Moran of the Lady Letty, Page 2

  II. A NAUTICAL EDUCATION.

  In the course of the next few moments, while the little vessel was beinggot under way, and while the Ridgeways' "Petrel" gleamed off into theblue distance, Wilbur made certain observations.

  The name of the boat on which he found himself was the "Bertha Millner."She was a two-topmast, 28-ton keel schooner, 40 feet long, carryinga large spread of sail--mainsail, foresail, jib, flying-jib, twogaff-topsails, and a staysail. She was very dirty and smelt abominablyof some kind of rancid oil. Her crew were Chinamen; there was no mate.But the cook--himself a Chinaman--who appeared from time to time at thedoor of the galley, a potato-masher in his hand, seemed to have somesort of authority over the hands. He acted in a manner as a go-betweenfor the Captain and the crew, sometimes interpreting the former'sorders, and occasionally giving one of his own.

  Wilbur heard the Captain address him as Charlie. He spoke pigeon Englishfairly. Of the balance of the crew--the five Chinamen--Wilbur could makenothing. They never spoke, neither to Captain Kitchell, to Charlie,nor to each other; and for all the notice they took of Wilbur he mighteasily have been a sack of sand. Wilbur felt that his advent on the"Bertha Millner" was by its very nature an extraordinary event; but theabsolute indifference of these brown-suited Mongols, the blankness oftheir flat, fat faces, the dulness of their slanting, fishlike eyesthat never met his own or even wandered in his direction, was uncanny,disquieting. In what strange venture was he now to be involved, towardwhat unknown vortex was this new current setting, this current that hadso suddenly snatched him from the solid ground of his accustomed life?

  He told himself grimly that he was to have a free cruise up the bay,perhaps as far as Alviso; perhaps the "Bertha Millner" would even makethe circuit of the bay before returning to San Francisco. He mightbe gone a week. Wilbur could already see the scare-heads of the dailypapers the next morning, chronicling the disappearance of "One ofSociety's Most Popular Members."

  "That's well, y'r throat halyards. Here, Lilee of the Vallee, give acouple of pulls on y'r peak halyard purchase."

  Wilbur stared at the Captain helplessly.

  "No can tell, hey?" inquired Charlie from the galley. "Pullum disa lope,sabe?"

  Wilbur tugged at the rope the cook indicated.

  "That's well, y'r peak halyard purchase," chanted Captain Kitchell.

  Wilbur made the rope fast. The mainsail was set, and hung slatting andflapping in the wind. Next the for'sail was set in much the same manner,and Wilbur was ordered to "lay out on the ji'boom and cast the gasketsoff the jib." He "lay out" as best he could and cast off the gaskets--heknew barely enough of yachting to understand an order here andthere--and by the time he was back on the fo'c'sle head the Chinamenwere at the jib halyard and hoisting away.

  "That's well, y'r jib halyards."

  The "Bertha Millner" veered round and played off to the wind, tugging ather anchor.

  "Man y'r windlass."

  Wilbur and the crew jumped once more to the brakes.

  "Brake down, heave y'r anchor to the cathead."

  The anchor-chain, already taut, vibrated and then cranked through thehawse-holes as the hands rose and fell at the brakes. The anchor camehome, dripping gray slime. A nor'west wind filled the schooner's sails,a strong ebb tide caught her underfoot.

  "We're off," muttered Wilbur, as the "Bertha Millner" heeled to thefirst gust.

  But evidently the schooner was not bound up the bay.

  "Must be Vallejo or Benicia, then," hazarded Wilbur, as the sails grewtenser and the water rippled ever louder under the schooner's forefoot."Maybe they're going after hay or wheat."

  The schooner was tacking, headed directly for Meiggs's wharf. She camein closer and closer, so close that Wilbur could hear the talk of thefishermen sitting on the stringpieces. He had just made up his mind thatthey were to make a landing there, when--

  "Stand by for stays," came the raucous bark of the Captain, who hadtaken on the heel. The sails slatted furiously as the schooner cameabout. Then the "Bertha Millner" caught the wind again and lay overquietly and contentedly to her work. The next tack brought the schoonerclose under Alcatraz. The sea became heavier, the breeze grew stiff andsmelled of the outside ocean. Out beyond them to westward openedthe Golden Gate, a bleak vista of gray-green water roughened withwhite-caps.

  "Stand by for stays."

  Once again as the rudder went hard over, the "Bertha Millner" frettedand danced and shook her sails, calling impatiently for the wind,chafing at its absence like a child reft of a toy. Then again shescooped the nor'wester in the hollow palms of her tense canvases andsettled quietly down on the new tack, her bowsprit pointing straighttoward the Presidio.

  "We'll come about again soon," Wilbur told himself, "and stand overtoward the Contra Costa shore."

  A fine huge breath of wind passed over the schooner. She heeled iton the instant, the water roaring along her quarter, but she kept hercourse. Wilbur fell thoughtful again, never more keenly observant.

  "She must come about soon," he muttered uneasily, "if she's going tostand up toward Vallejo." His heart sank with a sudden apprehension. Anervousness he could not overcome seized upon him. The "Bertha Millner"held tenaciously to the tack. Within fifty yards of the Presidio camethe command again:

  "Stand by for stays."

  Once more, her bows dancing, her cordage rattling, her sails flappingnoisily, the schooner came about. Anxiously Wilbur observed the bowspritas it circled like a hand on a dial, watching where now it would point.It wavered, fluctuated, rose, fell, then settled easily, pointing towardLime Point. Wilbur felt a sudden coldness at his heart.

  "This isn't going to be so much fun," he muttered between his teeth. Theschooner was not bound up the bay for Alviso nor to Vallejo for grain.The track toward Lime Point could mean but one thing. The wind wasfreshening from the nor'west, the ebb tide rushing out to meet the oceanlike a mill-race, at every moment the Golden Gate opened out wider, andwithin two minutes after the time of the last tack the "Bertha Millner"heeled to a great gust that had come booming in between the heads,straight from the open Pacific.

  "Stand by for stays."

  As before, one of the Chinese hands stood by the sail rope of the jib.

  "Draw y'r jib."

  The jib filled. The schooner came about on the port tack; Lime Pointfell away over the stern rail. The huge ground swells began to comein, and as she rose and bowed to the first of these it was precisely asthough the "Bertha Millner" were making her courtesy to the great grayocean, now for the first time in full sight on her starboard quarter.

  The schooner was beating out to sea through the Middle Channel. Onceclear of the Golden Gate, she stood over toward the Cliff House, then onthe next tack cleared Point Bonita. The sea began building up in deadlyearnest--they were about to cross the bar. Everything was battened down,the scuppers were awash, and the hawse-holes spouted like fountainsafter every plunge. Once the Captain ordered all men aloft, just in timeto escape a gigantic dull green roller that broke like a Niagara overthe schooner's bows, smothering the decks knee-deep in a twinkling.

  The wind blew violent and cold, the spray was flying like icysmall-shot. Without intermission the "Bertha Millner" rolled and plungedand heaved and sank. Wilbur was drenched to the skin and sore in everyjoint, from being shunted from rail to mast and from mast to rail again.The cordage sang like harp-strings, the schooner's forefoot crusheddown into the heaving water with a hissing like that of steam, blocksrattled, the Captain bellowed his orders, rope-ends flogged the hollowdeck till it reverberated like a drum-head. The crossing of the bar wasone long half-hour of confusion and discordant sound.

  When they were across the bar the Captain ordered the cook to give themen their food.

  "Git for'rd, sonny," he added, fixing Wilbur with his eye. "Git for'rd,this is tawble dee hote, savvy?"

  Wilbur crawled forward on the reeling deck, holding on now to a mast,now to a belaying-pin, now to a stay, watching his chance and going onbetween the inebria
ted plunges of the schooner.

  He descended the fo'c'sle hatch. The Chinamen were already there,sitting on the edges of their bunks. On the floor, at the bottom of theladder, punk-sticks were burning in an old tomato-can.

  Charlie brought in supper--stewed beef and pork in a bread-pan and awooden kit--and the Chinamen ate in silence with their sheath-knives andfrom tin plates. A liquid that bore a distant resemblance to coffee wasserved. Wilbur learned afterward to know the stuff as Black Jack, andto be aware that it was made from bud barley and was sweetened withmolasses. A single reeking lamp swung with the swinging of the schoonerover the centre of the group, and long after Wilbur could remember thegrisly scene--the punk-sticks, the bread-pan full of hunks of meat,the horrid close and oily smell, and the circle of silent, preoccupiedChinese, each sitting on his bunk-ledge, devouring stewed pork andholding his pannikin of Black Jack between his feet against the rollingof the boat.

  Wilbur looked fearfully at the mess in the pan, recalling the chocolateand stuffed olives that had been his last luncheon.

  "Well," he muttered, clinching his teeth, "I've got to come to it sooneror later." His penknife was in the pocket of his waist-coat, underneathhis oilskin coat. He opened the big blade, harpooned a cube of pork,and deposited it on his tin plate. He ate it slowly and with savagedetermination. But the Black Jack was more than he could bear.

  "I'm not hungry enough for that just now," he told himself. "Say, Jim,"he said, turning to the Chinaman next him on the bunk-ledge, "say, whatkind of boat is this? What you do--where you go?"

  The other moved away impatiently.

  "No sabe, no sabe," he answered, shaking his head and frowning.Throughout the whole of that strange meal these were the only wordsspoken.

  When Wilbur came on deck again he noted that the "Bertha Millner" hadalready left the whistling-buoy astern. Off to the east, her sailsjust showing above the waves, was a pilot-boat with the number 7 on hermainsail. The evening was closing in; the Farallones were in plain sightdead ahead. Far behind, in a mass of shadow just bluer than the sky, hecould make out a few twinkling lights--San Francisco.

  Half an hour later Kitchell came on deck from his supper in the cabinaft. He glanced in the direction of the mainland, now almost out ofsight, then took the wheel from one of the Chinamen and commanded, "Easeoff y'r fore an' main sheets." The hands eased away and the schoonerplayed off before the wind.

  The staysail was set. The "Bertha Millner" headed to southwest, bowlingeasily ahead of a good eight-knot breeze.

  Next came the order "All hands aft!" and Wilbur and his mates betookthemselves to the quarterdeck. Charlie took the wheel, and he andKitchell began to choose the men for their watches, just as Wilburremembered to have chosen sides for baseball during his school days.

  "Sonny, I'll choose you; you're on my watch," said the Captain toWilbur, "and I will assoom the ree-sponsibility of your nauticaleddoocation."

  "I may as well tell you at once," began Wilbur, "that I'm no sailor."

  "But you will be, soon," answered the Captain, at once soothing andthreatening; "you will be, Mister Lilee of the Vallee, you kin lay toit as how you will be one of the best sailormen along the front, as ourdear friend Jim says. Before I git throo with you, you'll be a sailormanor shark-bait, I can promise you. You're on my watch; step over here,son."

  The watches were divided, Charlie and three other Chinamen on the port,Kitchell, Wilbur, and two Chinamen on the starboard. The men troopedforward again.

  The tiny world of the schooner had lapsed to quiet. The "Bertha Millner"was now clear of the land, that lay like a blur of faintest purplesmoke--ever growing fainter--low in the east. The Farallones showed buttheir shoulders above the horizon. The schooner was standing wellout from shore--even beyond the track of the coasters and passengersteamers--to catch the Trades from the northwest. The sun was settingroyally, and the floor of the ocean shimmered like mosaic. The seahad gone down and the fury of the bar was a thing forgotten. It wasperceptibly warmer.

  On board, the two watches mingled forward, smoking opium and playinga game that looked like checkers. Three of them were washing down thedecks with kaiar brooms. For the first time since he had come on boardWilbur heard the sound of their voices.

  The evening was magnificent. Never to Wilbur's eyes had the Pacificappeared so vast, so radiant, so divinely beautiful. A star or twoburned slowly through that part of the sky where the pink began to fadeinto the blue. Charlie went forward and set the side lights--red onthe port rigging, green on the starboard. As he passed Wilbur, who wasleaning over the rail and watching the phosphorus flashing just underthe surface, he said:

  "Hey, you go talkee-talk one-piecey Boss, savvy Boss--chin-chin."

  Wilbur went aft and came up on the poop, where Kitchell stood at thewheel, smoking an inverted "Tarrier's Delight."

  "Now, son," began Kitchell, "I natch'ly love you so that I'm goin' todo you a reel favor, do you twig? I'm goin' to allow you to berth aft inthe cabin, 'long o' me an' Charlie, an' beesides you can make free ofmy quarterdeck. Mebbee you ain't used to the ways of sailormen justyet, but you can lay to it that those two are reel concessions, savvy?I ain't a mush-head, like mee dear friend Jim. You ain't no water-frontswine, I can guess that with one hand tied beehind me. You're a toff,that's what you are, and your lines has been laid for toffs. I ain'taskin' you no questions, but you got brains, an' I figger on gettin'more outa you by lettin' you have y'r head a bit. But mind, now, you getgay once, sonny, or try to flimflam me, or forget that I'm the boss ofthe bathtub, an' strike me blind, I'll cut you open, an' you can lay tothat, son. Now, then, here's the game: You work this boat 'long withthe coolies, an' take my orders, an' walk chalk, an' I'll teach younavigation, an' make this cruise as easy as how-do-you-do. You don't,an' I'll manhandle you till y'r bones come throo y'r hide."

  "I've no choice in the matter," said Wilbur. "I've got to make the bestof a bad situation."

  "I ree-marked as how you had brains," muttered the Captain.

  "But there's one thing," continued Wilbur; "if I'm to have my head alittle, as you say, you'll find we can get along better if you put meto rights about this whole business. Why was I brought aboard, why arethere only Chinese along, where are we going, what are we going to do,and how long are we going to be gone?"

  Kitchell spat over the side, and then sucked the nicotine from hismustache.

  "Well," he said, resuming his pipe, "it's like this, son. This shipbelongs to one of the Six Chinese Companies of Chinatown in Frisco.Charlie, here, is one of the shareholders in the business. We go downhere twice a year off Cape Sain' Lucas, Lower California, an' fish forblue sharks, or white, if we kin ketch 'em. We get the livers of thesean' try out the oil, an' we bring back that same oil, an' the Chinamensell it all over San Francisco as simon-pure cod-liver oil, savvy?An' it pays like a nitrate bed. I come in because it's a Custom-houseregulation that no coolie can take a boat out of Frisco."

  "And how do I come in?" asked Wilbur.

  "Mee dear friend Jim put a knock-me-out drop into your Manhattancocktail. It's a capsule filled with a drug. You were shanghaied, son,"said the Captain, blandly.

  *****

  About an hour later Wilbur turned in. Kitchell showed him his bunk withits "donkey's breakfast" and single ill-smelling blanket. It was locatedunder the companionway that led down into the cabin. Kitchell bunkedon one side, Charlie on the other. A hacked deal table, covered withoilcloth and ironed to the floor, a swinging-lamp, two chairs, a rack ofbooks, a chest or two, and a flaring picture cut from the advertisementof a ballet, was the room's inventory in the matter of furniture andornament.

  Wilbur sat on the edge of his bunk before undressing, reviewing theextraordinary events of the day. In a moment he was aware of a movementin one of the other two bunks, and presently made out Charlie lying onhis side and holding in the flame of an alcohol lamp a skewer on whichsome brown and sticky stuff boiled and sizzled. He transformed the stuffto the bowl of a huge pipe and drew on it noisily
once or twice. Inanother moment he had sunk back in his bunk, nearly senseless, but witha long breath of an almost blissful contentment.

  "Beast!" muttered Wilbur, with profound disgust.

  He threw off his oilskin coat and felt in the pocket of his waistcoat(which he had retained when he had changed his clothes in the fo'c'sle)for his watch. He drew it out. It was just nine o'clock. All at once anidea occurred to him. He fumbled in another pocket of the waistcoat andbrought out one of his calling-cards.

  For a moment Wilbur remained motionless, seated on the bunk-ledge,smiling grimly, while his glance wandered now to the sordid cabin of the"Bertha Millner" and the opium-drugged coolie sprawled on the "donkey'sbreakfast," and now to the card in his hand on which a few hours ago hehad written:

  "First waltz--Jo."