Chapter Six.
The Captain’s Cow.
“Why, Jake!” I cried out. “How have you contrived to come here?”
“Am dat you, Mass’ Tom?” he answered catching sight of me behind the captain. “Golly, I tole you so; I’se tole you I come ’board ship wid you somehow or nudder. Who ’peak de trute now, hey? golly, yah, yah, I’se so berry glad!” and the poor faithful fellow commencing with one of his hearty African laughs ended in his voice breaking into a sob of joy that evidently came from the bottom of his heart.
From hearing his words Captain Miles immediately began to “smell a rat,” as the saying goes.
“You impudent black rascal!” he said, half in joke, pretending to be angry, and yet partly in earnest. “What the dickens do you mean by shipping yourself aboard my vessel in this fashion without leave or license?”
“I’se come for to go wid Mass’ Tom,” answered Jake meekly.
“But how did you get off from the shore and overhaul the ship?” continued Captain Miles, pursuing his inquiries, the hands around meanwhile commencing to nudge one another and exchange grins as the colloquy waxed warm between the two principal performers.
“I tell you for true, massa, beliebe me,” said Jake earnestly. “Dis forenoon wen I see Mass’ Tom agwine I’se go down to de warf an’ dere I see um lilly boat lyin’ widout nobody a-mindin’ it; so I’se jump in and row out ob de harbor an’ git roun’ by de ole fort till I see de ship make sail. Den I’se pull, an’ pull, an’ pull, like de debbel, to come up wid you, an’ I tinks I nebber reach de bessel, wen, jus’ as I’se git ’longside an’ cotch you up, de ship gib one big lurch an’ squash in de boat, wen I’se trown in water an’ you fish um out; dere, massa, dat’s de trute, s’help me!”
“Lucky for you you didn’t go squash, too,” observed the captain grimly. “But, was there no one else with you?”
“No, massa, only me,” replied Jake.
“Thank God for that!” said Captain Miles fervently. “I was afraid I had run down one of those fishing sloops from Cariacou, and that all hands were drowned but you. Whose boat was it?”
“Dunno, massa, I’se tell you,” answered Jake with great nonchalance, apparently giving but little thought to the little craft whose broken timbers were now floating away, far astern of us.
“Well, you’re a cool hand anyway!” exclaimed Mr Marline the first mate drily, whereat Moggridge and the rest of the crew burst into a general shout of merriment. In this even the captain himself could not help joining, although he still tried to preserve a grave demeanour before Jake, as if annoyed at his coming on board.
Jake, however, was much hurt at being laughed at; and he went on now to justify his conduct with such native dignity that those who had been making fun of him before seemed almost ashamed of their ill-judged ridicule.
“I’se know Mass’ Tom ebber since he was lilly pickaninny, an’ I lub him,” he said, speaking with a feeling and earnestness which no one would have thought of his possessing, and uttering the words in a thick choked voice. “I took de boat ’cause de boat was dere; but if dere was no boat, I’d hab swam off to de ship, for I’se boun’ to go were Mass’ Tom go, an’ if he go in ship I’se go too!”
“But, my poor fellow,” put in Captain Miles kindly to him, “your young master does not want a servant to wait on him on board the Josephine, and we haven’t room for any idlers. I shall have to put you ashore at Saint Vincent, from whence you’ll be easily able to get a passage back home again.”
“For de Lor’ sake don’t do dat, Massa Cap’en!” implored Jake, utterly overwhelmed at such an unexpected downfall of his hopes, falling on his knees on the deck and holding up his hands in the most supplicating manner. “Only let dis poah nigger go wid you an’ Mass’ Tom an’ he do any ting you want.”
“But, what can you do?” said Captain Miles, who, I could see, was relenting. He really had no idea of carrying out the stern intention which his words implied. “We’ve got no horses to groom here.”
“Ah, you dunno all I can do, Massa Cap’en,” replied the darkey eagerly, rising again to his feet now, all animation. “’Fore I go wid Mass’ Eastman, I’se help my fadder in fishin’-boat, an’ know how to make sail an’ reef an’ steer. You jus’ try dis chile an’ see!”
“Very good, we will try you,” said Captain Miles good-humouredly. “But, mind, my darkey friend, you’ll have to work for your passage!”
“All right, Massa Cap’en, me work safe ’nuff. See now, I’se handy boy aboard ship!” So saying, Jake at once scrambled up the rigging and in a minute or two was away up in the foretop, waving his arms about and shouting with laughter in great glee.
“Yah, yah!” he cried. “I’se go higher, if um like.”
“No, that will do now,” sang out Captain Miles, “you can come down and go and warm yourself, after your wetting, by the galley fire, where you’ll find another darkey to keep you company. You must enter his name in the list of the crew, Mr Marline,” added the captain, turning to the first mate; “and see, too, about messing him in the fo’c’s’le. I daresay we’ll make something out of him during the voyage.”
During this little interlude, the Josephine had been making away from Grenada with the land breeze, aided by a current setting to the westward at the rate of a couple of knots an hour; so that, by the time it got dark, we had sunk the island to windward, Captain Miles having caused the royals to be hoisted, in order to take every advantage of the light air, for we had to make the best of a north-east course on the starboard tack.
Towards nine o’clock, however, the wind freshened, and as the navigation was rather ticklish, we being not yet in the open sea, the lighter canvas had to be taken in, the vessel proceeding during the remainder of the night under double-reefed topsails, courses, topgallant-sails, and her jib and spanker—for, these could be easily handed in case of any sudden shift of wind, which frequently veers round without warning under the lee of the land.
I, of course, only learnt all this afterwards, picking up my nautical knowledge by degrees from my old friend Moggridge, who took me under his tuition, promising to make a sailor of me ere the voyage was over, for I was told to turn in by Captain Miles at nine o’clock, when the lights were put out in the cabin.
In the morning, when I came on deck again, we were off Saint Vincent; but, as the current and wind were both against us, although our port was well in sight we had to beat up to make the harbour, not dropping our anchor until late in the afternoon.
It was a beautiful spot, for we lay as it were in a circle of mountains, the tall Souffrière with its volcano peak overtopping them all.
Although we arrived late, Captain Miles did not lose any time in shipping his cargo of rum, going on shore immediately in his gig, which was still hanging to the davits astern, not having been taken on board with the other boats before leaving “my island,” as I always call Grenada. Soon afterwards, a couple of heavy launches manned by negroes and each stored with several big puncheons came off to us, the rum being at once hoisted in and lowered away into the hold—the operation being achieved in less time nearly than I can describe it, for it was necessary for us to be off again by nightfall to take advantage of the land breeze; or else we might be detained at Saint Vincent another day.
Besides the puncheons of rum another piece of cargo was brought on board. This subsequently caused quite a little commotion as well as giving us all a good deal of entertainment.
Our new freight was a cow.
Captain Miles, you must know, was a bit of a gourmand, liking to have good eating and drinking when he could get them; and, as he was particularly fond of coffee with plenty of milk in it, he always carried a cow with him in his different voyages.
During his last trip from home, however, his old milk purveyor had died; and, as such animals are rather scarce in the West Indies, he was not able to procure one either for love or money at Grenada, and was at a complete nonplus till we got to Saint Vincent.
Here, fortunately, or unfortunately as it happened eventually for the poor cow, the captain heard at the last moment of a fine Alderney which a planter was anxious to dispose of, and had brought down to the town to send off to Barbadoes, hoping to find a market there for her. Captain Miles, therefore, at once closed with the planter, and the last of the launches conveying the rum puncheons to the Josephine brought off in addition this cow.
But, taking an animal of this sort away from the shore, and out to a ship lying some distance from the land is one thing, and getting it on board is another! This the captain found presently, when, having completed all his business ashore and cleared the last of his cargo, he was rowed out in his gig to regain the vessel. He had intended making sail the moment he stepped on the deck again; but, instead of finding everything stowed and the anchor tripped ready for the Josephine to start on his arrival, he saw that her cable was still out, while the barge containing the cow was yet alongside.
Captain Miles was awfully angry. Everybody could see this; as he ordered the men in the gig to row her astern, and in a very harsh tone of voice, as he scuttled up the side-ladder and turned into the main-deck port; hook on the falls ready for hoisting her up again to the davits.
“Mr Marline!” he cried out to the first mate when he reached the deck, “what is the meaning of this? I expected you’d have been all ready to sail, and here is that launch alongside yet and the cargo not aboard!”
“All the rum’s in, sir,” replied Mr Marline quietly, for he was a dry old stick and seldom said a word more than necessary.
“But the cow, man, the cow!” retorted the captain. “Why is she not hoisted inboard as well?”
“We couldn’t manage her, sir,” replied Mr Marline with a sly grin. “The brute butts everybody that comes near her.”
“Why didn’t you sling her?” inquired Captain Miles.
“We tried to, but couldn’t,” said the mate. “She kicks so that she tumbled back twice and nearly went into the sea.”
“Oh, you’re all a parcel of nincompoops!” exclaimed the captain quite roused at this. “I’ll show you how a seaman can manage it!” With that, catching hold of the side lines, he went down the ladder again like winking and into the launch alongside.
Here, the cow, which looked even more enraged than Captain Miles, stood in the centre of the boat, with the negroes who had pulled out the live load from shore, standing up in the bows and on the gunwales, so as to be out of the reach of the infuriated animal, which every now and then made a rush at some black leg or other, making the owner yell out and try to avoid the butt.
“Pass down a whip with a spare bit of canvas,” sang out the captain, sitting down in the stern-sheets; and on receiving these articles he set to work to make a sort of broad belt to pass under the cow’s stomach, in the same way as is done with horses about to be shipped on board transports when cavalry regiments are embarking.
When he had made the sling to his satisfaction, satisfying himself that it was strong enough by attaching it to his own person and then making the crew haul him up, his sixteen stone weight being some criterion to go by, he ordered those at the derrick to lower him down again; and then, with a halter all ready, which he threw over the animal’s head, he advanced bravely towards the cow to arrange the belt under her body, thinking he could do it easily enough.
Mrs Brindle, however, was too quick for him.
Tossing off the rope bridle like a piece of straw, she lowered her head, and catching the captain in the stomach sent him head over heels backwards into the bottom of the boat, where one of the thwarts only prevented her from pursuing him further, which she would most undoubtedly have done judging by her vicious look.
At that moment, Jake, who had been looking over the side of the ship, seeing what had happened and anxious to be of service, slid down the whip-tackle into the boat. Arrived here his first task was to pick up Captain Miles, after doing which he took hold of the canvas belt the captain had prepared and dropped in his confusion at the unexpected assault.
“You let dis niggah try, Massa Cap’en,” he said. “I’se able to ride any wild hoss, and tinks I can settle de rampagious animile.”
“All right, fire away,” replied Captain Miles, rather out of breath from his tumble as well as from the punch the cow had given him “right in the wind.”
Jake thereupon, shoving the other darkeys away, climbed on to the gunwale of the launch. Then, advancing gingerly until he was right opposite the cow, and seizing a good opportunity, he jumped suddenly on her back. In a moment or so, he cleverly fixed the slings round her; while one of the other negroes, emboldened by his success, threw a noose over her head, which kept her from plunging about any longer, or at all events, from butting at everybody as she had done previously.
“By Jingo, you’re a smart fellow!” exclaimed Captain Miles with much gusto. “You’re worth all the rest of those stupid lubbers of mine boiled down together! Haul away now, Mr Marline,” he added, looking up; “I think we’ve fixed the cow this time.”
He was right; for, as soon as the hands on board manned the derrick and turned the winch handle the poor animal was raised in the air, kicking out spasmodically all the while, and wondering, no doubt, how she lost hold of her footing. When she had been hoisted high enough to clear the bulwarks, the derrick was then swung inboard and the cow lowered safely on the deck.
The empty launch with the negroes was now cast-off, and preparations made for raising the anchor again and making sail.
However, this was not the end of the cow episode by any means; for, as luck would have it, all Captain Miles’ hopes of milk with his coffee during the voyage home to England were soon summarily dispelled, the career of the animal which was to have supplied the lacteal fluid having terminated most unexpectedly.
All hands being busy getting the ship under weigh, the animal had been left standing for the time where she had been set down in the waist, the sling being unloosed from her and the end of the halter, which Jake had put over her head when she had been secured, tied to the mainmast bitts—so as to prevent her moving until the long-boat amidships, which was to form her quarters, should be made ready for her reception.
Then, when the canvas of the Josephine was once more spread to the breeze and the vessel was working out from Saint Vincent, Captain Miles told the steward to serve dinner in the cabin, it being now near sunset and long past the usual hour for that meal, which was generally on the table at “eight bells,” or four o’clock in the afternoon.
I went into the cabin with the captain and second mate, Mr Marline being left in charge of the poop; and, presently, I could see through the sliding-doors leading from the main-deck into the cuddy, which were of course left wide open, as we were still in the tropics, the steward Harry, a freckle-faced mulatto of the colour of pale ginger, bringing in a tureen of soup from the cook’s galley forward.
As he passed by close to where the cow was tethered, whether the smell of the savoury compound aroused the animal’s hunger, or because Harry, coming too near, reminded her of the recent indignities to which she had been subjected, the cow all at once made a plunge at him with her head.
Harry sheered off, spilling a portion of the soup; and he was so frightened that he ran full speed with the remainder into the cabin.
He was not, however, quick enough for Mrs Brindle; for the sudden dive she made, throwing her whole might on the halter, caused the rope to snap like a piece of pack-thread. The next instant, the cow made a plunge after the mulatto steward, giving him a lift by the stern-post as he was entering the cuddy door which pitched him right on to the cabin table, where he fell amidst all the plates and dishes. There was a terrible smash, all the dinner things coming to grief, as well as the soup tureen, which he still held in his hands, the boiling contents passing over the second mate’s head, and scalding his face, besides making him in a pretty pickle.
“Oh Lord, oh Lord, I’m blinded!” screamed Davis, the thick pea-soup having gone into his eyes; while the captain had scarcely time to use his favourite ejaculation, “By Jingo!” before the cow, which had followed up her successful attack on the steward by galloping after him into the cabin, catching the arm-chair that Captain Miles was ensconced in sideways, started the lashings that held it to the deck, hurling the terrified occupant in a heap in the corner—the captain being utterly ignorant of the cause of the whole catastrophe, for he was sitting with his back to the door and so had not seen the steward’s somersault nor the approach of the animal like I did from the beginning of the affair.
As for me, being on the other side of the table, I escaped any harm, although I immediately bolted into the steward’s pantry near me, where, shutting the half-door, I looked out from this coign of vantage surveying the scene of havoc which the cabin presently presented, for the cow tossed about everything she could reach bellowing like one of the wild bulls of Bashan all the while.
The steward had fainted away, from fright I believe; and he lay stretched on the table as if he were practising swimming in Doctor Johnson’s fashion. As for Davis, the second mate, he had his face bent down in his hands, apparently unmindful of everything but his own pain, but Captain Miles speedily sprang to his feet and was starting to attack the cause of the uproar with one of the broken legs of his chair when just at that moment Mr Marline poked his nose down the open skylight from the poop above.
“What’s the matter?” he asked suavely. “What is all the row about?”
“Come down and see,” said Captain Miles savagely. “Talk of a bull in a china-shop; why, that would be child’s play to a cow in a cabin!”
Mr Marline burst out laughing at this, and so too did Captain Miles himself as soon as he had spoken the words, while I couldn’t help joining in, it was all so funny. Then the first mate came down with two or three of the hands to remove the violent animal, which had now jammed itself under Captain Miles’ own cot in his private sanctum beyond the cuddy.
But, Mrs Brindle was not so easily dislodged, one of the sailors having to get through the stern port in order to raise the cot while the other men pulled at her legs.
She was evidently determined not to be moved against her will; for, on being lugged out again into the main cabin, she quickly shook off the grasp of her captors, cantering out of the sliding-doors, with her tail in the air, bellowing still furiously and butting at those in her way.
Her course was soon arrested, however. As she bounded forwards along the deck she came to the open hatchway leading to the hold, where tumbling down on top of the rum puncheons, before anyone could interpose, she broke her neck instanter.
“It’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good,” says the old proverb, the truth of which was exemplified in this instance. If the captain lost his milk, the crew gained a plentiful supply of fresh meat by the accident, faring sumptuously for many days afterwards on roast beef and all sorts of delicate dishes which Cuffee concocted out of the carcass of the unfortunate animal.
“I wouldn’t have lost her for twenty pounds!” said Captain Miles on the poop later on, when he and the first mate were talking over the strange way in which the thing all happened.
“Humph!” observed Mr Marline slyly in his dry way; “I think she gave you one or two on account before she performed the happy despatch, eh?”
“Funny dog!” exclaimed Captain Miles, giving him a dig in the ribs by way of acknowledging the allusion to the thumps poor Brindle had treated him to, before she came on board and after; and, there, the matter ended, as far as everybody was concerned, the steward recovering from his fainting fit, and the eyes of Davis the second mate being none the worse as it turned out for their deluge of hot pea-soup, while the damages in the cabin were soon repaired. Only the poor cow came to grief!