when the brig alexander sailed out of san francisco on a whaling voyage a few years ago, i was a member of her forecastle crew. once outside the golden gate, i felt the swing of blue water under me for the first time in my life. i was not shanghaied. let's have that settled at the start. i had shipped as a green hand before the mast for the adventure of the thing, because i wanted to go, for the glamor of the sea was upon me.
i was taking breakfast in a san francisco restaurant when, in glancing over the morning paper, i chanced across this advertisement:
wanted—men for a whaling voyage; able seamen, ordinary seamen, and green hands. no experience necessary. big money for a lucky voyage. apply at levy's, no. 12 washington street.
until that moment i had never dreamed of going to sea, but that small "ad." laid its spell upon my imagination. it was big with the lure of strange lands and climes, romance and fresh experiences. what did it matter that i had passed all my humdrum days on dry land? "no experience necessary!" there were the magic words staring me in the face. i gulped down my eggs and coffee and was off for the street called washington.
levy's was a ship's outfitting store. a "runner" for the house—a hulking man with crafty eyes and a face almost as red as his hair and mustache—met me as i stepped in the door. he looked me over critically. his visual inventory must have been satisfactory. i was young.
"ever been a sailor?" he asked.
"no."
"makes no difference. can you pull an oar?"
"yes."
"you'll do. hang around the store to-day and i'll see what vessels are shipping crews."
that was all. i was a potential whaler from that minute.
a young working man in overalls and flannel shirt came in later in the day and applied to go on the voyage. he qualified as a green hand. but no spirit of adventure had brought him to levy's. a whaling voyage appealed to his canny mind as a business proposition.
"what can we make?" he asked the runner.
"if your ship is lucky," replied the runner, "you ought to clean up a pile of money. you'll ship on the 190th lay. know what a lay is? it's your per cent. of the profits of the voyage. say your ship catches four whales. she ought to catch a dozen if she has good luck. but say she catches four. her cargo in oil and bone will be worth about $50,000. your share will amount to something like $200, and you'll get it in a lump sum when you get back."
this was "bunk talk"—a "springe to catch woodcock"—but we did not know it. that fluent and plausible man took pencil and paper and showed us just how it would all work out. it was reserved for us poor greenhorns to learn later on that sailors of whaling ships usually are paid off at the end of a voyage with "one big iron dollar." this fact being discreetly withheld from us, our illusions were not disturbed.
the fact is the "lay" means nothing to sailors on a whaler. it is merely a lure for the unsophisticated. it might as well be the 1000th lay as the 190th, for all the poor devil of a sailor gets. the explanation is simple. the men start the voyage with an insufficient supply of clothing. by the time the vessel strikes cold weather their clothes are worn out and it is a case of buy clothes from the ship's slop-chest at the captain's own prices or freeze. as a consequence, the men come back to port with expense accounts standing against them which wipe out all possible profits. this has become so definitely a part of whaling custom that no sailor ever thinks of fighting against it, and it probably would do him no good if he did. as a forecastle hand's pay the "big iron dollar" is a whaling tradition and as fixed and inevitable as fate.
the outfitter who owned the store did not conduct a sailor's boarding house, so we were put up at a cheap hotel on pacific street. after supper, my new friend took me for a visit to the home of his uncle in the tar flats region. a rough, kindly old laboring man was this uncle who sat in his snug parlor in his shirt sleeves during our stay, sent one of the children to the corner for a growler of beer, and told us bluntly we were idiots to think of shipping on a whaling voyage. we laughed at his warning—we were going and that's all there was to it. the old fellow's pretty daughters played the piano and sang for us, and my last evening on shore passed pleasantly enough. when it came time to say good-bye, the uncle prevailed on my friend to stay all night on the plea that he had some urgent matters to talk over, and i went back alone to my dingy hotel on the barbary coast.
i was awakened suddenly out of a sound sleep in the middle of the night. my friend stood beside my bed with a lighted candle in his hand.
"get up and come with me," he said. "don't go whaling. my uncle has told me all about it. he knows. you'll be treated like a dog aboard, fed on rotten grub, and if you don't die under the hard knocks or freeze to death in the arctic ocean, you won't get a penny when you get back. don't be a fool. take my advice and give that runner the slip. if you go, you'll regret it to the last day of your life."
in the yellow glare of the candle, the young man seemed not unlike an apparition and he delivered his message of warning with prophetic solemnity and impressiveness. but my mind was made up.
"i guess i'll go," i said.
he argued and pleaded with me, all to no purpose. he set the candle on the table and blew it out.
"you won't come?" he said out of the darkness.
"no."
"you're a fool."
he slammed the door. i never saw him again. but many a time on the long voyage i recalled his wise counsel, prompted as it was by pure friendliness, and wished from my heart i had taken his advice.
next day the runner for levy's tried to ship me aboard the steam whaler william lewis. when we arrived at the shipping office on the water front, it was crowded with sailors and rough fellows, many of them half drunk, and all eager for a chance to land a berth. a bronzed and bearded man stood beside a desk and surveyed them. he was the skipper of the steamer. the men were pushing and elbowing in an effort to get to the front and catch his eye.
"i've been north before, captain," "i'm an able seaman, sir," "i know the ropes," "give me a chance, captain," "take me, sir; i'll make a good hand,"—so they clamored their virtues noisily. the captain chose this man and that. in twenty minutes his crew was signed. it was not a question of getting enough men; it was a mere matter of selection. in such a crowd of sailormen, i stood no show. in looking back on it all, i wonder how such shipping office scenes are possible, how men of ordinary intelligence are herded aboard whale ships like sheep, how they even fight for a chance to go.
it was just as well i failed to ship aboard the william lewis. the vessel went to pieces in the ice on the north alaskan coast the following spring. four men lost their lives and only after a bitter experience as castaways on the floes were the others rescued.
that afternoon captain shorey of the brig alexander visited levy's. i was called to his attention as a likely young hand and he shipped me as a member of his crew. i signed articles for a year's voyage. it was provided that i was to receive a $50 advance with which to outfit myself for the voyage; of course, any money left over after all necessary articles had been purchased was to be mine—at least, in my innocence, i imagined it was.
the brig was lying in the stream off goat island and the runner set about the work of outfitting me at once. he and i and a clerk went about the store from shelf to shelf, selecting articles. the runner carried a pad of paper on which he marked down the cost. i was given a sailor's canvas bag, a mattress, a pair of blankets, woolen trousers, dungaree trousers, a coat, a pair of brogans, a pair of rubber sea boots, underwear, socks, two flannel shirts, a cap, a belt and sheath knife, a suit of oil-skins and sou'wester, a tin cup, tin pan, knife, fork and spoon. that was all. it struck me as a rather slender equipment for a year's voyage. the runner footed up the cost.
"why," he said with an air of great surprise, "this foots up to $53 and your advance is only $50."
he added up the column of figures again. but he had made no mistake. he seemed perplexed.
"i don't see how it is possible to scratch off anything," he said. "you'll need every one of these articles."
he puckered his brow, bit the end of his pencil, and studied the figures. it was evidently a puzzling problem.
"well," he said at last, "i'll tell you what i'll do. bring me down a few curios from the arctic and i'll call it square."
i suppose my outfit was really worth about $6—not over $10. as soon as my bag had been packed, i was escorted to the wharf by the runner and rowed out to the brig. as i prepared to climb over the ship's rail, the runner shook me by the hand and clapped me on the back with a great show of cordial goodfellowship.
"don't forget my curios," he said.
