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Perceval Gibbon - The Second Class Passenger

P >> Perceval Gibbon >> The Second Class Passenger




"It's not acting," he would say. "You drop off to sleep some night on
this bridge, and you'll find out what he's after. He's after you if
you don't keep your weather eye liftin'; and don't you forget it!"

In those days the Burdock had a standing charter from Cardiff to
Barcelona and back with ore to Swansea, a comfortable round trip
which brought the Captain and his son home for one week in every six.

It suited the mate's convenience excellently, for he was a man of
social habits, and he had at last succeeded in interesting Miss
Minnie Davis in his movements. She was the daughter of the Burdock's
owner, and Arthur Price's cousin in some remote degree, a plump,
clean, clever Welsh girl, of quick intelligence and pleasant good
nature. He was a tall young man, a little leggy in his way, who
filled the eye splendidly. Women said of him that he "looked every
inch a sailor"; matrons who watched his progress with Minnie Davis
considered that they would make a handsome couple. Captain Price, for
all his watchfulness, saw nothing of the affair. He approved of
Minnie, though; she was born to a share in that life in which ships
are breadwinners, and never had to be shoo'd out of the way of
hauling or hoisting gear when she came down aboard the Burdock in
dock. Her way was straight across the deck to the poop ladder and
for'ard to the chart-house along the fore-and-aft bridge, trim,
quiet-footed, familiar. "What did you find in the Bay?" she would
ask, as she shook hands with Captain Price; and he would answer as to
one who understood: "It was piling up a bit from the sou'west;" or
"smooth enough to skate on," as the case might be. Then, without
further formality, he would return to his papers, and Arthur Price
would hand over his work to the third mate and wash his hands before
coming up to make himself agreeable. He always had more to say about
the trip than his father, and he was prone to translate the weather
into shore speech. Minnie only half liked his fashion of talking of
"storms" and "tempests"; but there was plenty else in him she liked
well enough. Best of all, perhaps, she liked the sight of him--a head
taller than his father, clean-shaven and accurately groomed, smiling
readily and moving easily; he was a capital picture.

She fell into a way of driving down to see the Burdock off. It was
thus that Captain Price learned how matters stood. He came straight
from the office to the ship, on a brisk July day and went off to her
at her buoys in the mud-pilot's boat. All was clear for a start and
the lock was waiting; Arthur Price, in the gold-laced cap he used as
due to his rank, was standing by to cast off. The Captain went
forthwith to the bridge; Minnie on the dock-head could see his black
shore-hat over the weather-cloths and his white collar of ceremony.
She smiled a little, for she did not know quite enough to see the art
with which the Captain drew off from his moorings under his own steam,
nor his splendid handling of the big boat as he bustled her down the
crowded dock and laid her blunt nose cleanly between the piers of the
lock. She was watching the brass-buttoned chief mate lording it on
the fo'c'sle head, as he passed the lines to haul into the lock.

Captain Price was watching him, too. He saw him smiling and talking
over the rail to the girl.

"Slack off that spring," he roared suddenly, as they began to let the
ship down to the sea level; and the mate jumped for the coil on the
bitts.

"Keep your eyes about you, for'ard there," ordered the Captain
tersely.

"Aye, aye, sir," sang out the mate cheerfully.

The mud pilot, beside the Captain on the bridge, grinned agreeably.

"Arthur's got an eye in his head, indeed," he remarked, and lifted
his cap to Minnie.

The Captain snorted, and gave his whole attention to hauling out,
only turning his head at the last minute to wave a farewell to his
owner's daughter. The mud pilot took charge and brought her clear;
and as soon as he had gone over to his boat, the Captain rang for
full steam ahead and waited for the mate to take the bridge.

The young man came up smiling. "It's a fine morning, father," he
remarked, as he walked over to the binnacle.

"Mister Mate," said the Captain harshly, "you all but lost me that
hawser."

"Just in time, wasn't it?" replied the mate pleasantly.

"I don't reckon to slack off and take in my lines myself," went on
the Captain. "I reckon to leave that to my officers. And if an
officer carries; away a five-inch manila through makin' eyes at girls
on the pier-head, I dock his wages for the cost of it, and I log him
for neglectin' his duty."

The mate looked: at him sharply for a moment; the Captain scowled
back.

"Have you got anything to say to me?" demanded the Captain.

"Yes," said the mate, "I have." He broke into a smile. "But it's
something I can't say while you're actin' the man-o'-war captain on
your bridge. It doesn't concern the work o' the ship."

"What does it concern?" asked the Captain.

"Me," said the mate. He folded his arms across the binnacle and
looked into his father's face confidently. The Captain softened.

"Well, Arthur?" he said.

"That was Minnie on the pier-head," said the mate. The Captain
nodded. "I was up at their place last night," the young man
continued, "and we had a talk--she and I--and so it came about that
we fixed things between us. Mr. Davis is agreeable, so long-----"

"Hey, what's this?" The Captain stared at his son amazedly. "What was
it you fixed up with Minnie?"

"Why, to get married," replied the mate, reddening. "I was telling
you. Her father's willing, as long as we wait till I get a command
before we splice."

"You to marry Minnie!" The mate stiffened at the emphasis on the
"you." The Captain was fighting for expression. "Why," he said, "why
--why, you'ld 'a' carried away that hawser if I hadn't sung out at
ye."

"Father," said the mate. "Mr. Davis'll give me a ship."

"What ship?" demanded the Captain.

"The first he can," replied the other. "He's thinkin' of buyin' the
Stormberg, Wrench Wylie's big freighter, and he'd shift you on to
her. Then I'd have the Burdock."

"Then you'd have the Burdock!" The Captain leaned his elbow on the
engine-room telegraph and faced his son. His expression was wholly
compounded of perplexity and surprise. He let his eyes wander aft,
along the big ship's trim perspective to the short poop, and forward
to where her bluff bows sawed at the skyline.

"She's a fine old boat," he said at last, and stood up with a sigh.
"but she needs watching." The mate felt a thrill of relief. "I'll
watch her," he said comfortably. "But don't you want to wish me luck,
father?"

"Not luck," said the Captain; "not luck, my boy. You run her to a
hair and keep your eyes slit and you won't want luck. Luck's a
lubber's standby. But Minnie's a fine girl." He shook his head
thoughtfully. "She'll rouse you up, maybe."

The mate laughed, and at the sound of it the Captain frowned again.

"Now, lean off that binnacle," he said shortly. "I want to get the
bearings."

It was not till an hour later that he went to his cabin to shed his
shore-going gear for ordinary apparel; and as soon as this was done
he reached down the register from the book-shelf over his bunk to
look up the Stormberg.

"H'm," he growled, standing over the book at his desk. "Built in 1889
on the Clyde. I know her style. Five thousand tons, and touch the
steam steering-gear if you dare! Blast her, and blast Davis for a
junk-buying fool!"

He closed the book with a slam and glanced mechanically up at the
tell-tale compass that hung over his bed.

"There's Arthur half a point off already," he said, and made for the
bridge.

Arthur Price believed honestly that more was exacted from him than
from other chief mates; and early in that passage he concluded that
the Old Man was severer than ever. The Burdock butted into a summer
gale before she was clear of the Bristol Channel, a free wind that
came from the south-west driving a biggish sea before it. It was
nothing to give real trouble, but Captain Price took charge in the
dog watch and set the mate and his men to making all fast about
decks. With his sou'wester flapped back from his forehead and his
oilskin coat shrouding him to the heels, he leaned on the bridge
rail, vociferous and imperative, and his harsh voice hunted the
workers from one task to another. He had lashings on the anchors and
fresh wedges to the battens of all hatches; the winches chocked off
and covered over and new pins in the davit blocks. This took time,
but when it was done he was not yet satisfied; the mate had to get
out gear and rig a couple of preventer funnel stays. The men looked
ahead at the weather and wondered what the skipper saw in it to make
such a bother; the second and third mates winked at one another
behind Arthur Price's back; and he, the chief mate, sulked.

"That's all, I suppose?" he asked the Captain when he got on the
bridge again at last.

"No," was the sharp answer. "It's not all. Speak the engine-room and
ask the chief how he's hitting it."

"All sweet," reported the mate as he hung up the speaking tube.

"That's right," said the Captain. "You always want to know that,
Mister Mate. And the lights?"

"All bright, sir," said the mate.

"Then you can go down and get something to eat," said the Captain.
"And see that the hand wheel's clear as you go."

It breezed up that night, and as the Burdock cleared the tail of
Cornwall, the heavy Atlantic water came aboard. She was a sound ship,
though, and Captain Price knew her as he knew the palms of his hands.
Screened behind the high weather-cloths, he drove her into it, while
the tall seas filled her forward main deck rail-deep and her bows
pounded away in a mast-high smother of spray. From the binnacle
amidships to the weather wing of the bridge was his dominion, while
the watch officer straddled down to leeward; both with eyes boring at
the darkness ahead and on either beam, where there came and went the
pin-point lights of ships.

Arthur Price relieved the bridge at midnight, but the Captain held
on.

"Ye see how she takes it?" he bawled down the wind to his son. "No
excuse for steaming wide; ye can drive her to a hair. Keep your eyes
on that light to port; we don't want anything bumping into us."

"You wouldn't ease her a bit, then?" shouted the mate, the wind
snatching his words.

"Ease her!" was the reply. "You'd have her edging into France. She'll
lie her course while we drive her."

When dawn came up the sea had mounted; the Bay was going to be true
to its name. Captain Price went to his chart-house at midnight, to
sleep on a settle; but by his orders the Burdock was kept to her
course and her gait, battering away at the gale contentedly.

After breakfast, he took another look round and then went below to
rest in his bunk, while the tell-tale swam in wild eccentrics above
his upturned face. After a while he dozed off to sleep, lulled by the
click of furnishings that rendered to the ship's roll, the drum of
the seas on her plates, and the swish of loose water across the deck.

He was roused by his steward. That menial laid a hand on his shoulder
and he was forthwith awake and competent.

"A ship to windward, sir, showin' flags," said the steward. "The mate
'ud be glad if you'd go to the bridge."

"A' right," said the Captain, and stood up. "In distress, eh?"

"By the looks of her, sir," admitted the steward, who had been a
waiter ashore. "She seems to be a mast or two short, sir, so far as I
can tell. But I couldn't be sure."

He helped the Captain into his oilskins deftly, pulling his jacket
down under the long coat, and held the door open for him.

Some three miles to windward the stranger lay, an appealing vagabond.
The Captain found his son standing on the flag-chest, braced against
a stanchion, watching her through a pair of glasses, when she peeped
up, a momentary silhouette, over the tall seas. He turned as the
Captain approached.

"Can't make out her flags, sir," he said. "Too much wind. Looks like
a barque with only her mizzen standing."

"Gimme the glass," said the Captain, climbing up beside him. He
braced himself against the irons and took a look at her, swinging
accurately to the roll of the ship. Beneath him the wind-whipped
water tumbled in grey leagues; the stranger seemed poised on the rim
of it. From her gaff, a dot of a flag showed a blur against the sky,
and a string from her mast-head was equally vague.

"That'll be her ensign upside down at the gaff," he said. "Port your
helm there; we'll go down and look at her."

"Aye, aye, sir." The mate passed the word and came over. "How would
it be to see one of the boats clear, father!"

"Aren't the boats clear?" demanded the Captain.

"Oh yes, they're clear," replied the mate. "You had us put new pins
in the blocks, you know." He met his father's steady eye defiantly.
"When are a steamer's boats ever clear for hoisting out?" he asked.

"Always, when the mate's fit for his job," was the answer. "Go and
make sure of the starboard lifeboat, and call the watch."

The Captain took his ship round to windward of the distressed vessel,
running astern of her within a quarter of a mile. She proved to be
the remains of a barque, as the mate had guessed, a deep-laden wooden
ship badly swept by the sea. From the wing of the bridge the
Captain's glasses showed him the length of her deck, cluttered with
the wreck of houses torn up by the roots, while the fall of the spars
had taken her starboard bulwarks with it. Her boats were gone; a
davit stuck up at the end of the poop crumpled like a ram's horn; and
by the taffrail her worn and sodden crew clustered and cheered the
Burdock.

The Captain rang off his engines and rang again to stand by in the
engine-room. The mate came up the ladder to him while his hand was
yet at the telegraph.

"Lifeboat's all clear for lowering, sir," he said. "Noble, Peters,
Hansen, and Kyland are to go in her." He waited.

The old captain stood looking at the wreck, while the steamship
rolled tumultuously in the trough.

"Who goes in charge?" he asked, after a minute's silence.

"I'll go, father," said the mate eagerly. He paused, but the Captain
said nothing.

"You know," proceeded the mate, "father, you do know there's none of
'em here can handle a boat like me."

"Aye," said the Captain, "you can do it." He looked at his son
keenly. "It 'ud make a good yarn to spin to Minnie," he said, with an
unwilling smile.

The mate laughed agreeably. "Dear Minnie," he said. "Then I'll go,
father."

"And I'll just see to the hoisting out of that boat," said the
Captain. "Good thing I had you put in the new pins."

The third mate on the bridge rang for steam and made a lee for the
lowering of the lifeboat, the hands put a strain on the tackles, and
the carpenter and bo'sun went to work to knock out the chocks on
which she rested. Her steel-shod keel had rusted into them.

"Hoist away on your forward tackle," ordered the Captain. "Belay!
Make fast! Now get a hold of this guy. Lively there, you men. Noble,
aloft on the booms and shoulder her over."

She canted clear of the groove in the chocks as they swung the
forward davit out and the Captain stepped abaft the men who hauled.

"Lively now," he called. "Don't keep those chaps waiting, men. After
davit tackle, haul! Up with her."

The bo'sun, stooping, looped the fall of the tackle into the snatch-
block; the men, under the Captain's eye, tumbled to and gave way,
holding the weight gallantly as the rail swung down and putting their
backs into the pull as she rolled back.

"Up with her!" shouted the Captain, and she tore loose from her bed.
"Vast hauling! Belay! Now out with the davit, men."

He stepped a pace forward as they passed out the line. "Haul away,"
he was saying, when the bo'sun shouted hoarsely and tried to reach
him with a dash across the slippery deck planks. The mate screamed,
the Captain humped his shoulders for the blow. It all happened in a
flash of disaster; the boat's weight pulled the pin from the cheeks
of the block and down she came, her stern thudding thickly into the
deck, while the Captain, limp and senseless, rolled inertly to the
scuppers.

When he came to he was in his bunk. He opened his eyes with a shiver
upon the familiar cabin, with its atmosphere of compact neatness, its
gleaming paint and bright-work. A throb of brutal pain in his head
wrung a grunt from him, and then he realized that something was wrong
with his right arm. He tried to move it, to bring it above the
bedclothes to look at it, and the effort surprised an oath from him,
and left him dizzy and shaking. The white jacket of the steward came
through a mist that was about him.

"Better, I hope, sir?" the steward was saying. "Beggin' your pardon,
but you'd better lie still, sir. Is there anything I could bring you,
sir?"

"Did the boat fall on me?" asked the Captain, carefully. His voice
seemed thin to himself.

"Not on you, sir," replied the steward. "Not so to speak, on top of
you. The keel 'it you on the shoulder, sir, an' you contracted a
thump on the 'ead."

"And the wreck?" asked the Captain.

"The wreck's crew is aboard, sir; barque Vavasour, of London, sir.
The mate brought 'em off most gallantly, sir. I was to tell 'im when
you come to, sir."

"Tell him, then," said the Captain, and closed his eyes wearily. The
pain in his head blurred his thoughts, but his lifelong habit of
waking from sleep to full consciousness, with no twilight of muddled
faculties intervening, held good yet. He remembered, now, the new
pins in the blocks, and there was even a tincture of amusement in his
reflections. A soft tread beside him made him open his eyes.

"Well, Arthur," he said.

The tall young mate was beside him.

"Ah, father," he said cheerfully. "Picking up a bit, eh? That's good.
Ugly accident, that."

"Yes," replied the Captain, looking up into his face. "Block split, I
suppose?"

"Yes," said the mate. "That's it. How do you feel?"

"You didn't notice the block, I suppose, when you put the new pins
in?" asked the Captain.

"Can't say I did," answered the mate, "or I'd have changed it. You're
not going to blame me surely, father?"

The Captain smiled. "No, Arthur, I'm not going to blame you," he
said. "I want to hear how you brought off that barque's crew. Is it a
good yarn for Minnie?"

At Barcelona the Captain went to hospital and they took off his right
arm at the shoulder. The Burdock went back without him, and he lay in
his bed wondering how it was that the loss of an arm should make a
man feel lonely.

He was quickly about again. His body was clean from the bone out,
clean and hard, and he had never been ill. When the time came to take
a walk, he arrayed himself in shore-going black. It cost him an
infinity of trouble and more than an hour of the morning to dress
himself with one hand, but he would not have help. Then it was that
he discovered a strange thing; it was his right arm, the arm that was
gone, that hindered him. The scars of the amputation had healed, but
unless he bore the fact deliberately in mind, he felt the arm to be
there. He tried to button his braces with it, to knot his tie, to
lace his boots, and had to overtake the impulse and correct it with
an effort. When his clothes were on, he put his right hand in his
trousers pocket, then remembered that it was not there, and withdrew
hastily the hand he had not got. During the walk the same trouble
remained with him; it muddled him when he bought tobacco and tried to
pick up the change. Before he slept that night, he dropped on his
knees at his bedside, and folded the left hand of flesh against the
right hand of dreamstuff in prayer.

When his time came to go home in the Burdock, he was an altered man.
The quiet, all-observant scrutiny had gone, and the officers who
greeted him as he came up the accommodation ladder saw it at once.
Arthur Price was now in command, a breezy, good-looking captain in
blue serge and gold braid.

"You've got her, then, Arthur?" said the old man, as he reached the
deck and stood looking about him.

"Yes, I've got her," answered his son. "That your kit, father? Sewell
(to the chief mate), send a couple of hands to get that dunnage
aboard. Come along below, father."

He tucked his arm into his father's and led him down. Mildly taking
stock of the well-remembered surroundings, the old man noticed he was
being taken to the Captain's state-room, and an impulse of gratitude
moved him. But he was glad he did not speak of it when his son put
aside the curtains at the door for him, and he saw that this was not
to be his room. New chintzes took the place of his old leather
cushions; a big photograph of Minnie stood on the lid of the
chronometer case, and the broken-backed Admiralty guides, ocean
directories and the rest were reinforced by a brigade of smartly
bound novels.

"Sit down," said Arthur, "and make yourself at home till they get
your dunnage in. I've put you in the spare cabin in the port
alleyway; you'll find it nice and quiet there. How are you feeling,
father? Would you care for a drink?"

"Yes, I'd like a tot," replied the old man. "Shall I ring for your
steward?"

"Don't you trouble," said Arthur. "I've got it here." It was in the
cupboard under the chronometer, a whole case of whisky. "I carry my
own," explained the mate; "I don't believe in old Davis's taste in
whisky. Help yourself, father."

"How is Minnie?" asked the old man as he set down his glass.

"She's all right," was the reply. "I wanted to tell you about that.
We go into dry dock when we get back from this trip, and Minnie and
I'll get married before I take her out again. Quick work, isn't it?"

The old Captain nodded; the young Captain smiled.

"You'll be bringing Minnie out for the trip, I suppose?" asked the
elder.

"That's my idea," agreed Arthur.

"You're a lucky chap," said the old man slowly. He hesitated. "You've
got your ship in hand, eh, Arthur?"

"I've got her down to a fine point," said Arthur emphatically. "You
needn't bother about me, father. I know my job, and I don't need more
teaching. I wish you'd get to understand that. You know Davis has
bought the Stormberg?"

"I didn't know," said the old man with a sigh. "It don't matter to
me, anyhow. I'd be reaching for the engine telegraph with my right
hand as like as not. No, Arthur, I've done. I'll bother young
officers no more."

The run home was an easy one, but it confirmed old Captain Price in
his resolution to have done with the sea. Two or three times he fell
about decks; a small roll, the commonplace movement of a well-driven
steamship in a seaway shook him from his balance, and that missing
arm, which always seemed to be there, let him down. He would reach
for a stanchion with it to steady himself, and none of his falls
served to cure him of the persistent delusion that he was not a
cripple. He tried to pick things up with it, and let glasses and the
like fall every day. The officers and engineers, men who had sailed
with him at his ablest, saw his weakness quickly, and, with the ready
tact that comes to efficient seafarers, never showed by increased
deference or any sign that they were conscious of the change. It was
only Arthur who went aside to make things easy for him, to cut his
food for him at table, and so forth.

From Swansea he went home by train; Minnie and her kindly old father
met him and made much of him. Old Davis was a man who had built up
his own fortune, scraping tonnage together bit by bit, from the time
when, as a captain, he had salved a crazy derelict and had her turned
over to him by the underwriters in quittance of his claims. Now he
owned a little fleet of good steamships of respectable burthen, and
was an esteemed owner. He did not press the Stormberg on Captain
Price. The two old men understood each other.

"I don't want her," Captain Price told him. "There's a time for
nursin' tender engines and a time for scrappin' them. I'm for the
scrap heap, David. I'm not the man I was. I don't put faith in myself
no more. It's Arthur's turn now."

David Davis nodded. "Yes, then. Well, well, now! It's a pity, too,
John. But you know what's best, to be sure. I don't want you to go
without a ship while I've got a bottom afloat, but I don't want you
to put the Stormberg to roost on the rocks of Lundy neither. So you
wouldn't put faith in yourself no more!"

"No," said Captain Price, frowning reflectively "I wouldn't, and
that's the truth." He was seated in a plush-covered arm-chair in
Davis's parlour, and now he leaned forward. "It's this arm of mine.
It isn't there, but I can't get rid of the feeling of it. I'm always
reachin' for things with it. I'd be reachin' for the telegraph in a
hurry, I make no doubt."

"That's funny," said Davis, in sympathy. "Well, then, you just stop
visiting with me. I've no mind to be alone in the house when your
Arthur's gone off with my Minnie. He'll push the Burdock back an'
fore for us, and we'll sit ashore like gentlemen. He makes a good
figure of a skipper, don't he, John?"

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