“Yes; I sees what you mean, Mr Troubridge,” answered the boatswain. “But, Lor’ bless yer, sir, I don’t think nothin’ at all of a little spree like this here. Discipline’s a first-rate thing, I admit; but a man can have too much of it, and it does him good to chuck it overboard now and again. Them chaps for’ard won’t be none the worse for this here little outbreak of theirs, you’ll see. We all enj’ys a bit o’ liberty occasionally, you know.”
“Ay,” answered I rather bitterly. “The mischief of it is, Polson, that when men in the position of those noisy rascals in the forecastle take it upon themselves to determine when, and for how long a time, they shall indulge in a spell of liberty, they are as likely as not to insist upon having it at a moment when it spells disaster for other people. Liberty is a grand thing, in theory, and within certain well-defined limits; but when it becomes licence—as it is very apt to do—it is a bad thing for all concerned.”
“Well, sir, you may be right, or you may be wrong, I don’t know, never havin’ had any eddication. But Mr Wilde, he’s an eddicated man, and he’s all for liberty and equality; and I don’t mind sayin’ as I prefers his notions to yours.”
“Very well,” I said; “go your own way, Polson, since go you will. But I wouldn’t mind betting the sailorman’s favourite wager—a farthing’s worth of silver spoons—that before another year has passed over your head you will alter your tune. Take care that you do not defer the alteration until it is too late and the mischief has become irrevocable.”
Now it happened that Wilde was, among a great many other things, a stanch teetotaller; he was also an excessively nervous person. When he, with the rest of the emigrants, came on deck after dinner upon this particular day, and heard the maudlin, drunken singing in the forecastle, and furthermore recognised that the ship was, for the time being at least, without a crew, he fell into a tremendous rage, and, rushing forward, precipitated himself into the forecastle, where, believing that the crew, drunk, would accord to him the same reverential attention that they were wont to do when sober, he proceeded to reproach and revile them in no measured terms for their lapse from virtue, actually going to the length, before anybody could stop him, of smashing half a dozen bottles of Schiedam that he caught sight of snugly stowed away in a bunk. So long as he confined himself to merely verbal remonstrance and abuse the men listened to him with the vacuous, good-humoured smile of intoxication, occasionally interrupting him with an invitation to join them in their bacchanalian orgy; but when he took what they deemed a base advantage of their good nature, by smashing the bottles and wasting the liquor that one of the revellers had incautiously revealed to him in support of the jovial invitation, their good humour suddenly evaporated, and, staggering to their feet in indignation, they would probably have done the man a serious injury had they been capable of following him up on deck, whither he precipitately fled. Then, having learned, during his brief visit to the forecastle, that the carpenter was the chief culprit, he rushed into the latter’s cabin, mercilessly aroused poor Chips from the profound sleep that was gradually clearing his muddled brain, and tongue-lashed the bewildered man until he must have scarcely known whether he was upon his head or his heels. Fortunately for the schoolmaster, Chips’s indiscretion had been a mild one indeed compared with those of the forecastle hands, and he therefore accepted Wilde’s rebukes with a tolerably good grace and in silence; but Wilde was one of those enthusiasts who carry even their virtues to excess, and his denunciations of Chips were of so virulent and extravagant a character that they did more harm than good, and—as I discovered later on—converted Tudsbery from a blindly faithful disciple into a sullen, more than half-doubting, and reluctant follower.
The incident ended, as Polson had anticipated that it would, in all hands coming on deck at the end of the first dogwatch, and clearing their brains by plunging their heads into buckets of sea water, after which the boatswain went forward and gave them all a mild and more than half good-humoured dressing-down, at the same time telling them one or two home truths in a tersely sarcastic strain that was far more effective than Wilde’s rabidly intolerant language, which lost its point with those to whom it was addressed chiefly because of its violent exaggeration, through which he contrived, in a few minutes, to lose a measure of influence that it cost him months of strenuous endeavour to regain only partially. The fact is that this incident, comparatively trifling and harmless in its character as it was, led some of the men to question whether they had not thrown off the mild and easy restraints of lawful discipline, only to subject themselves to the grinding tyranny of a single individual of impulsive temper and overbearing disposition.
The sun went down that evening in a sky that glowed like molten copper and was streaked with long tatters of smoky-looking cloud, which seemed to presage both a windy and a dark night, to my great anxiety; for the ship was now navigating a comparatively restricted area of landlocked sea, the chart of which was dotted—much too thickly for my peace of mind—with dangers of various descriptions, the names of many of which, when they bore any names at all, were coupled with that sinister caution (“P.D.”) warning the mariner that the position, as laid down upon the chart, was doubtful, and that therefore an especially good lookout must be maintained lest it should be blundered upon unawares.
These hints as to the necessity for exceptionally careful navigation were supplemented by a further warning given in the directory to the effect that not only were the positions of many of the dangers shown upon the chart exceedingly doubtful, but also that the existence of other dangers, not indicated at all upon the chart, was very strongly suspected! The exhaustive study which I had given to both the chart and the directory had so very effectually impressed upon me the vital necessity for the exercise of the most extreme caution henceforward that, being yet very young, and quite new to the heavy load of responsibility imposed upon me, I was perhaps more anxious than there was any actual need for. Under the pressure of this anxiety I went below, again produced the chart, and very carefully laid down upon it the course and distance, as indicated by the compass and log, which the ship had travelled since noon. I did this chiefly because I had already ascertained that there lay in the ship’s path two known dangers, the positions of which were doubtful; and what I had just done resulted in the discovery that, should the wind freshen sufficiently during the night to increase the speed of the ship to more than six knots, we were likely enough to approach within perilous proximity of those dangers before daylight of the next morning.
Accordingly I mentioned this fact to both Polson and Tudsbery, cautioning them to shorten sail in good time, and to call me should the wind freshen, as it seemed likely to do, during the hours of darkness. As a matter of fact, not only did the wind freshen during the first watch, but it also hauled round over the port quarter, increasing our speed so greatly that at length, when the watch was called at midnight, I—having kept the deck in my anxiety—took the precaution of shortening sail to the three topsails and fore topmast staysail, thus ensuring, as I confidently believed, that we should keep well clear of those pestilent dangers while the darkness lasted. Then, to add further to my anxieties, a drizzling rain came driving down upon us, thickening the atmosphere to such an extent that it became impossible to see anything beyond a ship’s length distant; and, after driving along through this at a speed of about five knots for the next four hours, my nervousness became so great that I gave orders to bring the ship to the wind and heave her to, determining to await the return of daylight before attempting any further progress.
At length a faint paling of the intense darkness astern proclaimed that the long night—wet, hot, steamy, and altogether unpleasant—was drawing to an end, and simultaneously the rain ceased, enabling us to discard the oilskins and sou’-westers in which we had been stewing all night. I took mine down on to the main deck, and hung them up to drain and dry on a hook commonly used to hook back the starboard door giving access to the poop cabins. Then, feeling exceedingly weary with my all-night vigil—for I had never been off the deck since sunset—I went to my own cabin for a few minutes and, filling the wash basin with cold fresh water, indulged in the luxury of a good wash, which had the effect of considerably refreshing me. This done, I returned to the poop, meeting Polson—whose watch it was—at the head of the poop ladder.