Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated)

by Rudyard Kipling

  The men swore and tried to argue as the boat drifted; but the next swell checked a little, like a man tripping on a carpet. There was a deep sob and a gathering roar, and the Virgin flung up a couple of acres of foaming water, white, furious, and ghastly over the shoal sea. Then all the boats greatly applauded Long Jack, and the Galway men held their tongue.

  “Ain’t it elegant?” said Dan, bobbing like a young seal at home. “She’ll break about once every ha’af hour now, ‘les the swell piles up good. What’s her reg’lar time when she’s at work, Tom Platt?”

  “Once ivry fifteen minutes, to the tick. Harve, you’ve seen the greatest thing on the Banks; an’ but for Long Jack you’d seen some dead men too.”

  There came a sound of merriment where the fog lay thicker and the schooners were ringing their bells. A big bark nosed cautiously out of the mist, and was received with shouts and cries of, “Come along, darlin’,” from the Irishry.

  “Another Frenchman?” said Harvey.

  “Hain’t you eyes? She’s a Baltimore boat; goin’ in fear an’ tremblin’,” said Dan. “We’ll guy the very sticks out of her. Guess it’s the fust time her skipper ever met up with the Fleet this way.”

  She was a black, buxom, eight-hundred-ton craft. Her mainsail was looped up, and her topsail flapped undecidedly in what little wind was moving. Now a bark is feminine beyond all other daughters of the sea, and this tall, hesitating creature, with her white and gilt figurehead, looked just like a bewildered woman half lifting her skirts to cross a muddy street under the jeers of bad little boys. That was very much her situation. She knew she was somewhere in the neighbourhood of the Virgin, had caught the roar of it, and was, therefore, asking her way. This is a small part of what she heard from the dancing dories:

  “The Virgin? Fwhat are you talkin’ of? ‘This is Le Have on a Sunday mornin’. Go home an’ sober up.”

  “Go home, ye tarrapin! Go home an’ tell ‘em we’re comin’.”

  Half a dozen voices together, in a most tuneful chorus, as her stern went down with a roll and a bubble into the troughs: “Thay-aah-she-strikes!”

  “Hard up! Hard up fer your life! You’re on top of her now.”

  “Daown! Hard daown! Let go everything!”

  “All hands to the pumps!”

  “Daown jib an’ pole her!”

  Here the skipper lost his temper and said things. Instantly fishing was suspended to answer him, and he heard many curious facts about his boat and her next port of call. They asked him if he were insured; and whence he had stolen his anchor, because, they said, it belonged to the Carrie Pitman; they called his boat a mud-scow, and accused him of dumping garbage to frighten the fish; they offered to tow him and charge it to his wife; and one audacious youth slipped up almost under the counter, smacked it with his open palm, and yelled: “Gid up, Buck!”

  The cook emptied a pan of ashes on him, and he replied with cod-heads. The bark’s crew fired small coal from the galley, and the dories threatened to come aboard and “razee” her. They would have warned her at once had she been in real peril; but, seeing her well clear of the Virgin, they made the most of their chances. The fun was spoilt when the rock spoke again, a half-mile to windward, and the tormented bark set everything that would draw and went her ways; but the dories felt that the honours lay with them.

  All that night the Virgin roared hoarsely; and next morning, over an angry, white-headed sea, Harvey saw the Fleet with flickering masts waiting for a lead. Not a dory was hove out till ten o’clock, when the two Jeraulds of the Day’s Eye, imagining a lull which did not exist, set the example. In a minute half the boats were out and bobbing in the cockly swells, but Troop kept the We’re Heres at work dressing down. He saw no sense in “dares”; and as the storm grew that evening they had the pleasure of receiving wet strangers only too glad to make any refuge in the gale. The boys stood by the dory-tackles with lanterns, the men ready to haul, one eye cocked for the sweeping wave that would make them drop everything and hold on for dear life. Out of the dark would come a yell of “Dory, dory!” They would hook up and haul in a drenched man and a half-sunk boat, till their decks were littered down with nests of dories and the bunks were full. Five times in their watch did Harvey, with Dan, jump at the foregaff where it lay lashed on the boom, and cling with arms, legs, and teeth to rope and spar and sodden canvas as a big wave filled the decks. One dory was smashed to pieces, and the sea pitched the man head first on to the decks, cutting his forehead open; and about dawn, when the racing seas glimmered white all along their cold edges, another man, blue and ghastly, crawled in with a broken hand, asking news of his brother. Seven extra mouths sat down to breakfast: A Swede; a Chatham skipper; a boy from Hancock, Maine; one Duxbury, and three Provincetown men.

  There was a general sorting out among the Fleet next day; and though no one said anything, all ate with better appetites when boat after boat reported full crews aboard. Only a couple of Portuguese and an old man from Gloucester were drowned, but many were cut or bruised; and two schooners had parted their tackle and been blown to the southward, three days’ sail. A man died on a Frenchman — it was the same bark that had traded tobacco with the We’re Heres. She slipped away quite quietly one wet, white morning, moved to a patch of deep water, her sails all hanging anyhow, and Harvey saw the funeral through Disko’s spy-glass. It was only an oblong bundle slid overside. They did not seem to have any form of service, but in the night, at anchor, Harvey heard them across the star-powdered black water, singing something that sounded like a hymn. It went to a very slow tune.

  “La brigantine

  Qui va tourner,

  Roule et s’incline

  Pour m’entrainer.

  Oh, Vierge Marie,

  Pour moi priez Dieu!

  Adieu, patrie;

  Quebec, adieu!”

  Tom Platt visited her, because, he said, the dead man was his brother as a Freemason. It came out that a wave had doubled the poor fellow over the heel of the bowsprit and broken his back. The news spread like a flash, for, contrary to general custom, the Frenchman held an auction of the dead man’s kit, — he had no friends at St Malo or Miquelon, — and everything was spread out on the top of the house, from his red knitted cap to the leather belt with the sheath-knife at the back. Dan and Harvey were out on twenty-fathom water in the Hattie S., and naturally rowed over to join the crowd. It was a long pull, and they stayed some little time while Dan bought the knife, which had a curious brass handle. When they dropped overside and pushed off into a drizzle of rain and a lop of sea, it occurred to them that they might get into trouble for neglecting the lines.

  “Guess ‘twon’t hurt us any to be warmed up,” said Dan, shivering under his oilskins, and they rowed on into the heart of a white fog, which, as usual, dropped on them without warning.

  “There’s too much blame tide hereabouts to trust to your instinks,” he said. “Heave over the anchor, Harve, and we’ll fish a piece till the thing lifts. Bend on your biggest lead. Three pound ain’t any too much in this water. See how she’s tightened on her rodin’ already.”

  There was quite a little bubble at the bows, where some irresponsible Bank current held the dory full stretch on her rope; but they could not see a boat’s length in any direction. Harvey turned up his collar and bunched himself over his reel with the air of a wearied navigator. Fog had no special terrors for him now. They fished a while in silence, and found the cod struck on well. Then Dan drew the sheath-knife and tested the edge of it on the gunwale.

  “That’s a daisy,” said Harvey. “How did you get it so cheap?”

  “On account o’ their blame Cath’lic superstitions,” said Dan, jabbing with the bright blade. “They don’t fancy takin’ iron from off a dead man, so to speak. ‘See them Arichat Frenchmen step back when I bid?”

  “But an auction ain’t taking anythink off a dead man. It’s business.”

  “We know it ain’t, but there’s no goin’ in the teeth o’ superstition. Th
at’s one o’ the advantages o’ livin’ in a progressive country.” And Dan began whistling:

  “Oh, Double Thatcher, how are you?

  Now Eastern Point comes inter view.

  The girls an’ boys we soon shall see,

  At anchor off Cape Ann!”

  “Why didn’t that Eastport man bid, then? He bought his boots. Ain’t Maine progressive?”

  “Maine? Pshaw! They don’t know enough, or they hain’t got money enough, to paint their haouses in Maine. I’ve seen ‘em. The Eastport man he told me that the knife had been used — so the French captain told him — used up on the French coast last year.”

  “Cut a man? Heave ‘s the muckle.” Harvey hauled in his fish, rebaited, and threw over.

  “Killed him! Course, when I heard that I was keener’n ever to get it.”

  “Christmas! I didn’t know it,” said Harvey, turning round. “I’ll give you a dollar for it when I — get my wages. Say, I’ll give you two dollars.”

  “Honest? D’you like it as much as all that?” said Dan, flushing. “Well, to tell the truth, I kinder got it for you — to give; but I didn’t let on till I saw how you’d take it. It’s yours and welcome, Harve, because we’re dory-mates, and so on and so forth, an’ so followin’. Catch a-holt!”

  He held it out, belt and all.

  “But look at here. Dan, I don’t see — ”

  “Take it. ‘Tain’t no use to me. I wish you to hev it.” The temptation was irresistible. “Dan, you’re a white man,” said Harvey. “I’ll keep it as long as I live.”

  “That’s good hearin’,” said Dan, with a pleasant laugh; and then, anxious to change the subject: “‘Look’s if your line was fast to somethin’.”

  “Fouled, I guess,” said Harve, tugging. Before he pulled up he fastened the belt round him, and with deep delight heard the tip of the sheath click on the thwart. “Concern the thing!” he cried. “She acts as though she were on strawberry-bottom. It’s all sand here, ain’t it?”

  Dan reached over and gave a judgmatic tweak. “Hollbut’ll act that way ‘f he’s sulky. Thet’s no strawberry-bottom. Yank her once or twice. She gives, sure. Guess we’d better haul up an’ make certain.”

  They pulled together, making fast at each turn on the cleats, and the hidden weight rose sluggishly.

  “Prize, oh! Haul!” shouted Dan, but the shout ended in a shrill, double shriek of horror, for out of the sea came the body of the dead Frenchman buried two days before! The hook had caught him under the right armpit, and he swayed, erect and horrible, head and shoulders above water. His arms were tied to his side, and — he had no face. The boys fell over each other in a heap at the bottom of the dory, and there they lay while the thing bobbed alongside, held on the shortened line.

  “The tide — the tide brought him!” said Harvey with quivering lips, as he fumbled at the clasp of the belt.

  “Oh, Lord! Oh, Harve!” groaned Dan, “be quick. He’s come for it. Let him have it. Take it off.”

  “I don’t want it! I don’t want it!” cried Harvey. “I can’t find the bu-buckle.”

  “Quick, Harve! He’s on your line!”

  Harvey sat up to unfasten the belt, facing the head that had no face under its streaming hair. “He’s fast still,” he whispered to Dan, who slipped out his knife and cut the line, as Harvey flung the belt far overside. The body shot down with a plop, and Dan cautiously rose to his knees, whiter than the fog.

  “He come for it. He come for it. I’ve seen a stale one hauled up on a trawl and I didn’t much care, but he come to us special.”

  “I wish — I wish I hadn’t taken the knife. Then he’d have come on your line.”

  “Dunno as thet would ha’ made any differ. We’re both scared out o’ ten years’ growth. Oh, Harve, did ye see his head?”

  “Did I? I’ll never forget it. But look at here, Dan; it couldn’t have been meant. It was only the tide.”

  “Tide! He come for it, Harve. Why, they sunk him six miles to south’ard o’ the Fleet, an’ we’re two miles from where she’s lyin’ now. They told me he was weighted with a fathom an’ a half o’ chain-cable.”

  “Wonder what he did with the knife — up on the French coast?”

  “Something bad. ‘Guess he’s bound to take it with him to the Judgment, an’ so — What are you doin’ with the fish?”

  “Heaving ‘em overboard,” said Harvey.

  “What for? We sha’n’t eat ‘em.”

  “I don’t care. I had to look at his face while I was takin’ the belt off. You can keep your catch if you like. I’ve no use for mine.”

  Dan said nothing, but threw his fish over again.

  “Guess it’s best to be on the safe side,” he murmured at last. “I’d give a month’s pay if this fog ‘u’d lift. Things go abaout in a fog that ye don’t see in clear weather — yo-hoes an’ hollerers and such like. I’m sorter relieved he come the way he did instid o’ walkin’. He might ha’ walked.”

  “Don’t, Dan! We’re right on top of him now. ‘Wish I was safe aboard, hem’ pounded by Uncle Salters.”

  “They’ll be lookin’ fer us in a little. Gimme the tooter.” Dan took the tin dinner-horn, but paused before he blew.

  “Go on,” said Harvey. “I don’t want to stay here all night”

  “Question is, haow he’d take it. There was a man frum down the coast told me once he was in a schooner where they darsen’t ever blow a horn to the dories, becaze the skipper — not the man he was with, but a captain that had run her five years before — he’d drowned a boy alongside in a drunk fit; an’ ever after, that boy he’d row along-side too and shout, ‘Dory! dory!’ with the rest.”

  “Dory! dory!” a muffled voice cried through the fog. They cowered again, and the horn dropped from Dan’s hand.

  “Hold on!” cried Harvey; “it’s the cook.”

  “Dunno what made me think o’ thet fool tale, either,” said Dan. “It’s the doctor, sure enough.”

  “Dan! Danny! Oooh, Dan! Harve! Harvey! Oooh, Haarveee!”

  “We’re here,” sung both boys together. They heard oars, but could see nothing till the cook, shining and dripping, rowed into them.

  “What iss happened?” said he. “You will be beaten at home.”

  “Thet’s what we want. Thet’s what we’re sufferin’ for” said Dan. “Anything homey’s good enough fer us. We’ve had kinder depressin’ company.” As the cook passed them a line, Dan told him the tale.

  “Yess! He come for hiss knife,” was all he said at the end.

  Never had the little rocking We’re Here looked so deliciously home-like as when the cook, born and bred in fogs, rowed them back to her. There was a warm glow of light from the cabin and a satisfying smell of food forward, and it was heavenly to hear Disko and the others, all quite alive and solid, leaning over the rail and promising them a first-class pounding. But the cook was a black; master of strategy. He did not get the dories aboard till he had given the more striking points of the tale, explaining as he backed and bumped round the counter how Harvey was the mascot to destroy any possible bad luck. So the boys came override as rather uncanny heroes, and every one asked them questions instead of pounding them for making trouble. Little Penn delivered quite a speech on the folly of superstitions; but public opinion was against him and in favour of Long Jack, who told the most excruciating ghost-stories, till nearly midnight. Under that influence no one except Salters and Penn said anything about “idolatry,” when the cook put a lighted candle, a cake of flour and water, and a pinch of salt on a shingle, and floated them out astern to keep the Frenchman quiet in case he was still restless. Dan lit the candle because he had bought the belt, and the cook grunted and muttered charms as long as he could see the ducking point of flame.

  Said Harvey to Dan, as they turned in after watch:

  “How about progress and Catholic superstitions?”

  “Huh! I guess I’m as enlightened and progressive as the next man, but when it comes
to a dead St. Malo deck-hand scarin’ a couple o’ pore boys stiff fer the sake of a thirty-cent knife, why, then, the cook can take hold fer all o’ me. I mistrust furriners, livin’ or dead.”

  Next morning all, except the cook, were rather ashamed of the ceremonies, and went to work double tides, speaking gruffly to one another.

  The We’re Here was racing neck and neck for her last few loads against the Parry Norman; and so close was the struggle that the Fleet took side and betted tobacco. All hands worked at the lines or dressing-down till they fell asleep where they stood — beginning before dawn and ending when it was too dark to see. They even used the cook as pitcher, and turned Harvey into the hold to pass salt, while Dan helped to dress down. Luckily a Parry Norman man sprained his ankle falling down the foc’sle, and the We’re Heres gained. Harvey could not see how one more fish could be crammed into her, but Disko and Tom Platt stowed and stowed, and planked the mass down with big stones from the ballast, and there was always “jest another day’s work.” Disko did not tell them when all the salt was wetted. He rolled to the lazarette aft the cabin and began hauling out the big mainsail. This was at ten in the morning. The riding-sail was down and the main- and topsail were up by noon, and dories came alongside with letters for home, envying their good fortune. At last she cleared decks, hoisted her flag, — as is the right of the first boat off the Banks, — up-anchored, and began to move. Disko pretended that he wished to accomodate folk who had not sent in their mail, and so worked her gracefully in and out among the schooners. In reality, that was his little triumphant procession, and for the fifth year running it showed what kind of mariner he was. Dan’s accordion and Tom Platt’s fiddle supplied the music of the magic verse you must not sing till all the salt is wet:

  “Hih! Yih! Yoho! Send your letters raound!

  All our salt is wetted, an’ the anchor’s off the graound!

  Bend, oh, bend your mains’l, we’re back to Yankeeland —

  With fifteen hunder’ quintal,

  An’ fifteen hunder’ quintal,

  ‘Teen hunder’ toppin’ quintal,