Bindloss Harold
In the Misty Seas: A Story of the Sealers of Behring Strait
"Sit you down," he said. "Kind of cold night for a picnic, and you were making good time for Yokohama when we saw you first."
The lads obeyed him, and the man thumped upon the beam above him when Niven sank huddled into a corner and closed his eyes. Then there was a cold draught as a skylight opened and a man looked in. "Wanting anything?" he said.
"Tell Brulée to worry round and raise a pint or two of coffee – hot," said the man at the table, who glanced at Appleby. "Your partner's played out, but we'll fix him in a minute."
"Are you the skipper of this schooner, sir?" asked Appleby.
The man nodded. "That's just what I am – Ned Jordan of Vancouver, British Columbia, though I kind of figure it's me that's conducting this meeting. It was about the picnic you were going to tell me."
Appleby felt reassured, for the man's voice was good-humoured, though he fancied it would not be advisable to trifle with him.
"There wasn't any picnic, sir," he said. "We didn't come out for pleasure."
"No," said Jordan dryly. "I didn't figure there was. Those things you've got on don't look quite like a city lad's outfit. Still, I was wondering if you were going to put it that way."
Appleby flushed a trifle, for he guessed the man's thoughts. "What do you fancy we are?" said he.
Jordan smiled dryly. "It's me that's asking the questions, but I'm quite open to tell you. You're two English lads from the big barque off Port Parry, and I figure you got tired of her."
"We didn't run away from her," said Appleby.
"Well," said Jordan with a trace of grimness, "whether you did or didn't don't count for much with me, but I've no use for crooked talking on board this packet. Better tell me what started you off for Japan, and put it as straight as you can."
Appleby told his story, and Jordan glanced at Niven, who had opened his eyes again. "You would tell it the same way, too?"
"Of course," said Niven angrily. "Still, I'm not going to do it since you don't believe him."
There was a little gleam in Jordan's eyes, and, as he looked at them in turn, they found his gaze somewhat embarrassing. "Still, you're not worrying because you can't get back?" he said.
"No," said Appleby. "I'm uncommonly glad I can't."
Jordan nodded. "Not much to eat, and plenty kicks?" he said, as a man came in. "Well, here's the coffee, and I figure you could worry through a little grub as well. Whatever they fed you with on board the barque, they didn't make you fat."
He laid a fresh loaf, butter, and a can of meat upon the table, and the lads did not wait for a second invitation, while it was a good many minutes later when Appleby laid his knife down with a little sigh of content.
"We have got to thank you, sir, but it's time we asked where the schooner's going to, and when you can put us ashore?" he said.
Jordan nodded, and pointed to the northern half of the compass fixed in the skylight above him. "That's where she's going – up there into the ice and fog where the fur seals live," he said. "As to the other question, we could land you in Vancouver when the season's over. We're away five or six months as the usual thing."
"But that would never do for us," said Niven with dismay.
"No?" said Jordan dryly. "Well, you see, I wasn't thinking of you very much. I didn't ask you to come here, and there are a few other men as well as myself I've got to suit on board this packet."
Appleby stared at him in silence for a space. "But you can't take us away north unless we are willing to go," said he. "You could haul her on a wind, and put us ashore on the west coast of Vancouver Island to-morrow. My friend's father would pay you well for doing it."
Again the expression Appleby had noticed crept into Jordan's eyes. "Well," he said with a little laugh, "I figure I can, and if I put you ashore on the beach you'd starve in the bush. Now, I don't quite like the way you're talking, because while there's no kicking on board the Champlain, we've no use for more than one skipper – and that's me. When you've got that into your head we'll go on a little. Says you, 'The other lad's father will pay you.' Well, I don't know him, and he's living six thousand miles away, while if he'd sense enough to raise dollars he could heave away, he'd never have sent his son to sea. That's quite plain to me."
"My father is a rich merchant, and a clever one," said Niven indignantly. "The value of a good many schooners like this one wouldn't be much to him."
"Then," said Jordan with a grim smile, "it's quite clear you don't take after him. Folks of that kind know when talking's not much use to them, but it's time we got ahead a little. We were nigh a month behind when we started from Vancouver, and with five boats way up before me, I'm not stopping one hour for anybody, and the Champlain is going north like a steamer while this breeze lasts. You've heard all I've got to tell you as to that. Now it might be two or three months before I could put you on board anything coming south, and in the meanwhile I've got to give you clothes and feed you, while, as I want all the dollars I've got, to do it for nothing wouldn't be square to me. So since you came on board the Champlain, I'm wanting your word that you'll stay there until we get back to Vancouver. You'll get half a man's share in what we make, if we find you useful and willing, and that seems to me a square offer."
Appleby looked at Niven. "It can't be helped – and we couldn't be worse off than we were in the Aldebaran," he said. "There's no use in telling him any more about your father."
Niven sat silent a little, and then nodded. "We'll come, sir," he said.
"Then," said Jordan, "it's a deal. Now those things of yours aren't quite fit to go sealing in, and you can take these along. Stickine will show you how to fix them up to-morrow."
He took out several curiously smelling garments from a cupboard, and shouted, "Stickine!" and in another minute the lads went out on deck and down a hatchway with a big silent man who grinned at them reassuringly.
CHAPTER VIII
THE 'CHAMPLAIN,' SEALER
A streak of sunlight that crept warm across his face and then swung away again awakened Appleby next morning, and for a moment or two he lay still staring about him in dreamy wonder. The Aldebaran'sdeckhouse was held together by little iron beams, and in place of these great square timbers and ponderous knees ran into the vessel's framing above his head. There was something curiously unfamiliar about them. Then he saw that a long shelf, divided into wooden bunks, extended beyond the one he lay in, and there were more of them on the opposite side of the vessel. Between lay a space of shadow save where a shaft of sunlight came down through an opening, and Appleby remembered suddenly when as he watched it swing to and fro he felt a quick rise and fall which was very different from the long upward lurch of the Aldebaran. Reaching over he laid his hand on Niven's shoulder.
"Turn out! It's eight bells, and they're tacking ship," he said.
Niven was out of his bunk in a moment, and a burst of hoarse laughter greeted him, when he stood swaying, half-awake, on the deck, in the scantiest of attire, with dismay in his face.
"What's – what's all this?" he said. "Wherever have I got to?"
"Well," said the man called Stickine they had seen in the cabin, "I guess it isn't the Aldebaran. Now, hadn't you better get some of those things on to you?"
Niven struggled into the garments the man pointed to, while Appleby sat on the edge of his bunk and grinned at him, and a group of men sitting in the shadow with plates upon their knees watched them both curiously. There were five or six of them, and all had bronzed faces that had been darkened by frost and ice blink, as well as sun and wind, and there was, he fancied, a difference between these men and any he had seen on board the Aldebaran. He came to know them later – as a few gentlemen who watched affairs of State in Vladivostock, Washington, and Ottawa did – as very daring seamen and fearless free lances, who now and then came home rich with fur seal pelts from the misty seas, in spite of the edicts and gunboats of three great nations. In the meanwhile he saw they were getting a much better breakfast than that usually sent forward on board the Aldebaran, and there was an air of good-humoured comradeship about them. Appleby had by this time got into his trousers, and one of the group stood up when he dropped to the deck.
"Clear away for firing practice with the turret gun!" he said.
Niven stared at him a moment, and then guessing what was meant laughed a little. "No," he said "you've missed it this time."
"Be easy while I try him," said another man, and then slammed his hand down on the table. "Eyes front. 'Tinshun company!"
"Wrong again!" said Appleby who, remembering the warships at Port Parry, surmised that they were taken for lads who had quitted their nation's service without permission.
"Sure, an' how was I to know, when the woods is thick with them!" said the seaman glancing round at his comrades deprecatingly. "Then 'tis watch your topsail leaches and mainsail haul, again."
"Yes," said Appleby, grinning, "now you've got it. If you'd had any sense you'd have seen we were too thin for navy lads, and too young for the marines."
There was a chuckle, and the man, who had twinkling blue eyes, stretched out an inviting arm. "Then come along, darling, and ate," he said.
They sat down on a chest, and one of the company gave each of them a can of very good coffee, and pointing to the great piece of fish in a frying-pan tossed a loaf in their direction.
"Ned Jordan will see you earn it, so you needn't be afraid," he said.
Appleby helped himself, and Niven laughed when he saw that the men were watching him admiringly. "They feed you well out here," he said. "We didn't get soft bread and halibut for breakfast on board the Aldebaran."
"This," said a grinning man, "is a great country. Now I'm going to raise you, Donegal. The lad's with me."
The man he spoke to turned with a sparkle in his eyes, and the sun that shone down the hatch glinting on his coppery hair.
"This," he said, "is not a country – 'tis the sea, an' the place ye come from is made up of the leavings of the old one. 'Tis the dumping-ground for all them we've no use for yonder – bankrupts, suicides and green-and-red-blind sailors. When a gintleman in my country is too big a nuisance to his neighbours, the boys sind the hat round and prisint him wid a ticket for Canadaw."
He brought out the last word with the accentuation of the French Canadian; but the big, lean sailorman only grinned at him. "An'," he said, "fwhat was ut brought you here thin, Donegal?"
Donegal laughed softly. "A hare," said he. "She would come an' sit on the turf-wall winking – impudent at me, an' with one of the guns that was out in '98 in the cabin, what would anny man of intilligince do? She was a good gun if ye gave her time and had something sthrong to lean her on, but the magistrate – an' me owing him tin pound rint – did not agree with me. There was no Ground Game Act thin, an' ye tuck the chances when ye went shooting in my counthry. Would ye be finding the lads another loaf – one is no use to them – Brulée, and now Mainsail Haul, was it the mate or the skipper who did not agree with ye?"
Appleby realized that speech was direct here and he must hold his own. "I fancy you all know how I came here, by this time, as well as I do," he said, glancing towards Stickine. "That man was about the cabin when I told my story – and they bring you a joint when you're through with your second course in the old country."
"Hear him!" said Donegal. "Sure now, for a sailorman, 'tis Stickine that romances tremenjous, an' he told us the other one was an earl's son from the old country. 'Turn the Champlain round and put me ashore – at once. What's the value of ten schooners to the father av me?' says he."
Niven looked somewhat foolish, but Appleby laughed. "Well, there was an Emperor's relative who went to sea in a merchant ship not very long ago," he said.
Donegal shook his head solemnly. "The man was mad. All thim royal families but our one is," he said.
"In the meanwhile I'd like to know a little more about where we're going and what we're going to do, now I'm one of you," said Niven. "You see, I couldn't ask the skipper too many questions."
"'Tis his condescending modesty," said Donegal. "'One of you,' says he! Sure, 'tis ten years it would take to make a man of ye, an' it takes ten more to make a man into a sealer. Stickine, will ye enlighten the son av the ducal earl?"
Niven fidgeted, for he realized that education is not everything, and that even in speech he had not shown himself the seaman's equal; but Stickine tapped on the table. "It works out like this," he said; "we're going to hear the bear growl, and the eagle scream, and if it's a white-flag gunboat, put a pinch of salt right on the beaver's tail."
"Russia," said Niven, "and America, the beaver's Canada, but what have the gunboats to do with the seals?"
"Sure," said Donegal, "'tis plain they did not teach ye very much at school. Now, the seal, ye will observe, lives most of his time where no man can get at him in the lonely sea, but wanst in the year he crawls out on the rocks of St. Paul and St. George, up in the Behring Sea, and when it is not convenient for ye to find him there ye may call at one or two reefs in Russian water or the Copper Islands."
"Well," said Niven, "where do the warships come in?"
"'Tis patient as well as modest ye are," said the sealer. "Now, 'tis not discreet of a youngster to hurry a grown man, an' that they would have taught ye wid the thick end of a gun whin ye were in the marines!"
"I was never in the marines," said Niven a trifle hotly, and Donegal sighed.
"Sure," he said, "'tis a pity, but I will prolong the discussion. Now, by the laws of the three nations ye may kill the seals at sea, though they will not help ye to find them, that being left – with other things – to the sealerman's devices, an' the sea, ye will remember, is not the sea until it's more than three miles from land."
"That's a little mixed," said Appleby, glancing at the rest of the company.
"No," said Donegal. "'Tis reason. When you are inside the three miles you are in Russia, America, or Canada, because that's just how far a big gun could blow the head off ye."
"There was once an American who figured it was ten," said Stickine dryly.
"Fighting Bob!" said somebody, and there was a hoarse guffaw, during which Donegal said quietly, "An' the lashings of dollars it cost him."
"Now, 'tis strictly prohibited to any one but the American company that rints them Pribyloff islands to kill the seals on land, an' if ye come too close on others I could tell of the Russians are not kind to ye. There was wanst a fifty-year-old schooner came home manned by starving men, an' they'd ate the last tail of the rats aboard her. 'Twas that or Siberia with them, but Stickine will tell ye the tale again."
"Then where do you catch the seals?" asked Appleby.
There was a little quiet laughter, and Donegal shook his head. "Asleep anywhere eight and ten miles out at sea, as 'tis entered in the logbook," he said. "Still, ye may discover that under circumstances unconthrollable the sealerman kills the holluschackie – where he can."
Appleby, glancing at the men's bronzed faces, fancied that their merriment was a trifle grim, but a voice came down through the hatch just then —
"If you are quite through with your talking you might come up and get more sail on her."
They went up in a body, for though Appleby had noticed already that discipline was not especially evident on board the Champlain he was also to discover that nobody loitered when there was work on hand. The lads followed, and the first thing that occurred to them was that the schooner was ridiculously small. After the great length and height of the Aldebaran she seemed a toy ship with two dainty little masts. Still, Appleby saw that they were tall for her length and made of the beautiful figured redwood which affords the maximum of strength. Her bowsprit was tilted high to lift the men who crawled out on it above the icy seas, and the great boom along her mainsail's foot ran out at least a fathom beyond her stern. Then he began to notice her slenderness forward in spite of the breadth of the beam that gave her stability to carry a press of sail, and the lift of the deck towards the bows which the rail carried higher in a bold curve that would keep her dry when she thrashed to windward. Between the masts stood a nest of boats packed one inside the other with their thwarts lifted out, and Niven wondered what so small a vessel did with so many. It was evident she did not carry them as a precaution, for he could see that everything about her suggested strength and safety.
About the boats stood a few Siwash Indians, squat, broad-shouldered men dressed in jean and canvas, and looking, except for their brown colour, very much like the rest of the crew. They were, it seemed, by no means savages, but again Appleby wondered, for they were doing nothing, and the Champlain carried almost men enough to work an English merchant ship. Aft with half his lean height showing above the deckhouse skipper Jordan stood swaying at the wheel, and he swung one hand up when he saw the lads.
"Feeling quite pert this morning?" he said when they came aft. "Well, you can go up and loose the fore-topsail."
Though this was not the kind of order the lads had been used to they went forward, and felt that the skipper's eyes were on them when they stopped abreast of the foremast. There were no rattlings on the Champlain's shrouds, and Appleby was wondering how they were to get aloft when Niven pointed to the hoops the big foresail was bound to which ran like a ladder up the mast.
"I fancy those would do?" he said.
They went up, and it was an easy matter to loose the little three-cornered topsail which stretched when set from the masthead to the end of the gaff. Then they stood still a moment or two perched high on the cross-trees looking down on the slender strip of hull and the white-topped sea. The Champlain was swinging over it, and the foam that roared off from her bows and swept away down the white wake showed the pace at which she was travelling. Niven drew in a deep breath of contentment as he swung in a wide sweep to and fro, the blue of the sky above him and the blue and white of the sea below.
"I'm not sorry the Aldebaran's at Port Parry, and we're here," he said. "She's a beauty, and they feed you well, while I never fancied anything twice her size could tear along like this."
"Hallo! Going to sleep up there?" said somebody, and Appleby glancing down saw a little twinkle in the eyes of Stickine.
"Topsail's all clear for hoisting, sir," he said, and one or two of those about the big man laughed. "What's the quickest way of getting down, Chriss?"
Niven stooped and grasped a rope. "Topsail tack, I think. It should do," he said.
In another second the rope was rasping between his ankles and through his hands, then it yielded suddenly and he fell at least a fathom with Appleby's feet just above his head. It held again, however, and he slid to the deck, while the rest were setting the big maintopsail with a yard along the head of it when he went aft. The skipper glanced at him a moment, and then turned to the men.
"We'll goosewing her, boys. Get your boom foresail over," he said.
He span the wheel a trifle, the long narrow foresail lurched across, and when it swung outboard on the opposite side the Champlain lifted her head a little and the foam that lapped higher swept almost to her quarter-rail.
"She's flying," said Niven. "Going like a train."
Then he felt that the skipper was watching him, and wondered whether he had done anything unfitting when he saw his little, dry smile.
"It was a straight tale you told me – most of it. Stick to that kind of talk," he said.
Niven flushed a trifle, and was about to answer when Appleby kicked him, and he said, "Yes, sir," instead.
Jordan nodded. "Rich men's sons don't go to sea," he said. "Well, now, there's a thing you can remember. Never swing yourself down by anything until you know just what it is and what it's made fast to. We've no use for show tricks on board this packet, and I figure the cook will find something you can do."
They went forward, Appleby grinning, Niven somewhat flushed, and it was that night before they quite understood the skipper's meaning. The wind had fallen and the sky was hazy when they sat talking on the forehatch. Donegal leaned upon the rail not far from them, Stickine swung black against the dimness at the wheel, and the Champlain was sliding slowly north, a vague moving shadow across the great emptiness. It seemed to Appleby that he could feel the sea as he had never done on board the Aldebaran. It was so close beneath him, and life and zest of it throbbed through everything he touched. Niven, however, was looking at the sealer.
"You were aft when the skipper spoke to us, Donegal," he said. "What did he mean by saying he knew we'd told him the right tale?"
The man turned round and regarded him gravely. "Mr. Callaghan – an' Donegal to my friends – an' for the son of a ducal earl there's a lot of things you don't know," he said.
"Then," said Niven, "how am I going to learn them if I don't ask questions?"
"Now," said Donegal dryly, "ye are showing ye have some sinse, an' if it's searching for knowledge ye are, I will enlighten ye. The moral av ut is that while ye speak the truth, the little things ye do don't stand up and conthradict ye. Now, when ye knew where the topsail was that showed ye had been to sea, but they've rattlings on the shrouds av a square-rigger, an' it was easy to see that when ye could not find them it perplexed ye. Then when ye were sleeping Ned Jordan had Stickine bring some of the things ye tuk off into the cabin, an' there was names done nice in red on wan or two of them. 'It's all quite straight but the last ov it, an' there's lads who can't help talking big. Many's the time I've tried to teach my own ones better – wid a fence rail,' says he."
Donegal looked hard at Niven, but Appleby, who laughed softly, kicked his comrade's leg.
"We'll not worry about what he told your skipper any more – but it's true," he said.
Donegal said nothing further, but his eyes twinkled curiously, and there was silence for a space until a blink of light crept out of the dimness astern. The moon had risen, but was hidden by a cloud-bank in the south-east, and there was nothing to be seen but the light that grew steadily higher and brighter. Then a red one became visible, and while a vague black shape grew into form there was a blink of green. Stickine struck the deckhouse with his foot as he pulled over the wheel, and the Champlain swung round a little, but still the lights seemed to follow her.
"A steamer," said Appleby. "What can they be after? Our canvas is plain enough against the sky."
Donegal grunted. "A top-heavy coal basket of a gunboat, sure!" he said. "How is it I know? Well, ye will have a better acquaintance by and by with the ships-of-war, an' any one could see the way she's rolling if he looked at her."
Appleby could see the higher light reeling to and fro, and a long smear of smoke that streaked the sea below. While he watched it the dim hull lengthened out, and he saw the white froth boil beneath the flung-up bows. They came down amidst a spray cloud, and the slanted masts swung wildly as the long roll of the Pacific lapped about the shadowy hull. The steamer was close upon the Champlain's quarter now.
Suddenly there was a faint twinkle of brightness on board her, and then a great shaft of light smote a glittering track across the waters and rested on the schooner's stern. Jordan's lean figure was forced up against it, and Appleby could see the little dry smile in his face as he nodded to Stickine at the wheel. He pulled it over a spoke or two, and the Champlainswerved a trifle, while Jordan's smile became a trifle grimmer, for the light also swinging still blazed upon her stern. Then it beat into the lad's eyes and dazzled them, swept forward and lighted all the foresail when it rested on the boats, flickered up and down the deck, forcing up every rope by its brilliancy, and vanished so suddenly that Niven afterwards said he could hear it snap. Next moment the steamer drew ahead, and the last he saw of her was her shadowy stern lifted high on the shoulder of a long smooth sea.
Jordan laughed a little as he paced up and down beside the wheel. "American," he said. "That fellow will know us if he falls in with us again."
