XX
UNDER THE FLAG
A black, threatening sky, with heavy banks of indigo-tinted cloudsmassed about the sea-line. A sickly, greenish light high up in thezenith. Elsewhere the gloom of warring elements broken only by flashesof sheet lightning, vivid but noiseless. The sea, rolling up from thesou'-west in a long glassy swell, was ruffled here and there by thechecks of a fitful breeze. It needed not a deadly low barometer totell us of a coming storm; we saw it in the tiers of hard-edgedfearsome clouds, breaking up and re-forming, bank upon bank, in endlessfigurations. Some opposing force was keeping the wind in check; therewas conflict up there, for, though masses of detached cloud werebreaking away and racing o'er the zenith, we held but a fitful gustybreeze, and our barque, under low sail, was lurching uneasily for wantof a steadying wind.
It was a morning of ill-omen, and the darkling sky but reflected thegloom of our faces; our thoughts were in keeping with the day, for wehad lost a shipmate, one among us was gone, Old Martin was dead.
He died sometime in the middle watch, no one knew when. He was awakewhen the watch came below at midnight, for Welsh John had given himmatches for his pipe before turning in. That was the last, for whenthey were called at four, Martin was cold and quiet. There was notrouble on his face, no sign of pain or suffering. Belike the old manhad put his pipe aside, and finding no shipmate awake to 'pass theword,' had gently claimed his Pilot.
There was no great show of grief when it was known. Perhaps a bitcatch in the voice when speaking of it, an unusual gentleness in ourmanner towards one another, but no resemblance of mourning, no shadowof woe. His was no young life untimely ended, there was no accident tobe discussed, no blame to be apportioned. It was just that old lamphad flickered out at last. Ours was a sense of loss, we had lost ashipmate. There would be another empty bunk in the fo'cas'le, a handless at the halyards, a name passed over at muster; we would miss thevoice of experience that carried so much weight in our affairs--aninfluence was gone.
At daybreak we stood around to have a last look at the strong old facewe had known so long. The sailmaker was sewing him up in the clew ofan old topsail, a sailorly shroud that Martin would have chosen. Theoffice was done gently and soberly, as a shipmate has a right toexpect. A few pieces of old chain were put in to weight him down, allship-shape and sailor-fashion, and when it was done we laid him out onthe main hatch with the Flag he had served cast over him.
"There goes a good sailorman," said one of the crowd; "'e knowed 'iswork," said another.
"A good sailorman--'e knowed 'is work!" That was Martin'sepitaph--more, he would not want.
His was no long illness. A chill had settled into bronchitis. Martinhad ever a fine disregard for weatherly precautions; he had to live upto the name of a 'hard case.' Fits of coughing and a high temperaturecame on him, and he was ordered below. At first he was taken aft to aspare room, but the unaccustomed luxury of the cabin so told on himthat when he begged to be put in the fo'cas'le again, the Old Man lethim go. There he seemed to get better. He had his shipmates to talkto; he was even in a position to rebuke the voice of youth andinexperience when occasion required, though with but a shadow of hisformer vehemence. Though he knew it would hurt him, he would smoke hispipe; it seemed to afford him a measure of relief. The Old Man didwhat he could for him, and spent more time in the fo'cas'le than mostmasters would have done. Not much could be done, for a ship isill-fitted for an ailing man. At times there were relapses; times whenhis breathing would become laboured. Sometimes he became delirious andraved of old ships, and storms, and sails, then he would recover, andeven seemed to get better. Then came the end. The tough old framecould no longer stand the strain, and he passed off quietly in thesilence of middle night.
He was an old man, none knew how old. The kindly clerks in theshipping office had copied from one discharge note to the other when'signing him on,' and he stood at fifty-eight on our articles; atsixty, he would never have got a 'sight.' He talked of old ships longsince vanished from the face of the waters; if he had served on thesehe must have been over seventy years. Sometimes, but only to favouredshipmates, he would tell of his service aboard a Yankee cruiser whenFort Sumter fell, but he took greater pride in having been bo'sun ofthe famous _Sovereign of the Seas_.
"Three hundred an' seventy miles," he would say; "that wos 'er day'stravellin'! That's wot Ah calls sailin' a ship. None o' yer damn'clew up an' clew down,' but give 'er th' ruddy canvas an'--let 'er go,boys!"
He was of the old type, bred in a hard sea-school. One of his boastswas that he had sailed for five years in packet ships, 'an' never sawth' pay table.' He would 'sign on' at Liverpool, giving hisboarding-master a month's advance note for quittance. At New York hewould desert, and after a bout ashore would sail for Liverpool in a newship. There was a reason for this seeming foolish way of doing.
"None o' yer slavin' at harbour jobs an' cargo work; not fer me, mesons! Ah wos a sailorman an' did only sailorin' jobs. Them wos th'days w'en sailormen wos men, an' no ruddy cargo-wrastlin', coal-diggin'scallywags, wot they be now!"
A great upholder of the rights of the fo'cas'le, he looked on the Matesas his natural enemies, and though he did his work, and did it well, henever let pass an opportunity of trying a Mate's temper by outspokencriticism of the Officers' way of handling ship or sail. Apprenticeshe bore with, though he was always suspicious of a cabin influence.
That was Martin, our gallantly truculent, overbearing Old Martin; and,as we looked on the motionless figure outlined by folds of the Flag, wethought with regret of the time we took a pleasure in rousing him to aburst of sailorly invective. Whistling about the decks, or flying pasthim in the rigging with a great shaking of the shrouds when the 'crowd'was laying aloft to hand sail. "Come on, old 'has-been'!" Jones onceshouted to him as he clambered over the futtock shrouds. Martin wasfurious.
"Has-been," he shouted in reply. "Aye, mebbe a 'has-been,' but w'en yecomes to my time o' life, young cock, ye can call yerself a'never-bloody-wos'!"
Well! His watch was up, and when the black, ragged clouds broke awayfrom the sou'-west and roused the sea against us, we would be one lessto face it, and he would have rest till the great call of 'all hands';rest below the heaving water that had borne him so long.
* * * * *
Surely there is nothing more solemn than a burial at sea. Ashore thereare familiar landmarks, the nearness of the haunts of men, theneighbourly headstones, the great company of the dead, to take from theloneliness of the grave. Here was nothing but a heaving ship on theimmensity of mid-ocean, an open gangway, a figure shrouded in folds ofa Flag, and a small knot of bare-headed men, bent and swaying to meetthe lurches of the vessel, grouped about the simple bier. The wind hadincreased and there was an ominous harping among the backstays. Theship was heaving unsteadily, and it was with difficulty we could keep abalance on the wet, sloping deck. Overhead the sky was black with thewrack of hurrying clouds, and the sullen grey water around us wasalready white-topped by the bite of freshening wind.
"I am th' Resurrection an' the Life, saith th' Loard"--Martin, laid ona slanted hatch, was ready for the road, and we were mustered aroundthe open gangway. The Old Man was reading the service in his homelyDoric, and it lost nothing of beauty or dignity in thetranslation--"an' whosoever liveth an' believeth in me sall never die."He paused and glanced anxiously to windward. There was a deadly checkin the wind, and rain had commenced to fall in large, heavy drops. "Ahand t' th' tops'l halyards, Mister," quietly, then continuing, "I knowthat my Redeemer liveth, an' that He sail stand at th' latter day uponth' airth. An' though ... yet in my flesh sail I see Goad...."Overhead, the sails were thrashing back and fore, for want of thebreeze--still fell the rain, lashing heavily now on us and on theshrouded figure, face up, that heeded it not.
Hurriedly the Old Man continued the service--"Foreasmuch as it hathpleased Almighty Goad of his gre--at merrcy t' take unto Himself th'so-al of oor de-ar brot
her, here departed, we therefore commit he'sboady t' th' deep ... when th' sea sall give up her daid, an' th' lifeof th' worl-d t' come, through oor Loard, Jesus Christ."
At a sign, the Second Mate tilted the hatch, the two youngest boys heldthe Flag, and Martin, slipping from its folds, took the water feetfirst in a sullen, almost noiseless, plunge.
"Oor Father which airt in heaven"--with bent head the Old Man finishedthe service. He was plainly ill at ease. He felt that the weather was'making' on him, that the absence from the post of command (the narrowspace between wheel and binnacle) was ill-timed. Still, his sense ofduty made him read the service to a finish, and it was with evidentrelief he closed the book, saying, "Amen! Haul th' mains'l up, Mister,an' stand by t' square mainyards! ... Keep th' watch on deck; it's'all hands'--thon," pointing to the black murk spreading swiftly overthe weather sky.
We dragged the wet and heavy mains'l to the yard and stood by, waitingfor the wind. Fitful gusts came, driving the rain in savage, searchingbursts; then would come a deadly lull, and the rain beating on us,straight from above--a pitiless downpour. It was bitter cold, we weredrenched and depressed as we stood shivering at the braces, and wewished for the wind to come, to get it over; anything would be betterthan this inaction.
A gust came out of the sou'-west, and we had but squared the yards whenwe heard the sound of a master wind on the water.
Shrieking with fury long withheld, the squall was upon us. We felt theship stagger to the first of the blast; a furious plunge and she wasoff--smoking through the white-lashed sea, feather-driven before thegale. It could not last; no fabric would stand to such a race. "Loweraway tops'l halyards!" yelled the Old Man, his voice scarce audible inthe shrilling of the squall. The bo'sun, at the halyards, had butstarted the yard when the sheet parted; instant, the sail was inribbons, thrashing savagely adown the wind. It was the test for theweakest link, and the squall had found it, but our spars were safe tous, and, eased of the press, we ran still swiftly on. We set aboutsecuring the gear, and in action we gave little thought to the eventthat had marked our day; but there was that in the shriek of wind inthe rigging, in the crash of sundered seas under the bows, in the criesof men at the downhauls and the thundering of the torn canvas that sangfitting Requiem for the passing of our aged mariner.
The Brassbounder: A Tale of the Sea Page 20