there was preaching and singing in the sailors’ home of yokohama on the evening of my arrival. the white-bearded missionary styled the service a “mass meeting for christ.” the beachcombers in attendance were not those to cavil at names. so long as they were permitted to doze away the evening in comfortable chairs, “holy joe” might assign any reason he chose for their presence, though there were those near me at the back of the room who grumbled now and then at the monotonous voice that disturbed their dreams.
no such protest, certainly, rose to the lips of the herculanean chilian with whom i had fallen in during the afternoon, for whatever his inner feelings, they were stifled by his deep-rooted respect for religious services. one by one, the beachcombers drifted out into the less strident night; but the south american clung to his place as he would have stuck to his look-out in a tempestuous sea. had “holy joe” been gifted with a commonplace sense of the fitness of things he might have held one hearer until the benediction. late in the evening, however, he broke off his absorbing dissertation on the oneness of the trinity to assign a hymn, and, stepping down among us, fell to distributing pledges of the “royal naval temperance society.”
“válgame dios!” breathed the chilian, as a pamphlet dropped into his lap. “he asks me to sign the pledge, me, who haven’t had the price of a thimbleful in two months! this is too much! vámonos, hombre!” and, stepping over the back of his chair, he stalked to the door.
in the darkness outside, a cringing creature accosted us. something in the whining italian in which he spoke led me to look more closely at him. it was the neapolitan half-caste; more ragged and woe-begone than ever, and smudged with the dust of the coal bunkers in which he had stowed away in kobe harbor.
i told his story to the chilian as we struck off together towards 484the park which i fancied must be our resting-place for the night. the south american, however, had not been three months “on the beach” without learning some of the secrets of yokohama. he marched self-confidently down the main thoroughfare, past the german and american consulates, turned a corner at the european post-office, and, brushing along a well-kept hedge, stopped in the deep shadow of a short driveway. before us was a high wooden gate flanked by two taller pillars, beyond which the thin moonlight disclosed the outlines of a large, two-story dwelling.
“look here, friend,” i interposed, “if you’re going to try burglary—”
“cállete la boca, hombre!” muttered the chilian. “the patrol will hear you. come on,” and, placing both hands on the top of the gate, he vaulted it as easily as if it had been only half its six feet in height. i followed, and the half-breed tumbled over after me, his heels beating a noisy tattoo on the barrier. once inside, however, the chilian seemed to lose all fear of the patrol and crunched along the graveled walk, talking freely.
“lucky thing for the beachcombers, this war,” he said; “if there were peace we’d be sleeping in the park. suppose the czar knew he was giving us posada?” he chuckled, marching around to the back of the building. there was no sign of life within. mounting to the back veranda, our guide snatched open one shutter of a low window. the half-breed was trembling piteously, though whether from hunger, fatigue, or fear, i could not know. one needed only to look hard at him to set his teeth rattling.
but i myself had no longing to be taken for a burglar.
“here! what’s the game?” i demanded, nudging the chilian.
“why, man,” he replied, “this is our hotel, the russian consulate,” and he stepped in through the open window.
my misgivings fled. japan and russia were at war; the consulate, therefore, must be unoccupied, and more than that, it was russian territory, on which the police of japan had no more authority than in moscow. i swung a leg over the window sill.
“ascolta!” gasped the half-caste, snatching at my jacket; “ci sono gente!”
i paused to listen. from somewhere close at hand came a muffled snort.
“come on,” laughed the chilian. “it’s one of the boys, snoring. several of them make posada here.”
485when we had climbed in and closed the shutter, he struck a match. the room was entirely unfurnished, but carpeted with grass mats so soft that a bed would have been superfluous. the chilian pulled open the door of a closet and brought forth a candle, pipe, blanket, and a paper novel in spanish.
“of course it’s only the servants’ quarters,” he apologized, spreading out the blanket and lighting candle and pipe; “the main part of the house is tight locked. but there’s plenty of room for such of the boys as i have passed the word to,—sober fellows that won’t burn the place up.”
he picked up the novel and was still reading when i fell asleep. sunlight streaming into my face and the sound of an unfamiliar voice awakened me in what seemed a short hour afterward. the window by which we had entered stood wide open, and a japanese in european garb was peering in upon us.
“what you make here?” he demanded, as i sprang to my feet. “come out quick or i call the police.”
the chilian stirred and thrust aside the jacket that covered his face.
“go on way!” he growled, in the first english i had heard from his lips. “go on way an’ leave us to sleep.”
“i call the police,” repeated the native.
“bloody thunder, police!” bawled my partner, sitting up. “go on way or i break your face.”
the jap left hastily.
“close the shutters,” continued the chilian, in his own tongue. “too early to get up yet. that fellow is from the french consul, who has charge of this place. he disturbs us every morning, but he can do nothing.”
two hours later the chilian stowed away his property. when the coast was clear, we climbed the gate and returned to the home.
life on the beach in yokohama might have grown monotonous in the days that followed but for the necessity of an incessant scramble for rice and fishes. out beyond the park were a score of native shops where a gargantuan feast of rice and stewed niku—meat of uncertain antecedents—sold for a song. there were times, of course, when we had not even a song between us; but in the chinese quarters nearer the harbor, queued shopkeepers offered an armful of oriental fruits and the thin strips of roasted pork popularly known as “rat-tails” for half a vocal effort. or, failing this, there were the vendors 486of soba, who appeared with their push-carts as dusk fell, demanding only two sen for a bowl of this japanese macaroni swimming in greasy water, and the use of a badly-worn pair of chopsticks. the chilian was versatile, i had been “busted” before; between us we rarely failed to find the means of patronizing at least the street vendors before retreating to russian territory.
never had i doubted, on the day of my stroll back from tokyo, that the end of august would find me again in “the states.” by the time i had learned to vault the consulate gate as noiselessly as the chilian, the pacific seemed a far greater barrier. for shipping was dull in yokohama; the shipping, that is, of white seamen. that day was rare in which at least one ship did not weigh anchor; but their crews were oriental. his book might be swollen with honorable discharges, his stubby fingers nimble at making knots and splices; but plain jack tar from the western world was left to knock his heels on the long stone jetty and hurl stentorian oaths at each departing craft.
a “windjammer,” requiring a new crew, would have solved many personal problems; and there were three such vessels, two full-rigged ships and a bark, riding at anchor far out beyond the breakwater. but as far back as the oldest beachcomber could remember, they had showed no signs of life, and their gaunt masts and bare yards had long since come to be as permanent fixtures in the landscape as the eternal hills beyond. moreover, rumor had it that the crafts were full-handed. now and then a pair of their apprentices dropped into the home of an evening; more than one of “the boys,” skirmishing for breakfast in the gray of dawn, had come upon the light of one of their crews on his beams’ ends in the gutter of the undignified district beyond the canal. but sober or besotted, not a man of them dreamed of clearing out; and “the boys” had long since given up all hope of being called to fill a vacancy.
i had, of course, lost no time in making known my existence at the american consulate. captains were not unknown in the legation; not many moons since, a man had actually been signed on in that very building! each interview with the genial consul was full of good cheer; yet, as a really satisfying portion, good cheer was infinitely inferior to a bowl of soba. between pursuing that elusive substance through the streets of yokohama and over her suburban hills, and wiping our feet on the mats of steamship offices of high and low degree, neither the chilian nor i found cause to complain of the inactivity of existence.
487in one thing the south american was eccentric. he would not beg. though, to tell the truth, there was small temptation to be overcome in that regard; for the jap is an ardent believer in the old adage anent the initial dwelling place of charity. twice we found work in the city, the first in the press room of one of japan’s english newspapers, the second on the wharf. but if the price of living was low, the wage scale was even more debased; and there were others to partake of our earnings, for in yokohama were at least a score of beachcombers with well-developed appetites, closely banded together in a profit-sharing company.
when work failed, the blanket in the cupboard netted one yen. that gone, there were a few odds and ends of wearing apparel in my bundle to be offered up. the chilian owned two pair of shoes; an extraordinary amplitude of wardrobe that smacked of foppishness. he felt more comfortable when the extra pair had been transferred from “holy joe’s” keeping to the sagging line above the pawnshop door. when the shoes had been eaten, intercourse with the broker lapsed. except for my kodak and our pipes not a thing remained but the clothes we stood in.
then came the legacy from “frisco kid.” the “kid” was one of the few americans among us. on the first evening that we were forced to retreat “sobaless” to the home, he drew me aside for a moment.
“you know,” he whispered, “the pliades is going out to-night? i’m going to have a try at sticking away on her, an’ the washee man has a few of my rags.”
he thrust into my hand a wooden laundry check.
“if i don’t turn up in the morning, the stuff’s yours. so long. i’ll give ’em your regards in the states.”
at nine next day he had not returned, and, having satisfied the laundryman with a few coppers borrowed from the missionary, we feasted royally on the contents of the bundle,—a khaki uniform and two shirts.
it was on saturday, nearly two weeks after my return from tokyo, that the first prospect of escape from japan presented itself,—a promise from the consul to speak in my behalf to the captain of a fast mail steamer to sail a few days later. therein lay the last hope of completing my journey in the fifteen months set, and i took care that the consul should suffer no lapse of memory.
early the following monday, the last day of july, i turned in at 488the consulate just as two men, absorbed in conversation, emerged. one was the vice-consul; the other, a man of some fifty years, stalwart of figure and of a meditative cast of countenance rendered more solemn by thick-rimmed spectacles, a quakerish felt hat, and long black locks. i set him down at once for a missionary, and, with a seaman’s instinctive aversion for the cloth, stepped aside to let him pass. the vice-consul, however, catching sight of me as he shook the stranger’s hand, beckoned to me to approach.
“by the way,” he said, addressing the stranger; “here is an american sailor who has been hanging around for a couple of weeks, and he has not been drunk once—”
obviously not; it takes money even to buy saki.
“can’t you take him on, captain?”
captain, indeed! of what? the mail steamer, perhaps. i stepped forward eagerly.
“umph!” said the stranger, looking me over. “on the beach, eh? why, yes, i am none too full-handed. but it’s too late to sign him on; my articles have been endorsed.
“still,” he went on, “he can come on board and i’ll set him down as a stowaway, and sign him on when once we’re clear of port.”
“good!” cried the vice-consul. “there you are! now don’t loaf and make us ashamed to ask a favor of the captain next time.”
“here’s a yen,” said the captain. “go get something to eat and wait for me on the jetty.”
i raced away to the home to invite the chilian to a farewell luncheon; then returned to the appointed rendezvous. the day was stormy, and a dozen downpours drenched me as many times during the seven hours that i waited. towards nightfall the captain drove up in a ’rickshaw and, without giving me the least sign of recognition, stepped into his launch. as he disappeared in the cabin below, i sprang to the deck of the craft.
ten minutes later i should have given something to have been able to spring back on the wharf. the launch raced at full speed out across the harbor, past the last steamer riding at anchor, and turned her prow towards the open sea. where in the name of father neptune was she bound? i wiped the water from my eyes and gazed in astonishment at the receding shore. the last tramp was already far astern. the higher waves of the outer bay caught the tiny craft as she slipped through the mouth of the breakwater and sent me waltzing about the slippery deck. had the long-haired lunatic in the cabin chosen a launch for a sea voyage or—? then all at once i understood, and gasped with dismay. far off through the driving rain appeared the towering masts of the sailing vessels, and that one towards which we were headed had her sails bent, ready for departure. that blessed vice-consul had sentenced me to work my way home on a windjammer!
the russian consulate of yokohama, in which we “beachcombers” slept
japanese types in a temple inclosure
489dusk was settling over the harbor when the launch bumped against the ship’s side. the rain had ceased. several seamen, sprawling about the forward deck, sprang to their feet as i poked my head over the bulwarks.
“hooray!” bellowed a stentorian voice, “a new shipmate, lads. turn out an’—”
the rest was lost in the resulting uproar. sailors in every stage of undress stumbled out of the forecastle; pimple-faced apprentices bobbed up from amidships; even “chips” and the sailmaker lost their dignity and hurried forward, and in the twinkling of an eye i was surrounded by all hands and the cook.
the “doctor” gave me leave to dry my uniform in the galley, and i retired to the forecastle to spin my yarn to the excited crew. a general laugh greeted the account of my meeting with the captain.
“a stowaway, is it!” cried one of the seamen. “there’d be more truth in sayin’ you was shanghaied. that’s a favorite game with the old man to cut down expenses an’ square ’imself with the owners. sign you on! of course ’e could if ’e’d wanted. no damn fear! an’ ’im five ’ands short. hell, if this was a civilized port not a clearance paper would ’e get until ’e’d signed on the crew the articles calls for. howsomever, ’ere you are, an’ it’s no use kickin’ after you’re ’ung. but it’s a ragged deal t’ ’ave t’ work your passage ’ome on a windjammer.”
“this tub?” he went on, in answer to my request for information. “aye, when i’ve lighted up, i’ll gi’ you ’er story in a pipeful. she’s the glenalvon, square-rigged ship an’ english built, as you can see wi’ your eyes shut, 1927 tons, solid enough, being all iron but ’er decks an’ the blocks; but that’s all’s can be said for ’er. this crowd shipped on ’er out o’ newcastle two year ago with coal for iquique, loaded saltpetre for yokohama, and she’s bound now for royal roads in ballast—to load wheat for ’ome, like ’nough. with a cargo she’s a good sailor, an’ ’as made the states in twenty-four days; but with only mud in ’er bottom an’ foul wi’ barnacles there’s no knowin’. maybe a month.”
490“countin’ yourself there’s thirty-three on board, one of ’em a woman an’ two of ’em goats. to begin with, there’s the skipper. ten t’ one you took ’im for a ‘christer.’ they all does ashore, but ’e’s a hell of a way from bein’ one afloat. he’s a bluenoser named andrews, an’ the biggest —— that ever come out o’ halifax. mind you don’t fall foul of ’im.”
“the mate’s a bluenoser, too, bit longer ’n a belayin’-pin, with no ’air under ’is cap, an’ no sailorman. oo ever seen a bald-’ead as was? ’e ain’t been caught ’igher aloft these two year ’n the spanker-boom.
“second mate’s a irish lad, just got ’is papers an’ a good seaman, but hazin’ the boys like all these youngish chaps. the doctor’s a swede, chips comes from the same island, an’ sails is a dutchman. then there’s seven men in the port watch an’ five in the second mate’s, ten apprentices amidships, only three of ’em big enough t’ be more ’n in the way, an’ ‘carrot-top,’ the cabin boy. the skipper’s wife—if she is—is a scrawny heifer you wouldn’t be seen walkin’ down the broomielaw with; a bluenoser, too, some says, but there’s no knowin’, for not a ’and ’as she spoke these two year. an’ there you ’ave the outfit, four less ’n when she shipped ’er mud-hook—after losin’ one off the horn, two clearin’ out in chilly, an’ plantin’ my mate in the english cementery up there on the bluff.”
by the time my clothes were dry the second mate came forward to assign me to the starboard watch, and i turned in with my new messmates. that we were not called until dawn was a sure sign that the day of sailing had not come. after breakfast four apprentices rowed the captain and his wife ashore, and we spent the day painting over the side.
once turned in again, it barely seemed possible that i had fallen asleep when there came a banging on the iron door of the forecastle and a blatant bellow of:—
“all hands! up anchor, ho!”
with only five minutes’ grace to jump into our clothes, we tumbled out precipitately. twenty-two men and boys, their heads still heavy with sleep, grasped the bars of the capstan on the forecastle-head just as five bells sounded, and for four hours we marched round and round the creaking apparatus. one man at a steam winch could have raised the anchor in ten minutes, but here everything was entirely dependent on man-power; the glenalvon had not so much as a donkey-engine.
491dawn found us still treading the never-changing circle in time to a mournful dirge sustained by long-winded members of the crew. the sun rose and the sweat ran in streams along the bars. hunger gnawed us inwardly. the skipper turned out for his morning constitutional, a steamer slipped by us, at every revolution i caught myself gazing regretfully across the bay at the flag-pole of the russian consulate.
then all at once the second mate, peering over the side, raised a hand.
“belay all!” bellowed the skipper, from the poop. “lay aloft, all hands! shake ’em out! man the wheel!”
the crew sprang into the rigging. we loosened a dozen sails and, leaving a man on each mast to clear the downhauls, slid down on deck again and sheeted home the topgallants and the lower topsails. then came a more arduous task,—to hoist the upper topsail yards. every human being on board except the captain and his wife tailed out on the rope; even then we were not enough. the massive iron yard rose, but only inch by inch, and every heave seemed to pull our arms half out of their sockets.
seamen, like arabs, work best in unison under the inspiration of music. “sails,” the glenalvon’s acknowledged leader in vocal productions, burst out in a rasping shriek:—
“as i was walkin’ down ratcliffe highway.”
all hands caught up the chorus in a roar that the distant cliffs threw back at us:—
“blow! boys! blow the man down!” heaving together at each repetition of the word “blow.”
“sails” continued:—
“a pretty young maid i chanced for to meet.”
“oh! give us some time to blow the man down!”
“says she, ‘young man, will you stand treat?’”
“blow! boys! blow the man down!”
“‘delighted,’ says i, ‘for a charmer so sweet.’”
“oh! give us some time to blow the man down!”
the yard rose a bit faster but by no means rapidly. the skipper paced the poop, cursing us all for blunderers.
“steward!” he roared, “bring a bottle of grog!”
the “doctor” let go the rope as if it had suddenly turned red-hot, and ran for the lazaret. a smile of anticipation flitted along the 492line of perspiring faces. a promise of double wages for all hands would have been less effective. the resulting heave took me so by surprise that i was carried off my feet.
the cook appeared on the quarter-deck, and the skipper snatched the bottle he carried and examined it attentively. we were too far away to hear their conversation; but the yard was moving skyward by leaps and bounds. then suddenly the lord and master of us all turned and pitched the bottle into the sea.
“my gawd!” ran a horrified whisper along the rope. “e’s threw it overboard. ’e thinks we’re sodgerin’.”
but for the tenacity of a few of us the yard must have come down by the run.
inspiration came again, however, for the cook ran off and returned with a second flagon. the first, it turned out, had a tiny hole in the bottom and was empty.
the topsail was quickly sheeted home and i lined up with the rest before the galley-door to drink my “three fingers” of extremely poor whiskey. then, breaking up into smaller groups, we hoisted the “fore-and-afters,” and, when we turned in for breakfast an hour late, weak and ugly from hunger, the glenalvon was carrying every stitch of canvas but the three royals and her cross-jack.
“at least,” i told myself, rubbing my aching arms between mouthfuls of watery “scouse,” “we’re off, and the worst is over.”
which proved only how little i knew of the vagaries of “windjammers.”
tokyo bay, shaped like a whiskey bottle with the neck turned westward, is so nearly land-locked that few masters of sailing vessels attempt to beat their way out of it. when we had begun to heave anchor a fair wind promised to carry the glenalvon straight out to sea. by dawn, however, it had shifted and before grog had been served it blew from exactly the opposite point of the compass. nothing was left but to tack back and forth against it. a bellow summoned us on deck before breakfast was half over, to go about ship. a few more mouthfuls and a short pipe and we wore ship again. but it was no use. the head wind increased, the bay was narrow; on the third tack the skipper ventured too close ashore, lost his head, and roared out an order:—
“let go the anchor!”
the “mud-hook” dropped with a mighty roar and rattle of cable; the fore-and-aft sails came down with a run; ropes screamed through 493the blocks; the topsail yards fell with a crash; the topgallants bellied out and snapped in the breeze with the boom of cannon; the blocks at the corners of fore and main sails threshed about our heads; ropes and steel cables of every size squirmed about the decks, snatching us off our feet and slashing us in the faces; pulleys, belaying-pins, apprentices, and goats sprawled in every direction. it seemed, as a seaman put it, that “all hell had been let loose”; and in three minutes the work of five arduous hours had been utterly undone.
when the uproar had abated we took up the task of reducing the chaos to order; furled the sails, squared the yards, coiled up the thousand and one ropes that carpeted the deck, manned the pump and washed down. to an unbiased observer this would have seemed work enough for one day, but after a bare half-hour for dinner we were routed out once more and sent over the side with our paint-pots.
exactly this same experience—without the grog—befell us the next day, and the next, and the next. it came to be our regular existence, this being called soon after midnight to man the capstan, and to work incessantly until twilight fell. day after day the wind blew steadily in at the mouth of the bottle, barely veering a point; and, what was most regrettable, it was just the breeze to send us flying homeward, once we were out of the bay. my shipmates were less downcast than i, for it mattered little to them whether they earned their wages in tokyo bay or on the open sea. but even they began in time to grumble at the long hours and to curse the captain for his parsimony in refusing to charter a tug.
a week went by. the bark that had long ridden at anchor near the glenalvon towed out to sea and sailed away. the mail steamer glided by so close that the chilian hailed me from her forecastle-head. a dozen craft went in and out, and still the peerless cone of fujiyama gazed down upon us. had there been any chance of the request being granted, i should long since have craved to be set ashore.
there were ominous whispers in the forecastle that it was dangerous to be forever tacking back and forth in tokyo bay. nor was such gossip idle. one morning, after the usual fiasco, we dropped anchor not far from the northern shore. immediately a small japanese war-vessel steamed out and hailed us; but her officers spoke no english, and our captain, consigning them all to purgatory, turned down into his cabin. he was up again in short order and what he saw caused his jaw to sag and his rugged countenance to take on a 494sickly green pallor. just beneath our bow, a half-ship’s length ahead, the japs had anchored a small buoy bearing the red flag that indicates the presence of a submarine mine.
the “old man” did not wait for a repetition of the offer of the japanese to tow him to a safer anchorage. the crew manned the capstan with unusual alacrity and a cable was quickly made fast to the stern bollards. at the very moment, however, when we were beginning to congratulate ourselves on a narrow escape, the cable parted. urged on by half a gale, the glenalvon commenced to drift rapidly and unerringly towards the red flag. for one brief moment pandemonium reigned. “carrot-top” and half the apprentices were for jumping overboard; but the foremast hands behaved like men, and a second cable was made fast just in time.
for all this experience captain andrews persisted in his attempt to beat out of the bay. the harbor of yokohama came to be a sight odious to all on board, the crew was worn out in body and spirit, i began to despair of ever again taking up the well-fed existence of a landsman, and all because our niggardly skipper had set his heart on saving a paltry sixty pounds. but he was forced to yield at last, and all hands rejoiced that his miserliness had recoiled on his own head. on the morning of august eleventh we turned out to heave anchor for the tenth time. the skipper had been rowed ashore the afternoon before and a tug was waiting to take us in tow. late in the day she dropped us outside the narrows and when night fell the glenalvon, under all sail, was tossing on the open sea.
officially my presence on board was still unknown. next morning, as the starboard watch was about to turn in, i received an order to lay aft. the skipper was sitting at the cabin table with the open log before him.
“here’s the entry i’ve just made,” he said, as i stepped in. “this morning, soon after losing sight of land, a stowaway was discovered on board, who gives the name of h. franck, nationality, american, and profession, seaman. he has been turned to with the crew and entered on the articles with the rating of a.b., at one pound a month”—my shipmates drew three—“under the maritime regulations covering such cases.”
i touched the pen with which the captain had inscribed my name on the articles, muttered a “thank you,” and returned to the forecastle.
yokohama street decorated for the taft party. the display is entirely private and shows the general good will of the japanese toward the united states
my signing on was by no means the last episode to break the monotony of the voyage. in fact, unexpected episodes came with such 495frequency during the trip that even they in time grew monotonous. first of all, the breeze that had held us bottled up for twelve days shifted to a head wind that soon increased to a gale. for more than a week it blew steadily from the same quarter, varying only in violence. rain poured almost incessantly. lashed by the storm, the sea rose mountains high, and the ship, being in ballast, reared like a cowboy’s broncho, or lay on her beams’ ends like a mortally wounded creature. there was no standing on the deck. the best pair of sealegs was as useless as the wabbly shanks of a landlubber. we moved about like chamois on a mountain peak, springing from bollard to bulwarks and from bulwarks to hatch combing, or dragging ourselves hand over hand along the braces to windward. a steady gale would have made life less burdensome, for so erratic was the weather that every square of canvas from the mizzen-royal to the flying-jib must be furled, reefed, and shaken out again a dozen times a day. the bellow to lay aloft was forever ringing in our ears; we lived in the rigging, like apes in their tree tops. if the trimming of sails languished for a moment, there was a standing order to go about ship as often as men enough for the man?uvre reached the deck.
it was a submarine task, this wearing ship. the lee braces rarely appeared above the water line, and, once tailed out on them, every man clung to his rope like grim death, for it was literally his only hold on life; to let go meant a short shift to davy jones’ locker. with every roll the sea swept high above our heads and left us floundering in the scuppers like fish strung on a line. there were no rousing “chanties” to cheer us on, for not even the sailmaker could air his vocal accomplishments to advantage under water. but even without such inspiration no man thought of loafing at the lee braces; and more than once we took “a long pull and a strong pull” before the ship righted and brought us sputtering and choking to the surface. out on the jib-boom the duckings were of even longer duration, for there one went down, down, down into the cool, green depths of the sea until the world above seemed lost to memory.
there were chronic pessimists on board the glenalvon, there were several who posed as infallible prophets in maritime matters; but it is certain that not one of the ship’s company had anticipated any such trip as this. word drifted forward that the “old man” swore never before to have known such weather on the north pacific. all hands took solemn oath that rounding the horn had been a house-boat excursion in comparison. in the forecastle the conviction grew that 496there was a “jonah” on board. the identity of the culprit came to be the question of the hour. gradually the crew broke up into three contending factions. one group accused me, as a newcomer, of being the hoodoo, another regarded the bald-headed mate as the source of evil, while the suspicions of the third fell on the one-eyed goat. the varying notions gave rise to many a heated debate, to mutual vituperation, and occasional blows; but the real cause of our misery was never clearly established.
the head wind, the pouring rain, and the intermittent gales continued, not only for days but for weeks. the weather turned bitter cold. unable to hold to her course, the glenalvon ran “by the wind” far to the north. one night on the second week out the one-eyed goat froze to death. with only my khaki uniform i should have suffered a similar fate but for the kindness of a shipmate, who, having purchased at auction the clothing of the man lost off the horn, and being deterred by a seaman’s superstition from wearing a “dead man’s gear” on the same voyage, put the garments at my disposal. in the thickest raiment we shivered at noonday; no man’s chest contained sufficient wardrobe to keep him warm during the long night watches.
a mere enumeration of the hardships and misfortunes that befell the glenalvon during that voyage would draw out this yarn to unprecedented length. we slept in wooden bins with a sack of chaff at the bottom, and lashed ourselves fast to keep from being thrown out on the deck. the condition of the beds mattered little, though, for we rarely found opportunity to occupy them. the skipper worked his crew like galley-slaves because it was his nature to do so; the bald-headed mate kept the starboard watch on deck two-thirds of the time because he had a grudge against the second mate that included even the men under him.
every garment forward of the mainmast was dripping wet or frozen from one week’s end to the other. the rigging was coated with ice from bulwarks to masthead. the sails were frozen as stiff as sheet iron and reduced our fingers to mere bleeding stumps. the food in the lazaret fell so low that we were reduced to half rations; which was as well, perhaps, for the stuff had been on board for more than two years and there was not an ounce of it that could not be smelled from the royal yard, as it passed from galley to forecastle. the “salt horse” was worm-eaten, the pork putrid; the man who split open a sea biscuit and found therein less than a dozen weevils 497carried it around to his mates as a curiosity. the biscuits in one cask, broached towards the end of the voyage, were stamped with the date 1878.
the effect of this delectable diet was an epidemic of boils. as many as five men were laid up at a time from this cause, even though the skipper refused to enter on the sick-list any one with less than a dozen. an old welchman in the port watch displayed forty-two at one time. having joined the ship more recently, i escaped the attack, but with that single exception not a sailor nor an apprentice was spared, and even the second mate appeared one morning with a shame-faced air and a bandage peeping out from the sleeve of his ulster.
accidents were as common as boils. but for the fact that a seaman prides himself on indifference to minor injuries, there would have been nothing left but to heave to and turn the craft into a floating hospital. the stoutest apprentice was struck on the head by a flying block and rendered senseless for days. a burly swede, the best seaman on board, clung too zealously to a tack sheet, which, yanking his hands through a hawser hole, broke his right arm. looking forward to an easy passage, the captain had rigged out the ship in her oldest suit of sails. one by one the gale reduced them to ribbons. the bursting of canvas sounded above the roar of every storm. as each sail went, new ones of double-weight canvas were dragged from the locker and hoisted aloft. it was ticklish work to bend a sail on the icy yards, with the foot-rope slippery and every line frozen stiff, while the ship swung back and forth far below like a cork on the end of a stick. every sail of the “soft-weather suit” carried away before that unchanging head wind and even the new canvas could not always withstand its violence. between yokohama and royal roads the glenalvon lost no fewer than twenty-seven sails.
the most dismal day of the voyage was the second of september. about seven bells of the morning watch, the mate, fearing a blow, let go about half the canvas. all of it except the fore-royal had been furled when i returned the “scow-pans” to the galley. it was then about three minutes to eight bells, and under ordinary circumstances the flying royal would have been left for the next watch. there were, however, in the port watch, two apprentices, nearly out of their time, who had won the enmity of the first mate.
“what the devil are you hanging back for?” he shouted, advancing upon them. “lay aloft and furl that royal!”
the apprentices mounted, muttering to themselves. eight bells 498sounded before they were halfway up the mast. squirming out on the yard, one hundred and sixty feet above the deck, they took in the slack of the sheet. but their anger, evidently, had not abated, for one, grasping a gasket, wound it once round the sail, and yanked savagely at it. the rope carried away. with flying arms the apprentice fell head foremost, struck on a back-stay, bounded against the foresail, and crashed on the deck a few feet from the forecastle door. his brains washed away in the scuppers.
one by one the crew slunk into the forecastle, shuddering or grumbling. soon, however, there came a summons for all hands to lay aft. we hastened to execute the order. the captain, no doubt, wished to express his sorrow at the misfortune. he stood at the break of the poop, puffing fiercely at a huge, black cigar; and not a word did he utter until every man had assembled.
then, stepping to the rail, he raised a clenched fist and bellowed:—“why the bloody hell don’t you damn fools be careful! don’t you know we’re short-handed already? lay aloft, a couple of hands, to furl that royal—and clean up that mess forward.”
on the eighth of september we crossed the meridian less than half a degree south of the aleutian islands. during the week ending that noon we had been routed out from every watch below, we had pulled and hauled and reefed and furled times without number, and we had covered just sixty miles!
but on that day the jonah weakened, for the wind turned northerly, and, though the gale continued, the glenalvon caught the breeze on her beam and raced homeward like a steamer. the invalids began to pick up, though the garbage doled out to us was as nauseating as ever. then came an unlooked-for catastrophe to depress our rising spirits. the tobacco gave out! those fortunate beings who had a plug laid away would not have sold it for its weight in gold. they chewed each quid for half a day and stuck it up on the bulkhead above their bunks, smoking it when it had dried. the swede gave a suit of clothes, a sou’wester, and a half-worn pair of shoes for two cubic inches of the weed. another offered a month’s wages for a like amount and was deterred from carrying out the transaction only because the skipper refused to note it in the articles. the tobaccoless smoked the ground beans that passed for coffee—or tea, according to the hour; and, when the “doctor” refused longer to supply the stuff, they smoked rope-yarns and scraps of leather picked up in the rubbish under the forecastle-head.
499it must not be supposed that our labors were confined to the mere task of sailing the vessel. far from it. the “old man” begrudged every sailor his watch below; he would have died of apoplexy had he caught one of us loafing during his watch on deck. he was a firm believer in the rust-eaten adage, “six days shalt thou labor and do all that thou art able; and, on the seventh,—holystone the deck and scrape the cable.” we did both these things and a great many more. it mattered not in the least whether the watch had been robbed of its “time below” for several consecutive days, there must be no idling during “ship’s time.” on this passage of the pacific there was not a day that the glenalvon carried the same canvas steadily for four hours; yet we found time during the trip to paint the entire hold from keel to deck, to overhaul every yard of rigging, to chip and rub off with sand and canvas all paint above decks and daub on a new coat, to scour and oil every link of the cable, to overhaul the capstan, and to braid rope-yarns enough to have supplied the british merchant marine for a twelvemonth to come. when all else failed we were sent down in the hold to sop up the saltpetre saturated bilge-water,—and lost most of the skin on our hands in consequence.
there was no getting the upper hand of captain andrews. one memorable day when the wind held good for a few hours and even the second mate was gazing helplessly at several unoccupied seamen, the “old man” gathered the watch together and dragged out of the hold the “automobarnacles.” it was a contrivance not unlike a wagon-box fitted with great stiff brushes, designed to do the work ordinarily accomplished in dry dock. with a rope attached to each end the thing was thrown over the side and dragged back and forth under the hull, each circuit leaving the crew blue in the face and often tearing asunder two barnacles as huge as snail shells.
on the nineteenth day of september the rumor drifted forward that we were nearing port. there was no confirming it. the dignity of the quarter-deck requires that the skipper shall permit information of this sort to leak out only in such a way that it cannot be traced to him. the pessimists in the forecastle swore that the voyage was not half over, the conservatives vowed that we were still several days’ run from the coast; but for all that, an unwonted excitement prevailed on board.
in the middle of the afternoon watch all disputes were settled by an order to get the anchor over the side. it needed no cursing to arouse every man to his best efforts. the watch below forgot their 500sleepiness and turned out to scramble into the rigging, laughing childishly. in record time the anchor swung from the cathead and we waited impatiently for signs of land.
but the fog horn had been croaking at regular intervals for days. the best pair of eyes could not have made out a mountain a ship’s length away. moreover, the skipper was none too sure of his whereabouts; his reckonings, like those of many a “windjammer’s” captain, were fully as much dependent on guesswork as mathematics. at four bells, therefore, we wore ship and ran due north. at midnight we went about again, and for two days we beat up and down the coast, while the crew nibbled worm-eaten biscuits in helpless rage.
on the twenty-first the gale died down to a moderate breeze and we hove to as near the entrance to puget sound as the skipper’s reckoning permitted. in the early afternoon the fog thinned and lifted, and a mighty cheer from the watch on duty brought every other man tumbling out of his bunk. a few miles off to starboard a rocky promontory rose slowly, throwing off the gray mist like a giant freeing himself of a cumbersome garment. a tug hovering under the lee shore spied the flapping canvas of the glenalvon and darted out to meet us.
as the tow-line slipped over the bollards, the first bit of news from the outer world passed between our skipper and the tug captain.
“is the —— in yet?” bellowed the former, naming the bark that had passed us in tokyo bay.
“aye,” came back the answer, “three weeks ago—”
a sizzling oath mounted to the lips of the “old man.”
“you’re down for lost, captain,” continued the newcomer. “she reported you aground on saratoga spit.”
“aground hell!” roared our beloved commander, “though we’ve struck everything but ground, and no bloody mistake.”
all night long the tug strained at the hawser, while the second mate, dreading the loss of his reputation as a “hazer,” called upon us to trim the bare yards each time the light breeze shifted a point. in the afternoon we dropped anchor in a quiet cove close off a wooded shore decorated by several wigwams, and the “old man,” being rowed ashore, returned at dusk with a side of fresh beef and a box of plug tobacco.
the next morning i turned to with the crew as usual and toiled from daylight to dark. no hint of relief having reached me by the next afternoon, i marched aft and asked for my release.
501“what’s your hurry?” demanded the skipper. “i’ll sign you on at full wages and you can make the trip home in her.”
“thank you kindly, sir,” i answered, “but i’m home now, once i get ashore.”
“aye!” snorted the captain, “and in three days you’ll be on the beach and howling to sign on again. i can’t sign you off here, anyway, without paying port dues. turn to with the crew until she’s dumped her ballast and tied up in tacoma, and i’ll give you your board-of-trade discharge.”
i protested against such a delay as forcibly as the circumstances permitted.
“huh! that’s it!” growled the master. “every man jack of you with the price of a drink coming to him puts his helm hard down if a shift of work turns up. well, to-morrow’s sunday. i’ll get some money of the agents when i go ashore and pay you off on monday morning. but i’ll have to set you down on the log as a deserter.”
“very good, sir,” i answered.
fifty-seven days after boarding the glenalvon i bade farewell to her crew. dressed in khaki uniform and an ancient pair of sea boots that had cost me four messes of plum duff, i landed with the captain at a rocky point on the further side of the cove. he marched before me until we had reached the door of an isolated saloon, then turned and dropped into my hand seven and a half dollars.
“i’ve brought you here,” he said, “to save you from losing your wages to those sharks down there in squiremouth. you must be back on board by to-morrow night.”
“eh!” i gasped.
“oh, i have to tell you that,” snapped the skipper, “or i can’t set you down as a deserter,” and, pushing aside the swinging doors before him, he disappeared.
i plodded on towards the city of victoria. the joy of being on land once more, above all of being my own master, was so acute that it was with difficulty that i refrained from cutting a caper in the public highway. for once i realized the full strength of that instinct which drives the seaman on the day he is paid off from a long voyage to plunge headlong into the wildest excesses of dissipation.
in reality i was still in a foreign land; yet how every detail about me suggested the fatherland from which i had so long been absent. the wooden sidewalk drumming under my boots; the cozy houses, roofed with shingles instead of tiles, and each standing with 502retiring modesty in its own green lawn; the tinkle of cow-bells in neighboring pastures—a hundred unimportances, that passed unheeded when i dwelt among them, stood forth to call up reminiscences of my pre-wandering existence. in victoria every passer-by seemed a long-lost friend, so familiar did each look in feature, garb, and actions. all that day, as often as i heard a voice behind me, i whirled about and stared at the speaker, utterly astonished that he should be speaking english.
i caught the night boat for seattle and landed at midnight in my native land after an absence of four hundred and sixty-six days. for two days following i did little but sleep, then set out one evening to “beat my way” eastward, landing in spokane the second night thereafter. my wages as a seaman being nearly exhausted, i put up at the “ondawa workingman’s inn,” purchased a job at an employment agency, and spent a week “bucking the concrete board” for j. kennedy, a bustling irish contractor to whom spokane is indebted for most of her sidewalks. at the end of that time i turned over another dollar to the employment agency and shipped as a railway laborer to paola, montana. the train halted at midnight at the station named, an isolated shanty in a wild mountain gorge; but, having no desire to tramp ten miles across the parched foothills to the camp of the contractor, i went on, like several of the “agency gang,” by the same train—this time crouched on the steps of a pullman car. my companions dropped off one by one as the night air set their teeth chattering, but i clung to my place until daylight came and the conductor, raising the vestibule floor above my head, invited me to “hit the grit.”
a four-mile walk brought me to havre. from one of its restaurants i had barely emerged when a ranchman accosted me. when night fell i was speeding eastward in charge of seven car-loads of cattle. six days later i turned the animals over to the tender mercies of a packing-house in chicago, and, on the morning of october fourteenth, entered the portals of my paternal home.
