We established friendly relations with her crew, meeting some of them ashore at the concerts. Frenchy made the acquaintance of her cook and the "doctor" presented him with a can of curry powder. But no matter how friendly the crew of the Morning Star might be when ashore, they were careful to never go aboard the Fuller; also the moral atmosphere of this vessel was so strong that it pervaded the clothing of the whole ship's company, for none of them ever was seen in any of the barrooms frequented by sailors. However, Peter had met them while attending lauas and they were as fond of swipes as the next man, quite human, even to the extent of getting gloriously drunk.
One class of visitors on board the Morning Star, who seemed in the majority, were the army officers. And by the word "army" as generally used in the capital of the Hawaiian Republic at that time, was meant the Salvation Army. The Salvationists were very influential in affairs along the waterfront. We had been in port about a week when their advance guard came over our rail, sort of spiritual Uhlans descending upon us, after dusk, as we sat about between the time of clearing away the supper kids and lighting our pipes for a stroll ashore. And let it here be said that whatever good they may do in other fields, and there is no denying this, they were working in ground already fairly moral when they boarded the Fuller. My observation has been that the moral index, if I may coin a term, is inversely proportional to the amount of work. Hard workers, physical and mental, are as a rule fairly moral.
On the ship Fuller was gathered at that time as decent a lot of men as ever sailed the seas. I have listened to more obscenity in a short space of time among men who held themselves educated than fouled our ears during the whole voyage about which I am writing. For one thing, we always had something interesting to talk about, and our few leisure hours were too precious to throw away.
The head scouts of the army were no doubt attracted by the rather cheerful noises coming from our band, an organization making use of all the typical sailor instruments, the accordion, several mouth organs, a jew's-harp, and a drum made by Jimmy Marshall out of a small paint keg with canvas stretched on both ends. The missioners from the good ship Morning Star were very much interested, no doubt scenting talent for their concerts, and the party came aboard on what might be called a cutting out expedition.
"Yes, we were getting lots to eat." "No, the ship was not particularly hard. The captain was all right." "Yes, the mate did swear a lot; in fact he was a bad man, but we had seen worse." "Yes, the life of a sailor is a hard one. We all liked Honolulu. Etc. Etc." Old Smith had the party in tow, and acted as spokesman while the parley was going on. Jimmy in the meantime buzzed around, all eagerness to get in his fine work at panning the ship, the grub, and everything else.
One of the visitors noticed this. He was a tall thin man wearing the fatigue uniform of nothing less than a Major, and was evidently a student of the genus sailor, that is, a student of the sailor man going through his paces ashore; a down trodden unfortunate, sleeping in a bunk innocent of woven wire springs, without clean linen sheets, and having to wash himself in a common deck bucket, all of which of course is true enough. The tall man was drawn aside by Jimmy, his grizzled monkey face working like a nutcracker. Jimmy talked to such good purpose that the tall army officer handed him a card and asked him to call when ashore. Our band then struck up, and nobody could help but notice that Jimmy Marshall was a most proficient drummer.
The upshot of this was that a week later Jimmy took to his bunk sick. "Contusion of the liver," he called it. "Too much work an' the rotten grub 'as got me at last." There was much groaning in his bunk, and when Captain Nichols looked him over he shook his head.
The following day several army authorities came aboard to visit Jimmy, a mighty fine looking captain among them, for we all admired her. Two days after this Jimmy rose from his bunk with great effort and went aft while the captain paid him off. Kanakas came aboard for his dunnage, and Jimmy Marshall joined the Salvation Army. We saw him on the corner of Fort and Hotel Streets soon afterward beating a brand-new drum and utterly ignoring us. How the army did it remained a mystery until a young man from Brewer's office let fall the hint that army influence was exerted through the agents. Whatever it was, it worked, and for many a day we missed Jimmy. His "beef" on a rope was negligible, but he was clever at every sailor art and his singing was in a class by itself.
Scouse summed up the fo'c'sle opinion when he said, "Dot's a smart feller, dot Chimmy."