CHAPTER XLIII
We who are aft, besieged in the high place, are stronger in numbers
than I dreamed until now, when I have just finished taking the ship's
census. Of course Margaret, Mr. Pike, and myself are apart. We
alone represent the ruling class. With us are servants and serfs,
faithful to their salt, who look to us for guidance and life.
I use my words advisedly. Tom Spink and Buckwheat are serfs and
nothing else. Henry, the training-ship boy, occupies an anomalous
classification. He is of our kind, but he can scarcely be called
even a cadet of our kind. He will some day win to us and become a
mate or a captain, but in the meantime, of course, his past is
against him. He is a candidate, rising from the serf class to our
class. Also, he is only a youth, the iron of his heredity not yet
tested and proven.
Wada, Louis, and the steward are servants of Asiatic breed. So are
the two Japanese sail-makers--scarcely servants, not to be called
slaves, but something in between.
So, all told, there are eleven of us aft in the citadel. But our
followers are too servant-like and serf-like to be offensive
fighters. They will help us defend the high place against all
attack; but they are incapable of joining with us in an attack on the
other end of the ship. They will fight like cornered rats to
preserve their lives; but they will not advance like tigers upon the
enemy. Tom Spink is faithful but spirit-broken. Buckwheat is
hopelessly of the stupid lowly. Henry has not yet won his spurs. On
our side remain Margaret, Mr. Pike, and myself. The rest will hold
the wall of the poop and fight thereon to the death, but they are not
to be depended upon in a sortie.
At the other end of the ship--and I may as well give the roster, are:
the second mate, either to be called Mellaire or Waltham, a strong
man of our own breed but a renegade; the three gangsters, killers and
jackals, Bert Rhine, Nosey Murphy, and Kid Twist; the Maltese Cockney
and Tony the crazy Greek; Frank Fitzgibbon and Richard Giller, the
survivors of the trio of "bricklayers"; Anton Sorensen and Lars
Jacobsen, stupid Scandinavian sailor-men; Ditman Olansen, the crank-
eyed Berserk; John Hackey and Arthur Deacon, respectively hoodlum and
white slaver; Shorty, the mixed-breed clown; Guido Bombini, the
Italian hound; Andy Pay and Mulligan Jacobs, the bitter ones; the
three topaz-eyed dreamers, who are unclassifiable; Isaac Chantz, the
wounded Jew; Bob, the overgrown dolt; the feeble-minded Faun, lung-
wounded; Nancy and Sundry Buyers, the two hopeless, helpless bosuns;
and, finally, the sea-lawyer, Charles Davis.
This makes twenty-seven of them against the eleven of us. But there
are men, strong in viciousness, among them. They, too, have their
serfs and bravos. Guido Bombini and Isaac Chantz are certainly
bravos. And weaklings like Sorensen, and Jacobsen, and Bob, cannot
be anything else than slaves to the men who compose the gangster
clique.
I failed to tell what happened yesterday, after Mr. Pike emptied his
automatic and cleared the deck. The poop was indubitably ours, and
there was no possibility of the mutineers making a charge on us in
broad daylight. Margaret had gone below, accompanied by Wada, to see
to the security of the port and starboard doors that open from the
cabin directly on the main deck. These are still caulked and tight
and fastened on the inside, as they have been since the passage of
Cape Horn began.
Mr. Pike put one of the sail-makers at the wheel, and the steward,
relieved and starting below, was attracted to the port quarter, where
the patent log that towed astern was made fast. Margaret had
returned his knife to him, and he was carrying it in his hand when
his attention was attracted astern to our wake. Mike Cipriani and
Bill Quigley had managed to catch the lazily moving log-line and were
clinging to it. The Elsinore was moving just fast enough to keep
them on the surface instead of dragging them under. Above them and
about them circled curious and hungry albatrosses, Cape hens, and
mollyhawks. Even as I glimpsed the situation one of the big birds, a
ten-footer at least, with a ten-inch beak to the fore, dropped down
on the Italian. Releasing his hold with one hand, he struck with his
knife at the bird. Feathers flew, and the albatross, deflected by
the blow, fell clumsily into the water.
Quite methodically, just as part of the day's work, the steward
chopped down with his knife, catching the log-line between the steel
edge and the rail. At once, no longer buoyed up by the Elsinore's
two-knot drag ahead, the wounded men began to swim and flounder. The
circling hosts of huge sea-birds descended upon them, with
carnivorous beaks striking at their heads and shoulders and arms. A
great screeching and squawking arose from the winged things of prey
as they strove for the living meat. And yet, somehow, I was not very
profoundly shocked. These were the men whom I had seen eviscerate
the shark and toss it overboard, and shout with joy as they watched
it devoured alive by its brethren. They had played a violent, cruel
game with the things of life, and the things of life now played upon
them the same violent, cruel game. As they that rise by the sword
perish by the sword, just so did these two men who had lived cruelly
die cruelly.
"Oh, well," was Mr. Pike's comment, "we've saved two sacks of mighty
good coal."
Certainly our situation might be worse. We are cooking on the coal-
stove and on the oil-burners. We have servants to cook and serve for
us. And, most important of all, we are in possession of all the food
on the Elsinore.
Mr. Pike makes no mistake. Realizing that with our crowd we cannot
rush the crowd at the other end of the ship, he accepts the siege,
which, as he says, consists of the besieged holding all food supplies
while the besiegers are on the imminent edge of famine.
"Starve the dogs," he growls. "Starve 'm until they crawl aft and
lick our shoes. Maybe you think the custom of carrying the stores
aft just happened. Only it didn't. Before you and I were born it
was long-established and it was established on brass tacks. They
knew what they were about, the old cusses, when they put the grub in
the lazarette."
Louis says there is not more than three days' regular whack in the
galley; that the barrel of hard-tack in the forecastle will quickly
go; and that our chickens, which they stole last night from the top
of the 'midship-house, are equivalent to no more than an additional
day's supply. In short, at the outside limit, we are convinced the
men will be keen to talk surrender within the week.
We are no longer sailing. In last night's darkness we helplessly
listened to the men loosing headsail-halyards and letting yards go
down on the run. Under orders of Mr. Pike I shot blindly and many
times into the dark, but without result, save that we heard the
bullets of answering shots strike against the chart-house. So to-day
we have not even a man at the wheel. The Elsinore drifts idly on an
idle sea, and we stand regular watches in the shelter of chart-house
and jiggermast. Mr. Pike says it is the laziest time he has had on
the whole voyage.
I alternate watches with him, although when on duty there is little
to be done, save, in the daytime, to stand rifle in hand behind the
jiggermast, and, in the night, to lurk along the break of the poop.
Behind the chart-house, ready to repel assault, are my watch of four
men: Tom Spink, Wada, Buckwheat, and Louis. Henry, the two Japanese
sail-makers, and the old steward compose Mr. Pike's watch.
It is his orders that no one for'ard is to be allowed to show
himself, so, to-day, when the second mate appeared at the corner of
the 'midship-house, I made him take a quick leap back with the thud
of my bullet against the iron wall a foot from his head. Charles
David tried the same game and was similarly stimulated.
Also, this evening, after dark, Mr. Pike put block-and-tackle on the
first section of the bridge, heaved it out of place, and lowered it
upon the poop. Likewise he hoisted in the ladder at the break of the
poop that leads down to the main deck. The men will have to do some
climbing if they ever elect to rush us.
I am writing this in my watch below. I came off duty at eight
o'clock, and at midnight I go on deck to stay till four to-morrow
morning. Wada shakes his head and says that the Blackwood Company
should rebate us on the first-class passage paid in advance. We are
working our passage, he contends.
Margaret takes the adventure joyously. It is the first time she has
experienced mutiny, but she is such a thorough sea-woman that she
appears like an old hand at the game. She leaves the deck to the
mate and me; but, still acknowledging his leadership, she has taken
charge below and entirely manages the commissary, the cooking, and
the sleeping arrangements. We still keep our old quarters, and she
has bedded the new-comers in the big after-room with blankets issued
from the slop-chest.
In a way, from the standpoint of her personal welfare, the mutiny is
the best thing that could have happened to her. It has taken her
mind off her father and filled her waking hours with work to do.
This afternoon, standing above the open booby-hatch, I heard her
laugh ring out as in the old days coming down the Atlantic. Yes, and
she hums snatches of songs under her breath as she works. In the
second dog-watch this evening, after Mr. Pike had finished dinner and
joined us on the poop, she told him that if he did not soon re-rig
his phonograph she was going to start in on the piano. The reason
she advanced was the psychological effect such sounds of revelry
would have on the starving mutineers.
The days pass, and nothing of moment happens. We get nowhere. The
Elsinore, without the steadying of her canvas, rolls emptily and
drifts a lunatic course. Sometimes she is bow on to the wind, and at
other times she is directly before it; but at all times she is
circling vaguely and hesitantly to get somewhere else than where she
is. As an illustration, at daylight this morning she came up into
the wind as if endeavouring to go about. In the course of half an
hour she worked off till the wind was directly abeam. In another
half hour she was back into the wind. Not until evening did she
manage to get the wind on her port bow; but when she did, she
immediately paid off, accomplished the complete circle in an hour,
and recommenced her morning tactics of trying to get into the wind.
And there is nothing for us to do save hold the poop against the
attack that is never made. Mr. Pike, more from force of habit than
anything else, takes his regular observations and works up the
Elsinore's position. This noon she was eight miles east of
yesterday's position, yet to-day's position, in longitude, was within
a mile of where she was four days ago. On the other hand she
invariably makes nothing at the rate of seven or eight miles a day.
Aloft, the Elsinore is a sad spectacle. All is confusion and
disorder. The sails, unfurled, are a slovenly mess along the yards,
and many loose ends sway dismally to every roll. The only yard that
is loose is the main-yard. It is fortunate that wind and wave are
mild, else would the iron-work carry away and the mutineers find the
huge thing of steel about their ears.
There is one thing we cannot understand. A week has passed, and the
men show no signs of being starved into submission. Repeatedly and
in vain has Mr. Pike interrogated the hands aft with us. One and
all, from the cook to Buckwheat, they swear they have no knowledge of
any food for'ard, save the small supply in the galley and the barrel
of hardtack in the forecastle. Yet it is very evident that those
for'ard are not starving. We see the smoke from the galley-stove and
can only conclude that they have food to cook.
Twice has Bert Rhine attempted a truce, but both times his white
flag, as soon as it showed above the edge of the 'midship-house, was
fired upon by Mr. Pike. The last occurrence was two days ago. It is
Mr. Pike's intention thoroughly to starve them into submission, but
now he is beginning to worry about their mysterious food supply.
Mr. Pike is not quite himself. He is obsessed, I know beyond any
doubt, with the idea of vengeance on the second mate. On divers
occasions, now, I have come unexpectedly upon him and found him
muttering to himself with grim set face, or clenching and unclenching
his big square fists and grinding his teeth. His conversation
continually runs upon the feasibility of our making a night attack
for'ard, and he is perpetually questioning Tom Spink and Louis on
their ideas of where the various men may be sleeping--the point of
which always is: WHERE IS THE SECOND MATE LIKELY TO BE SLEEPING?
No later than yesterday afternoon did he give me most positive proof
of his obsession. It was four o'clock, the beginning of the first
dog-watch, and he had just relieved me. So careless have we grown,
that we now stand in broad daylight at the exposed break of the poop.
Nobody shoots at us, and, occasionally, over the top of the for'ard-
house, Shorty sticks up his head and grins or makes clownish faces at
us. At such times Mr. Pike studies Shorty's features through the
telescope in an effort to find signs of starvation. Yet he admits
dolefully that Shorty is looking fleshed-up.
But to return. Mr. Pike had just relieved me yesterday afternoon,
when the second mate climbed the forecastle-head and sauntered to the
very eyes of the Elsinore, where he stood gazing overside.
"Take a crack at 'm," Mr. Pike said.
It was a long shot, and I was taking slow and careful aim, when he
touched my arm.
"No; don't," he said.
I lowered the little rifle and looked at him inquiringly.
"You might hit him," he explained. "And I want him for myself."
Life is never what we expect it to be. All our voyage from Baltimore
south to the Horn and around the Horn has been marked by violence and
death. And now that it has culminated in open mutiny there is no
more violence, much less death. We keep to ourselves aft, and the
mutineers keep to themselves for'ard. There is no more harshness, no
more snarling and bellowing of commands; and in this fine weather a
general festival obtains.
Aft, Mr. Pike and Margaret alternate with phonograph and piano; and
for'ard, although we cannot see them, a full-fledged "foo-foo" band
makes most of the day and night hideous. A squealing accordion that
Tom Spink says was the property of Mike Cipriani is played by Guido
Bombini, who sets the pace and seems the leader of the foo-foo.
There are two broken-reeded harmonicas. Someone plays a jew's-harp.
Then there are home-made fifes and whistles and drums, combs covered
with paper, extemporized triangles, and bones made from ribs of salt
horse such as negro minstrels use.
The whole crew seems to compose the band, and, like a lot of monkey-
folk rejoicing in rude rhythm, emphasizes the beat by hammering
kerosene cans, frying-pans, and all sorts of things metallic or
reverberant. Some genius has rigged a line to the clapper of the
ship's bell on the forecastle-head and clangs it horribly in the big
foo-foo crises, though Bombini can be heard censuring him severely on
occasion. And to cap it all, the fog-horn machine pumps in at the
oddest moments in imitation of a big bass viol.
And this is mutiny on the high seas! Almost every hour of my deck-
watches I listen to this infernal din, and am maddened into desire to
join with Mr. Pike in a night attack and put these rebellious and
inharmonious slaves to work.
Yet they are not entirely inharmonious. Guido Bombini has a
respectable though untrained tenor voice, and has surprised me by a
variety of selections, not only from Verdi, but from Wagner and
Massenet. Bert Rhine and his crowd are full of rag-time junk, and
one phrase that has caught the fancy of all hands, and which they
roar out at all times, is: "IT'S A BEAR! IT'S A BEAR! IT'S A
BEAR!" This morning Nancy, evidently very strongly urged, gave a
doleful rendering of Flying Cloud. Yes, and in the second dog-watch
last evening our three topaz-eyed dreamers sang some folk-song
strangely sweet and sad.
And this is mutiny! As I write I can scarcely believe it. Yet I
know Mr. Pike keeps the watch over my head. I hear the shrill
laughter of the steward and Louis over some ancient Chinese joke.
Wada and the sail-makers, in the pantry, are, I know, talking
Japanese politics. And from across the cabin, along the narrow
halls, I can hear Margaret softly humming as she goes to bed.
But all doubts vanish at the stroke of eight bells, when I go on deck
to relieve Mr. Pike, who lingers a moment for a "gain," as he calls
it.
"Say," he said confidentially, "you and I can clean out the whole
gang. All we got to do is sneak for'ard and turn loose. As soon as
we begin to shoot up, half of 'em'll bolt aft--lobsters like Nancy,
an' Sundry Buyers, an' Jacobsen, an' Bob, an' Shorty, an' them three
castaways, for instance. An' while they're doin' that, an' our bunch
on the poop is takin' 'em in, you an' me can make a pretty big hole
in them that's left. What d'ye say?"
I hesitated, thinking of Margaret.
"Why, say," he urged, "once I jumped into that fo'c's'le, at close
range, I'd start right in, blim-blam-blim, fast as you could wink,
nailing them gangsters, an' Bombini, an' the Sheeny, an' Deacon, an'
the Cockney, an' Mulligan Jacobs, an' . . . an' . . . Waltham."
"That would be mine," I smiled. "You've only eight shots in your
Colt."
Mr. Pike considered a moment, and revised his list. "All right," he
agreed, "I guess I'll have to let Jacobs go. What d'ye say? Are you
game?"
Still I hesitated, but before I could speak he anticipated me and
returned to his fidelity.
"No, you can't do it, Mr. Pathurst. If by any luck they got the both
of us . . . No; we'll just stay aft and sit tight until they're
starved to it . . . But where they get their tucker gets me. For'ard
she's as bare as a bone, as any decent ship ought to be, and yet look
at 'em, rolling hog fat. And by rights they ought to a-quit eatin' a
week ago."
