“There cannot be too many guns for my taste,” I said frankly.
“Quite right; well said. The buggers must, at all costs, be kept at a distance, for once they’re aboard you may as well count yourself a dead man and clap a pistol to your temple, for they are fiends incarnate.”
I thought that he was trying, in a jocular, English way, to frighten me, so I said something brave and carefree, I forget what. He looked at me strangely, then changed the subject.
“The new owners have made a bad mistake, to my mind. This yacht — ship — was designed for spread of sail, not hoist. By that I mean that she was not built to carry sky-scrapers.”
“Sky-scrapers?”
“Yes. Extra sails on extension masts — moonsails, skysails and so forth. In my father’s day our masts seldom rose more than a few inches beyond the rigging that supported them; although, in exceptional summer-like weather, we sent up topgallant and royal masts in one.”
“Really?” I said without comprehension.
“Yes. But Captain Knatchbull has contracted the new Yankee disease of flying kites far above the royals on spars the weight of salmon rods, his nature is such that he can brook no rival, he would send us all to Davy Jones’s locker rather than let another ship eat the wind out of him, still less pass him.”
“These skysails and so forth are, then, a bad thing?” I asked carefully, so as to make sure. He made a sort of exploding noise.
“God’s teeth and trowsers!” he shouted. “Isn’t that just what I’ve been telling you? Damme, look at the rake of her masts! Would any sane man send up skyscrapers to top ’em? Can’t you see she’s built for spread?” Then, in a kinder voice, he added “No, I forgot, pray forgive me; no doubt you’ll see what I mean by the end of the voyage. If any of us are still alive.”
“Is the venture so desperate as that?” I asked. He recovered himself, breathed deeply.
“This is Captain Knatchbull’s fourth voyage in the country trade. He is living on borrowed time, for he is already rich; his motive now is only to excel all other captains in the trade, he cares nothing for his life or the lives of those he commands.”
“And you?” I asked.
“I? I am a ruined man. The family fortune’s entailed; the houses are mortgaged to the hilt; I cannot lie with my wife because I have the syphilis, d’you see — the Great Pox. In any case, she lies with another. And to me. Before I am thirty the signs and symptoms will become excruciating: I’d far rather take a Celestial Chinee knife in my liver then fetch up in the Incurables Hospital, sans teeth, sans nose, sans everything.”
“I am sorry,” I said, lamely.
“I’m not.”
We went up the gangplank again, he whistling merrily or so it seemed; I rather glum and wishing myself well out of this perilous enterprise.
“Cheerily now, Karli!” he cried, clapping me upon the shoulder, “don’t let me take the wind from your sails: there’s many a worse ship afloat — aye, and many a worse skipper — and this one will make your fortune if ever a ship can!” I sketched out a smile.
“That’s the thing!” he cried, “if we’re to be messmates we must keep each other jolly, don’t you see?”
He took me forward to the fo’c’sle and threw open the door. Several open-faced, clean, smiling fellows jumped to their feet with alacrity: it was clear that Peter Stevenage was popular with the crew.
“Here are our hearts of oak, Karli; at least, those who have finished wenching and come aboard. Some of them served under my father when this ship had another name and ‘RYS’ after it, eh, Tom Transom?”
“Yes indeed Mr Peter,” grinned a capable-looking old shellback, knuckling his forehead.
“Pray get on with your scrimshaw and make-and-mend, lads,” said Peter, “but first say how d’ye do to Mr Van Cleef, our new supercargo, who will be bunking and messing along with me. He is new to the sea so I look to you all to show him the ropes and spars and to cover up his mistakes until he finds his sea-legs, what?”
“That we shall, Sir,” they growled, some “making a leg”, some tugging a forelock (but in no servile way), some bobbing their heads awkwardly.
“I had thought a fo’c’sle to be a kind of hell-hole,” I remarked as we made our way aft. The place had surprised me by its roomy comfort and warmth.
“Most of them are,” he replied, “many are little better than Mayfair tenements. But this one was designed for a crack yacht, you recall, and has been enlarged by throwing into it the former officers’ quarters; we officers now live in the passengers’ staterooms aft and the captain occupies the former owners’ quarters.” He did not say this at all bitterly; my respect for him grew every minute.
“We carry a double crew, d’you see, for we need so little cargo-space; in fact we muster three strong watches so that even in the wildest weather there can always be a watch below. We are one of the few ships that can weather the Cape and every man a dry suit of slops to his back. Depend upon it, that’s a rarity!”
“I am sure of it,” I said politely.
“Moreover, every man-jack is an able-bodied seaman, salted and dried, who can hand, reef and steer and heave the lead, turn in a dead-eye, gammon a bowsprit, fish a broken spar, rig a purchase, knot, point, splice, parcel and serve as well as spin his own yarns and lines in our ropewalk.”
“Upon my word!” I murmured.
“Yes,” he went on enthusiastically — this was clearly a topic close to his heart — “I’m bound to say this for Knatchbull — Captain Knatchbull, I should say — he has kept up my father’s standards so far as crew is concerned, no cogsmen and fakers in this ship. Some of the Yankee ships that are coming into the trade now prefer to sign on a gaggle of waterfront rats, wasters, the scum of the seas who can get no other work,’ then break their spirits with brass knuckles and the rope’s-end until they will do anything — feats no true seaman in his senses would attempt — for fear of losing their rations, their tot of rum — or their front teeth. ‘Bully’ Lubbock, our ‘bucko’ first officer, used to command such a ship until he was arraigned for triple manslaughter on the Barbary Coast of San Francisco.”
“He did not, I confess, strike me as a wholly cultivated gentleman,” I said.
“He is not a gentleman of any sort,” said Peter sharply. “He is a boor, and a dangerous one. Steer clear of him, give him a wide berth and for God’s sake do not let him anger you: one proud retort from you and he will find ways of making your life a hell upon the waters.” My spirits, so recently raised, sank again. Peter, once again, clapped me upon the shoulder.
“Come, cheer up, I did not mean to daunt you. He is a well enough fellow in a rough way. Pretend to admire him and you will have no trouble. Now come and meet the doctor, the mainstay of our little ship.”
“You carry a surgeon?” I asked, surprised.
“See for yourself,” he replied, kicking hard at the door of a curious sort of round-house shed a little aft of the main-mast and roaring, in a voice new to me, “Come out of there, you black-enamelled bastard, we’ve come to hang you!” On the instant, the door burst open and a monstrous blackamoor appeared, almost naked and brandishing a meat-cleaver. On seeing Peter his face split open like a melon, displaying an inordinate number of exceedingly white teeth. He hid the cleaver behind him and spoke in a sheepish, high-pitched whine.
“Knowed it was you Maz Peter; cain’t fool ole doctor after all thiz years; anyways, I hain’t got nuthin on ma conshequence that’s hanging stuff.”
“Not even in Alabama?” asked my friend quizzically.
“Now hesh, Maz Peter; thass ole stuff, and Alabama’s a million miles away I reckon.”