Chapter Nine.
Our Stowaway tumbles into Luck.
“A man in the forepeak—eh?” yelled out Captain Gillespie, all his complacency gone in a moment, his voice sounding so loudly that it deadened the moaning of the wind through the shrouds and the creaking of the ship’s timbers, whose groans mingled with the heavy thud of the waves against her bows as she breasted them, and the angry splash of the baffled billows as they fell back into the bubbling, hissing cauldron of broken water through which the noble vessel plunged and rolled, spurning it beneath her keel in her majesty and might. “A man in the forepeak, and dead, is he, bosun? I’ll bet I’ll soon quicken him into life again with a rope’s-end!”
He muttered these last words as he hastily scrambled down the poop ladder and along the weather side of the main-deck towards the forecastle, making his way forward with an activity which might have shamed a younger man.
Mr Mackay at once tumbled after him, and I followed too, as quickly as I could get along and the motion of the ship would allow me, being buffeted backwards and forwards like a shuttlecock between the bulwarks and deck-house in my progress onwards, as well as drenched by the spray, which came hurtling inboards over the main-chains from windward as it was borne along by the breeze, wetting everything amidships and soaking the main-sail as if buckets of water were continually poured over it, although the air was quite dry and the sun still shining full upon its swelling surface.
“Begorra, he’s as did as a door-nail, sorr,” I heard Tim Rooney saying on my getting up at last to the others, who were grouped with a number of the crew round the small hatchway under the forecastle leading down to the forehold below, the cover of which had been slipped off leaving the dark cavity open. “I ownly filt him jist move once, whin I kicked him wid me fut unknowns to me, as I wor sayin’ about stowin’ the cable.”
“Dead men don’t move,” replied the captain sharply, the hands round grinning at the boatswain’s Irish bull. “Some of you idlers there, go down and fetch this stowaway up and let us see what he’s made of.”
The boatswain, spurred by Captain Gillespie’s rejoinder, was the first to dive down again into the dark receptacle, where he had previously been searching to find room for stowing the cable, the anchor having been hoisted inboard and the chain unshackled on the ship now getting to sea; and, Tim was quickly followed below by a couple of the other hands, as many as could comfortably squeeze into the narrow space at their command.
“On deck, there!” presently called out Tim Rooney from beneath, his voice sounding hollow and far off.
“Some av ye bind owver the coamin’ av the hatch an’ hilp us to raise the poor divil!”
A dozen eager hands were immediately stretched downwards; and, the next instant, between them all they lifted out of the forepeak the limp body of a ragged youth, who seemed to be either already dead or dying, not a movement being discernible in the inert, motionless figure as it was laid down carefully by the men on the deck, looking like a corpse.
Captain Gillespie, however, was not deceived by these appearances.
“Sluice some water over his face,” cried he, after leaning down and putting his hand on his chest; “he’s only swooned away or shamming, for he’s breathing all right. Look, his shirt is moving up and down now.”
“I think he must be pretty far gone with starvation,” observed Mr Mackay, bending over the unconscious lad, too, and scrutinising his pinched features and bony frame. “He could only have stowed himself down there when we were loading in the docks, and it is now over three days since we cleared out and started down the river.”
“Humph!” growled Captain Gillespie, “the confounded skulker has only brought it on himself, and sarve him right, too.”
“Shame!” groaned one of the men, a murmur of reproach running round amongst the rest, in sympathy with this expression of opinion against such an inhuman speech, making the captain look up and cock his ears and sniff with his long nose, trying to find out who had dared to call him to account. But, of course, he was unable to do so; and, after glaring at those near as if he could have “eaten them without salt,” as the saying goes, he bent his eyes down again on Mr Mackay and the boatswain. These were trying to resuscitate the unfortunate stowaway in a somewhat more humane way than the captain had suggested; for, while the mate opened his collar and shirt and lifted his head on his knee, Tim Rooney sprinkled his face smartly with water from the bucket that had been dipped over the side and filled.
At first, Tim’s efforts were unsuccessful, causing Captain Gillespie to snort with impatience at his delicate mode of treatment; but, the third or fourth dash of the cold water at last restored the poor fellow to consciousness, his eyelids quivering and then opening, while he drew a deep long breath like a sigh.
He didn’t know a bit, though, where he was, his eyes staring out from their sockets, which had sunk deep into his head, as if he were looking through us and beyond us to something else—instead of at us close beside him.
In a moment, however, recollection came back to him and he tried to raise himself up, only to fall back on Mr Mackay’s supporting knee; and, then, he called out piteously what had probably been his cry for hours previously as he lay cramped up in the darkness of the forepeak:
“Hey, let Oi out, measter, and Oi’ll never do it no more! Oi be clemmed to da-eth, measter, and th’ rats and varmint be a-gnawing on me cruel! Let Oi out, measter, Oi be dying here in the dark—let Oi out, for Gawd’s sake!”
“It is as I told you,” said Mr Mackay looking up at the captain; “he is starving. See, one of you, if the cook’s got anything ready in his galley.”
“Begorra, it wor pay-soup day to-day,” cried Tim Rooney getting up to obey the order; “an’ Ching Wang bulled it so plentiful wid wather that the men toorned oop their noses at it, an’ most of it wor lift in the coppers.”
“The very thing for one in this poor chap’s condition,” replied Mr Mackay eagerly. “Go and bring a pannikin of it at once.”
Captain Gillespie sniffed and snorted more than ever of being baulked for the present in his amiable intention of giving the stowaway a bit of his mind, and, possibly, something else in addition.
He saw, though, that his unwelcome passenger was too far gone to be spoken to as yet; and so, perforce, he had to delay calling him to account for his intrusion, putting the reckoning off until a more convenient season.
“Ah, well, Mackay,” said he, on Tim Rooney’s return presently with a pannikin of pea-soup and a large iron spoon, with which he proceeded to ladle some into the starving creature’s mouth, which was ravenously opened, as were his eyes, too, distended with eager famine craving as he smelt the food—“you see to bringing the beggar round as well as you can, and I’ll talk to him bye and bye.”
So saying, Captain Gillespie returned to his former place on the poop, and contented himself for the moment with rating the helmsman for letting the ship yaw on a big wave catching her athwart the bows and making her fall off; while the first mate and Tim Rooney continued their good Samaritan work in gently plying the poor creature, who had just been rescued from death’s door, with spoonful after spoonful of the tepid soup. Presently a little colour came into his face and he was able to speak, recovering his consciousness completely as soon as the nourishment affected his system and gave him strength.
In a little time, he also was able to raise himself up and stand without assistance; and, then, Mr Mackay asked him who he was and why he came on board our ship without leave or license.
He said that he was a country bricklayer, Joe Fergusson by name; and that, not being able to get work in London, whither he had tramped all the way from Lancashire, he had determined to go to Australia, hearing there was a great demand for labour out there. By dint of inquiries he had at length managed to reach the docks, hiding himself away in the forepeak of the Silver Queen, she being the first ship he was able to get on board unperceived, and the hatchway being conveniently open as if on purpose for his accommodation.
“But, we’re not going to Australia,” observed Mr Mackay, who had only contrived to get all this from the enterprising bricklayer by the aid of a series of questions and a severe cross-examination. “This ship is bound for China.”
“It don’t matter, measter,” replied Mr Joe Fergusson with the most charming nonchalance. “Australy or Chiney’s all the same to Oi, so long as un can git wa-ark to dew. Aught’s better nor clemming in Lonnon!”
“You’ve got no right aboard here, though,” said Mr Mackay, who could not help smiling at the easy way in which the whilom dying man now took things. “Who’s going to pay your passage-money? The captain’s in a fine state, I can tell you, about it, and I don’t know what he won’t do to you. He might order you to be pitched overboard into the sea, perhaps.”
The other scratched his head reflectively, just as Tim Rooney did when in a quandary, looking round at the men behind Mr Mackay, who were grinning at his blank dismay and the perturbed and puzzled expression on his raw yokel face.
“Oi be willin’ to wa-ark, measter,” he answered at length, thinking that if they were all grinning, they were not likely to do him much harm. “Oi’ll wa-ark, measter, loike a good un, so long as you gie Oi grub and let Oi be.”
“Work! What can you, a bricklayer according to your own statement, do aboard ship? We’ve got no bricks to lay here.”
“Mab’be, measter, you moight try un, though,” pleaded the poor fellow, scratching his head again; and then adding, as if a brilliant thought all at once occurred to him from the operation, “Oi be used to scaffoldin’ and can cloimb loike sailor cheaps.”
“Ah, you must speak to the captain about that,” replied Mr Mackay drily, turning aft and giving some whispered instructions to Tim Rooney to let the stowaway have some more food later on and give him a shake-down in the forecastle for the night, so that he might be in better fettle for his audience with Captain Gillespie on the morrow. “You can stop here with the men till the morning, and then you will know what will be done in the matter.”
“Well,” cried Captain Gillespie as soon as Mr Mackay stepped up the poop ladder, “how’s that rascal getting on?”
“I think he’ll come round now, sir,” said the first mate, thinking it best not to mention how quickly his patient had recovered, so that he might have a few hours’ reprieve before encountering the captain’s wrath. “I’ve told the boatswain to give him a bunk in the fo’c’s’le for the night, and that you’ll talk to him in the morning.”
“Oh, aye, I’ll talk to him like a Dutch uncle,” retorted the captain, sniffing away at a fine rate, as if Mr Mackay was as much in fault as the unfortunate cause of his ire. “You know I never encourage stowaways on board my ship, sir; and when I say a thing I mean a thing.”
“Yes, sir; certainly, sir,” said Mr Mackay soothingly, taking no notice of his manner to him and judiciously turning the conversation. “Do you think, though, sir, we can carry those topgallants much longer? The wind seems to have freshened again after sunset, the same as it did last night.”
“Carry-on? Aye, of course we can. The old barquey could almost stand the royals as well, with this breeze well abeam,” replied “Old Jock,” who never agreed with anyone right out if he could possibly help, especially now when he was in a bit of temper about the stowaway; but, the next instant, like the thorough seaman he was, seeing the wisdom of the first mate’s advice, he qualified what he had previously said. “If it freshens more, though, between this and eight bells, you can take in the topgallants if you like, and a reef in the topsails as well. It will save bother, perhaps, bye and bye, as the night will be a darkish one and the weather is not too trustworthy.”
Captain Gillespie then went down the companion into the cuddy to have his tea; and Mr Mackay, thinking I ought to be hungry after all my sacrifices to Neptune, advised me to go down below and get some too.
I was hungry, but I did not care about tea, the flavour of the pea-soup the stowaway had been plied with having roused my appetite; so, receiving Mr Mackay’s permission, instead of seeking out the steward Pedro, I paid a visit to Ching Wang in his galley forward.
“Hi, lilly pijjin,” cried this worthy, receiving me far more pleasantly than I’m sure the Portuguese would have done, for as I passed under the break of the poop I heard the latter clattering his tins about in the pantry, as if he were in a rage at something. “What you wanchee—hey?”
I soon explained my wants; and, without the slightest demur, he ladled out a basinful of soup for me out of one of the coppers gently stewing over the galley fire, which looked quite bright and nice as the evening was chilly. The good-natured Chinaman also gave me a couple of hard ship’s biscuits which he took out of a drawer in the locker above the fireplace, where they were kept dry.
“Hi, you eatee um chop chop,” said he, as he handed me the basin and the biscuits and made me sit down on a sort of settle in the galley opposite the warm fire—“makee tummee tummee all right.”
The effects of this food were as wonderful in my instance as in that of the poor starved bricklayer shortly before; for, when I had eaten the last biscuit crumb and drained the final drop of pea-soup from the basin, I felt a new man, or rather boy—Allan Graham himself, and not the wretched feeble nonentity I had been previously.
Of course, I thanked Ching Wang for his kindness as I rose up from the settle to go away, on the starboard watch, who were just relieved from their duty on deck, coming for their tea; but the Chinee only shook his head with a broad smile on his yellow face, as if deprecating any return for his kind offices.
“You goodee pijjin and chin chin when you comee,” he only said, “and when you wanchee chow-chow, you comee Ching Wang and him gettee you chop chop!”
Then, I stopped in front of the forecastle, as Tim Rooney giving me a cheery hail, and saw to my wonder Joe Fergusson looking all hale and hearty and jolly amongst the men, without the least trace of having been, apparently, at his last gasp but an hour or so before.
He was half lying down, half sitting on the edge of one of the bunks, nursing the big stray tortoise-shell tom-cat which had shared his lodgings in the forepeak, and he had mistaken it for a rat as it crept up and down the chain-pipe to see what it could pick up in the cook’s galley at meal-times, which it seemed to know by some peculiar instinct of its own; and although thus partially partial to Ching Wang’s society, the cat now appeared to have taken even a greater fancy to his bed-fellow in his hiding-place below than it had done to the cook, looking upon the stowaway evidently as a fellow-comrade, who was unfortunately in similar circumstances to himself.
Joe Fergusson not only looked all right, but he likewise was in the best of spirits, possibly from the tot of rum Tim Rooney had given him after his soup, to “pull him together,” as the boatswain said; for, ere I left the precincts of the forecastle he volunteered to sing a song, and as I made my way aft I heard the beginning of some plaintive ditty concerning a “may-i-den of Manches-teer,” followed by a rousing chorus from the crew, which had little or nothing to do with the main burden of the ballad, the men’s refrain being only a “Yo, heave ho, it’s time for us to go!”
A hint which I took.
The wind did not freshen quite so soon as either Mr Mackay or the captain expected; but it continued to blow pretty steadily from the north-west with considerable force, the ship bending over to it as it caught her abaft the beam, and bowling along before it over the billowy ocean like a prancing courser galloping over a race-course, tossing her bows up in the air one moment and plunging them down the next, and spinning along at a rare rate through the crested foam.
As it got later, though, the gale increased; and shortly after “two bells in the first watch,” nine o’clock that is in landsman’s time, Captain Gillespie, who was on deck again, gave the order to shorten sail.
“Stand by your topgallant halliards!” cried Mr Mackay, giving the necessary instructions for the captain’s order to be carried into effect, following this command up immediately by a second—“Let go!”
Then, the clewlines and buntlines were manned, and in a trice the three topgallants were hanging in festooned folds from the upper yards, I doing my first bit of service at sea by laying hold of the ropes that triced up the mizzen-topgallant-sail, and hauling with the others, Mr Mackay giving me a cheery “Well done, my lad,” as I did so.
Tom Jerrold, who now appeared on the poop, and whom I had fought shy of before, thinking he had behaved very unkindly to me in the morning, was one of the first to spring into the mizzen-shrouds and climb up the ratlines on the order being given to furl the sail, getting out on the manrope and to the weather earing at the end of the yard before either of the three hands who also went up.
Seeing him go up the rigging, I was on the point of following him; but Mr Mackay, whose previous encouragement, indeed, had spurred me on, stopped me.
“No, my boy,” said he kindly, “you must not go aloft yet, for you might fall overboard. Besides, you would not be of the slightest use on the yard even if you didn’t tumble. Wait till you’ve got your sea-legs and know the ropes.”
I had therefore to wait and watch Tom Jerrold swinging away up there and bundling the sail together, the gaskets being presently passed round it and the mizzen-topgallant made snug. When Tom and the others came down, he grinned at me so cordially that I made friends with him again; but I was longing all the time for the blissful moment when I too could go aloft like him.
Previously to this, I had given Billy, the ship’s boy, a shilling to swab out our cabin and make it all right, so that neither Tom nor Weeks could grumble at the state it was in; and Sam Weeks, at all events, seemed satisfied, for he turned into his bunk as soon as Billy had done cleaning up, having begged Tom Jerrold to take his place for once with the starboard men, who had the first watch this evening instead of the “middle watch,” as on the previous night. This shifting of the watches, I may mention here, gives all hands in turn an opportunity of being on deck at every hour of the night and day, without being monotonously bound down to any fixed time to be on duty throughout the voyage, as would otherwise have been the case.
This alternation of the four hours of deck duty is effected by the dog-watches in the afternoon, which being of only two hours duration each, from four o’clock till six the first, and the second from six to eight o’clock, change the whole order of the others; as, for instance, the port watch, which has the deck for the first dog-watch to-night, say, will come on again for the first night watch from eight o’clock till twelve, and the morning watch from four o’clock until eight, the starboard watch, which goes on duty for the second dog-watch, taking the middle watch, from midnight till four o’clock, and then going below to sleep, while the port watch takes the morning one. The arrangement for the following night is exactly the reverse of this, the starbowlines starting with, the first dog-watch and taking the first and the evening watch; while the port watch has only the second dog-watch and the middle one, from midnight till morning.
I thought I had better explain this, as it was very strange at first to me, and I could not get out of the habit of believing sometimes that I ought to be on deck when it was really my turn to have my “watch in” below.
This evening, as I felt all right and hearty after my pea-soup and had a good sleep in the afternoon, I remained on deck, although the port watch, to which I belonged, was not on duty, Mr Mackay, who had only stayed on the poop to see the topgallants taken in, having at once gone below on this operation being satisfactorily performed.
I was glad I stopped, though; for, presently, Captain Gillespie, ignoring Mr Saunders the second mate, who was now supposed to be in charge of the deck, sang out in his voice of thunder, his nose no doubt shaking terribly the while, albeit I couldn’t see it, the evening being too dark and lowering for me even to distinguish plainly that long proboscis of his:
“Hands reef topsails!”
The men, naturally, were even more spry than usual from the fact of “Old Jock” having given the order; so, they were at their posts before the captain could get at his next command.
“Stand by your topsail halliards—let go!”
The yards tumbled down on the caps in an instant as the last word came roaring from Captain Gillespie’s lips; and at almost the same moment parties of the men raced up the fore and main and mizzen-shrouds, each lot anxious to have their sail reefed and rehoisted the first.
The foretop men, however, this time, bore away the palm over those attending to the main-topsail; while those on the cro’jack-yard were completely out of the running with only four hands against the fourteen in the other top—although Tom Jerrold was pretty quick again, and if those helping him had been but equally sharp they might, in spite of being short-handed, have achieved the victory.
Urged on by Tim Rooney, though, the men forward were too smart for those aft, and had handed their topsail and were hoisting away at the halliards again before those reefing the main-topsail were all in from their yard. The last man, indeed, was just stepping from the yard into the rigging again, when an accident happened that nearly cost him his life, although fortunately he escaped with only a fall and a fright.
In order to render the work of reefing easier for the hands, the captain had directed the men at the wheel by a quick motion which they understood to “luff her up” a bit, so as to flatten the sails; and now, on the folds of the main-topsail ballooning out before being hoisted again as it caught the wind, the sail flapped back and jerked the unfortunate fellow off the yard, his hands clutching vainly at the empty air.
We could see it all from the poop, although the night was darkish, because the whiteness of the sails made everything stand out in relief against their snowy background; and, as he fell, with a shriek that seemed to go through my heart, I held my breath in agonised suspense, expecting the next moment to hear the dull thud of his mangled body on the deck below.
But, in place of this, a second later, a wild hurrah burst from the men at the halliards and from those coming down the rigging, who had remained spellbound, their descending footsteps arrested in the ratlines in awful expectancy and horror. It was a cheer of relief on their anxious fears being dispelled.
I never heard such a hearty shout in my life before, coming, as it did, as if all the men had but one throat!
I seem to hear it now.
“Hurrah!”
It rang through the ship; and we on the poop soon saw the reason for the triumphant cry and shared the common feeling of joy.
The main-sail had jibed and then bellied out again in the same way as the topsail above it had done; and when the man fell, a kind Providence watching over him caused it to catch him in its folds, and then gently drop him into the long-boat above the deck-house below, right in the midst of the captain’s pigs there stowed—thus breaking his fall, so that he absolutely escaped unhurt, with the exception of a slight shaking and of course a biggish fright at falling.
“Who is the man?” sang out Captain Gillespie as soon as some of the hands had clambered up on top of the deck-house and released their comrade from the companionship of the pigs, who were grunting and squealing at his unexpected descent in their midst. “Who is that man?”
“Joe Fergusson,” cried out one of the men. “It’s Joe Fergusson, sir.”
Captain Gillespie was bothered, thinking he could not hear aright.
“Joe Fergusson?” he called back. “I don’t know any man of that name, or anything like it, who signed articles with me, and is entered on the ship’s books. Pass the word forrud for the bosun—where is he?”
“Here, sorr,” cried out Tim Rooney, who of course was close at hand, having bounded to the scene of action the moment he heard the man’s wild weird shriek as he fell, arriving just in time to see his wonderful escape. “Here I am, sorr.”
“Who is the man that fell?”
“Our new hand, sorr.”
“New hand?” repeated Captain Gillespie after him, as perplexed as ever. “What new hand?”
“Joe Fergusson, sorr. Himsilf and no ither, sure, sorr.”
“What the dickens do ye mean, man?” said the captain, angry at the mystification. “I don’t know of any Joe Fergusson or any new hands save those I brought on board myself at Gravesend; and there was no one of that name amongst ’em, I’m certain.”
“Aye, aye, thrue for ye, cap’en,” answered Tim, and although, of course, I couldn’t see him, I’m sure he must have winked when he spoke, there was a tone of such rich jocularity in his voice; “but, sure, sor this is the chap as brought himsilf aboard. He’s the stowaway, sorr; Joe Fergusson, by the same token!”