Tales of the clipper ships

by C. Fox Smith

The captain, a fierce-looking little man with bushy eyebrows, indulged in a smile at the recital of Jim’s reputed accomplishments.

“Take him if ye like,” he said, “and, listen, you, boy” (bending the bushy brows on Jim), “if you’re tellin’ lies, it’s the rope’s-end you’ll taste, my lad.”

He spent the night curled up on a box in the corner of the galley, listening with one ear to the yarns of the old one-eyed shipkeeper, the other cocked for the ominous tread of the dreaded policeman. But dawn came, and brought no policeman, and by noon the “John and Jane” was dropping downstream with the tide.

It seemed to the boy Jim like a foretaste of Heaven. The captain was a kindly man for all his appearance of ferocity, the mate easier still. No one got kicked; nobody went without his grub—incidentally he was relieved to find that nothing further was said about cooking the cabin dinner; wonder of wonders, nobody was so much as sworn at seriously. True, the amiable mate was the most foul-mouthed man he had ever come across before or since. But then, hard words break no bones, especially on board ship, and the mate’s repertoire was generally looked on as something in the nature of a polite accomplishment: something like conjuring tricks or making pictures out of ink blots.

It was all a wonder to him, just as Oporto, whither the “John and Jane” was bound, was a wonder to him after the cold stormy North Sea, the bleak streets of Newcastle and Wapping which so far had been his only idea of seaports. The schooner, as has already been said, was an easy ship, and in port the hands had plenty of time to themselves. He liked the sun, the light, the warmth, the colour. He liked the laughing, lazy, careless children of the South. He liked the many-coloured houses that climbed the steep streets of the old town—and the bathing in the great river—and the little stuffy wineshops with their mixed smell of sour wine and sawdust and stale cigar-smoke and onions—and the bells that chimed day long, night long, from hidden convents in green gardens behind high walls. And the oranges——

The day he first saw Conchita, he had gone off for a walk by himself, and, the day being hot, had lain down by the roadside to rest. And as he lay there half asleep, lulled by the shrill song of the cicalas in the grass all round him, plop! something bounced on to his chest, rolled a little way, and lay still.

He reached out his hand and picked it up. An orange! Its skin was still warm with the sun, and it had that indefinable bloom on it that belongs to all fruit newly gathered. And then he looked round to see where it had come from, and saw—Conchita!

Conchita with her dark, vivacious little face, her eyes black as sloes, her red lips open in a wide laugh that showed a row of perfect teeth—Conchita with her full white sleeves under her stiff embroidery jacket, her wide gay-coloured petticoats, her dainty white-stockinged ankles and little slippered feet; why, she was almost like a talking doll, Jim thought, that he had seen in a big toyshop in Newcastle, and wished he had the money to buy for his sister! He felt as awkward, as clumsy with her as a boy with a doll. Goodness knows how they understood one another, those two young things! There is a sort of freemasonry, somehow or other, among young things that laughs at such difficulties as language. She knew a little broken English, which she was immensely proud of. She had picked it up at school from an English playmate. But Jim knew nothing but his own East Coast brand of his native speech. However, understand one another they did, somehow or other. He learnt her name, of course, and how she laughed at his attempts to say it as she said it! He learned, also, that she was sixteen, and that she was to be married some day to old João the muleteer, but that she did not like him because of “ees faze—o-ah, long, lak’ dees!” And she stretched out her arms to their full extent to indicate it. But she “lak’ Ing-lees sailor, o-ah ver-ree, ver-ree much”—and she “giv’ you—o-ah, ever so many orange—lak’ dees!” And she made a wide circle with her arms to show their number.

The boy went back to his ship in a kind of dream. Her warm Southern nature was riper far than his. He was swept clean off his feet by the fervour of her unashamed yet innocent lovemaking—by the feel of her warm body, of her warm lips, of her rounded cheeks soft and glowing, as sun-warmed oranges. Of course he went again—and many times again—and then there came the last night before the “John and Jane” was to sail.

It had been arranged that for once he was not to go alone. Perhaps Conchita, strange little blend of impulse and sophistication, had judged it best that their leave-taking should not be an affaire à deux. Jim was to bring some of his shipmates along: and Conchita would bring also some of the other girls. And it would “be fon—o-ah, yees, soch fon!”