CHAPTER XII
Pete and the Mutiny
The Titania remained at Gib. for thirty-six hours, refilling her fuel-tanks, provisioning, and making good slight damage done during the gale.
At six in the morning, having received her clearance papers, the yacht weighed, and was soon bowling along with the strong current that sets perpetually eastward into the almost tideless Mediterranean.
Villiers, now officer in charge of the starboard watch, was pacing the deck with Harborough. For the present there was little to do. The Titania lay close hauled on the port tack; she had plenty of sea-room, and there were no hidden shoals to worry about. Fontayne was taking his trick at the wheel, and the rest of the duty watch, having scrubbed decks and "flemished down", were standing easy.
"She shows a clean pair of heels," remarked Villiers, watching the vessel's wake. "I should imagine we're doing a good eight knots."
"Yes," agreed Harborough. "But we won't stand here gazing aft. It's a little antipathy of mine. Why, I don't know. You read in books of people standing aft and watching the phosphorescent swirl of the propellers and all that sort of thing. Sentimental! I prefer to look for'ard and see what's ahead. There's precious little fun in taking life retrospectively. It's anticipation—call it hope if you like—that is the lodestone of life!"
"I wonder if you'll be of the same mind when you near the end of your journey," remarked Villiers.
"That I can't say," replied Harborough. "But, candidly speaking, would you care to go through the last five years again?"
"I had some good times," said Jack reflectively. "Perhaps I was lucky."
"Supposing you'd been a Tommy in the trenches?" prompted Harborough.
"Ah, that's a proposition," rejoined Villiers gravely. "I don't think I'd care for the idea. In fact, I feel certain I wouldn't. And I know dozens of fellows who've been and come back, and they are all of the same opinion—that it was a physical and mental hell. But if they had to start all over again, they'd do it."
"As a matter of patriotic duty," added Harborough. "We're a weird nation—slow to adapt ourselves to changing conditions, blunderers in war and blunderers in peace, and yet, somehow, we come out on top in the end. The Old Country's in a pretty rotten state just now, I admit, but in another twelvemonth or so things will begin to shape themselves. Eh! what's that?"
O'Loghlin, lightly clad, perspiring freely and reeking with oil, had come up from the motor-room and stood before his chief.
"We've a stowaway, sir," he reported.
Harborough knitted his heavy brows.
"Bring him along," he ordered.
The stowaway came quietly. He followed O'Loghlin like a lamb—a tall, powerfully-built negro, on whose ebony features was a smile of beatific contentment, in conjunction with a wide-open mouth that displayed a double row of glistening ivories extending almost from ear to ear.
Harborough looked straight at him and said nothing. O'Loghlin, standing behind the black, afterwards maintained that the skipper was looking through the nigger. In less than fifteen seconds the smile had vanished and the stowaway was on the verge of tears.
"What are you doing here?" demanded the skipper of the Titania.
"I jus' come aboard, sah."
"For what reason?"
"Me tink dis packet is bound for 'Merica. I jus' want to go dere," and again a broad smile stole over the nigger's face. "Me British born," he continued proudly. "From Hole Town, Barbadoes, which am in British West Indies; but I specks you know dat bit, sah."
"And so you thrust your unwelcome carcass on board this yacht," rejoined Harborough. "Do you know where we are bound for?"
The nigger shook his head.
"Don't much, sah," he replied. "Me work berry hard to please you."
"You'll jolly well have to," declared Harborough grimly. "There's no room for idlers on this craft. Can you cook?"
"Yes, sah, me berry good cook," assented the black, and immediately he broke into a loud roar of laughter until he had to hold his sides as the tears streamed down his face.
The laugh was distinctly infectious. There was something so boisterously gusty in the merriment that every one of the Titania's crew on deck began smiling in varying degrees of intensity.
"What about your cooking?" inquired Harborough, whose face was puckered in a multitude of crinkles.
"Me cook aboard de Lucy M. Partington, three-masted schooner from N'Orleans to Naples," explained the black. "Me cook berry well all de time. One day de fellah played a prank, an' put Epsom-salts in the sugar canister. I made Spotted Dick for de Ole Man—pardon, sah, de Captain, I mean—an' dere you are."
Another tornado of laughter followed.
"And what happened then?" prompted Harborough.
"Ole Man kick me out at Gib.," replied the nigger soberly. "Big gum-boots, too," he added, with painful reminiscence.
"Well, carry on in the galley," ordered the skipper of the Titania. "None of your Epsom-salt touches here, remember, or you'll find my boot heavier than the Lucy M. Partington's Old Man's. What's your name?"
"Pete, sah; Pete Johnson."
Harborough waved dismissal. Pete, pulling his woolly forelock, pattered away towards the fore-hatch.
"They didn't have a nigger on board the Zug, I suppose?" inquired Harborough.
"No," replied Villiers. "This fellow seems quite above board."
"He may be a blessing in disguise," commented the baronet. "I don't envy the fellows who volunteered for the galley when we get down the Red Sea, and they'll be jolly glad to get out of it."
An hour later Villiers went below and inspected the galley.
Pete had quickly made himself at home. Arrayed in white-canvas jumper and trousers he presented a decidedly better appearance than he had done in the ragged dungarees. He had not been lacking in energy, for the pots and pans were burnished brighter than they had been since they left the ship-chandler's establishment in far-off Southampton.
He greeted Jack with one of his expansive grins.
"Quite shipshape now, Massa Villers," he exclaimed.
"You're making quite a fine show, Sambo," replied Villiers.
The black's smile vanished and he pouted his lip.
"I would hab you know, Massa Villers," he exclaimed, with studied dignity, "dat my name is Pete, not Sambo. Sambo Yankee niggah; me British born."
"Right-o, Pete, I'll remember," replied Villiers; and the black resumed his customary smile.
"I wonder how he got hold of my name," thought Jack.
It was O'Loghlin who solved that little mystery. O'Loghlin had discovered the stowaway hidden behind the main fuel-tank that was fitted athwartships just abaft the main hold. Pete would not have been surprised had the engineer officer dragged him out by his woolly hair and booted him in addition. That was the sort of thing he was used to aboard the Lucy M. Partington, but nothing of the kind happened, and Pete felt grateful. He described in detail how he contrived to get on board without being "spotted" by any of the watch on deck. After he had been rated ship's cook the nigger asked O'Loghlin to tell him the names of every man on board, and, with a retentive memory that many West Indian negroes possess, Pete "had them all off pat".
Throughout the greater part of the day the wind held, but towards the end of the first dog watch it fell a flat calm with considerable haze. Away to the south'ard the African coast, although only five miles distant, was lost to view. Night was approaching, so in order to keep clear of the unlighted coast the Titania's course was altered a full point, and the motors were started to give her steerage-way.
"We'll have the canvas stowed," decided Harborough; "one never knows what's behind the mist. The glass is a bit jumpy, I notice."
Accordingly the sails were lowered and stowed, and throughout the night the Titania held on under power, riding over the long, sullen ground-swell that was a sign of a gale raging not so many miles off. The sea was highly phosphorescent, and, although from crest to crest the rollers measured a full hundred yards, not a catspaw ruffled the undulating surface.
Morning came and with it no change in the weather. A couple of miles on the port bow was a large three-masted schooner with her canvas slatting violently as she wallowed in the long swell. From her mizen truck was displayed a two-flag signal.
"Stand by with the code-book," cautioned Beverley, who was in charge of the deck.
He levelled his binoculars at the vessel. There was no need for the code-book. Every seaman knows the significance of the letters YF—Mutiny.
"On deck both watches," shouted Beverley. "Close up with the answering pennant."
The order was obeyed in double-quick time, the watch below turning out in a state of attire that could not by any stretch of the imagination be termed uniform. Harborough, stopping only to don oilskin coat and sea-boots over his pyjamas, came on deck.
"Serve out the arms, Mr. Beverley," he said, "and hoist a signal saying we are sending a boat. Mr. Villiers, will you take half a dozen armed men and proceed to yonder vessel?"
Almost as soon as the signal flags GTM—"I am sending a boat"—were toggled and hoisted, the Titania's whaler was swung outboard ready for lowering, and under power the yacht rapidly bore down upon the mutinous schooner.
"Golly!" exclaimed Pete, who, in the midst of preparing breakfast, had answered to the hail for all hands on deck. "Dat's the ole Lucy M. Partington."
Before the Titania had entirely lost way the whaler's rounded bilges hit the water with a resounding smack. The lower blocks of the falls were disengaged, and the bowman adroitly fended off.
"Give way, lads!" ordered Villiers.
Fifty steady strokes sufficed to lay the boat alongside the schooner's port quarter, from which a rope-ladder had been dropped by her now considerably-relieved skipper.
Leaving one hand in the whaler, Villiers and the rest of the boat's crew swarmed up the side and gained the Lucy M. Partington's poop. The mutiny was over. The rebellious hands had been overawed by the sight of the approaching armed boat's crew.
The Old Man, a typical New Englander, with a goatee beard and huge leather sea-boots (Villiers found himself wondering how the skipper could wear heavy foot-gear on a hot day like that), left his strategical position, to wit, a round house abaft the mizen, and was bellowing incoherencies at a knot of sullen seamen clustered under the break of the raised fo'c'sle. With him were the two mates and three apprentices, who looked now as if they were enjoying the scene, and a couple of grizzled, bald-headed seamen.
"What's all this fuss about, skipper?" inquired Villiers genially.
"Tarnation blue snakes take the pizonous reptiles," bellowed the Old Man. "That's the durned skunk I want to get at; that skulking Finn."
He pointed to a gigantic man standing behind, but towering head and shoulders above the cosmopolitan crowd of malcontents.
"We've had just about enuff of your tarnation tricks, Cap'n Abe," shouted one of the mutineers. "Nary a square meal since you hiked our cook over the side."
"Guess I didn't boot the nigger jus' for nuthin'," explained Captain Abe to his rescuers. "The nigger tried to pizen me."
"There ain't as good a cook on board, an' there won't be," vociferated the mutineer. "Pete could cook, and there ain't no sayin' to the contrary, I guess."
So that was the trouble. In putting Pete ashore at Gib. the skipper of the Lucy M. Partington had laid up a rod in pickle for himself. No doubt the Old Man honestly thought that the nigger had deliberately put Epsom-salt into his pudding; but he had made a mistake in not taking the trouble to investigate Pete's story. And since the cook was a cook, the crew soon found out to their cost what it means to have badly-prepared meals.
Matters came quickly to a head. One of the men approached the skipper, holding in his hands a saucepan of watery potatoes in which floated hard balls that were supposed to be dumplings, and asked him whether he considered this sort of food good enough for human beings.
Captain Abe replied by booting the saucepan from the fellow's hands and throwing most of its contents into the grumbler's face. That started what soon developed into a serious affray, and how far matters would have gone remained questionable. The appearance of the Titania, which the mutineers mistook for a Government patrol-boat (of which some were yet employed on mine-sweeping work in the Mediterranean), rather took the wind out of their sails.
Villiers called the Yankee skipper aside.
"Look here," he said, "I don't quite know what you want me to do."
"Put the varmints into irons, I guess," suggested Captain Abe.
"Then who'll work the ship?" asked Jack. "There is bad weather coming, judging by the glass and the look of things. Short-handed, you'll be in a jolly tight corner. Those fellows have a grievance, although they were in the wrong to kick up a shindy. I can't lend you any hands, so what are you going to do?"
"Dashed if I know," admitted Captain Abe, in perplexity. "Say, what would you?"
"You've been at sea a jolly sight longer than I have, I should say," continued Villiers. "So it seems like teaching my grandmother to tell you how to handle men. Meet them half-way. If you've a grievance and they have one, there's always the Consular Courts to appeal to. That's better than jumping round the deck with sheath-knives and revolvers."
"Guess you're about right," considered Captain Abe. "Just you sound 'em for me, young man. For my part, I'm willin'."
Villiers went for'ard. In five minutes he had "talked over" the crew. They, too, were willing to carry on as before, on the understanding that a competent cook was shipped at the next port they touched.
Jack, proud of his moral victory, shook hands with the Yankee skipper and the two mates, and returned to the Titania.
"It's all right, now, sir," he reported. "They're carrying on."
At that moment the Titania, forging slowly ahead, was passing under the stern and within half a cable's length of the becalmed Lucy M. Partington.
The latter's skipper caught sight of Pete sitting contentedly on the cat-head. His eyes opened in utter amazement.
"Pete!" he hailed. "Come you back!"
The nigger shook his woolly head.
"You kick me out, Cap'n Abe!" he reminded him.
"Fifty dollars, Pete, if you swim for it," almost implored the Yankee, finding as he thought an easy solution to the present difficulty.
Pete's head shook until his teeth almost rattled in his capacious jaws.
"Dere's no leather sea-boots with nails in 'em on dis vessel," he replied. "Only indy-rubber. 'Specks I know where dis nigger am comf'ble."
Then, using an expression that he had picked up from his new acquaintances on the Titania, he added: "Cheerio, you deah, priceless ole thing!"