“He don’t look like no sailor man to me,” one of the men said. “He looks more like what you would call a gentleman.”
“Whatever he may look like, he is hired on as a sailor, and a sailor he will be,” Norton said. He looked toward Duff. “Get changed into working clothes.”
“Aye, sir. And thank you, Mr. Norton, for providing a way for me to avoid the brig,” Duff said.
“Just see to it that you do your work, for I’ll not be making excuses for you to the captain,” Norton said as he started back up the ladder.
After Norton left, none of the others spoke to him. The sailors were not purposely ignoring Duff, but neither were they inviting him into their circle. Duff knew from his few voyages, the most recent being to Egypt with his regiment, that a ship’s crew was a close-knit group. He wasn’t going to fit in right away; indeed, perhaps not for the entire voyage. But, as he told the captain, this was better than being in the brig, and it was infinitely better than hanging, which fate awaited him back in Scotland.
As Duff went through Peters’s sea bag, pulling out clothes, he was very aware of their pungent odor. Steeling himself to it, he pulled on a pair of pants and a blue-and-white striped shirt. Once dressed, he looked around the fo’castle, which would furnish his quarters for the voyage. It was filled with coils of rigging, spare sails, and items of machinery, many of which were foreign to him. He saw a hammock hanging from one hook, just above Peters’s kit. Looking to his left, he saw another hook and deduced that his sleeping would be accommodated by stretching the hammock from one hook to the other. He was about to stretch out to see how it worked when the hatch was opened and Norton shouted out to the men below.
“All hands on deck! All hands on deck!”
At Norton’s call, the sailors made haste to climb the ladder and spill out onto the deck. Duff went up as well, and started toward the left side of the ship when he emerged on deck from the top of the ladder, but one of the sailors reached out for him.
“Here, lad,” he said. “You’ll be starboard with us.”
“Thank you,” Duff said, thankful not only for the information but also because the sailor had spoken to him.
When all had come topside, they gathered toward the stern and looked up toward the quarterdeck. There, Duff could see the helmsman still at the helm, his hands securely on the wheel spokes, his eyes staring straight ahead. The vessel was leaned over, racing swiftly before the wind, and Duff could hear the noise of the water streaming back from the bow. He could also feel the pitch and fall of the deck beneath him as it rolled with the swell of the sea. He was glad that he had been to sea before, because he was confident that he would be able to complete this voyage without getting sick.
The captain stepped up to the rail forward of the quarterdeck, then looked down at his gathered crew.
“Men, we had a good crossing coming over, and I expect an even better crossing on the return. You know me well by now, and you know that when you perform your tasks as you have been assigned, you find me a pleasant enough captain. Shirk in your tasks and, I assure you, you will find me most unpleasant indeed. Mr. Norton?”
“Aye, sir?”
“Post the watches.”
“Aye sir.
“Port watch topside, starboard belowdecks.”
Duff went belowdecks with the rest of the starboard watch, and when he saw a couple of them stretch out their hammocks for a nap, he decided to do the same thing.
One week at sea
If Duff thought the life of a sailor at sea would be easy, he was quickly disabused of that notion. The ship’s officers found much for them to do, and while Duff initially thought it might merely be a means of making work to keep the sailors busy, he soon realized that all the work was necessary. Whenever any of the standing rigging became slack, a condition that seemed to be constant, the coverings had to be removed, tackles tended to, and tension put on the rigging until it was drawn well taut. Afterward, the coverings had to be replaced, which, Duff learned, was no easy thing to do.
Even the work caused work, because one rope could not be adjusted without requiring an adjustment to another. One could not stay a mast aft by the back stays without slacking up the head stays. In addition to the constant attention to the ship’s rigging, there was greasing, oiling, varnishing, painting, scraping, and scrubbing to be attended to, plus furling, bracing, making and setting sail, pulling, and climbing. Duff found that there was much to occupy him.
“Them that sails on the steamships don’t do all this work,” a sailor named Kelly said.
“They ain’t hardly what you would call sailors neither,” Jiggs said. “Them that sails on the steamships ain’t nothin’ but passengers goin’ along for the ride. You ain’t a real sailor ’lessen you are on a wind ship. Sails, that’s where the word sailor comes from.”
Those who were close enough to overhear the exchange laughed, but the work continued.
As the voyage progressed, Duff discovered that the business of running the ship was much to be preferred over the long, silent hours of night watch. That was because it was during those hours of night watch when he most felt the pain of Skye’s death.
More than one time he was sure that he heard her voice.
“Duff, my darling Duff, I am here. Can you not see me?”
Duff would turn with a small cry of joy and a smile on his face. But the smile would be replaced by an expression of sorrow as he realized that what he was hearing was the whisper of the wind from the sails or the murmur of water slipping by the hull, and no more.
Sometimes, too, he would see her flashing eyes in the green light of the luminescent fish that would keep pace with the ship. Such experiences were bittersweet for him. On the one hand, it kept the memory of Skye ever fresh in his mind; on the other, it kept the pain of his loss ever aching in his heart.
Toward the end of the second week at sea, the starboard watch was below when Duff heard the raindrops falling on deck thick and fast. He could also hear the loud and repeated orders of the mate, trampling of feet, creaking of the blocks, and all the accompaniments of a coming storm. In a few minutes, the slide of the hatch was thrown back, which made the noise from above even louder.
“All hands on deck! All hands on deck! Topside, me hearties, we are into heavy seas!” Norton shouted down.
When Duff reached the deck he saw, firsthand, what it was like to be running before a storm at sea. The heavy head sea was beating against the Hiawatha with a noise that sounded as if someone was taking a sledgehammer to the hull. On one particularly large plunge, the bowsprit dipped and poked through a large swell. The wave broke over the bow and threw its spray the entire length of the deck.
The wind was blowing with gale force as the ship crashed through the waves. Suddenly the great mainsail on the main mast ripped open from top to bottom.
“MacCallister, Kelly! Lay up to furl that sheet before it blows to tatters!” Norton called.
“Aye!” Kelly replied. “With me, MacCallister!”
The two men climbed the mast and began working on the torn sail, but no sooner had they finished with it than the topsail tore loose and began flapping in the breeze, threatening to pull away and take with it the topgallant mast, which was now vibrating like a wand.
“We’d best get to the to’sail!” Kelly said, starting to climb even higher.
Duff had not yet climbed to the topsail, even in calm weather, but he started up one side of the mast as Kelly climbed the other side. When they reached the topgallant, the wind was of near hurricane velocity, and the mountainous waves were battering against the side of the ship with the impact of a cannonball. The Hiawatha would be lifted by one swell, hang quivering over the trough between the waves, then slam back down into the sea, only to be caught up by another, even larger wave.
Up here, too, Duff experienced firsthand the geometric principle of fulcrum and arm. The ship was the fulcrum, the topgallant mast was the farthermost part of the arm, thus making the gyrations aloft three or four
times more severe than what those on deck were experiencing.
When he reached the top, he realized that he didn’t really know what he was supposed to do. Kelly realized that as well, so he called out to him, his voice thin in the howling gale.
“We have to pull in the sail! Wrap your leg around the t’gallant yard so’s you can hang on!”
Duff did as Kelly instructed, and fighting hard to overcome the flapping pitch and yaw, the two men were able to pull in the loose sail, then furl it at the bottom, securing it with line.
“We can go back down now!” Kelly shouted, but at that very moment a severe roll tossed Kelly free and he started to fall. Without thinking, Duff let go with his hands, and holding himself secure only by his legs, almost as a trapeze artist, he swung his torso down and managed to catch Kelly by one hand, at the last possible moment.
The next roll of the ship pitched Kelly into the mast and he grabbed it with both arms. Duff pulled himself back up, then grabbed the mast and scrambled back down to the deck just behind Kelly.
“Well done, lad, well done,” Norton said to Duff.
Back on deck, and with all the sails furled, there was nothing left to do but ride out the storm. The deck heaved up, then fell to starboard, then dipped sharply to port. The roll to port was much longer and deeper than the roll to starboard had been, and Duff feared for a moment that it might just keep on going until the ship capsized. But his fear was unfounded as the ship slowly returned to the upright position, only to roll back to starboard again.
Finally the storm ended, and while it left the sea a dirty green, jagged looking and frothy, at least it wasn’t boiling as it had been. The sky was gray with low-lying, scudding clouds that were no longer dumping rain. The deck was a shambles and men were lying exhausted on every space available, paying little attention to the wet boards. There were broken fixtures and dangling stays, but the storm sails had been replaced with the regular sails and, once more, the ship was making all good speed.
Some time later, Duff was standing at the rail looking out over the sea when Kelly came up to him, carrying two cups of coffee.
“I thought you might like a cup of coffee,” he said, extending one of the cups to Duff.
“Aye, thank you, a bit of coffee might be bracing now,” Duff said, accepting the cup.
“You saved my life,” Kelly said.
“You would’ve done the same for me.”
“I might have tried, but I ain’t no ways near ’bout as strong as you, so I don’t know if I could have done it,” Kelly said. He took a swallow of his coffee, then stared for a moment at Duff. “Did you really kill someone?” he asked.
“I beg your pardon?”
“You are the one the sheriff was looking for the night just before we left port, aren’t you? I was on watch. The sheriff said you killed someone.”
“How do you know I’m the one he was talking about?”
“You came aboard that night. I don’t know how you did it. I sure didn’t see anyone, but that must have been when you done it.”
“Yes, I came aboard that night,” Duff admitted. “I borrowed a skiff, came up alongside opposite the pier, then climbed up.”
Kelly chuckled. “I thought it might be something like that. Who did you kill?”
“I killed two of the three men who killed my fiancée,” Duff said.
“I’ll be damned. Killed your fiancée, did they?”
“Yes.”
“Then they needed killin’,” Kelly said.
“Indeed they did.”
Kelly took another swallow of his coffee. “I’m glad you did it. And don’t worry none about it, because your secret is safe with me, MacCallister.”
“I appreciate that.”
Duff’s feat in grabbing and saving Kelly’s life gave him entrée into the close-knit bond of the crew, and for the remaining voyage, he was treated as one of their own.
By the time they reached New York, Duff was an accomplished seaman. He went aloft with the rest of them to reef the sails on orders. He climbed down over the side to hang but inches above the water to apply pitch to the side. He holystoned the deck. He performed every task assigned cheerfully and ably. Now, as the ship sailed into New York Harbor, he was standing on the mizzen mainsail yard as the ship was met by a tugboat. With all sails furled, and forward propulsion being provided by the steam-powered tugboat, they were brought up snug against one of the piers. There, from the pier, small lines, attached to huge hawsers, as big around as a man’s arm, were thrown up to sailors fore and aft on the ship.
“Make lines secure, fore and aft!” Captain Powell called.
The sailors, fore and aft, looped the hawsers around the on deck stanchions.
“Lines secure, fore and aft, aye, sir!” Norton called back
“Drop anchor!”
The windlass let the anchor down as the crew scrambled to check watches and see who had won the pool on the exact time the anchor would drop.
The Hiawatha, its crew, and Duff MacCallister were in the United States of America.
Chapter Six
New York
The paymaster from Red Ball Shipping Lines came aboard the Hiawatha within an hour of its dropping anchor. They were also visited by merchants from the city, tradesmen who met all the arriving ships, as anxious to relieve the sailors of their pay as the sailors were anxious to spend it.
Duff welcomed the clothing merchant and bought three pairs of striped trousers. Two pairs were dark blue with black vertical stripes, and one pair was brown with blue vertical stripes. The pants were held closed at the waist with decorative buttons. The three shirts were all white, with detachable collars and cuffs. Thus supplied, he put on a pair of trousers and a shirt, then packed his other clothes in the sea bag that Kelly had given him.
“Will you be shipping over, MacCallister?” Kelly asked. “It was fine sailing with you.”
“I will confess to you, Kelly, that it was an experience I appreciated more than I thought I would,” Duff replied. “But I think I’ll stay ashore for a while.”
“MacCallister,” Norton said. “The cap’n wants a word with you before you leave. He said to send you to his cabin.”
“The cap’n’s cabin?” Kelly said. “I’ve been sailing man and boy for fifteen years, I’ve never been in the cap’n’s cabin.”
Captain Powell’s cabin took up most of the area under the quarterdeck, stretching from side to side and back to the stern where a spread of windows let in the light. There was a large bed, a desk, and a chart table. He was standing at the chart table using a compass and ruler on the chart that was before him.
Duff knocked, lightly, on the door to the cabin.
“Come in, Mr. MacCallister,” Captain Powell said. Looking up, he smiled when he saw what Duff was wearing. “Now I must say, that is more befitting a gentleman than the clothes you have been wearing for the last three weeks. Buy it from the clothing merchant, did you?”
“Aye, sir, I felt I no longer had the right to Peters’s clothes.”
“Mr. MacCallister, I kept a close eye on you during this voyage. You had an inauspicious beginning, sneaking on board as you did.” He paused, waiting for some response from Duff. “I’m glad to see that you aren’t refuting me. You did stow away, did you not?”
“Aye, sir,” Duff admitted.
“Yes, well, as I say, you had a most inauspicious beginning, but, a most commendable voyage. You did not shirk your duties. You performed them with a skill that one would expect from a much more experienced sailor, to say nothing of your saving Kelly’s life.
“I watched the men around you as well. And while it is often difficult for a new sailor to break into a crew, tight-knit as they tend to be, the men liked and respected you. I’m told that when you came aboard, you introduced yourself to Jiggs as Captain MacCallister. Are you a captain, Mr. MacCallister?”
“Aye. I am a captain—that is—I was a captain in the 42nd Foot, Third Battalion of the Royal Highland Regime
nt of Scotts. It is the regiment we call the Black Watch.”
Captain Powell smiled, and nodded his head. “Yes, I knew you were officer material. I think, with my recommendation, you could ship out again for Red Ball as a ship’s officer. Serve as a warrant or lieutenant for a few cruises, then you could one day command your own ship. What would you think about that?”
“I think it is very flattering, and I believe you would be most kind to make such a recommendation, Captain, but I do not think the sea is for me. I think I will stay on dry land for a while.”
“I shall not try to change your mind,” Captain Powell said. “But just know that if you ever have a desire to go to sea again, look me up. I will be happy to sponsor you.”
“I appreciate that, Captain, more than I can say.”
When Duff returned to steerage to pick up his bag, the other sailors stood, respectfully.
“Here now, what is all this?” Duff asked.
“Is it true that you are to be a ship’s officer?” Kelly asked.
“No,” Duff said. “Now why would I leave the fo’ castle?”
Kelly smiled broadly. “Fine lad that you are, I knew you were one of us.”
“Well, not entirely,” Duff replied. “If I were to ship out again, it would be with you men, for I’ve served with no finer group of men anywhere. But, it’s ashore for me. I want to see some of America.”
“Then perhaps you’ll have dinner with us tonight at the Port of Call,” Kelly asked.
“I would be honored,” Duff said.
The Port of Call restaurant was less than a block away from the docks. The sign in front was a wooden representation of a three-masted schooner. The bill of fare exhibited its international flavor by offering cuisine from a dozen countries, from Moo Goo Gai Pan to Avocat et Oeufs à la Mousse de Crabe, from kidney pie to Southern fried chicken.
There was a kaleidoscope of sound inside as sailors from a dozen countries carried on spirited conversations in their own languages. Everything was going well until a big Frenchman was walking by the table of the sailors from the Hiawatha. Just as he drew even with the table, Dowling, one of the Hiawatha crew, chose that moment to stand up so that he could go relieve himself. He pushed his chair back into the path of the Frenchman, and the French sailor stumbled but did not fall.
MacCallister: The Eagles Legacy Page 5