallywritten, printed and dedicated to its service. The book is CaptainKettle's first published effort. Heaven and its author alone know underwhat wild circumstances most of those hymns were written.
The chapel started its new span of life with a congregation meagreenough, but Sunday by Sunday the number grew. They are mostlyNonconformists in the dales, and when once a man acquires a taste fordissent, he takes a sad delight in sampling his neighbors' variations ofcreed. Some came once and were not seen again. Others came and returned.They felt that this was the loneliest of all modern creeds; indeed,Kettle preached as much, and one can take a melancholy pride in splendidisolation.
I am not sure that Captain Kettle does not find the restfulness of hispresent life a trifle too accentuated at times, though this is onlyinevitable for one who has been so much a man of action. But at any ratehe never makes complaint. He is a strong man, and he governs himselfeven as he governs his family and the chapel circle, with a strong, justhand. The farm is a model of neatness and order; paint is lavished in away that makes dalesmen lift their eyebrows; and the routine of thehousehold is as strict as that of a ship.
The house is unique, too, in Wharfedale for the variety of its contents.Desperately poor though Kettle might be on many of his returns from hisunsuccessful ventures, he never came back to his wife without somepresent from a foreign clime as a tangible proof of his remembrance, andbecause these were usually mere curiosities, without intrins
ic value,they often evaded the pawn-shop in those years of dire distress, whenmore negotiable articles passed irretrievably away from the familypossession. And with them too, in stiff, decorous frames, are thosecertificates and testimonials which a master mariner always collects,together with photographs of gratuitously small general interest.
But one might turn the house upside down without finding so carnal aninstrument as a revolver, and when I suggested to Kettle once that wemight go outside and have a little pistol practice, he glared at me, andI thought he would have sworn. However, he let me know stiffly enoughthat whatever circumstances might have made him at sea, he had alwaysbeen a very different man ashore in England, and there thematter dropped.
But speaking of mementoes, there is one link with the past that Mrs.Kettle, poor woman, never ceases to regret the loss of. "Such abeautiful gold watch," she says it was too, "with the Emperor's and theCaptain's names engraved together on the back, and just a nice mentionof the _Gross of Carl_." As it happened, I saw the letter with which itwas returned. It ran like this:--
_To His Majesty the German Emperor, Berlin, Germany
S.S. "Flamingo," Liverpool,
Sir,
I am in receipt of watch sent by your agent, the German ambassador in London, which I return herewith. It is not my custom to accept presents from people I don't know, especially if I have talked about them. I have talked about you, not liking several thing's you've done, especially telegraphing about Dr. Jameson. Sir, you should remember that man was down when you sent your wire and couldn't hit back. Some of the things I have said about German deck hands you needn't take too much notice about. They aren't so bad as they might be if properly handled. But they want handling. Likewise learning English.
My wife wants to keep your photo, so I send you one of hers in return, so there shall be no robbery. She has written her name over it, same as yours.
Yours truly, O. Kettle (Master)._
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