CHAPTER III
“All the way to Calcutty have I been, and seed nothing but one—banany. Howsomever, it was werry good, so I’m going back to have another.”—Old Sailor Story.
Back once more to the house of Trapp & Sons in the Minories, where I had to face Captain Hole, and “dree my weird.”
It was essential in my sea time for obtaining my certificate that I should have four years of good conduct to show, and that could only be obtained by the cancelling of my indentures, or serving out the remainder of my time. Now Captain Hole had retired from the sea, having put the late mate, Mr. Coleman, in command of the Alwynton, and was, moreover, keenly bent upon getting a bit of his own back, so he utterly declined to cancel my indentures and finished the discussion by saying, “I know you like big ships; you have just come home in one in time to go out in a small one. The Lord Nelson is in Swansea, and you will join her at once. If you had stayed in the Alwynton you would have gone away second mate of her this voyage. And that’s for saying ‘I won’t’ to me.”
Well, there was no help for it, but there was a touch of “I told you so” in Mr. Trapp’s private remark, “If you had paid your premium to me I could have altered things.” There was also human nature in this, but what Captain Hole got he kept, as he was part owner, and I proceeded to Swansea to join my new craft as second mate.
A little barque of 247 tons, built by White of Cowes for a whaler, she had made many voyages round Cape Horn and had just come home with a cargo of copper ore. She was not in good repair and was to be refitted and rigged with new wire rigging. I am not at all sure that this was not a stroke of good fortune for me, for as the operation took some months it gave me an opportunity of learning some of the tricks of the trade.
There was a captain who lived on board with his daughter; his name was Boisse, and he was very kind to me, for I lived in the mate’s berth and messed in the cabin. At the same time I had the good fortune to become acquainted with the family of a Captain Outerbridge, the master of a copper ore ship, the Glamorganshire. They treated me as one of themselves, and Tom Outerbridge and myself were inseparable. We both had a great liking for the theatre, to which we treated ourselves to the extreme limit of our purses. Wybert Reeve was then the manager of the Swansea theatre; I met him more than twenty years later in New Zealand and we talked over and remembered the actors and actresses of the old days, but admiration for Kate Saville lingered even then.
Captain Hole paid frequent visits to Swansea to see how the work progressed, and he was also paymaster. After some little time Boisse went on leave, and that left a great deal more responsibility for me, but I learned how caulking required to be watched when it was being done by contract, and also mysteries connected with re-coppering and rigging a ship. It was good useful work. So far as I can recollect there were three riggers and myself, and I suppose that by that time I considered that I could do a man’s work, as my ability to do so had not been questioned in the last ship, and furthermore I had shown that I could do a day’s work at carrying bags of wheat, which is a hardish test.
Whether there is the same zeal now concerning the details of their calling among sailor boys as there was in my time I cannot say, but we apprentices in the Alwynton had always striven to learn all we could about our business. Doubtless we were better in practice than in theory, but we had certain text books that we hammered at until we mastered the various difficulties that presented themselves. Consequently I thought myself equal to sending anything aloft that might be necessary, and naturally took a lead among the riggers. One morning I learned a little more.
We were sending the foreyard aloft, and age and experience said that two double blocks and a fall were the proper tackle to use—no, said Youth, hook on a top block, reeve the end of a small hawser through it, bend on to the yard, and we will take it to the windlass and heave away.