The Golden Argosy: Tom Gale's Ride — page 13: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

T’ve mostly sailed under my own _ five offered foreign. . 540 JULY. THE glowing ruby should adorn Those whoin warm July are born, Then they will be exempt and free From care’s doubts and anxiety. SAILOR TOM’S YARN. BY FRANK H. CONVERSE, HE worst v’y’ge I ever made?’ You're asking me a hard one, my lad. For there’s different degrees of hard voy- aging. so tu speak. F’r instance, a sailor ships in one of these wild packets where the cap’n is a bully and his officers a couple of shades worse. From dock to dock it’s a word and a blow, with the blow two minutes before the word. If you get ashore with askin full of whole bones, you haven't had so hard a v’y’ge as some others that goes to the hospital with smashed jaws or broken limbs. Or mebbe, fool-like, you get inveigled aboard a deep-water whaler, though I will say no reglar A B in his sober senses gee caught that way oftea. Two and per- aps three years you're cruising after sperm, and finally get into port with part of a cargo of oil, your share not being enough to pay your outfit bill. Thats a hard v’y’ge! And so it goes, which if the dog- watch wasn’t nigh half spent, I mght keep illustrating of. But I mind one particler v’y’ge that was hard enough for me. It was this Being Amezican born and bred, flag as a matter of principle, d’ye see? American sailors being scarce at best, and our ships’ fo’e’sles full of dirty foreigners for nigh twenty years past, growing worse all ule time. I did make a cruise in a Chinee junk in 65, but that was entire by accident, as some night I'll tell you about. But in 72 I got stranded in London with wages to the States two potnd ten, and three pound I ped in My ¥ Clara bout I ship | e esmond bound for the West coast 1 knew tolerable well what part of the cargo was like to be, but I was a little took aback when come to get fairly aboard I see there was a youngish and an older gent which the steward said was missionaries, oin’ out toa mission on the Gaboon iver. ** The same old story ; rum, gun- powder and missionaries. Id ra- ther it were you than me was goin’, for you're sure to come to grief somehow,” says an old shipmate who came down to see me off. But the missionaries wasn’t to blame for the cargo, was they? In point of fact, as 1 found out after, they didn’t know what the cargo was, passage having been engaged for ‘em by other parties. But there’s a certain class of folks always sneering at religion that likes to represent such thiags in the worst kind of light. _ It was in the middle of March, the tough- est time in the year on the English coast, in my way of thinking. We hada fairish wind through the Straits of Dover, and then it chopped round dead ahead vith half a gale blowing and that thick you couldn’t see the brig’s length half the time. There was eight of us before the mast, she being a lump of a brig, for English owners are more particular not to have their vessels sail shorthanded, as well they may, considering the starvation wages. Four were Roosians or Roosian Finns, two Irish, and one—the one which begun trouble—hailed from Australia under the name of Boxer, which wasn’t his right name any more than mine is Harry Hale. There's some of us fellows in the forecas’le that nin’t willing to carry a respectacle fam'ly name along with us. Boxer had been paid off from a deep- waterman °nd blowed in something like fitty ~pounds inside of three weeks. So when he come aboard he was that shaky Cap'n Gore wouldn’t send him aloft; be- sides, he-tyas on the ragged edge of delirium tremens! Why, talk about selling one’s soul for drink, after he'd been aboard six hours, Boxer would have sold his and all his relations to boot for a glass of liquor. Temperance lectures with illustrations! A_ vessel's fo’e’sle is where you'll hear and see THE GOLDEN ARGOSY. ee From the time Boxer found ont there was rum in the hold, I think he grew He begged like a dog for Cap'n Gore to give him the least drop, but the old man was solid against it, and dosed Boxer with valerian and such. Boxer kept his bunk, and it was all hands on deck the biggest part of the time, so we never mis- crazier. trusted what he was up to. First I took much notice of either of the passengers was when we was three days out beating down channel under reefs, somewheres midway betwixt off Devon. The oldest of the two, a Mr. King, was sick of course, but this younger one, a Mr. Venn, didn’t seem to have an idea of such a thing. He was a slim palish sort of chap, but come to look close at him, I noticed he had considerable muscle and sinew under his white skin. And when all to once he sprung and grabbed holt of the tops’! hal- yards above the rest of our hands, and surged down on it with a regular sailor ‘sing out,” ‘* my fine fellow,” I says to my- self, ‘‘ your fingers has been in a tarpot, or I lose my guess.” | Being one hand short, Cap’n Gore, though aa S : S ~y o ta a” _ te TD II Sf sf Ke Oe ve sedi OPP AAS A « Vihé “- a Cape La Hague on the French coast and Prawle Point ——————— ——= = ’twixt the fo’e’sle (which was below deck,) and the for’ard hold. ‘Then, somebody noticed one of the boards was loose, whilst there was a tremendous smell of rum in the fo’e’sle itself. We mistrusted what it meant in a min- ute. Weshoved the board away—and the whole thing comes to me now like a photo- graph. What with the rolling and pounding, some of the upper tier of the cargo had shifted. Three or four of the powder kegs was stove atop of the puncheons and casks of rum, and there sat Boxer in the middle of ’em. One of the half empty kegs was jammed down into a heap of loose powder to stiddy it, and in the end bunghole was a lighted tallow dip with paper round the butt to keep it in place! Boxer had somehow got a big gimlet from the, carpenter's room and tapped a rum puncbeon. And there he sat a-straddle of it like a seafaring Bacchus, drinking the raw liquor out of a tin pannikin as though it was water, whilst every time the brig rolled a little heavier than usual, you could see the powder keg with the candle in it work back and forth in the powder heap! I’ve been scar’t in my day, but never noth- é . ’ r 7 4 A, iy, Yip o “4 ONE BY ONE THE CREW OF THE WRECKED VESSEL SLIPPED DOWN INTO THE LIFEBOAT. he opened his eyes tolerable wide, made no manner of objection to the passenger taking holt for a pull whenever he liked. And seeing this, Mr. Venn came on deck an hour or two after, without bis tail coat and white choker, wearing a regular sailor shirt and Scotch cap. ‘*T’ve been to sea some, cap’n,” he says, in a quiet sort of way, ‘‘and it]l do me good to stir round with the men a little— I'd like to.” Cap’n Gore stared, and smiled in his dry _way, but said nothing. And Mr. Venn did stir round. We had two reefing jobs before noon— first a single, then a double, and both times I’m blessed if the young feller wasn’t to the weather yard arm hanging on to the lift ' with his earrin’ ready rove to haul out, be- fore we men was fairly on the yard ! Yet he didn’t forget his profession neither. It was Kelly, the worst swearing man aboard, stood next him, and when Kelly begun his reg’lar cursing, Mr. Venn says : ing like that. I only wonder my hair didn’t turn while in a minute, as the story writers say. -I don’t think as quick as some, and while I was standing staring, Peter, one of the Finns in my watch, had run aft to Cap'n Gore, and the next thing I saw was the old man standing right behind me with one of those Prooshan army ‘‘needleguns” cocked and ready for action. ‘*Hullo, cap,” Boxer sung out, waving the pannikin round his head, crazy as a coot, **come on, and have just one drink before it’s too late. Because,” he said, go- ing on quick and fast, ‘‘ I’m a man of edu- cation, and this sending rum and mission- aries to Africa isn’t quite the thing, so I’m going to send the whole kit of us skyhigh direc’ly the candle gets burned a trifle lower!” Passengers included, there were fourteen of us all told, at the mercy of one sailor, erazy drunk! and as he lurched for’ard, having the idea of snuffing the candle with ‘Mr. Kelly, your own priest wouid tell | his fingers so we could see, Captain Gore you you were endangering your soul—and the sail doesn’t pick up a bit easier either.” ‘‘Right you are, parson,” says Kelly, and Mr. Venn was the “sailor parson” after that with all hands. He knew just what to say and when to say it—and we fellows took to him mightily, ’specially as all but sleeping for’ard he filled Boxer’s place in the watch day and night. i : | i jerked the gun to his shoulder. ‘*God forgive me!” I heard him say sort of under his breath, as he steadied himself and glanced along the barrel. * Wait one moment!” It was the parson—and as he spoke in a half whisper, he pulled the captain’s fin- gers away from the rifle’s trigger guard. ‘‘Step back,” he whispered, and pushing But it was awful weather, and we were two | himself in front of Captain Gore, who was days and nights beating to windward be- | struck aback for the minute, he sung out : fore the Eddystone light showed up. This was early Sunday forenoon, and when the : | ad ‘* Dacy—Charlie Dacy ! Drunk and crazy—both in faet--Boxer watch was sent below, Boxer wasn’t in his | started back like he d been shot, instead of ‘em, and they ain’t stereopticon views, | bunk. either ! Now there was only a board bulkhead | being within a hair’s breadth of it. Before Boxer could speak, the parson Gomicboo JULY 23, 1887. ——+ --- squeezed himself through the narrow place in the bulkhead and gripped Boxer'’s two wrists in his hands, which I never would have believed was so strong. ‘‘Charlie,” the parson says solemn-like, ‘¢ you aren’t yourself, come——” But ‘‘ Charlie,” as he called him, wasn't | himself, by no manner of means, and he TT... sss a grappled the parson with a yell that was awful. But the parson hung on with a death grip, and we fellows broke through the bulkhead to help him. It wasn’t long before that candle was in safe hands I can tell you, and then Boxer, lashed hand and foot, was carried into the fo’c’sle and tied in his bunk. But all this while the mate was in charge of the deck, and the wind hauling further and further to the south’ard and east’ard, was driving the brig to loo’ard. And just as Cap’n Gore run on deck the reefed fore- sail bust and blowed into rags in a twink- ling. The brig’s sails were old any way, and the fore-staysail went flying after the tore- sail! And before we could get new ones bent, the Clara Desmond was drifting to loo’ard to’ard Burr Island, where the break- ers ran half masthead high as far as we could see. There’s a_low water shoal of shifting sands within two cables’ lengths of the island, and there the brig took bottom—tfor she woald neither wear nor stay without head- sail, and in a wind and sea that was fearful, to put it mild. The mainmast weut by the beam, and Captain Gore with the mate, a Cornishman named Penryth, was swept away by the same sea, along of two of the crew. One of our boats was stove, and the other was no good any way, though the parson, who was the cool- est man aboard, tried to get us to put it over, for the second mate, Mr. Fields, was laying to wind’ard with a broken leg, and there was nobody to take charge. But, speaking for myself and the rest as far as I could see, we were about used. up, and sailor like, couldn’t see any chance of saving ourselves or being saved, Then of a sudden, through the driving murk and spray, comes an English life- boat that had been towed from somewheres nigh Plymouth by one ot those little sidewheel iron steam- ers that we Americans make fun of, sometimes. The brig was breaking up aft fast, but the liteboat managed to get under the bows and somehow get a line to the cathead, and [ll say this—I never saw such work done before or since, for the ebbing tide made a sea that was perfectly awful. It was the parson who was first to see the signals from the lifeboat’s coxswain, and out he went on the stump of the bowsprit with a coil of the jib halyards. ‘‘Now then, boys,” he sung out, and while we made our way out and one by one slipped down into the boat, he got aft, dragged old King, who was half dead with fright, for’ard, and lowered him down. **Come on, parson!” we roared together, as we saw him dive down the fore peak. ‘* Let that drunken Boxer drown!” But Mr. Venn wasn’t that kind of a man. Next thing we saw he had Boxer, who was dazed and stupid like, hauling him out on the bowsprit. Then he put vhe jib: hal- yards in Boxer’s hands and down Boxer came in a heap in the bottom of the boat. But no one paid attention to him! One of those awful green cresting seas, higher than the foremast head, came sweeping down to wind’ard of the brig. ‘*Hold on all!” was the cry, and only for the lifeboat being one of those self righting and self relieving ones, I wouldn't be here telling this yarn. We hung to the life-lines along the gun- wale as she capsized, but the painter parted and she was swept toward shore. Before the breakers was reached they righted the boat, and we were dragged up on the beach more dead than alive. The parson! We never saw him again ! M1. King only said in a feeble sort of way, after he knew the truth, something about ‘‘ laying down one’s life for a friend.” But did Mr. King mean himself, or did he mean Boxer, whom perhaps Mr, Venn had knowa as some one else. I only know this—Mr, Venn preached the biggest missionary sermon on record, the night of March 13, 1872. Aye, aye— strike eight bells there, for’ard ! 5; GOMm