The Brassbounder: A Tale of the Sea

by David W. Bone

"God bless you, Captain Leish! Are you long out?"

"Blimy," said the bo'sun, "th' young 'un wos right after all. 'Oly Joes they be!"

"Mebbe 'oly Joes, but them ain't sailormen," muttered Martin sullenly; "them's Kanakas!"

Neither was quite right, for the boatmen were Pitcairn Islanders, and they were soon on deck greeting us in the friendly way of men from afar. Their leader went aft to the Old Man, and the rest remained to tell us of the wreck, in exchange for what scant knowledge we had of affairs.

The island was called Oeno. The ship was the Bowden, of Liverpool. She had gone ashore, six weeks back, in a northerly wind, with all sail on her: chronometer was twenty miles out: a bad case, the whole bottom was ripped out of her, and her ruined cargo of grain smelt abominably; two of their men were already sick. Ugh! ... The crew of the ship had made for Pitcairn, ninety miles to the southward; they might be there now. They (the Islanders) had now been three weeks on the reef, salving what they could. There was not much: they were all pretty sick of the job, and wanted to get back to Pitcairn. Perhaps the Captain would give them a passage; it was on the way?

As we stood about, the Old Man and the leader of the Islanders came out of the cabin, and talked with the others. All wanted to get back to Pitcairn, and, the Old Man agreeing to give them a passage, we hoisted the smaller boat on our davits, towed the other astern, and were soon on our way towards Pitcairn.

When we got the ship in fair sailing trim, we had a rare opportunity of learning something of the Island and its people. Discipline was, for the time, relaxed, and but for working ship, in which the Islanders joined us, we had the time to ourselves. In the shade of the great sails, we stood or sat about, and our decks showed an unusual animation in the groups of men colloguing earnestly—strangers met by the way.

In stature the Islanders were perhaps above the average height, lithe and wiry, and but few were darker-skinned than a Spaniard or Italian. They spoke excellent English (though, among themselves, they had a few odd words), and their speech had no unnecessary adjectives. They had a gentle manner, and no ill language; sometimes our rough ship talk raised a slight protest; a raised hand, or a mild, "Oh, Sir!" Their leader, who was Governor of the Island, was a man in the prime of life, and, though dressed in dungarees and a worn cotton shirt, barefooted like the rest, had a quiet dignity in his manner and address that caused even our truculent Old Martin to call him Sir. There was one outlander among them, a wiry old man, an American whaleman, who had been settled on the Island for many years; he it was who steered the boat, and he knew a little of navigation.

Their talk was mostly of ships that had visited the Island, and they asked us to run over the names of the ships that were at 'Frisco when we left; when we mentioned a ship that they knew, they were eager to know how it fared with her people. They had fine memories. They could name the Captain and Mates of each ship; of the whalers they had the particulars even down to the bulk of oil aboard. They seemed to take a pleasure in learning our names, and, these known, they let pass no opportunity of using them, slipping them into sentences in the oddest manner. They themselves had few surnames—Adams, Fletcher, Christian, and Hobbs (the names of their forefathers, the stark mutineers of the Bounty)—but their Christian names were many and curious, sometimes days of the week or even dates. They told us that there was a child named after our Old Man, who had called off the Island the day after it was born, five years ago; a weird name for a lassie! In one way the Islanders had a want. They had no sense of humour. True, they laughed with us at some merry jest of our Irish cook, but it was the laugh of children, seeing their elders amused, and though they were ever cheery-faced and smiling, they were strangely serious in their outlook.

We had light winds, and made slow progress, and it was the afternoon of the second day when we saw Pitcairn, rising bold and solitary, on the lee bow. The sun had gone down before we drew nigh, and the Island stood sharp outlined against the scarlet and gold of a radiant western sky. Slowly the light failed, and the dark moonless night found us lifting lazily to the swell off the north point. The Islanders manned their boats and made off to the landing place. It was clock calm, and we heard the steady creak of their oars long after the dark had taken them. We drifted close to the land, and the scent of trees, lime and orange, was sweetly strange.