The carpenter and one of the crew dragged the struggling man forward, and held him while one of the boys, delighted at the opportunity, pumped the cold river water over the poor creature, whose screams were drowned in the rough merriment of the sailors.
I look back at this scene now, as I record it, and at many others, even worse, that followed during the next month, and wonder if we were all—officers and men—brutes, in “those fine old days” of the Black Ball liners and the Liverpool trade!
Poor Shang—that was the name that fell to him in playful allusion to the fact that he had been made a victim to the “Shanghaeing” process, as it was called—had been drugged and brought on board helpless by Dago Joe to make up our full complement.
When we came to choose watches that evening Shang fell to me; he was left until the last, and Mr. Achley said, “Well, Mr. Kelson, you allowed Joe to bring this duffer on board, and its only fair that you should take him in your watch. I don’t want him!”
Shang, as I found out by questioning him, had gone out that Christmas Eve in New Orleans to buy a few little presents for their Christmas-tree. He was a poor journeyman tailor, a German who had come to this country from his native village of Pyrmont, several years ago, had married a fellow-countrywoman, Lisbeth, and they had one child,—a crippled girl, Greta,—whom the little man loved with his whole heart; and for her he had gone out to purchase something with his scanty, hard-earned wages, paid him that day.
He had stepped into a beer saloon for “ein glas bier,” as he said, had drunk it, felt drowsy, and—“Gott in Himmel, gnädiger Herr, nothing more know I more till I find myself in this strange ship! When think you, sir, we will get there—where we go—is it perhaps far?”
When I told poor Shang the real facts of the case, and that it would be months before he could again see his Lisbeth and Greta, the poor fellow was dumb with horror, and I almost feared he would make away with himself.
I did the best I could to make life endurable for the poor wretch. An old thick suit of mine he deftly made over for himself, and some of his shipmates helped him out with a few other clothes. But, even with the best intention, I could not make a sailor of poor Shang,—it was not in him, for he was a most helpless lubber,—and that was the misery of it.
He had been shipped and entered on our ship’s articles as an able seaman, and Joe had received sixteen dollars of monthly wages on his account. Our crew was short, at best, the winter voyage was a stormy one, and poor Shang could not be favored.
Mr. Ackley seemed to have taken an unconquerable dislike to the man from the first, and led him a dog’s life, beating him unmercifully several times for his shortcomings. Aloft he must go, though he clung helplessly to the ratlines in an agony of terror.