*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75093 ***
THE
CRADLE
OF THE
DEEP
BY
JOAN LOWELL
Illustrated by Kurt Wiese
1929
SIMON AND SCHUSTER
NEW YORK
FIRST PRINTING MARCH 1929, 75,000 COPIES
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Copyright, 1929, by Simon and Schuster, Inc.
37 WEST 57 STREET NEW YORK
PRINTED IN U. S. A. BY VAIL-BALLOU PRESS, BINGHAMTON
BOUND BY H. WOLFF EST., N. Y.
DESIGNED BY ANDOR BRAUN
TO
Edward L. Bernays
AND
Hiram Kelly Motherwell
who encouraged me to write this book
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PAGE | |
CHAPTER I | |
“I spit a curve in the wind” | 1 |
CHAPTER II | |
In which an alarm clock and some dried apricots are exchanged with natives for a nurse for me. The ship becomes my cradle | 15 |
CHAPTER III | |
“A ship is called a ‘she’ because her riggin’ costs more than her hull.”—Stitches | 23 |
CHAPTER IV | |
In which I learn that young ladies must not take baths in gentlemen’s drinking water | 33 |
CHAPTER V | |
Perfume on the cook’s feet and hair on my chest.—What of it? | 47 |
CHAPTER VI | |
A dead fish and a squarehead’s kiss | 55 |
CHAPTER VII | |
A runaway sea horse | 65 |
CHAPTER VIII | |
We catch a female shark and I learn about women from her— | 77 |
CHAPTER IX | |
In which I learn to take a joke. Hoping you may do the same | 87 |
CHAPTER X | |
A bucko Captain and his Bible chart for me the mysteries of sex | 95 |
CHAPTER XI | |
“The Sea gives up its dead” | 103 |
CHAPTER XII | |
A cursing contest and a hangman’s noose | 119 |
CHAPTER XIII | |
Ideas about Women | 133 |
CHAPTER XIV | |
I find navigating on shore full of shoals | 147 |
CHAPTER XV | |
From the region of floating mountains of ice to the Island of White Natives | 161 |
CHAPTER XVI | |
The clouds came down and the sea reached up to meet them and out of their travail a sea monster was born! | 179 |
CHAPTER XVII | |
Strip poker and female struck—which of course have nothing to do with each other | 191 |
CHAPTER XVIII | |
A shanghaied crew and scurvy are poor bunkmates in a White Squall | 203 |
CHAPTER XIX | |
The Dance of the Virgins on Atafu | 215 |
CHAPTER XX | |
A Love Story—which is an end and not a beginning | 235 |
CHAPTER XXI | |
“You pull for the shore, boys, Praying to Heaven above, But I’ll go down in the angry deep, With the ship I love.” | 247 |
THE CRADLE OF THE DEEP
“She ain’t any water rat, ma’am! She’s a girl flower, sheis, with the tropic heavens fer a hothouse, and the scoldin’of the storm fer her when she’s bad. An’ she knows allthat we sailormen know—all the good—’cause no one ofus ever let her hear nothin’ else.”
It was Old John Henry, one of our sailors, defendingme to the wife of an American Consul in an Australianport. She had asked him, as he stood on watch at the gangway,what kind of a “water rat” was the Captain’s daughter,living such a rough life among rough men on aschooner. And John Henry, feeling he must uphold thedignity of the Captain’s daughter and the genteelness ofsailormen, had replied with all the sea poetry he couldcommand.
“But how awful for a girl to be raised on a ship withnothing but men,” persisted the woman unconvinced. Shehadn’t seen me but she had heard the talk of the waterfrontand she knew I must be rough, and coarse and low—justawful—raised without the softening feminine influence.
“Awful, hell!” snorted John Henry. “She ain’t nodamn fool like most women; her Old Man uses a rope’send on her stern often enough to keep the foolishness outenher head.”
I was taking it easy, rolled up in the canvas of the mizzensail which was furled on the mizzen boom. If I hadn’tbeen afraid of women I would have come down to see howdifferent she was from me because I couldn’t understandwhy any one should think it strange that I lived on a shipwith no woman to care for me. Hadn’t she gone to seawhen she was a little girl? I supposed every girl went tosea when she was young for I knew nothing but the seaand strange island ports.
The smell of rotting copra, putrid pearl oysters drying,sandalwood in little bundles piled high on our deck, thefumes from a cargo of guano, and sacks of ivory nuts—thesethings, the places they came from and the peoplewho brought them to us were the commonplaces of mylife. The legends of the sea told me by the sailors on ourship were my fairy tales; the freak storms, the bewilderingdoldrums in the tropics, and the companionship ofold shellback sailors, the foundation of my experience.
My father’s ship, the Minnie A. Caine, was a four-masted,windjammer rigged schooner, engaged in thecopra and sandalwood trade between the islands of theSouth Seas and Australia. I couldn’t remember when Iwasn’t on a ship. Born in Berkeley, California—knownin the maritime world as “the sea Captain’s bedroom”—Iwas the eleventh child in our family. Four of mybrothers and sisters had died in two years. They calledme the lick of the pan because I was last and not much ofme. No one expected me to grow up, but Father said:
“This is the last one and I’m going to save it. I’ll takeit away from the land and let the sea make it the pick ofthe puppies.” So he took me when I was less than a yearold and I lived on shipboard until I was seventeen, and ifthe sea didn’t make me the pick of the puppies, at leastit made me the huskiest.
Father brought me up with no creed except fear andrespect for the gods that brew the storms and calms.
As to God Himself, I can say only that in my early lifeHe and I were on most intimate terms. I had not half thefear of Him that I had of Father. I felt much closer toHim because I could discuss many things with Him thatI wouldn’t have dared mention to Father. He was myfriend, confidant, and counselor and I always felt thatHe approved of everything I did, and if I felt He disapprovedI would argue until I convinced Him—in myown mind! Our arguments and discussions took place atthe masthead far above the deck where no one could hearour private conversations.
Many a time I climbed to the crosstrees of the foremastand had it out with Him. If things had gone wellwith me I thanked Him—as for instance, if I managedto steal an extra hunk of brown sugar from the storeroomfor my oatmeal, without being caught, I thought He wasa good sport and told Him so. But I gave Him hell if Helet us get caught in a sudden storm that ripped our sailsor if we were becalmed in the deadly doldrums.
Father was very different—much more concrete, harderto twist around my finger—more to be feared than God,in my estimation. I could say anything to God—praiseHim, gossip with Him or tell Him to go to the devil,and I did. But in all my years on the ship I heard fewever tell Father to go to the devil and none ever did ittwice!
It was from my father that I inherited my love of thesea, the understanding of it, and the courage to face it.The sea was his life and he never wanted any other. Howcould a boy, born on an old clipper ship lying in far-offGeelong Bay, Australia, expect to do anything but followthe sea, and, if the Wanderlust ruled his blood, certainlyhe came by it naturally.
My grandfather, Louis Lazzarrevich, was a Montenegrinland owner and my grandmother a beautiful girlof Turkish blood whom Louis Lazzarrevich had marriedin spite of the Montenegrin hatred of the Turks. Lifein Montenegro with a Turkish wife was not so pleasant.Consequently, after the birth of their first child, theyoung couple, to get away, planned a trip around theworld in a sailing ship. In Geelong Bay, Australia,where the ship had put in, my father was born. Mygrandmother was so ill that her husband took her ashoreand told the captain of the clipper ship that they wouldstay in Australia, and he could pick them up on his returnvoyage in two years.
Within a week of the time of their landing, my grandfatherwas accidentally drowned in Geelong Bay. Thatleft my grandmother stranded with two children, myfather and his older sister.
Shortly after my grandfather’s death, my grandmothermet a fascinating German pearl-trader, Captain Wagner.Beautiful women were scarce in Australia in thosedays, and there has always been a certain affinity betweenbeautiful women and pearls. Moreover Turkish womenare fatalistic. So it was not long before the pearl-tradermarried my grandmother, but, once married, he absolutelyrefused to have his honeymoon cluttered up withhis predecessor’s children. As to my grandmother, newlove and the pearls outweighed old love and her children—andas I have said before, Turkish women arefatalistic.
So she and her pearl-trader sailed away to the SouthSeas, and the good Jesuit Fathers took in the unwantedchildren.
For the first ten years of his life my father enduredthe confinement, the strict discipline and the soul lonelinessof the Jesuit Orphan Asylum, and then the Wanderlustin his blood took hold. Fearing the good Fathersmight not understand, and not wishing to hurt their feelingsby telling them what he thought of their orphanage,he departed quietly one night without saying good-bye.A few days later when he left Australia on a tradingschooner plying between Melbourne and China, thatsame modesty and diffidence kept him from letting thecaptain or the crew know he was on board until, whenthey were out at sea, hunger forced his confession. Theywhipped him and put him to work, but they couldn’tturn back or stop the ship on his account so he got toChina.
Then followed eight years’ work on traders in the FarEast before the boy, now eighteen, sailed into San FranciscoBay, deckhand on a full-rigged English clipper.
San Francisco at that time was only a sheltered harborwith a dock about a block long!
One day a young girl wandered down to the wharf towatch the ships come in. On the clipper ship she saw ahandsome, dark-haired young man holystoning the deck.He spoke to her. She had never seen any one like him before.He told her stories of the sea, stories of tradingand escapes from sea thieves off the China coasts. Shewas so fascinated by his tales that she stole away everyday to meet him. The girl was Emmaline Trask Lowell,the fourteen year old daughter of Dr. Butler Lowell, onceof Boston, but then of more liberal-minded San Francisco.
The Lowells were a very respectable family in Massachusetts.Young Doctor Butler Lowell had relativesenough to keep any young doctor comfortably occupied,—hewas a cousin, though twice removed, of James RussellLowell—but when he began to preach that “consumptionwas catching” and people with the dry coughshould be put off by themselves, all the sisters and thecousins and the aunts turned against him. I guess therewere too many in Massachusetts in that day rather proudof their dry cough as an added subject of conversation!
When the neighbors turn against a doctor there is onlyone thing for the doctor to do, and Dr. Butler Lowelldid it. His move landed him in San Francisco.
Although Dr. Lowell had radical medical ideas hisother notions were quite in accord with his family tradition.Which perhaps was the reason that Emmaline Lowelldidn’t tell her parents of the deckhand she had fallenin love with. Instead she eloped with her sailor toNiles, California. They kept their marriage a secret anda month later my father sailed for Samoa to be gone fora year. When he returned he found a baby son—my oldestbrother.
My mother hated the sea. It took my father away fromher sometimes for months, sometimes for two or threeyears. She never went with him, for the babies camealong too fast—I was the eleventh!
Over a period of years Father worked himself up untilhe was the ranking captain of the Alaska Packers fleetof salmon ships. During the months his ship was frozen in,in Alaska, he learned the North like a book. He madecharts of the wilds around Nome for the government. Heprospected for gold; he went whaling for oil, and sealingfor rich furs. He traded with the Eskimos, giving themtools, lumber and firearms in exchange for rare, carvedivory tusks of walrus, and polar bear skins.
I have always thought of Father as the swordfish ofthe ship. I began thinking of him that way the day I sawa swordfish and a whale in deadly combat.
Because of its size and the pictures they have seen ofsmall boats being smashed by one sweep of its tail, mostpeople naturally think of the whale as king of the ocean,but that impression is wrong. The swordfish is the boss.Both the whale and the shark are too slow and too clumsyto whip the real ruler of the sea. The swordfish doesn’tgrow beyond fifteen feet, but it fights because it likes tofight, and on occasion has driven its weapon ten inchesthrough the copper and oak side of a ship.
We were in the trade winds about ten degrees northof the Equator one hot afternoon when, close to the shipand entirely without warning, a sperm whale leapedfrantically clear and while in the air smacked down at thewater savagely with its tail. The yell of the man at thewheel and the noise of that resounding slap brought allhands to the rail.
“Swordfish,” said Father. “Nothing else ever made awhale jump out of the water.”
Three times that whale jumped and what a thrashingabout there was! The battle was ahead of us and a littleto one side but neither fighter paid the slightest attentionto the ship. The swordfish would come up from underto thrust at the tender underside of the whale. Then thewhale would leap and come down lashing with its hugetail with terrific force to kill its attacker, but always invain. In a few minutes the commotion quieted, the waterwas bloody. There was no whale in sight.
Father wasn’t a large man, and every once in so oftensome whale of a sailor, deceived by his size, would undertaketo defy him with force. Then followed the battle andFather always emerged the swordfish of the ship. Everytime he won a battle his crew seemed prouder of himand he became kinder than before.
Just because I was the only girl on board I was notaccorded any privileges that sailors didn’t get. I wentwithout food as they did when we were on a long tripand the provisions ran short. I stood my trick at the wheelsteering, pulled at the ropes when we tacked, manned thepumps when the ship sprang a leak, said “Yes sir” to myfather and was taught to obey as a sailor obeys the masterof a ship. Above all I was taught the code of the sea:—neverto squeal on anyone, take punishment without asquawk and be ashamed to show fear.
I had no other children to play with, no other woman-thingon board, so my playthings were sea birds, littletoy ships, and a lifeboat which was made fast to the deckand was seldom used. I would get in that lifeboat and pretendto row. I measured my strokes and counted a thousandstrokes to the mile. In my lifeboat, strapped to thedeck, I used to row away on long picnic trips by myselfto places where I would find children to play with; childrenlike I had seen playing around the docks in port.And what games we had! The games played with thoseimaginary children always involved something to eat.
You see, on a sailing ship bound on a voyage of onehundred and twenty days, the food is rationed so manyounces per person per day. Because I was little my rationsrated one-half of a grown sailor’s share. That wasprobably an excellent thing for my health but there wasnever a day when I couldn’t have eaten four times asmuch—so food and playmates were my dreams of unattainablebliss. At my picnics we would set tables withpiles of wonderful foods and I would eat all the thingsI wanted to. The only food I knew about was rough shipfood, such as lentils, rice, salt beef in brine, dried fish anddried fruits. The sailors told me about delicious “vittles”that people on land had for every meal—fresh juicy applesand cakes and chickens stuffed with raisins andlots of sugar and real milk. Of course I thought the sailorsjust made up those things, so I pretended I really hadthem on my dream voyages. The children—and therewere always thousands of them—would play with me. Ihad long conversations with them about pretty dresses andmothers and living in one house for a long time and wakingup in the same place every day. I had these conversationsout loud, but no one ever paid any attention to mebecause the crew and Father were too busy all the timeto notice what I did. When my games were over I pretendedthe children were sorry to have me leave and Iwould promise to row back the next day and play withthem again. But no matter where I went, or how far, Ihad to count my strokes carefully, because if I made amistake, how could I ever get back to the ship? When mypicnic was finished I’d climb back in the lifeboat andbegin carefully counting my strokes for the return voyageuntil I had reached the proper number and knew it wassafe to disembark from my stationary lifeboat to the deckof our schooner, once more just a sea captain’s daughter.
Our trips usually took from eighty to one hundredand twenty days at sea without sighting land. Throughstorms, calms, waterless days—when our water casks randry—scurvy, and head winds, we travelled from port toport. If I ever felt fear I knew better than to express it.My father and the sailors had taught me a faith thatmade me hold on, no matter what happened. They believedthere was God in the sunsets, in the storms, in thewhiteness of an albatross’s wing, and in the winds thatblew our ship along.
Life at sea did not seem any mystery. An old sailortaught me that thunder was the growling curse of a deadsea captain who had lost his course; the blinding flashesof lightning were the combined sparkles of barmaids’eyes luring seamen to a pleasant harbor; the groaning,creaking noises in the rigging and the hull of the shipwhich seemed so much louder at night were the tiredsquawkings of our schooner, her complaints at carryingsuch heavy cargoes. That was what I believed, but sometimesI knew that those noises were really seams thathad opened under the stress of the pounding sea; thatwater was leaking into the hold as fast as the crew couldpump it out—and the straining noises in the rigging toldof weather-rotting blocks which might carry away atany minute. Every night before I turned in to my bunkI realized I might be going to sleep for the last time.There are so many dangers besetting a sailing ship onthe deep seas that every sailorman knows the end maycome at any moment. Yet in spite of that ghost whichstalked the decks at night, I would fall asleep, unafraid.
Our sailors were the huskiest men Father could assemble—Swedes,Norwegians, Germans, Irishmen andPoles. What they lacked in brains they more than madeup for in brawn. Natural-born rovers, they were contentas long as we sailed, but when we hit port they flounderedhopelessly in waterfront saloons, or in the islands wherethey went ashore, and the native girls, thrilled by theirphysiques and white skins, gave themselves freely. Thenative girls were fascinated by the white-skinned men offships that sailed to their islands from the “lands beyondthe horizon” and the sailors were more than willing tobe adored gods to the little bronze beauties who caressedthem and covered them with flowers. The fact that someday the question of sex would be an issue for me to facenever occurred to me, for I had my whole world of peoplecatalogued from my one-sided perspective on sailors.Mates were usually married to some faithful woman inthe Old Country—Sweden; captains in my opinion, neverdrank or made love to women because they loved somewoman in the States as my father loved my mother.Cabin-boys represented to me pimply youths just out ofhigh school who ran away to sea for adventure and didn’tfind it, or dreamy boys who were too lazy to work ashore.Cooks, because we had Japanese cooks, were heavenlypeople who would give me extra food.
As an antidote for unsavory influences such as perfumewhich I smelled on the cook and dreams of living incities, Father made me take a salt water bath in a canvastank on deck every day. Only when it rained did I get afresh water bath.
There was no seaman’s work that my father or thesailors didn’t teach me. I learned arithmetic by addingup tide tables in navigation books. Before I was twelve Icould take a “sight of the sun” and figure out our positionon the chart. I learned to read “intelligent” things, as Itermed them, from an old, battered set of the encyclopedia.We had a complete set except for the volumesfrom “N” to “S”. As a result I had read everything inthose encyclopedias except the subjects contained in themissing volumes.
Our ship’s library, supplied by those well-meaning societiesashore that feel seamen need fine literature touplift them, consisted of such books as “The Care andFeeding of Pedigree Dogs,” “Modern Science of Surgery,”“Engineering,” Hymn books, Cæsar’s Conquest(in Latin) and other such works guaranteed to inspirethe minds of sailors to loftier ideals than the fleshpots. Indesperation for something to read at sea the sailors wouldborrow the books, read them from cover to cover and returnthem to the library feeling rich in the pricelessknowledge they imparted. Even I read them all andFather highly approved because he said they wouldn’tfill my head full of silly notions. Once a sailor fell solow as to bring a sixpenny paper-covered novel on boardentitled “Mad Love.” The sailors all read it and I managedto get it by standing its owner’s tricks at the wheelfor two whole days. If it wasn’t elevating, at least “MadLove” appealed to me more than the “Care and Feedingof Pedigree Dogs.” Some day, when I’m rich, I’m goingto supply all the sailing ships in the world with real storybooks to avenge those years of barren reading which werefoisted upon us by the uplift societies!
One of the chief accomplishments of our sailors wastheir spitting. They chewed tobacco and spat the juicefreely. They could spit at a crack and hit it without amiss, and one sublimely endowed sailor could spit a curveto windward without mishap! I tried chewing tobacco,but the first time I chawed a hunk Father told me toswallow the juice if I wanted to be a good spitter. ObedientlyI swallowed a whole mouth full of bitter tobaccojuice. The result was as expected. After that lesson Ichawed dried prunes which made grand spit. After longweeks of practice I could not only spit at a crack but Icould hit it, and it is on record that I spit two curves ona windy day, which gave me a high rating as an ablebodied seaman!
When that woman was disapproving of me to JohnHenry because I lived on a ship, a man-raised child, Iwondered if she could even spit straight herself, and ifshe couldn’t, what did she know about our sea anyhow?
My life at sea started when I was eleven months old.Father had brought me down to the schooner, a tinybundle wrapped in a blanket. I was so small I would havebeen lost in his bunk, so Father had Stitches—the sailmaker—makea diminutive hammock of canvas. Thishammock was swung from bolts, one sunk in the wallabove the middle of Father’s bunk and the other intothe stanchion at the foot of the bunk on the outside. Therolling of the ship rocked the hammock more steadilythan the most indulgent mother.
From the time he made my baby hammock, Stitchesdevoted his life to me. For fourteen years he thought ofme first, then of the ship, last of himself, and in the finaltragedy of our ship, he died to save me. I loved him andpestered him and abused his love as only a child can,but I’ll never forget him.
I first recall Stitches as being the only man in the worldolder than Father. In reality he must have been close tosixty when I was brought on board. His life was one ofthe romantic tragedies of the sea, for when he came tosign on the Ship’s Articles he said “I’m a kind of Johnny-All-Sorts,Skipper. I’ve been all the way up and downthe ladder from cabin-boy to Captain and back to sailmaker.My name’s my own business, and I’ll sign on inmy own way, if you want me.”
“Sign any way you damn please,” answered Father,who knew a sailor when he saw one.
So the old sailor signed the Articles just “Stitches”and that’s the way he was known for more than fifteenyears on our ship. In appearance there was no sailor likeStitches. Years of bending over his work as sailmakerhad brought his head forward and his stomach protrudingfull speed ahead. He waddled a little when hewalked, and always sat tailor fashion with his legs crossedso that he gave the impression of a mild, wise old turtleupright on his tail. Every man on the ship came toStitches with his troubles because they all knew that hehad forgotten more about the sea than most men everlearn, and he had had so many troubles of his own thathe understood.
Stitches must have been born lacking the iron in hissoul to make him set his course and hold it. Rather hehad chosen to ride before the storms of life, but as acompensation for his successive failures, he had developedhis own peculiar philosophy of content that madethe crew love him.
Why didn’t Stitches give up the sea? He couldn’t. Thesea was in his blood and he would rather stay on a shipin any capacity than live ashore in comfort.
“I’ll drop my final anchor with the wind howling inmy ears above and the swish of bilge water below me,”he declared, “and that way I’ll go content.” And whenthe time came, I’m sure he went content.
I had inherited my father’s lusty lungs, and my cryingdid not help my popularity with the men trying tosleep on their watch below. The cabin-boy had to heatsea water in a saucepan over an oil lamp for my dailybath which Father gave me. My bathtub was an emptycodfish keg, and how I yelled whenever I faced it. Themate usually turned in at nine in the morning and atthat time I was always squalling my loudest. He madea remark which cost him his berth when it was repeatedto my father.
“Damned if I ever thought I’d live to see the day whena deep water schooner would be made into a howlingnursery.”
Friends of my father along the waterfront in Friscothought he was crazy to take a baby to sea. We werebound for Chile and thence to Australia. Father’s friendsreminded him that the trip was a hard one on accountof sudden storms and freak weather off the west coastof South America.
“If I can handle a bunch of squareheads and a scowof a ship in a typhoon, a baby will be easy,” was Father’sanswer to their warnings. With characteristic, clear visionhe knew his course, and he determined to keep astrong hand on the helm of my life.
That trip, which was my first one, brought all thepredicted complications. The patent foods which Fatherhad provided to feed me did not agree with me. I lostweight and became so puny that Father had about givenup hope that I would survive until we reached Sydney.There was only one thing for him to do and that wasget some kind of food that would nourish me. We wouldnot be in Australia for fifty or sixty days, so he turnedin at Norfolk Island to see if he could buy somethingthere to feed me.
“I tried to get a native woman with a small child tocome on board and feed you from her breasts,” Fathertold me years afterwards, “but she was afraid to venturebeyond the horizon on a white-winged ship.”
Not to be defeated in his mission, Father sent Stitchesin one direction on the island and he went another, seekingsome way of solving the feeding problem. Manysearch islands for treasure, but Father’s exploring wasfor something more rare on a South Sea island—foodfor a sick baby. Native children are fed on yarrow rootsand raw fish washed down their little throats with coconutmilk, but white children can digest no such diet.
After combing the island all day Father returned to theship, discouraged. He had begun to think finer things ofthe land than he had when he had taken me from myhome to raise on the sea.
At about midnight Stitches came on board. With triumphin his face he rolled aft and asked permission tospeak to Father.
“Cap’n, I found somethin’ for the kid.”
Father looked at Stitches’ empty hands.
“Where in the hell is it?” he asked.
Stitches grinned.
“She’s up in the fo’c’s’le now. Come on and sign heron!” and he waddled out of the cabin followed byFather. Father thought “her” was some native womanthat Stitches had coerced into coming on board. Stitchesled the way under the fo’c’s’le head and pointed to hisprize.
“Cap’n, I had a helluva time gettin’ that one, but Iwoulda got her if I had to kill all that tribe with me ownfists.”
Father looked through the shadows under the fore-peakand saw a terrified milch goat. The beast was balancingdizzily on her legs among the anchor chains.
“How’d you get it?” Father asked.
“Well, as I said, Cap’n, them natives wasn’t gonna letme have her, and I figured I’d forfeit my sea boots ifI’d let ’em out-talk me with that baby aft wastin’ away,so I trades ’em an old alarm clock and a handful ofdried apricots for this here dairy.”
It was the best trade Stitches ever made. Father wasso grateful for the goat that he appointed Stitches mynurse and guardian under him with the special privilegeof talking back to Father on any matter concerning mewithout getting his block knocked off. His lesser rewardwas free tobacco so long as he stayed on the ship. Forfourteen years to the day he died for me Stitches exercisedall his special rights and privileges to the full.I grew to love him as a second father and I knew I wasthe mainspring of his life; knowing that, of course I tookadvantage of him every time I could.
The sailors named the goat “Wet Nurse” and to WetNurse and her generous supply of milk I owe my lifetoday. In exchange for her milk Wet Nurse was fed oatmealand coconuts.
After we put out to sea from Norfolk Island, WetNurse got seasick. Father knew that seasickness, likefright, will wear off if you don’t pay any attention to it,so he bided his time. He was rewarded when Wet Nursegot her sea legs and gave milk freely. Stitches always saidI had an appetite like a goat’s because I could digestanything—so perhaps I inherited my iron stomach fromWet Nurse. For weeks I thrived on her milk, but it wasn’tto be for long. Wet Nurse was not exactly ship broke inher personal habits. She needed a valet with a broom andpan if ship’s orderliness was to be preserved. The crewtook shifts of cleaning the decks where Wet Nurse tookher exercise, with the result that she was not popular withthe men forward! Wet Nurse got lonesome for her islandhome, and perhaps for her goat husband. She seemed tochoose the hours when the sailors were sleeping to maaaher call. The sound of a she-goat calling her mate is notvery beautiful, and it took all of Stitches’ strength tofight off the sailors when they wanted to make Wet Nursewalk the plank! Father treated her as if she were acabin passenger, and it would have been tough on anysailor who harmed her.
One day, when I was about two years old, our shipwas caught in a white squall off Lord Howe Island. Awhite squall is a sudden wind storm that rises withoutwarning on the barometer and its velocity is so great thatit will sweep the sea with huge waves ten minutes after itstarts. Wet Nurse was standing by the galley door lookingwistfully at the cook in the hope of getting an occasionalscrap or two from his pans, when the squall hitthe ship.
Whipped by the wind the vessel listed far over toleeward and great seas washed over the decks. I wastied in my hammock below, for Father had called allhands on deck. The crew was reefing down the topsailsand battening down the hatches. Father stood at thehelm steering the ship out of the belly of the swells tokeep the seas from swamping us. Everyone forgot WetNurse. A giant green wave came over the fo’c’s’le head,washed over the galley, put out the cook’s stove and droveWet Nurse against the bulwarks. With a shudder thevessel hove to the windward side and another sea smackedher deck with such force that it lifted the fore hatchfrom its cleats and sent it swirling to the lee bulwarkspinning Wet Nurse beneath its wreckage.
She lay crippled and terrified and nearly drownedunder the debris until the storm subsided. The mate andStitches found her, and lifting her gently, as if she werea person, from beneath the hatch, they carried her up tothe poop deck to my father. She had broken both herlegs and several ribs were smashed in. Father, who hasalways had a gentle hand with animals, carefully set herlegs in splints and bound her ribs with bandages madefrom small pieces of canvas. Then he lay Wet Nurse inhis bunk beneath my hammock. In spite of everythinghe could do for her, Wet Nurse died that night. Shewas given a regular ship’s funeral. The ship hove to forfive minutes, as her body, sewn in sailcloth and weightedwith a piece of chain, was committed to the deep.
And the next day I went on regular sailor’s diet.
Father had devised and carried out the scheme fornourishing a baby at sea, but another and more difficultproblem for any man is clothing womenfolks.
When I was two years old I could walk and say “goddamnedwind.” That was my first sentence, which Ipicked up from the mate. I had outgrown my babydresses—so something had to be done about it. On deepwater vessels the crew, as well as the mates and captain,usually wear coarse dungarees and heavy woolens in coldweather, white cotton undershirts and short cotton trousersin the tropics. Shoes are worn only in port as it is toodangerous, as well as too expensive, for sailormen towalk around the slippery decks in leather soles.
When I began to walk by holding on to the rail of thepoop deck we were off Easter Island, getting a load ofguano, which is bird manure used for fertilizing purposes.It would be months before we hailed the mainland,so again Father was ingenious in solving a difficulty.I had to have something to wear! Father turnedthe fo’c’s’le into a sewing room. His seamstresses wereLars Erickson—a Dane, Scotty—an old Scottish sailorwho had only one snag tooth in his mouth and that brownfrom tobacco stain, and the trusty Stitches.
These men were commissioned to make my wardrobe.They cut a small pair of pants from Stitches’ well worndungarees and made little suspenders on them. Thebutton-holes were works of art embroidered with infinitepains by Stitches. While they were engrossed in theirsewing a Hungarian sailor who was a bit of a bully, byname “Gooney” Bulgar, leaned out of his bunk and remarked:
“You ladies of the sewing circle will now adjourn an’tea will be served in the Cap’n’s parlor,” with which hewaved an effeminate, coy hand in the shellbacks’ faces.
It was never definitely settled which of them landedon him first. Bulgar claimed that Stitches had scratchedhim with his needle and none would bear witness thatScotty and Erickson hadn’t used a steel marlinspike onhim. At any rate he resembled a piece of raw hamburgersteak when they brought his limp body aft to my fatherto be revived. If there is one thing prevalent on shipboardit is he-men, and any suggestion that impugns theirvirility has to be settled with belaying pins to the finish.Whatever really happened, the event is recorded in theLog Book as follows:
“This day at sea, the 27th of September, Able-Bodied SeamanGustav Bulgar fell, in the course of duty, off thefo’c’s’le head on to the main deck and was badly injured.Treated by Captain. Given dose of salts and woundspainted with Friar’s Balsam. Captain found it advisable tofine seaman Five Dollars for carelessness.”
After that slight interruption to their sewing, the threemen resumed, and turned out a complete wardrobe forme. Scotty had an old pair of rubber sea boots that wereworn out at the bottoms so he cut off the tops, and turnedout a pair of tiny rubber sea boots for me. With the remainingscraps he fashioned a sou’wester oilskin hat forme. He was at a loss for something to line it with, as theonly available material on the ship was cast off clothing.A sailor never does anything by halves, and unless thatsou’wester was lined, it was not complete in his estimation.As he was taking a mental inventory of the materialhe could lay hands on in the fo’c’s’le, “Pimples,” thecabin-boy, came in. It was his first trip at sea. He hadcome to get experiences so he could be a famous writer ofsea stories like Jack London. He was still so green in theways of the sea that he wore shoes and socks. Pimples hadwon his cognomen by his complexion which was causedhalf by adolescence and half by the food which fell to hislot after the crew and captain had eaten the best of it. Itwas unfortunate for Pimples that he intruded into thefo’c’s’le at that moment, for Scotty saw his shoes andsocks.
“Come here, Barnacles,” he cooed to the cabin-boy.“Come closer so I can see how big your muscles are gettingnow you are at sea.”
Pimples came over to him eagerly, happy to be recognizedas an equal by a regular sailor. When he was closeenough, Scotty tripped him, and sat on his stomach.While Pimples squirmed, Scotty took off his shoes andsocks and, holding a brown woolen sock up for the othersto see, he shouted:
“Here’s the lining for the sou’wester,” and then hebooted the luckless cabin-boy out of the fo’c’s’le.
When the little clothes were finished and the sock-linedoilskin cap proudly displayed, the sailors calledin the Jap cook, Yamashita, to approve of their handiwork.The cook looked at them and then snorted withOriental disapproval:
“Where nightgown for Missy? No damn sense sailorgot.” He went back to his galley and presently emergedwith two bottles and three flour sacks. The bottles containedcake frosting coloring, red and green. He tooksome string and dipped it in the red and made red string,and then dipped some more string in the green. Thesecolored strings he used to embroider intricate cross stitchdesigns on the neck and arms of the flour sack nightgownand dress. In spite of his many washings of the sacks toremove the printing on them, a dim memory of thewords, “Pure as the drifted snow,” remained on themforever.
I wore overalls all my life on board the ship. Fatherkept me dressed as a boy in fairness to the crew and formy protection. He did everything in his power to keepthem and me from becoming conscious of my sex. WhenI was big enough to wear them Father bought me regularmen’s size overalls. They buttoned in front and I wasvery proud that even in my clothing I resembled the sailors.
The first time I wore a dress after I left the ship Ididn’t know how to walk in it. The skirt got tangled upin my legs and kept me from taking long sea strides. Ihad to wear underclothes with a dress and they seemedto stifle my body that was used to salt soaked overalls nextto a bare skin. It was a tragic day for me when Fatherinformed me that with a dress I had to wear shoes andstockings. The shoes hurt my feet and the cotton stockingsitched—but more of the impediments of civilization later.
To go back to my babyhood—When a young lady isbig enough to walk, able to say “goddamned wind” andto occupy the attention of three tailors, it is obviouslytime to begin thinking about her education. Father andStitches consulted gravely.
“The fust thing she’s gotter learn, Cap’n,” arguedStitches, “is to keep from fallin’ overboard.”
“All right,” agreed Father, “every time you catch hernear the rail, paddle her bottom.”
Stitches nodded in partial approval.
“That’s all right, too, Cap’n, but kids is natcha’llyornery and their sterns gits calloused, awful fast.”
Father saw the point.
“We’ll tie her up,” he said.
So they put me at the end of a fifteen foot rope tiedto the wheelbox on the poop deck. That was fine for afew days until in a sudden blow I got the rope around thesteersman’s feet, with the result that my head and hisstern nearly broke the deck and the ship got off hercourse.
Stitches and Father again went into conference.
“In one week she’s slipped her hawser twice andtripped up the steersman. We gotter try somethin’ else,Cap’n,” urged Stitches. Father thought it over.
“Sooner or later she’s pretty sure to go overboard anyhow,so you’d better teach her to swim.”
“That’s a fine idea, Cap’n,” replied Stitches, “only Idon’t know how to swim myself.” Which is one of thequeer things about the sea: more than half of the sailorscan’t swim.
“You fix a tank. I’ll teach her,” decided Father.
Just aft the mizzen mast, Stitches rigged up a canvastank about four feet square and equally deep. This wascollapsible, so that when it was empty it could be foldedup and put in the cabin out of the way of the storms. Itwas a sailor’s job to fill it with sea water every morning.This he did by throwing overboard a canvas bucket inwhich he baled up a hundred gallons of water to fill it.When it was full he reported the fact to my father. ThenFather would go to my hammock, get me and carry medown to the tank. I was a wiggling, squirming, protestingbundle of muscular little girl, as husky as a seal, andfull of objections to the idea of being pulled out of acomfortable warm hammock and plunged naked into acold sea dip.
The routine was always the same. Before he plungedme into the tank he would roll me on the deck. Then hemade me turn somersaults, and box with him. My shareof the boxing might be described as down again, upagain. As soon as I could get to my feet he would tumbleme over with his pawlike hand, and keep that up forabout ten minutes. If I cried or protested at all againstthat rough treatment I got a sound slap on my bottomto “knock that nonsense out of you.” Then came the greatmoment when, warm and glowing, I was plopped intocold sea water to strike out blindly, and in vain. Holdinghis hand under my back, Father told me to throw out mystomach and bend my head back to balance. I couldn’tunderstand how that would help me float because when Iput my head back I got my mouth and ears and eyesfull of salt water. Then he explained it in words to penetratemy infant comprehension.
“Throw your head back and puff your stomach up untilYOU CAN SEE YOUR BELLY-BUTTON.”
Then it became a game, and in my eagerness to see ifI could puff my stomach up high enough for me to seethat portion of my anatomy, I achieved the art of floating.While I was thus absorbed in watching myself perform,Father took his bracing hand from under my back andleft me to my own resources. Once I had learned to float,swimming came easy and I soon outgrew the limitationsof the four foot tank. I didn’t think I had, but Father did.The next port we arrived in was Newcastle, Australia,and he chose that harbor to polish off my swimmingability.
When he looked for me to begin another lesson hefound me playing with a tame gooney on the deck, perfectlycontented. A gooney is a species of gull, dull greyin coloring, and a bit larger than the common seagull.Father had snagged him on a big hook baited with apiece of salt pork, pulled him aboard and clipped hiswings so he could not fly away. When we first got himthe gooney tried to bite, but by feeding him a few dayshe became tame, and quite a fascinating toy for me. Wehad named him “Salt Pork.”
We were playing a game called “Grub” which Stitcheshad invented for us. “Grub” was a unique game in thatit gave me my first philosophy of doing things for myselfand increased my propelling powers immensely. Therules for “Grub” were simple. A line was drawn on thepoop deck with chalk behind which Salt Pork and Ilined up. The goal was a piece of bread on the rail aftby the wheel. At a given signal from Stitches he let goof Salt Pork and off we both went across the deck afterthe grub; me, a hungry kid and Salt Pork, a ravenoussea bird. I crawled on all fours after it and the gooneyran with webbed feet. If I got there first I ate the breadon the spot as fast as I could cram it down my gullet orSalt Pork would have grabbed it right out of my hand.If Salt Pork got it first I couldn’t get it away from himbecause he’d swallow it whole without even chewing it.
“Say, Stitches,” called Father from the gangway, “let’sgive Joan a lesson in keeping her mouth shut!” He undressedme and took me to the fo’c’s’le head. Two of thecrew were cooling off with a nice swim under the shadowof the bowsprit. He called to them to keep an eye on meand without further warning he threw me fifteen feetinto the water below. I thought I had sunk to the bottomof the world and would never come up. When I finallydid I was so frightened that I started to yell and was rewardedwith a mouthful of salt water. There was nothingto hang on to, so I had to swim. My father and Stitcheson the jibboom above laughed at my struggle. Of coursethere was no danger for me as the two sailors could havepulled me out in an instant. It seems useless to add that Ilearned to swim in deep water very rapidly.
Father, evidently satisfied that Lesson Number Onein practical nautical knowledge was a success, remarkedto Stitches:
“See how quick she shut her mouth when she holleredabout nothing! If every woman could learn to keep hermouth shut at the age of two they’d be better off.”
Every day after that, during the weeks we were inNewcastle, I was thrown overboard. I came to love it andsoon was a strong swimmer with an instinct for actioninstead of noise!
From the time I was two years old until about my sixthbirthday nothing startling impressed itself on my babymind. Ours was just the usual routine of a tradingschooner: Seattle to Sydney with lumber and from Sydneyit was “bound to the South Sea Islands for copra,”loaded with red calico, cheap knives, soap, tinfoil, anythingshiny to catch the eyes and thrill the hearts of thenatives.
We cruised from island to island picking up half aton of copra here, a quarter ton there until we had filledthe hold, and for a deck load we got generally about fivehundred bundles of sandalwood. Of course we took lotsof smaller stuff, but copra and sandalwood were ourstaples from the islands.
Copra—the word itself is common to sea traders, butto landlubbers it is a strange expression found in storiesof the South Seas.
Copra is the meat of coconuts dried in the sun. Thenatives break open the nuts and lay them out on wovenmats to rot. The rotting process in the tropic heat bringsout the oils and acid of the coconut. It takes about threemonths of drying process to make the copra rottenenough to be ready for market. The natives load it inbales of reeds and carry it off the island in canoes to waitingships.
In appearance copra is dark brown and fibrous. Nocopra is first class until it is so putrid that vermin infestit. The stench of it is almost unbearable. In its ripe stagecopra is highly explosive. During the war many useswere found for the stuff. The waste of its matter wasused for ammunition, the oils to preserve foods for thesoldiers, and the acids were invaluable in surgery.
One of the most common uses of copra is in the manufactureof linoleum and some forms of paper. I oftenwonder when people are walking on the linoleum in theirhomes if they realize that the substance of it came fromthe savage islands of the South Seas.
In trading between the islands, Australia and theStates in my early years our greatest rival and bug-bearwas the barkentine, Mary Winklemund, a three-masterunder the command of Captain Swanson. A barkentineby reason of its rig, square yards on the fore mast, is naturallyfaster than a schooner and the Mary Winklemundfor years won every race with the Minnie A. Caine,whether it was from Hawaii to New Zealand or fromSamoa to Seattle. My father and Captain Swanson wererivals, both in shouting the praise of their ships and inpride of their navigation, but Swanson had the edge. Hewould beat us by a few hours, by a few days, and on occasionby two months. Father always blamed the badwinds and incompetent sailors, and said that Swansonwas afraid to carry as big a load as we for fear of sinking.But in spite of his alibis, the fact remained that inevery nautical endeavor Swanson made us look like aleaking lifeboat in a hurricane.
Naturally to a man of Father’s combative temperamentbeing beaten was bad enough, but Captain Swanson,not content with winning, never let a chance go byto rub in the victory with heavy-handed sea humor. As aresult Father, I believe, would have run his ship on therocks or jumped overboard himself, if thereby he couldhave scored on that “goddamned, squareheaded SeaHog,” as he always delicately described his rival. HowFather did even up the score stuck in my mind becauseit was combined with the memory of my first attemptat the age of six to get rich quick.
We were anchored in Double Bay, Sydney, my sixthwinter, and Swanson sent word to Father to come aboardthe Mary Winklemund for dinner. Father sent backword that he would accept free grub even on the Winklemund.I was delighted, for I welcomed any opportunityto get off our own vessel. As we were leaving in a smallboat to scull over to the Winklemund Father turned tome and said:
“Swanson is trying to show off to me what good grubthey serve on his packet. I’ll paddle you if you dare eatlike you enjoy it.”
When we boarded the Mary Winklemund by means ofa Jacob’s ladder thrown over the side, Captain Swansonmet us. He showed us around his ship which was newlypainted white from stem to stern. He pointed out theship’s fine points, not forgetting to tell just where andhow much she excelled ours. Father was getting madderand madder all the time and I was afraid he would blowup and go back without waiting for dinner.
“And just to show you how much better and cheaperI manage my ship,” concluded Captain Swanson, “lookat this.” He reached into a barrel and brought out a smallpiece of something that looked like dirty marshmallow.
“See that, Captain?” he boasted. “Well, I had a wholebarrel of it. Used it to oil down the masts this trip, savedme buying oil. Maybe if you was to oil down the stickson your ship you could sail faster.”
Father took the substance from his hand, and smelledit, and looked up. I was surprised to see all the madhad gone out of his face.
“Got any more of this?” he asked, and there was atwinkle in his eye.
“Naw, I ain’t got no more. When we struck hotweather it stunk to high heaven so I throwed it over theside.”
“How much have you got left?”
“Just about a bucketful in this barrel,” he answered.“And I told the ship’s chandler he could have it. Heasked me for it.”
“The hell you say,” observed my father, and I thoughtI saw him smile. “You’re a smart old barnacle, aren’tyou, Swanson?” Swanson puffed in pride, and led theway to the dining saloon. There before us was a meal intendedto impress Father with its luxuriousness. I lookedat it glumly, remembering Father’s words, “I’ll paddleyou if you eat like you enjoy it.” How could anybodyeat all that food and not show enjoyment? He musthave seen what was in my mind for he slapped me on theshoulder, exclaiming: “Forget it, Joan. Eat all you canand enjoy every bit of it. I’m going to.”
I had my mouth full before they were in their chairs,but, once squared away, I never saw Father eat so muchor enjoy it so heartily. When he finished he pushed backhis chair, looked at Swanson and burst out laughing.
“What’s so funny?” asked Swanson uncomfortably.
“Nothing, you big squarehead, but do you know whatthat grease is you threw overboard?”
“Naw. I found it floating off the Gilbert Islands. Sawsome sea birds picking at it, so I put off a boat and investigated.Looked like good grease so I hauled a coupleof barrels aboard and used it like I told you to greasedown the masts.”
“They’re fine sticks, Swanson,” grinned Father. “Theyought to be, greased down with a hundred thousand dollarsworth of ambergris.”
Swanson gulped and turned pale. His eyes were almostpopping out of his head.
“Huh? Ambergris?” he gasped.
“Yes, ambergris!” shouted Father. “Worth thirty-twodollars an ounce. And you threw a barrel of it overboard.You threw away a fortune, you goddamned, ignorant,stingy squarehead.” And Father lay back in his chairand roared with laughter.
Swanson was livid now. “You think you’re smart, don’tyou?” he yelled. “Only don’t forget this—there was twiceas much stuff there as I took. I know where it is and I’llgo back and get it.”
“Good luck,” laughed Father, “if you can find it againyou’re entitled to it.”
“I’ll find it,” were the grim parting words of thesquarehead Captain.
Going back in the small boat to our ship I asked Fatherwhat ambergris was.
“Whale vomit,” he answered.
I couldn’t see what was so funny about Swanson throwingaway whale vomit so I persisted in questioning further.
“What’s it good for?”
“Joan, ambergris is worth thirty-two dollars an ounce.He threw away about sixty thousand dollars worth justthrough ignorance.”
“Well, what’s the good of whale vomit? Why is itworth money?”
“Perfume companies use it as the base for rare perfume.And I wish to Christ I could find some.”
“Why don’t you try and find what Captain Swansonleft?”
“Because anybody but an old fool like Swanson wouldknow that sea birds eat ambergris. What he left is gonelong ago. I only hope he does hunt it. It will keep himoff the trade route for six months.”
And that is exactly what happened. Captain Swansonspent six months looking for his ambergris and foundnothing. But Father told the story in every port and nowhereSwanson went did seafolk allow him to forgetit.
I couldn’t forget ambergris either. If Swanson couldfind it why couldn’t we? There must be some way oflocating it.
But the more I thought the more discouraged I became.A few barrelsful of ambergris in a whole ocean—notmuch chance of finding that. Then like a flash theidea came to me. It was so simple I wondered whyStitches or Father or some other sea captain had notthought of it. All I had to do was just to make the whalesin the ocean sick at their stomach and they would belchforth ambergris enough to fill our ship. And that muchI figured would be worth millions and millions andFather would never have to worry about bad tradingseasons or port charges any more. We put to sea in aweek and were headed for the Union Group of islandsabout twenty-eight degrees latitude South, one hundredand sixty-seven degrees longitude West. There ought tobe some whales around there. I thought if I poisoned thewater in the sea all the whales would be sick. The onlydrawback to my scheme was that I didn’t have any poison,so I made some of my own.
I begged an empty codfish keg from the cook andpoured some cold split pea soup in it. I hated split peasoup so I was sure that was poison. Then I emptied thespittoon from the wheel which was full of tobacco juiceand spit into the soup. To this I added tar and some deadrats. The finishing touch was some dead cockroaches. Icaught them and mashed them up in the mixture, andthen, positive that I had concocted a potion to ruin allthe whales, I waited for nightfall.
About ten o’clock that night I slipped to the lee railand dumped my poison into the sea, and waited. Forhours, I waited, straining my eyes against the darkness,searching the water for some signs of ambergris to float.At four bells I turned in, and spent the rest of my night atmy porthole looking for a promise of a seasick whale, butof course there was none. My scheme to poison the entireocean failed, and when the cook found that I hadwasted a pot full of good pea soup, I got a licking formy effort. To this day the only consolation I have for myfailure is that when I detect rare perfume on beautifulladies, I speculate with pleasure as to what they wouldthink if they knew the base of their scent was whalevomit!
As long as I was a baby the sailors thought me a grandtoy to play with and make a fuss over but when I grewold enough to become a bother their kindly attitude wasfrequently subject to change.
Of course it is the common belief that when a captainhas a girl aboard ship the sailors slay each other toget the captain’s beautiful daughter—that her very presenceon shipboard uplifts them and inspires them to loftyideals.
That might be the case in novels, but in real life it isfar more practical! Never in all my experience did anysailor attempt any act of violence to gain my favor. Theiracts of violence, at times, were directed against me instead.
It was on our next voyage after Father squared accountswith Captain Swanson that I saw my first realmutiny and felt what it was like to have an entire ship’screw against one. It all came about in the most naturalway from being caught in the doldrums with a shortwater supply.
Our ship carried our fresh water supply in a tank underthe fo’c’s’le head and in two iron tanks lashed on thepoop deck just aft of the spanker mast. These tanks containedin all about five thousand gallons of water, to beused by sixteen people over a period of from eighty toone hundred and twenty days at sea. It was a preciouscommodity and it was guarded zealously by the cookwhose job it was to portion it out daily, three cups to aperson. In the tropics the water became so hot and stagnantthat “wigglers” came out in it. Wigglers are smallworms which hatch in the water. It is an old maritimelaw that every “off-shore” vessel must carry a certainamount of lime juice as a preventative against scurvy. Adrop of lime juice in a mug of water kills the wigglersand thus enables the consumer to drink water withoutlive stock in it. To this day old English sailing ships arereferred to as “lime juicers,” and that name came downto them from the old custom.
We had been out eighty-three days from Mukelteo,bound for Brisbane, Australia, with a million feet of lumber.The water supply ran very low, and the residue wasso alive with tiny wigglers and germs that it was like adeath warrant to drink it. The cook came aft and toldFather that a plague would come on the ship from thatwater. The stench of it was terrible. Even the rats wereboldly searching the decks for something fresh. We werein the doldrums, about eleven degrees south of theEquator. The ship just wallowed in the glassy sea, andseemed to crack and shrivel in the heat. There was noshade anywhere. The sails hung limp and useless, likeunstarched linens. The bedbugs and roaches seemed tomultiply by the million.
“All hands on deck,” ordered my father, and the materepeated his order to the men sleeping below. In a fewminutes the entire crew were on deck.
“There’s no more water, men, until we hit a rain squall.The glass is down and I look for a squall, so stand bywith kegs and catch all the rain you can if you want freshwater.”
There was a mad hurry to get kegs to catch the rain.The men brought everything from salt pork barrels toempty tomato tins and placed them under the booms andscuppers. The cook and a sailor put a barrel under thedrain on the main deck just below the poop deck to catchthe water that washed down the poop.
No sailor tried to sleep any more. They sat huddledin the scuppers looking thirstily at the deceitful cloudsthat drifted by and disappeared to the horizon with theirrefreshing cargoes.
Night came, and still no sign of rain. Just at sunset,at about a quarter point off the starboard bow, appearedthe end of a rainbow, dipping right into the sea and makingan arch of vivid colors, which dissolved into the mistof a rain squall a mile away. It was aggravatingly near,and the men bent every inch of sail to hurry the ship intoits midst to catch some of its rain, but just within a hundredyards of it, the little gust of wind died, and oncemore the sails hung limp and impotent.
That night for dinner we had a sticky mess of saltdried codfish. Its odour was so bad from the intense heatthat the only way it could be swallowed was to smotherit with mustard and hold your breath, to kill the smell.
“This damn stuff stinks,” observed the mate, whereuponhe proceeded to pick out the remnants of fishfrom his teeth with the prongs of his fork. I was just oldenough to recognize the expression on my father’s faceas a sign of trouble.
“Yeh? Well any time you get disgruntled about themenu on this packet, just write me a letter and I’ll file itin my correspondence.” The mate’s remark, however,spoiled his appetite and he shoved the dish of ill smellingfish at the cabin-boy.
“Chuck that overboard.”
For my dinner I had boiled lentils, which only accentuatedmy thirst, as the salt fish had increased the men’s.
At sea a very little thing will start a feeling of mutiny,and thirsty, dried-up men, scorched by heat anddiscouraged by no winds and bad food, are like dynamiteto handle. They started to quarrel among themselves,viciously. Father anticipated trouble. Right after dinnerhe sent me to my bunk.
“And if you hear anything on deck, you stay below,”he added and swung up to the poop deck. He searchedthe horizon for some sign of a storm to bring relief. Ifanother day passed and no fresh water fell, there was noforetelling what uprising would occur. The sky was red,and the old legend, “Red sky at night, sailor’s delight”gave no promise that the morning would bring water.
Father heard the men mumbling in the scuppers, forin some way they blamed him for their plight. OldStitches, whose loyalty to father was like iron, came upon the poop deck beside him, and casually started tosmoke his pipe. Beneath his nonchalance were grim, tightlips. He knew there was going to be trouble, and hewanted Father to know he was still swinging a belayingpin on his side.
I could feel something was going on that I didn’tunderstand, and whenever I felt there was somethingbeing kept from me I just had to find out about it. Soafter I had been sent to bed, I sneaked back on deck andhid out of sight of Father. Nobody on the ship wasasleep. I could hear the men stirring and grumblingfor’ard.
Hour after hour passed, and in the deadman’s watch,which was from twelve midnight until four, the menbroke. Larsen, who had always been one of the best sailors,led the rest of the crew up on the poop deck, seethingand snarling.
“What do you want?” roared my father.
“Water!”
“Where in the hell will I get water for you?” Fatherasked, as he eyed the men who were closing in on him.
“Water,” came the accusing chorus again.
Stitches put down his pipe, and edged closer to Father.
“The barometer is low, we ought to run into a squall’fore daybreak,” explained Father.
“Yeh? Well we want water NOW, do you hear, andif you don’t give us some, you and your goddamned shipwill be sucking water in hell!” And with that two of thesailors jumped for him, and hit out with terrific blows,the blows of thirst-crazed men. Father hit back, and hispunch was like a shot of steel. Stitches struck blindly withthe belaying pin. Blood smeared the deck. I could heara sickening, crunching sound of bones breaking. Slowly,one by one, the two of them backed the cowed men on tothe main deck. I scuttled back to my berth and hid myselfunder my straw mattress.
Stitches came below and I heard him fumbling in thegun rack near my bunk.
“Nothin’ like being watchful in nights like this,” hesaid, and he came back on deck with two rifles. For therest of the night the two of them stood off the men onthe deck below.
Morning came early, for the sun rose at five-thirty.I was on deck early, too uncomfortable to stay below, andfretful from thirst. About six o’clock a black cloud whichlooked like a splotch of ink on the sky appeared on thehorizon. A light breeze scurried it towards us. In tenminutes it was upon us, and rain fell in great cool sheetson the swollen decks and the parched lips of the men.They fought each other for places at the drains to grabthe first water. They were like frenzied, caged animalssuddenly loosed on raw meat as they opened their mouthsto let the rain pour in.
I stood on the poop deck, under the spanker boom,and the water fell on me. It was so cool, so caressing, solife-giving! I couldn’t soak enough of it in, it seemed, soI took off my overalls, and let it rain on my naked body.I was so absorbed in my fresh water bath that I wasoblivious to the men standing on the main deck to catchthe water that washed off the poop. I would do my bathup right! A real fresh water bath with soap!
Naked, and unconscious of the threats of the men whoobjected to my being in their way, I ran forward to thegalley and asked the cook for some soap. He made soapfrom the grease drippings of the salt pork. To the greasehe added lye and kept the conglomeration in a kerosenecan under his bunk. I grabbed a handful of it, and begansmearing it on me as I ran aft once more, and up to myplace under the spanker boom. I was a mass of stickybubbles, and the rain carried them, after they washed offme, down the drain into the waiting kegs of the crew.The soap suds ruined their water. Two of them leapedup on deck by me and were about to choke me whenmy father interfered. He grabbed me by my slipperybody and put me behind him, while he ordered the mendown on deck.
Then he turned to me.
“What the hell’s the big idea?” he yelled, so enragedwith me he was pale.
“It feels so goddamned good to get cool in the freshrain,” I answered. The humor of my remark didn’t appealto him. I could see I was going to get another licking,and my bare body was a good target for a rope’s end!
“I’ll teach you to spoil fresh water,” he said, and hewent forward. He returned with a handful of the soap!
“Now open your mouth. You’re so anxious to bewashed clean, just taste that,” and he washed the insideof my mouth with the rotten soap.
And I’ve never wanted to be washed clean since then!
As I grew up, strong and healthy, I had three verysimple ambitions in life: to be able to hand, reef andsteer; to spit as far as any Swede could; and to get asmuch food, if not more, than anyone else. On sailing shipsthe food is portioned out in what is called “whack;” thatis, so many ounces of food per week is allotted to eachperson. There was no way of definitely estimating theexact number of days a trip would take, as we dependedentirely on winds to blow us to our destination.
We carried no fancy foods—there wasn’t room for anythingexcept plain necessities in the storerooms. Lentils,rice, salt beef pickled in barrels of brine, dried codfish,powdered milk, dried prunes and apricots for dessertson holidays, and lime juice. The stores were stowed inan after-hold and were kept under lock and key. Onlythe Jap cook and my father had keys to that sanctumof grub and they guarded them relentlessly. The lockedstoreroom made life a bit difficult for me. I never seemedto get enough to eat. For instance, breakfast consisted ofa big dish of cooked oats, dry bread and coffee. When thecabin-boy rang the breakfast bell it had the effect of afire alarm and we all stampeded to the dining saloon. Thefirst one that got to the table grabbed the bowl of mushand scraped off a big pile on his plate. I soon learned tograb the quickest. I developed in me the ability to takecare of myself. Once a week, on Thursday, we had duffpudding. Duff day at sea was always an occasion. Thecook prepared a sticky, glutinous mess of steamed suetand flour and put a few raisins in it. Plum duff it wascalled, but I always thought the cook put the puddingat the top mast and tossed plums at it, always missing,for I never could find any fruit in it. Weeks became importantto me because of the plum duff pudding, andinstead of saying of the future, “next week,” I alwayscalculated next duff day, or two duff days ago. Frequentlythe salt horse, as the pickled beef was nicknamed,stank so that I couldn’t eat it, and neither could the sailorswithout drowning out the smell with mustard pickles,and holding their breath as they swallowed it. Sometimesby way of variety of menu, the bread took on theappearance of raisin bread, but the raisins were unfortunatecockroaches that had dived into the dough whenthe cook was kneading it. Little fresh meat additions likethat never killed our appetites.
The final blow to my father’s æsthetic sense came oneday at lunch time. Father bit into a crust of bread andthen his face became livid with anger.
“Slops!” he yelled at the cabin-boy. We had a new boyevery trip. “What kind of so and so does the cook callthis bread? It stinks of perfume like some barmaid.”
“I don’t know, sir. The cook just baked that breadfresh this morning,” answered Slops. There was neverany love lost between the cabin-boy and the cook and Ithink that Slops was enjoying the prospects that confrontedhis enemy.
I tasted the bread. It tasted of perfume, or rather ofbay rum, the stuff the Jap cook always smelled of, butI couldn’t figure out how it had got into the bread.
Father left the table and hurried forward to the galley,with me in his wake.
“Yamashita! Come out of your rat hole.” The cook,trembling in fear, looked up from where he was sittingon the edge of the bunk.
“Yes sir?” he asked, as he continued washing his feet.
“Let me see the pan you mixed this bread in.”
Yamashita looked up at Father in all innocence andreplied, “This pan, Captain. This pan I wash my feetin!” Father let a snort of rage out and grabbed at thecook. He shook him within an inch of his life, and wouldhave hit him if the cook had been anywhere near his size.I beat it aft to get out of the fight, for the cook was myfriend.
Every time I got a chance to sneak forward to his galleyI did so, and would sit on his lap listening to hisstories of Japan. I would tolerate his tales, just so hewould let me sit on him and smell his bay rum. The odorof it was exquisite to me, for everyone else on the shipsmelled of rope and tobacco. I often measured a person’sworth by the smell of him. One day an American consul’swife came aboard, and she smelled of some deliciouspowder. When I got a good sniff of it I said to her:
“You don’t stink like men do, do you?” I intended itfor a compliment, but the woman took umbrage and leftin great haste, mumbling something about the uncouthpersons that lived on ships!
No two days at sea were ever alike. Even in the monotonoustrade winds, with the breeze so steady that thewheel could be lashed down and the ship would keep onher course alone, something would happen. It was onsuch a day as that that John McLean, an able-bodied seaman,won my heart. He was a huge, lumbering sailorwith more muscle than brain, and was so crabby thatthe other sailors were afraid of him. He was alwaysfriendly with me in his rough sort of way because Iwould sit by the hour at his feet and admire him. On hischest, which was covered with hairs, he had a tattooed,full-rigged ship under sail that was one of my prizesights. If he was in a good humor he would undo his shirtand let me see that ship, then wiggle his chest so that theship looked as if it were in a storm. Then he would bulgeout his chest muscles and the ship looked as if it wereunder sail in a fair wind, or else he relaxed his chest andit looked becalmed in a lifeless sea.
“Gee, McLean,” I exclaimed, “do you think I couldever have a ship on my chest?”
He moved his wad of tobacco to the other side of hischeek, looked at me scornfully and then condescendedto answer:
“Naw, can’t be tattooed like me unless you got hair onyour chest.”
That finished me, for my chest was as smooth as a pieceof silk. But I wasn’t to be outdone. I went to my fatherand asked him what made hair grow on people’s chest.That question played right into his hand because he replied:
“Hair on your chest, Joan? Well, let me see. I warrantif you was to eat your pea soup every meal thatwould grow hair on your chest.”
And I hated pea soup, but if it was necessary to causea growth on my chest like McLean’s, I would endure it.So for weeks I ate the pea soup with the secret consolationthat some morning I would awake with a thick cropof hair on my chest. We arrived in Adelaide, South Australia,and still no hair on my chest. I was worried forfear I would probably never be able to grow any, so Iwent to McLean who was in the hold of the ship unloadingcopra.
“McLean,” I confided, “I’ve looked every morningfor nine weeks and there isn’t any hairs on me yet—noteven any fuzz. What shall I do?”
He grinned, one of his rare indulgences, and said:
“Hey, Skipper, is the Old Man aboard?”
“No, he isn’t. He’s up at the American Consul’s officethis morning.”
McLean continued to grin for a moment, then said:
“All right, Skipper. We got an hour to knock off atnoon, and I’ll take you up to be tattooed.”
“Really, McLean? You’re not filling me with wind?”I could hardly believe my ears.
“Sure. I know the best tattooer this side of Tokio. He’sjust a quarter of a mile from here, back of the fish storeand ship chandler’s.”
I was elated. I was to be like a real sailor, tattoo andeverything! McLean had offered to take me and have itdone because in his inarticulate way he liked me, andin his own mind he was being very generous to pay forme to be tattooed. It never occurred to a deep sea sailorlike him that girls are not tattooed.
At noon time I was ready, waiting for him at the gangway.I had put on my sailor cap which was an old mate’scap elaborately embroidered with anchors and little shipsand fish by the sailors. McLean kept his promise to meetme, and hand in hand we walked up the dock. My feethardly touched the ground, I was so happy. We plottedwhat we would have put on me. I decided I wanted anaked lady in red tattooed on my forearm, a full-riggedship on my breast and an American flag on the bottomof my foot so I could stick it out of the porthole andmake it look as though I was waving a flag. If I was tobe tattooed I was going to do it up right!
As we walked up the dock I saw Father standing bythe warehouse talking to the boss stevedore. I was soexultant that I let my enthusiasm get the best of my discretionand I yelled at him:
“Ain’t I swell? I’m going to be tattooed all over likea sailor.”
Like a shot he wheeled around and said, “What?”
“I said I’m going to have a naked lady tattooed on myarm near my elbow so I can move my arm and wiggle herstomach like she was dancing.”
A murderous look came on his face. I turned aroundand saw McLean hotfooting it down the dock back to theship! I followed him in haste, for Father grabbed me bythe seat of my pants and the nape of my neck and propelledme along the dock at double speed.
“I can’t leave you for five minutes but that you get intosome kind of deviltry, so now I’ll teach you how to behave.”
He took me up on the poop deck and tied me to thewheel in full sight of the sailors. My heart was brokenwith disappointment, but no tears for mine. I stood thereand swore all the words that I knew, and at that age myvocabulary included enough adjectives to keep me swearingtwo minutes without repeating a word.
As if it wasn’t humiliation enough to be tied up likea bad puppy, the mate came aft and heard me swearing.I started all over again when he came near and lookedat me. I could have murdered him for laughing at me.He listened to me going it and then scratched his headand said:
“I’ll forfeit my grub if you can’t cuss as good as ifyou had hair on your chest.”
Oh, the music of his words! I pulled my jumper closertogether so that he couldn’t see if I had hairs or not, buthaving him think I did have hair on my chest was almostas good as really having it, so the day wasn’t lost afterall.
I was seven years old when I first met Fear, and whathappened at the meeting and what followed did more toshape my character and life than anything I can remember.For I learned the important lesson that if I stuck tothe code of the sea never to squeal, no matter what happened,but to fight my own battles in my own way—Icould win against odds, provided I licked Fear.
It all came about through Stitches teaching me to fish.Of course careful old Stitches had too much sense to startme after deep sea fish, for they are so heavy and powerfulthat one might have yanked me overboard beforehelp could reach me.
“You can practice gettin’ little ones first, Skipper,”he said, as he baited a line with a cockroach for me. “Ifyou get a pull, take your line in easy.”
I fished every day for weeks, and never got so much asa nibble. As I hadn’t had any luck deep sea fishing, Itried casting my line in the harbor at Sydney. Father wasashore attending to bills of lading, and the crew werecleaning up the ship, painting, chipping paint and reevingon new canvas.
I felt a nibble; the line twitched, and I pulled withall my seven-year-old strength on it. On the hook was aflat fish about six inches long with huge bulging eyes.He wiggled and squirmed, but I got him in my fistand called to anyone who could hear to come andsee my catch. Alex Svenson, a Norwegian sailor, whowas holystoning the poop deck, came over to look atmy fish.
“Ain’t he a whopper?” I asked him, full of pride andenthusiasm. Svenson picked up the fish in his big pawand grunted a negative.
“This is a bloody bullfish. It ain’t no good to eat,” hesaid, and he ground the fish under his heel and laughedat my tears of disappointment.
No one ever fought my battles except myself, and thisinsult to my first catch was cause for war.
“That’s my fish, you bloody squarehead,” I shoutedat him, as I grabbed my shining treasure and stuck it insidethe bib of my overalls next to my skin.
“I’ll kill you for making fun of my fish,” and I kickedSvenson on the shins as hard as I could. But kicking a sixfoot Scandinavian on the shins with bare feet is not to berecommended. I only stubbed my toes and the more Ikicked the more they hurt and the louder Svensonlaughed. Ordinarily he was vile-tempered, but now myhelpless rage seemed to please him.
“Say, you got a helluva lotta spirit, ain’t you?” hegrinned in my face.
“You killed my fish. I’ll kill you, do you hear? Youjust wait!”
“Now be a nice little girl and don’t get your temperup and I’ll give you a big box of candy.”
I was young enough for the prospect of candy to bea pacifier for any woe. My father never let me have any,and the rare occasions when the sailors sneaked itto me made me regard heaven as the place where you gotall the candy you wanted.
Wiping away my tears with a fishy hand I forced asmile.
“I bet you ain’t got any candy,” I challenged him.
“Well, don’t you squeal to Stitches or the Old Man,and I’ll give you a whole box just for yourself.”
I promised him I wouldn’t betray him, and he wentforward to get it. I twisted up my fish line in a neat coilwhile I waited for him. Presently I saw him coming aftwith something concealed behind his back.
“Where is it?” I asked, a bit suspicious that he wasonly fooling me.
Svenson looked up the deck to make sure no one waswatching him.
“Come on down in the cabin. Some of these stool pigeonsmight squeal on you,” he said.
“Hey, sailors ain’t allowed in the after quarters,” Iprotested.
Svenson snarled something out of the corner of hismouth, and then he shook me by the shoulders.
“Do you want this candy or don’t you?”
“Yes, I do.”
“All right then, shut your trap and come on down below.”
I followed him down into the chartroom. He madeno show of giving me any box of candy.
“Where is it?” I asked.
Svenson held out a five pound box of candy wrappedin shiny paper and tied with lots of pink ribbon. Igrabbed for it. As I did so he snatched it away just out ofmy reach.
“Oh no, you don’t! Give me a kiss and you can have it.”
“You said you’d give me the candy because you killedmy fish.” I couldn’t understand why he still held thecandy as another bait.
“Come on with the kiss or you don’t get it,” he insisted.
I looked at his tobacco-stained mouth and the yellowstubs of teeth that showed when he spoke. He looked horribleto me, but it was a five pound box of candy and itwould be all my own and I had never had a whole poundof candy in my life, and I thought it would be wortheven kissing Svenson for. I pursed my lips up to kiss himas I had kissed my father, my kittens and sea birds.
“Here’s the kiss,” I said.
He put his face down close to mine and I remembernow how hot his breath was in my face. His mouth wastwisted and his eyes narrowed and for years after inevery horrible dream I ever had I saw Svenson’s yellowteeth and narrowed eyes....
I forgot the candy and turned to run. He made a noisein his throat like a snarling animal and grabbed me upin his arms. His face was against mine. He forced mymouth open and kissed me—horribly! One of his hairyarms nearly crushed my ribs and his big paws patted overmy body as I kicked and struggled. With his face againstmine I couldn’t make a sound. I managed to get my fingersin his eyes and tried to push them in. Suddenly hedropped me so that I fell to the deck of the cabin andhe ran out of the chartroom and up to the deck. I scrambledto my feet and scurried like a rat to my own cabin,slammed the door and threw myself on my bunk. ThereI beat my hands against the wall and bit into my strawpillow to keep from screaming.
I don’t know how long it was before I felt Father’shands shaking me.
“For the love of Christ, what’s the matter, Joan?” hekept saying above my muffled sobbing.
“Get out of here, I hate you! Get out of here! Getout!” I screeched at him. I didn’t want to be touched; Ijust wanted to hide in the dark somewhere to get awayfrom the feeling of Svenson’s kiss.
Then I remembered the fish in my breast. I put myhand down and brought it out. When Father saw it heasked:
“Say, are you bawling over a dead fish?” He was annoyedat what he thought my childish sentiment. I didn’thave time to answer him, for he left my cabin abruptly.I lay down again in the bunk clasping my dead bullfishand shivering with fear. Father came back with a big canof Epsom salts.
“Now, no more of this nonsense. What’s the matterwith you anyway? Are you sick?”
“No, Father, I just—I—” I couldn’t finish for I knewthe penalty of squealing on anyone in a fight. Sailorsdon’t do that; they take their beating and settle with theoffender at their leisure. I felt that if I told on SvensonI wouldn’t be fit to be a regular sailor, and it was Fatherhimself who had drilled that code into me.
“Answer me, are you sick, or is this just a show of badtemper?”
“I’m sick,” I wailed in a weak voice. I knew whatwould follow. Father made me take a big dose of saltsand then told me to go to bed.
“You don’t get any supper. You probably been sneakingsomething to eat that wasn’t good for you, so no foodfor you until we get your stomach cleaned up.”
I didn’t mind swallowing the salts, for it got Fatheraway from me, and I was afraid I would tell him thetruth if he asked me many more questions or accused meof being a blubbering child.
I didn’t come out of my bunk all the next day. I stayedthere with my fish. The fish began to smell bad so Fathertook it away from me and threw it out of the porthole.
That evening we sailed for the Midway Islands. Icould hear the scuffling of the crew’s feet on the poopdeck above my cabin as they ran about setting the sails.The creak and groan of the rigging and the whistle of thewind through the sails gave me the creeps. Ordinarilythe sound of our ship getting under way thrilled me, andI wasn’t content unless I could be on deck helping pullthe ropes. But I was afraid to go on deck. I heard Svenson’svoice answering that of the mate’s as he took thehelm, and I couldn’t bear to see him again.
When we had been out about a week, I ventured ondeck, after I had found out from the cabin-boy thatSvenson was on his watch below. I hated him but I wasgoing to repay him in full when I got my courage back.I knew to be a regular sailor I had to cure the sick feelingI got whenever Svenson was near. I had to quit beingafraid; I had to get hunk without help. I couldn’t eventell Stitches.
So I schemed and schemed, and I was so eager to geteven that gradually I began to stop being afraid. Themate had switched Svenson into the second mate’s watchbecause he wanted another sailor to fix some sails andSvenson couldn’t sailmake. But he could steer. I foundhim at the wheel. Here was my chance! Just as I knewbetter than to squeal on him I was sure he would not dareto squeal on me, no matter what I did. Father had set acourse, “Northeast by east, a quarter point east,” and hadtold Svenson to keep a true course, for we were in theregion of some coral reefs, and a quarter of a mile off innavigation would run us aground.
“Keep her full and by and call me if the wind veersa point,” Father instructed him and then went belowfor a short nap. I knew if Svenson let that ship even getso much as a tenth of a point off the course that he wouldget hell from Father. Well, I’d help Svenson get hishell!
I climbed on the binnacle box (the box that holds thecompass), which was in front of the wheel, and I put mytwo feet over the compass so that Svenson couldn’t seeit to steer by.
“Get the hell out of the way so I can see,” he snarledat me.
“You make me!” I shot back at him. If he took hishands off the helm the rudder would spin around andthe ship would be out of control. “Come on, make me getoff this binnacle,” I invited him again. Svenson knew Ihad him. He lost his temper and began cursing me, buthe kept to the wheel. I heard the topsails aloft begin toflap. The wind had caught them “aback.” The jibs andmainsails began to luff—and in vain Svenson spun thewheel to get the ship back on her course. Then it wasmy turn to laugh. I heard the mate, on the fo’c’s’le headwhere he was fixing a jib, bellow aft at Svenson to pullthe goddamned ship back into the wind. The mate randown the deck to help get her back on course. He wasn’tfast enough though, for Father, who had been watchinghis telltale compass over his bunk, was leaping up thecompanionway ladder to the poop. I ran to the windwardrail and pretended I was interested in watchingsome schools of flying fish skim over the water. Fatherjerked the helm from Svenson’s hand and spun it hardover to leeward. With a slapping crash the booms wentover to the port tack, and he got her once more headedup to the wind.
“Joan, take this wheel,” he ordered. I came over andtook hold of its big spokes. “Show this cock-eyed so andso sea louse how to steer a course,” he said out of thecorner of his mouth, and at that he grabbed Svenson.
“Who in the hell ever told you you were a sailor?What do you mean by letting her run afoul in the wind?”He shouted in Svenson’s face.
“That ain’t my fault, Captain,” whispered back Svenson.“I couldn’t help it.”
“You’ll talk back to me, will you?” and Father senthim flying on the deck with a left uppercut: “Trying torun the goddamned ship on a reef for us, are you?” Svensonjumped to his feet and went for Father.
“Why you white-haired old bastard, I’ll knock the soand so out of you,” and he swung a fierce right to Father’shead. Then the two of them wallowed around the deck,punching and mauling each other in a bloody mess. I’llnever forget the sound of the bones in Svenson’s jawcrunching under Father’s blows.
“I’ve got enough!” cried Svenson, on his back, just asFather’s upraised arm was about to put him to sleep. Themate, who was standing by with a belaying pin in hishand in case of real trouble, lifted the Norwegian to hisfeet.
“Take him for’ard, and put him in irons,” Father orderedthe mate, “and tell any of the crew in the fo’c’s’lethat think they can talk back to the captain of this shipthat Svenson is only a sample of what’ll happen to them.”
The mate had Svenson by the neck and the seat of hispants marching him forward. Father called after them:“When that piece of ballast gets his eyes open again,I’ll have Joan here show him how to steer a ship.”
Svenson, however, was kept in irons and on rations ofbread and water until we reached the Midway Islands,where Father discharged him in disgrace—I hadn’tsquealed, but I don’t think Svenson, wherever he is today,feels that he got the best of it.
My days at sea were divided up between work, studyand play. In fair weather my schedule was crowded. Atseven-thirty in the morning I got my breakfast. At eightbells, when the morning watch came on duty, I had toswab down the poop deck, polish the brass work andmake up my bunk. My bunk was graced by a mattressof “donkey’s breakfast” or straw, which was the nearestthing to material luxury I ever knew. I never workedvery hard at my duties; rather I made them into gameswhenever I could.
I had to haul up water in a canvas bucket to wash downthe decks. I liked that because it gave me the chance touse the bucket to catch things that floated by. Sometimesthis led to adventures I had not foreseen.
I’ll always remember the morning I tried to catch thesea horse. A sea horse sounds very formidable for a ten-year-oldgirl to go after with a canvas bucket becausenaturally when one says “sea horse” many people compareit to a huge clumsy sea animal weighing hundredsof pounds. But the sea horse is quite different. He is afunny fish from two or three inches to a foot long. I callhim a funny fish because for a fish he can’t swim anymore than a cockroach, but he has a tail that he wrapsabout a piece of seaweed or any drifting thing. So hemeanders over the ocean with his head out of water atsuch an angle that from a short distance he looks like ahorse’s head—hence his name.
It is only about once in a blue moon that any sailorcatches a sea horse, so of course at ten it was the dreamof my life to land one.
What a thrill it was that morning when leaning overthe side, bucket in hand, I saw floating just beneath mea sea anemone on which was a tiny sea horse riding as ifthe sea flower was its throne, and the sea horse was kingof the ocean. What an opportunity! The morning wascalm, the flat sea like glass, and the lazy ship crawlingalong at scarcely three knots an hour made fishing conditionsideal. The sea horse was a transparent, gelatine-lookingblue. I could see the tiny threads of blue veins inits insides. I lowered the bucket under the anemone andstarted to haul it up, but the water carried it floating off.I threw the bucket at it again. In the foam it had disappeared.I watched carefully and was rewarded by seeingit reappear again near the stern of the ship. I ranto the taffrail and plunged the bucket again after it, butmissed it by about two feet. There was not time to pullup the bucket and make another cast. The stern of themoving ship would pass the drifting anemone. I saw mylife’s ambition slipping away from me. I wouldn’t fail!
That miss gave me a wild desire to possess the sea horseor die in the attempt to get it. Without a thought as to theutter foolishness of what I was doing I jumped overboardafter the sea horse! When I landed with a splash inthe water I heard Stitches’ voice shout:
“The skipper’s overboard!”
Such a hullabaloo that started on deck. Father hadcome up, the cabin-boy, Bulgar and Axel Oleson. Theywere huddled at the stern rail. The mate and Swede wereunfastening the leachings on the dinghy to lower it overafter me.
“Keep your head up, Skipper,” called Stitches in afrantic voice. He couldn’t swim a stroke and his helplessnessto aid me as he wanted to was funny. He keptcalling instructions to me.
The wake of the vessel was washing the sea horse fartheraway from me. Instead of swimming back to the shipand grabbing hold of the life line that Father threwafter me, I swam lickety-split astern after my prize—theship going on in one direction and I in the other. Inever got many opportunities to get off the ship and Iwas exhilarated at my freedom. I was free—my goal wasthe rapidly fleeing sea flower. I knew I would achieve myambition!
“Tread water,” came the bellowing voice of myfather through his cupped hands. “Don’t get scared andyou’ll be all right.”
I turned my head to look at him, sent him a smile,waved my hand at him and plunged on after my flower.I would no sooner swim within easy reach of it, so Ithought, than a gentle wave lapped it out of my grasp.I forgot the gang on the ship who were trying to call meback. With several swift strokes I overtook the sea horseon its flower chariot. I grabbed it in my fist. The anemonecrushed in my hand. Triumphant at catching it I turnedback to catch up with the ship. Father had hove to in thelittle wind that was wheezing out of some stragglingclouds. The mate was in the lifeboat with Stitches andBulgar. They were pulling for dear life after me. Withthe thrill of my success still tingling in my soul I decidedto give the men in the lifeboat some work. I hadjumped overboard with my overalls on, so stuffing myprize in my front pocket I turned about and began swimmingaway. I swam as fast as I could. The men in thelifeboat pulled with longer and swifter strokes. I plowedon a few yards and then turned and waved a hand to themto come and get me. I heard them begin to curse the airblue. I trod water until they almost got up with me, thenI dived under the water, and came up a few yards behindthem and started back to the ship. By the time they gotthe lifeboat turned around I was way ahead. It wasn’tevery day in my life that I was important enough to getthe whole crew off duty to chase me around the oceanand I was making the most of it!
When I got under the shadow of the stern, just farenough away to clear the suction of the rudder, I lookedup to the deck and saw the crew laughing—that is, theywere all laughing with the exception of my father.
“That damned old sea horse thought he could get awayfrom me but I got him,” I called up, grinning in my success.
“Come up this rope at once,” roared Father.
Hand over hand I climbed up the piece of halyard helowered over to me. My hair was streaked in wet stringsover my face as I stood on deck dripping in front ofFather. Before he could say a word I put my hand in mypocket to bring out my beautiful anemone when to mydismay the thing I brought forth in my fist was no daintycolored flower but a dirty piece of seaweed that lookedlike a hunk of rotten sponge. In the water in its bed ofblue sea it had the beauty of a lace-like piece of coral,but in my hand it was a brutal disillusion—just ugly seaweed.My heart sank in disappointment—the thing I hadwanted to possess for its loveliness didn’t exist. Whateverphilosophic reflections this might have started werechecked abruptly by my father’s voice.
“Turn over that skylight,” he said.
Obediently I draped my body over the skylight withmy back part exposed heavenwards.
“This will teach you to run away from this ship,” andhe gave me a whipping with the end of the rope he hadthrown to me to climb aboard with. The licking didn’treally hurt. It took a pretty healthy whack to hurt meanywhere physically. But the comedown! The blow tomy pride! To be turned over a skylight and licked on thepants before a circle of grinning sailors—and for what?Merely for jumping overboard in mid-ocean and stoppingthe ship. I could hear the mate who had chased mein the lifeboat laughing the loudest. Would I ever recover?As if the sea horse and the anemone hadn’t treatedme badly enough.
“Now you get the Bible and copy a verse twentytimes,” he added. It was the familiar finish to a licking.Father used the Bible as a text book for me—spelling,grammar and composition. If you’ve ever had to learn tospell all the words in the Bible you can see what I wasup against. I had to copy verses out of the Bible everyday, but Father could never make me do it voluntarily—sohe gave it to me to do as punishment.
I got the Bible, and lying down on my stomach on thehot deck in the sun so my pants would dry, I began mypenmanship lesson. I was darned if I was going to doRevelations again. I knew them by heart—all about roastingin Hell and being eaten by snakes and never beingable to die and get out of it—besides which the versesin Revelations were too long. I wanted to get it overwith. I thumbed the New Testament over until I foundthe shortest verse in it—“Jesus Wept.” That suited myframe of mind too, so I copied that one twenty times andturned my homework in to Father. He was so pleasedat my promptness in doing my lesson that he looked as ifhe had forgotten my latest offense.
“Here it is,” I said to him, with the air of a martyr,and disdaining even to look at that bunch of sailors whowere occupied doing various jobs around the deck. As Ihanded him the paper I began to make a discreet retreatto the main deck. I got as far as the poop deck ladderwhen I heard him explode like a firecracker. And thenI got a real licking to “teach me to be funny again.”
Studying was the hardest thing I had to do. It wasn’tonly because I didn’t want to study that I looked uponknowledge-getting as a curse, but I had so much physicalenergy that I just couldn’t sit still long enough. So Fatherused all sorts of schemes to make me work at my lessons.He had one that never failed, no matter how oftenhe tried it. He would call me into his cabin and tell mewith a grave face he had made a mistake in his navigationproblem and would I work it over and catch hismistake, because otherwise the result might be very seriousto all of us on the ship. I didn’t care a hang about theseriousness to all of us on the ship, but how I did wantto catch him. So I would tie into that problem tooth andnail and at the end of half an hour or an hour be ableto go to Father with a very superior air and tell him thatno matter what he thought I knew he had not made amistake. Then he’d always thank me with an expressionof great relief and I’d go away very proud—never realizingthat I had done my arithmetic lesson.
There was always plenty of work for me to do, butnothing for me to play with that I didn’t invent myself.Father always said:
“I don’t have playthings—why should you?”
Left to my own resources I copied my few toys fromthe things I saw around me—sailors, ships and cargoes.I built a drydock under the ladder leading to the poop.In my drydock I had several types of ships in the making.My prize ship was a full-rigger in a whiskey bottle.The sailors had taught me to make long crochet hooksfrom bits of wire and to make my own glue from fishheads.
I worked for months making the parts of the ship to rigup. Then came the problem of getting it inside the narrowneck of the whiskey bottle and setting it up inside.That was where the crochet hooks came in. I put all theparts of the full-rigger in the bottle separately and thenI put them into place with the use of the glue and hooks.I worked a little every day on my masterpiece for Iwanted it to be superior to any bottle boat that could beproduced in the fo’c’s’le. Eventually I had built a fleetof little ships. I made them to trade in English ports forcandy.
My most spectacular vessel, however, was a boat thatsailed on the deck on little wooden wheels. It was abouttwo feet long with a mainsail, squaresail and two jibs.I made the diminutive blocks in its rigging from bits ofsandalwood. The mainsail and squaresail were fashionedfrom an old cotton shirt, while its jibs had once been apair of underdrawers which the cook cast off.
Stitches made a boat on the same model and on theday both were completed we were to have a race. Myboat was called the Neversink. Stitches’ boat was the Sonofabitch.
“I’ll wager you my boat’ll outsail yours, Skipper,” hesaid. “An’ if I lose you can embroider the name of yourwinner, the Neversink, in white twine on my pants’ seat,an’ I’ll wear the same for every man aboard to see.”
“That’s a bet, Stitches,” I said, taking his wager. UnfortunatelyI didn’t stop to consider that if his boat wonhe would embroider its name, Sonofabitch, on the backof me.
Came the day of the race. It was the rule that we hadto man our boats with a crew—the owner having the solepick of whatever kind of crew he desired. The captainof my boat was a fat cockroach. I tied him to his post aftwith a piece of thread. However I never called muchattention to him in my father’s hearing for fear Fatherwould think there was something personal about it. Yousee, I learned early that a girl can’t be too careful witha man’s dignity. My “crew” was a kitten which I tiedon just forward of midships to serve the double purposeof crew and ballast to hold the Neversink on deck whenthe wind blew its sails. As in all well-regulated ships Ihad trouble with my crew.
We had our boats at the starting line on the maindeck. The goal was the water tank abaft the mizzen.
“Shove off!” signalled Stitches and down the decksthe Neversink and the Sonofabitch careened along ontheir wheels. My boat took the lead and kept a coupleof inches ahead of the Sonofabitch, when my crew mutinied.The wind got under the kitten’s tail and he didn’tlike it so he clawed at the sails and pulled the mast andrigging down, finally dumping the Neversink over onher side in dismal defeat.
I didn’t wait for Stitches to gloat over his victory.
“You can have my overalls when I turn in tonight butdon’t embroider Sonofabitch in too big letters,” I said.
Sometimes my games got me in trouble, and once I wasbadly injured. On the “dog watches” from four to sixand six to eight in the evenings, both watches were ondeck and I didn’t have to keep quiet so they could sleep.It was then that I ran the decks, careless of the thuddingnoise my feet made; or I sang chanteys loud and longat the top of my voice. One night I persuaded Swede toplay tag with me. Owing to the limited space there is ona ship to run around in, we made a rule that the personwho was “it” had to catch the pursued by hitting himthree hard swats in the middle of the back. There wereno bases. The topmasts were the limit above and the holdthe limit below. I was it. I chased Swede forward,through the galley, back to the mizzen, around the mizzenmast, over the hatchway and almost caught him whenhe leaped to the shrouds and started up the mizzen rigging.I went after him with a rush. He was about halfway up the ratlines when I almost overtook him. Insteadof continuing up and sliding down a halyard tothe deck again from the crosstrees as I thought he would,he stopped short in the rigging.
“Get down or I’ll step on your hands,” he said with agrin.
“Step away and be damned,” I answered him, intenton catching him at any cost. Of course a huge Swedesailor is not the most gentle playmate there is for a child,but he was all that was available. In his clumsiness hewas only playing, but he raised one foot as if to trampleon my hands and said again:
“Get down or you get me hoof on your mitts.”
I didn’t believe he meant it, so instead of taking hiswarning I went up another rung of the rigging. He intendedto step lightly but he slipped. I felt a stingingpain and then I was flying through space. I supposemy hands went out as protection instinctively for theystruck the deck first. Something seemed to snap in bothwrists and my face slapped against the planks of thedeck.
The next thing I knew Swede had me in his arms luggingme aft and I was kicking and blubbering crosswords through bloody lips. It was bad enough to besmashed up but to be carried like a helpless puppy wastoo much.
“Put me down,” I demanded and I wriggled from hisarms. Mustering all the strength I could I walked up thepoop. Father had come up the companionway to investigatethe commotion. When he saw me he asked:
“Now what the hell have you been up to?”
My face evidently looked like a muffin that had spilledover lopsided in baking, for my nose was broken and twopoints off its course.
“Answer me. What happened?” Father repeated withforce.
“I guess I’ve busted my flippers. Can you fix them?”was all I could reply.
He took my broken wrists in his hands and examinedthem, then sent the man at the wheel after a fruit box.
“Now you get below, Joan. I’ll make some splints outof slats of wood and set your arms. But about your nose,how in the hell can I do anything with that?”
Despite his doubts, Father made a good job of patchingme up. He used a ruler broken in two pieces for asplint for my nose, and then put a finishing touch on hishandiwork by giving me a big dose of salts. Father sincerelybelieved salts were a cure for everything from badtemper to a broken neck, and I became so inured to swallowingthe darn stuff that I almost learned to like it.
One of the earliest lessons that I learned from the seawas the importance of observation. Book learning is almostuseless in a storm, and science an unknown quantitywhen the elements lash against a man-built ship. But observingthe laws of the sea, watching it destroy or create,teaches much about life. All that I learned of philosophy,biology and astronomy came to me from my father andthe sailors.
I often wondered where children came from, and in replyto my queries the sailors gave me no stork fable oryarn about being found in a cabbage patch. When I askedFather where I came from he replied:
“Don’t ask questions. Just keep your eyes open andyou’ll find out everything you want to know.”
The first opportunity I had to find out about babiesbeing born came when Father landed a shark. I wasdown on the main deck helping Stitches sew on a rippedsail. He was teaching me how to use the “palm” or sea-goingthimble that sailors use when they sew canvas. The“palm” is a metal perforated disk set on a leather strapthat fits the palm of the hand. In fair weather the sailorsalways brought the torn sails on deck and repaired themready for emergency use in a storm. Stitches was verypainstaking in his instruction to me because he wantedme to be a regular sailor some day.
Father was sitting on the taffrail, sextant in hand, waitingfor the sun to come out from behind a cloud so thathe could “shoot the sun,” or take a sight to figure out ourposition by navigation.
“Say, Joan,” he called, “come here and look at thisshark.”
I dropped my sewing and ran up to the poop to theafter rail. I looked over the stern and saw a greenishwhite shadow deep in the water. Slowly the shadow camecloser to the surface and a grey fin stuck out of the waterlike a three-cornered sail. The shark was about ten feetlong. It swam around in circles following in our wake,stalking us. It was the first time I had ever seen a man-eatingshark.
“Don’t go too near the rail, Joan. If you fall overboardnow you’ll be a nice dessert for that shark.”
“Do sharks eat people?” I asked.
“That kind of a shark does. All sharks that live onthe surface of the water and follow sailing ships are man-eaters.”
I looked at the shark again. It looked harmless to meas it circled and played around in the wake from ourrudder.
“How could a shark eat me? I can’t see any mouth onit,” I countered, still unconvinced.
“I’ll show you. Go ask the cook for a big chunk of saltpork, and we’ll put it on an iron hook, then watch thefun.”
I got the chunk of salt pork and Father baited a hookwith it. Instead of lowering the hook overboard by arope, he fastened a thin chain about twenty feet longonto it.
“Now get my rifle, and stand clear of the rail,” heordered.
I brought the gun up, and Stitches and McLean cameaft to help land the shark. Stitches tied a piece of boardon the chain so that the pork and hook would float on thesurface. The shark, led by its little vari-colored pilot fish,smelled at the bait—then it circled away. It came backagain and after pushing the pork with its snout, the sharkturned belly up, and opened its jaws on the meat. A sharkcan only bite when it is bottom up, as the lower part ofits jaw is receding. As it turned up and snagged the hookFather shot at his throat with his rifle. The shark kickedout with its powerful tail and pulled away. McLean letout some slack as the shark started to bite viciously at thechain holding the hook. Again and again Father firedshots into its body, but still it fought. The pilot fish haddisappeared—nothing remained but a bleeding, fightingshark pulling at the hook.
“Haul him up, head out of water,” Father called, andas Stitches and McLean pulled him out of the waterFather slipped a running bowline around him.
“Get the hell out of the way now or you’ll get hurt,”he called to me as he hauled the heavy shark up bythe bowline. Stitches had slipped another line around theshark’s pounding tail and was pulling him up by thestern. After a terrific struggle they landed him on thepoop deck. It slapped and wallowed around the deck, itshuge jaws with seven rows of saw-teeth gaping and tryingto kill its attackers. Father ran a scantline down itsthroat and shot it again. McLean chopped its tail off,splintering its spine as he did so. Still the shark foughtdesperately. Nothing seemed to kill it.
“A shark don’t die until sundown,” said my father,“but we can cut him up so he can’t do any damage. Onlydon’t get too near him because he may only be foxing. Ashark is the hardest deep sea thing to kill there is.”
Father told the men to haul the body of the sharkdown on the main deck and leave it in the lee scuppersuntil it died. The sailors were more than willing to complybecause a shark has a lot of value to sailormen.
“When it’s dead, you men skin it. We’ll sell the skinin Australia for shoe leather. Whatever else you want ofthe shark you can have,” he told the men, and he wentabout his task of “shooting the sun.”
I forgot all about my sail sewing lesson in the excitementof carving up a man-eating shark. Stitches sharpenedmy knife for me on his marlin spike, and we setabout carving up the shark.
“What part can I do?” I asked him.
“Well, seeing as this is the first man-eating shark youever seen caught, you go through its guts. Some sailorstell as how sharks swallow pearls on the bottom of theocean, and maybe if you was to carefully go through allits entrails you might find a pearl.”
It is true that sharks are the scavengers of the underseas,but Stitches gave me the job of looking through itsguts to initiate me into the realm of sharkdom. “Nothinglike learning the insides of things to be sure of yourfacts,” he said.
I am glad now that he made me go through that shark’sinsides for it gave me first hand information that hasbacked me up when landlubbers doubt me when I tellthem of the mammal shark.
It took about three hours to go carefully through theyards and yards of gut of that shark and I didn’t find anypearls. All I found was a rusty piece of tin and a smalldevil fish, or octopus, that spit indigo ink all over mewhen I freed it from the grip of the shark.
“I’m goin’ to cut out this backbone, Skipper, and makea walking stick out of it. I can sell it when I get ashorefor a bottle of rum,” said Stitches, and he dug his knifeinto the back of the shark. The shark still quivered,hacked up as it was.
“And now let’s get his ugly mug off his body. Hisyawnin’ jaws look too hungry for comfort.” McLean gotan ax and a saw, and the two of them sawed and hackedoff the huge iron-like head.
“Now I’ll show you where the shark keeps his eyes.”You see, a shark is blind, it can only see about four inchesin front of its snout. Every shark has two little parasitefish, pilot fish, that see for it, and in time of trouble theshark swallows its pilot fish for protection. Down in littlesockets behind the shark’s gills, Stitches brought out twosquirming, brightly colored fish, about three inches long.
People have often asked me how it is that natives seemto swim unharmed in shark-infested waters. They escapefrom death because they know a shark’s habits. A shark,by reason of its near-sightedness, depends upon its pilotfish to spot food for it. The tiny fish can see any animateobject in the water and head for it. The bright color oftheir bodies shines in front of the shark who followswhere they lead. A shark will not attack an inanimate objectfor it cannot notice it! A moving object in the waterattracts attention and the natives, wise to this, let theirbodies go limp when a shark circles too near them. Then,when a shark circles to turn around to attack, the nativemoves like lightning to dive under the animal and ripits throat with his sharp tortoise-shell knife.
“Now always remember, Skipper, if you ever are overboardand near a shark, keep your head and keep quietuntil the shark circles from you. Don’t be a landlubberfool and try to fight because that just makes you a movin’target fer the little pilot fish.” I have been laughed atwhen I have told about the pilot fish of a shark, and unbelievershave said it was just a good fish yarn, but neverthelessit is a fact.
“Do any other kind of fish eat you, too?” I asked, abit worried.
“Hell, a shark ain’t a fish, it’s a mammal—just like aporpoise and a whale is a mammal.”
A shark not a fish? It had fins and a body and tail likeone and it doesn’t have to come up to the surface tobreathe like a porpoise and a whale.
“Now you take that shark jaw and hang it over theside in the water and in a week all the meat will rot offit; then you’ll have a pair of fine shark’s jaws to hang upin your cabin.”
No portion of that shark was to be wasted. McLeanhad taken the empty gut and had stretched it out in thesun to dry. “For shoelaces” he answered, when I askedhim what he was keeping it for.
“But it stinks,” I protested.
“Well, it won’t when I cure it in salt,” he replied.
“Now we’ll cut its stomach open, Skipper,” saidStitches and he slit up the upper stomach of the mutilatedshark. I bent over him, carefully watching everything hedid, for wonders never ceased to come from it.
Stitches reached his hand and wrist into the openingand felt inside. Then he let forth a “Jesus!”
“What’s the matter, Stitches?”
“Skipper,” he replied, his face crestfallen, “this is amother shark. Look, she has young ’uns in her.”
I looked, and there in a pouch in her stomach weresix baby sharks, about eighteen inches long. He reachedin deeper and brought out a second pouch with anotherlitter of six young in it.
“Is it bad luck to kill a she-shark, Stitches?” I asked,puzzled at his sudden grief.
“Bad luck? No sailor ever kills a female thing, becausethey give life. Givin’ life is part of the Creator’sjob, and no man would willingly kill a mother thing.”
There is an old superstition that to kill any femalething at sea will bring a curse on the ship. If a femalebird is killed, its wing is nailed on the mast head as anoffering against a curse. When Stitches saw we had killeda mother shark in young, he took the tail and nailed it onthe end of the jib boom. That is the reason why ships returningfrom deep sea voyages are often decorated withparts of birds or fish.
After Stitches had put up the tail on the jib boom, hecame back to the shark. “Maybe we can save these young’uns, Skipper.” Carefully, and almost tenderly, he tookthe baby fish out of the pouch and broke the cords thatbound them to the mother shark. Then he took some twinethat he had been using to sew sails with, and tied up theend of each cord, and threw the little fish overboard.They probably never lived but Stitches did everything inhis power to save them.
I didn’t know that sharks bore their young. I supposedthey laid spawn as any other fish did, but Stitches explainedto me that a shark bears her children like a human,and suckles them from a teat until they can foragefor their own food. The reason that shark had fought soviciously was to protect the young in her. A male sharkis much easier to land, and much more stupid than a female.
I asked Stitches if all children were born the way thesharks were and he answered, yes.
As there were eleven children in our family I thoughtthat we came in batches of six like the sharks.
“But how do we get in the pouches?” I insisted.
“The guy that created you put the seed of you underyour father’s and your mother’s heart, then when theyfell in love you was born.”
I have since learned that some modern naturalists whoevidently never have traveled further south than SandyHook, have expressed a doubt as to whether there reallyis such a beast as a man-eating shark and whether it willactually attack a man unprovoked. Evidence, they claim,has always been at second-hand and the testimony of seafaringmen they reject. Well, without wishing to lockhorns with the learned, you may be interested in firsthandevidence of man-eating sharks.
I saw a nurse shark, perhaps the deadliest species ofthe shark family, attack a sailor from our ship, one EricJohanssen. Johanssen dived off the ship for a swimagainst the express command of my father that no memberof the crew leave the vessel. We were anchored inParamatta River in Sydney Harbor. Johanssen hadn’tbeen in the water five minutes before two sharks begancircling about him.
“You bloody fool, swim for the ship,” called Swedeto Johanssen. Johanssen turned to strike out for the Jacob’sladder, but he wasn’t swift enough. The tri-corneredfin of the biggest shark followed in his wake.Johanssen struck out wildly with his arms and legs. Heevidently thought that by making a big splash in thewater he would confuse the shark, but the disturbanceJohanssen kicked up only served to make an accuratetarget for the shark’s pilot fish.
The man had about reached the ship when the triangularfin following disappeared. Watching, the men onboard knew what that meant. The brute was turning onits back. It came up below its prey and turned open itshuge maw to bite.
There came a short shriek of pain; the water bloodied,and Johanssen’s body doubled up. The shark’s jaws hadset about his stomach. With a sinuous motion of its tailthe shark drew away taking in its jaws the middle ofJohanssen’s body almost through to the backbone.
There had been no time to lower a boat, but Swedewas on the Jacob’s ladder; Father and the mate above, allthe boathooks fighting to save at least the body from theman-eaters. They caught the body with their hooks andbrought it out, but not until another hunk of flesh hadbeen torn from the thigh. Then the vicious monsters,balked of their complete meal, swam along the sides ofthe ship, scraping against it and slapping their tailsagainst the hull as though in a frenzy of rage. Finallythey drew off, but for hours they swam close by, waitingfor another victim.
Father had Johanssen’s body sewn up in sailcloth andit was buried in the potter’s field in Sydney.
Stitches told me of a foolhardy sailor in the islandsdragging his arm over the side of a dinghy going ashore.A nurse shark came up unexpectedly and caught thetrailing arm. The sailor either was dragged, or in hisfright fell out of the boat. There was a swirl of bloodywater and the man was gone. Then, attracted by the bloodanother huge shark came alongside and scraped thedinghy trying to overturn it. Stitches and the remainingsailor had a hard time getting the boat safely ashore.
Such are the habits of man-eating sharks.
We were nearing the Equator bound south from PugetSound. Father, the mate, and I were eating our noonmeal, “onion bouillon” (one bucket of water with oneonion in it), rice with curry sauce and boiled tapiocawith pale lavender cornstarch sauce. The Jap cook delightedin coloring the food to make it appear moreappetizing than it was.
Father and the mate were discussing our position onthe chart.
“We ought to make the crossing along about four bellsthis afternoon, Mr. Swanson. Better get the big hawserout and stretch it on deck in case we need it.”
The mate caught the twinkle in Father’s eye and raisedhis voice for the benefit of the greenhorn cabin-boy whowas listening to the conversation, big-eyed, in the pantry.
“All right, Captain, and when Neptune comes aboardshall I tell him about Slops trespassing on his domain?”
“Yes. He’ll probably raise hell because he doesn’t likethe uninitiated to cross the Equator.”
The cabin-boy came out of the pantry and made a pretenseof passing the bread to me.
“I beg your pardon, sir,” he said to Father, “but whatdoes the Equator look like?”
“It’s a white line about three feet under the water. Ijust told Mr. Swanson here to get out the hawser andhave it ready. When we cross the Equator we begin goin’down hill and slip south so fast we got to tie a lineon to the Equator,” Father lied without blinking aneye.
Slops sniffed, pretending contempt.
“You can’t fool me, Captain,” he protested.
Father looked very stern.
“When you have washed up here I want you to leanoverboard and look for the line and when you see it, callme,” he ordered the cabin-boy.
Slops’ eyes nearly popped out of his sallow face, buthe claimed that he didn’t believe it.
When Father and the mate left the table and went ondeck, Slops came to me.
“Does the Old Man mean that stuff about us going toofast when we cross the Equator?” he asked.
“Sure he does, and what’s more, Neptune knows you’venever crossed the line before, and you’re going to betarred and feathered,” I promised him. “Besides that,you’ll probably have to clean up all the mess they maketarring and feathering you.”
Slops didn’t think so much of me at that moment, andhe turned back to his pantry with a sniff. An hour laterFather asked me where Slops had disappeared to. Ididn’t know, but I set about to find him. I looked in thepantry, in his cabin, up in the galley, under the fo’c’s’lehead,aloft in the rigging, down in the lazarette, everywhere,so I thought, and I couldn’t track him. We werejust about to cross the Equator, and Slops’ presence wasdesired on deck for the initiation. Mr. Swanson steppedup to my father!
“Come with me, Captain, and I’ll show you where thatcat-livered cabin-boy is.” I went with them, forward, andthere we found Slops. He was leaning far out the hawsehole staring at the water below looking for the Equator!The mate planted his foot in the hind part of the cabin-boyand nearly sent him hurling into space through thehawse hole.
“Get amidships, you so and so ignoramus.” Poor Slops,quaking with fear, ambled aft. There on the mizzenhatch he saw a platform built of timber on which was abig wooden tub of “shaving lather.” The sailors weresitting around the tub on their haunches with treacherousinnocence on their faces.
“Tie up the beggar,” ordered Swede, who had assumedcharge of the activities. Slops was grabbed by Bulgarand McLean and bound hand and foot with rope.For a moment there was an ominous pause, and thenslowly coming down off the fo’c’s’le head was old Neptunehimself. One of the sailors had rigged himself up ina torn gunny sack, with long, straggly beard made of ropeyarn and he carried a trident. It is the custom for theCaptain of the ship to turn over all authority to Neptunewhen crossing the Line. Neptune took his stand on thewooden platform. He called for silence, and then hisvoice boomed out,
“Where is the son of a bitch that dares trespass myEquator without his passport?”
McLean and Swede shoved Slops in front of Neptune.
“This is the offender, sir,” said Swede.
Neptune looked at him condemningly. He took theold stubble paintbrush in his hand and dipped it into thelather. We all knew just what was in that lather!
“What is your name?” roared Neptune.
Slops opened his mouth to tell his name and Neptuneput some of the lather off the brush into it. The sailorslaughed heartily at Slops’ discomfiture. The tar in thelather stuck to his face, and when it was at the propergluey stickiness to hold the “feather,” Neptune threwdried copra on him. It stuck fast and gave Slops the appearanceof a wild ape. He tried to resist Neptune andthat made his lot worse, for the sailors, as a punishmentfor his insubordination, fastened a long rope to his bodyand threw him overboard. They dragged him along untilhe was almost unconscious and then hauled him ondeck.
“Let’s splice the mainbrace, Neptune,” said Father,and he opened a bottle of rum. Each man got a big swigout of it, but Slops got only a smell of the cork.
I was laughing so hard at the whole performance thatI was oblivious of the preparations of Neptune to lathersome one else. I was not to be kept in ignorance for long.
“Captain,” bawled Neptune, “has your daughter gother passport for crossing the Line?”
“Say, I crossed the Equator when I was a year old,and they never did anything to me because I was a baby,”I bragged, “and besides that, I’ve crossed about twentytimes.” I swelled my chest out and bulged my muscles intrue sailor-fashion, so cocky was I about being a regularold salt.
“You ain’t been initiated, huh? Well, Captain, it’sabout time she was. What about it?” he asked. Fatherlooked at me as if he was full of pity for my predicament,and then in a half-mocking, sad tone he said,
“Guess she’ll have to get tarred and feathered, too.”
“Hey, what the hell?” I piped up.
“This is the what,” said Neptune. “You’re next,” andhe waved to the tub of lather.
“Just try and do it,” I challenged him, really gettingsore. It had ceased to be funny to me, and the more excitedI got the funnier it seemed to the sailors.
“You cock-eyed quart of bilgewater, you haven’t gota chance of tarring and keelhauling me,” I snorted andjumped for the rigging. I got no farther. Swede draggedme back by the foot. They bound me as they had the lucklessSlops and applied the brush and lather to my face.
“What is your name, little girl?” cooed that damnedNeptune. I was too wise to open my mouth, so I thought,for I had no intention of swallowing any of that concoction.
“Answer me,” he bellowed.
I closed my lips tighter. Huh, I was smarter than theywere after all. I’d show them! “Smack” on my behindwent a plank, heaved by the ape-like Slops. It was sucha hard whack that I opened my mouth to holler, and nosooner had I done that than Neptune stuck a big gob oflather in the wide aperture of my jaws, and then I heardthe whole crew and my father guffawing at me. Slopshad been initiated, so he rated disciplining me. Fromhead to foot they soaked me in that lather. The tar in itmatted my long thick hair together and stuck my eyelashesso that I couldn’t open my eyes. I wouldn’t haveminded it so much if I hadn’t heard them all laughing atme.
When no more lather would stick to me I heard Fathersay to Neptune:
“Let’s throw her over and give her a bath. She’s sodirty now that she’ll just love it.” What I thought ofmy father and the whole bunch at that moment cannot bewritten here, but it was very graphic!
Overboard I went, tied by the same rope that had beenon Slops. The salt water has the interesting effect ofmaking tar stick so that it will not come off without turpentine.When they thought I had had enough of abath, they hauled me out and sprinkled me with somedried copra. I looked worse than Slops did. I sat in thescupper picking off the shreds of coconut husks thatcame in the copra, and I gave the appearance of a she-orangoutang picking off fleas.
As they say in the movies, time passed, but not mytemper. The copra I picked off stuck to my fingers. Ipicked that off with the other hand and it stuck to theother. It was a thankless job. And then there was my hair.Never in this world would the tar come out of it. I wentto my ally, the cook, and asked him for some oil to rubon me. He wouldn’t give me any for he was afraid thesailors would jump on him if he helped me.
“Well, at least you might give me some turpentine,” Isaid to the mate.
“Sure, all you want,” and he gave me a five gallon tinof it. “Now go ahead and enjoy yourself,” he said. Irubbed turpentine on the tar and it came off, but with itlarge pieces of my own skin.
“How in the hell will I get this stuff out of my hair?”I wailed.
“That’s very simple, Joan; I guess I’ll have to shaveyour hair off,” said Father. He promptly set about to doit. With a carving knife he cut my long hair off, then heshaved my head with his razor. I was as sunburned aswalnut juice, but my scalp was white, and the two-colortone of my face and head gave me the weird appearanceof a native ready for a war dance.
I was not going to forget that little initiation partyin a hurry. I didn’t overlook any opportunity to get evenwith the sailors, Slops, the mate and my father duringthe rest of the trip.
I lay for Slops near the poop deck ladder one daywhen he was to bring the dinner basket aft. As he startedto mount the ladder, I tripped him and sent the basketand the dinner flying over the deck. I caught some bedbugsand put them in my father’s and the mate’s bunks,and to make sure the bugs would stay in them and bearmillions of other little bedbugs, I stuck brown sugar inthe ticking in their mattresses. It was not so easy for meto get even with the sailors, for I had no excuse to be inthe fo’c’s’le. About a month after the Equator episodeI got my chance. It was a Sunday. We were in the tradewinds and there was no ship work to be done. The sailorshad one of those rare days at sea, to loaf. I’d show themhow long they could loaf. Taking my penknife, I sneakedto the mizzen boom and pretended I was just swinging onit. I was really ripping the stitching in the middle ofthe sail. The wind caught in the little hole, and I ran andhid below, when I heard it start to rip. The force of thewind tore the sail right up to the gaff, and before Fathersaw it in time to lower it, the sail was in ribbons.
“All hands on deck!” he shouted. Away from theirnaps and pipes came the sailors. The ruined sail put theship out of control, so Father had to heave to. “All handson deck until a new sail is made,” he ordered, and amidcursing and grumbling, far into the night, they sweatedand slaved, getting up the new mizzen. That is, all hands,except me. I sat on the windward rail laughing at them.
“Joan, when you’ve learned to take a licking without asquawk outta you, when you can lose something you’vewanted for a long time and not be discouraged, when youcan be becalmed for weeks in the doldrums without sightof the sun or a star to navigate by and not lose your faithin God Almighty because you can’t understand His wisdomin confusing you—then you can go.”
It was Father, for the dozenth time answering my question:
“Will I always have to be on a ship and never live incities ashore?”
I am still, in my father’s eyes, his baby girl, but howhe fought to keep maturity from catching up with me!He never in my life fondled me affectionately—neverheld me and kissed me as fathers of little girls ashore do.He was afraid of making me hungry for the tender attentionsthat women give, and as there was no woman onboard to give those attentions, he hardened me againstthem. He has told me since that he often ached to crushme to him when some childish thing I did made himrealize how utterly lonely I was. One day he saw Stitchesstroking my dark curls lovingly, and it was only Stitches’age that kept Father from beating him up. He sentStitches to the fo’c’s’le on rations of bread and water forthree days with the warning that if he ever got softheartedover me again he’d have to take his sea bag tosome other ship! When Father showed me affection heusually did it with a good hard kick or a hearty punchon the back such as men use to express emotion to eachother without detracting from their manliness.
If Father believed in the wisdom of a rope’s end onmy southernmost portion to discipline me, he didn’t neglectmy character building. In spite of his roughness—hisbellowing voice to the sailors in a storm, his demand forobedience from his crew—he had a tender side to his naturethat he showed me on rare occasions. He nevertrusted his own judgment in giving me advice. Everytime I went to him with a question about life that puzzledmy young mind he would turn to his old worn Bibleand quote me a passage that satisfied my questioning.
When I confronted him with a bewildered questionabout the process of maturity, Father without a word,reached for his Bible. He turned its pages until he founda certain chapter in the Old Testament.
“Joan, listen to this passage. It will tell you better thanI can what you should know. If only there was a womanon board, she could tell you better.”
Of course I then asked questions and he explained themeaning of the verse. In simple words Father revealed tome the mysteries of maturity. To me it was so beautifulthat I pitied the sailors because they were not the chosenones of God.
From that time on everything in Nature took on adifferent meaning to me. Ashore on the islands I soughtout native women to play with. I was afraid to ask themquestions but I wanted to watch them to see if I was justas they were. One day, on a little island about eighty milessouth of Suva, I went ashore with four of our crew andStitches to get some breadfruit and guavas. We took asack of nails and rope to use as commodities of trade.Once ashore, Stitches and I left the sailors and wanderedthrough the village streets. We hadn’t gone more than aquarter of a mile before we were attracted to a group ofnatives playing tom-toms. We pushed through the outercircle of natives to see what was happening. There inthe center of the group I saw a native mother in childbirth.Unaided by any other woman, when her time came,she squatted on the sand. The tom-toms were being playedin celebration of a child’s being born to their tribe. Justat the moment the baby came from the mother the nativesbroke into an ecstatic song of triumph. Apparently payingno attention to her audience, the native mother brokethe navel cord that bound the infant to her and tied theend of it with a piece of coconut fiber. Then she took herbaby down to the surf and washed it in the cold sea waterwhich brought its first cry of life. The natives lost interestin her as soon as they heard the baby’s tiny voice, and theyscattered, leaving her to her task of nurturing the littlelife.
“Your Old Man will get sore if he finds out I’m lettingyou watch this, Skipper,” observed Stitches. “But there’sno telling when you’ll ever see the likes of this again.”
I didn’t care what happened to me afterwards for Iwas so fascinated with the native mother that I didn’twant to leave her. She put the baby to her breast to suckleit. After it had its first meal she scraped a place in thesand under the warm sun for it to sleep in, then she laybeside it, full of pride and content. I thought it must befun to have a baby and have a lot of natives singingand dancing to celebrate the event, but I was to learnyears later that most civilized women didn’t agree withme.
When we returned to the ship I was full of my latestexperience. But somehow life had turned from a simplething into something so full of puzzling contradictionsthat I longed to leave the ship and live on shore where Ithought I would find an answer to everything that bewilderedme.
Within a year from that time I found out that sailors’loves were not all beautiful. They talked of the womenon the waterfront they gave their pay to for a night’s love;they remembered young sweethearts in the Old Country;and I heard them say they were sweet on the little nativegirls. But their affairs were confused in my mind. Oneday I asked Swede, while he was standing at the helm, ifhe had ever been in love.
“Sure, Skipper, all us sailormen are in love—with thesame woman!”
“How do you mean, Swede?” I queried.
“Yep, the same woman satisfies us all. You know howthe sails look at night, filled out in firm curves by thewind?”
“Yes,” I answered, but I failed to see the connectionof sails with Swede’s sweetheart.
“Well,” he went on, “them sails are so pretty and round,that with the moon lighting them up they looks like awoman’s breasts and us sailormen stand aft at the helmjust content to follow them wherever they lead.”
“I like the water better than sails, Swede,” I offered.“When I swim in the sea, with the waves lapping at mybody, it feels like millions of little mouths were kissingme.”
Swede didn’t answer me, but he nearly swallowed hiswad of tobacco in his astonishment. I decided not to tellhim any more of my secrets if he was going to get so scaredof them. That night I turned in my bunk early so that Icould think of love. Just thinking about it made me feelfunny, as if I was hungry and yet I wasn’t hungry. I wokeup from a sound sleep feeling cold all over but my facewas burning hot. The next morning I made up my mind Iwasn’t going to think about love any more because itfrightened me.
The first disillusion about sex came to me when theChief of the little island we had visited south of Suvarefused to let us land again.
The Chief felt to his tribe as a father feels to his family.There was bitterness in his voice, where a scant yearbefore he had welcomed us.
“Last trip here, some your sailors bring sickness to mypeople. Many maidens die quickly. I cannot let yourwhite man come on this island ever again.”
“How do you know it was some of my men?” Fatherasked the Chief.
“After white man make love, maidens get sick. Oneget so sick she throw herself in the sea.”
I loved the natives but I was more loyal to our crew.
“How the hell could any one of our crew hurt the nativegirls?” I demanded.
The Chief ignored me. His quarrel was with the whiteChief, my father, and I had no place in the conversation.But after the Chief left, I sought out Father.
“What did the Chief mean about our sailors?” I asked.Father tried to explain to me that one or two of our menwere sick—sick with something that was like living deathand they had given that sickness to two native girls. Themalady spread rapidly because the natives are so in-bredthat their resistance is not strong enough to throw off disease.When the full purport of Father’s explanation cameto me I experienced my first hate and intolerance ofmen. It wasn’t that I cared what the sailors did, but Iresented their conduct keeping me from going ashore andbeing welcomed.
Father saw the hate in my eyes as I listened to him.Once more he fell back upon his Bible to explain to mychild mind a problem too complex for his tongue. Heread to me the parable of the Adulteress and then he attemptedto explain it.
“The greatest Philosopher among men understood sex;it is in everyone’s life and in promiscuity alone is thereevil. He was pretty wise, Joan, and He understood. Understandin’is greater than forgiveness!” Such was thewise interpretation Father put on the parable to comfortme. I don’t think he realized that he had given me thegreat gift of tolerance.—Though I could understand Icouldn’t get over the hate within me—Father watched mesilently for a while and then spoke:—
“You shouldn’t be hatin’ anything, Joan,” he said,“hatin’s like a headwind—it won’t get you nowhere.”
“Didn’t you ever in your life hate anything?” I askedhim.
My question landed home to him. Father started toanswer No—then he paused and looking beyond me as ifseeing his past, he said, bitterly:
“It’s the biggest mistake I ever made, Joan—carryin’ afesterin’ hate in my heart for fourteen years—hate ofthem that wrecked my ship and killed my men.”
Then, with a break in his voice he told me the storyof the famous wreck of the Star. Father made me promisenever to repeat it, for he wanted its memory lost forever.I would never have told it as long as he lived for hissake, but he is still alive, and when I wrote to him that Iwas going to write The Cradle of the Deep he sent methe following letter:
My Dear Joan:
I take my pen in hand to reply to your letter advising methat you are going to write a story of your early life at seawith your old Daddy. There is something I wish you wouldwrite of—the story of the wreck of my old full-rigged shipStar.
If it hadn’t been for that wreck I would never havesteered my course South to the Southern Cross and the AtollIslands of the Pacific. I loved the North, the Aurora Borealisand the magnificent splendor of the icebound Arctic.I knew it as you know your navigation. If I hadn’t left it youwould never have lived in the tropics and thrived on coconutmilk and yarrow root. Instead you might have chawedblubber with the Eskimos.
I would prefer to let sleeping dogs lie, for the memoryof that wreck is a bitter one for me, but I want you to tellit anyway so that the world may have a glimpse into therealism of the sea in fact.
Keep a strong hand on the helm and watch for squallsfrom leeward.
Your affectionate
Father.
San Francisco in April. High out of the network ofmasts and rigging of ships that made the waterfront looklike a black spider web across the skyline, jerked the bluehouse flag, with its flying fish tails, of the famous Star,queen of the fleet of sailing ships in the Alaska salmontrade. The American flag fluttered no less proudly fromher spanker gaff. It was Spring and sailing day!
The Star was making ready to sail for Wrangel,Alaska. On board the crew, canners and fishermen, onehundred and thirty-eight in all, eagerly awaited the start.It was a strange conglomeration of humans gathered fromthe ends of the earth. Quartered in the forward hold theChinese canners disputed the space with thousands ofbitterly resentful rats. A Chinese cook prepared their nativefood for the canners, and over the crowded hold,filled with squealing rats and chattering Chinese, a brassJoss god, made fast to an under beam, looked calmlydown. Him the Chinese worshipped believing he wouldbring them good luck. What the rats thought about thebrass Joss no one knew or cared. Probably they respectedhim for he was the only thing in the hold they could notbite successfully!
The crew of all nations, Swedes, Yankees, Chinese,Irish, lived in the fo’c’s’le head.
Amidships was a veritable little Italy. The Italianfishermen were housed in cabins on deck. They too carriedtheir native Italian cook who prepared rich-smellingItalian foods. The aromas of their cooking, when waftedforward and merged with the smell of boiling rice andherbs from the Chinese hold, made a queer combinationof Latin and Oriental odors.
Then, maintaining the peculiar social distinctions ofthe sea, the white tradesmen and officers of the ship andcannery lived aft in luxurious quarters. The walls of thecabins were of bird’s eye maple. In the dining salon hunga six foot oil painting of the Star under full sail outridinga hurricane. The swinging lamps were brass, ornatelydecorated with whales’ teeth and carved ivories. In myfather’s cabin, curtains of red plush proclaimed the captain’saloofness. A “telltale” compass over his bunk anda rack of rifles within easy reach were additional furnishings.
On April 8th, my father stood at the taffrail watchingthe finishing of the loading of great pieces of steel machineryfor the cannery, barrels of oils and salt, and lumberto rebuild some of the warehouses of the company infar distant Wrangel. At his side stood my mother, fightingback, as she had done every year for fifteen years, thequiver of sorrow that sailing day always brought her.Father would be gone for six months. He would sail uppast Nome into the frozen Arctic, and if luck was withhim, sail back the following fall before the ice froze himin.
Father looked at her with a twinkle in his eye.
“What’s the matter, Mother?”
“Nothing,” she answered, “only I wish Joan was oldenough so that I could go with you this trip. I feel youare in danger.” She forced a smile she was far from feeling.A deadly foreboding that seems to be instinctive withthe womenfolk of deep sea sailors came upon her.
“Shame on you, Mother. Why I’ll outsail the Star ofAlaska and the Star of Nome and the Star of the Northby a month. Don’t let the crew see you weakening.” Themate interrupted them:
“Beg pardon, sir. It’s time to let the men knock off forlunch and their last mug of beer. It always makes themsail happier if they have an hour on sailing day to getdrunk and kiss their sweethearts good-bye.”
“Let them knock off now and come back at fouro’clock,” instructed Father, “I was a young fellow myselfonce.”
No sooner had the men left their stations on the deckand were ashore than a ripping, tearing roar broughtFather rushing to the poop deck. The main yard hadbroken from the spar and had crashed through the riggingdown to the deck as if cut by an invisible hand! Itbroke into three pieces, but miraculously injured no one.That ill omen was to be remembered later. A mast breakingin three pieces is a sign that before the trip is completedthe vessel itself will break into as many parts.Folk laugh at the superstitions of sailormen, but fewwho have lived at sea will dispute their justification.
Instead of sailing, the Star went back to the drydockwhere the new yard was rigged on. It took three days, andon April 11th, at the five o’clock flood tide, the Star wasonce more ready to go. The crowd jostled on the docks.Chinese women in their quaint native costumes of pantsand jackets stood on the wharf near the fo’c’s’le head,their waxen faces immobile beneath their shining blackhair ornamented with jades and corals. The Italianwomen were most demonstrative. Their shawls were tornfrom their heads as they jumbled against each other, pushingfor the extreme edge of the dock. Tears and laughterfought for supremacy as they waved good-bye to the Italianfishermen amidships. One young wife with two babiestugging at her skirts was praying, and here and therea rosary was thrust into the hands of the departing fishermen.The American friends of the officers and traderswere on the dock nearest the stern, and handkerchiefs andjokes of bravado sent the Star off to the Arctic.
My father stood at the helm and with a bellow ordered,
“Let go the hawsers!”
“Let go the hawsers,” echoed back at him from the fo’c’s’lehead, and the cobra-like ropes that held the Starto her mooring splashed limp into the bay as the menhauled in their slack on the capstan to the accompanimentof a chantey. The Chinese on board set off thousandsof firecrackers to foil off the devil, and threw countlessred streamers into the air. The Italians sang and gesticulatedwith their arms as the tug Dundee pulled theStar out into the harbor. My father is a registered pilotof San Francisco harbor, so he directed the course of theStar as they set her sails just off Alcatraz Island, andsailed majestically out of the Golden Gate and nosed herway north.
A quick trip of twenty-seven days brought the Star toWrangel. In five months her mission was completed. Shewas loaded with fifty-four thousand cases of fine Alaskasalmon to take back to San Francisco. It was a dull, thickdaybreak as the tugs steamed alongside. All hands wereaboard, glad their hard work was done, and jubilant atbeing homeward bound. The last to come down to theship was my father. As he walked down the dock, littleArvis Babler, the nine year old daughter of the cannerysuperintendent, ran along beside him holding his hand.She chattered gaily about his ship. She even suggestedthat some day he would bring his little girl to Alaska toplay with her. None of her light spirit infected my father.He only stared gloomily and silently at the loadedvessel.
“What’s the matter, Captain?” she asked, when Fatherdidn’t respond to her. “I should think you would be happytoday when you are going home.”
“I feel as if I were going to my grave,” he answered.
The tugs Hattie H. and Kyak were to tow the Star out.Nearly all the crew of these two tugs were drunk beforethey left the dock. In that alone they violated the code ofthe sea, but in Alaska at that time there was but one tugboatcompany and no competition to make a high standardof seamanship necessary. To make matters worse, therival captains of the two tugs were fighting over whichwas to be the leading boat. Finally they settled their dispute,apparently to the satisfaction of neither, and thetugs started to pull the Star down the Wrangel Narrows,a distance of one hundred and twenty-five miles to thesea. In that dangerous passage there was only room forone ship to pass. At the mouth of the Narrows the Starwas to set her sails and steer a course off shore for home.All day long the tugs towed her slowly. Meantime thoseon board the leading tug had celebrated their victory overthe crew of the rival tug so thoroughly that the boat wasleft in charge of a boy mate—while the engineer, to putit mildly, was far from at his best.
Toward night the sky became overcast and the wind increasedwith the coming darkness. By eight o’clock a galehad arisen. It was off Coronation Island that my fathernoticed that the tugs were dragging his ship over to thenorth or dangerous side of the channel. He could hear,above the moaning of the gale, breakers crashing on therocks! Father tried to signal the tugs of the danger, fortheir crews evidently had not realized it. Vainly he calledthrough his megaphone, and vainly he sent up flares toattract the attention of the captain of the first tugboat.The condition of the men on those tugs must have keptthem from recognizing the warning calls for they pulledon and on towards the shore in the face of the rising gale.Finally at the tugboat end of the forward hawser, somedeck hand on the Hattie H. saw the cable slacken. Theyhad towed the Star into a dangerous bight or indenturein the cliffs. Panic-stricken, the Hattie H. pulled off toone side leaving the Star in a straddled position betweenthe two tugs. Neither tug was very powerful, but togetherand properly handled they could have dragged the shipout of danger. Instead the tugs see-sawed against eachother doing nothing. Apparently those supposed to be incommand did not know what to do.
Nearer and nearer the treacherous rocks the Star wasdriven by the wind. In desperation Father dropped bothanchors to hold her. No sooner had he dropped the anchorsthan the tugboats, instead of fighting for the shipand the lives of the men on board, cut their towing hawsersand ran for it—deliberately steaming away at fullspeed, presumably for Wrangel. They didn’t even heaveto long enough to see what the Star’s fate was. Later themaster of the Hattie H. said he thought the Star waspounding to pieces on the rocks. (He had heard the anchorchain running out of the hawse pipe!) The Kyaksteamed to shelter in the lee of an adjacent island. TheHattie H. returned to Wrangel, arriving the followingSunday morning. Her master, after the disaster, wasasked why he did not stand by to assist the ship.
“What the hell could I do? She was wrecked anyway,”he went on record as saying. But had those tugs stood bywhat followed would never have happened.
On the Star the crew huddled on deck all nightthrough, listening to the menacing hissing of the hiddensurf crashing against the rocky cliffs. Would the anchorshold? That was fate—there was nothing they could do.
Dawn brought no hope. Scarce five hundred yards offloomed precipitous cliffs with huge waves dashingagainst them.
Only the anchors still held. If they should slip! Butthe men fought back that picture of inevitable destruction.Those tugs were surely coming back! They had onlydisappeared in the night to go for help! Waiting was torture.If only the tugs came back in time.
Hours passed. No tugs appeared. Then the anchors beganto slip. The terrific strain of the huge waves was toogreat for the hooks to hold. Hours on hours! Waiting wasgruesome now, as the anchors dragged and the men onboard watched the jagged-toothed rocks come nearer.The heavy load of salmon in the holds shifted, and theStar listed first to starboard and then to port as eachground swell that rose lifted her high and carried hernearer the barren cliffs.
Father gave instructions to the men to make preparationsfor getting ashore when the ship struck. Life preserverswere fastened on the Chinese who had becomepanic-stricken. The white officers and officials of the cannerycompany, realizing the added danger of a hundredcrazed Chinese rioting, begged my father to batten themdown in the hold like so much cattle to keep them off thedecks. Father called the Boss Chinaman to him.
“Boss, you guarantee that your men not riot?” he began.“I won’t lock them down in hold. You tell them if dangercome Captain tell you.”
That old Boss Chinaman had been with Father forfourteen years and he trusted him almost as he trusted hisJoss god. He went back to his Chinamen in the hold andtold them of my father’s promise, and they were calmedto a degree. They cramped together in their hold paralyzedwith fear, but they kept off the decks.
After Father had seen to the Chinamen and Italianfishermen, he returned aft to the officers’ quarters andtold them to be prepared for the worst as the anchorswere useless now. Down in the stuffy red plush cabin themen sat around the chart table. They were all silent anddepressed. They all had a look of finality on their faces.It was small choice—on deck they could see sure deathlooming up; in the cabin they could shut their eyes to itand wait! In the last few moments of their lives strangereactions took place in them. The clerk of the cannery, aman about thirty-three years of age, pale and husky-voiced,asked my father to take the money he had, ninehundred dollars, and give it to his family, when myfather reached San Francisco. Another man asked Fatherto take a message to his wife, and still another broke outinto vile profanity. A huge man, one of the wealthy ownersof the cannery, forgot his pose of dignity and kneltdown on the cabin floor and prayed like a frightenedchild.
“You all have the same chances, men, and each one ofyou will bear your own responsibility,” Father told themin answer to their pleas.
He set about to have a trunk packed with medicinesand stimulants which was taken on deck. Later that trunkwas picked up in the wreckage ashore and the contentshelped revive some of the men and dress their injuries.Only four lived of the white men who sat around the tablein the cabin awaiting the verdict of the storm.
On deck the flying spray from the mountainous seaswas like a white blinding screen, but Father could seeOle Swenson, a Norse man, powerful and gigantic, standingon the fo’c’s’le head scanning the horizon for the returnof the tugs. Swenson saw nothing but the storm risingin velocity, and the cliffs looming blacker on shore.Roaring and cursing against the fate that was murderinghis beloved ship, Ole Swenson jumped into the sea to endhis agony.
It was only a matter of minutes before sure deathwould claim the hundred and thirty-eight men on theStar. Father called for volunteers to man a boat and takea line ashore so that a breeches buoy could be rigged. Abreeches buoy is a little buoy on a rope, made fast to themast and on some point on shore, much like a big pulleyline, by which shipwrecked men can slide to the mainlandhigh above a pounding surf. Four young men respondedto his call for volunteers. Among them weretwo brothers, Hasen by name. One of them, the younger,couldn’t swim. His older brother urged him not to go.He, the older one would go, for he was a strong swimmer.The younger boy would not hear his pleading andwent first. The good swimmer was drowned just out ofreach of help a few moments later.
With great difficulty the crew swung a lifeboat off itsdavits with the four young men in it fighting for theirlives against the running sea. The men on the Starwatched them pull for the shore—watched them almostget in—and then saw their shell of a boat dashed on therocks of the narrow beach. Three of them jumped tosafety and were cheered by the crew on board whose livesthey would save.
The three men dragged the rope up and fastened it ona tree trunk high out of reach of the waves. This done,they turned their attention to fastening the running ropewhich would propel the breeches buoy, but that line hadbroken loose and was lost in the sea. Father called foranother volunteer to go ashore with another line to replaceit. The ship’s carpenter stepped forward. He tiedthe rope to his body and ascended the rigging, then handover hand he slid along the rope which the men hadstretched to the shore. The Star was toppling like adrunken sailor from side to side. The men on boardwatched the carpenter get caught in a green comberwhich first sucked him under and then threw him highin the air. When he was almost ashore an extra hardstrain flipped him off like a fly from a rubber band. Hestruck the water with a terrific blow on his back. He wasclose enough to shore for the three surviving young mento pull him in to safety.
Then the end came! The Star crashed on the saw-toothedrocks. The forward part of her, the fo’c’s’le headand the foremast broke off just before the crew fled aft.They hung on like leeches to the after railing and deckhouses. The force of the relentless pounding sea was sogreat that the Star quivered and broke into three pieces,just as her yard arm had broken on that ominous day inSan Francisco. The stern of the ship was all that wasafloat and that was covered by screaming, frightened men.The sea around was a seething mass of salmon cases, deadChinamen, screaming Italians and Americans beingsmothered in the spray. The waves licked up viciouslyas if to devour the few hanging on for life on the stern.Clinging to the wheelhouse and after railing, a smallgroup of officials and white men held their balance. A sealifted a piece of wreckage to windward as if to capsizeit and most of the men jumped in the opposite directionto avoid being pinned beneath. Three remained with myfather. The piece of wreckage, instead of turning turtleto windward, was caught in the backwash of a wave andcapsized with all remaining hands to leeward! Theycame up into a seething maelstrom of pitching wreckage,packing-cases swirling, outstretched arms and kickinglegs of drowning men, shrieks of fear and the terrible seasbreaking with a roar over all. And on the shore, onlytwo hundred yards away, four of the five men who hadtaken the first desperate chances, waited helpless. Theyscanned the incoming combers for bodies, Chinese orwhite, that might wash in close enough to fish out, butthe shore was abrupt and it had become piled with thecargo and wreckage from the Star. The men could reachonly a few and yank them out of the jaws of the sea asthey washed in.
When the last man had left the wreck my fatherjumped overboard. He said it took about a half a minutefor him to reach the surface. He felt a heavy bulk abovehis head when he was under the water. He thought itwas the keel of his ship and that he was pinned beneathit. Holding his breath, he made one herculean effort torise to the surface. The “bulk” over his head was thetop of one of the hatchings which had broken loose fromthe ship and was floating on the sea. Father struck outfor the shore. The icy water numbed his senses. He rememberednothing more. A big green roller crested withsalmon cases overtook him and one of them struck himon the head and mercifully knocked him unconscious.The backwash of the surf carried his inert body to thebeach.
Of the one hundred and thirty-eight men on board,only twenty-seven survived. Those that reached the shorebefore my father set about to rescue the others. Two ofthem, the carpenter and a Scotch sailor named FrankMuir, pulled my father’s body out of the water.
“The Old Man’s drowned. Let’s pull out the livingones,” spoke up the carpenter and he went down thebeach to salvage more of the men. Frank Muir was asdevoted to my father as a son. He didn’t heed the carpenter,but dragged the apparently dead body to the shelterof a rock and tried to revive him. It seemed a thanklesstask. The Captain was gone. If he couldn’t save himhe would at least bury him away from the others, andFrank Muir carried Father higher up to a little tableof rock in the cliff. There he rolled him and poundedhim until a glow of life came into his battered, frozenbody.
By late afternoon no life could be seen in the surf. Myfather was so crippled and frozen that he couldn’t walk.He crawled around on all fours directing his men inreviving the others. No rest for any until, beyond anydoubt, all were rescued that it was possible to rescue.
“We won’t give up until we find all of us,” said myfather, and the twenty-seven survivors agreed to a man.
They set about to search the wreckage that was piledhigh on the beach for bodies. They found several groupsof men, dead men, so entangled and twisted together bythe churning of the sea that they couldn’t be pulled apart.Dismembered bodies were strewn on the rocky coast likedriftwood. Arms and legs and headless trunks washedback and forth in the foam. One living being was foundin the mess, a Japanese. He was buried in a hill of salmoncases. The men had to burrow to get into it. He was veryweak through loss of blood from a gash extending fromhis temple the length of his chin!
By dragging wreckage together the men built a hugefire around which they snuggled for warmth. Instead ofrelief the fire was only an added torture, a Dante’s Inferno,for the thick smoke from the damp wood blindedthem.
In the morning the bodies of the white men weregathered, and shallow graves dug for them in the rockyshore to keep the wolves from eating them. Over thegraves Father ordered the men to pile heavy debris sothat the sea washing up couldn’t snatch them back to awatery grave.
The lot of the survivors was almost as bad as that ofthe lost men, for there was no sign of rescue, and thecoast was barren of habitation for hundreds of milesaround. The icy wind made existence almost impossible.
The next day one of the tugs returned. Her captainwas surprised to see the men ashore for he had notdreamed that supposedly dead men could live to tell thetale. It was too rough to send a boat in, but the tug hoveto until the following day, when the crew took aboardthe survivors and returned to Wrangel. The survivorswere so incensed against the tug crew for cutting thehawser and sending one hundred and eleven men to theirdeath that they started to murder them. Father stoppedthe violence. He said the law would deal with the tugpeople when the facts were made known. At Wrangelthe survivors were furnished clothing from the cannerystore and sent by steamers to San Francisco.
Several days after the wreck, the company’s tugs weresent with a crew to dispose of the bodies on CoronationIsland. They found an indescribable confusion of corpses,provisions and debris covering the shore for a depth ofmany feet. Pieces of human bodies were mingled with thesides of hams and bacons and canned goods which thesea spewed up from the ship’s holds. Instead of segregatingthe bodies, the rescue crew drove picks into them anddragged them into heaps. After they had made piles ofhuman wreckage they poured oil over them and set themafire like so much rubbish. Then they did somethingthat is almost beyond human comprehension. After theyhad burned the bodies, they salvaged the hams and baconsand other foods they found mixed with the deadmen and took them back to Wrangel where they soldthem to the Eskimos.
What became of the few survivors? They were scatteredby the company that owned the tugboats so thatthey couldn’t be used to witness against them. Thosewhose injuries prevented employment were treated inhospitals—the others were placed on various ships.
My mother was in San Francisco waiting for any bit ofnews of the survivors. The report came to her that myfather’s dead body had been found, mangled almost beyondrecognition, and then the report was confirmed. Iwas only six months old at the time. The shock to mymother brought her an illness from which she has neverrecovered. It was through this illness that I came to beraised by my father.
Father was retained on full salary during the officialinvestigation of the wreck. Then he learned how muchlaw, justice or right mean to greedy and selfish men. Thetugs belonged to the same company that owned the Star.If the responsibility for the wreck was fastened on thetwo captains of the tugboats, the corporation faced enormousdamage suits from the families and dependents ofthe hundred and eleven dead men. So the owners usedevery bit of their influence and resources to protect theguilty tugboat captains. The verdict acquitted them—theblame rested on the gale! And thus they settled themost famous and most unnecessary wreck in Americanmaritime history. My father was fired in disgrace withthe remark: “We have no ship for you now.”
That was the way he was rewarded for his effort toprocure the “justice” he had promised his men when theywanted to avenge the murder done by the crews of thetugboats. The slogan went from Alaska to Seattle afterthe verdict: “Don’t kick Power.”
Fifteen years of faithful and intelligent service in theArctic swept away in a night! Father could never goNorth again. The bodies of a hundred and eleven menon the rocks of Coronation Island would drive him tomurder. He bought an old schooner and turned to theopposite end of the world, the South Seas, warmth andmaybe forgetfulness!—But he still carries the bitternessand hate in his heart!
Most of the men I knew were typical old shellback sailors,a species of human that began to go out with theincrease of steam vessels until now the type is almostextinct. The shellback was unlike any other human, alaw unto himself, with few wants and a large philosophyof content that was none the less real because he grumbledall the time. His ration of tobacco, enough moneyfor grog, and a few days in port at the end of a long seatrip to blow his pay on some skirt, satisfied his creaturedesires. For mental relaxation he cursed the ship, cursedhis officers, cursed the grub and cursed the cook, andwithal, he wouldn’t have traded places with any kingon his throne.
The shellback’s attitude toward the sea was all hisown, and quite typical of the breed. He loved it—helived on it. He expected to be on top of the waves all hislife and beneath them when he died. And so fatalisticwas he, that half of the deep sea sailors never learned toswim! Stitches expressed the attitude best.
“What’s the use of learnin’ to swim?” he argued. “Anysailor dumb enough to fall overboard oughta drown andif he’s washed overboard he couldn’t swim anyhow—sowhat’s the use?”
“But Father made me learn to swim,” I protested.
“That’s different,” grinned Stitches. “You see, Skipper,the Captain knows a woman ain’t got sense enoughnot to fall overboard. Now if you was to fall overboardand couldn’t swim, some dumb sailor, whether he couldswim or not, would jump in and get drowned trying tosave you; but bein’ as you kin swim, if you fall overboard,nobody don’t worry—they just toss you a rope and youpull out by yourself and the Captain don’t lose no goodsailor. All that happens is you come back aboard andyou get your stern tanned with a rope’s end to warm upthe chill. No ma’am! Captain ain’t goin’ to let no goodsailor go dead tryin’ to save a woman.”
Quite unconvinced, I puzzled and puzzled overStitches’ point of view, but it was not until some yearslater, in one tragic moment, that I learned how widecan be the difference between a man’s philosophy and hisaction in a crisis.
Next to Stitches the most interesting shellback I everknew was John Henry, a withered old seaman close toseventy, with a cracked whiskey voice and a face so furrowedthat it looked like the relief map of a mountainrange. He chawed a hunk of tobacco incessantly and thejuice drooled down his chin, leaving a little yellow rutmarked in his whiskers. He had sailed the Horn a hundredtimes, to hear him tell it, and he would have beena captain long ago instead of a common seaman, only acaptain couldn’t get drunk in public on the waterfront—soJohn Henry preferred not to be a captain. But for allhis shortcomings, John Henry was a real seaman. Anordinary gale was music to his soul and a hurricaneseemed to take off thirty years—for no young man couldhold to the foot ropes aloft better than he and few couldsteer a dangerous course as well.
We shipped John Henry at Frisco and in a weekStitches’ nose was out of joint, for John Henry had quitewon me. He would sit for hours, on his watch below,and teach me to tie intricate sailor knots—everythingfrom splices, monkey fists, running bowlines, Turk’sheads, true lover’s knots to a hangman’s noose.
“I bin in every jail from Seattle to Port Said,” he confided,“an’ I can learn you every kind of a knot they usefor killin’ off undesirables.”
Stitches was disgusted.
“Damned old shellback! Teaching you how to tieknots to get rid of undesirables, is he? I dunno nobodyas undesirable as he is. If he had what was comin’ tohim, somebody’d tie a knot for him long ago. Mebbe theywill yet.”
On the end of a halyard John Henry was chief chanteyman.One day I was helping haul in the slack of thefore topsail and he said:
“You gotta eat more beans before you can pull like aregular sailor. Women ain’t no use on a ship except toeat up grub.”
Then he burst into a chantey that sailors sing about“Womenfolk on Ships,” and put my name in it.
This is the song:
“Sweet Joan, a maiden of fourteen years old,
Not once in her life had been kissed.
Except by her cats and her dogs, I been told,
And the beauties of life she had missed.
“And OH! how she longed for the love of a man
But all seemed to turn her away.
Till one day she set on a capital plan
And put it in form this way.
“Now sailors are jolly good fellows, thought she,
To take a trip she’d a notion,
For sailors oft get very blue out at sea,
And—girls are scarce on the ocean!”
“Aw, what the hell do you mean by that?” I asked. “Ican do something that nobody in the fo’c’s’le can do andthat is, I can navigate. Father’s taught me how to find ourposition by the Southern Cross at night,” I boasted.
“Yeh? Well, I still says women ain’t got no place onshipboard. Why, they can’t even talk like sailors,” and hespat a juicy stream with unerring accuracy through thehawse hole on the port side of the ship.
He had thrown down the challenge to me to makegood as a sailor. I was no frail little Captain’s daughterthat the sailors slew each other to get. I had to win them!From that day on I never lost an opportunity to emulatea deep sea sailor in every way.
At night in my cabin I rubbed my hands over roughrope to make callouses. I began to practise every swearword I heard the sailors use. After a month of carefulobservation I was able to curse four minutes in successionand never repeat a word. When I had them all downglibly I waylaid John Henry.
“Listen, you bastard,” I started, and then I traced hisancestors from several kinds of animals down to biologicaldefects in himself and compared him with everyknown form of low life and waste products imaginable.When I finished my four minute tirade I stood on guard,thinking he would make a pass at me. Instead he listenedintently, then his face broke into a grin:
“You’re improvin’, Skipper,” he complimented me. Iwas so elated at winning his approval that I thought Iwould try my vocabulary out on my father. I went upon the poop deck where Father was sitting, smoking hispipe.
“Tell me to do something,” I invited him.
“Now, what are you up to?” he asked suspiciously.
“Just you tell me to do something as if I was a sailorin the fo’c’s’le,” I repeated.
“All right,” he replied, pleased at what appeared tobe my desire to work. “You get a chip-hammer and chipthe rust off the anchor chains. They got to be given acoat of red lead to keep them from rusting away.”
Then I let fly with my newly acquired sea language.I got as far as one-half minute of it when I felt myselfgoing through space toward the cabin below with myfather attached to my collar and the seat of my pants.
“Where in the so and so did you hear any such languageas that?” he shouted.
“From you when you’re tacking ship and the windwon’t catch the sails,” I answered, wishing I had neverlearned them.
“I’ll be goddamned if you ever heard your fathercurse,” he yelled. “I’ll break your damned neck if I everhear you curse again—do you hear?”
I heard him. The whole ship heard him with glee.Stitches said he embarrassed the flying fish! Fatherwent on:
“Your mouth ain’t fit to put grub in after such language,”he roared, “so you don’t get no meals until youforget every curse word you know!” and with that he tieda rag over my mouth and went after a piece of rope towarm my posterior.
I was in my bunk, my mouth tied up and my behindtoo sore to sit on. What I thought of John Henry wasworse than the words I had memorized to impress him.I’d get even with him if I died in the attempt. Lyingdown there on my stomach I couldn’t understand wherethe justice of it came in. I had tried to be a regular sailorand had got the worst of it. However, I was far fromlicked—I mean in spirit.
I amused myself by watching some bedbugs paradingon my straw mattress. Then they gave me an idea. Icaught a few and put them on me. At least I could belousy, and so that much nearer to perfection as a seaman!
At twenty minutes past five the cabin-boy rang the supperbell. I was hungry, but I didn’t dare to leave mycabin. I stuck my head out of my porthole and watchedthe foam making pictures on the water. From experienceI knew that was the easiest and surest way to make myselfsleepy. Next morning I awoke, ravenously hungry andoh, how repentant my empty insides made me!
I found Father behind a rapidly disappearing bowl ofoatmeal in the dining saloon.
“Hey, I’ll never curse any more if I can eat,” I promisedhim. He grunted his forgiveness, then added:
“We’ll be in Brisbane along about noon today. Don’tyou dare leave the ship.”
“Can’t I be the watchman in port and save you thewages?” I inquired, eager to get back in his good gracesagain.
“That wouldn’t be such a bad idea. I don’t want noneof the crew ashore in this port. I’ll have to bail them outof jail for drunkenness, and I haven’t got the time northe money to do that.”
“I won’t let any of them get away,” I assured him.
At about two o’clock we pulled into the harbor aftersailing up the long Brisbane River. The Customs officialscame aboard and sealed up our stores and tobacco.Then came the port doctors to examine the crew.
“Have the crew strip and line up on deck for examinations,Captain,” instructed one of the doctors. “Everyoneof them has to be vaccinated before you can land here.We’ve got some smallpox ashore started by sailors off aship from China and the Philippines and the harbor isunder quarantine.”
I hurried down to the main deck to take my place inthe line-up of the crew. I was the last in the line. Thedoctor looked at me curiously, and then said,
“Well, well, little one, if you aren’t the very picture ofhealth,” and he pinched my muscles, admiringly.
“No, I’m not,” I assured him, “I have had everythingthat sailors have, worse than they get it. You better vaccinateme good,” I advised. “I even have bedbugs on me.”
That doctor looked horrified, but he dug into my armwith three long scratches even deeper than the men’s.It hurt like the devil, but I was very proud at that momentbecause I had as many as John Henry and just asdeep. To this day I carry those scars—proud proof of myequality with sailors.
Before Father went ashore with the Customs officialshe admonished me again to let no sailor have shore leave.
“The mate will be busy discharging cargo, and I maynot be back before late tonight, so you keep your eye onthe gangway.”
I took up my station at the gangway and chawed onsome dried prunes. They were as close to seamen’s tobaccoas I dared attempt. The cabin-boy tried to goashore, but I pushed him back. One or two of the sailorsmade a bluff at sneaking past but I stood in the middleof the gangway with a belaying pin and forgetting Father’slesson, I laid down the law in language to make JohnHenry proud. Each time they retired, defeated, butchuckling.
I was hot in the sun, but I didn’t care. Proudly I stoodmy post until six o’clock, when the crew knocked off discharging.Then came the supper bell, and of course, noone could expect me to stay on guard at grub time. Inmy father’s absence I sat in his place opposite the twomates. After I had finished my meal I picked my teethwith a fork just as I had watched the second mate do somany times before. I wouldn’t have dared to do that withFather present.
I strolled up on deck to take up my gangway watchagain. If any sailor got ashore it would be over my deadbody, I promised myself. I sat there for fully two hours.
There was no sign of life from the fo’c’s’le. Not oneman came out to cross that gangway and go ashore.
“Huh!” I gloated to myself, “they’re afraid of me.They know they can’t get away with anything with mehere watching.”
I was so full of my own sense of importance and authoritythat I didn’t suspect anything queer in the silenceforward, until the cabin-boy came aft, after taking thedinner basket back to the galley.
“All them guys forrard is ashore and I’m going to goashore too,” he sniffed at me contemptuously.
“What?” I asked, too surprised to believe I had heardhim aright.
“Sure, they all went ashore while you was eating yourgrub. Nobody left for’ard except the cook.”
What could I do? I had gained Father’s respect onlyto lose it when his back was turned. I thought at firstI’d go ashore and find the sailors in the saloons and bringthem back on board before Father got back. That planwasn’t wise, though, for, if I left, the cabin-boy and thetwo mates might go ashore in my absence and I wouldbe a complete failure.
I took up the belaying pin and perched myself on thetop of the gangway, and waited. I waited until long pastmidnight before I heard a human sound on the dock.Suddenly my ear caught a thick, throaty song dimly comingfrom among the cargo piles on the dock:
“McGinty’s back again;
He’s dressed up like a dandy,
He’s down at Mike’s saloon,
He’s drinkin’ wine and brandy ...”
It was the voice of John Henry singing the old sailors’funeral dirge “McGinty.” McGinty is the legendarysea captain who sank to the bottom of the sea, and whensailors get drunk their favorite vision is of McGintyarisen from the dead and drinking in waterfront saloons.
“John Henry!” I called as loud as I could.
I got no answer, except his drunken voice rising in theold song.
Then he weaved out from the shadow of the cargopiled on the wharf to stand at the foot of the gangway.He was so drunk he could hardly keep his balance. Hemade three gallant efforts to place his foot on the bottomof the gangway; finally, by grabbing the hand ropes hepulled himself aboard and toppled over on the deck. Ilifted him up and shook him violently.
“John Henry, stand up!” I shouted at him.
He babbled something unintelligible and drooleddown his shirt front as I shook him. His bloodshot eyesfocused on me and held there.
“Get your Ole Man give me money for whiskey. Gotto have whiskey.”
“You’ll get a kick in the seat of the pants, that’s whatyou’ll get,” I answered him.
“Got to have money for whiskey—only want whiskey,”he insisted, and he started to sob pathetically.
“You’re drunk, John Henry. Come on and get forrardinto your bunk.”
He pulled away from me and demanded through hissobs:
“You going to get Ole Man to give me some moremoney?”
“He isn’t here, John Henry. Come on and get forrardand turn in,” I coaxed him.
“You get me money for whiskey or I’ll croak.”
His body began to tremble. His lips were blue, his eyesfiery and bloodshot.
“I don’t care if you croak or not,” I answered, for Ihad heard threats like that before.
“All right, gonna croak. You watch me. I’m gonnacroak,” and he started forward. I followed, hoping toget him safely to his bunk. Just beneath the fo’c’s’le headhe picked up a long piece of rope that was coiled thereon a stanchion.
“See this rope? Gonna croak if you don’t get Ole Manget me money, see?” and he burst out crying again. Hetied the piece of rope into a hangman’s noose, nine slipknots on a loop, just as he had once taught me to tie itmonths before. He held the noose up to my face and saidonce more:
“I’ll croak if you don’t.”
Of course I didn’t believe him, so I just answered:
“All right, John Henry, you’ll feel better when youdo!”
Instead of quieting, that seemed to set him off again.He slipped the noose over his head and thrust his faceright up against mine.
“Do I get the money?” he half shrieked in his crackedwhiskey voice.
Scenes with drunken sailors were no novelty to me.They always made dire threats against themselves, or thecaptain or their mates, and then they stumbled to bedand forgot it. Now I lost patience.
“You don’t get a damned cent,” I yelled back at JohnHenry.
It seemed almost to sober him. He straightened.
“You’ll be sorry,” he said, and turning with great dignityhe marched out of sight forward with the hangman’snoose around his neck and the rope trailing onthe deck after him.
I turned and with what I conceived to be equal dignitymarched back toward the gangway. Duty called me.There would be more drunken sailors to drive to theirbunks.
I don’t know why I left the gangway after a short tenminutes except that I loved John Henry and felt a vaguedesire to see that he was all right. But of course Iwouldn’t let him know that. I couldn’t sacrifice my dignityas watchman in charge of the ship. So I marchedforward very importantly, past the mizzen, past the mainmastand around the cook’s galley and there I foundJohn Henry!
He had tied the rope around the capstan on the fo’c’s’lehead and jumped down toward the main deck. Therehe hung, with his feet scarce six inches from the maindeck and the hangman’s knot under his left ear cantinghis head rakishly to one side. His body was turningslowly on the rope and as I stared his face came aroundso his popped eyes stared back at me and his wideopened mouth seemed to sneer, “I told you I’d do it.”
Staring into those popped eyes I couldn’t cry out—Icouldn’t move; and then after what seemed a millionyears the body turned on the rope and the face went awayfrom me, releasing me from my speechless terror. Ishrieked, and whirling away I ran aft, down into thelazarette and hid underneath a pile of old canvas. I heardthe rats running to safety at my approach to their domainsin the dark. I had killed John Henry! I had killedJohn Henry! Over and over in a numbing pain the wordsrushed to my brain!
I don’t know exactly how long I stayed there before Iheard voices on the deck above me. I was afraid to comeout of hiding. I could tell by the excitement that JohnHenry’s body had been found. A few hours before inthe afternoon I had been sore at him for encouraging meto curse and now he was dead!
Weak, and still shaking with fright I found my way ondeck. I saw Father and a group of strange men on decksurrounding a figure covered with canvas.
I called to Father:
“Here I am. I didn’t do it—honest I didn’t.” And Icrumpled over crying.
Father picked me up and held me in his arms.
“What makes you think you did it, Joan?” he asked, soquietly and tenderly that I told him the whole story.
Johnny was buried in Brisbane, but I have never tothis day wanted to tie a hangman’s noose.
“Women ain’t going to do you no good, Joan. Takin’them by and large they’re mostly liars anyhow, and theones you find around the waterfront is just plain headwinds.”
We were tied up at the dock in Brisbane, Australia,when Father delivered his dictum. I knew he meant by“women” the gold-toothed, plump barmaids and thelaughing sweethearts that swarmed around every arrivingship to get the sailors’ pay, or beg curios from them.Those women had always been objects of curiosity to meand Father knew it.
“If any of them women try to talk to you, you go belowand don’t have anything to do with them, understand?”
I understood and promised to obey. I did not imaginethat there was any danger of my not obeying, for tworeasons. First, I was afraid of women. Second, they wereall much too grand and beautiful ever to pay attentionto me. Father had planted that fear of my own sex in meto keep me from picking up with chance women. He wasafraid I would learn things from them that would destroyhis years of careful protection of my ideals. Henever let me look at myself in a mirror.
“You’re an ugly kid, Joan, so you won’t gain anythingfrom looking at yourself in a mirror.”
It would have been worth a sailor’s life to offer a mirrorto me and in all the years I was on board I don’t believeit occurred to any of the men forward. Aft, therewas only one looking-glass, a small cracked one used byFather when he shaved in port, and even that he keptcarefully hidden from me. My only chance to see myselfwas in the rain barrels on deck. If you think youcan get a good idea of your personal appearance by lookinginto a rain barrel on a swaying, rolling ship, try it.My face used to ripple back at me like a blurred cabbage.As far as I knew I looked exactly like that imagereflected in the rain barrel, so of course I believed Fatherwhen he told me I was so ugly that women ashore lookingat my face would laugh at me.
Since then Father has confessed he made me think myselfhopelessly ugly so that I should never be conceited.He said it was one of his dreams for me that I should beunspoiled and be beautiful inside. But, I did not knowthat then, and I believed all he said about my personalappearance.
How I used to envy the barmaids and the sweetheartsabout the docks! To me they seemed so beautiful and thesailors were always so glad to see them. No sailor, saveold Stitches, ever seemed really glad to see me. The crewall thought I was a nuisance. Father’s warning was unnecessary.I would not have dared to speak to those beautifulland women.
The day after he so put me on my guard I was sittingon the skylight aft, watching the cargo boom dip downin the hold and bring up a rope-net full of copra andswing it over to the dock where the stevedores dumpedit into a big dory. McLean and Axel Oleson were on dutyat the mizzen hatch where they bellowed orders to thecrew below to get the “barnacles off their sterns and loadup the nets quicker.” The men below seemed in no moodto hurry, judging by Oleson’s remarks to them, for hetraced their ancestors to dubious origins in English andScandinavian. It was no novelty to me to hear such talk—itwasn’t even varied enough to keep me interested.
I was beginning to get tired of watching when frommy perch on the skylight I saw a pretty woman comingdown the dock. She walked slowly as if she wasn’t sureof her destination, but when she drew close enough tothe ship to be noticed she became all smiles. She pretendedshe didn’t see McLean and Axel on deck, but Icould tell she did see them by the careful way she avoidedlooking at them. She came up the gangway, which wasjust forward of the poop deck and spoke to me.
“Hello, little girl,” she said.
I got all goose flesh, I was so thrilled at being noticed.All thought of Father’s warning vanished.
“Hello,” I answered. “Where the hell are you going?Have you got business on this ship?” I was being verynautical, as it was my one chance to show off my authority.
She was so fluffy and soft-looking, surely she couldn’thurt me. Now she was staring at me—at my overalls andmy bare feet sticking out beneath them.
“You know you’re a bloody pretty kid,” she said. Iflushed to the roots of my hair. It was the first time I hadever been paid a compliment. I studied her face closelyto see if she was just making fun of me, but she seemedsincere.
“Aw, hell, I’m not as pretty as you, Miss!” I replied,taking in her high heel buttoned shoes and her hat withflowers and ribbons on it. “And you smell good, too.”That vision of loveliness was bathed in cheap perfume,but to me it was divine compared to the stink of the rottencopra being hauled out of the hold.
I had no way of judging women except from the conversationamong the sailors that I had caught. I thoughtevery woman’s character was measured by her ankles andher hips, for often I had heard the sailors say: “a goodpair of hips and little ankles is worth nine months’ pay.”So, using their standard of perfection of womanhood, Imeasured the woman who stood before me. She was perfect.
“Got any glad rags, Kid?” she asked.
“No, but I’ve got some tapa cloth and two tortoise-shellbracelets with pearl in them,” I answered, hopingto impress her.
“I mean, haven’t you got any pretties to go aroundwith gents? I bet all the sailors aboard here are nutsabout you.”
“No, they ain’t,” I answered hastily. “If I ever laydown on the job of pulling on ropes when I’m needed,or get in their way when they unload a cargo, they kickmy pants for me.”
She became very much interested in me.
“Say, what do you stick on this bloody barge for? Youought to be down with me and the girls where you’d beappreciated.”
“You mean leave the ship?”
“Sure, I’ll get you a swell job with me and the girlsdown at the Union Hotel.”
It sounded wonderful to me. I was tired of staying onthe ship, day after day in port, with no one to play with.Perhaps I would find companions ashore. I was sure noharm could come from just going with her for a littlewhile. For a moment I hesitated, then one glance at herthin ankles and her broad hips assured me that she mustbe a good woman. Proudly I followed her down thegangway, and as I passed McLean I told him to tellFather I was going to take a job at the Union Hotel for afew days until the ship was ready to sail.
How set up I was to be walking along the dock withthis beautiful woman who thought I was pretty!
The Union Hotel was a small, dingy-looking placeabout a block from the wharf. I had passed it severaltimes on my walks ashore with Father, and I had heardthe sailors speak of it as the “Seamen’s Rest.” They alwaysgrinned when they said that and I wondered why.
“Come in and meet my lady friends,” urged my newfriend. I accompanied her gladly. The stuffy interior ofthe cheap waterfront hotel seemed the height of eleganceto me. We entered the “pub” (English for saloon).
“Where’s the job?” I asked, for on shipboard the firstthing a man did was to get to work. Then I discoveredthat my guide and her “lady friends” were barmaids.
“Here, sailor-girl, you take this end station, and you’llget lots of tips. Sometimes the blokes gives as much as sixpenceif we smile pretty.”
I was so pleased to be accepted by those women that Iput my conscience out of its misery about leaving the shipand went to my station behind the bar. I was having alot of fun until some sweating stevedores came in.
“Beer for us,” was their order.
One of the group I recognized as the cargo tally manfrom our dock. He seemed shocked to see me behind thebar drawing foamy mugs of beer.
“Say, does your old man know you’re here?” he askedsuspiciously.
“It’s none of your business,” I answered. The girlsgiggled and encouraged me to go on. “Besides, I canknock your block off if you squeal on me.” Again the barmaidscheered me on. The other stevedores gatheredaround and began guying him, but the tally man persisted:
“I’ve known your father off and on for fifteen yearsand I’m going to take you back on board ship for him.”He reached over and pulled me by the arm to hasten mydeparture.
“I’m warning you to take your hands off me or I’llknock your block off,” I snarled at him. I was thrilled atbeing the center of attention. I wanted to show off infront of the barmaids how strong I was and how well Icould scrap. The tally man seemed to have but onethought—to get me out of the place in a hurry even if hehad to use force to do it. I was equally determined tostand my ground. He tried to pull me to the door. Iswung around on him and hit him as hard as I could.The girls cheered me again. I hit the tally man once more,then he took me by the shoulders and shook me like a rag.
That was too humiliating; I saw red. Hitting, kicking,butting with my head, I sailed into him. Taken by surprisehe went down. The barmaids let out squeals of delight—thestevedores roared with laughter. We were onthe sawdust floor of the pub, rolling over and over,punching and clawing. He didn’t want to hurt me and Iwanted to kill him. That made it almost an even fight.
For about three minutes we were at it and then I foundmyself flat on my face with one of his hands gripping myneck and my own right fist held up between my shoulderblades. It was the hammerlock hold I had seen used insailor fights and I was completely helpless.
“Now, you little hell-cat, you march back to that ship,”he growled, and lifted me from the floor, pushed me outthe door, and walked me down the dock to the vessel.I had a cut lip and a black eye. The tally man called toMcLean:
“Say, you better watch this kid until her father getsback. She was hanging around a bar down at the UnionHotel—and that joint’s a bed house.”
I hurried below and washed the blood from my face,ashamed that any of our sailors should see me licked. Butno matter how I scrubbed I couldn’t erase my black eyeso I decided to get in my bunk and not attract Father’sattention to me. It seemed I always remembered to obeyFather after I had forgotten to!
When Father returned to the ship he came in mycabin and asked:
“What are you turning in so early for?”
I took great care to lie face downwards so he couldn’tsee my eyes as I told him:
“I don’t feel very well. Guess I don’t want anysupper.”
What relief! I could see Father hadn’t heard of myhumiliating defeat at the hands of a tally man in theUnion Hotel.
“If you’re sick, there’s no use bellyaching about it.I’ll fix you up a dose of salts and that’ll get the kinksout of you.”
He brought me a coffee mug half full of epsom salts.I swallowed the stuff and then I lay there thinking deepand unkind thoughts about women. The laughter of thebarmaids as I was marched out of that pub by the tallyman still rang in my ears. My soul was bitter within meand I swore to myself that I would never again trust awoman—not even if she smelled of perfume to highheaven and had inch-thin ankles!
But I wasn’t to get off from my latest escapade as easilyas I had thought. I was still lying in my bunk, trying tofigure out how I was fooled by that barmaid, when Iheard a man’s voice in the companionway asking:
“Can I see the Captain? I gotta tell him something heoughta know.”
My heart sank. The voice was that of the tally man andI suspected that he had come to tell on me. I wasn’t leftin doubt long, for soon I heard Father’s indignant voiceasking:
“Do you mean to tell me that my kid was in a pubwith a barmaid?”
“Yes, Captain, and she started a brawl there. It’spretty dangerous business to leave a girl like her hangaround the waterfront. I wouldn’t let a kid of mine doit, no sir!”
Their voices dropped to an indistinguishable mumbleof words, but I knew the result would be serious. I’d geteven with that tally man before he knew it! I’d teachhim to squeal on me after he had given me a black eye.Whatever thoughts I had about the matter left me whenFather came into my cabin. He wasn’t angry, as I expectedhim to be. Rather he seemed unusually quiet andthoughtful. He sat on the edge of my bunk and after apause, he said:
“Joan.”
“Huh?” I murmured, with my face still hidden in mypillow to hide my telltale black eye.
“Turn over and look at me.”
“I know what you look like,” I countered, still facedownwards. “You haven’t changed since I saw you acouple of hours ago.”
“Yes, I have changed. I’ve changed my mind aboutyou.” I didn’t know what to think about his sudden tack,so I stalled for an opening to defend myself:
“Can’t you let a fellow sleep that don’t feel good?”
Father took me by the shoulders and turned me over.He didn’t say a word about my black eye, he seemed tooverlook it.
“Joan, we’re going to be here in port about thirty days.I gotta get a new foremast set in, and a general overhaulof the vessel when the cargo is discharged.”
I still couldn’t see where he was heading.
“You’ve disobeyed me for the last time. But I’m partlyto blame, so I’m not goin’ to punish you. Only when youget big enough to go with barmaids and fight with men,it’s time to put some thought on your future. I’ve gota lot of thinkin’ to do about you, Joan—a lot of thinkin’.”
And he went away leaving me vastly relieved, onlyhad I known what was to come out of his thinking Iwould have been more worried than ever before in mylife.
Father kept me on board ship all during our stay inport, with only occasional walks along the waterfrontin his company. We sailed with a cargo of wool and ballastfor the United States. We were going to Frisco to geta load of lumber.
After ninety-three days of uneventful sailing wesighted the Farallone Islands off the Golden Gate. A tugboatsteamed out thirty miles to pick us up. How excitedI was to see the smoke of that tug coming toward us!When it came within hailing distance the captain calledthrough his megaphone:
“Want a tow?”
“How much?” called back Father.
“Four hundred dollars to inside anchorage.”
“I’ll see you in Hell first,” answered Father.
“Two hundred dollars,” came back the tugboat captain.
“I’ll sail this bloody ship right up to the ferry buildingunder her own canvas,” came Father’s reply.
Cursing, the tugboat captain let out a string of degradingopinions of the kind of master Father was—andFather returned the compliment. My father holds alicense as pilot of San Francisco harbor so he didn’t evenhave to hire a pilot or a tugboat to get inside the Heads.The tugboat steamed alongside us at half-speed, readyto throw us a hawser if the wind died and we were forcedto be towed in, but Father entered the Golden Gate,sailed past Mile Rock Light House, dipped the flag in saluteto the lighthouse keeper, and came to safe anchorageoff Alcatraz Island. He let go the hooks and waved asuperior good-bye to the indignant tugboat captain.
There was a brisk breeze blowing over the Bay andhardly a cloud overhead. To the eastward rolled the hillsof Berkeley.
“Your mother’s over there, Joan. I’m going to shipyou off this trip.”
I stared at Father.
“You mean me leave the ship?”
He didn’t look at me as he replied:
“Yes, it’s high time you had a woman’s care of you.”That was the first he told me of his plan to send meashore to live.
“Are you going to quit the sea too?” I was filled withterror. Not to be on the ship any more—ever? Never tosteer a course under the Southern Cross—reef a sail ina storm, never to set a halyard to the rhythm of Swede’schantey?
“No. I’m goin’ to stay on this ship as long as she floats.I’ll stand by her until she goes down under me.” Helooked away from the hills out towards the sea. Littledid Father realize when he spoke those words that theywould come true!
I was going to live on shore with my mother andbrothers and sister. I didn’t even remember what mymother looked like. She was only a beautiful symbol tome—something far off and not quite real that had beenpainted for me in words from my father—and not someonereal that I could live with. But now I must. Fatherwould make me. It seemed too terrible to endure.
The Quarantine officers and Customs officers passedus. There was nothing then to keep me from goingashore. Father packed my canvas sea bag full of my belongings.It bulged with my sea boots, my oilskins andsou’wester. I wrapped my little boats carefully in burlapand carried them under my arm for they were tooprecious to trust to careless hands. My other treasureswere a jaw of shark teeth and an octopus in a big can ofalcohol.
Stitches came aft to help load my things into thedinghy to go ashore.
“Ain’t you ever comin’ back to us, Skipper?” Stitchesasked me in a hoarse voice which was barely audible. Ihadn’t realized until then that I’d be leaving him behind.I couldn’t leave Stitches, for I loved him.
“Can’t you come to the land with me, Stitches? Youcan live with me for always,” I said.
Stitches didn’t answer me; he just sort of blew his noseand looked away.
“I’m coming back some time, Stitches,” I promised. Isaw his old hands shaking as he tied my bundles up. Heseemed to delay the parting by fumbling around. I gavehim my ships to hold and I went below to change into mydress and hair ribbon. When I came up on deck the crewhad disappeared off the decks. Weren’t they going to saygood-bye to me? Even Stitches was nowhere to be seen.
“Come on, cast off now,” Father called.
Bulgar and Oleson were in the dinghy below waitingto row Father and me ashore. I climbed up to the railand started down the Jacob’s ladder when I suddenly rememberedsomething I had forgotten. I dashed back ondeck and made for the cabin.
“Now what the hell?” called Father after me.
I grabbed my four kittens I had forgotten and putthem in a flour sack, then I went up on the poop deck towhere my pet seagull was in a packing-case cage.
“Come on, Old Man, we’re going ashore,” I told thegull as I put him under one arm. Then I swung the sackof cats over my shoulder, and once more I went to theJacob’s ladder to disembark.
What a fine bunch of barnacles the crew were, Ithought, when I couldn’t see them anywhere. Just as Iwent over the side I spotted them—Stitches was behindthe mizzen mast pretending to be looking the oppositedirection from me; Swede and the Jap cook were peekingout at me from the donkey-room forward. Fred Nelsonacted the queerest of all of them. He appeared to beabsorbed in polishing the brass on the binnacle, but hepolished the one spot so steadily I thought he wouldwear it out.
“Hey Skipper,” he called: “Here’s somethin’ to rememberthe ship by.” He came down to me and handedme a plug of Star Cut Plug Tobacco. “It ain’t much,but it’s wishin’ you a fair wind for your westin’.” Hisface seemed white and drawn. He looked at me so hard Ithought he was looking right through me.
“Pile down here and quit your dawdling,” Father orderedfrom his seat in the dinghy.
A funny lump came in my throat. It felt as if I hadswallowed too big a hunk of oatmeal and it had stuck inmy windpipe. I couldn’t make the feeling go away. I wasafraid I would start to blubber at leaving the crew foreverand especially my adored Stitches, so I yelled outvery loud as I descended the Jacob’s ladder:
“So long, everybody. I won’t ever forget you.”
In the small boat Father asked why I had brought thegull and what was in the flour sack.
“My belongings!” I answered.
“Your mother’ll never stand for that junk to clutterup her house. You’re a landsman now, Joan, and things isgoing to be different.” I couldn’t understand why Fatherdidn’t give me the devil instead of talking so low andquiet-like. I thought he was glad to get rid of me becauseI was always such a worry to him.
The ride on the ferry boat across San Francisco Bayto get a train to Berkeley was an experience I’ll neverforget. A crowd gathered around me on the ferry to lookat my seagull and the octopus in the can. The kittenssquirmed around in their sack but I didn’t open it becauseI was afraid they’d get away from me. I didn’trealize then that I was a freak sight. I thought all thepeople who grouped around me wanted to be friends,so I took them into my confidence freely. They smiledand looked at one another as I talked. I was telling themabout the South Seas; how I got the little octopus; whatthe name of our ship was. No one did any talking exceptme—the crowd just stared at me and listened.
At the Oakland Pier we got a train. The conductorcame along and tried to take the seagull and bag of catsaway from me. He wanted to put them in the baggagecar, but I protested, and he let me keep them. When wearrived in Berkeley Father took a taxi from the stationup to my mother’s house. I was all eyes at the surroundingview, the rolling hills, the houses with neat lawns,trolley cars, groups of laughing boys and girls strollingalong the streets. I forgot the ship for an instant. In mytransport of joy I could think of nothing but my new life.
We got out of the cab in front of a two-storywooden house. We walked up a path and through a gatethat had two tall posts on either side of it. On one ofthem was a weather vane—a whale on a stick that spunaround in the wind. It had been there for years andMother used it to watch for shore winds to blow myfather home. A tangled mass of bright-colored flowerslined the walk. A huge climbing vine with flowers thecolor of South Sea coral hanging from them half coveredthe porch. They were roses, the first I had ever seen.The appearance of the house made me think of a contentedturtle asleep in seaweeds. I couldn’t get enough ofthe beauty of the garden. I felt Father’s hand tugging atmy arm.
“There’s your mother, Joan.”
I looked up, and there I saw my mother standing inthe doorway. She was wiping her hands on her apron andcrying and laughing all at once. My first impression ofher was of a round, chubby little woman—round and delicious,like a duff pudding that looked so good I couldeat it. Her skin was very white, her eyes as blue as thewater in a lagoon, and the wisps of grey hair that fellon her forehead reminded me of white sea spray. Icouldn’t take my eyes off her—my mother! I had seen herfive years before when she came to a lumber camp in Oregonto see Father, but the memory of her was blurred.Father’s romantic picture of her was more vivid in mymind than my actual recollection. She was so differentfrom any woman I knew. Dressed in a faded blue housedress with a white collar fastened with a shell pink coralbrooch—wiping her hands on her apron—always willthat picture remain with me. I didn’t know what to sayto her. She was expecting her seafarers home, for Fatherhad telephoned her from San Francisco. Was I as muchof a surprise to her as she was to me? I expected mymother to be gruff like Father but her voice was gentle—shewas all softness.
What did daughters do when they met their mothers?
Father threw his arms around Mother and lifted herfrom the floor. He hadn’t seen her for five years! I felta twinge of jealousy at being left out. I had always beenmost important to Father and Mother was usurping myplace. She left Father’s arms and gathered me to her. Herhands were so soft and smooth they felt funny as theypetted me. She seemed so weak compared with sailors.Her arms didn’t have as much strength as one of my toes.Physical strength was my ideal and she did not have it.I knew she was somebody wonderful but she was goingto have to prove it.
“Speak to your mother,” Father said.
I eyed her up and down, from truck to keel, before Ianswered:
“Are you going to let me have my seagull and catshere?”
Mother laughed and said:
“You can keep them in the back yard.”
With that compromise settled, I let down my barriersof hostility. I don’t know whether I was thrilled at beingin a house that was a home or whether I was terrified.I remember I felt shut in and cramped, and my brothersand sister standing around staring at me as if I were amirage instead of a real person didn’t put me at my ease.
“Joan, you change your dress because it is dinner time.We have dinner for the boarders at twelve o’clock,” wasthe next thing Mother said.
“I haven’t got any other dress,” I answered. My voice,attuned to the open sea, boomed like a cannon in thatsmall room.
“Don’t talk so loudly,” cautioned Mother.
My mother, to help make both ends meet, kept boardersfrom the University of California.
“They are professors, dear. You can sit at the sametable with them.”
“Are professors all men?” I wanted to know. Mothersaid they were men, the ones that lived at that house.
“Because I don’t like women,” I added.
My sister retired from the room. She was a very properyoung lady and she didn’t approve of me at all. Thatnoon I met the boarders. They were introduced to me,and then they began firing questions at me from all sides.
I thought they were nice, friendly men who were interestedin the sea, until they took sides against me.
“Do you mean to tell us that you saw a native child actuallybeing born?” came the horrified voice of the professorof economics.
“Sure I saw it. You didn’t think she stopped havingher baby just because I was there, did you?” I retorted.Those professors thought I was lying. What did theyknow about the sea, anyway? Then, contradicting anotherstatement I had happened to make, came the retort:
“In our civilized world today there is no such thing asslave trading.” The bewhiskered professor across fromme brought his hand down on the table with a smack ashe said it. He was trying to show me up and it got undermy collar.
“The hell there ain’t,” I cried back at him just as hardand so much louder that he drew back in his shell.
“Sssh! Joan!” It was Mother’s voice from the head ofthe table. I guess she thought I would drive away herboarders.
“I won’t sssh!” I cried just as loud as ever. “He’s tryingto make me out a liar. Ask Father, he’ll tell you.”
“Sure there is slave trading today,” said Father grudgingly.“It’s called blackbirdin’ in the South Seas. Somesea captains on sailin’ ships take cargoes of natives and‘contract’ them for a pound apiece for five years to theplanters in Northern Australia. When the natives havebeen worked almost to death the planters pay the sea captainsto take the natives back to the islands they stole themfrom. Instead of takin’ them back to their own islands,the captains dump their loads of blacks on the first handyisland that lies in their course. That’s why now you hardlyever see a pure breed of native in any tribe—the blackbirdershave mixed them up.”
“Astonishing!” was the comment of the learned questioners.“Astonishing!” Mother didn’t tell Father to sssh!They didn’t dare openly dispute Father so they turnedback on me. First they asked about storms at sea, adventureson our voyages—then they disbelieved them. Theprofessor of economics was the worst.
“You are a very interesting study, little girl.” He rosefrom the table leaving me feeling like a germ under amicroscope. I could see that navigating wasn’t going to beso easy with those landlubbers.
That night I slept for the first time in my life in aregular bed. The sheets felt so tickly and cool and themattress was soft, but I couldn’t sleep. The house was sostill and it didn’t rock! The stillness made me feel seasick.I couldn’t hear the noise of feet on deck above me. Mybird and cats were in the hold, or rather what is calledon shore, the cellar of the house. And so I lay awakemost of the night pitching and tossing and wishing thehouse would just rock a little bit so I could go to sleep.
The following morning I was up at daybreak. I dressedquickly and ran through the house calling:
“All hands on deck. It’s four bells!”
Father came out of his room and caught me by theback of the neck.
“Pipe down, you. There’s folks asleep,” he said. It wastime to eat breakfast according to ship schedule. Theboarders were awakened by my cries. Mother servedthem their breakfast as soon as she could prepare it.When she called breakfast I dashed to the table andgrabbed the biggest portion of scrambled eggs and a stackof pancakes and began scoffing them.
“Where are your manners?” It was Mother speakingas she took my self-helping away from me.
“I got here first,” I protested, “and it’s first come firstget!” But Mother just couldn’t understand.
There followed a series of days full of bewilderingproblems for me. The other children on our block, insteadof playing with me as I used to dream childrenwould, drew away from me.
“She swears bad words,” I heard one girl tell another.
“That girl off the ship is too rough, my mother says,”confided her little friend. And so it went. Why didn’tthey like me? Here were children my own age and Ididn’t know how to play with them. Everything I said ordid sent them away from me. My own sister and mybrothers found excuses to take them away to their friends,leaving me behind. Running her boarding house keptMother constantly busy and Father was at the ship allday long. When he came home in the evenings it wasMother he naturally turned to. I seemed forgotten. Oh,how I longed for a storm to arise to blow away the fearand loneliness of the land. I couldn’t stay in the housebecause it crushed me down and the professors didn’tapprove of me. I kept out in the backyard as much as Icould. Everything was so different on land. My seagulldied the second day I was home. I tried to replace it withlove for the chickens Mother kept. But chickens couldn’tfly. They seemed as bound down to the earth as I was,away from the ship. Even the roses in the garden hadthorns on them. The lilies in the islands were soft-stemmedand lovely. I couldn’t bear it. I wouldn’t obeymy mother because I knew she wasn’t strong enough tolick me. Every night Father came home from the shipand she would tell him how difficult I was to handle.
“She is your child. You’ll have to handle her,” I heardher tell Father.
“Joan will get used to land ways soon, Mother, don’tyou worry about her.”
I heard Father and Mother discussing me.
“You raised her—so perhaps you can discipline her,”Mother said.
“Joan is your daughter. If you try to understand hershe’ll steer as easy as a full-rigger in a fair wind,” cameback Father.
“She’ll drive all my boarders away. Last night I heardher ask one of the professors if he had ever gone througha shark’s guts with his hands.” Mother was horrified asshe related the facts to Father. Instead of finding sympatheticears for the story of my disgraceful conduct,Mother saw Father laughing.
“As if that wasn’t bad enough Joan said this was a hellof a house because there wasn’t a bedbug or a cockroachin it. I tell you, you’ll have to speak to her.”
I couldn’t understand why Mother thought that I wasterrible because I acted as I did. She went on:
“The child insists on practising spitting through acrack in the back fence at the woman next door.”
Poor Mother! At that time I wondered why she wasso distressed. Now that the first glamour was gone, Ilooked upon my sister and brothers as jelly fish becausethey couldn’t lick me or climb or spit or swear for beans.I had been home, “on land” as I termed it, for threeweeks when Father announced that he was going to sail.Mother packed his sea bag. Father never had a suitcase.He always used his own sea “ditty bags.”
A shot of agony went through me when I realized hewas leaving, and without me. I couldn’t bear it. Iwouldn’t stay on the land. Unable to contain myself I ranto my father and kicked him in the pants to make himnotice me more than he noticed Mother.
“Say, ain’t I going with you?” I pleaded.
Father looked at me in a puzzled way, as if he didn’tknow how to answer me, then he said:
“I’m just getting ready to sail, Joan. Thought I’d getmy things on board all ready in case we get a fair windthat’ll take us out without any towboat.”
That settled it for me. I’d run away. If he thought hecould leave me on land while he sailed off to the SouthSeas again he’d be mistaken. My sense of navigation camein handy. I remembered how we came from San Franciscoto Berkeley. I’d go back to San Francisco the sameway, but I didn’t have any money. That night when thehouse was asleep I sneaked into my father’s room and gothis pants. I stole a big silver dollar from them and keptit in my fist all night. It was my price to freedom. Thefollowing morning while Mother was busy, and aftermy brothers and sister had started for work or school,I left home. Without hat or coat I took shore leave fromthe house with only my four kittens for company andwent to San Francisco. I found my way to the dockopposite our schooner which lay at anchorage and I tolda fisherman that I belonged on the Minnie A. Caine.
“Will you row me out for this much money?” I asked,and I showed him a half dollar in change. The old fishermangrinned and told me to get in his row boat, andhe pulled me out to the ship, but he wouldn’t take mymoney. I climbed on deck and bumped smack intoStitches. The old man’s eyes nearly popped out in joy atseeing me again.
“I knowed the Old Man wouldn’t let you stay ashore.I know he’d bring you back,” he repeated over and overlike a chant.
“He didn’t bring me back. I ran away.” I didn’t evenask Stitches not to tell. He hid me in the lazarette in abed of old canvas. The Jap cook brought me some breadand a big can of soup. Fred Nelson was the only one ofthe crew who didn’t volunteer to help deceive my fatherabout me. He came down to speak to me, but I guess heforgot what he wanted to say because his only wordswere:
“It ain’t much company for you, kid, these rats whatlive down here,” and so saying he turned on his heel andwent back on deck. I stayed down in the dark hold allday, but I would have stayed there forever rather thango back to the land where everything I did was wrong.Along about six o’clock I heard Father’s voice on thepoop deck above me.
“I’ll break every goddamned one of your necks if youdon’t tell me where she is,” he said.
I heard Swede and Stitches and the Jap cook stalling.
“I know she came back here. She wouldn’t go no placeelse, so out with it. Where is she hiding?” he demanded.I heard each of the crew deny over and over that theyknew anything about me, then I heard a scuffle. Fatherwas beating some one of them up. I might just as wellgive up, I concluded, so I climbed out of the lazarette ondeck. I faced an angry father.
“What the hell’s the idea?” he shouted at me, but somehowI didn’t feel he was as mad as he looked.
“If I let you give me a good licking, can I stay?” Iasked. I would rather have died on that ship than giveup. The crew gave me a look with one accord that seemedto say: “You’ve made liars of us.” But strangely enough,Father didn’t try to punish them.
“Get forrard about your duties. What are you loafin’around here for?” he roared at them. Father gave me alicking with a rope’s end and I swear it felt good. It waslike old times again, but when he had finished he tookme ashore. My mother was very silent that night. I atemy supper in the kitchen and went to bed without speakingto her.
I was up at daylight the next morning, but I wasn’tsoon enough for Father. He had left for the ship an hourbefore. I went outside and a strong wind was blowing.The sky was clear and I could see the blue water of thebay from our front porch. In the backyard was a gianteucalyptus tree. I climbed it with as much ease as I couldscale the rigging on the ship. The higher I climbed thefarther I could see out the Golden Gate. From my perchon the peak of the tree, I saw the ships at anchor in thebay. One of them was my ship. That wind meant Fatherwould set sail. He was going without me! I found myselfcrying inside-like and I kept saying:
“Don’t leave me on land, Father! Come back and getme! Please, oh, please don’t let me die of loneliness hereon land.”
I didn’t take my eyes off the distant harbor. I staredthrough the cold wind until my eyes burned with pain.I must have been up there for about three hours. I washoping against hope that Father would hear me callingto him to come back and get me, when through my dazeI heard my mother’s voice far below me at the root ofthe tree calling to me to come down. But I wouldn’t comedown. Maybe our ship would sail if I took my eyes offthe bay. Maybe I wouldn’t see her go. After a whileMother quit calling and went away.
A loud clanging of bells broke into my spell. Glancingbelow I saw a big red firewagon in front of the house.Firemen were rigging up two ladders against the treeand three of the men climbed up after me. Mother hadcalled out the fire department, to get me down.
“I won’t come down,” I warned. “Go away and leaveme alone.”
Instead of coming down I climbed one branch higher.I would stay there until I dropped. The wind was like asoothing hand to my bewildered mind. Up there it wasfriendly. Silly little fool that I was, I thought the landwas all off its keel and it was really only me. I couldn’tadjust myself to foreign surroundings.
But soon, how soon I don’t remember, I heard myfather’s voice bellowing up at me:
“On deck, you!” That was all he called, but I camedown the tree like a sailor shaken off the foot ropes in astorm.
“Yes, sir?” I said when I faced him on the ground,surrounded by a frantic group of neighbors who hadbeen attracted by the firewagon. There was great confusionand explanations. I stuck to my story that Ithought he was sailing without me. My mother didn’tsay anything. She looked as if she was crying inside.
“Take Joan back to the sea. She’ll fret herself awayhere,” she told Father when we went in the house.
“What makes you think I want her?” Father cameback.
“You’ve been delaying sailing for a week. Your cargois on board; you’ve had fair winds off shore; now youcome and tell me your sailors have refused to ship outwith you because Joan’s leaving is a bad omen—and yetyou didn’t fight about it. If you told the truth to yourselfit would be that you don’t want to go without Joan.Take her back with you.”
I could have kissed my mother, and I would have ifI hadn’t thought it was too sissy to do it.
Father hotly denied that he had held up sailing onaccount of me, but he didn’t look mother in the eye whenhe blustered:
“I’m sailin’ on the flood tide tonight, Mother, andJoan goes with me.”
True to his word Father sailed that night and I was onboard. After helping set sail, I climbed to the crosstreeswhere I watched the receding lights of the harbor disappearinto a foggy bank of night. A snorting breezecarried us out the Golden Gate past the Farallone Islands,and beyond the moan of the bell buoy on the shoals.Our bow was pointed due west. The jibboom plungedunder rising swells and shook itself free. The ship rolledand groaned as if she were relieved in her freedom fromanchorage. I heard six bells ring below, and the watchwas set. Nelson was at the wheel, Stitches was singingon the fo’c’s’le head, and the dim glow of Father’s pipetraced his paces from the binnacle to the rail and back,and I, up in the spanker crosstrees thumbed my nose atthe land we left far astern.
“We’ll have to dodge the hurricanes south of theEquator this trip,” said my father to the mate, as wesailed out of Adelaide, South Australia, with a load ofsalt for the States. “With a dead weight on board of wetsalt it’ll be too dangerous to try to outride the storms atthis time of the year.”
It was April—just the beginning of tropic winter time.By the time we had sailed south of Tasmania and hadcircled the South Island of New Zealand, which wouldtake about two months, we would be right in the midst ofthe worst weather of the year.
“We better get the fog horn out and the riding lightstrimmed if you’re going to take that south passage, Captain,”observed the mate. “Them fogs and mists from theAntarctic are mean beggars.”
I was soon to find out why the mate referred to theAntarctic as mean. Father had set a course around to thesouthward of Tasmania. For three weeks we sailed withfair wind and clear skies, and then the fair wind graduallychanged to a stinging sharpness. The skies misted upin a sort of transparent fog, and mirages appeared on thehorizon. Mirrored against the indefinite horizon were twoislands with tropical foliage seemingly floating in space.The mirage is a dangerous thing to mariners, for it confuseseven the most careful navigation.
“Joan, you ain’t much use, you go on the fo’c’s’le headand turn the foghorn, three short blasts a minute, thenone long one,” said my father.
“Are you afraid of running into another vessel downhere?” I asked.
“Not a chance of sighting even a hunk of driftwood,but the marine law says we have to squawk a foghornwhen we get in the iceberg region.”
I had never seen an iceberg, and I was over-eager tobe on the lookout on the fo’c’s’le head to sight the firstone. Our foghorn was a contraption that looked like abig coffee grinder. It was green with tarnish and thickwith rust. I took my position just port of the capstan andground away. I was rewarded by a rasping grunt. It tookall my strength to spin the handle around just to makeone blast. In spite of the cold I soon got very warm tryingto make the three short and one long blasts come.Father came forward and watched me straining awayon it. He grinned at my exhaustion and said he thoughtthat would keep me out of deviltry for a while, or makeme so tired that I’d be willing to sleep and give him arespite from watching me.
The noise of the horn began to echo back at me in aneerie tone. I called to Father:
“We must be near land. The echo is coming back atme strong.”
He dashed to the fo’c’s’le head, and peered into thethickening mush of fog. The sea was so still that everysound became magnified. In a few minutes the suck-sucksound of water washing against some bulk came to ourears.
“Drop the topsails,” he bellowed, “bring her around.”With a violent jerk, the ship came up in the wind andstopped. Ahead of us, not more than five hundred yardsaway, loomed a giant iceberg. As we watched it, it sankdeep in the black water and then, as if it were some livingbeast, it heaved high out of the sea. The swish of thewater around it, the suction of its movements, made adangerous current. We began to drift nearer to it. Ourship had no power except that of the sails, and the windhad dropped and left them limp and powerless.
“Throw over the kedge anchors,” Father ordered.Kedge anchors are small, and used for emergency cases.The men rushed aft and threw one over each side thevessel. They gave weight and pulled us back from driftinghead on to the iceberg. For a few minutes they held,but the water around us was a seething mass of cross currents.Other bergs, larger and deeper, were in the offing.We had run into a whole nest of them. A steamer couldhave backed away, turned around, and left the place ofdanger, but our ship was helpless to move. The bergsmade deep valleys, and whatever wind there was wascut off by their height. The water sounded as if it wereboiling around us. The mate threw over a chip of woodto see which way we were drifting, but the chip justwhirled around and went down. A typhoon would havebeen a welcome visitor then, for at least its wind wouldhave carried us away—but just being becalmed, waitingfor the jaws of the iceberg to finish us, was like a terriblenightmare.
The cabin-boy and the Jap cook crouched behind thegalley, pale and shaking with fright. Father’s face wasset grimly. A frozen death awaited us. Things at seaseem to take on human qualities. The perversity of thewind was the curse of some dead sea captain, andbaffling calms were from the souls of lost sailors. Thatnearest iceberg was like a sea beast gloating over us as itsprey.
“All hands on deck!” went the cry from Father, andit was repeated down the fo’c’s’le. The men came scramblingup, buttoning their oilskins and sou’westers aroundthemselves closely. When they were all ready Fatherturned to them:
“You’ve got one chance in a thousand to get out of herewith your lives. Throw overboard the cargo.”
In a flash the crew were tearing away the battens offthe hatches. If the heavy cargo was thrown overboard,the ship would ride lighter and higher on the waves, andthe impact from a smash would be lessened. The cursesof the men in the hold as they chucked up sacks of saltbeat a staccato on the still air.
“Joan, you and the cook and cabin-boy load up thelifeboat. Put tins of hardtack, a keg of water and a tarpaulinin it.” With those instructions he took his post atthe fo’c’s’le head and watched our ship go nearer thebergs. Two frigate birds with long spiked tails hoveredabove. A frantic little mother-carries-her-chicken birdflew around and around in a dizzy circle near the stern.And Father just waited! With each roll of the ship wecame nearer. The crew worked throwing out the sacks ofsalt like men possessed, and the ship lightened.
Father ordered the rope bumpers put out, and twocork buoys lowered over the bowsprit to break the crashif we hit the iceberg. The ship wouldn’t answer to therudder, for the currents were more powerful. Just as webraced ourselves for the destroying collision we werecaught in an eddy that lifted us high on the water andsent our ship dizzily about one hundred yards past theiceberg. Our relief was so great that we didn’t mind theloss of cargo.
All night long we drifted in the ice floes, miraculouslyavoiding being crushed by them.
The following morning we found ourselves afloat ina world of white icebergs and thick mist. It seemed asthough we were at the end of the world. It was difficultfor Father to figure out our position, as there was no sun,and to navigate by dead reckoning was useless as the logline couldn’t register how much we had drifted in thecross currents. For a week that continued—breathlessdays and nights that were ghostly in those white canyonsof frozen water.
Sometimes in the night we could hear the screech ofsea birds leaving the ice, and then silence again.
Whenever any real danger was upon us my father usedto whistle or sing, or play his old water-soaked violin.I asked him how he could be so gay when death wasstaring us all in the face, and he said:
“What the hell do you expect me to do, bawl aboutit? Besides, if the crew hear me singin’ they’ll thinkthere’s nothin’ to be afraid of and it keeps their gutsfrom freezin’ inside of them.”
He sang often in the two weeks that followed as weblindly picked our way out of the iceberg region. Thefirst time the sun shone after that was about three hundredmiles southeast of New Zealand. A stiff breezecleared the sky, and our sails bellied out tautly under it.
“We’ll sail due East, Mr. Swanson,” Father said tothe mate, “and try and make Pitcairn. I haven’t beenthere for years and I want Joan to see it.”
I had heard the name of Pitcairn Island all my life.Every sailor looks upon it as the haven for seafarers.From their descriptions it was the one perfect spot onearth, free from worries, money, and work.
Old Stitches used to tell me about Pitcairn and itsqualities of a paradise, but I thought it was the ravingsof a mind that had had too much liquor and too manygirls in port.
“What are we going to see on Pitcairn?” I asked myfather.
“White natives. It’s the only South Sea island thathas a tribe of English-speaking, light-skinned inhabitants.”
I was thrilled at the prospect of visiting Pitcairn—forwhite people were more of a curiosity to me than natives.As our ship nosed her way across the sea towardsPitcairn, I spent many hours listening to tales about thatstrange island from my father and two old sailors whohad been there often.
When Kipling gave to the world his much overquotedlines, “East is East and West is West and never the twainshall meet,” he probably forgot that in the most remotepart of the South Seas, East and West had met and hadformed a race of people, living in a high degree of civilizationand in a community almost free from sin—to disprovehis theory.
I looked up the island on the chart, and found itmarked there with an inconsequential dot, and flauntingthe austere name of “Pitcairn, 23 degrees S. latitude, 120W. longitude.” By latitude and longitude I can locate aspot on the ocean as accurately as a landlubber can find42nd Street and Broadway.
Father saw me studying the chart, and observed:
“On the approach from the southeast the island lookslike a cone of rock juttin’ out of the sea. Some timesmariners call it ‘Neptune’s Thimble’ because of its resemblanceto a thimble in shape.”
“How did anybody get on a rock island so far awayfrom the big island groups?” I asked.
“I’ll tell you, Joan, because I think you ought to knowthe whole romance of Pitcairn. Lots of folks has writtenabout it, but none of them know all the facts like we sailormenknow.”
“Have the islanders been there forever?” I wanted toknow.
“Nope. You see in the year 1789 His Majesty’s ShipBounty was sent out from England to the South Seas togather breadfruit trees for the purpose of transplantin’the same in the British West Indies. In command of theBounty was a tyrannical, overbearin’ taskmaster, a regulars.o.b. His name was Lieutenant William Bligh, andthe crew was afraid of him, and at the same time theyhated his guts.
“For months there had been a seething undercurrentof revolt brewing in the fo’c’s’le, and it was led by theship’s carpenter, a Mr. Christian. They laid their planscarefully for mutiny—but they bided their time until theBounty sailed into the vicinity of Tahiti.”
“What good would it do to mutiny in the South Seas?”I asked, for I knew that escape in the islands was almostimpossible for a white man fugitive on English possessions.
“Huh,” snorted Father, “those bastards were so soreon Old Man Bligh they didn’t give a damn what becameof them just so as they got rid of him and his officers.”And from Father I learned how the “white native island”was founded.
When Mr. Christian learned from one of the officersthat the Bounty was about two hundred miles off Tahitihe gave the signal for the mutiny. With more daring thanthe pirates of the Arabian Nights the crew mutinied.They bound and gagged the captain and those officersthat were loyal to him, and set them adrift in the open seain the ship’s cutter which they had provisioned andwatered. Christian assumed command of the Bounty andher mutineers.
The abandoned captain and officers drifted for weeksthrough uncharted, shark-infested waters. They circumventeda dangerous coral shoal to land on what appearedto be a fertile uncharted island, only to be driven fromthere by the cannibalistic inhabitants. After a time theirsupplies ran short, and they subsisted on turtle, sun-driedfish—and saved the raindrops for water.
Bligh was stricken with a peculiar malady from thestrain and exposure. His officers had to save his life becausehe alone knew how to navigate, and that littlecutter had to make some port soon, or their goose wascooked. They didn’t dare land on any of the islands thatweren’t charted because they might run into a nest ofcannibals again.
Nowadays we have charts and surveys of the islands,but in 1789 a lot of these atolls were never heard of.
They had to get some fresh water and food for Blighor he’d die on them, so one night the officers put into anatoll island and stole fresh fruits and coconuts to nourishhim. Weeks drifted into months and at the end of fivemonths they reached New Guinea, a distance of threethousand five hundred miles from where they were setadrift. From New Guinea they secured passage on a tradingschooner to Australia. Lieutenant Bligh lost no timein informing His Majesty of their predicament. Sometime later he was rewarded by being appointed Governorof New South Wales.
Indignant upon learning of the mutiny of his sailors,King George ordered H.M.S. Pandora sent to the sceneof the rebellion.
In the meantime the Bounty was cruising around theSouth Seas looking for a place to land and at the sametime avoid capture. Fourteen of the Bounty crew whohad mutinied went ashore at Tahiti and took up nativelives in preference to being “stretched by the neck” by HisMajesty’s officers if they were caught. Besides, thosefourteen men preferred a life among beautiful nativegirls to that of hard work on shipboard. They used poorjudgment, however, for the officers of the Pandora foundthem and took them prisoners. They were chained likedogs to the stanchions of the ship, and put on rations ofbread and water. The Pandora set sail for England wherea death penalty would have been dealt to the mutineers,but she struck a submerged coral reef and became a totalwreck. That reef is now known as Pandora Reef onthe charts. While the Pandora was smashing to pieces onthe sharp reef, the officers tried to get away, but theymade no attempt to free the prisoners from their chainsand they left them to a miserable slow death. They didn’tgive them the fighting chance that the mutineers hadgiven Bligh and his men.
Christian had sailed the Bounty to Ruratu. His mengrew so restless and lonely, that he advised them each totake to himself a native wife. Fascinated by the whiteskin of the sailors, their peculiar clothing and strangelanguage, the young native girls looked upon them asgods, and showered gifts of fruit and flowers upon them.Mr. Christian, acting in the capacity of minister, conductedthe ceremony, and each man became a husband toa native girl.
The Chief of Ruratu had a daughter Loa-Lea of unusualbeauty who offered herself to Christian. This soangered the old Chief that he was planning to exterminateevery white man of the crew, along with theirnative wives who had set a bad example for his Loa-Lea.His plans were frustrated in their inception because Loa-Lealoved the Lily-Man, or “he of the white skin” asshe termed Christian, because he treated her with suchkindness—such respect. To be treated with deference wasa new experience to her, for native women have littleor no importance in a tribe other than as creatures ofconvenience and producers of sons.
Loa-Lea brought news of her father’s plan to exterminatethem to her “lily-man,” and Christian secretlydeparted in the night with all his men, their native wivesand Loa-Lea, whom he married.
Christian had heard that the seas were being combedfor them, and so he sailed far to the westward to escapeHis Majesty’s forces. Just as our ship was heading now,the Bounty was heading. Fifteen hundred miles south ofthe Equator and about the same distance west of the coastof South America, they came upon an uninhabited island.
They had great difficulty in finding a way to land onthe island, as there was no beach and the cliffs were almostperpendicular. Christian and a handful of men wentashore to explore the island’s possibilities. On the eastend they found a cove, overlooked by a plateau, whichhad the semblance of great steps up the side of the cliff,as if some sea giant had carved them for doorsteps tohis castle. On the table top of the island they found anabundance of fresh fruits, water in springs, and wildbirds.
Christian returned to the Bounty, called his people togetherand impressed upon them that if they landed onthat island it was to be forever, as he intended to destroythe Bounty, and with it gone there would be no means ofescape. With one accord the mutineers agreed to colonizethe island of rock. They named it after GeneralPitcairn.
The mutineers set about to strip the Bounty of all metalwhich they would use ashore. They set their suppliesadrift on rafts to float in shore. Those who did not swimin went to the landing in small boats. When the last manhad left the vessel, Christian lashed the helm amidships,headed her bow directly into the island and deserted her.
Gathered on the cliff of their new colony, the crewwatched the ground swells of the Pacific wash the Bountyin toward the cliffs, until with a mighty crash she struckthe wall and sank into the unsounded depth of the sea.Gone forever was their hope of ever leaving the island,but also, gone forever was any evidence of the Bountyto betray them into the hands of His Majesty’s officers.
Each man and wife set about and built a hut and portionedoff a plot of land for a home. Every variety oftropical fruit and berries grew in great profusion. Therewas more than enough of everything for everybody. Butin spite of that all did not run smoothly on Pitcairn.Christian was chief. The Bible was the only form of government.Their religion was and is to this day SeventhDay Adventism.
In time children were born to the mutineers by thenative wives, and the children were white. South Seanatives have intermarried so much for generations thattheir blood is depleted and the white man’s blood predominated.
The sailors call Pitcairn Eden, and rightly perhaps,because a woman was the cause of a quarrel whichproved fatal to the whites. One of the mutineers, a Mr.McCoy, had sent his wife to gather sea bird eggs fromthe rocks on the edge of the cliff. Losing her foothold shefell a thousand feet to the reef below and was instantlykilled. As there was only an equal number of womenand men, and all of them married, the mutineer, whenhe became lonely, took to himself the wife of one of themen. That so angered the husband that he killed his wife.McCoy became an outcast, and all the husbands lookedupon him as a danger to their happiness. From that timeon dissension and intrigue flourished. Several of the mutineersset out in a small boat to find another island, andthat left McCoy, Christian, a Charles Adams, and sevenother whites with their native wives on the island. Thenatives there now are the descendants of those families.
Those whites and natives have a colony now withoutquarrels. They are industrious and God-fearing—butlockjaw is rapidly wiping them out.
The mate came up on the poop deck to where Fatherwas sitting and asked,
“Shall we give the Pitcairn Islanders some rope andcanvas this trip, Captain?”
We were only about fifty miles from Pitcairn, and bynine o’clock that evening we would be hove to off it.
“Yes. We’ve lost our cargo, so we might as well divideup our supplies.”
The Pitcairn Islanders wait months and months forsailing ships to come. Very few ships ever go so far offthe beaten sailing tracks, and when one does, the islandersoffer up devout thanksgiving. Along about nineo’clock, Pitcairn loomed ahead. On the top of it fireswere burning. First they appeared on one end of theisland, then on the other. They had sighted us. The fireswere beacon lights to us, so that we would not strike theshoals by sailing in too close.
“Give them the freedom of the ship when they comeaboard,” Father instructed the mate. “These nativesnever steal anythin’.”
Within an hour from the time we hove to, three boatsfrom Pitcairn were alongside, and about thirty-five islanderscame on board. I studied them closely for signsof native blood, but they were as white as I am. Theyspoke English, simply, and with a peculiar accent. Thewomen were delighted to see me, another white woman.One old dame stroked my hair; a young girl offered totrade her native fibre dress for a pair of overalls.
We went up behind the companionway and swappedthe clothes. She thought she had made a grand bargainas she strutted around with my faded blue overalls on.She ran down on the main deck and brought back a tall,quiet young woman, who seemed to be revered by thenatives.
“This is Frances McCoy, who is saving our people.”Miss McCoy placed both hands on my shoulders—acustom of greeting probably inherited from her nativematernal ancestors.
“Did you have a peaceful voyage?” she asked, and hervoice was smooth and quiet.
“No. We had the goddamndest trip we’ve ever had.We struck icebergs south of Tasmania and had to shootour cargo of salt to hell.”
Miss McCoy turned away from me quickly and lookedoff to sea, but didn’t speak. McLean, who had heard metalking came over to me and said:
“They never swear on Pitcairn, Skipper,” he explained.I had offended her. On Pitcairn gentleness rules,and cursing is against their law. I couldn’t see howpeople could express themselves without cussing—butanyhow I watched myself with a terrific strain in myfollowing conversations.
The young native girl in my overalls asked me:
“Have you any books to give to us?”
I was surprised that “white natives” could read, but Iwas anxious to make amends for my swearing, and askedher and Miss McCoy to come down in the cabin and helpthemselves. The only books we had on board at that timewere books on navigation, a doctor book, and a partialset of the Encyclopedia Britannica with those volumesfrom N to S missing.
“You can take all of these,” I told them, “and the bookson navigation and the charts if you want them.” MissMcCoy grabbed for the doctor book.
“My people are being wiped out by lockjaw,” shesaid, “and I am studying medicine from books that passingships give me, so that I can cure them.”
That was why she was so revered by the natives. Shewas to save their lives!
“For years our people have begged nails and canvasand ropes from ships so that we can get enough materialto make a ship to sail away in to the mainland. I am goingin to get medicine and I will bring it back here tostop the deaths caused by lockjaw. There is a kind of athorn, which when it pricks a person, gives him lockjaw,”she explained. No wonder Frances McCoy, thedescendant of a pirate and mutineer, is looked upon as asaint there.
Out of gratitude for the books and charts I gave them,the two women gave me a beautiful screen made of skeletonleaves, painted with the juice of wild berries and asmall chest of carved coral. After our bargain was made,we joined the others on the hatches on the main deck. Oneof the descendants of Christian was asking about the war.
“In the Bible we read of far-off countries going towar against each other. Is England at war now? A sailingcaptain of a German full-rigged ship stopped off hereabout three months ago and said he would never againtrade with us.”
I hadn’t heard anything about the war that I couldunderstand. I knew that the price of copra had gone upbecause “soldier’s foods were preserved with copra oil,”but it was just as indefinite in my mind what war was asit was in the minds of the natives.
Then the conversation skipped from war to music.One of the men asked if we had an organ to give them.
“What in the hell is the use of an organ in the SouthSea Islands?” I asked. The “hell” had slipped out, butyoung Christian answered before anyone noticed it:
“We had one but the salt air has rusted it, so now itwill give no music. Next time you come here will youbring to us another organ?”
I guess the Pitcairn Islanders thought in America wecould pick organs off trees or something, so naïve andsincere were their requests.
At about midnight Father told the natives they wouldhave to leave. Sadly they departed, begging us to sail tothem again, and thanking us for our gifts to them. A PitcairnIslander, when he is making a trade, doesn’t drivea bargain like regular natives. They put down a commoditysuch as two bunches of bananas in front of you,and then they say:
“I have made you a present. Now please, you will makeme a present.”
It is our cue to give them a “present” in return, andif it doesn’t meet with their approval, they take backtheir present and say, “I do not make you a present.”
I was triumphant as we sailed away from the islandof white natives. I had a dress instead of overalls, featherfans, the screen and a box of coral.
Father was leaning against the spanker mast watchingthe sails belly out in the wind when I went to him.
“Hey, look, Father, all I got just for a few old chartsand books,” and I displayed my treasures.
“Charts? What the hell are you talking about?” heshouted.
“I gave them all the old charts I could find belowand the books on navigation and they gave me all thesethings,” I explained.
He didn’t stop to hear any more. He took me by theback of the neck and almost carried me down in the cabin.
“Now what did you give them?”
I pointed to the empty place where the charts had been.
“How in the hell can I navigate now?” he shouted. Thissounds calm as I write it, but Father wasn’t calm. Hisface was blue he was so mad.
“I’ve heard you tell the sailors lots of times you wereso good at navigating that you didn’t need charts,” Ianswered.
I was sorry a moment later I had traded away myoveralls for that native dress, as the dress was no protectionfor the rope’s end that tattooed my behind. I got alicking, but Father to this day has never bragged abouthis navigating abilities where I could hear him! But hewas too stubborn to go back to the island for his charts.He had to steer by dead reckoning the rest of the trip.
After that visit to Pitcairn, I could see why everyonewho has been there wants to go back. Maybe I’ll go thereagain some day myself. I have heard since that FrancesMcCoy finally got off the island in a boat which took thenatives three years to build, to America. She landed inSeattle, where she began to study medicine as she haddreamed. However, within three months of the time shelanded in Seattle she died a pitiful death of brain fever.She was not accustomed to the noise and confusion andstrange life of cities and it struck her down before shecould attain her ambition of mercy.
I had settled down for a snooze on the mizzen hatch,bored by the monotony of a dull tropic afternoon, whenFather’s voice shook the air with a “Clew up the topsails!Down with the foremain and mizzen!”
“Aye aye!” came from the mate on watch. “Aye aye!”echoed the sailors forward, as they ran to their places atthe several ropes. We were taken “aback.” Slap! smack!went the sails against the rigging as the wind caught themfrom the opposite tack.
“Sheet in the jibs!” Father took the wheel from thehelmsman and sent him forward to lend a hand on thehalyards. I leaped up the ladder to the poop deck. Thewind had begun to hum with a vicious steadiness fromleeward. The sky darkened over with rioting grey cloudsand the sea became a funereal black.
Over the roar of the wind and the falling sails, Fathercalled:
“Waterspout to leeward!”
I looked where he pointed and saw the horizon inturmoil. As I watched, the clouds appeared to come downand the sea reach up to meet them. It was as though thegreat God of Storms had mated the sky and the sea inanger so that out of the resulting travail might be bornthe “terror of the sea.”—Then, swaying and bending likea thing alive, whirling always with tremendous momentum,a gigantic hourglass sped with terrific paceacross the waters, wearing blackness about it like a woman’strailing cloak. To me its base seemed the horizon,its top the middle of the sky and its path led straight acrossour bow.
“Get the wind under your tail and give a hand here,”called Father.
“What’s going to happen?” I yelled.
“We’ll all be sucked to hell if we cross its course. Thisdamned wind is shooting us right into the belly of thespout.”
I grabbed half of the spanker boom tackle and triedto sheet in its slack. As the sail luffed I got in a few feet,only to lose them when the ship rolled back to leewardand snatched the ropes from my hands.
“Pull in the tackle,” ordered Father as if he werecommanding a regular sailor. I gritted my teeth andhauled again, but in vain. The wind was too strong formy single strength. Closer swept the waterspout, swellingand reaching like a living monster eager to destroy relentlesslyanything in its path.
Down on the deck the men sweated and heaved on theropes to get down the sails. Still the ship went forward,the current and wind taking us ahead at the rate of twoknots an hour with no sails up, except the truant spankersail that I couldn’t haul in. I heard Swede groaning andcalling a breathless chantey as he led his watch lashingdown the main boom. Bulgar, Nelson and McLean werestraddled on the foot ropes of the jibboom struggling tolash down the jibs which flapped and ballooned.
It was all chance and our fate rested in the lap of thegods.
Now there are all sorts of sea traditions and superstitionsabout waterspouts. Some grave scientists who neverwent to sea write learnedly that a waterspout does not andcannot sink a ship. But no sailor ever would agree withthose scientists and when you consider on the one handthat waterspouts are tornadoes on the ocean and on theother hand see what tornadoes do to cities on the land thejustice of the sailor’s attitude seems evident. A spout startswhen a whirling, funnel-shaped cloud hanging from abunch of storm clouds dips down and hits the water. Theswirling wind starts a swirl of water and just as the landtornado picks up a house and drops it a quarter of a mileaway, so the water tornado picks up its swirling columnof water and carries it along. Surface fish, driftwood,anything in its path goes up to tear, like a huge hourglass,across the sea. But so temperamental is the sea tornadothat anything which changes the current of air, willbreak its hold and the swirling upraised column collapses,dropping its tons on tons of water back into the sea tocrush anything beneath.
And, caught apparently right in the path of our waterspout,that was the fate we faced. It is funny in a crisishow little things catch your attention. With that waterspoutracing toward us on the wind, the men had to clingon with their knees and stomachs to keep from beingwhisked off into the sea. I had never seen any of our crewshow such real fear in my life. They were as pale as thewhite canvas they were trying to reef in, for a waterspoutwas no ordinary hazard. No calculations or navigationscould estimate what dizzy course it might take. I foundmyself listening to the frenzied cries of the sea birds thatcame down from the sky to seek the protection of the seaagainst the angry chaos of the air above. Whenever seabirds fly low on the water in a storm it is proof that thewinds of the heavens are too vicious—too conflicting fortheir wings. Rats leaving a sinking ship are not as fatala sign to mariners as defeated sea birds. The smallerbirds lasted longer under the beating of the wind thanthe big ones. An albatross, with a spread of six feet ofwings, flapped helplessly in the valley of the swells.
For the first time in the midst of danger my fatherdidn’t sing. He bit his lips together in grim determinationand never once took his eye off the fast approachingwaterspout. He turned the helm and threw the ship intothe belly of the swells, a move that no sane navigatorwould do under ordinary conditions, for a vessel is at themercy of the sea once she loses her balance in the troughof the breakers.
With almost an agonized screech he called the crewaft:
“For the love of Christ get this spanker in before wego nose in to croaking.” Swede, the mate, Oleson and McLean,who had come in off the jibboom, clambered upthe deck. They hauled on the spanker tackle. The ropewouldn’t give to their pulls. A knot had become tangledin the block on the end of the boom, and that boomwas swinging out over the sea about fifteen feet.
“Send a man out to clear it,” ordered Father. Nelsonvolunteered.
“Now hold on out there,” the mate advised him as hestarted out the swinging tackle, holding on with his feetand shinnying along like a monkey on a stick. Once whenthe vessel rolled heavily the boom dipped to the water andthe waves lapped Nelson, almost sucking him under. Buthe held fast. The other sailors stood at position on deckready to haul it in the second the block was free.
After what seemed hours, but in fact was only a fewmoments, Nelson called: “Take it away,” and with oneaccord the men on deck began to pull in the truant boom.Nelson hung on to the boom as they pulled it in. Theboom on a big ship is handled very much as you handlethe boom on a little fishing boat. There is a pulley blockfastened to the end of the boom and a pulley block fastenedto the deck and the boom is controlled by threestrands of tackle running over the two blocks, the freeend of the tackles being cleated down on the deck. Tohelp in the handling of the boom as it swings over andto ease the strain, the block on deck is fastened to a steelcoupling which slides along a three foot steel rod rivetedat each end to the deck. This coupling is enclosed in asteel lined wooden box or hood to protect the couplingfrom rusting. The block itself is outside the hood andslides along the top of the grooved opening. The windhad eased a little and the boom began to swing over sofast that the tackle showed a few feet of slack. However,the strain had been so heavy that the steel coupling hadjammed slightly at the end of the rail. McLean reacheddown in the opening at the top of the hood to push thesteel coupling free and hurry the boom over. Then thewind suddenly veered back a point, caught the spankerand slung it over the side again with a terrific jolt. Agruesome shriek of pain split the roar of the wind andrattle of ropes and McLean fell in a heap over the hood.His arm, just above the elbow, had been caught andcrushed in the grip of the steel coupling. The wind backedup the force of the boom that held taut the tackles.
McLean was moaning. I heard a stifled, agonised “OJesus” come from him. But a man’s life is of little consequencewhen the fate of a ship is at stake. That boomhad to be hauled in or lost, no matter what happened toMcLean. But with the man’s arm crushed in the jammedcoupling and his body lying across the block the boomcould not be pulled in.
“Chop away the jaws of the spanker boom,” came Father’svoice. No man could be spared to do anything forMcLean until the ship was safe. Nelson had found hisway back along the boom, holding on to the leachings ofthe sail and was safe on deck now. With axes and crowbarsthe crew set about chopping away the spanker boom.Better that it sink into the sea than push us on into thepath of the waterspout. I ran below and brought back abig mug full to the brim with whiskey for McLean. Wehad no chloroform or morphine on board, but the whiskeyat least would help him to endure. In my innocenceI thought later it might knock him out completely. Helay over the block, quiet except for a low monotonousmoaning. His breathing was very shallow. The veins inhis temples bulged in big throbbing cords. I poured theentire mugful of whiskey down his throat. It might havebeen water for any effect it had. The men hacking fortheir lives at the jaws of the boom and the rigging haddone their work. The boom crashed into the sea takingwith it riggings and stanchions of the railing. But evenfree of the boom the ship went forward.
“We haven’t got a chance,” I heard Father mutter. Hesaw the waterspout was traveling at a course and speedsure to bring it close up across our bow.
Suddenly he shouted: “Joan, get my rifle!” I turnedto run below for it and as I was disappearing down thecompanionway I heard his next command:
“Every man below the decks!” I could hear voicesmumbling dissent, and Father’s voice rose above thecrew’s as though he were beating them with his voice:“Get the hell below, you goddamned fools, or you won’thave a Chinaman’s chance!”
I brought up the rifle and handed it to him. He hadlashed the wheel. “Throw a canvas over McLean,” saidFather through his teeth, “and then you get below!” Nelsonhad already got a big piece of canvas and he completelycovered McLean with it. I ducked below withouthesitation; I didn’t know what was going to happen. Iwondered if Father was going to use the rifle to kill McLeanand mercifully end his suffering. I hadn’t been belowtwo minutes before I heard the report of his rifle!Then several reports followed in rapid succession andFather came running down the cabin himself, first closingthe hatchdoor on the companionway.
“The shot busted it,” he said simply.
We went to the lee portholes and looked out. Fathersaid the shots from his rifle had started new currents inthe air that broke the rhythm of the waterspout. Likea wounded beast the spout seemed to stagger and thencollapse, dropping tons on tons of water, fish, and driftwoodback to the sea. The spout when it collapsed wasnearly half a mile away but the low heavy black cloudsit came from were already over us and now they openedand emptied themselves just above the ship.
Did you ever see a cork under a waterfall? That wasour ship beneath that downpour. Father had known whatwas coming and had saved the crew by forcing them below,for not one could have kept on the deck under theforce of that bombardment with the ship pitching andwallowing in the conflicting currents and undertows likesome blinded thing.
McLean covered with canvas and held fast by hiscrushed arm was the only living thing exposed.
I felt trapped down there below. The air was suffocating.The pressure of the humidity was so great that mypulses beat rapidly and I broke out in a cold sweat. Thenin less than fifteen minutes the rain stopped abruptly, theclouds disappeared, the sun burst forth and the sea calmedas though nothing had happened.
“There won’t be a whiff of wind now,” Father saidwith disgust. With typical sailor fatalism he had dismissedthe horror of the waterspout but he hadn’t forgottenthe trapped man above.
“We got to get that poor beggar out of that trap,” hesaid, referring to McLean. I went on deck with Father tohelp him. We lifted the canvas off McLean’s body. Helay cramped over in a doubled position, softly moaning.
“Can you stand it for another few minutes, old man?”Father asked.
He seemed to come from far away to answer: “Jesus,Captain, take a pop at me with your rifle and finish it. Ican’t stand this!” His eyes were bulging in excruciatingpain.
“Why, you goddamned bawling sissie, shut your faceor I’ll leave you squawking there all night!” Fatheryelled at him. The voice was terrible to hear but therewere tears in Father’s eyes. His bullying tone of voicewas a trick to give McLean the guts to stand the ordealhe had to go through.
I was still shaking with fright from the terror of thewaterspout as Father spoke to me and sent me below toget some iodine and his razor. When I brought them ondeck to him he was leaning over, examining the steel coupletsthat had clamped McLean’s arm.
“I’ll have to cut your arm off, McLean. It’s the onlychance in hell you got to get out of this steel trap,” hesaid.
McLean looked at Father, saw that he meant it,and that it was the only way to save him, and he forced asmile.
“Go ahead, Captain, but do it quick,” he begged.
Father beckoned me to stand over McLean and keephis head lifted up. I got my arms under McLean’s shouldersand heaved him up in a semi-sitting position. Bulgarand Swede held his legs. Another sailor brought acouple of buckets of sea water. Father twisted a tourniquetof rope around McLean’s arm. Then he swabbed thearm just above the place where it was gripped by thesteel, and cut in with his razor. McLean tried to watchhim, but bracing his back with my leg, I put my armacross his eyes so he couldn’t see himself being butchered.Bulgar and Swede jammed down on his legs to keep himfrom thrashing about. In about a minute Father hadall the flesh sliced away from the bone. He leaned overto Swede and whispered. Swede went over to the railand got a steel belaying pin. He raised it over McLean’sarm. I saw Father nod and say “Now.” And Swedebrought the belaying pin down across the exposed boneof McLean’s limb and broke the bone as clean as ahound’s tooth.
“A bucket of sea water, quick,” called Father. Theypoured two full buckets of water over the stub of McLean’sarm. Ocean water is the best disinfectant againstblood poisoning there is on a ship. I hated the job wehad to do, for I could feel McLean trembling like onestricken with palsy. Blood sputtered out of his arm overthe deck and over us. He began to laugh in a deliriousfrenzy. I kept hold of his head and four sailors grippedand held him so he couldn’t move until Father hadstitched up the shreds of flesh with catgut and a surgicalneedle. Then we carried him below and put him in my father’sbunk. He had small chance of living, but Fatherkept that spark alive with big doses of whiskey everyhalf hour. He left me to attend him, for he had dutieson deck that were more serious. With the spanker boomgone, the rigging destroyed and no wind to steady usagainst the rising cross swells, there was danger of us“shaking our sticks (or masts) out.”
For twenty-four hours the crew labored clearing thedebris. They set up a makeshift spanker sail, “jury rig”it was called, in place of the boom. The horror we hadbeen through was duly written down in our ship’s log asfollows:
“Thursday, p.m. 160 latitude, 32 longitude sighted waterspout.Shots from rifle broke it. Seaman J. McLean laid upunable to work. Crew busy clearing ship’s deck.”
Four months later McLean left the ship. There is noplace on a ship for a one-armed sailor.
When I was about sixteen, we took a trip to the LineIslands to get a cargo of guano.
“What in the hell is the use of getting a ship full ofbird dirt?” I asked my father as we neared our destination.
He was balanced on the taffrail cleaning and oiling hissextant when I approached him.
“Well, besides stinkin’ worse than copra and bein’ arotten cargo to carry through the heat of the tropics, it’sused for fertilizer and ammonia. Land folks ain’t so particularwhat they use to make their food grow,” he said.
I was keenly interested, for we were going to a partof the South Seas that was unknown to me. So much hasbeen written about the colorful atmosphere of the SouthSea islands, but little has been said about the tragedythat inhabits some of the desert rocks along the Equatorknown on the charts as the Line Islands.
No tropical foliage flourishes there, no sea blue lagoons,no fruits, flowers and long golden beaches enhancetheir nakedness. They are barren reefs, spewed upout of the sea by submarine volcanoes. As you approachthem they look like snow-capped rocks with a fringe ofwhite foam edging them from the breakers that crashagainst their cliffs. The screech of white gulls fills theair for miles around. The guano islands are the home ofthe sea fowl. There they lay their eggs in mating season.Millions of birds find those rock islands every year.The rocks are hardly fit for human habitation, yet afew men survive on them.
The French government owns the greatest number ofthose guano islands, and the income from them amountsto a small fortune every year.
I’ll always remember my trip to those places for tworeasons. First, it was on that voyage that I was introducedto the mysteries of strip poker and second, I saw a manso “female struck” that he swam a mile through a roughsea to get away from me.
The night before we sighted the Islands, Fred Nelson,Swede, Bulgar and Oleson were sitting in the lee scupperunder the fo’c’s’le head playing poker by the dimgreen glow of the starboard running light. I wasn’t allowedforward of the mizzen mast unless my Father waswith me, for that was the sacred domain of the crew.However, I went forward every time I got a chance,when Father wasn’t looking. This particular night Iwaited until I heard him snoring on his settee before Itried it. Running along in the shadow of the sails on theleeward side I came upon the four men in the midst ofthe game.
They didn’t pay the least attention to me. I stood byand watched them for about five minutes and then I buttedin.
“Deal me a hand, will you?” I asked.
Swede looked up at me and then spat a big stream ofamber juice over the rail. Oleson pretended he hadn’theard me, and Bulgar just scowled his disapproval ofmy presence. However, Fred Nelson was more sociable.
“Sure, Skipper, you can play next hand—but I adviseyou not to. This is strip poker we’re playing.”
For the first time I noticed certain oddities in the men’sappearance. Swede had on nothing but his underdrawers.His shirt and dungarees were piled beside Oleson. Bulgar’spipe and leather belt were in front of Nelson. Whenthe hand was finished Oleson handed over his claspknife to Nelson also.
“See what it is? Now do you want to sit in?” askedSwede.
All I had on was a pair of overalls and a faded bluecotton blouse and me “as-is” underneath. With such aslim margin of safety to go on I probably would havewithdrawn but for Nelson.
“Don’t think you’d better try, Skipper,” he said.
As usual, opposition made me stubborn.
“What’s the reason I hadn’t? Gimme cards!” and Iplumped myself down.
Swede dealt me a hand. The cards were so dirty andworn and sticky with tobacco juice that it was hard tokeep them separate in my hand.
“Ante up, Skipper,” said Oleson.
I looked at my hand; I didn’t even have a pair, but Iwasn’t going to let them bluff me out.
“One leg of my overalls,” I piped up.
All except Swede laid down their cards.
“Ain’t you takin’ a chance?” said Nelson, looking atSwede’s drawers.
“No more than she is,” said Swede. “Raise you a wholebloomin’ pair of pants,” he bet, “and I better notlose!”
I could feel my face looked the picture of guilt.
“Two legs of my pants,” was my come-back.
“Call you,” grinned Swede. He showed a pair of jacksand a king, and I showed him a six, seven, a ten, and aqueen and threespot.
“Hand over the wardrobe,” he said.
I stared at him. There was nothing under my pantsbut me. And my pants now belonged to Swede.
“Hand ’em over, Skipper,” he grinned.
Strip poker suddenly had become very unattractive.
“But—but—that’s all I got on,” I stuttered.
“What are you going to do, welsh?”
He stuck his chin out at me and his voice was the essenceof contempt as he taunted:
“ ’Tain’t my fault if you force yourself into a strippoker game on just a pair of pants. What are you goin’to do?”
I don’t know just what I would have done. ProbablyI would have taken off the overalls rather than fail tolive up to the code of a true sailor, but Fred Nelson intervened.
“Skipper is a girl,” he said, “and she don’t take offnothin’.”
“I’d ’a’ give her my drawers if I’d lost,” protestedSwede.
“All right, I’ll give you my pants,” snapped Nelson.
“It’s her pants I won!”
Nelson jumped to his feet.
“Do you take my pants or a punch in the guzzler?” heasked, very quiet, for that was the way he always waswhen he fought. He could whip any man on the shipexcept Father and they all knew it. Swede looked up athim and grinned.
“Gimme your pants, Nelson.”
Nelson yanked off his pants, threw them at Swede andsat down beside me in his underdrawers.
“I’m through with this game and so are you,” he said.
“But I want to win back your pants for you,” I pleadedwith him. Bulgar, the sly bully of the lot, spoke up. “Iknow how you can stay in the game without taking offanything, Skipper.”
“How?”
He smiled craftily: “Pay your losses out of the slopchest.”
The slop chest is the sea-going term applied to theCaptain’s ship store of gumboots, sailors’ overalls, shirts,socks, sou’westers and shoes, and tobacco. Father investedsome of his own money each trip to stock up with suppliesand the expenditure was often a big sacrifice for himto make, for money was as scarce as hen’s teeth. Therewas always something to eat up his profits: the shiphad to go into drydock, then there were new canvas,ropes, and paint to be bought, bail for drunken sailors inforeign ports, to say nothing of cargo lost or damaged bystorms. As a result Father kept a jealous eye on his slopchest. At sea when a sailor wanted to buy something thecost of the article was deducted from his pay at the endof the voyage.
This precious slop chest was stowed under the bunk inmy cabin, and many a time in the night when a sailor hadto get a sou’wester or warm socks or something becauseof sudden inclement weather, I would be routed from mybunk while Father dug under my mattress to get it forhim. I had absolutely no sense of the economic value ofthings, for I never saw any money. Everything to me wasan article of trade, and I would just as soon have given afifteen dollar pair of rubber sea boots in exchange for apineapple as a three cent piece of calico. The idea thatthe things in the slop chest were Father’s stores and importantnever occurred to me.
Naturally, therefore, I hailed Bulgar’s suggestion withdelight. Nelson wouldn’t play but the others agreed Icould stay in the game and pay my losses from the slopchest. But the next hand was no better for me. I got a pairof kings and I was so delighted with them that I grinnedlike a full moon as I bet. With one accord Swede, Olesonand Bulgar folded up their hands and wouldn’t bet withme. I was licked either way—if I bluffed they calledme, or if I had them they wouldn’t come in, and in anhour of playing I lost three pairs of sea boots, one jerseysweater, ten pairs of socks, four shirts and eleven plugsof chewing tobacco.
“We want our winnings NOW!” they warned me,and I knew it wouldn’t be healthy to hold out on them.Nelson made no further attempt to help. He was evidentlydisgusted with me.
I went aft to raid the slop chest, but I didn’t trouble tolet Father know I was doing it. I lugged my losings forwardand paid them to the sailors and sneaked back intomy bunk, where I fell asleep with no twinge of conscience.
The next morning Swede came to the wheel in newdungarees, jersey and shoes, Bulgar went about cleaningbrass in a brand new shirt and socks and Oleson hadtwo plugs of tobacco sticking out of his back pantspocket. Swede’s outfit caught Father’s eye of suspicionand I held my breath for fear he’d start an investigation.When Bulgar walked right past him I knew I was sunk.
“Where in the hell did you guys get the new outfits—haveyou been stealing out of the slop chest?” Father inquired.His question made me wonder where I would bethe most comfortable, up in the crosstrees of the foremast,or hid down in the lazarette underneath a bale of rope.
“No, sir,” spoke up Bulgar. “We just had a bit of luck,sir.”
Father went below and I knew he was going to takean inventory—so I went aloft and got very busy with abucket of grease oiling down the topmast. I figured thatif I was doing some useful ship’s work when he caughtme I would fare better. I hardly had time to get up tothe crosstrees, swing into a bosun’s chair and start swabbinggrease on when I heard Father’s voice booming outon the deck below:
“Call both watches on deck.”
Keeping one eye on my grease rag and the other onthe scene below I didn’t miss a thing. Father made everyman on board haul everything out of the fo’c’s’le on thedeck where he rummaged through everything lookingfor the things that had disappeared out of the slop chest.Father yanked the shirt and sweater off Swede and Bulgarand made them strip. I heard the sailors trying toexplain that they had bought those articles of clothingashore before sailing—and Father’s answer to theiralibis:
“Any louse that steals on the high seas ain’t worth killin’,”and he landed on Bulgar and knocked him headover heels. They took their medicine sailor-fashion withoutsquealing and Father took their honest winnings backto his cabin—satisfied that he had taught his crew a lessonin honesty!
Swede and Oleson looked up at me in the rigging.I couldn’t hear what they called me but I was sure itwas no term of affection, so I decided to remain aloft. Idon’t know what they would have done to me but forNelson and Stitches, who of course knew the story.
“Skipper is a kid and she never had a chance in apoker game with you robbers. It was honest stealin’ onher part and dirty stealin’ on yours and you got whatwas comin’ to you,” declared Stitches.
“And if you ain’t satisfied and wants to get even, I’mglad to give you some more,” added Nelson and then thecry from the look-out, “Land Ho!” ended the argument.
Our destination, the Line Islands, was in sight.
“You can’t go ashore here, Joan. There’s no tellin’what kind of riffraff is livin’ on the island.”
Father sailed the ship in as near as he dared withoutstriking any sunken reefs. There was no sign of life thatwe could see, nothing except myriads of seagulls circlingoverhead.
“Where do the guano gatherers live?” I inquired.
“In a rocky cave, near the water. They can’t live toohigh on the island because the fumes of the guano makepoisonous gases.”
I climbed the rigging of the mizzen mast so that Icould get a better view of the island. I hung on with mytoes to the ratlines to keep from falling off, for the swellsand backwash from the shore were rolling the ship likea pendulum. I watched carefully for about twenty minutes,and then I saw a tiny black speck splashing in thewater. As it came nearer, I saw it was the figure of anaked man, swimming out towards us. He was so burnedby the sun that he was almost black.
“On deck,” I called.
Father called back: “Hello?”
“Look at the native swimming out to us. He is justa quarter point off the stern,” and I indicated with myhand to the spot where I saw the man swimming.
“He’s comin’ out to make a bargain with us for a loadof guano,” Father answered, megaphoning through hishands. I descended from my perch in the rigging by slidinghand over hand down a halyard. By the time Ireached the poop deck, the “native” was within a hundredyards of us. We waved and called to him, and heraised a brown arm in answer. I was dressed in old fadedoveralls, and wore no blouse. My hair blew away frommy face.
“What dialect does he speak?” I asked Father.
“One that you don’t know, so for once you won’t beable to hog the conversation—French!” I had neverheard of a French dialect. I knew all the easy languages,—Samoan,Marquesan, Gilbertina, etc. but French wassome savage language foreign to me. I wasn’t going tobe left out of the greetings, so I hollered as loud as Icould: “Hello you!”
The native was right under the stern. At the soundof my voice he looked up. I smiled down at him. “Helloagain to you,” I said, and I smiled my best native tradingsmile. The native, who was a white Frenchman, staredup at me as if I were an apparition. He opened his lipsas if to speak, his face flushed under its brown and heturned in the water as if struck by a bullet and swamback for the shore. Father called to him to stop. On heplunged back towards the island, and never once lookedback.
“What in hell’s the matter with him?” asked Father ofno one in particular.
“Female struck,” spoke up the mate. “These guysspend a lifetime on the islands alone and the sight ofJoan with her exposed neck and shoulders and the curvesaround her hips set him nutty.”
“What was he afraid of me for?” I wanted to know.“I didn’t say anything except hello to him.”
“There’s a lot of things you got to learn about men,Skipper. I seen cases like this before. Sometimes thesight of a female drives them so crazy they kill themselves.”
At that time I couldn’t understand the mate’s explanation.Why should a man be afraid of me? Father sent themate and three sailors ashore to make the dicker for thecargo. When they returned the mate asked to speak toFather alone. It was obvious that he did not intend forme to know what he had to tell.
I was determined to know, however, so Father tookme down into the cabin and explained:
“A man isn’t complete without the love of a woman,some time in his life, Joan. A seagull can’t fly with onewing, and neither can human beings really live alone bythemselves and be whole. That man was convicted of acrime in France when he was a young boy about nineteen.The French Government, instead of sendin’ him toDevil’s Island for life, gave him the choice of workin’for a lifetime on this island. He lives worse than an animalin the foul atmosphere of bird manure. He eats nothin’but bird eggs and raw fish, and him just catchin’ thesight of you made the man in him realize his aloneness.”
I had never been conscious of my sex before that time.Father’s words impressed me so deeply that I began towonder about myself.
For three days we hove to while the crew made tripsback and forth to the island in our boat with loads ofguano. I had lost interest in the loading—I could onlythink of the derelict on that barren island.
The following September we set sail for the GilbertIslands with a load of trading articles to exchange forpearl shell. In our crew were just three old members:Bulgar, the Swede and Axel Oleson. The remaining menwere shipped aboard at Sydney.
There was a labor strike on in Sydney at the time andto find a crew of non-union men willing to ship for thevoyage was impossible. Father was up against it, but acrew he had to have and he was never a man to be balkedby seeming impossibilities.
Now there is a widespread belief that “shanghaiing”as a common practice flourishes only in the stories ofJack London, Conrad and other writers of sea tales, butdeep sea captains and sailors know better. So Father inhis difficulty sought out a “sailors’ runner,” a ratty-facedlittle crimp familiar with the waterfront, and made hisdeal—five pounds a head for a crew.
“I’ll want them aboard ship by five o’clock flood tide.I’m goin’ to sail tonight without waitin’ for any goddamnedpilot and tugboat,” he said to the crimp and returnedto the vessel.
About four thirty that afternoon a launch sputteredalongside, and the mate and two sailors lowered a Jacob’sladder over the side. The man on the launch yelled upat them:
“Put over a cargo boom. These beggars won’t come tountil you hit the Equator.”
I looked over the side and saw eight lumps of flesh,eight dead men, so it seemed, sprawled over the bottomof the launch like so many sacks of wet wheat. With everyroll of the launch the bodies pitched from side to side ingrotesque rhythm. Our men rigged up a cargo boom andtackle and the man on the launch slipped a running bowlinearound one of the limp hunks of flesh.
“Take it away!” he grunted, and the sailors, with myhelp, pulled up the load.
It was a blond, husky Scandinavian. His body landedon the deck with a dull thud.
“Is he dead?”
The mate only looked at me contemptuously—as ifanything could kill a Swede—and threw back the tacklefor the next load of flesh. Over and over again they repeatedthat process until a row of eight bodies was ondeck. The mate told me to call my father. I went below,almost sick, for I thought the men were dead. However,I was better trained in the code of the sea than tolet anyone see I was affected by the sight of eight menlaid out like corpses on the deck of the schooner.
I brought Father back with me. He reached down andpicked up the foot of the first man and let it drop backwith a lifeless thud on the deck.
“He’ll be a good man on a halyard,” he said, andpassed on to the next one. He was a dirty, uncouth-lookingperson so black with coal dust that he lookednegroid.
“What a hell of a mess this is to soak me five poundsfor,” and he passed on to the next and the next until hehad felt the muscles of each one. Satisfied that he had agood load of “beef” to pull on ropes in a storm or pumpship if a leak should spring, Father signalled the launchto cast off.
Turning to the mate, Father said:
“Take these so and so’s forrard to the fo’c’s’le and lockthem in, then come aft and stand by. We’ll sail out tonightanyway and sign those” (indicating the unconscioussailors) “on the Ship’s Articles when they comeout of it. You, Joan, take the wheel. I’ll lend a hand toset enough sail to get out of here.”
I was just short of sixteen at that time, husky and asstrong as most men, and I felt myself to be as good asailor as ever held a ship to a course. I went up on thepoop deck to the helm, unleashed it and pulled withall my strength on its spokes.
“Hard over,” called Father, and I slowly turned thebig wheel.
“Hard over” means to turn the wheel completelyaround. Under my hands the wheel didn’t turn as quicklyas it should have, and Father let out a volley of cursesat me that made the sky blue, but it also put vitality intome or scared some more strength into my arms, for Ipulled the helm around as the wind caught the topsailsand we glided out the Heads for the Gilbert Islands.
It was a hard week, that first one out, for the menwere so drugged and beaten that they were slow in regainingconsciousness. Three sailors, Father, the cookand myself navigated that big schooner, which in fairweather ordinarily required sixteen men to handle. Itook the helm in the daytime, the sailors stood by thefore and main masts and the cook tended the jibs. Fatherslept in his clothes.
On the fourth day out we ran into the electrical stormsoff Lord Howe Island. Lord Howe is a barren island offthe Australian coast, around which all the fury of theChina Sea, Indian Ocean and South Pacific gathers. I’llnever forget it—lightning so blinding and near that itmade our eyes blur with blue shadows! Thunder whichrattled so loud and so close that it reverberated on thedeck!
And then, right in the midst of the thunderstorm thewind suddenly veered from southeast to north—northwestand we had to tack ship to keep from runningaground.
The mate went aloft to free a tangled block from themizzen topsail. He had reached the crosstrees and wasstraddled on them to balance himself as he freed the ropefrom the block. The lightning rods on the tops of themast were alive with fire—they looked like huge gasjets aflame on the top of each spar. I was at the wheel,tied there by two ropes to keep from washing overboardin the seas that were sweeping over the poop deck. Fatherlooked up to see if it was all clear aloft so he could letgo the mizzen boom to tack over, when a streak of lightningmade him cover his eyes with his hands to keepfrom being blinded. At the wheel I put my face downin my overalls’ bib, and I guess the other men hid theireyes from the fiery onslaught of streak lightning, for notone of them saw just what happened. The mate aloftmust have touched a ring bolt of steel on the mast andreceived the full shock! He dropped from the crosstreesto the deck, and his body was crushed into a mangledpulp by the fall. Before anyone could reach the spotwhere he fell a green sea swept across the deck and carriedhim overboard! It was too horrible—too gruesome!I crumbled inside. I don’t know what would have happenedto me if a sea hadn’t washed over the poop andalmost smothered me with water bringing me to.
The ship was “around” or tacked, and we were tryingto hold her head up to the wind and keep her out of thebelly of the swells to avoid capsizing. We couldn’t possiblyhold out much longer as the terrific strain had toldon her strength. There seemed only one thing to be doneas a last resort—revive the shanghaied sailors.
Father went into the fo’c’s’le and attempted to rousethem. They only moaned and turned over and slept, ordidn’t move at all. It was four days later, exactly eightdays from the time they were sent aboard ship, that theyregained consciousness. The crimp had made a good jobof them. He had first drugged them and then his gangbeat them to lifelessness. Of the eight only two weresailors; the others were not worth their beans at sea as acrew. One was a waiter, another a truck driver, anothera coal passer, another a cattle man and still another ahopeless dope fiend. The crimp had had a hard time findingheads to make up his blood money of five poundsapiece, so he had raided a waterfront saloon and made awholesale slaughter of the available men he had foundstanding at the bar. All of them except the two sailorswere seasick and cowardly of the storm.
With the mate dead and a bunch of landlubbers for acrew in one of the worst storms of the South Pacific,Father turned into a savage. The men had to sign on theShip’s Articles as seamen. It is maritime law that everyman voluntarily sign his own name to the Articles, andin doing so, he becomes liable to obey the laws of the seaas dictated by the master of the ship. Once those men hadput their signatures to the Articles, Father had them!They didn’t want to sign, but when he invited them tosign or get off and walk, they wrote their names willingly.
Immediately after signing, the coal passer and cattleman made the mistake of refusing to go aloft to shift thetopsails in the storm. Father took his revolver and pointedit at them.
“You dirty blank so and so’s, you’re sailors now. Getaloft and make fast those sails or you’ll go over the side.Swimming isn’t crowded around here,” and he pointedto the seething ocean to windward. They went aloft.
The entire trip up through the islands was like that.Father was captain, mate and part of the crew and I waschief helmsman. The crew were unwilling prisoners, andthey made life aboard a lively hell for us all.
As a result of poor seamanship and adverse winds, ittook us ninety-three days to reach Papua. The ship was amass of wreckage on deck—broken pieces of booms andrigging cluttered the scuppers. There was never any timeduring that trip that we had an uneventful day. Southerlybusters, those vicious white squalls of the SouthSeas, smacked our schooner and tossed us around like acockleshell on the water. Then we reached the doldrums,that great area of deadly calms. Even in the calms therewas no respite from the slapping and smashing of therigging which was useless for sailing purposes and its batteredcondition. Ground swells from some distant stormsshook the Minnie A. Caine until she wallowed like adrunken sailor.
Most people think the real dangers of the sea arestorms, but to the deep sea sailor there is a terror greaterthan wind or sea which stalks in the wake of sailing shipslong overdue—scurvy. Scurvy is caused by lack of freshfood, unhealthy water and heat on salt foods. The diseaseacts insidiously; the victim doesn’t know he has ituntil terrific pains in his stomach make it impossible forhim to eat anything. Then come headaches, blinding andmaddening. The body appears dry and withered like thehusk of a coconut. Fever and delirium follow, and in ashort time, if medical relief or fresh food is not obtained—death!
Contrary to popular ideas and the maritime law of allcountries, a ship’s medicine chest usually contains nothingbut Friar’s Balsam, which is a sea-going iodine, salts,and blue ointment for vermin; none of which is a curefor scurvy.
Under the hardships of our voyage it was no wonderthat we fell victim. For days at a time, while the deckswere awash with swirling seas, the cook could prepareno meals. Time and again vainly he attempted to build afire in the galley but no sooner would it begin to drawthan the ship would list heavily to port, submerging thegalley, cook and his pans in green seas. As a consequencewe lived on dried salt fish and lime juice. The shanghaiedmen couldn’t even stomach that, and they were thefirst to be stricken with scurvy. The coal passer had theworst dose of all. His teeth dropped out one by one. Hisbody withered. He seemed at the point of death. Thecattleman, who was a sailor by circumstance, lost hiseyesight. None of us could sleep.
We put up the distress signal at the masthead and tookturns standing on look-out aloft for signs of another shipor tramp steamer to bring us relief. That red flagbranded us as an outlaw, a crippled ship with a diseased,dying crew aboard. All around us lay the monotonouscircle of horizon without a sign of life, except for anoccasional whale or school of flying fish. And so we wallowedon, expecting—waiting for death.
I was the last to get the scurvy. I suppose that was becauseI was the youngest and healthiest on board. Whenit did hit me it was horrible. I felt I was dying from theoutside in. I would sit for hours and peel dead skin offmy body. When I look back on those days now I wonderhow we ever lived through it. Scurvy seems to makesavages of men at sea—they lose all sense of balance.There is nowhere to turn for help—nothing to do butsuffer and wait for it to finish you. Only my father ravedat the bad luck:
“It’s a goddamned shame. If I had anything but abunch of vomitin’ landlubbers for a crew we’d be inHonolulu now.” He paced up and down the poop deckfrom the rail to the binnacle and back. I crouched on thehawser bit astern, picking dead skin off my arm.
“Porpoise!!”
The cry brought us all to our feet. There, close to uson the windward side was a school of about twenty porpoisesdiving and snorting in the spray of the bowsprit.
“All hands on deck! Man the capstan! Stand bythe harpoon!”
Father rushed forward over the debris on deck. Inless than five minutes every living man aboard was onthe fo’c’s’le head standing by to help land a porpoise.
A porpoise is a mammal and its meat is very like thatof beef. If we could land one it would furnish fresh foodfor a week. Father stood down on the martingale underthe jibboom, harpoon in hand. We waited praying forthe porpoise to come near. The thin leader line from theharpoon was fastened to a three-quarter inch rope madefast to the capstan.
So eager was I to help land the porpoise that, not realizingwhat I was doing, I twisted the leader line of theharpoon around my hands. A big porpoise dived underthe bow. Father hurled the harpoon. It struck the porpoiseamidships and sunk in deep. The porpoise let outa squeal like a stuck pig and dived.
“Play out the leader line,” called Father.
He was going to let the porpoise have plenty of ropefor it couldn’t get away with a steel harpoon through it,and sooner or later that harpoon would take its life. Sixfathoms of line played out quickly, and then suddenly Iwas jerked with a terrific force to the edge of the fo’c’s’lehead. The porpoise, diving deep, had used up theslack, and I couldn’t let go of the rope twisted aroundmy hands. Slowly it slipped as the porpoise, with its twotons of weight, pulled, and the slipped rope burnedinches into my hands, cutting, burning the flesh off downto the bone. I was being dragged overboard with onlymy own strength against that of the maddened, dyingporpoise.
Two sailors grabbed me, trying to hold me back. Theynearly pulled my arms from their sockets, but the porpoisetook us all closer and closer to the edge of the lowrail. Father looked up from the martingale and saw whatwas happening. He reached out, grabbed the taut leaderline, and with a jerk using all his strength, managed toslack it for a moment. The porpoise, under the water,changed its course, turning back underneath the keel.That saved my life. The leader line caught in the hawsehole and held until one of the men cut the line free. Theporpoise was gone, taking that harpoon with it.
The line was twisted and cut into my hands so deeplythat Father had to pull it out. He looked at the raw fleshhanging on the bone, and without wasting words, dashedfor the galley. In a minute he was back with a handfulof wet salt.
“Hold out your hands.”
I held them out and he spread that wet salt on thedeep burns. The pain was so great I thought I couldn’tstand it. I suppose now if that happened to me I wouldcry or moan or faint, but then I took it like a sailor. Icursed until the air was blue, and cursing that way heldback the tears, for I would rather have been drawn andquartered than have let a sailor see me bawl—eventhough those sailors were seasick, shanghaied landlubbers.
The men set about to harpoon another porpoise andgot one on deck within an hour. As they hoisted it aboardit opened its long snout and squealed and hollered.Father shot it several times, then chopped its head offwith an ax.
The men were like vultures, hovering around for thefirst taste of its blood to relieve their fevered throats.The Jap cook snatched the ax from Father’s hand andlicked the raw blood off it. Then Father hacked off apiece of blubber and meat for each sailor. He gave me apiece of its bloody liver and the tragedy then was not myburned hands, but that I couldn’t hold anything in themto eat. I lay down on the fo’c’s’le head and lapped up theblood, chewing at the liver like a dog.
That fresh blood saved our lives. Five days later wedropped anchor in Papua, a “plague ship” manned bysemi-delirious men.
It is such things as this that make me wonder why landfolks think being the daughter of a sea captain is so romantic.
At Papua we all put in to the marine hospital for treatment.One of the most dangerous things to do after starvationand scurvy is to eat, but it is almost impossible tokeep from gorging oneself on food at the first opportunity.I traded a plug of tobacco with a native for a dozenbananas and I ate ten of them. The result was that mystomach swelled and I took on the proportions of a fatturtle in pain.
We were in port for a month, while the ship was beingrepaired and the sailors were recovering. If Father couldhave found any sailors at Papua he would have shippedthem in a minute, but they are scarce in that part ofthe world, and beachcombers or halfbreed natives werethe only crew he could assemble as he struck out oncemore from Papua to the Union Group of Islands, whichare situated about twenty-eight degrees south of theEquator and one hundred sixty-seven longitude west.
All of the hardship of the trip thus far was paid foras far as I was concerned when we made Atafu. This isthe largest island of the Union Group, and at that it isonly three miles long by half a mile wide. It is atollshaped, around a blue lagoon of clear water. Atafu iswhat is known as one of the coral islands, for its base ispale pink coral. The island rises about three feet abovesea level, and is covered with thick tropical foliage. Thepalms are thirty to forty feet high, and the underbrush isa tangled jungle of tropic vines.
Breadfruit trees, coconuts, yarrow root, banana andplantain palms, blossoming hibiscus flowers, poisonouswild peas, giant morning-glory vines and little nativeberry plants grow there in such profusion that as youapproach the southeast side of the island it looks like asolidly woven mat of green and white. The beauty ofAtafu is distinct from other South Sea islands. The sandon its horse-shoe beach is an orange gold, the coral juttingout under the white spray of the surf a delicate pinkagainst the transparent green sea. Then within almost astone’s throw from the beach inland lies the opalescent,bottomless lagoon. The natives say that at the bottom ofthe lagoon, which is so deep it has never been fathomed,in the “Sunset Land”: their heaven. They will tell youin all earnestness that that lagoon reaches to the other sideof the earth where the sunsets are painted, and as nativesworship beauty that far away the place at the pitof the lagoon is to them the “hereafter.”
The village which nestles on the edge of the jungleis composed of queer little three-cornered houses ofcoconut fibre matting. These houses are movable, and ifthe wind veers around or rain comes, the native husbandturns his hut around to keep out the storm. The huts areonly about four by six feet, and can be lifted by one man—itis no uncommon sight to sail up to Atafu and findthe whole village gone. Not a sign of a hut or a livingthing anywhere. That happens in the hurricane months,which are June and July in the tropics. The island is solow to sea level, that the giant breakers whipped up bya hurricane wash far upshore, even to the edge of thelagoon. The natives spend six months a year preparingfor their winter. On the lee of the island, they dig cavesand barricade them with twigs and woven palm leavesto shut out the wind. The women dry fruit and fish andbury it in the bottom of the cave for provision duringthe two months of hiding. One of the rarest delicaciesthey preserve is sun-dried plantains. These plantains area species of banana. They let the intense heat of the suncrystallize them to sugar, then wrap them in damp leavesof morning-glory plants. The plantain thus wrappedturns to a sugary wine. They are wrapped up in littlebundles that look like a Spanish tamale. I knew of sometravellers who were touring the South Seas and theircharts gave an accurate position of the native villageson each island in that group. When they returned to Australiathey reported that they had found no sign of life.That was because they arrived there during hurricanetime. I once asked a native Chief if his people didn’tgrow restless during the two months they were buriedalive on the island, and he said “No, they all get veryno-doing,” which means drunk. The native men takecoconuts and punch holes in the nut to let air get to themilk. Then they stop it up and let it ferment, thus brewinga liquor that is more deadly than any pre-Volstead drinkever conceived. I saw one of our sailors take a couple ofdrinks of coconut wine, and topple over me as if he hadbeen hit on the head with a belaying pin, so I neverpitied those natives who were forced by the elements tolie in a cave and suck wine while the sailors at sea hadto struggle to keep a ship afloat.
The trip to Atafu was uneventful, except for Father’svocabulary of profanity which he developed in findingexpletives to describe his landlubber crew’s seamanship.
About five o’clock of the night of October 19th, wehove to off Atafu. There is no anchorage there so wehad to drop extra sail and keep the ship up in the wind.The natives had evidently sighted us long before we sawAtafu, for the beach was a swarming mass of blackmen, wildly gesticulating to us.
Father called to me, “You get your trading stuff onthe poop deck, Joan, we want to get a chance to tradebefore you cheat them out of their breech clouts.” I havealways been able to get more from the natives by tradingthan any six sailors, and Father said I must be cheating!My particular store of goods to trade consisted ofpieces of tinfoil off chewing gum and tobacco which Ihad begged from the sailors, boxes of matches, ivory soap,and red calico. The natives were crazy to get the tinfoil.They rolled it into little knobs and put it on their bushyhair like jewels. The matches were my next best bet fora good trade. I would give them two matches for a Panamahat or a handful of bird of paradise feathers. Ivorysoap was especially valuable in trading. The old nativeswould give me a rare mat, or a box of sandalwood inlaidwith raw pearl for a cake of it. No, they didn’t want thesoap to wash in; they ate it for dessert! The red calicowas for the women. From them I would coax a ring oftortoise-shell inlaid with blue mother-of-pearl, or fanspainted on palm leaves with berry juices.
“Drop over a Jacob’s ladder,” called Father as fourheavily laden outrigger canoes shot out toward us. Theseoutriggers are so built that they will not capsize in asurf, and they were overflowing with bunches of bananas,breadfruit, dried fish, and wild chickens, about thesize of pigeons. Years before some whaling captain musthave given them some chickens and they interbred themso much that they degenerated until their offspring becameas small as pigeons. They live wild in the trees andthe natives sneak up on them at night and catch them.
“Ora-ai,” shouted a large native in the bow of thefirst canoe. That meant “Friendly we come as friends.”The large man was none other than Rara-mongai, thenative Chief of Atafu. Rara-mongai was the largest manon the island and by virtue of his stature he was king.When he died the next biggest man would succeed him.Rara-mongai was all dressed up for the gala occasion ofthe “white man’s ship with wings” arrival. The nativessee about two ships a year and it is a big event when onewill stop and trade with them. As that native Chiefclimbed up the Jacob’s ladder loaded down with stringsof rare shells, he was the queerest looking live thing Ihad ever seen. His fuzzy hair was turning grey, whichseemed to accentuate his black skin. He wore an old full-dresscoat, a woman’s muslin petticoat, (it looked likethe cast-off of some sea captain’s wife) which endedabove his knees, and a string of jewelry around his waist.His jewelry was rusty hardware that had washed ashorefrom some passing ships. A tomato can jangled amidships,ring bolts of iron came next to that, and an oldcolander and a can opener. The chief wore them as ornaments,for to him they were strange, weird, unheard-ofthings, those bits of sea-washed, rusty hardware.
Rara-mongai stepped forward and placed a string ofshells around my neck, and then one around Father’s.That was a sign of friendly welcome, too. Father madethe sign of friendship back to him and we waved to theblacks in the canoes to come aboard. They scrambled upthe side of the ship like screaming monkeys. Their bronzebodies were naked except for a protecting breech clout.In a flash they had unloaded their canoes and were chatteringwildly for bargains. In the last canoe, unnoticedapparently, were two women. They were so fat theyweighed the canoe down astern. The youngest of themwas the Chief’s daughter, “Good,” and the other womanwas her nurse.
“Come on aboard,” I called to them, in English, forgettingin my excitement to speak their dialect. Theyjust held on to the edge of the canoe and grinned. Mypantomime convinced them I wanted them, so theyclimbed aboard, but with great difficulty. Father and thesailors were engaged on deck trading, so I sneaked thewomen down to the cabin of the ship. I asked them ifthey wanted something to eat; they said they did, so Icalled the cabin-boy and told him I would eat my supperthen. Those two native women never in their lives hadbeen inside a room without fresh air, and that, combinedwith the rolling of the ship, made them seasick.They were game, though, to see it through. I was watchingthem to see what they would do just as they werecuriously watching me. They sat at the table when thefood was served. First came soup. I watched them to seeif they knew what to do with it. They didn’t, but theywatched me, then followed my every movement and atethe soup. They had never tasted any food in their livesexcept native fruits and fish, so the expression on theirfaces at onion soup was one of wonderment. All duringthe meal they laughed and gurgled, and stared at me.Suddenly Good and her nurse heard a commotion up ondeck and I told them to wait a minute and I would beback. The noise I found there was the natives shovingoff for the island. The Chief said to Father:
“You come, Chief of white-ship-with-wings and Imake fun for you.” Father wasn’t very anxious to goashore to have natives “make fun,” or dance for him.
“Can I go?” I asked, fearing he would forbid me tobe out of his sight for an hour.
“All right, you can go ashore and help those twoblankety-blank landlubbers fill the kegs with freshwater.”
I turned and disappeared down the companionway beforehe could take back his promise. There I found Goodand her nurse just finishing the contents of the swill barrel.While I was gone they had prowled into the pantry,thought the garbage was part of the strange new foodand ate every mouthful of it. I had to get three nativesand Father to carry them up to the deck and fresh air.
Some of the natives at the signal from the Chief toreturn to the island, jumped overboard, their breechclouts bulging with their trades, the others pulled backin the outriggers. I started to get in the outrigger withGood but Father caught me by the seat of my pants, justas I was going over the side.
“Hey you, you go ashore in the dinghy with the crew.Bring back two barrels of fresh drinking water, andwhen you get them filled come smack back here to theship.”
“Yes sir,” I answered, only too eager to obey. Bulgarand the Swede, the waiter and the truck driver and myselfput off with the two barrels. It is one thing to landan outrigger canoe through a surf, and quite another toget a clumsy ship’s boat with two water kegs and fourpeople in it ashore. Swede sculled, and I stood in thebow directing him through the channel, for I could seeover the reef. A long sinuous green comber sneaked upon us and lifted us high in the air, then let us down witha smack in the surf. We got by that, but another camebefore we got righted out of the swell, and it took boat,landlubbers, sailors, water kegs and me, and sent us flyingtoward the beach smothered in foam. I dodged awater barrel and landed without a scratch on the beach,but the boat was lost. It broke up into splinters. Thewater barrels washed ashore. I don’t think I was as sorryas I should have been about losing the boat, for withoutit Father couldn’t get ashore, and we couldn’t get backto the ship. I didn’t care particularly, because I wantedto explore the island. Before I had shaken the water offmyself I was surrounded by a dozen or more boys, abouttwenty years old. They formed a circle around me, andwere laughing. Finally, with a great show of bravado,one of them dashed up to me and touched the white skinon my legs, whereupon all the others shouted andcheered. I was the first white girl they had ever seen andthey wanted to know how white skin felt under theirdusky fingers.
With a guard of them we were taken to the center ofthe village to the Chief. That kindly old man was verymuch concerned over our accident. However, Good wasnot concerned, sulked on the floor of the hut, and wouldhave nothing to do with me. I think she credited mewith being responsible for the pains in her stomach fromher meal of garbage. However, I was undaunted—I wasashore once more. I had my bare feet on real land againso didn’t care about anything else.
“Chief, where is the water for our barrels?” I asked.Instead of summoning a servant to take me to the nativereservoir, he himself took me by the hand and led medown a path through the jungle. Hand in hand wewalked, and the sailors followed behind carrying thetwo barrels and cursing at the stickers in the jungle thatwere cutting their bare feet.
In native dialect Rara-mongai said to me:
“Over there, in the hollowed-out heart of the palmtrees we save water. When it rains, water goes inside thepalm trunk. Save it for dry months.”
He pulled some green leaves away from a row ofchopped off banana palm trunks, and there, inside ofeach, were trunkfuls of cool fresh water. I tasted it, andit had the tang of palm pitch in it, which made it themore refreshing. Carefully, using coconuts and tortoise-shellsfor dippers, he helped us fill the two barrels.
“Tonight when moon comes up full, dance of Virginsin the village. You stay and see all by my side. Yourfriends (meaning the sailors) they stay too and see Virgindance.”
“Virgins? Sure I’ll stay,” piped up Bulgar.
“What is the Dance of the Virgins?” I asked.
“Every year young girl ready to marry. Must choosemate at Virgin Dance. Then become good wife becauseshe pick husband alone.”
I was so anxious to stay and see the dance that I forgotall about returning to the ship. I asked Swede, as he wasthe oldest sailor and therefore had the most authorityover the others, if he wanted to stay.
“Hell yes, Skipper, any time any virgins dance that’swhere you’ll find me.” As long as he had expressed awillingness to stay also I saw no occasion to hurry backaboard ship, so we followed the Chief to the village. Thesun had set, and the moon was just beginning to dip outof the horizon. I sat at the Chief’s feet, and the men stoodbehind him and watched the festival begin.
Once a year it is the custom in Atafu to have a marryingfestival, which is celebrated by the Dance of the Virgins.An Atafu girl is ready to marry when she is ten oreleven years old, and she alone has the choice of herhusband. No man can woo her until she has given himthe sign that she has chosen him. The marriage festivalis the biggest event of the year. The little girls shine theirgold brown bodies with coconut oils. Instead of preparinglavish wardrobes they make their skins shine likeburnished gold. Over their left ear, snugly tucked in theirthick hair to assure its not falling out during the dance,is a white lotus or hibiscus flower. The white hibiscus isa flower sacred to virgins, and when they place one on theleft ear it is the sign that they are ready to take a mate.
The moon rising on the set day of the festival is the signalfor the dance to begin. All the young men who aregoing to take a wife, or rather who desire a wife, line upon the left side of the Chief, and stand with folded armsand watch the dance. The folded arms are a sign of “mustnot touch, but only look” until the dance is over. Slowlyand almost inaudibly at first, then gradually becominglouder and more wild and barbaric, it burst into a thrillingsavage rhythm. The tom-tom is the tribe’s only musicalinstrument. They have never heard of the ukulele orguitar. I have found out since that the ukulele was introducedinto the Hawaiian Islands by a boy from Harvard!
As the beating of the tom-toms swelled, the virgins,nine in all, started their dance—there in our presencethey unfolded the sacred rite of virginity crying for amate. Every movement of their muscles has a meaning,and it is foreign to the meaning that the civilized worldhas put upon it. The Chief, on seeing the sailors’ spellboundgaze, said:
“On your far-away island United States men paywomen many gifts to make bad our dance.” I hotly deniedthat accusation. The hula-hula, which is always associatedwith the South Seas, is a cheap imitation of thereal thing, but at that time I had never heard of it.
The writhing of their abdomens was symbolic of callingupon the fires of the earth to burn their wombs cleanfor the coming of a manchild to make their tribe strong.Their waving arms called on the sea to bring them shipsloaded with treasure, and on the winds to bring long lifeto their body, so that their loved one would enjoy themlong. As the music swelled their dance became more uncontrolled;they seemed to be spirits inside of nativebodies trying to express a hunger for mating.
Suddenly the music stopped, the girls threw themselveson the ground singing a triumphant song, but the lefthand of each was cupped over the lotus flower to keepit from the ground.
Rara-mongai rose from his throne and walked to themiddle of the clearing where the girls lay. A hush fell,as he solemnly spoke:
“To you who are looking for a wife, I speak. Thestrongest men alone can have maidens. Here in moonlighton festival night, each man step forward and showwhat strength of body he has that the maidens may choosethe greatest of you.”
A native man’s way of wooing is to show off in frontof his bride to be, physically. He tries to outdo his rivalsby excelling in physical strength, such as husking a coconutwith his teeth, stabbing a wild boar, diving and killinga shark single-handed. Instead of protesting theirlove in so many words they believe in action, and bydisplaying physical supremacy, they think to impress thewomen that they are the masters. At the Chief’s wordsabout twenty young natives stepped forward eagerly.The truck driver and Swede made a dive for the centerof the clearing too.
“Say, Chief,” spoke up Swede, “I’m stronger than anyof these young pups, and I’ll take that little girl with thenice fat figger.” Swede was so pleased with himself thathe didn’t notice the anger in Rara-mongai’s face. Hespoke harshly in his dialect:
“Maidens choose husband. No white man touch mypeople.”
To Swede, the dance had just been a good show, andsailor-fashion he was entering into the spirit of it, notrealizing he was violating the most sacred rite of Atafu.
By intervening I gained the favor of the Chief oncemore. The girl that Swede had pointed out never tookher eyes off him during the rest of the ceremony. A whiteman wanted her, and she wouldn’t make any effort toattract her own native kind. Any white man in the SouthSeas who is healthy looking and strong, can win a nativewoman away from any native or chief.
For two hours while the rest of the villagers feasted,the native men wooed the virgins by showing off athletically.Not one word is spoken, the whole story of theirdesire is in pantomime. When the moon reached the centerof the sky, the Chief called for silence. According tothe custom of the tribe he told the girls that now theymust choose a man, by taking the lotus from their leftear and placing it on the right ear of the chosen one. Ilooked at the faces of the twenty young men who stoodin a row hoping to be selected. As the girls walked upslowly with the lotus blossoms in their outstretched handstoward them, fear and triumph flashed down the line.Three girls went to one young buck and gave him theirlotus, another man received two flowers, and the othersone. Those that were passed up by the girls once morefolded their arms in to their bodies.
“Huh,” grunted Swede contemptuously, in my ear, “ifthose birds just fold their arms and lay down on the jobno wonder the janes didn’t pick ’em.”
The Chief walked to the three girls who had pickedone man, and did a Solomon. He handed the man to thegirl who had reached him first. Primitive law, administeredswiftly and without question. A couple stood beforethe Chief. With his tortoise-shell emblem of state hetouched the girl and the man on the head, the native signof wedlock. To the woman he said:
“By choosing this man you now become nothing. Heis the stronger. If any man touch you after this wedlockthe man shall be punished, for you have no right or privilegeto say what shall be done with your body. If yourhusband gives privilege of your body to man he must bepaid for it. If man take you without your husband’s willingness,that man shall be sent to the coral reef to scrapethe salt that dries there from the surf. There he shallstay until he is again like a child (until madness seizeshim) and then he shall fall in the sea.”
The native man turned to the girl, she lifted her bareshoulder to his lips, and he bit her until her blood came.The Chief went on:
“Woman’s blood in husband’s body make you one always.”
Then to the man, the Chief admonished: “Every girlcome now and touch her body to your body. If you donot desire them when they touch you, your choice of wifeis good. You have woman good for you.”
He beckoned to a group of the youngest and prettiestgirls in the village. One by one they sidled up to thegroom and in the most alluring and sensuous manner,they let their bodies caress his. The groom stood with hiseyes averted, unmoved. It was a triumph over temptation,and that was the signal for the tom-toms to burstinto an exotic rhythm, as the married pair walked handin hand down to the lagoon. There is a tribal custom onAtafu that every newly married couple walk hand inhand up to their necks in the waters of the lagoon, theycleanse themselves together, and when they have donethat, their marriage is consummated before the eyes of all.
When the last couple was married, the festival wasover, and dancing, singing and feasting lasted long intothe night. I had forgotten all about time, the water barrelsand Father’s order to come right back to the ship.By the position of the moon I guessed it was about foura.m. A frightened cry from a native running up from thebeach broke in on the revelry. Wildly he pointed to theship off shore. The truck driver who never had much tosay at any time laconically observed:
“The Old Man’s sending up flares from the vessel.Guess he thinks a cannibal swallowed you whole.”
I was in for it and I knew it. I could feel my hind parttingling in anticipation of what was going to happenwhen Father got his hands on me.
“Let’s beat it back to the ship, Swede. There won’t bea barnacle left on my bottom when Father catches me.”
“Yeh? Well, what’s your hurry, how you going to getthe water barrels back?”
I knew I’d catch hell for staying ashore, but to comeback minus a life boat and no fresh water was suicide.
“Say, Chief, will you lend me an outrigger and acouple of men to bring it back, so I can get back to theship?”
The Chief smiled, and said:
“White girl always ora-aii on Atafu. I help you go,but sorry. Some day come back again?”
I would have promised that Chief anything just to getoff the island. He gave us an outrigger and we shovedout for the schooner. I saw the red distress flares from theship light up the sky—Father was in earnest, and themoon was so bright I could plainly see the hull of theship from the beach. Without much difficulty we gotbeyond the surf and were soon alongside. I let the sailorsgo aboard first. They threw over a bowline and hauledthe water kegs on deck. Father was at the Jacob’s ladderleaning over the side, smoking his pipe. The smoke wascoming out of it in fast jerks, and I needed no barometerto tell me a storm was coming.
Leisurely I climbed the rope ladder, for I was in nohurry to get aboard. Halfway up Father called:
“Where in hell is the dinghy?”
“I was going to explain to you about that, Father. Wewere trying to ride the surf and we capsized and....”
I got no further. Father had me by the neck and seatof the pants, hurrying me up to the poop.
“I can understand these so and so landlubbers upsettin’a boat, but you’re my daughter and I won’t believeany yarn like you losin’ control of a dinghy.”
Along about dawn I was comfortable enough to sitdown without too great pain! We were sailing along underfull canvas, and Father, evidently content that Icould get into no further deviltry, had turned in for anap.
Swede and the sailors were sitting on the hatch nearthe mizzen mast. From my place at the wheel I heardSwede saying:
“Yeh, I coulda had any one of those dames, they wascrazy about me; that fat little nigger wench is justbusted-hearted to see me leave.”
And it was me that got a licking!
I was never to forget that experience on Atafu. Ithought that everybody in the world was married accordingto native custom. I thought that some day I, too,would be taken to a dance where I could pick out mymate.
The days that followed our departure from Atafubecame dull and monotonous. The sound of the tom-tomsand the vision of the native girls abandoning themselvesin a dance, was constantly before me. I hadn’t even had alicking for almost a week and the calm atmosphere wastoo much for me. I would have to start something ifnothing was going to happen of its own accord. I starteda cockroach war. I caught two big cockroaches and tiedtheir bodies together with pieces of thread. Then I wentaround to the sailors and took bets on them. I drew a lineon the deck and put a roach on either side of it. The onethat pulled the other over the line won. I bet two plugsof tobacco and one of Father’s undershirts on the fattestcockroach, but the ship took a list to leeward just as hestarted to pull hard, and the other cockroach won and Ilost. In novels of the sea the Captain’s daughter is frequentlypictured as occupying herself with lovely femininepastimes, but cockroaches, rats, or bedbug huntswere more fascinating to me. But even in the trade windsthose games tired me. I wanted action.
One afternoon, finding nothing more exciting to do,and when I was sure Father was asleep, I started on myown Dance of the Virgins. I didn’t have anything I coulduse for a lotus flower except a pair of dried flying fishwings. I put them behind my left ear as I had seen thenative girls do. I wasn’t sure just which one of the sailorson watch I would give that flower to, but that was tocome later anyway.
Swede was at the wheel. I whispered to him:
“Will you go forward and get me a can full of greasefrom the cook? I’ll take the wheel for you.” He was gladof any excuse to get away, so he consented. He broughtback a can of salt pork dripping from the galley.
“What are you goin’ to do with that stuff?” he asked.
“Don’t talk so loud, Swede. I’m goin’ to do that VirginDance the way we saw them do it on Atafu.”
“Jeeze,” he said.
I went down on the main deck near the mizzenmastand began greasing my body. I took off my overalls, andgave my body a glorious shine that would rival any I sawon the island, and started the dance. I pounded on a rainbarrel for a tom-tom. Every sailor on deck beat it justas I got going. They had seen Father’s head appearingout of the companionway, but I hadn’t. The next thingI knew Father grabbed me but my body was so slipperyhe couldn’t keep a hold on me.
“What the hell are you doing?” he yelled.
“Just dancing the way the girls danced for us onAtafu,” I answered, and I ran aft and locked myself inthe flag locker.
Father followed me, but couldn’t unlock the door.“I’ll knock hell out of you when I lay hands on you,” hepromised. I had no intention of ever coming out of thatflag locker. Hours later I heard the dinner-bell ring. Iwas greasy and hot and hungry, but I thought better thanto venture out. At dusk I heard a low whistle outsidethe porthole. I looked out and saw a piece of breaddangling there on a piece of string. The Jap cook hadtaken my side, and smuggled me some supper. The nextmorning I unlocked the door and looked around forFather. He was busy on his chart. I stood by himwrapped up in a flag. I thought I might as well get thelicking over with so he could go on with his work. However,he didn’t even speak. He reached up to his bookshelf and took down an illustrated copy of Dante’s Inferno,and opened it to the illustrations of women burningin fire in hell. I was cured. I would never be a dancer!
“Them’s Portuguese Men-o-war, Skipper,” explainedStitches when I asked him what the floating, transparentlittle blue things were that I saw glistening in the sunlighton the surface of the sea.
“Yep, them little tri-cornered sails on them looks likeold Portuguese ships of war, that’s where they gets theirname.”
“Are they fish?” I asked.
“Kind of. They is barnacles in the making. When theycatch fast to the bottom of a ship with their little bluethreads of trailing anchor lines they petrify into shelland that is how barnacles grow.”
I marveled that the little inch high jelly ships couldever turn into the curse of seamen—barnacles! There wasa fleet of thousands of them before my eyes.
“As long as they keep moving they is all right, butthey are like some cussed folks ashore who, when theystick on to someone else, turn into a damned nuisance,”Stitches concluded. It was another lesson I learned fromthe sea. Only a few days before we had passed througha floating mass of porous-looking petrified lava—thespewed up evidence of an undersea volcano in eruption.There was so much of it that it gave the appearanceof floating land.
“Shore folks call that pumice stone and they grind itup to make tooth paste,” Stitches had said. Why did shorepeople make everything so difficult for themselves? Iused salt to brush my teeth with, not lava from deep seavolcanoes.
“It appears like you was usin’ up a lot of wind askin’questions with your mouth—and your mind isa-headin’ off to leeward on another tack. Ever sinceyou seen that love dance on Atafu you been moonin’around.”
Stitches’ words struck home. The beauty of the dance,the thrill of seeing the native girls choose their mates,and the expression of longing on the native men’s facesto possess the girls haunted me. No matter how I tried Icouldn’t drive the memory from my mind. I pretendedto be interested in ship work, but really just one problemabsorbed my mind. I wanted to mean everything to someone person—I wanted to be wanted. My loneliness onshipboard was accentuated after I saw the marriagedance on Atafu. Where would I find a mate? I didn’thave any lotus to wear to make any man choose me. Infact none of the men on board seemed to have the slightestidea of the thoughts constantly in my mind—I wasjust a nuisance, and no one of them ever showed an inclinationto offer himself. I probably never would betaken to a dance where I could pick out my man. Thenthe thought came: the girls on the island could chooseonly from the men they knew and the dance was merelya method of selection. After all, getting the man wasthe important thing and if the native girls had an islandfull of men to pick from—I had a shipload, so I becameencouraged.
I would find my man on board the ship and so I beganto look over the crew. First, of course, there wasStitches. I loved him but not as a prospective mate. Helooked so much like a wise old turtle, and if I spoke toStitches about my plan he’d go to Father and I’d get amug full of salts or a rope’s end on the back of my lapto clear away “crazy fancies.” The rope’s end neverreally hurt—my body was too tough. But of late my ideaswith regard to lickings had changed. They made me furious.I was getting too old to be treated as a child. That’swhat I thought. But what I thought made no differenceto Father. It was the rope’s end or the salts, clear to thelast day we were on the ship.
So it was plain Stitches would not do.
There were the two mates. Strange, but all the time Iwas on the ship we never had a mate I really liked. Ipassed them over. There were just four of our old menon board now, Stitches, Swede, Bulgar and Nelson; therest of the crew to me were just sailors, new men whomeant nothing.
I considered Swede again. He was big and strong buthe could never stand the test of beautiful girls caressinghim without being tempted. Bulgar, well, he was toomuch of a bully.
I was sitting on the main hatch helping the watchsplice ropes into a bumper when the first really concreteidea came to startle me. Nelson was splicing a rope oppositeme. Why hadn’t I thought about him? Somehowhe was the last one I ever wanted to think about, yet hemeasured up finer than any of the crew. He could spita curve, he had hair on his chest. Just looking at him atthat moment made me feel funny. I got hot and cold allat once, and my fingers tangled the rope splice.
“Aw, he ain’t the one,” I declared to myself, and Igot up and left the hatch. I climbed up to the crosstrees.The more I thought up there at the masthead the moretangled my mind came. Nelson kept coming in mythoughts, but I’d shove him out. That night I stayedon deck very late. The moon was out, and the soft airfrom the trade winds barely kept the sails full. At fourbells, Nelson came to take his trick at the wheel. Hedidn’t seem to notice me lying in the belly of the spankersail. He just kept his eyes on the topsails and on the compass.I didn’t dare speak to him as long as Father stayedon deck, but about eleven o’clock Father went below toturn in. The mate was pacing his beat down on the maindeck so my way was clear. There is a maritime law thatprohibits anyone talking with the man at the helm so Ihad to do it very quietly.
“Nelson!” I whispered. He looked up to where I waslying.
“Huh?”
“Are you like all sailors? Are you in love with thecurves of the sails too?” He was startled by my suddenquestion, but after a moment he said:
“Hell no! I ain’t in love with no skirt, imaginary orreal.”
I couldn’t think of any answer to that so I kept quiet.He looked at me so steadily I thought he’d let the shipget off her course. After several minutes of silence hesaid in a voice that sounded as if he was talking about acargo of copra:
“Skipper, you know you’re a pretty kid.”
I thought he was being sarcastic. I jumped off the sailand ran below where I threw myself on my bunk andcried. I hated him for making fun of me. Hadn’t myfather told me I was ugly? Why was Nelson just rubbingit in? I hated him, and for hours I lay awake wishingthe ship would sink and he would be the first one todrown. But in spite of everything, the next day I foundmyself forgiving him. It was Sunday and we had theinevitable duff cake for dessert. Instead of eating mypiece I stowed it away in my overall’s pocket to give tohim, for the fo’c’s’le didn’t rate desserts. He stood histrick at the wheel that afternoon from two to four. Hedidn’t even look at me when I came on deck, but Iwalked past the wheel and stuffed my hunk of preciouscake in his hand. He took it and began to eat it. I sat onthe skylight and watched each swallow go down whilemy mouth watered for just a taste of the dessert I tookjoy in sacrificing for him.
“This is good grub,” he said between mouthfuls. Thelast bite went into his mouth but a corner of it fell to thedeck. Oh, if he wouldn’t see it I’d wait until he left thewheel and pick it up and eat it myself! I stood guardfrom my perch on the skylight over that piece on thedeck. When Oleson came to relieve him, Nelson’s bigbare foot stepped on the piece of cake by accident andground it into some tobacco juice on the deck!
Fred Nelson was a Dane. He had yellow hair andlight blue eyes. He was about thirty years old, and asstrong as three average men. He was the only man I hadever seen that had gold hairs on his chest—and thosecurly ones. He was different from the rest of the crew.He wouldn’t let me play strip poker. When he lookedat me he made me wish I didn’t wear overalls. I imaginedthere was an expression in his eyes of hunger when helooked at me, yet he avoided speaking to me wheneverhe could. He had been on the ship for six years and neverin all that time did he show fear in a storm or shirk thehardest job.
I did everything that I could to worship at his feet,without letting him know of it. One hot night, about aweek after the duff cake disappointment, I was sleepingin the lifeboat which was hung over the stern. I awokeand through half-closed eyes I saw Nelson hacking a curlof hair off my head with his pocket knife. He was breathingfast as if he had been running hard. I began to tremblefrom head to foot and a pounding in my head andthrobbing in my chest nearly made me burst, but somethinginside told me to pretend I was still asleep. Afterhe took my curl he walked softly away and disappearedforward. I never let Nelson learn that I knew what hehad done. Somehow I felt it was a secret he wanted tokeep. I began to keep away from Stitches and Father.I just wanted to hide where no one could see how I felt.
Nelson never acted as though he had cut off my hairthat quiet night. A few days later I heard him tellingSwede and Bulgar his ambition as the three of them satwhittling sticks in the scupper near the mizzen mast.
“I stuck by this barge ’cause I’m workin’ for a jobof second mate. Ever since I left the old country I beenplannin’ to get officer’s papers,” he said.
“There ain’t nothin’ in being a second mate. Responsibilityat sea and standin’ watch in port. Not for me!”volunteered Swede with all the contempt in his voice hecould master.
“Some day I’ll have a ship of my own,” went on Nelson,“and she’ll be the fastest full-rigger afloat.”
“You mean you’re going to be a Captain Nelson?” Iasked. He looked straight at me. Again I felt my faceflush hotly. “Yes, and there ain’t going to be no women-kindon my ship when I’m Skipper. Women belongs onland,” he answered.
I couldn’t stand it, I fled aft and hid again—away frommyself.
“What are you moping around about, Joan?” Fatherasked me that night. “Lately you been pale as a whitesquall, and so quiet you must be sick. What’s the matterwith you?”
“Nothing—except that I wish I was a million milesaway from here. I wish I was never on a ship. I wish Iwas on land!” I cried at him.
“I set you ashore once and you ran away, so now Iain’t going to let you go navigatin’ on the land untilyou can steer a clear course. I seen too much of what livin’ashore does to women,—it fills their heads so full ofballast that real cargoes such as common sense haven’tgot any place. I’ll not cast off your hawsers from theship until you can sail in fair or foul weather by yourselfwithout runnin’ aground.” Those were the onlywords of warning my father gave me, and I don’t know tothis day if he knew the turmoil I was in. If he suspectedI was in love he didn’t let me know it! We arrived inNewcastle, Australia, a few weeks later. As usual, thecrew went ashore after the long sea trip, to frequent thepubs along the waterfront. The second mate got in adrunken brawl and was put in jail. Swede, Bulgar andOleson just kept away without reporting for duty for aweek. One day Father left the ship early in the morningto attend to chartering a cargo of coal and left me onboard. We were anchored out in the channel. The onlyothers on the ship were the Jap cook, Stitches, and FredNelson.
“You’re the most sober man I got, Nelson,” Fathersaid. “You take the day shift of watchman while I’mashore.”
“Yes, sir,” came back Nelson, pleased that Father hadnoticed his sobriety. It would stand him in good steadwhen he came up for a second mate’s license.
Along about noon I got so lonesome for someone totalk to that I sought out Nelson. I found him down inthe hold of the ship coiling up ropes and otherwise cleaningthe hold ready for its next cargo. I slid down a ropeto the keel. Nelson didn’t even speak to me, so I asked:
“Can I watch you work, Nelson?”
“You’re the Skipper’s daughter, so I suppose you cando anything you damn please,” was his unpromising answer.
I sat down on a big coil of rope and let my feet hangover but they didn’t quite reach the floor of the hold.For perhaps half an hour I sat there. I was thinking.Nelson was working. Neither of us said a word. All of asudden Nelson turned quickly towards me and before Icould realize what was happening he grabbed me andkissed me! My head swam. I felt dizzy. I was thrilledand frightened. All in a confused instant the thought thatI was bad because I liked that kiss stabbed my consciousness.I wanted to run from the hold up to the sunlight,but I couldn’t move. My first grown-up kiss from a man!If only the bottom of the ship would open and swallowme.
From what seemed miles away I heard Nelson’s voicespeaking to me. He had walked back to his chore ofcleaning and from there he said:
“How did you like that one, huh? That was just whatyou was aching for, wasn’t it?”
So he blasted my illusion. For that kiss was just whatI had been aching for but I could have killed him forputting my thought into words.
Through a daze I heard him continue:
“You better not tell the Old Man I kissed you. He’draise hell with me.”
I had no intention of telling Father about that kiss. Iclimbed out of the hold to the deck. I felt that every onewould see when they looked at me that I had been kissedfor I thought that kiss stuck out like a flaming mushroomon my face.
When Father returned to the ship that night he lookedat me and didn’t see anything wrong.
Long days of loading on coal passed, but I avoided goingon deck when I knew Nelson would be on duty. HowI treasured that kiss! Each morning when I washed myface I was careful to leave untouched the portion thekiss was on, with the result that my countenance gave theeffect of a clean swept beach with a dark circle left by areceding tide in the region of my mouth. I was preservingas precious that kissed spot because how did I knowI would ever get another one.
My happiness was complete until my father got a goodlook at my face while we sat at the dining table. The reflectedlight from the skylight overhead betrayed me.Father saw my dirty face.
“What do you mean by coming to the table withoutwashing your face?” he demanded. I never thought sofast for an excuse in my life.
“I can’t wash around my mouth, Father, because it’sall chapped and it’s too sore.”
Father rose from the table, clutched me by the suspendersof my overalls and propelled me to the sink inthe pantry. “Too sore to wash, huh?” he said and he tooksome sandsoap (the kind used to scrub down the decks)and a rag. With them he wiped the kiss, or what was leftof it, from my face forever. I think in that moment I feltI suffered my greatest tragedy. I didn’t want to see Nelsonagain for fear he would think I wanted him to kissme again. I did want him to, that’s why I avoided him.
When the cargo was loaded Father went ashore to bailhis crew out of jail. He found all of them except the secondmate willing to come back and ship out. The secondmate refused to be bailed, and it put Father in a holebecause officers for American ships are difficult to getin a foreign port.
“Why don’t you make Nelson second mate?” I venturedto Father when I heard him grumbling about hisbad luck with crews. The idea appealed to him, for hesaid to the first mate:
“Send Nelson aft to me, Mr. Owens.”
I was delighted. If Nelson was made an officer I wouldsee him every day at the table. We would eat together—oh,the thrill of that thought! To eat with him threetimes a day for a six months’ voyage! I could be friendswith a second mate, according to Father’s code of discipline,but not with a common sailor.
Nelson came into Father’s quarters very much ill atease.
“Yes sir, Captain. You sent for me, sir?”
“I’m going to ship you out as second mate. If youmake good from here to Adelaide, I’ll indorse your licensefor Officer’s papers. Get your sea bag aft, at once.Your duty begins now,” and Father turned to his billsof lading as the way of dismissing the conversation.
I stood near grinning, I was so happy. I saw Nelson’sface flush bright red. He looked at Father. Then helooked at me and back at Father again. The flush hadgone out of his face and his mouth made a straight line.
“I have to refuse, Captain. I don’t want to be a secondmate. I’d like my discharge, sir,” Nelson said, almostdefensively.
Father turned on him as if he hadn’t heard himrightly.
“Are you a damned fool or just plain crazy? What doyou mean, ‘don’t want to be a mate?’ ”
“That’s it, sir. I’d like to be discharged,” came backNelson. My heart sank. Why did he want to leave? Itwas the dream of his life to be an officer and he wasthrowing away his first chance.
“Then get the hell off this ship and not a damned centof pay will you get!” bellowed Father at him. Nelsonleft the cabin. I followed him, and ran after him. Icaught up to him and pulled his arm to hold him back.
“Why are you going to leave, Nelson?”
Nelson took me by the shoulders and shook me. I wascrying and I didn’t try to hide my tears. It was the firsttime any sailor had seen me bawl but I wasn’t ashamed.The awful fear—the ghastly loneliness of the prospectof losing Nelson—gripped me.
“Aw, what the hell, Skipper. If I stay on this ship assecond mate I’d be seeing you every day, three times aday, even at meal times.
“An’ if I was to be near to you like that every day I’dbe makin’ love to you, see?”
“But isn’t that what you would want?” I asked, for itcertainly was what I wanted—what I dreamed of.
“Sure, Skipper, but being so close like to you, thispacket wouldn’t be big enough for us both. You neverhad a chance—why, you ain’t growed up yet, and anyman’d be a dog to make love to a baby like you.”
With those words Nelson turned from me and walkedforward in great haste.
The next morning he went over the gangplank withhis sea bag without looking back even to wave good-byeto me as I stood in the rigging watching him go. That wasthe last time I ever set eyes on Nelson. I have learnedsince that he was killed in a race riot on the docks inGalveston.
Of course I know that land folks would think Nelsona fool—a dear, chivalrous fool. Maybe—but I’ll neverforget him.
“You pull for the shore, boys,
Praying to Heaven above,
But I’ll go down in the angry deep
With the ship I love.”
With the red of the ship’s waterline weighted deep inthe water we sailed from Newcastle with a cargo of coal.Father shipped a new man in place of Nelson, a JohnJohnson. Father could have shipped a thousand sailorsbut none of them would fill the place in my life that Nelsondid. John Johnson was a bully second mate and hehandled his watch with an iron hand, but when off dutyhe was as gentle as the down on an albatross’s wing. Johnsonhad great difficulty with his pronunciation of “J.”His Norwegian origin was very obvious.
“Are you a Dane?” I asked him the second day out. Ihoped he would say yes, because then he could in a wayremind me of Nelson.
“I bane no Dane. I am Norwegian,” he boasted. Hisaccent was so marked that the crew used to sing whenhe was out of their hearing:
“Yumping Yimminy!
Yacob yumped off the Yib Boom with his
monkey yacket on. Yeesus! What a Yump!”
We sailed for weeks and June found us in the tropics.June is the hurricane season in the South Seas when freakstorms, baffling winds and dangerous currents menaceseafarers.
Father was on watch almost constantly at night. Hewould make frequent trips to his cabin to watch the barometer,only to return to the deck and pace up and down.
“Are we going to nose into a blow?” I asked Father.
“There’s more than a blow going to strike us, Joan.I got a feeling in my marrow that we’re a-headin’ forour last anchorage,” he said. Father, like all men of thedeep sea, was superstitious, but, of course, when accusedhe denied it vigorously. The crew of a ship are guidedby the Captain. If the Captain grows restless and worriedthe men suspect that he has gotten wind of impendingdisaster. What it is about the sea that whispers warningsto those who battle it I don’t know, but that there is something,I am sure.
“There’s a Jonah on this vessel.” Father spit the wordsout to the mate on watch. The mate cast a suspiciousglance at Bulgar, who was at the helm.
“It ain’t him,” Father said with finality. Bulgar heardthe discussion but he appeared to be oblivious to it. Hejust went on chewing his wad of tobacco and spittingwith unerring accuracy into the codfish keg near thewheel. Occasionally he lifted his eyes from the compassto watch the full spread of wind-taut sail. The topsailswere set and pulling, and when the weather permits topsailsit is a sign of fair wind.
The mate had no patience with Father’s fears.
“There ain’t nothin’ to jaw about with this fair wind,Cap’n,” he argued. “We had a good trip so far. Onlyone man, that Swede, had to be put in irons for tryingto kill the cook.”
Swede had caught the cook in the act of putting a deadcat into the slumgullion, as ship stew is termed. Cookwas holding out the salt beef for himself and pawning offdead pussy. Taking fo’c’s’le justice in his own handsSwede caught Cook by the back of the neck and began toshake the liver out of him. The cook managed to get hismeat cleaver and attempted to assassinate Swede. Therewould have been a dual murder in the galley if Bulgarand Oleson hadn’t intervened in time. Father put Swedein irons for attempted murder, but we needed the cook,so all that happened to him for bad conduct was forfeitureof one month’s pay.
“Been nothin’ but trouble ever since we sailed fromNewcastle. Two men at the pumps night and day to keepdown the water leakin’ in the hold. Fights in the fo’c’s’le.Joan not eating, and I been dreamin’ about a brokenanchor.”
To make matters worse a large rat came up on deckone night shortly after that, looking for water. I tried tocatch it to play with. I chased it off the poop deck, downthe main deck and into the scupper. I had it corneredbehind a rain barrel and was just about to grab its tailwhen it darted back into the scupper. In its fright it ranout a hawse hole and fell into the sea.
“My old rat got away from me, Stitches,” I confided.Stitches was aghast with fear.
“Did a rat leave the ship?”
“No, I chased him overboard,” I answered.
“Don’t you tell your Old Man a rat left the ship. He’slike a seethin’ volcano now, ready to erupt ’cause he can’tlay his finger on trouble he smells in the wind,” Stitcheswarned me.
Despite Father’s fears we reached the island of Ruratu,discharged the coal there, picked up a load ofsandalwood and cat’s eyes for a deck load after we hadcollected nine hundred tons of copra and sailed for Adelaide,South Australia, our destination.
The mate, cocky about the ship-shape condition of thevessel under his supervision, reminded Father of hisgroundless fears on the out trip.
“But we ain’t in home port yet,” Father persisted.
So he kept up his vigil. After seventy-one days we weredue to sight land if Father’s navigation was correct. Sailorswere stationed at the masthead and on the bow aslookouts.
“Land off the starboard bow, ho!” wailed Swede fromhis post at the foremast crosstrees.
“Where away?” returned Father.
“Quarter point off the bow, sir!”
Sighting land after seventy-one weary days at sea wasa great relief to Father. He hurried below, after givinga direction to the man at the wheel, and brought up hisbinoculars. He gazed steadily through them as if hewere trying to bring the land closer through theglasses.
“That’s it! Take a look, Joan.”
Through the glasses I saw a little cone-shaped shadowon the horizon. Land!
“It’s the sou’east point of Australia,” opined Father.He climbed half way up the rigging of the spanker mastand clung to the ratlines. “We’ll hit Bass Straits tonight!”
Then Father slid down the rigging to the deck andspoke to the mate:
“The Straits are a helluva passage to make at night.There’s no moon out to navigate by. All hands on deck—standby.”
Although the Straits are one hundred miles across,that leaves little room for a sailing ship to beat and tackin. There is a channel of deep water running through thecenter of the Straits where the currents are less deadly.The sweep of the Pacific meets the rushing tides of theIndian Ocean. Mountainous promontories rise on thecoast of South Australia and the jutting saw-toothedcoast of Tasmania guards the southern end of the straits.Baffling winds and treacherous cross currents stirred bythe vortex of waters from three oceans, the Pacific, Indianand Antarctic meeting, make sailing dangerous.Sometimes the wind dies suddenly shut off by a mountainrange only to kick up again in a fury from an oppositedirection. It is no feat at all for steam vessels to gothrough the Straits but a sailing ship is at the mercy ofthe winds and tides.
Almost like magic the land loomed larger and larger,until the blue haze faded and we could distinguishWilson Promontory. It looked like a huge whaleasleep on the water. It was about four bells in the eveningand the tropic light was rapidly fading into a softgray.
“Clew in the topsails! Sheet home the jibs!” calledFather suddenly. It isn’t just duty that makes sailorsover-eager to hasten a ship’s arrival in port. They arecontented until they sight land and then they become restless.
“A sailorman can sniff a drink in the wind a hundredmiles out to sea,” Stitches declared.
In less than five minutes the topsails were fast andonly the flying jib was set. Father went aloft with hisbinoculars. Far off to leeward I saw a vermilion-coloredlightship jerking at its anchorage near the shore.
Eight bells struck! The watch changed. The moaningof buoys came out of the darkness to warn us of reefsand shallow water.
I ascended the mast to be near Father.
“You turn in, Joan. If any trouble comes, keep outof the way, do you hear?”
“Yes, sir!” I replied, for when he used that tone tome “Yes, sir” was the only thing to say. I stuck my headout of my porthole watching the phosphorus in the watermake the sea look as if it were on fire until I became toosleepy to sit up. I got my family of cats from the chartroomand put them under the blankets at my feet. Underthe covers their eyes looked just as the phosphorus inthe water did. I mention those kittens because theyplayed a big part in the “trouble” Father had predicted.He had always forbidden me to take the cats into mybunk.
“Bedbugs and cockroaches can’t be avoided in bunksbut cats can be, so don’t you let me catch you taking themto bed with you.”
I put my own interpretation on that advice. I couldn’tcatch the bedbugs and roaches but I could catch the cats.I kept them under the covers so their protesting meowingwouldn’t reach Father’s ears. Then I fell sound asleep. Iwas wakened by a heavy rain squall and stiff wind whichshook the ship. I lay in my bunk listening to the seas slapthe porthole above me. I heard Father shouting abovethe wind to the crew, and faintly the answering calls ofmen came back. Shallow water when it becomes roughrocks a ship unlike a deep sea storm. The difference inthe rolling made me peer out the porthole. A sudden joltof the ship threw me flat on the bunk. If only that windwould blow steadily and not in jerks—but I was asleepbefore I could form any more opinions.
I don’t know how long I was asleep before I awoke ina fit of coughing. My eyes burned. I rubbed them withmy fist but they watered and stung more. I quit rubbingthem but they hurt even more and then I could hardlybreathe. It was pitch dark in my cabin and I thought Iwas having a nightmare. My senses began to dim and Ifelt as if I were going a long way off from my body. Thescuffling of feet on the poop deck—hoarse shouts—confusion,then a cry that pierced my dulled brain sent achill of fear through me.
“Fire!”
“Fire! Fire!” The words were repeated and echoedhollowly in the wind. “Fire!” That was what I wasthinking the phosphorus in the sea looked like. I tried towake up. Surely I was dreaming.
“It’s in the after-hold.”
“The paint locker is burning!”
I couldn’t move from my bunk for I was paralyzedwith fear. Over and over in my fast dimming consciousnessI could hear “Paint Locker.” “Fire!” The curses ofthe men above grew faint. I could feel the kittens scratchingunder the covers at my feet to get out but I couldmake no effort to help them. Had there been a light inmy cabin I would have seen the dense smoke choking theair—slowly suffocating me. Why couldn’t I move? Whydidn’t some one help me? But too well I knew the codeof the sea that reckons one life as little where the safetyof the ship is concerned.
The floors of the cabin were caulked with tar andoakum. Fire from below had burned the underpinningsand the tar was boiling in the cracks.
On deck Father opened the lazarette hatch and flamessix feet high burst out. The cargo of copra in the holdwas a blazing inferno! Copra is highly explosive. Therubbing and grating of the stuff in the freak storm hadcaused spontaneous combustion. The flames licked upfrom out the open hatch and overcame the mate. Father’sface was burned, and his hands blistered. The wind sweptdown into the hold and fanned the fire into a viciousfurnace.
I finally managed to get out of my bunk and found myway by groping through the smoke to the chartroom. Icould smell where the companionway was by the rush offresh air that poured down from it. But the air onlyserved to fan the gasping licks of fire that had eaten upthrough the cabin floor into a blaze. I tried to reach thecompanionway door. Clad only in a flour sack nightgownand in my bare feet I picked my way over the hottar on the floor to the ladder leading to the deck. ThenI remembered the kittens I had left to smother under thecovers in my bunk.
I felt my way back to the cabin and blindly reachedfor them. I found them huddled in the farthest cornerof the bunk. The ship gave a sudden toss and sent mesprawling to the floor with my arm full of kittens. Theydug their claws into my bare flesh and held on. I tried toget back to the companionway, but the fire had eatenthrough from below. I stood on the edge of the chartroomunable to go farther. My feet were burned and thepain was almost more than I could bear. The smokechoked me. It stung and burned my eyes. The kittens wereclawing at the raw flesh around my breasts.
The realization that I was going to die seemed a relief.I became calm. If I died, the terrible pain would stop.I stood perfectly still, just waiting, for I couldn’t moveanother step.
On deck pandemonium had broken loose. The sailsslapped and ripped. The deserted helm spun dizzilyaround leaving the ship at the mercy of the choppy sea.Then, from what seemed millions of miles away, I heardan agonized cry. I recognized the voice of Stitches:
“Joan?”
I tried to answer him, but all I could manage was awhispered, “Here I am.”
“Joan! Skipper! Where are you?”
Oh, wouldn’t he ever find me! I couldn’t help myself.Smoke and pain and panic overcame me. I couldn’t speakanother word. I heard his voice coming nearer—and thena numbness crept over me so that I hardly knew whatwas happening. Stitches came down the companionwayfrom the forward entrance and into the dining saloon.Finally his arms found me and my cats. Picking me upin his old arms he carried me over and out of the firewhich was licking up in scarlet tongues of flame all overthe deck of the cabins.
Just as he reached the top of the companionway ladderStitches dropped with a gasp under me. We struckthe deck and lay there side by side. Then the sight of thesky, the wind and rain on my face, the fresh air in mylungs brought me to. I staggered to my feet, and bendingover tried to arouse Stitches. He was dead! He hadcrowned the years of his devotion by giving his life tosave mine. He had done his job the best he knew howand he would go under the waves with his ship for hiscoffin—a sailorman found his last anchorage! No matterhow long I live Stitches will be a memory of the sea thatnothing will erase.
I could see they were lowering the lifeboat off thestern. I caught Stitches’ body under the arms and triedto drag it to the poop deck. Swede saw me.
Rushing over he jerked me from Stitches, dragged meto the poop deck and flung me into the lifeboat.
On the poop deck by the spanker mast were two kegsof gasoline used for starting the donkey engine forwardto hoist cargo in port. They were lashed to the deck withchains. If the fire reached them the ship and every oneon board would be blown to bits. They were lashed toosecurely to be chopped away in time to save them fromthe fire which had already eaten through to the poop.There wasn’t a second to be lost.
“Pull away to leeward, then head for the lightship,”shouted Father. He didn’t even stop to see if his commandwas carried out. He and the mate and two of thesailors were bailing up canvas bucket after canvas bucketof sea water to throw on the fire.
The ship began to fill with water from the open scuttles.The weight of the sea water in the hold sank thevessel deeper, but it forced the fire up through the decks.The Minnie A. Caine wallowed like a stricken thingunder the vast weight of water. I worked back to a placein the stern of the dinghy. Then I discovered the catswere still clinging to me. Afterwards I found they hadsunk their claws deep in my flesh. At the time I scarcelynoticed the pain.
Father and the mate stayed on the poop deck until theburning vessel sunk to the water line when they plungedoverboard, jumping clear of the hull. The ship tossed bya big swell capsized over on its beam ends. A hissing,bubbling sound came from her as the flames were buriedin the sea. Father and the mate swam to the lifeboatwhich was leaking badly. The tropic heat had warpedthe seams in it and it was filling faster than we couldbail it out. The rain, the spray from the waves and thethick smoke from the smothered fire made vision impossible.I could barely see the other figures in the lifeboat.The men pulled long strokes towards the shore.
We were about a hundred yards away from the shipand through the maze of smoke all we could see werethe topmasts sticking above the sea. The wind was freezingand the cold rain wet us through and through. Mynightgown was poor protection against the wind andwater, but I was so terrified I wasn’t conscious that I wasnearly freezing.
“Pull! Pull! Pull!” Father’s voice set the beat for themen at the oars.
“Are all hands here?” he asked. Swede, Bulgar, Oleson,the mate, cabin-boy, Johnson and me were the onlyones to answer the roll call. The Jap cook had jumpedoverboard and failed to make the lifeboat. Stitches’charred body was somewhere cradled in the burnt hullof the ship. Over the roar of the wind and rain the buoyskept up their monotonous warnings—and shorewards theriding light of the light ship traced semi-circles againstthe sky as her masts rolled heavily in the onshore breakers.We were about a quarter mile away from the wreckwhen the smoke cleared. Father gazed back at his ship,which looked like some glorious living thing struck dead.It was too much for Father to endure. With a gurglingsound of agony in his throat he pulled in his oar:
“O Christ!” I heard him gasp. Then he stood up, tryingto plunge into the sea and return to his beloved ship.Only the strong restraining arms of Swede and Olesonkept him back. He struggled like a maniac.
“Let me go, you ——s. Let me go!” he cried.
In this crisis the mate, Johnson, saved Father and us.
“The lifeboat’s sinking, Captain,” he said.
Those words brought Father out of his frenzy of griefat losing his ship. For the first time in my life I sawFather cry. He covered his eyes with his hands as if toshut out the sight. The weight of our bodies in the lifeboat opened up the already leaking seams.
Father reached through the rain to where I crouchedin the stern and grabbed my arm. In a voice that becamesuddenly calm—he was once more the master in command,he said:
“Joan! Swim for it, kid,—the lightship.” He pointedto the pin point of light which was about three milesaway. “Swim slowly and high out of water. And breathedeep, Joan, as deep as you can.”
“Yes, sir!” I answered, trying to hide the terror of thelong swim.
“If you get all in—float. Take it easy, girl. I’ll be rightbehind you.”
He had only time to finish those words when the lifeboatfilled with water up to the gunwales. If I had toswim no nightgown was going to get in my way to dragme down. I tore it from me, but the drenched kittensstill clung to my flesh. I filled my lungs with a deepbreath and jumped out of the lifeboat. When I came upin the choppy sea I was conscious of only the pain causedby the salt water on my bleeding cuts and scratches. Eachstroke I took was like a knife cut, and I couldn’t shakethe drowning kittens off. Perhaps to those cats I owe mylife, for the pain made me so mad I fought on and on, towardthe lightship which seemed to go farther away insteadof closer. I could hear the others swimming nearme, just the “cut-splash—cut-splash!” of their strokes. Ihad swum about a mile against a high running sea withthe cats on my back. I was exhausted, so I trod water anddrank the fresh rain that poured down. That is a trickfor deep sea swimming—to drink rain water which absorbsthe salt water that is swallowed.
Two of the men, Swede and Johnson, were ahead ofme. Swede began a song. It was his bravery, his daringto sing in the face of near death that put courage into me.If Swede could sing then I could hold out too, for wasn’tI a regular sailor, and here was a supreme test.
I plowed on through the seas. I thought I had beenswimming hours, when Father’s voice a few yardsabreast me called:
“Just ahead now—there she looms!”
That was all I remembered until the next morning atdaybreak. I came to on the iron deck of the lightshipwith only a man’s vest on my naked torn body. A strangeman was bending over me. He turned out to be the keeperof the lightship.
“She must be a damn fine swimmer because youngthings is hard to kill.”
He lifted me off the deck and carried me to his warmcabin where I lost consciousness again. The cats weregone! Somewhere in that last quarter mile they werelost.
Late that afternoon I awoke. The engineer of the lightshipgave me a warm suit of dungarees and a heavysweater to wear, and then we learned what had happened.The look-out on the lightship had seen the fire onboard. He attempted to launch a small boat to come torescue us when the Southerly Buster squall arose andmade the feat impossible. He and his men watched fromthe crow’s nest on the mast all night through. They sawthe ship capsize. Through powerful binoculars theyscanned the sea for a sign of us in our lifeboat. At almostdaybreak Swede and Oleson reached the lightship, thenfollowed Johnson, the cabin-boy and Bulgar. Swedeswam back to get me and he dragged my limp body tothe lightship. The lightship keeper threw over a runningbowline which Swede made fast around my stomach andback and they hoisted me on deck. Father and the matewere the last to be pulled aboard.
We stayed on the lightship for three days. Fathercouldn’t speak. He stood by the rail for hours at a timejust staring out towards the sea. He refused food. I triedto talk with him but he didn’t hear me.
“From a skipper to a bum!—I’m through forevernow,” he finally said, more to the sea than to any person,as the Government cutter from Melbourne steamedalongside the light ship to take us ashore, in answer tothe S.O.S. call sent by the lightship Keeper.
And Father was through too. The day of steam shipshas come. Old sailing captains have no place any longer.My father was seventy years old, and broken by thewreck. He is living ashore now, near the coast on thePacific, but his spirit is not on the land—it is far off inthe tropics dreaming of a fair wind and the stars of theSouthern Cross to steer a course by.
THE END
TRANSCRIBER NOTES
Misspelled words and printer errors have been corrected.Where multiple spellings occur, majority use has beenemployed.
Punctuation has been maintained except where obviousprinter errors occur.
Book cover is placed in the public domain.
*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75093 ***