Hawaii

by James Michener

  The missionaries stared numbly at the minute quarters and Jerusha thought: "How can twenty-two people live and eat here for six months?" But the real astonishment came when Captain Janders kicked aside one of the canvas curtains that led from the public quarters into a sleeping area.

  "This is one of the staterooms," Janders announced, and the missionaries crowded their heads into the doorway to see a cubicle built for dwarfs. Its floor space was exactly five feet ten inches long by five feet one inch wide. It had no windows and no possible ventilation. The wall facing the canvas was formed by the brig's port side and contained two boxed-in bunks, each twenty-seven inches wide, one atop the other. One of the side walls contained two similar boxed-in bunks.

  "Does this mean . . ." Amanda Whipple stammered.

  "Mean what, ma'am?" Captain Janders asked.

  "That two couples share each stateroom?" Amanda blushed.

  "No, ma'am. It means that four couples fit in here. One couple to one bunk."

  Abner was stunned, but Jerusha, faced with a problem, moved immediately toward the Whipples, seeking them as stateroom partners only to find that little Amanda was already telling the captain, "The Hales and the Whipples will take this room, plus any other two couples you wish to give us."

  "You and you," the captain said, arbitrarily indicating the Hewletts and the Quigleys.

  The others moved on to receive their assignments while the first four couples, knocking elbows as they stood, started making decisions which would organize their lives for the next six months. "I don't mind an upper bunk," Jerusha said gallantly. "Do you, Reverend Hale?"

  "We'll take an upper," Abner agreed.

  Immanuel Quigley, a small, agreeable man, said at once, "Jeptha and I will take an upper."

  Practical Amanda suggested: "On the first day of each month those on top come down below. What's more important, the bunks along this wall seem longer than these. John, climb in." And when Whipple tried to stretch out, he found that whereas Amanda was right, and the bunks running along the wall of the ship were nine inches longer than the others, both were too short.

  "Those who start with the shortest bunks," Amanda announced, "will switch to the longer ones on the first of each month. Agreed?"

  And the eight missionaries formed their first compact, but long after it was forgotten, the one that Abner was about to suggest would mark the missionaries. Looking at the seven distressed faces in the little room he said, "Our quarters are not large and there will be many inconveniences, especially since four among us are females, but let us remember that we are indeed a family in Christ. Let us always call each other by true family names. I am Brother Hale and this is my wife, Sister Hale."

  "I am Sister Amanda," the saucy little girl from Hartford promptly corrected, "and this is my husband, Brother John."

  "Since we are only now met," Abner countered soberly, "I feel the more formal appellation to be the more correct." The Hewletts and Quigleys agreed, so Amanda bowed courteously.

  "How's it look?" Captain Janders called, shoving his head through the canvas opening.

  "Small," Amanda replied.

  "Let me give one bit of advice, young fellow," Janders said, addressing Whipple. "Stow everything you possibly can right in here. Don't worry about having space to stand. Pile it bunk-high, because it's going to take us six months to get out there, and you'll be surprised how grateful you'll be to have things."

  "Will we get seasick?" Jerusha asked querulously.

  "Ma'am, two hours after we depart Boston we hit a rough sea. Then we hit the Gulf Stream, which is very rough. Then we hit the waters off the coast of Africa, which are rougher still. Finally, we test our brig against Cape Horn, and that's the roughest water in the world. Ma'am, what do you weigh now?"

  "About a hundred and fifteen pounds," Jerusha replied nervously.

  "Ma'am, you'll be so seasick in your little stateroom that by the time we round Cape Horn, you'll be lucky if you weigh ninety." There was a moment of apprehensive silence, and Abner, feeling a slight rocking of the ship, was afraid that he was going to start sooner than the rest, but the captain slapped him on the back and said reassuringly, "But after we round the Horn we hit the Pacific, and it's like a lake in summer. Then you'll eat and grow fat."

  "How long before we get to the Pacific?" Abner asked weakly.

  "About a hundred and fifteen days," Janders laughed. Then he added, "I'll send a boy in here with a screwdriver. Cleat your trunks to the deck. You don't want 'em sloshing about in a heavy sea."

  When the missionaries saw the boy in their cramped stateroom, they were both amused and delighted, for he was so tall he had to bend over. "It's Keoki Kanakoa!" John Whipple cried. There were hearty greetings as the massive Hawaiian explained, "The American Board is sending me home to help Christianize my islands. I'm working for Captain Janders only because I like ships."

  When the tiny cabin was finally packed, no floor was visible; there was no place to sit; there was only one solid layer of luggage upon the other, and four bunks so close together that the toes of one missionary couple were only eighteen inches away from the toes of the next pair.

  Early on the morning of Saturday, September 1, in the year 1821 the mission family assembled on the wharf. Gaunt, God-stricken Reverend Eliphalet Thorn conducted service, crying above the sounds of the port, "Brothers in Christ, I command you not to weep on this joyous day. Let the world see that you go forth in fullness of spirit, joyously to a great and triumphant duty. We who send you upon this mission to far lands do so in joy. You who go must evidence the same exaltation, for you go in the spirit of Jesus Christ. We will sing the mission song." And in a clear voice he started the anthem of those who venture to far islands:

  "Go, spread a Saviour's fame:

  And tell His matchless grace

  To the most guilty and depraved

  Of Adam's numerous race.

  "We wish you in His name

  The most divine success,

  Assur'd that He Who sends you forth

  Will your endeavors bless."

  Reverend Thorn then spoke his final word of encouragement: "I have personally helped in the selection of each man in this group, and I am convinced that you will be adornments to the work of Jesus Christ. In storms you will not grow weary, in disappointments you will not question the ultimate triumph of your cause. Through your administration the souls of millions yet unborn will be saved from eternal hellfire. I can think of no better parting hymn than the one which sent me forth on such a mission some years ago:

  'Go to many a tropic isle

  On the bosom of the deep

  Where the skies forever smile

  And the blacks forever weep,'

  You are to still that weeping."

  Another minister issued a long prayer, not much to the point, and the service should have been ended on this high religious plane, with each of the twenty-two missionaries attentive to Reverend Thorn's injunction that they show no sadness, but the elderly wife of one of the supervising ministers, upon looking at the pretty young brides about to depart, and knowing that some would die in childbirth in Hawaii and others would waste away and others would lose their grip on reality because of back-breaking work and insufficient food, could not restrain her motherly emotions, and in a high piping voice she began one of the most truly Christ-like of all church hymns. Its old familiar strains were quickly picked up, and even Reverend Thorn, unable to anticipate what was about to happen, joined lustily in:

  "Blest be the tie that binds

  Our hearts in Christian love;

  The fellowship of kindred minds

  Is like to that above."

  All went well in the first verse, and also in the second, but when the singers came to the succeeding thoughts, one after another began to choke, and at the end all the women in the audience were weeping:

  "We share our mutual woes;

  Our mutual burdens bear;

  And often for each other

&nbs
p; The sympathizing tear flows."

  Reverend Thorn, his voice strong and clear to the end, thought ruefully, "Women ought not be permitted to attend leave-takings," for in the general sobbing that now overtook the congregation he witnessed the collapse of his plans for an orderly departure. Instead of triumphant testimony, the morning had become a sentimental shambles, the victory of common human love over black-coated respectability.

  Nevertheless, and not by plan, the morning did end on a note of high religious emotion, for Jerusha Hale unexpectedly moved forward and in her fawn-colored coat and lively poke bonnet stood before Reverend Thorn, saying in a clear voice so that all could hear, "I speak to you not as my Uncle Eliphalet, nor as Reverend Thorn of Africa, but as an officer of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. We place our futures in your hands. The eleven men here take no money with them, only those things required for life on a savage island. It would not be proper for me to take worldly wealth, either, and so I turn over to the Board the small inheritance I received from my loving aunt. It was to have been spent on my marriage, but I have married the work of the Lord." And she handed Reverend Thorn a packet containing more than eight hundred dollars.

  Penniless, uninformed, ill at ease with their suddenly acquired partners, but strong in the Lord, the missionaries climbed aboard the brig Thetis, and Captain Janders cried, "Break out the sails!" and the tiny ship flung aloft her nine new sails and began moving slowly toward the open sea. Standing on the port side of the vessel, Abner Hale had the distinct premonition that he would never again see America, and he uttered a short prayer which invoked blessing for all those who lived on that bleak, ungenerous little farm in Marlboro, Massachusetts. If he had been asked at that solemn moment what mission he was setting forth upon he would have answered honestly, "To bring to the people of Hawaii the blessings that I enjoyed on that farm." It could never have occurred to him--as indeed it never did--that a better mission might be to bring to Hawaii the blessings that characterized the solid white home facing the village common in Walpole, New Hampshire, for although he had said nothing about this to anyone, he could not believe that the levity, the profane music, the novels and the deficiency in grace that marked the Bromley home were in any sense blessings. In fact, he rather felt that in bringing Jerusha onto the Thetis he was somehow saving her from herself.

  She was now tugging at his arm and saying, "Reverend Hale, I think I'm going to be sick." And he took her below and placed her in one of the short berths, where she was to stay for most of the time during the first four months. Abner, to everyone's surprise, proved a good sailor, for although he constantly looked as if he were about to vomit, he ate ravenously and never did.

  It was he, therefore, who led prayers, did the preaching, studied Hawaiian with Keoki Kanakoa, and frequently took care of eighteen or twenty seasick missionaries. Some of them came ungenerously to detest the wiry little man as he moved briskly among their sickbeds, assuring them that soon they would be up like him, eating pork, biscuit, gravy, anything. And yet grudgingly they had to admire his determination, particularly when Captain Janders began to rail against him.

  Janders started with his first mate. "Mister Collins, you've got to keep that pipsqueak Hale out of the fo'c's'l."

  “Is he bothering the men?"

  "He's trying to convert "em."

  "Those monsters?"

  "He's got his dirty little fangs into Cridland. I found the boy weeping last night and I asked him what was wrong, and he told me that Reverend Hale had convinced him that death and eternal hellfire were the lot of everyone on this ship who did not confess and join the church."

  "Maybe he's right," Collins laughed.

  "But in the meantime we have to run a ship."

  "Have the men complained, sir?"

  "No, that they haven't. Cridland says they sort of like to have the little squirt around. Makes them feel as if someone was interested in 'em."

  "I'll tell him to stay clear of the men," Mister Collins promised.

  Captain Janders knew precisely when the message was delivered, for two minutes later Reverend Hale, sputtering with rage, was 'tween decks, hammering on the half-circle table. “Do I understand, Captain Janders, that I have been ordered not to go into the fo'c's'l?"

  "Not an order. A request."

  "Then you were partner to this request?"

  "I was."

  "And you are consciously setting yourself athwart my efforts to save the souls of these forsaken men steeped in evil and abornination?"

  "These are just good ordinary sailors, Reverend Hale, and I don't want 'em upset."

  "Upset!" Reverend Hale beat the table more loudly, so that all the seasick missionaries could hear the argument, whether they wished to or not. "You call the conversion of an immortal soul to God's grace upsetting! Captain Janders, there are some aboard this brig who would profit from some upsetting, and I am not referring exclusively to those in the fo'c's'l." Thereafter, however, he stayed out of the men's cramped quarters forward, but he did lie in wait for them as they went about their duties, until Captain Janders had once more to call in the first mate. "Damn it, Mister Collins, now he's meddling with the men when they're trying to change sails. Warn him about it."

  This led to further protests from the missionary, which Captain Janders patiently entertained. Finally Hale cried, "I don't believe you care, Captain Janders, whether you run a Christian ship or not. The men tell me that you issue rations of rum after a storm. That you never try to get them to take the pledge. Obviously, you try to impede me in every way possible."

  "Reverend Hale," the captain pleaded, "I'm trying to get this ship to Hawaii. You seem to be trying to get it to Beulah Land."

  "I am," Hale replied.

  "The two ports are incompatible."

  "Not in God's eyes, Captain Janders. You've forbidden me the fo'c's'l. Now you forbid me to talk to the men on duty. Are you also going to forbid me the right to conduct Christian services on Sunday?"

  "No, Reverend Hale, I aim to run a God-fearing ship, and when no ministers are aboard, I conduct services myself. Short ones. I'd be pleased to have you carry on for me. I'm in favor of church, at sea or ashore."

  Later, when talking with the first mate, the captain asked, "Why do you suppose it is, Mister Collins, that with all these intelligent young men aboard, and with eleven damned attractive young women, it has to be Hale who is always well enough to eat with us? Why don't he get sick and his wife come to dinner?"

  "Divine providence is sometimes malign, Captain Janders," the mate replied. But how malign, he was not to know until Reverend Hale preached his first Sunday sermon on the afterdeck. The Thetis rolled so sorely that no other missionary could appear above decks, but there stood Abner Hale, with a heavy Bible in his left hand, preaching into the winds.

  "I have chosen for my text James, chapter 4, verse 8: 'Draw nigh to God, and He will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded.'" And he launched into one of the most violent attacks on the moral dangers faced by sailors that the crew had ever heard, for he charged that all who sailed before the mast were peculiarly tempted, that those who led them were apt to be insensitive brutes, that their employers who remained safe at home in Salem and Boston were determind to corrupt their vessels, and that every port they touched harbored instruments of evil that stay-at-home citizens could only dream of. Abner painted the men before him as the blackest, most evil and forlorn group of reprobates in Christendom, and the men loved it. Throughout his fiery sermon they nodded approvingly, and even Captain Janders and the first mate agreed that except in the part where Abner belabored them individually, he was close to the truth. But the result of his sermon was rather the opposite of what Abner had intended, for throughout the rest of the day the young sailors whom he wanted to reach most--for he felt that Janders and Collins were past saving--strutted with extra swagger as if in sudden realization of the fact that they "were among the evilest human
beings known." They had suspected this for some time, and they derived positive pleasure from being told so by an expert. Only Cridland, a pathetic, undernourished boy with an overpowering sense of guilt, caught anything of Hale's message, and he appeared red-eyed and perplexed as Abner was about to go below, asking, "What must I do to be saved?" And from his question Abner knew that his sermon had been a success.

  "You must pray. You must study the Bible. And you must try to save the souls of your mates in the fo'c's'l," Abner explained. He handed young Cridland his own Bible and said, "You may keep this tonight. I brought along eight seamen's Bibles, and I'll give you one at Sabbath service but it is only a loan from God to you. Only when you get some friend in the fo'c's'l to ask for his Bible, will you have started upon your true salvation."

  At supper Captain Janders growled, "The mate says he saw your large Bible in the fo'c's'l, Reverend Hale. I thought it was understood that you were not to annoy the men down there any more."

  "I have kept severely to my promise, Captain Janders, but since I am forbidden entrance into that pit of depravity, I feel sure that you will not object to my sending there, as my messenger better able to discharge my obligations than I myself, the holy word of God. If you wish to throw the Bible out of your ship, do so, Captain, and your name will become imperishable in the roll call of mariners."

  "Please, Reverend Hale, don't preach sermons down here. I only asked if you had violated your agreement to stay out of the fo'c's'l."

  "I have never violated an agreement," Abner cried. "Oh, I shall stay out! Never fear! But by next Sunday, Captain Janders, eight of my Bibles will be down there."

  In spite of their arguments with the difficult missionary, both Captain Janders and Mister Collins were impressed by the fatherly way in which he tended his sick companions. Each dawn he went from one sickbed to another, collecting the night's slops, hauling them away and bringing fresh water to cleanse lips foul from vomiting. Before breakfast he visited each man and woman and read to them from the Bible. Men who wanted to shave were provided with hot water from the cook's galley, and women who required fresh linen could indicate to Abner which boxes were to be hauled out and opened. At mealtimes he took to each sick friend those portions of greasy food which had a chance of staying down in retching stomachs. He argued the captain into allowing him to cook up batches of oatmeal gruel for the women. And each evening, no matter how sick the missionaries were, they were hauled out of bed and made to attend divine worship conducted by Abner in the tiny, crowded cabin. If he saw that a man or woman could remain upright only with difficulty, he would conclude his prayer in half a minute and say, "The Lord has marked your presence, Joshua. You had better return to bed." Then, when the sick had mercifully departed, he would involve the others in long discussions, sermons, prayers, hymns. He was especially fond of one hymn which contained a verse which he held applicable to the Thetis: