The watches were divided, Charlie and three other Chinamen on the port, Kitchell, Wilbur, and two Chinamen on the starboard. The men trooped forward again.
The tiny world of the schooner had lapsed to quiet. The Bertha Millner was now clear of the land, that lay like a blur of faintest purple smokeever growing fainterlow in the east. The Farallones showed but their shoulders above the horizon. The schooner was standing well out from shoreeven beyond the track of the coasters and passenger steamersto catch the Trades from the northwest. The sun was setting royally, and the floor of the ocean shimmered like mosaic. The sea had gone down and the fury of the bar was a thing forgotten. It was perceptibly warmer.
On board, the two watches mingled forward, smoking opium and playing a game that looked like checkers. Three of them were washing down the decks with kaiar brooms. For the first time since he had come on board Wilbur heard the sound of their voices.
The evening was magnificent. Never to Wilburs eyes had the Pacific appeared so vast, so radiant, so divinely beautiful. A star or two burned slowly through that part of the sky where the pink began to fade into the blue. Charlie went forward and set the side lightsred on the port rigging, green on the starboard. As he passed Wilbur, who was leaning over the rail and watching the phosphorus flashing just under the surface, he said:
Hey, you go talkee-talk one-piecey Boss, savvy Bosschin-chin.
Wilbur went aft and came up on the poop, where Kitchell stood at the wheel, smoking an inverted Tarriers Delight.
Now, son, began Kitchell, I natchly love you so that Im goin to do you a reel favor, do you twig? Im goin to allow you to berth aft in the cabin, long o me an Charlie, an beesides you can make free of my quarterdeck. Mebbee you aint used to the ways of sailormen just yet, but you can lay to it that those two are reel concessions, savvy? I aint a mush-head, like mee dear friend Jim. You aint no water-front swine, I can guess that with one hand tied beehind me. Youre a toff, thats what you are, and your lines has been laid for toffs. I aint askin you no questions, but you got brains, an I figger on gettin more outa you by lettin you have yr head a bit. But mind, now, you get gay once, sonny, or try to flimflam me, or forget that Im the boss of the bathtub, an strike me blind, Ill cut you open, an you can lay to that, son. Now, then, heres the game: You work this boat long with the coolies, an take my orders, an walk chalk, an Ill teach you navigation, an make this cruise as easy as how-do-you-do. You dont, an Ill manhandle you till yr bones come throo yr hide.
Ive no choice in the matter, said Wilbur. Ive got to make the best of a bad situation.
I ree-marked as how you had brains, muttered the Captain.
But theres one thing, continued Wilbur; if Im to have my head a little, as you say, youll find we can get along better if you put me to rights about this whole business. Why was I brought aboard, why are there only Chinese along, where are we going, what are we going to do, and how long are we going to be gone?
Kitchell spat over the side, and then sucked the nicotine from his mustache.
Well, he said, resuming his pipe, its like this, son. This ship belongs to one of the Six Chinese Companies of Chinatown in Frisco. Charlie, here, is one of the shareholders in the business. We go down here twice a year off Cape Sain Lucas, Lower California, an fish for blue sharks, or white, if we kin ketch em. We get the livers of these an try out the oil, an we bring back that same oil, an the Chinamen sell it all over San Francisco as simon-pure cod-liver oil, savvy? An it pays like a nitrate bed. I come in because its a Custom-house regulation that no coolie can take a boat out of Frisco.
And how do I come in? asked Wilbur.
Mee dear friend Jim put a knock-me-out drop into your Manhattan cocktail. Its a capsule filled with a drug. You were shanghaied, son, said the Captain, blandly.
About an hour later Wilbur turned in. Kitchell showed him his bunk with its donkeys breakfast and single ill-smelling blanket. It was located under the companionway that led down into the cabin. Kitchell bunked on one side, Charlie on the other. A hacked deal table, covered with oilcloth and ironed to the floor, a swinging-lamp, two chairs, a rack of books, a chest or two, and a flaring picture cut from the advertisement of a ballet, was the rooms inventory in the matter of furniture and ornament.
Wilbur sat on the edge of his bunk before undressing, reviewing the extraordinary events of the day. In a moment he was aware of a movement in one of the other two bunks, and presently made out Charlie lying on his side and holding in the flame of an alcohol lamp a skewer on which some brown and sticky stuff boiled and sizzled. He transformed the stuff to the bowl of a huge pipe and drew on it noisily once or twice. In another moment he had sunk back in his bunk, nearly senseless, but with a long breath of an almost blissful contentment.
Beast! muttered Wilbur, with profound disgust.
He threw off his oilskin coat and felt in the pocket of his waistcoat (which he had retained when he had changed his clothes in the focsle) for his watch. He drew it out. It was just nine oclock. All at once an idea occurred to him. He fumbled in another pocket of the waistcoat and brought out one of his calling-cards.
For a moment Wilbur remained motionless, seated on the bunk-ledge, smiling grimly, while his glance wandered now to the sordid cabin of the Bertha Millner and the opium-drugged coolie sprawled on the donkeys breakfast, and now to the card in his hand on which a few hours ago he had written:
First waltzJo.
III. THE LADY LETTY
Another day passed, then two. Before Wilbur knew it he had settled himself to his new life, and woke one morning to the realization that he was positively enjoying himself. Daily the weather grew warmer. The fifth day out from San Francisco it was actually hot. The pitch grew soft in the Bertha Millners deck seams, the masts sweated resin. The Chinamen went about the decks wearing but their jeans and blouses. Kitchell had long since abandoned his coat and vest. Wilburs oilskins became intolerable, and he was at last constrained to trade his pocket-knife to Charlie for a suit of jeans and wicker sandals, such as the coolies woreand odd enough he looked in them.
The Captain instructed him in steering, and even promised to show him the use of the sextant and how to take an observation in the fake short and easy coasting style of navigation. Furthermore, he showed him how to read the log and the manner of keeping the dead reckoning.
During most of his watches Wilbur was engaged in painting the inside of the cabin, door panels, lintels, and the few scattered moldings; and toward the middle of the first week out, when the Bertha Millner was in the latitude of Point Conception, he and three Chinamen, under Kitchells directions, ratlined down the forerigging and affixed the crows nest upon the formast. The next morning, during Charlies watch on deck, a Chinaman was sent up into the crows nest, and from that time on there was always a lookout maintained from the masthead.
More than once Wilbur looked around him at the empty coruscating indigo of the ocean floor, wondering at the necessity of the lookout, and finally expressed his curiosity to Kitchell. The Captain had now taken not a little to Wilbur; at first for the sake of a white mans company, and afterward because he began to place a certain vague reliance upon Wilburs judgment. Kitchell had reemarked as how he had brains.
Well, you see, son, Kitchell had explained to Wilbur, os-tensiblee we are after shark-liver oiland so we are; but also we are on any lay that turns up; ready for any game, from wrecking to barratry. Strike me, if I havent thought of scuttling the dough-dish for her insoorance. Theres regular trade, son, to be done in ships, and then theres pickins an pickins an pickins. Lord, the oceans rich with pickins. Do you know theres millions made out of the day-bree and refuse of a big city? How about an oceans day-bree, just chew on that notion a turn; an as fur a lookout, lemmee tell you, son, cast your eye out yon, and he swept the sea with a forearm; nothin, hey, so it looks, but lemmee tell you, son, there aint no manner of place on the ball of dirt where youre likely to run up afoul of so many thingsunexpected thingsas at sea. When youre clear o land lay to this here pree-cep, A million to one on the unexpected.
The next day fell almost dead calm. The hale, lusty-lunged norwester that had snorted them forth from the Golden Gate had lapsed to a zephyr, the schooner rolled lazily southward with the leisurely nonchalance of a grazing ox. At noon, just after dinner, a few cats-paws curdled the milky-blue whiteness of the glassy surface, and the water once more began to talk beneath the bow-sprit. It was very hot. The sun spun silently like a spinning brass discus over the mainmast. On the focsle head the Chinamen were asleep or smoking opium. It was Charlies watch. Kitchell dozed in his hammock in the shadow of the mainsheet. Wilbur was below tinkering with his paint-pot about the cabin. The stillness was profound. It was the stillness of the summer sea at high noon.
The lookout in the crows nest broke the quiet.
Hy-yah, hy-yah! he cried, leaning from the barrel and calling through an arched palm. Hy-yah, one two, plenty, many tortle, topside, wattah; hy-yah, all-same tortle.
Hello, hello! cried the Captain, rolling from his hammock. Turtle? Where-away?
I tink-um bout quallah mile, mebbee, four-piecee tortle all-same weatha bow.
Turtle, hey? Down yr wheel, Jim, haul yr jib to winward, he commanded the man at the wheel; then to the men forward: Get the dory overboard. Son, Charlie, and you, Wing, tumble in. Wake up now and see you stay so.
The dory was swung over the side, and the men dropped into her and took their places at the oars. Give way, cried the Captain, settling himself in the bow with the gaff in his hand. Hey, Jim! he shouted to the lookout far above, hey, lay our course for us. The lookout nodded, the oars fell, and the dory shot forward in the direction indicated by the lookout.
Kin you row, son? asked Kitchell, with sudden suspicion. Wilbur smiled.
You ask Charlie and Wing to ship their oars and give me a pair. The Captain complied, hesitating.
Now, what, he said grimly, now, what do you think youre going to do, sonny?
Im going to show you the Bob Cook stroke we used in our boat in 95, when we beat Harvard, answered Wilbur.
Kitchell gazed doubtfully at the first few strokes, then with growing interest watched the tremendous reach, the powerful knee-drive, the swing, the easy catch, and the perfect recover. The dory was cutting the water like a gasoline launch, and between strokes there was the least possible diminishing of the speed.
Im a bit out of form just now, remarked Wilbur, and Im used to the sliding seat; but I guess itll do. Kitchell glanced at the human machine that once was No. 5 in the Yale boat and then at the water hissing from the dorys bows. My Gawd! he said, under his breath. He spat over the bows and sucked the nicotine from his mustache, thoughtfully.
I ree-marked, he observed, as how you had brains, my son.
A few minutes later the Captain, who was standing in the dorys bow and alternately conning the oceans surface and looking back to the Chinaman standing on the schooners masthead, uttered an exclamation:
Steady, ship your oars, quiet now, quiet, you damn fools! Were right on emfour, by Gawd, an big as dinin tables!
The oars were shipped. The dorys speed dwindled. Out your paddles, sit on the gunl, and paddle ee-asy. The hands obeyed. The Captains voice dropped to a whisper. His back was toward them and he gestured with one free hand. Looking out over the water from his seat on the gunl, Wilbur could make out a round, greenish mass like a patch of floating seaweed, just under the surface, some sixty yards ahead.
Easy staboard, whispered the Captain under his elbow. Go ahead, port; e-e-easy all, steady, steady.
The affair began to assume the intensity of a little dramaa little drama of midocean. In spite of himself, Wilbur was excited. He even found occasion to observe that the life was not so bad, after all. This was as good fun as stalking deer. The dory moved forward by inches. Kitchells whisper was as faint as a dying infants: Steady all, s-stead-ee, sh-stead
He lunged forward sharply with the gaff, and shouted aloud: I got himgrab holt his tail flippers, you fool swabs; grab holt quickdont you leggogot him there, Charlie? If he gets away, you swine, Ill rip y open with the gaffheave nowheavetheretheresoh, stand clear his nippers. Strike me! hes a whacker. I thought he was going to get away. Saw me just as I swung the gaff, an ducked his nut.
Over the side, bundled without ceremony into the boat, clawing, thrashing, clattering, and blowing like the exhaust of a donkey-engine, tumbled the great green turtle, his wet, green shield of shell three feet from edge to edge, the gaff firmly transfixed in his body, just under the fore-flipper. From under his shell protruded his snake-like head and neck, withered like that of an old man. He was waving his head from side to side, the jaws snapping like a snapped silk handkerchief. Kitchell thrust him away with a paddle. The turtle craned his neck, and catching the bit of wood in his jaw, bit it in two in a single grip.
I tol you so, I tol you to stand clear his snapper. If that had been your shin now, eh? Hello, whats that?
Faintly across the water came a prolonged hallooing from the schooner. Kitchell stood up in the dory, shading his eyes with his hat.
Whats biting em now? he muttered, with the uneasiness of a captain away from his ship. Oughta left Charlie on boardor you, son. Whos doin that yellin, I cant make out.
Up in the crows nest, exclaimed Wilbur. Its Jim, see, hes waving his arms.
Well, whaduz he wave his dam fool arms for? growled Kitchell, angry because something was going forward he did not understand.
There, hes shouting again. ListenI cant make out what hes yelling.
Hell yell to a different pipe when I get my grip of him. Ill twist the head of that swab till hell have to walk backard to see where hes goin. Whaduz he wave his arms forwhaduz he yell like a dam philly-loo bird for? Whats him say, Charlie?
Jim heap sing, no can tell. Mebbeetinkum sing, come back chop-chop.
Well see. Oars out, men, give way. Now, son, put a little o that Yale stingo in the stroke.
In the crows nest Jim still yelled and waved like one distraught, while the dory returned at a smart clip toward the schooner. Kitchell lathered with fury.
Oh-h, he murmured softly through his gritted teeth. Jess lemmee lay mee two hands afoul of you wunst, you gibbering, yellow philly-loo bird, believe me, youll dance. Shut up! he roared; shut up, you crazy do-do, aint we coming fast as we can?