The Whaler

Chapter I I Am Lucky To Find A Berth

IT IS with some little trepidation that I start in spinning this yarn, because I have an instinctive feeling that it will be ridiculed and curtly dismissed as being what old sailors would call "a twister." When a man has been kicked out of a Consul's office and designated as a "crazy shellback;" when he has been laughed at and called ugly names; when his most solemn oath has been the subject for incredulous jeers and his character as a sober citizen is doubted, he naturally becomes apprehensive in opening up afresh an affair which he has tried hard to forget.

My position at the present time is such that my connection with the affair would not redound to my credit, and I have no desire to lose caste by coming out under my own name and relating the circumstances as they actually happened. One man believes me, and it is with reluctance that I concede to his request and give to the world a secret which has rankled in my mind for many, many years. A sensitiveness to the shafts of ridicule has always been the weak point in my armor, but by employing fictitious names of persons and vessels concerned, I shield myself from being made a target for personal remarks of a derisive and satirical nature.

Somewhere or other I read of a man who related the story of his life to a party of friends. He was a jolly sort of fellow and his story was a heartrending one, but on its conclusion the audience were convulsed in laughter and refused to believe that his tale was true. I regard myself in the same light, and being an old sailor, my narrative, like that of the humorist, will probably be taken with a grain of salt. Go ahead, dear reader, and take it whatever way you like. I know it is real enough to me.

I was born and brought up in a little coast town in the Pine Tree State, and. like a good many Down-East youngsters, I broke away for sea at an early age. After two or three years' hard grinding in the mill of foremast experience I came out "ground and bolted," but my parents having died while I was learning to hand, reef and steer, I was left to work out my own traverse in life. After a bitter time in some hard craft, I gained a master's certificate in Liverpool. And when the Civil War broke out, I shipped as second mate aboard cotton ships running the blockade into Wilmington and Charleston. Though a Northerner in sympathy, and by birth, I, with many others, was captured by a Federal cruiser and promptly "jugged." After two months' confinement, I escaped and lived very precariously for a lengthy period, and in November, 1866, was in New York—stranded.

The period of depression after the war had set in and business was bad in the United States then. Everybody was retrenching; money was scarce and employment was scarcer. The Alabama and Confederate privateers had practically destroyed the American merchant marine and, with the stagnation in shipping which prevailed. Starving sailormen loafed around the water-front, sleeping in warehouses and living on the bounty of more fortunate shellbacks aboard the vessels. Every boarding-house on South and Water Streets was crammed with seafarers ready to sign away their liberty for a year without remuneration as long as they could till a gnawing stomach.

Among this crowd of destitutes, I was one of the fortunate ones, having been taken in by Dennis Sullivan after spending a week or two "living in the street and boarding in the market." Sullivan, familiarly known to sailormen as "Hash" Sullivan, ran a boarding-house on Oliver Street, and a worse "sailor-robber" never drew breath. He was Irish and a "plug-ugly" for looks, and his cognomen came from the form of diet which was the pièce de resistance at his establishment.

WHEN I blew into Hash Sullivan's my whole worldly possessions consisted of my clothes and a sheath-knife. The clothes, for convenience and decency's sake, I carried on my back; they consisted of an old felt "bucko" hat, a woolen shirt, a pair of tar-stained dungaree pants, and a pair of "slipshods"—sea-boots with the uppers cut off. Socks I didn't have. The knife and sheath were supported around my waist by a strap which originally formed part of a horse's harness, but when Sullivan saw it, he promptly took it away from me, saying:

"Young fellow, I wouldn't wear that belt. There is nawthin' looks so well on a sailor as a good smart rope-yarn."

So my clothes and knife were afterwards held together and supported by a piece of marline, and my belt went to fit out some ether poor devil outward bound.

I lived a good three or four weeks at Sullivan's, and during the whole of that time I scoured the docks looking for a ship. Masters and mates I interviewed by the score. Some civilly declined my services, while others, tired of being importuned by the hosts of desperate sailormen thronging the wharves, kicked me off their decks with curses and bitter oaths. It was a miserable time; cold receptions and cold weather for a half-clad man, and I think if I had remained ashore any longer than I did, I would have thrown myself off the dock and ended my misery.

I considered myself unusually fortunate when the muster, of an English ship bound for Australia came along to the boarding-house and picked me out to make up his crew. Though I was a qualified navigator and holding a "lime-juice" ticket for competency us master mariner, I was only too glad to stick my fist on the articles of the ship Magician as an able seamen at twenty-five dollars a month and two months' advance. My fifty dollars was to be paid after the ship had sailed, and Mr. Sullivan took the note "in payment for board, lodging and outfit," giving me a dollar to "blow" myself with before I went aboard.

The dollar provided a few schooners of beer for my less fortunate companions at the boarding-house, and with a dirty canvas bag containing my outfit—a sackful of straw known as a "donkey's breakfast," shirt and pants made of "dog's wool and oakum," a nondescript blanket and a pair of second-hand sea-boots—I, with the others, was escorted aboard the ship by Sullivan's roughneck runners and taken in hand by the mate.

A towboat hauled us down the harbor and into the Bay. We were turned to rigging out the jibboom, setting up the headgear, and straightening out the rigger's snarls. Two days later, we hauled out to the Scotland Lightship and made sail, and if ever a crew of shellbacks chantyed up topsail halyards lustily, it was the Magician's crowd.

I was something of a chantyman myself, and I felt so good at smelling salt water again and feeling a ship's deck under my feet that I sang and chorused for the sheer joy of being outward bound. By the aid of muscles and "Whisky Johnny," "We're All Bound to Go!" "Blow the Man Down," and "Santa Anna Won the Day," we mastheaded the yards and sheeted home until we had all the muslin flying and braces strung, and the big Australiaman was punching along with the lee froth bubbling in the scuppers and licking over the topgallant rail.

Chapter II I Have A Falling Out

WHEN a man has been "on the beach" for a long spell, he appreciates being at sea again. New York and starvation seemed like a bad dream, and I was looking forward to a good time on the Magician. Her skipper seemed a very fine sort of man, and the mates were as good as sailors will allow mates to be. The grub was "lime-juicer style"—not much of a variety, but it was of good quality and the bread barge was always filled without question. Plenty of biscuit meant plenty of those favorite sea dishes, cracker hash and dandyfunk.

The voyage also would be a lengthy one—New York to Melbourne, via the Cape, and Melbourne to England by way of the Horn—and though I was serving in a subordinate capacity, yet I was glad to do it and happy in the thought that I had shelter and food for a year at least.

With a roaring westerly blowing over the quarter, we stood away to the east'ard on the old deepwaterman's track to pick up the northeast trades for a shoot across the Line, and I can remember, after my trick at the wheel, how delighted I was with the ship's running qualities and the easy manner in which she steered. This is quite an important thing on an Australian voyage, where over four thousand miles of easting is run with square yards and a heavy sea. Sailors have no use for a vessel that is likely to prove a "terror" when running the easting down.

We dropped the land astern that morning. During the day the wind held strong and we sailed "at the rate of knots" with a main-skysail set. Towards nightfall the wind hauled southerly with fog. When I came on watch at four next morning, the ship was pitching and rolling in a lumpish sea, while fog shrouded everything. The wind was coming away squally, and when our star-bowlines mustered aft, the second mate passed the word, "In royals and flying jib!"

We manned the royal gear and clewed up the sails, and while some of the watch went aloft to furl, I and two others went for'ard on the fo'c's'le head to tackle the flying jib. The fog was very thick—so thick that it was impossible to see the flying jibboom from the cathead. I can remember, after we had stacked away on the halyards and manned the downhaul, the second mate coming for'ard and singing out to the three of us:

Come aft here, some of you, when you g»t that jib down. Git the horn for'ard—it s gittin' thicker'n pea soup."

I gave my two mates a nudge.

"Run along," I said. "I can muzzle that pocket handkerchief all right."

And while they made their way aft, I clambered over the bows and out to where the flying jib was bellying and slatting around in the breeze.

We carried one of those old-fashioned sky-raking bowsprits protruding very far out over the water, and by the time I reached the flying jibboom footropes, the vessel was blotted out in the thickness of the vapor, while the horn came through the veil in a pitifully feeble drone. As I listened to the roar of the bow wave beneath and the scarce-heard wail of the horn, and saw the dim halo of our lights, I thought it would be just the kind of morning for a bad collision. The notion made me shiver and look around apprehensively, but the slatting jib gave me little time for thoughts of that nature. Clambering up the stay I was busily engaged in stamping the hanks down with my sea-booted feet.

Humming a little song to myself, I was passing the stops, when the wail of a foghorn came to my ears. I listened intently, thinking at first that it was our own. As I paused in my work, with nerves astrain, a wall of misty whiteness came sweeping out of the murk on our starboard. While I yelled in excited fright, the luminous bulk took the shape of the headsails and double topsails of a large ship crossing our bows!

THINGS happened with frightful suddenness. While I hung to the rolled-up canvas of the flying jib with skin tingling and hair raised in alarm, the other vessel stormed past and I thought she was going clear until I saw myself looking down over her deck and felt the tip of the boom strike the stranger's mizzen rigging. As soon as I felt the shock, I jumped and landed with a thump into the bottom of a quarter-boat outslungon davits, and while I was picking myself up there was a crash, a volley of shouts and curses, and then both vessels must have gone clear.

My legs seemed paralyzed, and I fancied for a moment that I had broken my back when I struck the thwarts of the boat. But in a few seconds the numbness departed, and I became conscious of a hoarse voice shouting:

"Fetch a lantern here, some o' you! That blasted Dutchman has stove th' whole quarter in—Th' bloody bumpkin's gone. Braces adrift. Look alive!"

A lantern was brought, casting a halo of yellow in the mist, and a voice came booming:

"How's that boat? Is she stove? Thought I hard somethin' fallin' into it. Look an' see."

Now I was fully conscious of everything that was happening below me, but I made no attempt to rise out of the boat. I don't know why. Probably I had not recovered from the shock.. Anyway, I lay across the thwart until a man's head appeared over the gunwale and I was revealed in the light of the lantern he held.

"Sink me!" he shouted. "Here's a man a lyin" in here2"

"Is he dead?" boomed the commanding voice below.

"Are ye dead, shipmate?" questioned the man in all seriousness, flashing the lamp over me.

"No," I managed to answer. "Just shook up a bit, that's all. I'll tumble out if you'll give me a hand."

And I crawled painfully over the gunwale and, stepping down on deck, found myself in the midst of a mob of men. One of them, a great, black-bearded fellow, grasped the lantern and held it up in front of my face.

"Waal, an' where did you spring from?" he asked harshly.

"Fell on the jibboom of that other vessel," I replied.

"Oh, ye did, did ye?"

The man's tone was vindictive and nasty.

"Where in the blazes were yer eyes? Couldn't ye hear us? What vessel was that anyway? One o' yer Cape Horners out t' trim th' Flyin' Cloud, eh?"

"No, sir," I answered respectfully. "She was an English ship—the Magician bound from New York to Melbourne2"

"Huh! Bloody lime juicer! Might ha' known it. Starvation an' ease, an' watch on deck snoozin' in th' lee o' somethin' 'stead o' keepin' a good lookout."

Grumbling to himself he laid the lantern on deck.

"An' who told ye t' come aboard here?" he continued. "What d'ye think we're goin' t' do with ye?"

"I'll turn to," I answered.

"Ye'll turn to, will ye?" he snapped. "An' what d'ye think we're runnin'—a blasted sailor's home for every calashee scrub that flops aboard? This is a whaler, not a packet ship. Have you ever gone whalin?"

I replied in the negative. A whaler! A dirty, oily "spouter," outward bound, most likely, on one of their two and three year voyages! Whaleships! A merchant sailor's horror. He watched me with his savage eyes glinting in the light of the lamp.

"Kin ye swim?" he inquired threateningly.

"Yes, sir," I replied, wondering at the man's peculiar aggressiveness.

"Waal, I cal'late ye'd better start in an' do it," he growled menacingly. "Over th' rail ye go now, or I'll help ye."

"What?" I cried in horrified consternation. "Good Heavens, sir, you don't mean that!"

There was no mistaking his words when he advanced toward me with his shoulders hunched and arms outstretched. The men who had been working at the port braces knocked off to look on. As the great brute advanced, I whipped out my knife.

"Sheer off!" I snarled. "I don't know whether you're joking or not, but, by th' hook block, I'll give you a fight if you're looking for one."

He stopped short on seeing the knife in my hand.

"Trundle that out of his fist!" he cried to the assembled men. "Give him a toss. We don't want him aboard here."

A rough-looking fellow picked a capstan bar out of the rack and came towards me with the weapon upraised for a blow. I backed to the taffrail with my left arm over my head and the knife grasped tightly in my right fist; with wits working and eyes roaming for a chance of escape from the murderous intent of the whaler's crew.

It was unheard of; a ghastly nightmare, and momentarily I expected to awake and find it all a bad dream. I can remember the savage faces illuminated in the foggy dare from the lantern, and in their countenances not a revelation of pity or horror was shown. The black-bearded man was staring at me with a sinister, wolfish look in his eyes, and the man advancing with the bar seemed to be imbued with a certain joy of combat, a lustful, brutal expression in his face and figure which made me make up my mind to rush in and drive my knife into his heart.

THEN, of a sudden, the man paused and lowered his weapon.

"Why, sink me! I believe it's Jack Dixon, what was second mate o' th' Bahama Belle2"

"Eh?" snapped the man of the beard.

On the mention of my old blockade runner's name, I recognized the man who had identified me as Joe Smith, one of her crew who had escaped prison some time before I did and, clutching at a straw, I lowered my knife.

"Aye, right you are, Joe," I said. "And I'm thinking this is a poor reception for an old shipmate."

Joe turned and spoke to the other.

"He's all right, Cap'en. He's an old shipmate o' mine—second mate o' th' Bahama Belle runnin' th' Yankee lines between New Providence an' Charleston. Good fellow2"

The Whaler Captain made a gesture.

"Come here, you! Put up your dirk. We were only jokin'."

Thinking it was a particularly callous and bloody-minded joke, I slipped the knife into the sheath and stepped gingerly forward.

"Kin ye navigate?"

"Yes, sir," I replied.

The skipper turned to Joe.

"Kin he?"

"Oh, yes, sir," replied the man. "He's a navigator all right."

"I hold a British Board of Trade certificate of competency as master," I volunteered.

"Then, by Judas, you're th' man we want!" cried the whaling skipper, bringing his heavy hand down on my shoulder. "Lord Harry! But I thought ye were nawthin' more nor less than some poor devil of a foremast hand! An' ye kin navigate, eh? Take sextant sights by th' sun, eh?"

"Yes, sir, and by the moon and stars as well."

I hastened to add my accomplishments:

"Time sights, double altitudes and lunars for chronometer ratings—I've had practise with them all, and if you have instruments2"

"We have them," he interrupted. "Come down below, sir."

And he led the way into the cabin.

Chapter III The Whaler And Her Crew

WHEN I was precipitated upon the whaling vessel in the manner described, I calculated that we were to the south'ard of Nantucket Shoals. The whaler had fitted out in New Bedford and had stood to the south'ard for an offing after clearing Buzzard's Bay. Coming about, she was running to the east'ard when she crossed the Magician's bows and narrowly escaped being cut in half. So the black-bearded man told me as he lit the cabin lamp, and I knew then that I was on an outward bound "spouter."

"I'm th' master o' this vessel," he said, as he motioned me to be seated on the cushioned transom. "My name's Silvera—Captain Rodriquez Silvera, an' this vessel's the whalin' bark Arcturus, bound on a southern sperm-whale cruise. I'm no navigator, 'cept by dead reckonin', an' my first officer, who was supposed to do th' navigatin', has gone an' died on me. Came aboard in Noo Bedford full as a tick, took to his bunk, an' croaked this mornin'. You'll come in nice an' handy to take his place, an' I reckon you won't kick, eh?"

"I won't kick, Captain."

"Not even for a long whalin' cruise?"

"No, sir," I replied, "but I'm no whaleman2"

"Ye don't need t' be," he answered. "All as we'll ask ye t' do 'ull be t' navigate th' vessel t' where we want her t' go. Ye don't have nawthin' t' do with th' whalin' part of it. Navigate an' that's all. I'll give ye fifty dollars a month, an' ye kin live aft here.

"Ye kin take that gaudy first mate's room an' his gear as soon as we git him cleared out— Wait a minute. I'll have him cleared out now so's ye kin take aholt an' start right in."

He arose and clambered up the companionway steps, and I could hear him calling to the watch on deck. When he came below again, four ragged-looking, unkempt ruffians followed him.

"Git that stiff outa his bunk an' heave him over th' rail2"

"Sew him up, sir?" inquired one of the men.

"Heave him over, I said," snapped Captain Silvera sharply. "I've got no canvas to waste on that beach-comber. Ye kin lash somethin' to his heels as a sinker— No, blast him, jest shove him over as he is. Go ahead, now!"

And while I remained seated, mute with surprise and shocked at such callous words, the men entered the mate's room and unceremoniously lugged the dead body of a man out of the berth and upon deck. I could hear their feet shuffling along the planks overhead; heard the barking, "One! Two! Three! An' heave!" as they swung their burden, and then the sullen splash as the body struck the water. Captain Silvera's harsh voice roused me from the terror of my thoughts at this unfeeling piece of desecration.

"Your room's ready for ye, Mister Dixon, but afore ye turn in. I'd like ye t' fix up our course. I want t' shape for th' Western Islands. Here's th' chart, dividers, rulers an' pencil."

I gave him the course in a few seconds, and he shouted it up the open companionway to the deck officer.

THUS, within twenty-four hours I was metamorphosed from Jack Dixon, A. B., on the merchant ship Magician to Mister Dixon, navigating officer on the whaling bark Acturus. I had changed my flag from the "blood and guts" of old England to the stars and stripes of the United States.

I had twice been in danger of losing my life—I had no doubt whatever that Captain Silvers would have given me a swim had not Joe Smith recognized me and mentioned the fact that I was a navigator—and here I was, logged for a lengthy voyage, with exceedingly doubtful company, a brute of a Portuguese Yankee for skipper, and in a trade which I, as a merchant sailor, detested with the hereditary hatred of the bluewater shellback. However, I was in no position to choose. I had benefited by the change which luck had hove me into, but a nameless dread gripped my heart whenever I thought of the incident of the early morning, and I shivered involuntarily as I stepped into the berth assigned to me.

Scratching a match, I found the bulkhead lamp and lit it, and by its feeble light I saw that the room was of the ordinary type, with bunk and drawers underneath, a washstand with a tumbler and water-bottle rack over it, a small table and a clothes locker. At the foot of the bunk was a bookshelf equipped with a brine-stained "Navigator," by Nathaniel Bowditch, a book of azimuth tables, "Nautical Almanac," directories and "Sailing Directions"; and a few shallow novels of the type affected by some officers completed the library. The bedclothes in the bunk were dirty and disarranged, and I had another shock when I saw that the pillow was stained with blood.

"Lord Harry!" I muttered apprehensively. "What kind of a packet have I blown aboard off?"

Silvera opined the door at this juncture. He must have noticed me staring at the bloody pillow.

"I'll get th' stooard t' clear that dunnage away an' put fresh clothes in that bunk," he said as he entered. "You're wonderin' whar that mess came from, eh?"

And as I nodded dumbly he laughed.

"That come from his head. He was drunk when he come aboard in Noo Bedford an' fell down th' cabin gangway an' stove his thick skull. I cal'late that's what finished him."

Then, with an assumption of heartiness, he slapped me on the back.

"You don't want t' mind our little joke this mornin', Dixon. We whalers are rough an' ready but we don't mean no harm. Marchant ways ain't whaleship ways. Thar' ain't no brass an' gold lace aboard these craft, but you'll find things'll be all right ef ye do yer duty. Now I reckon ye'll find Lamson's rig-out 'ull about fit ye, so jest take 'em an' use 'em.

"Thar's a good kurnometer here—a noo one showin' Greenwich mean time an' rated one second slow daily. I've kep' it wound up while that joker was lyin' on his beam ends. I've got a sex'ant in my berth which I'll' hand ye later. Git them lime-juicer's dungarees off ye an' come t' breakfast. It'll be ready in a few minutes."

Feeling a little more composed mentally, I changed my tarry rags for more respectable apparel, and sat down to breakfast with the queerest company of human beings it was ever my lot to be shipmates with. Two of the men were yellow-skinned Portuguese half-breeds from the Azores, named Fernandez and Francisco; the other two were Polynesians—one being, without doubt, the ugliest and most ferocious looking character I had ever seen. His cheeks were tattooed in bluish concentric rings while his huge white teeth were filed into saw-like points. When he smiled, the aspect of his countenance was frightful and repellent. All four were clad in colored flannel shirts, and they ate like wolves, boiled beef and coffee disappearing down their capacious mouths like coal into a furnace.

Having spent a good deal of time in the Southern States, I could be excused for wondering why four "blacks" were allowed to eat aft in the cabin. The skipper must have sensed my mental astonishment.

"Let me make ye acquainted with th' second an' fourth mates." Fernandez and Francisco nodded. "The other gents are Hilo Peter an' Tahiti Jack—our harpooneers."

The Polynesians grinned acknowledgment, Tahiti Jack looking a veritable ogre with his disfigured cheeks and serrated teeth.

I have seen some hard cases in my day, but that whaler's crew impressed me as being the most cut-throat looking crowd I ever clapped eyes on. Not a man but what had a scar or disfigurement of some sort on his person; all had a lurching hard-bitten appearance, while the language they used was vile enough for an Atlantic packet ship's fo'c's'le.

THE vessel seemed to me to be rather an unusual craft for the whaling business, by recollection of sundry Nantucketers and Vineyard Haven "spouters" I had seen at sea being vastly different from the Acturus in almost every way. The orthodox South-Seaman was a square-sterned, apple-bowed type of windjammer; clumsy looking, with wretchedly cut sails, bowsprit steeved up like a mast, a housed-in poop, and no sail above topgallants.

The Arcturus had clipper lines and all the appearance of a clipper; her yards were very square, her masts lofty and with a rake aft, and the length of mast above her main royal induced me to believe that she once crossed a skysail yard. She was a clipper to sail as well. Silvera afterwards told me that she had beeen built, for the "live ebony" trade—otherwise slaving—out when she had been put out of that business he and a few others had bought her and fitted her out for whaling.

Something of her appearance was spoiled by the ungainly whaleboat davits—three to starboard and one to port. Two spare boats lay bottom-up on the gallows aft, and amidships were placed the brick tryworks, with a huge pile of kindling-wood stacked around them. On top of the for'ard house was a great tarpaulined box which, I deduced, was a water tank.

I counted thirty men in our crew. They seem to have been composed of every nationality under the sun—Americans, Portuguese, Scotch, English, Polynesians, Scandinavians, and negroes; a rough-and-tough looking crowd, but all expert whalemen, filling the positions of harpooners, boat steerers, coopers, blacksmiths and seamen. So much for the Arcturus and her company.

Chapter IV I Drink With Silvera

WE PICKED up the northeast trades after sighting Gran Canaria, and in sunshine, under blue skies and over bluer water, we ambled lazily on our aimless course. At night we hove to in order to cover the whaling grounds in daylight.

Silvera remained as agreeable as ever, but the man seemed to be utterly heartless, though I can not say he was severe in handling the crew; in fact he permitted liberties which would not have been tolerated for an instant upon merchant ships. He was pleasant to talk to and a good conversationalist, but I cannot remember in any of his discourses with me a single sentence which revealed a trace of sympathetic utterance.

He was an atheist and a man who scorned emotion of any sort, and from the amount of knowledge he seemed to possess regarding the Congo and Bonny Rivers. Benin and the Dahomey coast, I surmised that he had been a slaver captain or officer at some time in his life. Men who can calmly "jettison" their living cargo into a shark-infested sea when pursued by a cruiser, have case-hardened their hearts against any appeal to feeling and compassion.

Looking over the notes from which I am compiling this narrative. I find but a daily sequence of entries for the next two weeks:

"Fine weather. Wind N. E., fresh. Vessel under all plain sail running to s'thard. People employed on gear. No fish sighted. Lat. by obs. 2 Long. 2 Log. 2 Bar. 2. So ends this day."

At night we brought to the wind.

According to my instructions from Silvera, we gave the Cape Verde Islands a wide berth and stood well over to the eastward of the thirtieth meridian.