But none of the men for'ard got as much as a teaspoonful even after shortening sail, or on Saturday nights.
"We've struck it rich," said the crowd, when they got together in the second dog-watch. "We've struck it rich. There's no fatal error about that. You can see it with half an eye a mile off. The skipper's a holy terror!"
"Ya! ya! we've got to yoomp!" said a real Dutchman, and he was put in the place proper to a Dutchman at once.
"Speak when you are spoken to," said the English and American seamen all at once. "These Dutchmen are getting past a joke, bullies."
"So they are," said old Mackenzie, a shellback of the briniest description. "When I was a boy, if one of them opened his mouth too wide we used to put something in it."
"What did you put in?" asked the eager Anglo-Saxons.
"Oh, anything as he couldn't eat," said Mac. "A ball o' twine or a swab. I remember one Dutchy as would talk——"
But just then the man from Abo came in, and though the crowd was not really sympathetic, they asked him how his jaw felt. It appeared after all that he understood "United States" sufficiently well when it was to the point: that is, when it concerned his duty or the talk that goes on in a foc'sle. A word beyond these limits opened his eyes and shut his mouth. He was then like a waiter fresh from the Continent, who can talk in English about food, and food only.
"Never you mind, Dutchy," said one of his own watch. "Mebbe, after all, it'll do you good. If Bragg hammers you, we won't."
Even such consolation was better than none, and Dutchy was truly grateful. The lot of a "Dutchman" at sea is not always beer and skittles. But even an Anglo-American crowd can have sympathy when they are like to want it themselves. They certainly found that Billy Noyes's notion of a paradise made Tophet look cool, even as depicted to a sad and sober sailor in a waterside Bethel. They wanted Bordeaux badly, and under the influence of that desire and the stimulation supplied by the officers they lost no time in getting there. And as they were a fine lot as men go, few of them came in for actual hammering. The slowest got that always, and the man from Abo was the man to get it.