It is perhaps because I know the sequel, but I can never think upon this voyage without a profound sense of pity and mystery; of the ship (once the whim of a rich blackguard) faring with her battered fineries and upon her homely errand, across the plains of ocean, and past the gorgeous scenery of dawn and sunset; and the ship’s company, so strangely assembled, so Britishly chuckle-headed, filling their days with chaff in place of conversation; no human book on board with them except Hadden’s Buckle, and not a creature fit either to read or to understand it; and the one mark of any civilised interest, being when Carthew filled in his spare hours with the pencil and the brush: the whole unconscious crew of them posting in the meanwhile towards so tragic a disaster.
Twenty-eight days out of Sydney, on Christmas eve, they fetched up to the entrance of the lagoon, and plied all that night outside, keeping their position by the lights of fishers on the reef and the outlines of the palms against the cloudy sky. With the break of day, the schooner was hove to, and the signal for a pilot shown. But it was plain her lights must have been observed in the darkness by the native fishermen, and word carried to the settlement, for a boat was already under weigh. She came towards them across the lagoon under a great press of sail, lying dangerously down, so that at times, in the heavier puffs, they thought she would turn turtle; covered the distance in fine style, luffed up smartly alongside, and emitted a haggard looking white man in pyjamas.
“Good-mornin’, Cap’n,” said he, when he had made good his entrance. “I was taking you for a Fiji man-of-war, what with your flush decks and them spars. Well, gen’lemen all, here’s wishing you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year,” he added, and lurched against a stay.
“Why, you’re never the pilot?” exclaimed Wicks, studying him with a profound disfavour. “You’ve never taken a ship in — don’t tell me!”
“Well, I should guess I have,” returned the pilot. “I’m Captain Dobbs, I am; and when I take charge, the captain of that ship can go below and shave.”
“But, man alive! you’re drunk, man!” cried the captain.
“Drunk!” repeated Dobbs. “You can’t have seen much life if you call me drunk. I’m only just beginning. Come night, I won’t say; I guess I’ll be properly full by then. But now I’m the soberest man in all Big Muggin.”
“It won’t do,” retorted Wicks. “Not for Joseph, sir. I can’t have you piling up my schooner.”
“All right,” said Dobbs, “lay and rot where you are, or take and go in and pile her up for yourself like the captain of the Leslie. That’s business, I guess; grudged me twenty dollars’ pilotage, and lost twenty thousand in trade and a brand new schooner; ripped the keel right off of her, and she went down in the inside of four minutes, and lies in twenty fathom, trade and all.”
“What’s all this?” cried Wicks. “Trade? What vessel was this Leslie, anyhow?”
“Consigned to Cohen and Co., from ‘Frisco,” returned the pilot, “and badly wanted. There’s a barque inside filling up for Hamburg — you see her spars over there; and there’s two more ships due, all the way from Germany, one in two months, they say, and one in three; Cohen and Co.’s agent (that’s Mr. Topelius) has taken and lain down with the jaundice on the strength of it. I guess most people would, in his shoes; no trade, no copra, and twenty hundred ton of shipping due. If you’ve any copra on board, cap’n, here’s your chance. Topelius will buy, gold down, and give three cents. It’s all found money to him, the way it is, whatever he pays for it. And that’s what come of going back on the pilot.”
“Excuse me one moment, Captain Dobbs. I wish to speak with my mate,” said the captain, whose face had begun to shine and his eyes to sparkle.
“Please yourself,” replied the pilot. “You couldn’t think of offering a man a nip, could you? just to brace him up. This kind of thing looks damned inhospitable, and gives a schooner a bad name.”
“I’ll talk about that after the anchor’s down,” returned Wicks, and he drew Carthew forward. “I say,” he whispered, “here’s a fortune.”
“How much do you call that?” asked Carthew.
“I can’t put a figure on it yet — I daren’t!” said the captain. “We might cruise twenty years and not find the match of it. And suppose another ship came in to-night? Everything’s possible! And the difficulty is this Dobbs. He’s as drunk as a marine. How can we trust him? We ain’t insured — worse luck!”
“Suppose you took him aloft and got him to point out the channel?” suggested Carthew. “If he tallied at all with the chart, and didn’t fall out of the rigging, perhaps we might risk it.”
“Well, all’s risk here,” returned the captain. “Take the wheel yourself, and stand by. Mind, if there’s two orders, follow mine, not his. Set the cook for’ard with the heads’ls, and the two others at the main sheet, and see they don’t sit on it.” With that he called the pilot; they swarmed aloft in the fore rigging, and presently after there was bawled down the welcome order to ease sheets and fill away.
At a quarter before nine o’clock on Christmas morning the anchor was let go.
The first cruise of the Currency Lass had thus ended in a stroke of fortune almost beyond hope. She had brought two thousand pounds’ worth of trade, straight as a homing pigeon, to the place where it was most required. And Captain Wicks (or, rather, Captain Kirkup) showed himself the man to make the best of his advantage. For hard upon two days he walked a verandah with Topelius, for hard upon two days his partners watched from the neighbouring public house the field of battle; and the lamps were not yet lighted on the evening of the second before the enemy surrendered. Wicks came across to the Sans Souci, as the saloon was called, his face nigh black, his eyes almost closed and all bloodshot, and yet bright as lighted matches.
“Come out here, boys,” he said; and when they were some way off among the palms, “I hold twenty-four,” he added in a voice scarcely recognizable, and doubtless referring to the venerable game of cribbage.
“What do you mean?” asked Tommy.
“I’ve sold the trade,” answered Wicks; “or, rather, I’ve sold only some of it, for I’ve kept back all the mess beef and half the flour and biscuit; and, by God, we’re still provisioned for four months! By God, it’s as good as stolen!”
“My word!” cried Hemstead.
“But what have you sold it for?” gasped Carthew, the captain’s almost insane excitement shaking his nerve.
“Let me tell it my own way,” cried Wicks, loosening his neck. “Let me get at it gradual, or I’ll explode. I’ve not only sold it, boys, I’ve wrung out a charter on my own terms to ‘Frisco and back; on my own terms. I made a point of it. I fooled him first by making believe I wanted copra, which of course I knew he wouldn’t hear of — couldn’t, in fact; and whenever he showed fight, I trotted out the copra, and that man dived! I would take nothing but copra, you see; and so I’ve got the blooming lot in specie — all but two short bills on ‘Frisco. And the sum? Well, this whole adventure, including two thousand pounds of credit, cost us two thousand seven hundred and some odd. That’s all paid back; in thirty days’ cruise we’ve paid for the schooner and the trade. Heard ever any man the match of that? And it’s not all! For besides that,” said the captain, hammering his words, “we’ve got Thirteen Blooming Hundred Pounds of profit to divide. I bled him in four Thou.!” he cried, in a voice that broke like a schoolboy’s.
For a moment the partners looked upon their chief with stupefaction, incredulous surprise their only feeling. Tommy was the first to grasp the consequences.
“Here,” he said, in a hard, business tone. “Come back to that saloon. I’ve got to get drunk.”
“You must please excuse me, boys,” said the captain, earnestly. “I daren’t taste nothing. If I was to drink one glass of beer, it’s my belief I’d have the apoplexy. The last scrimmage, and the blooming triumph, pretty nigh hand done me.”
“Well, then, three cheers for the captain,” proposed Tommy.
But Wicks held u
p a shaking hand. “Not that either, boys,” he pleaded. “Think of the other buffer, and let him down easy. If I’m like this, just fancy what Topelius is! If he heard us singing out, he’d have the staggers.”
As a matter of fact, Topelius accepted his defeat with a good grace; but the crew of the wrecked Leslie, who were in the same employment and loyal to their firm, took the thing more bitterly. Rough words and ugly looks were common. Once even they hooted Captain Wicks from the saloon verandah; the Currency Lasses drew out on the other side; for some minutes there had like to have been a battle in Butaritari; and though the occasion passed off without blows, it left on either side an increase of ill-feeling.
No such small matter could affect the happiness of the successful traders. Five days more the ship lay in the lagoon, with little employment for any one but Tommy and the captain, for Topelius’s natives discharged cargo and brought ballast; the time passed like a pleasant dream; the adventurers sat up half the night debating and praising their good fortune, or strayed by day in the narrow isle, gaping like Cockney tourists; and on the first of the new year, the Currency Lass weighed anchor for the second time and set sail for ‘Frisco, attended by the same fine weather and good luck. She crossed the doldrums with but small delay; on a wind and in ballast of broken coral, she outdid expectations; and, what added to the happiness of the ship’s company, the small amount of work that fell on them to do, was now lessened by the presence of another hand. This was the boatswain of the Leslie; he had been on bad terms with his own captain, had already spent his wages in the saloons of Butaritari, had wearied of the place, and while all his shipmates coldly refused to set foot on board the Currency Lass, he had offered to work his passage to the coast. He was a north of Ireland man, between Scotch and Irish, rough, loud, humorous, and emotional, not without sterling qualities, and an expert and careful sailor. His frame of mind was different indeed from that of his new shipmates; instead of making an unexpected fortune, he had lost a berth; and he was besides disgusted with the rations, and really appalled at the condition of the schooner. A stateroom door had stuck, the first day at sea, and Mac (as they called him) laid his strength to it and plucked it from the hinges.
“Glory!” said he, “this ship’s rotten.”
“I believe you, my boy,” said Captain Wicks.
The next day the sailor was observed with his nose aloft.
“Don’t you get looking at these sticks,” the captain said, “or you’ll have a fit and fall overboard.”
Mac turned towards the speaker with rather a wild eye. “Why, I see what looks like a patch of dry rot up yonder, that I bet I could stick my fist into,” said he.
“Looks as if a fellow could stick his head into it, don’t it?” returned Wicks. “But there’s no good prying into things that can’t be mended.”
“I think I was a Currency Ass to come on board of her!” reflected Mac.
“Well, I never said she was seaworthy,” replied the captain: “I only said she could show her blooming heels to anything afloat. And besides, I don’t know that it’s dry rot; I kind of sometimes hope it isn’t. Here; turn to and heave the log; that’ll cheer you up.”
“Well, there’s no denying it, you’re a holy captain,” said Mac.
And from that day on, he made but the one reference to the ship’s condition; and that was whenever Tommy drew upon his cellar. “Here’s to the junk trade!” he would say, as he held out his can of sherry.
“Why do you always say that?” asked Tommy.
“I had an uncle in the business,” replied Mac, and launched at once into a yarn, in which an incredible number of the characters were “laid out as nice as you would want to see,” and the oaths made up about two-fifths of every conversation.
Only once he gave them a taste of his violence; he talked of it, indeed, often; “I’m rather a voilent man,” he would say, not without pride; but this was the only specimen. Of a sudden, he turned on Hemstead in the ship’s waist, knocked him against the foresail boom, then knocked him under it, and had set him up and knocked him down once more, before any one had drawn a breath.
“Here! Belay that!” roared Wicks, leaping to his feet. “I won’t have none of this.”
Mac turned to the captain with ready civility. “I only want to learn him manners,” said he. “He took and called me Irishman.”
“Did he?” said Wicks. “O, that’s a different story! What made you do it, you tomfool? You ain’t big enough to call any man that.”
“I didn’t call him it,” spluttered Hemstead, through his blood and tears. “I only mentioned-like he was.”
“Well, let’s have no more of it,” said Wicks.
“But you ARE Irish, ain’t you?” Carthew asked of his new shipmate shortly after.
“I may be,” replied Mac, “but I’ll allow no Sydney duck to call me so. No,” he added, with a sudden heated countenance, “nor any Britisher that walks! Why, look here,” he went on, “you’re a young swell, aren’t you? Suppose I called you that! ‘I’ll show you,’ you would say, and turn to and take it out of me straight.”
On the 28th of January, when in lat. 27 degrees 20’ N., long. 177 degrees W., the wind chopped suddenly into the west, not very strong, but puffy and with flaws of rain. The captain, eager for easting, made a fair wind of it and guyed the booms out wing and wing. It was Tommy’s trick at the wheel, and as it was within half an hour of the relief (seven thirty in the morning), the captain judged it not worth while to change him.
The puffs were heavy but short; there was nothing to be called a squall, no danger to the ship, and scarce more than usual to the doubtful spars. All hands were on deck in their oilskins, expecting breakfast; the galley smoked, the ship smelt of coffee, all were in good humour to be speeding eastward a full nine; when the rotten foresail tore suddenly between two cloths and then split to either hand. It was for all the world as though some archangel with a huge sword had slashed it with the figure of a cross; all hands ran to secure the slatting canvas; and in the sudden uproar and alert, Tommy Hadden lost his head. Many of his days have been passed since then in explaining how the thing happened; of these explanations it will be sufficient to say that they were all different and none satisfactory; and the gross fact remains that the main boom gybed, carried away the tackle, broke the mainmast some three feet above the deck and whipped it overboard. For near a minute the suspected foremast gallantly resisted; then followed its companion; and by the time the wreck was cleared, of the whole beautiful fabric that enabled them to skim the seas, two ragged stumps remained.
In these vast and solitary waters, to be dismasted is perhaps the worst calamity. Let the ship turn turtle and go down, and at least the pang is over. But men chained on a hulk may pass months scanning the empty sea line and counting the steps of death’s invisible approach. There is no help but in the boats, and what a help is that! There heaved the Currency Lass, for instance, a wingless lump, and the nearest human coast (that of Kauai in the Sandwiches) lay about a thousand miles to south and east of her. Over the way there, to men contemplating that passage in an open boat, all kinds of misery, and the fear of death and of madness, brooded.
A serious company sat down to breakfast; but the captain helped his neighbours with a smile.
“Now, boys,” he said, after a pull at the hot coffee, “we’re done with this Currency Lass, and no mistake. One good job: we made her pay while she lasted, and she paid first rate; and if we were to try our hand again, we can try in style. Another good job: we have a fine, stiff, roomy boat, and you know who you have to thank for that. We’ve got six lives to save, and a pot of money; and the point is, where are we to take ‘em?”
“It’s all two thousand miles to the nearest of the Sandwiches, I fancy,” observed Mac.
“No, not so bad as that,” returned the captain. “But it’s bad enough: rather better’n a thousand.”
“I know a man who once did twelve hundred in a boat,” said Mac, “and he had all he wanted.
He fetched ashore in the Marquesas, and never set a foot on anything floating from that day to this. He said he would rather put a pistol to his head and knock his brains out.”
“Ay, ay!” said Wicks. “Well I remember a boat’s crew that made this very island of Kauai, and from just about where we lie, or a bit further. When they got up with the land, they were clean crazy. There was an iron-bound coast and an Old Bob Ridley of a surf on. The natives hailed ‘em from fishing-boats, and sung out it couldn’t be done at the money. Much they cared! there was the land, that was all they knew; and they turned to and drove the boat slap ashore in the thick of it, and was all drowned but one. No; boat trips are my eye,” concluded the captain, gloomily.
The tone was surprising in a man of his indomitable temper. “Come, Captain,” said Carthew, “you have something else up your sleeve; out with it!”
“It’s a fact,” admitted Wicks. “You see there’s a raft of little bally reefs about here, kind of chicken-pox on the chart. Well, I looked ‘em all up, and there’s one — Midway or Brooks they call it, not forty mile from our assigned position — that I got news of. It turns out it’s a coaling station of the Pacific Mail,” he said, simply.
“Well, and I know it ain’t no such a thing,” said Mac. “I been quartermaster in that line myself.”
“All right,” returned Wicks. “There’s the book. Read what Hoyt says — read it aloud and let the others hear.”
Hoyt’s falsehood (as readers know) was explicit; incredulity was impossible, and the news itself delightful beyond hope. Each saw in his mind’s eye the boat draw in to a trim island with a wharf, coal-sheds, gardens, the Stars and Stripes and the white cottage of the keeper; saw themselves idle a few weeks in tolerable quarters, and then step on board the China mail, romantic waifs, and yet with pocketsful of money, calling for champagne, and waited on by troops of stewards. Breakfast, that had begun so dully, ended amid sober jubilation, and all hands turned immediately to prepare the boat.
Complete Works of Robert Louis Stevenson (Illustrated) Page 171