CHAPTER VI
I climbed the ladder on the side of the for'ard house (which house
contained, as I discovered, the forecastle, the galley, and the
donkey-engine room), and went part way along the bridge to a position
by the foremast, where I could observe the crew heaving up anchor.
The Britannia was alongside, and we were getting under way.
A considerable body of men was walking around with the windlass or
variously engaged on the forecastle-head. Of the crew proper were
two watches of fifteen men each. In addition were sailmakers, boys,
bosuns, and the carpenter. Nearly forty men were they, but such men!
They were sad and lifeless. There was no vim, no go, no activity.
Every step and movement was an effort, as if they were dead men
raised out of coffins or sick men dragged from hospital beds. Sick
they were--whiskey-poisoned. Starved they were, and weak from poor
nutrition. And worst of all, they were imbecile and lunatic.
I looked aloft at the intricate ropes, at the steel masts rising and
carrying huge yards of steel, rising higher and higher, until steel
masts and yards gave way to slender spars of wood, while ropes and
stays turned into a delicate tracery of spider-thread against the
sky. That such a wretched muck of men should be able to work this
magnificent ship through all storm and darkness and peril of the sea
was beyond all seeming. I remembered the two mates, the super-
efficiency, mental and physical, of Mr. Mellaire and Mr. Pike--could
they make this human wreckage do it? They, at least, evinced no
doubts of their ability. The sea? If this feat of mastery were
possible, then clear it was that I knew nothing of the sea.
I looked back at the misshapen, starved, sick, stumbling hulks of men
who trod the dreary round of the windlass. Mr. Pike was right.
These were not the brisk, devilish, able-bodied men who manned the
ships of the old clipper-ship days; who fought their officers, who
had the points of their sheath-knives broken off, who killed and were
killed, but who did their work as men. These men, these shambling
carcasses at the windlass--I looked, and looked, and vainly I strove
to conjure the vision of them swinging aloft in rack and storm,
"clearing the raffle," as Kipling puts it, "with their clasp knives
in their teeth." Why didn't they sing a chanty as they hove the
anchor up? In the old days, as I had read, the anchor always came up
to the rollicking sailor songs of sea-chested men.
I tired of watching the spiritless performance, and went aft on an
exploring trip along the slender bridge. It was a beautiful
structure, strong yet light, traversing the length of the ship in
three aerial leaps. It spanned from the forecastle-head to the
forecastle-house, next to the 'midship house, and then to the poop.
The poop, which was really the roof or deck over all the cabin space
below, and which occupied the whole after-part of the ship, was very
large. It was broken only by the half-round and half-covered wheel-
house at the very stern and by the chart-house. On either side of
the latter two doors opened into a tiny hallway. This, in turn, gave
access to the chart-room and to a stairway that led down into the
cabin quarters beneath.
I peeped into the chart-room and was greeted with a smile by Captain
West. He was lolling back comfortably in a swing chair, his feet
cocked on the desk opposite. On a broad, upholstered couch sat the
pilot. Both were smoking cigars; and, lingering for a moment to
listen to the conversation, I grasped that the pilot was an ex-sea-
captain.
As I descended the stairs, from Miss West's room came a sound of
humming and bustling, as she settled her belongings. The energy she
displayed, to judge by the cheerful noises of it, was almost
perturbing.
Passing by the pantry, I put my head inside the door to greet the
steward and courteously let him know that I was aware of his
existence. Here, in his little realm, it was plain that efficiency
reigned. Everything was spotless and in order, and I could have
wished and wished vainly for a more noiseless servant than he ashore.
His face, as he regarded me, had as little or as much expression as
the Sphinx. But his slant, black eyes were bright, with
intelligence.
"What do you think of the crew?" I asked, in order to put words to my
invasion of his castle.
"Buggy-house," he answered promptly, with a disgusted shake of the
head. "Too much buggy-house. All crazy. You see. No good.
Rotten. Down to hell."
That was all, but it verified my own judgment. While it might be
true, as Miss West had said, that every ship's crew contained several
lunatics and idiots, it was a foregone conclusion that our crew
contained far more than several. In fact, and as it was to turn out,
our crew, even in these degenerate sailing days, was an unusual crew
in so far as its helplessness and worthlessness were beyond the
average.
I found my own room (in reality it was two rooms) delightful. Wada
had unpacked and stored away my entire outfit of clothing, and had
filled numerous shelves with the library I had brought along.
Everything was in order and place, from my shaving outfit in the
drawer beside the wash-basin, and my sea-boots and oilskins hung
ready to hand, to my writing materials on the desk, before which a
swing arm-chair, leather-upholstered and screwed solidly to the
floor, invited me. My pyjamas and dressing-gown were out. My
slippers, in their accustomed place by the bed, also invited me.
Here, aft, all was fitness, intelligence. On deck it was what I have
described--a nightmare spawn of creatures, assumably human, but
malformed, mentally and physically, into caricatures of men. Yes, it
was an unusual crew; and that Mr. Pike and Mr. Mellaire could whip it
into the efficient shape necessary to work this vast and intricate
and beautiful fabric of a ship was beyond all seeming of possibility.
Depressed as I was by what I had just witnessed on deck, there came
to me, as I leaned back in my chair and opened the second volume of
George Moore's Hail and Farewell, a premonition that the voyage was
to be disastrous. But then, as I looked about the room, measured its
generous space, realized that I was more comfortably situated than I
had ever been on any passenger steamer, I dismissed foreboding
thoughts and caught a pleasant vision of myself, through weeks and
months, catching up with all the necessary reading which I had so
long neglected.
Once, I asked Wada if he had seen the crew. No, he hadn't, but the
steward had said that in all his years at sea this was the worst crew
he had ever seen.
"He say, all crazy, no sailors, rotten," Wada said. "He say all big
fools and bime by much trouble. 'You see,' he say all the time.
'You see, You see.' He pretty old man--fifty-five years, he say.
Very smart man for Chinaman. Just now, first time for long time, he
go to sea. Before, he have big business in San Francisco. Then he
get much trouble--police. They say he opium smuggle. Oh, big, big
trouble. But he catch good lawyer. He no go to jail. But long time
lawyer work, and when trouble all finish lawyer got all his business,
all his money, everything. Then he go to sea, like before. He make
good money. He get sixty-five dollars a month on this ship. But he
don't like. Crew all crazy. When this time finish he leave ship, go
back start business in San Francisco."
Later, when I had Wada open one of the ports for ventilation, I could
hear the gurgle and swish of water alongside, and I knew the anchor
was up and that we were in the grip of the Britannia, towing down the
Chesapeake to sea. The idea suggested itself that it was not too
late. I could very easily abandon the adventure and return to
Baltimore on the Britannia when she cast off the Elsinore. And then
I heard a slight tinkling of china from the pantry as the steward
proceeded to set the table, and, also, it was so warm and
comfortable, and George Moore was so irritatingly fascinating.
