A GENIAL SKIPPER
Captain Scott was as commonplace a little man as ever commanded an old wooden tub of a barque lumbering her way forlornly from port to port seeking freight as a beggar seeks pence. His command, the Sarah Jane, belonged to a decayed firm of shipowners that, like many other old-fashioned tradesmen, had not kept pace with the times, and were now reduced to the possession of this ancient pauper and a still older brig, all the rest of their once stately fleet having been sold or lost or seized to satisfy mortgages. Yet they still retained a keen sense of respectability, and when Captain Scott applied for the command of the Sarah Jane they were exceedingly careful to ascertain that he was strictly sober and trustworthy. He not only succeeded in satisfying them on these points, but in some mysterious manner persuaded them also that he was exceedingly pious, and would certainly hold service on board every Sunday, weather permitting. That settled his appointment, for the senior member of the firm was a good, honest Dissenter, who, if a trifle narrow and bigoted in his religious views, was sincerely anxious to live up to the light he had. Beyond all question the Sarah Jane was the best-found vessel of her class in the food line that we chaps forrard had ever sailed in. It would have been hard to find a more agreeably surprised little crowd than we were when the first meal appeared in the fo’c’sle, for our preliminary view of the ship certainly gave us the idea that we were in for “plenty pump and velly flat belly,” as a quaint little Italian A. B. said while we were selecting bunks.
But no, she was a comfortable ship. There was certainly “plenty pump,” but the grub was so good that there was never a growl heard among us, and a pleasanter passage out to Algoa Bay than we enjoyed could hardly be imagined. The Sunday services were held, too—that is to say, twice; after that they were quietly dropped without any reason assigned. No one felt sorry, for there was an air of unreality and constraint about the whole thing that was puzzling and unsatisfactory; and on several occasions there was wafted across the poop, as the skipper emerged from the companion, a tantalizing odour which none of us could mistake—the rich bouquet of old Jamaica rum. This gave rise to many discussions in the fo’c’sle. The port watch took sides against the starboard, insisting that the old man had fallen from grace, if, which was problematical, he had ever possessed any of that mysterious quality. We of the starboard, or skipper’s watch, as in duty bound, stood up for him, accounting for the thirst-provoking smell that came wafting upwards from the cabin periodically by the theory of the Sarah Jane having been an old sugar drogher for many years, until her timbers were saturated with the flavour of rum, and, according as the wind tended to diffuse it, we were favoured with it on deck.
Never was a skipper watched more closely by his crew than Captain Scott was by us, for the steward and the officers were unapproachable upon the subject, and it was only by catching him really drunk that our continual dispute could be settled. After we had crossed the Line, and were getting rapidly to the suth’ard, I began to lose faith, for, although I could not determine whether the skipper’s peculiar gait was or was not the regular nautical roll accentuated by some physical peculiarity, there was no mistaking the ever-deepening hue of his face. When we left home it was fresh-coloured, but as the weeks went by it took on the glow of burnished copper—especially after dinner—and sometimes his nose looked warm enough to light one’s pipe at it. However, we reached Algoa Bay without settling our argument—openly, that is. In truth, we of the starboard watch were looking eagerly for some way of retreat from what we all felt was getting to be an untenable position. Still, no agreement was arrived at until we had been at anchor off Port Elizabeth for a week, during which time we had never seen our respected skipper once.
Then there arrived alongside, on a Saturday afternoon, after we had washed decks and were dabbing out our own few bits of duds for Sunday, a surf-boat, in the stern of which sat precariously a very drunken man. He was truculently drunk, and the big cigar, which was stuck in one angle of his protruding lips, pointed upwards like an old collier’s jibboom. Both his hands were thrust deep into his pockets, and his top-hat was jammed hard down on the back of his head. As the boat bumped alongside, his insecure seat failed him, and he lurched massively forward upon the crown of his hat, which caved in after its brim had passed his ears, adding to the picturesqueness of his outfit. The boatmen seized and reinstated him upon a thwart, receiving for their pains an address that reeked of the pit. For variety of profanity we all admitted it to be far beyond anything of the kind that we had ever heard, and one of our number suggested that he had been founding a new church during his absence, his outbreak of peculiar language being part of the liturgy thereof. We only had an ordinary side ladder of the usual type carried in those ships—two ropes with wooden rungs seized between them—which was suspended perpendicularly from the rail. This kind of approach is not easy of negotiation by anybody but a sober sailor; it was impossible now to Captain Scott. He gazed upwards fiercely at the anxious face of the mate, and, with many flowers of speech, insisted that a whip should be rigged on the mainyard for him—blasphemously sharp, too, or he would, yes, he would, when he did get aboard.
So we rigged a single whip at the mate’s order, not without many audible comments upon this new development and recriminations between the members of the two disputing watches. With many a bump, as the vessel rolled to the incoming swell, we hoisted our commander on board, letting him come down on deck with a jolt that must have well-nigh started all his teeth. Released from his bonds, he rose swaying to his feet, and, glaring round upon the assembled crew, roared thickly, “All han’s short’n sail!” There was a shout of laughter at this maniacal command, which infuriated him so much that he seemed transformed into a veritable demon. His face went purple, he ground his teeth like a fighting boar, and would no doubt have had some sort of fit but for a diversion made by the boatmen who had brought him off. One of them approached him, saying abruptly but quite civilly—
“If you don’t want us any more, sir, we sh’d like our fare, so’s we can get ashore again.”
Peculiarly, this interruption changed his mood into the coldly sarcastic. With an air of exquisite politeness he turned to the boatman, and, with a bear-like bow, said—
“Ho, indeed; Hi ’ave much pleasure in ’earin’ ov it. An’ may we take th’ hopportunity hof harskin’ oo th’ ’ells a-preventin’ hof yer frum goin’ t’ the devil hif ye likes.” (Be it noted that when sober he spoke fairly correct English.) “Has ter a-wantin’ hof ye hany more, Hi wouldn’t ’ave a barge-load hof yer fur a gift; Hi wouldn’t carry yer fur ballast, there! Might come in ’andy for dunnagin’ carsks—but there, I don’ know. Anyway, get t’ ’ell houter this.”