Chapter Seven.
At Sea.
“Hullo, Weeks!” cried Tom Jerrold, coming up at the moment and grinning at him rolling in the scuppers. “What’s the matter, old fellow? You seem rather down.”
“Begorra, he’s ownly havin’ a cooler to aise that nashty timper av his own,” said the boatswain from the door of his cabin, which was just next ours in the deck-house, only more forward. And then, turning to me, he added, “Sure an’ that wor a purty droive, Misther Gray-ham; ye lit him have it straight from the shouldher.”
“I’m sure I didn’t mean to hurt him,” I answered, sorry now for my opponent as he scrambled at last up on his feet, looking very bedraggled and showing on his face the signs of the fray. “I only held out my hand to save the poor bird, and he ran against my fist.”
“Oh, did you?” slobbered Weeks, half crying, in a savage, vindictive voice, and rushing at me as soon as he rose up. “You spiteful beggar! Well, two can play at that game, and I’ll pay you out for it if you’ve got pluck enough to fight!”
“Be aisy now,” interposed Tim Rooney, stepping between us and holding him back. “Sure an’ if y’re spilin’ for a batin’ I’m not the chap to privint you; but, if you must foight, why ye’ll have to do it fair an’ square. Misther Gray-ham, sorr, jist give me the burrd as made the rumpus, I’ve a little cage in me bunk that’ll sarve the poor baste for shilter till ye can get a betther one. It belonged to me ould canary as toorned up its toes last v’y’ge av a fit av the maysles.”
“The measles?” exclaimed Tom Jerrold, bursting into a laugh. “I never heard of a bird dying of that complaint before.”
“Faix, thin, ye can hear it now,” said the boatswain with some heat. “An’, sure, I don’t say whare the laugh comes in, me joker! Didn’t its faythers dhrop off av the poor craythur, an’ its skin toorn all spotty, jist loike our friend Misther Wake’s phiz here; an’ what could that be, sure, but the maysles, I’d loike to know?”
“All right, bosun; I daresay you’re right,” hastily rejoined Jerrold to appease him; but he made me smile, however, by his efforts to look grave, although my own affairs were just then in such a critical position, with the prospect of a battle before me. “I was only laughing at the idea of a canary with the measles; but I’ve no doubt they have them the same as we do, and other things like us, too.”
“In coorse they does, an’ plinty of tongue, too, loike some chaps I’ve come across on shipboard!” replied Tim, all himself again in all good humour; and then, popping into his cabin, he reappeared quickly with the cage he had mentioned, saying to me, “Sorr, give me the burrd.”
I had a little difficulty in extricating the starling from its safe retreat, for it had crept within my flannel shirt inside my jacket, tickling me as it moved; but, going carefully to work, I finally succeeded in taking it out without hurting it. Then, placing the little fluttering thing in the cage, the boatswain bore it off to his bunk, giving me an expressive wink as he took it away, as if to say that it would be safer and more out of harm’s way in his keeping, albeit I was quite at liberty to reclaim the bird when I pleased.
“Now, jintlemin,” said Tim, addressing Weeks and myself after putting the innocent cause of our quarrel inside his cabin and locking the door to prevent accidents, as he shrewdly observed, “if ye’re both av ye riddy an’ willin’, as it’s goin’ on for the sicond dog-watch, whin all hands are allers allowed at say to skoilark an’ devart theirsilves, ye can follow me out on the fo’c’s’le, me jokers, an’ have y’r shindy out fairly in a friendly way.”
I didn’t want to fight Weeks, I’m sure; for I was not of a quarrelsome disposition, besides which my father had cautioned me against ever having any disputes with my comrades, if I could avoid such; although he told me also at the same time always to act courageously in the defence of my principles and of my rights, or when I took the part of another unable to defend himself. Here, therefore, was a quarrel forced upon me, almost against my will, to save the poor starling’s life; and, beyond that, the aggravating way in which Weeks looked at me and shook his fist in my face would have provoked even a better-tempered boy than I. Tom Jerrold said afterwards that I turned quite white, as I always did when excited; while Weeks, on the contrary, was naming with fury and as red as a lobster.
“Come on, you coward!” he blustered, thinking I was afraid of him. “I’ll soon let you know what it is to have a good hiding, my fine gentleman of a parson’s son. You only floored me just now because you caught me unawares.”
“I’m quite ready, Mr Rooney,” said I to the boatswain, paying no attention to the cur’s snobbish bravado; but I felt his sneer against my father’s profession keenly, and had to bite my lip to prevent myself from replying to it. I added, however, for his personal benefit as I turned my back on him in contempt, “Those who crow the loudest, I’ve heard, generally do the least when the time for real action comes!”
“Thrue for ye, Mister Gray-ham,” cried Tim Rooney. “Brag’s a good dog, but Howldfast’s the bist for my money. Come on wid ye, though, to the fo’c’s’le if ye manes foightin’; for we’ve had palaverin’ enough now in all conshinsh!”
So saying, the boatswain led the way forward, Tom Jerrold, who dearly loved anything in the way of a spree, and was overjoyed at the prospect of what he called “a jolly row,” following with Weeks, to make sure that he did not back out of the contest at the last moment, which, knowing his cowardly character very well, as Tom told me afterwards, he anticipated his doing. I brought up the rear—and so we proceeded towards the bows of the ship along the lee-side of the deck, so as to escape the observation of Captain Gillespie and Mr Mackay. These were standing together, I noticed when the starling flew on board, by the rail on the weather side of the poop, where they were having a good look-out to windward, and watching some clouds that were piling themselves in black masses along the eastern sky—shutting out the last vestiges of land in the distance, already now become hazy from the mist rising from the sea after sunset.
Passing under the bellying main-sail, whose clew-garnet blocks rattled as it expanded to the breeze, which was now blowing pretty stiff, with every indication of veering more round to the north, causing the yards to have a pull taken at the braces every now and then, our little procession soon got clear of the deck-house that occupied the centre of the main-deck, finally gaining the more open space between the cook’s galley at the end and the topgallant forecastle.
Here, the folds of the foresail, swelled out like a balloon, interposed like a curtain betwixt the after-glow of the setting sun and ourselves, the shadows of the upper sails, too, making it darker than on the after part of the deck whence we had started; but it was still quite light enough for me to see the expression on Weeks’ mottled face as he stood opposite me.
Not much time was wasted in preliminaries, the boatswain, who acted as master of the ceremonies, placing me against the windlass bitts while my opponent had his back to the galley, what light there was remaining shining full upon him.
I had been present at one or two fights before, at the school I used to attend at Westham, where the boys used to settle their differences generally at the bottom of the playground under a little clump of shady trees that were grouped there, which shut off the view of the house and the headmaster’s eye; but never previously had the surroundings of any similar pugilistic encounter seemed so strange as now!
As usual in such cases, the news had circulated through the ship with astonishing rapidity, considering that only a couple of minutes or so at most had elapsed since I had saved the starling and knocked down Weeks; for the whole crew, with the exception of two or three hands standing by the braces and the man at the wheel, appeared to scent the battle from afar, and were now gathered near the scene of action—some on the forecastle with their legs dangling over, others in the lower rigging, whence they could command the issues of the fray.
It was a pitiful contrast!
Here was the noble vessel surging through the gradually rising sea, with her towering masts and spreading canvas, and the wind whistling through the cordage, and the water coming every now and then over her bows in a cascade of iridescent spray, as the fast-fading gleams of the sunset lit it up, or else rushing by the side of the ship like a mill-race as we plunged through it, welling in at the scuppers as it washed inboard. All illustrated the grandeur of nature, the perfection of art; while there, on the deck, under the evening sky and amid all the glories of the waning glow in the western horizon and the grandeur of the sea in its might and the ship in its beauty and power over the winds and waves alike, were we two boys standing up to fight each other, with a parcel of bearded men who ought to have known better grouped round eagerly awaiting the beginning of the combat.
A contrast, but yet only an illustration of one of the ordinary phases of human nature after all, as father would have said, I thought, this reflection passing through my mind with that instantaneous spontaneity with which such fancies do occur to one, as Rooney placed me in my assigned position. Then, recalling my mind to the present, I noticed that Matthews, my whilom fellow apprentice and lately promoted third mate, sinking the dignity of his new rank, had come forward to act as the second, or backer, of my opponent, who must have sent some message aft to summon him.
“Now, me bhoys, are ye riddy?” sang out the boatswain, who stood on the weather side of the deck, glancing first at me and then at Weeks. “One, two, thray—foire away!”
I was not quite a novice in the use of my fists, my brother Tom, who, before he went to Oxford and got priggish, had bought a set of boxing-gloves, having made me put them on with him, sometimes, and showed me how to keep a firm guard and when to hit. My experience was invariably to get the worst of these amicable encounters, for I used to be knocked off my pins, besides feeling my forehead soft and pulpy; for, no matter how well padded gloves may be, a fellow can give a sturdy punch with them, or appreciate one, all the same. Still, the practice stood me in good stead on this eventful occasion, especially as my brother had well drilled me into being light on my feet and dexterous in the art of stepping forward to deliver a blow and backward to avoid one—no small advantage, and the resource of science over brute force.
So, holding my right arm well across my chest and just about level with it, so that I could raise it either up or down as quick as lightning, to protect my face or body, I advanced my left fist, and waited for Sam Weeks to come on with a rush, as I was certain he would do, bracing myself well on my legs to receive the shock, although the pitching of the ship made me somewhat more uncertain of my equilibrium than if the combat had taken place ashore.
My antagonist acted exactly as I had expected.
Whirling his arms round like those of a windmill, he beat down my guard and gave me a nasty thump with one of them on the side of the head, for being lanky, as I said, he had a longer reach than I; however, as he got in close enough, my left fist caught him clean between the eyes again, landing on the identically same spot where I had hit him before, the place being already swollen, and whereas I only staggered against the windlass from his blow, mine sent him tumbling backwards, and he would have fallen on the deck if Matthews had not held him up just in time.
“Bray-vo, dark ’un!” shouted one of the men standing around, complimenting me on having the best of this first exchange, and alluding no doubt to the colour of my hair, which was dark brown while that of Weeks was quite sandy, like light Muscovado sugar. “Give him a one-two next time; there’s nothing like the double!”
“I’ll back freckles,” cried another; “he’s got more go in him!”
“Arrah, laive ’em alone, can’t ye?” said the boatswain, as we faced each other again. “Don’t waste y’r toime, sure. Go it, ye chripples; an’ may the bist av ye win, sez I!”
The next two rounds had somewhat similar results to the first, I keeping up a steady defence and hitting my antagonist pretty nearly in the same place each time, while he gave me a couple of swinging blows, one of which made my mouth bleed, whereat his admirers were in high glee, especially Matthews, his second, for I heard the latter say to him, “Only go on and you’ll soon settle him now, Sam!”
My friend the boatswain, however, was equally sanguine as to the result, as his encouraging advice to me showed.
“Kape y’r pecker up, Misther Gray-ham. Sure, he’s gittin’ winded, as all av thim lane an’ lanky chaps allers does arter a bit,” said Tim, wiping the blood away that was trickling from my lip with his soft silk handkerchief, which he took off from his own neck for the purpose. “Begorra, ye’ve ownly to hammer at his chist an’ body, me lad; an’ ye’ll finish him afore ye can say ‘Jack Robinson,’ an’ it’s no lie I’m tellin’!”
Hitherto I had been merely acting on the defensive, and parrying the blows rained on me by Weeks in his impetuous rushes, more than hitting in return; for only keeping my left fist well out and allowing him to meet it as he so pleased, and which, strange to say, whether he wished it or not, he did so meet.
But now, thinking it time to end matters, the sight of the blood the boatswain had wiped from my face somehow or other bringing out what I suppose was the innate savagery of my nature, I determined to carry the war into the enemy’s camp; or, in other words, instead of standing to be struck at, to lead the attack myself.
As Weeks, therefore, advanced with a grin, confidently as before, thinking that I should merely remain on guard, I threw my left straight out, swinging all the weight of my body in the blow; and then, stepping forwards, I gave him the benefit of my right fist, the one following up the other in quick succession, although I acted on Tim’s advice, and directed my aim towards his body.
The result of these new tactics of mine altered alike the complexion not only of the fight but that of my antagonist as well; for he went down on the deck with a heavy dull thud, almost all his remaining breath knocked out of him.
“Hurrah, the little un wins!” cheered some of the hands; while others rejoined in opposition, “The lanky one ain’t licked yet!”
But, to my especial friend the boatswain the end of the contest was now a foregone conclusion and victory assured to me.
“Bedad, me bhoy,” he whispered in my ear as he prepared me for what turned out to be the final round of the battle, “that last dhroive av yourn wor loike the kick av a horse, or a pony anyhow! One more brace av them one-twos, Misther Gray-ham, an’ he’ll be kilt an’ done wid!”
It was as Rooney said.
Matthews forced Weeks well-nigh against his will to face me once more, when my double hit again floored him incontinently, when the ship, giving a lurch to leeward at the same time, rolled him into the scuppers, as before at our first encounter.
This settled the matter, for, with all the pluck taken out of him and completely cowed, Master Sammy did not offer to rise until Matthews, catching hold of his collar, forcibly dragged him to his feet.
“Three cheers for the little un!” shouted one of the hands, as I stood triumphant on the deck in their midst, the hero of the moment, sailors following the common creed of their fellow men in worshipping success. “Hooray!”
A change came over the scene, however, the next instant.
For, ere the last note of the cheer had ceased ringing out from their lusty throats, Captain Gillespie’s long nose came round the corner of the cook’s caboose, followed shortly afterwards by the owner of the article—causing Ching Wang, who had been surveying the progress of the fight with much enjoyment, to retreat instantly within his galley, the smile of satisfaction on his yellow oval face and twinkle of his little pig-like eyes being replaced by that innocent look of one conscious of rectitude and in whom there is no guile, affected by most of his celestial countrymen.
“Hullo, bosun!” cried the captain, addressing Tim Rooney, who was helping me to put on my jacket again, and endeavouring, rather unsuccessfully, to conceal all traces of the fray on my person. “What the dickens does all this mean?”
“Sorry o’ me knows, sorr, why them omahdawns is makin’ all av that row a-hollerin’,” said Tim, scratching his head as he always did when puzzled for the moment for an answer. “It’s ownly Misther Gray-ham, sorr, an’ Misther Wakes havin’ a little bit of foon togither, an’ settlin’ their differses in a frindly way, loike, sorr.”
“Fighting, I suppose,—eh?”
An ominous stillness succeeded this question, the men around following Ching Whang’s example and sneaking inside the forecastle and otherwise slily disappearing from view. Presently, only Tim Rooney and Matthews remained before the captain besides us two, the principals of the fight, and Tom Jerrold, who, blocked between Captain Gillespie and the caboose, could not possibly manage to get away unperceived.
“Yes, there’s no doubt you’ve been fighting,” continued the captain, looking from Weeks to me and from me to Weeks, and seeming to take considerably more interest than either of us cared for in our bruised knuckles and battered faces and generally dilapidated appearance; for his long nose turned up scornfully as he sniffed and expanded his nostrils, compressing his thin lips at the end of his inspection with an air of decision. “Well, youngsters, I’d have you to know that I don’t allow fighting aboard my ship, and when I say a thing I mean a thing. There!”
“But, sir,” snivelled Weeks, beginning some explanation, intended no doubt to throw all the blame on me. “Graham—”
Captain Gillespie, however, interrupted him before he could proceed any further.
“You’d better not say anything, Weeks,” said the captain. “Graham’s a new hand and you’re an old one; at least, you’ve already been one voyage, whilst this is his first. I see you’ve had a lickin’ and I’m glad of it, as I daresay it’s been brought about by your own bullying; for I know you, Master Samuel Weeks, by this time, and you can’t take me in as you used to do with your whining ways! If I didn’t believe you were pretty well starched already, I’d give you another hiding now, my lad. Please, my good young gentleman, just to oblige me, go up in the mizzen-top so that I can see you’re there, and stop till I call you down! As for you, Matthews, whom I have just promoted I’m surprised at your forgetting yourself as an officer, and coming here forrud, to take part with the crew in a disgraceful exhibition like this. I—”
“Please, sir—” expostulated the culprit. But the captain was firm on the matter of discipline, as I came to know in time.
“You’ll go aft at once, Mr Matthews,” he said, waving him away with his outstretched arm. “Another such dereliction from duty and you shall come forrud altogether, as you appear to like the fo’c’s’le so well. I have made you third officer; but bear in mind that if I possess the power to make, I can break too!”
It was now Tim Rooney’s turn, the captain wheeling round on him as soon as he’d done with Matthews.
“Really, bosun,” he said, “I didn’t think a respectable man like you would encourage two boys to fight like that!”
“Bedad it wor ownly to privint their bein’ onfrindly, sorr,” pleaded Tim, looking as much ashamed as his comical twinkling left eye would permit. “I thought it’d save a lot av throuble arterwards, spakin’ as regards mesilf, sorr; fur I’m niver at paice onless I’m in a row, sure!”
“Ha, a nice way of making friends—pummelling each other to pieces and upsetting my ship,” retorted Captain Gillespie. But, as Tim Rooney made no answer, thinking discretion the better part of valour in this instance, and going up into the bows as if to look out forward, the captain then addressed me: “Graham!”
“Yes, sir,” said I, awaiting my sentence with some trepidation. “I’m very sorry, sir, for what has happened, I—”
“There, I want no more jaw,” he replied, hastily snapping me up before I could say another word. “I saw all that occurred, though neither of you thought I was looking. Weeks rushed at you, and you hit him; and then this precious hot-headed bosun of mine made you ‘have it out,’ as he calls it, in ‘a friendly way,’ the idiot, in his Irish bull fashion! But, as I told you, I won’t have any fighting here, either between boys or men, and when I say a thing I mean a thing; so, to show I allow no relaxation of discipline on board so long as I’m captain, Master Graham, you’ll be good enough to remain on deck to-night instead of going to bed, and will keep the middle watch from ‘eight bells’ to morning.”
“Very good, sir,” I replied, bowing politely, having already taken off my cap on his speaking to me; and I then went back to our deck-house cabin and had a lie down, as I felt pretty tired. Ching Wang, however, came to rouse me up soon afterwards with a pannikin of hot coffee, his way of showing his appreciation of my conduct in the fray, and I subsequently went with Tim Rooney to see the starling—which made me quite forget all about being tired and having to stop up all night, and that Tom Jerrold had escaped any punishment for his presence at the fight!
At eight o’clock, when it was quite dark, we passed Beachy Head, seeing the light in the distance; and then, feeling hungry again, I went to the steward in the cuddy and got something to eat, meeting there poor Weeks, whom the captain had only just called down from his perch in the mizzen-top, very cold and shivery from being so long up there in his wet clothes in the night air.
He looked rather grimly at me, and from the light in the saloon I noticed that he had a lovely pair of black eyes; but, on my stretching out my hand to him, we made friends, and agreed to bury all the disagreeable occurrences of the day in oblivion.
We had a lot of yarning together until midnight inside the deck-house, where Tom Jerrold lay an his bunk snoring away, utterly regardless of our presence; and then, on Mr Mackay’s summoning me, by the captain’s order as he told me, to keep watch with him on the poop, I went up the ladder and remained with him astern, watching the ship bowling along under all plain sail, with the same buoyant breeze behind her with which we had started.
“Now, Graham,” said Mr Mackay at daybreak, when we were just off Saint Catharine’s Point in the Isle of Wight, as he informed me, “you can go and turn in. Bosun, call the starboard watch!”
“Aye, aye, sorr,” answered Tim Rooney from the bows, where he had been keeping his vigils, too, like us aft. “Starbowlines, ahoy—!”
I only remained on the poop while the man at the wheel was being relieved, and Mr Saunders, the second mate, came on deck to take Mr Mackay’s place; when, going below to the deck-house cabin, I was soon in my little shelf of a bed, falling asleep more quickly, I think, than I had ever done before; doing so, indeed, almost the instant I got within the blankets.
The next day, at noon, we tore by the Start, and, later on, that noblest monument a man could have, the Eddystone, Smeaton’s glory; the ship racing down Channel as if all the sea-nymphs were chasing us, and old Neptune, too, at their heels to hurry them on, with his tritons after him.
Our average speed all that day was a good ten knots, the wind never shifting and every sail drawing fore and aft. Sometimes it was even more, according to Tom Jerrold’s calculations, he having to heave the log at intervals and turn the fourteen-second glass, his especial duty, in order to determine our rate of progress through the water; but I don’t think it was ever less from the time the sun rose in the morning.
At all events, the Silver Queen made such good use of her time that, at six o’clock on this evening of our second day under sail, we were up to the Lizard, the last bit of English shore we should see in a hurry; and at “six bells” in the first watch, were speeding along some ten miles south of the Bishop’s Rock lightship in the Scilly Isles, really, at last, at sea!