‘“The new timin’,” said I. “The Breslau will not stand it.”
‘“Hoot, oot,” said he. “Ye might ha’ crammed her a little – enough to show ye were drivin’ her – an’ brought her in twa days behind. What’s easier than to say ye slowed for bearin’s, eh? All my men do it, and – I believe ’em.”
‘“McRimmon,” says I, “what’s her virginity to a lassie?”
‘He puckered his dry face an’ twisted in his chair. “The warld an’ a’,” says he. “My God, the vara warld an’ a‘! But what ha’ you or me to do wi’ virginity, this late along?”
‘“This,” I said. “There’s just one thing that each one of us in his trade or profession will not do for ony consideration whatever. If I run to time I run to time, barrin’ always the risks o’ the high seas. Less than that, under God, I have not done. More than that, by God, I will not do! There’s no trick o’ the trade I’m not acquaint wi’–”
‘“So I’ve heard,” says McRimmon, dry as a biscuit.
‘“But yon matter o’ fair runnin’ ‘s just my Shekinah,8 ye’ll understand. I daurna tamper wi’ that. Nursing weak engines is fair craftsmanship; but what the Board ask is cheatin’, wi’ the risk o’ manslaughter addeetional. Ye’ll note I know my business.”
‘There was some more talk, an’ next week I went aboard the Kite, twenty-five hunder ton, simple compound,9 a Black Bird tramp. The deeper she rode, the better she’d steam. I’ve snapped as much as eleven out of her, but eight point three was her fair normal. Good food forward an’ better aft, all indents passed wi’out marginal remarks, the best coal, new donkeys,10 and good crews. There was nothin’ the old man would not do, except paint. That was his deeficulty. Ye could no more draw paint than his last teeth from him. He’d come down to dock, an’ his boats a scandal all along the waiter, an’ he’d whine an’ cry an’ say they looked all he could desire. Every owner has his non plus ultra,11 I’ve obsairved. Paint was McRimmon’s. But you could get round his engines without riskin’ your life, an’, for all his blindness, I’ve seen him reject five flawed intermediates, one after the other, on a nod from me; an’ his cattle-fittin’s were guaranteed for North Atlantic winter weather. Ye ken what that means? McRimmon an’ the Black Bird Line, God bless him!
‘Oh, I forgot to say she would lie down an’ fill her forward deck green, an’ snore away into a twenty-knot gale forty-five to the minute, three an’ a half knots an hour, the engines runnin’ sweet an’ true as a bairn breathin’ in its sleep. Bell was skipper; an’ forbye there’s no love lost between crews an’ owners, we were fond o’ the auld Blind Deevil an’ his dog, an’ I’m thinkin’ he liked us. He was worth the windy side o’ twa million sterlin’, an’ no friend to his own blood-kin. Money’s an awfu’ thing – overmuch – for a lonely man.
‘I’d taken her out twice, there an’ back again, when word came o’ the Breslau’s breakdown, just as I prophesied. Calder was her engineer – he’s not fit to run a tug down the Solent – and he fairly lifted the engines off the bed-plates, an’ they fell down in heaps, by what I heard. So she filled from the after-stuffin’-box to the after-bulkhead, an’ lay star-gazing, with seventy-nine squealin’ passengers in the saloon, till the Camaralzaman o’ Ramsey and Gold’s Carthagena Line gave her a tow to the tune o’ five thousand seven hunder an’ forty pound, wi’ costs in the Admiralty Court. She was helpless, ye’ll understand, an’ in no case to meet ony weather. Five thousand seven hunder an’ forty pounds, with costs, an’ exclusive o’ new engines! They’d ha’ done better to ha’ kept me – on the old timin’.
‘But, even so, the new Board were all for retrenchment. Young Steiner, the Jew, was at the bottom of it. They sacked men right an’ left that would not eat the dirt the Board gave ’em. They cut down repairs; they fed crews wi’ leavin’s an’ scrapin’s; and, reversin’ McRimmon’s practice, they hid their defeeciencies wi’ paint an’ cheap gildin’. Quem Deus vult perrdere prrius dementat12 ye remember.
‘In January we went to dry-dock, an’ in the next dock lay the Grotkau, their big freighter that was the Dolabella o’ Piegan, Piegan, and Walsh’s Line in ‘84 – a Clyde-built iron boat, a flat-bottomed, pigeon-breasted, under-engined, bull-nosed bitch of a five thousand ton freighter, that would neither steer, nor steam, nor stop when ye asked her. Whiles she’d attend to her helm, whiles she’d take charge, whiles she’d wait to scratch herself, an’ whiles she’d buttock into a dockhead. But Holdock and Steiner had bought her cheap, and painted her all over like the Hoor13 o’ Babylon, an’ we called her the Hoor for short.’ (By the way, McPhee kept to that name throughout the rest of his tale; so you must read accordingly.) ‘I went to see young Bannister – he had to take what the Board gave him, an’ he an’ Calder were shifted together from the Breslau to this abortion – an’ talkin’ to him I went into the dock under her. Her plates were pitted till the men that were paint, paint, paintin’ her laughed at it. But the warst was at the last. She’d a great clumsy iron twelve-foot Thresher propeller – Aitcheson designed the Kite’s – and just on the tail o’ the shaft, behind the boss, was a red weepin’ crack ye could ha’ put a penknife to. Man, it was an awfu’ crack!
‘“When d’ye ship a new tail-shaft?” I said to Bannister.
‘He knew what I meant. “Oh, yon’s a superfeecial flaw,” says he, not lookin’ at me.
‘“Superfeecial Gehenna!”14 I said. “Ye’ll not take her oot wi’ a solution o’ continuity that like.”
‘“They’ll putty it up this evening,” he said. “I’m a married man, an’ – ye used to know the Board.”
‘I e’en said what was gie’d me in that hour. Ye know how a dry-dock echoes. I saw young Steiner standin’ listenin’ above me, an’, man, he used language provocative of a breach o’ the peace. I was a spy and a disgraced employé, an’ a corrupter o’ young Bannister’s morals, an’ he’d prosecute me for libel. He went away when I ran up the steps – I’d ha’ thrown him into the dock if I’d caught him – an’ there I met McRimmon, wi’ Dandie pullin’ on the chain, guidin’ the auld man among the railway lines.
‘“McPhee,” said he, “ye’re no paid to fight Holdock, Steiner, Chase, and Company, Limited, when ye meet. What’s wrong between you?”
‘“No more than a tail-shaft rotten as a kail-stump. For ony sakes go and look, McRimmon. It’s a comedietta.”
‘“I’m feared o’ yon conversational Hebrew,” said he. “Whaur’s the flaw, an’ what like?”
‘“A seven-inch crack just behind the boss. There’s no power on earth will fend it just jarrin’ off.”
‘“When?”
‘“That’s beyon’ my knowledge,” I said.
‘“So it is; so it is,” said McRimmon. “We’ve all oor leemitations. Ye’re certain it was a crack?”
‘“Man, it’s a crevasse,” I said, for there were no words to describe the magnitude of it. “An’ young Bannister’s sayin’ it’s no more than a superfeecial flaw!”
‘“Weel, I tak’ it oor business is to mind oor business. If ye’ve ony friends aboard her, McPhee, why not bid them to a bit dinner at Radley’s?”
‘“I was thinkin’ o’ tea in the cuddy,”15 I said. “Engineers o’ tramp freighters cannot afford hotel prices.”
‘“Na! na!” says the auld man, whimperin’. “Not the cuddy. They’ll laugh at my Kite, for she’s no plastered with paint like the Hoor. Bid them to Radley’s, McPhee, an’ send me the bill. Thank Dandie, here, man. I’m no used to thanks.” Then he turned him round. (I was just thinkin’ the vara same thing.)
‘“Mister McPhee,” said he, “this is not senile dementia.”
‘“Preserve’s!” I said, clean jumped oot o’ mysel’. “I was but thinkin’ you’re fey, McRimmon.”
‘Dod, the auld deevil laughed till he nigh sat down on Dandie. “Send me the bill,” says he. “I’m lang past champagne, but tell me how it tastes the morn.”
‘Bell and I bid young Bannister and Calder to dinner at
Radley’s. They’ll have no laughin’ an’ singin’ there, but we took a private room – like yacht-owners fra’ Cowes.’
McPhee grinned all over, and lay back to think.
‘And then?’ said I.
‘We were no drunk in ony preceese sense o’ the word, but Radley’s showed me the dead men. There were six magnums o’ dry champagne an’ maybe a bottle o’ whisky.’
‘Do you mean to tell me that you four got away with a magnum and a half apiece, besides whisky?’ I demanded.
McPhee looked down upon me from between his shoulders with toleration.
‘Man, we were not settin’ down to drink,’ he said. ‘They no more than made us wutty. To be sure, young Bannister laid his head on the table an’ greeted like a bairn, an’ Calder was all for callin’ on Steiner at two in the morn’ an’ painting him galley-green; but they’d been drinkin’ the afternoon. Lord, how they twa cursed the Board, an’ the Grotkau, an’ the tail-shaft, an’ the engines, an’ a’? They didna talk o’ superfeecial flaws that night. I mind young Bannister an’ Calder shakin’ hands on a bond to be revenged on the Board at ony reasonable cost this side o’ losing their certificates. Now mark ye how false economy ruins business. The Board fed them like swine (I have good reason to know it), an’ I’ve obsairved wi’ my ain people that if ye touch his stomach ye wauken the deil in a Scot. Men will tak’ a dredger across the Atlantic if they’re well fed, and fetch her somewhere on the broadside o’ the Americas; but bad food’s bad service the warld over.
‘The bill went to McRimmon, an’ he said no more to me till the weekend, when I was at him for more paint, for we’d heard the Kite was chartered Liverpool-side.
‘“Bide whaur ye’re put,” said the Blind Deevil. “Man, do ye wash in champagne? The Kite’s no leavin’ here till I gie the order, an’ – how am I to waste paint on her, wi’ the Lammergeyer docked for who knows how long, an’ a’?”
‘She was our big freighter – M’Intyre was engineer – an’ I knew she’d come from overhaul not three months. That morn I met McRimmon’s head-clerk – ye’ll not know him – fair bitin’ his nails off wi’ mortification.
‘“The auld man’s gone gyte,”16 says he. “He’s withdrawn the Lammergeyer.”
‘“Maybe he has reasons,” says I.
‘“Reasons! He’s daft!”
‘“He’ll no be daft till he begins to paint,” I said.
‘“That’s just what he’s done – and South American freights higher than we’ll live to see them again. He’s laid her up to paint her – to paint her – to paint her!” says the little clerk, dancin’ like a hen on a hot plate. “Five thousand ton o’ potential freight rottin’ in dry-dock, man; an’ he dolin’ the paint out in quarter-pound-tins, for it cuts him to the heart, mad though he is. An’ the Grotkau – the Grotkau of all conceivable bottoms – soaking up every pound that should be ours at Liverpool!”
‘I was staggered wi’ this folly – considerin’ the dinner at Radley’s in connection wi’ the same.
‘“Ye may well stare, McPhee,” says the head-clerk. “There’s engines, an’ rollin’ stock, an’ iron bridges – d’ye know what freights are noo? – an’ pianos, an’ millinery, an’ fancy Brazil cargo o’ every species pourin’ into the Grotkau – the Grotkau o’ the Jerusalem firm – and the Lammergeyer’s bein’ painted!”
‘Losh, I thought he’d drop dead wi’ the fits.
‘I could say no more than “Obey orders, if ye break owners,” but on the Kite we believed McRimmon was mad; an’ McIntyre of the Lammergeyer was for lockin’ him up by some patent legal process he’d found in a book o’ maritime law. An’ a’ that week South American freights rose an’ rose. It was sinfu’!
‘Syne Bell got orders to tak’ the Kite round to Liverpool in water-ballast, and McRimmon came to bid’s good-bye, yammerin’ an’ whinin’ o’er the acres o’ paint he’d lavished on the Lammergeyer.
‘“I look to you to retrieve it,” says he. “I look to you to reimburse me! ’Fore God, why are ye not cast off? Are ye dawdlin’ in dock for a purpose?”
‘“What odds, McRimmon?” says Bell. “We’ll be a day behind the fair at Liverpool. The Grotkau’s got all the freight that might ha’ been ours an’ the Lammergeyer’s.” McRimmon laughed an’ chuckled – the pairfect eemage o’ senile dementia. Ye ken his eyebrows wark up an’ down like a gorilla’s.
‘“Ye’re under sealed orders,” said he, tee-heein’ an’ scratchin’ himself. “Yon’s they” – to be opened seriatim.17
‘Says Bell, shufflin’ the envelopes when the auld man had gone ashore: “We’re to creep round a’ the south coast, standin’ in for orders – this weather, too. There’s no question o’ his lunacy now.”
‘Well, we buttocked the auld Kite along – vara bad weather we made – standin’ in alongside for telegraphic orders, which are the curse o’ skippers. Syne we made over to Holyhead, an’ Bell opened the last envelope for the last instructions. I was wi’ him in the cuddy, an’ he threw it over to me, cryin’: “Did ye ever know the like, Mac?”
‘I’ll no say what McRimmon had written, but he was far from mad. There was a sou’-wester brewin’ when we made the mouth o’ the Mersey, a bitter cold morn wi’ a grey-green sea and a grey-green sky – Liverpool weather, as they say; an’ there we lay choppin’, an’ the men swore. Ye canna keep secrets aboard ship. They thought McRimmon was mad, too.
‘Syne we saw the Grotkau rollin’ oot on the top o’ flood, deep an’ double deep, wi’ her new-painted funnel an’ her new-painted boats an’ a’. She looked her name, an’, moreover, she coughed like it. Calder tauld me at Radley’s what ailed his engines, but my own ear would ha’ told me twa mile awa’, by the beat o’ them. Round we came, plungin’ an’ squatterin’ in her wake, an’ the wind cut wi’ good promise o’ more to come. By six it blew hard but clear, an’ before the middle watch it was a sou’wester in airnest.
‘“She’ll edge into Ireland, this gait,” says Bell. I was with him on the bridge, watchin’ the Grotkau’s port light. Ye canna see green so far as red, or we’d ha’ kept to leeward. We’d no passengers to consider, an’ (all eyes being on the Grotkau) we fair walked into a liner rampin’ home to Liverpool. Or, to be preceese, Bell no more than twisted the Kite oot from under her bows, and there was a little damnin’ betwix’ the twa bridges. Noo a passenger’ – McPhee regarded me benignantly – ‘wad ha’ told the papers that as soon as he got to the Customs. We stuck to the Grotkau’s tail that night an’ the next twa days – she slowed down to five knots by my reckonin’ – and we lapped along the weary way to the Fastnet.’
‘But you don’t go by the Fastnet to get to any South American port, do you?’ I said.
‘We do not. We prefer to go as direct as may be. But we were followin’ the Grotkau, an’ she’d no walk into that gale for ony consideration. Knowin’ what I did to her discredit, I couldna blame young Bannister. It was warkin’ up to a North Atlantic winter gale, snow an’ sleet an’ a perishin’ wind. Eh, it was like the Deil walkin’ abroad o’ the surface o’ the deep, whuppin’ off the top o’ the waves before he made up his mind. They’d bore up against it so far, but the minute she was clear o’ the Skelligs she fair tucked up her skirts an’ ran for it by Dunmore Head. Wow, she rolled!
‘“She’ll be makin’ Smerwick,” says Bell.
‘“She’d ha’ tried for Ventry by noo if she meant that,” I said.
‘“They’ll roll the funnel oot o’ her, this gait,” says Bell. “Why canna Bannister keep her head to sea?”
‘“It’s the tail-shaft. Ony rollin’s better than pitchin’ wi’ superfeecial cracks in the tail-shaft. Calder knows that much,” I said.
‘“It’s ill wark retreevin’ steamers this weather,” said Bell. His beard and whiskers were frozen to his oilskin, an’ the spray was white on the weather side of him. Pairfect North Atlantic winter weather!
‘One by one the sea raxed away our three boats, an’ the davits were crumple
d like rams’ horns.
‘“Yon’s bad,” said Bell, at the last. “Ye canna pass a hawser wi’oot a boat.” Bell was a vara judeecious man – for an Aberdonian.
‘I’m not one that fashes himself for eventualities outside the engine-room, so I e’en slipped down betwixt waves to see how the Kite fared. Man, she’s the best geared boat of her class that ever left the Clyde! Kinloch, my second, knew her as well as I did. I found him dryin’ his socks on the mainsteam, an’ combin’ his whiskers wi’ the comb Janet gied me last year, for the warld an’ a’ as though we were in port. I tried the feed, speered18 into the stoke-hole, thumbed all bearin’s, spat on the thrust for luck, gied ’em my blessin’, an’ took Kinloch’s socks before I went up to the bridge again.
‘Then Bell handed me the wheel, an’ went below to warm himself. When he came up my gloves were frozen to the spokes an’ the ice clicked over my eye-lids. Pairfect North Atlantic winter weather, as I was sayin’.
‘The gale blew out by night, but we lay in smotherin’ cross-seas that made the auld Kite chatter from stem to stern. I slowed to thirty-four, I mind – no, thirty-seven. There was a long swell the morn, an’ the Grotkau was headin’ into it west awa’.
‘“She’ll win to Rio yet, tail-shaft or no tail-shaft,” says Bell.
‘“Last night shook her,” I said. “She’ll jar it off yet, mark my word.”
‘We were then, maybe, a hunder and fifty mile west-sou’west o’ Slyne Head, by dead reckonin’. Next day we made a hunder an’ thirty – ye’ll note we were not racin’ boats – an’ the day after a hunder and sixty-one, an’ that made us, we’ll say, Eighteen an’ a bittock west, an’ maybe Fifty-one an’ a bittock north, crossin’ all the North Atlantic liner lanes on the long slant, always in sight o’ the Grotkau, creepin’ up by night and fallin’ awa’ by day. After the gale, it was cold weather wi’ dark nights.
‘I was in the engine-room on Friday night, just before the middle watch, when Bell whustled down the tube: “She’s done it”; an’ up I came.