Chapter Five.
A conditional surrender.
I had just definitely arrived at the above conclusion when the boatswain joined me.
“I see Mr Wilde have been havin’ another yarn with ye, Mr Troubridge,” he remarked, as he seated himself at my side.
“Yes,” I answered shortly.
“And is there any chance of his bein’ able to persuade ye to give us the help we wants?” he enquired in conciliatory tones.
“There might be, perhaps, if all hands of you were willing to agree to my terms,” I answered, stubbornly determined to drive the best bargain possible.
“Ah!” he exclaimed with an air of satisfaction; “that sounds better; yes, a good deal better, it do. You say what them terms of yours be, Mr Troubridge, and I dare say I could very soon give ye a hidea whether we’d be willin’ to agree to ’em. You won’t find us noways unreasonable, sir, I promise ye, because we wants your help badly, and there’s no use in pretendin’ that we don’t. You’ve proved yourself to be a hefficient navigator, and me and Chips has quite made up our minds that we might go farther and fare a precious sight worse in the way of findin’ somebody to take your place. Besides, we don’t want no murder if we can anyways help it, and I know that all hands in the fo’c’s’le’d be willin’ to agree to a’most anything in reason to dodge that sort of thing.”
“Do you really mean that, Polson?” I demanded. “Because, if so, it is a very great pity that you did not frankly say so when this matter was first broached. Besides, although you sailors may be inclined to listen to reason, you must remember that you cannot answer for Wilde and the rest of the emigrants—”
“Oh, but I think we can, Mr Troubridge!” interrupted the boatswain. “Ye see, sir, it’s this way,” he continued. “We sailormen are the masters of the sittyation, as the sayin’ is. Wilde and his lot can’t do nothin’ without our help; they can’t navigate the ship, and they can’t handle her; there ain’t one of ’em knows enough to be able so much as clew up a r’yal, or take in the flyin’ jib; so if they wants to carry out their plan, they’ll have to agree to the same as what we does, d’ye see? And we’re willin’ to agree to anything reasonable as you may want to propose.”
This sudden complaisance on the part of the boatswain put a very different complexion upon the whole affair, and was infinitely better than I had dared to hope. With the entire crew at my back I ought to have no difficulty in keeping Wilde and his lot in their proper places; and—well, the sea has many surprises for those who follow it, and who could know what might happen? But it was no part of my policy to betray to this man the extreme satisfaction which his words had given me, and thus, perhaps, subtly suggest to him the idea that he had displayed more flexibility than was actually necessary to secure my co-operation. I therefore said:
“Well, whichever way the affair goes, I am at least glad to hear you say that the ship’s crew are willing to agree to any reasonable proposition that I may make; but that still remains to be seen. You and I may differ in our ideas as to what is reasonable, you know.”
“Ay, of course we may; but I don’t think it’s at all likely as we shall, sir,” answered the boatswain. “You state your conditions, Mr Troubridge, and I’ll soon tell ye whether they seems reasonable or not.”
“Very well,” said I, “I will. If I understand the ins and outs of this affair, Wilde has persuaded all hands aboard this ship, seamen and emigrants alike, to seek out some suitable island, whereon you can try the experiment of living the ideal life of the Socialist. You are, one and all, absolutely determined to give this fantastic experiment a trial; and you desire me to help you to the extent of finding the island for you. Is that it?”
“That’s it, sir; yes, that’s it; you’ve got it hit off to a happigraphy,” agreed the boatswain.
“Then listen to the conditions upon which I am willing to do what you require of me,” said I. “The sort of island that you people desire is only to be found—if found at all—in an ocean that is at present comparatively unknown, and is full of dangers in the shape of rocks, shoals, and islands, the position of which is doubtful, as shown by the charts, while there are doubtless many others that have never yet been sighted, and which a ship, bound upon such an errand as ours, is liable to blunder up against at any hour of the day or night. To navigate successfully a ship among such dangers as these it is imperative that there should be one person—and one only—as the supreme head, to whom all the rest shall render the most implicit, unquestioning obedience; and I demand to be that one, with you and the carpenter as first and second mates. I must command the ship, and nobody must presume to interfere with or dictate to me in any way. Secondly, the crew must undertake to observe and maintain strict discipline, both among themselves and also among the emigrants if need be. And, thirdly, I decline—nay, I absolutely refuse—to acknowledge Wilde’s authority. He may be your king, or president, or whatever he chooses to call himself, as soon as your island is found and all hands are ashore; but until then—so far, at least, as I am concerned—he is only a passenger. Now, those are the terms upon which I am willing to undertake the service you require of me; and you may take them or leave them, just as you please.”
“They seems reasonable enough, I won’t deny it,” admitted Polson, “and I dare say as everybody’ll be willin’ enough to agree to ’em, all except Wilde, I mean. I know he won’t like the hidea of not bein’ allowed to hinterfere until we arrives at the hiland. Can’t ye make that there part a trifle easier, Mr Troubridge?”
“No,” said I resolutely, “on no account whatever; on the contrary, that is the proviso upon which I shall insist most strongly. Wilde may be an excellent schoolmaster, for aught I know to the contrary, but he is neither a seaman nor a navigator; and I will never consent to his being allowed to interfere, either directly or indirectly, with matters of which he possesses no knowledge. You cannot have two captains to one ship, you know. If he is to be captain you will have no need of me; but if I am to be captain I will not allow anyone—and least of all a landsman—to interfere with me.”
“Ay, ay, Mr Troubridge, yes, I can see now as you are quite right,” agreed the boatswain. “It wouldn’t never do to have him hinterferin’ and givin’ horders about things he don’t understand. If he was allowed to do it there’s others as would soon want to do the same, and then we should soon all be in a pretty mess. D’ye mind writin’ them conditions of yours down upon a sheet of paper, so as I can read ’em out to all hands, sir? And if they agree to ’em I’ll get ’em to sign the paper and then I’ll hand it back to you.”
“Very well,” said I; “that arrangement will do excellently. And, see here, Polson, if all you seamen are willing to sign, I don’t care a brass button whether the emigrants do or not. If you men for’ard are all agreed that those conditions of mine are just and reasonable, we need not trouble ourselves as to what the emigrants think of them, because, you know, they can’t take the ship from us, however dissatisfied they may be.”
“No, no, in course they can’t, Mr Troubridge,” agreed the boatswain, grinning appreciatively, as though the helplessness of the emigrants was a fact that had not hitherto occurred to him.
We had now thrashed the matter out, and I had succeeded in bringing Polson into a far more pliant frame of mind than I had ever dared to hope for. I therefore determined to clinch the matter at once, by putting my demands into black-and-white, and securing the signatures of the crew to them before the boatswain, who was evidently a man of influence among them, should find time to alter his view of the affair. I consequently sprang to my feet and, bidding my companion await my return, descended to my own cabin, and, carefully wording the document, drew up a form of agreement between myself on the one part and the crew and passengers of the Mercury on the other. Then, returning with it to the poop, I placed the paper in Polson’s hand, after reading it over to him, and requested him to obtain first the signatures of the crew to it, beginning with himself and the carpenter, and then those of the emigrants; afterwards returning the document to me. It cost him nearly three hours strenuous work to secure the signatures of the entire crew and the emigrants to the agreement; for in the first place he found the occupants of the forecastle, one and all, very unwilling—as is the case with most illiterate people—to pledge themselves by attaching their signatures or marks to my memorandum, although it was read over and explained to them at least half a dozen times, so that they thoroughly understood the nature of it, and verbally expressed themselves as fully approving of each of the conditions.
At length, however, by dint of much persuasion the boatswain secured the signature or mark of every occupant of the forecastle, after which he entered the ’tween-decks and, summoning the whole of the emigrants to meet him, fully explained the situation to them, read over the agreement, and then, laying the document upon the table, demanded their signatures to it. But here, again, he encountered a quite unexpected amount of opposition, Wilde stepping forward and not only refusing to attach his own signature to the paper, but also forbidding any of the other emigrants to do so. Polson argued, pleaded, and cajoled, but all in vain. Nothing that he could say appeared to have the slightest effect upon his audience, although several declared their perfect readiness to sign if their leader would but accord his permission. It was not until at length, with his patience completely exhausted, he suddenly determined upon the adoption of what, to him, seemed a thoroughly desperate expedient, that he
achieved even a partial success. Dashing the paper down with vehemence upon the table, he exclaimed wrathfully:
“Now, listen to me, the lot of ye. Chips and me and all hands in the fo’c’s’le has signed this here doccyment because, havin’ thought it all over, we’re agreed that Mr Troubridge is quite right in demandin’ what he do. Mr Wilde there objects to it because he ain’t allowed to interfere with and dictate to Mr Troubridge, and none of you won’t sign because Mr Wilde won’t let ye. Now, I’ll give ye all ten minutes longer to make up your minds, and if you haven’t signed by that time we sailormen won’t have no more truck with ye, but’ll go to Mr Troubridge and tell ’im he can take the ship to Sydney, where she’s bound to.”
This announcement, coming quite unexpectedly, fell like a bombshell among Polson’s audience, who had dwelt upon the idea of life in an island where perpetual summer reigns, and where Nature offers many of her choicest gifts almost unsolicited, until it had taken such complete possession of them that it had come to represent to them the one desirable thing in the whole world, to lose which would be to lose everything. In a perfect passion of consternation they turned upon Wilde and not only claimed their right to sign, but also insisted that he should conform to Polson’s demand and be the first among them to affix his signature. Subjected to such pressure as this there was of course but one thing for him to do; and he did it; but the next moment he dashed up on deck, sprang up the poop ladder, and, approaching me, shook his clenched fist in my face as he exclaimed, almost foaming at the mouth:
“You young scoundrel! I have signed that precious document of yours because that fool Polson left me no option. But wait until we arrive at the island and my power begins, and then I’ll make you—”
“Hold your tongue, sir, and go down off this poop!” I exclaimed, springing to my feet in a rage, for the fellow at the helm was grinning broadly at the scene. “And if you dare to come up here again without being sent for I’ll kick you down on to the main deck, and then have you put in irons. Ay, and I’ll do so now if you dare to answer me. Be off with you now, quick!”
I never in all my life saw a man so completely taken aback as was this crazy schoolmaster when I tackled him. Amazement, incredulity, wounded vanity, indignation, and bodily fear seemed all to be struggling together to assert themselves in his countenance and to find articulate expression upon his tongue; but fear was the strongest of them all—the fear that he might be actually subjected to the unspeakable indignity of personal violence. And when, as I uttered the final words, I advanced a step toward him, as though about to carry out my threat, he suddenly turned tail and slunk off like a whipped cur.
Some time later, when Polson, having at length accomplished his mission, brought me the signed agreement—which of course I knew was, as a binding document, not worth the paper upon which it was written, although I still hoped that it might be to some extent effective—I related to him the little incident that had occurred between Wilde and myself; at which he expressed some concern, although he fully agreed with me that the schoolmaster—at all events while aboard ship and at sea—must be held as amenable to discipline as anyone else, and that it would never do to give him the least bit more liberty than we were prepared to accord to every one of the other emigrants. Having secured which admission from the boatswain, I sent there and then for the steward and ordered him at once to bundle Wilde’s belongings out of the cabin back to the ’tween-decks.
During the second dogwatch, that same evening, Wilde sought out the boatswain and carpenter, and complained to them of what he termed my tyrannical conduct, which, he represented to his two listeners, was of so grossly humiliating a character that it was calculated very seriously to detract from his influence with his followers. So serious a grievance did he make of it that at length Polson and Tudsbery approached me with something in the nature of a remonstrance, accompanied by a mildly offered suggestion that I should concede something to enable Wilde to preserve his dignity. Probably I should have been wiser to have accepted and acted upon this suggestion; but I had got the idea into my head that the matter had resolved itself into a struggle for supremacy between Wilde and myself, and I obstinately refused to yield a hairbreadth, thereby exciting the permanent hostility not only of Wilde himself, but also—as I afterward found—of several of his followers. The boatswain and carpenter were at first disposed to regard me as unnecessarily firm, but this feeling soon yielded to one of quiet gratification that they had, as leader, one who, young as he was, would not submit to dictation from anybody. And I feel convinced that whatever I may have lost in popularity I more than regained in the shape of power and authority, thereby averting—as I soon had reason to believe—many a serious dispute and quarrel between the widely conflicting elements that were confined so closely together in the ship.
The terms upon which I was to command the Mercury having at length been arranged upon as satisfactory a basis as I could reasonably expect, I now found time to give consideration to my plans for the future. As my hope that the wild scheme of the conspirators might be frustrated, and the ship and her cargo restored to their lawful owners, rested almost entirely upon the possibility that we might fall in with a British man-o’-war, the first question to which I devoted my attention was that of the route which I should choose by which to reach the Pacific. There were two alternative routes open to me; one—and that, perhaps, rather the safer of the two from the navigator’s point of view—to the south and east of Australia, then northward between the Solomon and Admiralty groups to the waters wherein our search for a sort of earthly Paradise was to be prosecuted; and the rather shorter but more dangerous route up the western coast of Australia, then through the Ombay Passage into the Banda Sea, and thence, through the Boeroe Strait, into the Molucca or the Gillolo Passage, the successful negotiation of either of which would bring us to the spot where our search was to commence. If the question of ease and safety of navigation had alone been concerned, I should have unhesitatingly chosen the former; but when I came to weigh the comparative chances of falling in with a British man-o’-war, it did not take me long to make up my mind that the closer I could hug the Philippines, and the longer I could remain in their neighbourhood, the more likely should I be to encounter something belonging to the China station, and I accordingly settled upon the second alternative. This choice had the further advantage that, being the shorter of the two routes, it gratified all hands, none of whom was intelligent enough to understand and appreciate the question of the comparative dangers of the two routes, or to consider that, by adopting the one which met with their approval, the risk of encountering a man-o’-war—and thus having all their plans knocked on the head—was very greatly increased. Naturally, I did not enlighten them.
It was the season of the north-east monsoon in the Indian Ocean, and a careful study of the chart and directory made it clear to me that the proper course to pursue was to run down our easting until 100 degrees east longitude should be reached, and then, still availing ourselves to the utmost of such westerly wind as might be met with, haul gradually up to the northward in the West Australian current, which has a northerly set. Accordingly, I kept the ship’s bowsprit pointing steadily to the eastward, despite the violent remonstrances which Wilde addressed to the boatswain and the carpenter—he had never spoken to me since I had ordered him off the poop and turned him out of the cabin. For the first few days I was rather afraid that I was going to have a little trouble with these two men, for whenever Wilde complained to them that I was unnecessarily prolonging the voyage by steering east instead of north-east—which, according to his crude notions, I ought to have done—they came to me, reiterating the man’s complaints, and evincing so much curiosity and suspicion that it was perfectly evident they did not trust me. But I quickly arrived at the conviction that, let my relations with Wilde be what they might, it was absolutely necessary that I should possess the full confidence of the boatswain and the carpenter—and, through them, of the whole crew. I therefore took considerable pains to make them clearly understand my reasons for acting as I did, after which I had no further trouble with them.
I very soon had reason to congratulate myself upon the adoption of this policy; for while my relations with the crew daily grew more satisfactory—so that had it not been for the ridiculous hopes of a life of perfect liberty, equality, and immunity from hard work with which Wilde had addled their brains, I might easily have won their consent to take the ship to her legitimate destination—Wilde was devoting his entire energies to the task of stirring up and fomenting a spirit of lawlessness and insubordination among his fellow emigrants, chiefly—as it seemed to me—with the object of causing me as much annoyance and trouble as possible.
At length, however, matters came to such a pass that I perceived it would be absolutely necessary for me to seize the first opportunity that offered to assert myself and put an end to a state of affairs that was fast becoming utterly unendurable; and that opportunity was not long in coming.
It arose in this wise. There was among the passengers a girl named Grace Hartley, about twenty-three years of age, of considerable personal attractions, well-educated, and of a very gentle and amiable disposition. She had been a governess in England, and had been engaged by an agent to proceed to Australia to take a similar position in a family out there; and it was, perhaps, the indifferent treatment which she had received at the hands of her former employers that had caused her tacitly to accept the alternative which Wilde’s scheme offered her. Be that as it may, she had apparently raised no protest when the scheme was first mooted, nor subsequently. What sort of life she was really looking forward to upon the island for which we were about to search I do not believe that even she herself could have explained. Probably her philosophy might have been expressed in the phrase: “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof”. She soon discovered, however, that the future would not permit itself to be shelved in this offhand fashion; there were certain problems that persisted in thrusting themselves upon her notice with increasing frequency, and one of them was—marriage! The idea of creating a Utopia necessarily included that of establishing the home life and domestic happiness. There were two men in particular who forced her to give some thought to this detail, one of whom was Wilde, and the other an able seaman named Gurney—the latter quite as remarkable a man in his way as was Wilde in his, though the ways of the two men were totally dissimilar; for Gurney, while wonderfully popular with his mates in the forecastle, was so entirely different from them in every respect that they admiringly nicknamed him “The Swell”, which will perhaps enable the reader to make a mental sketch of him. He and Wilde had both made formal proposals of marriage to Miss Hartley—the ceremony to be performed as speedily as might be after our arrival at Utopia; but she had thus far accepted neither, although, as might be expected, of the two men she was rather disposed to favour Gurney. Wilde, however, was not at all the sort of man to accept a rebuff tamely, indeed his vanity was so stupendous that he could not understand another being preferred before himself. He consequently plagued the poor girl so persistently that at length, in desperation, she came aft to me, laying all the circumstances before me, and begging my protection. I answered by directing her to remove herself, bag and baggage, to the after cabin, assigning to her one of the spare staterooms therein, and permitting her to take her meals at the cabin table. Whereby I greatly strengthened Wilde’s enmity toward me, but at the same time secured two devoted adherents, namely, the girl and Gurney; and a time came—as I sometimes suspected it would—when I was more than glad to have them on my side, instead of against me.