Part 2 (1/2)
”'Man overboard!' he yells, and snaps the patent life-buoy over the side, and the marine on the starboard side of the quarter he yells, 'Man overboard!' and the marine on the after-bridge he yells, 'Man overboard!' and the two seaman on watch on the for'ard bridge, 'Man overboard, sir!' they yell, and the watch officer orders, 'Hard on your wheel, Quartermaster!' and to the bosun's mate on watch the watch officer yells, 'Pipe the deck division to quarters!' and the watch officer pulls a few bells and talks through three or four tubes, and in no time the s.h.i.+p is coming around in a circle, and up on deck came piling about two hundred l.u.s.ty young seamen, and it was, 'boats away,'
and over the side went hanging gigs and cutters and whale-boats, and then it was, 'Search-lights all clear!' and in about one minute the big s.h.i.+p was back on the spot, and in another minute and a half there were eight boats with half-dressed crews rowing around, and six big search-lights playing tag on the waters. An hour and a half they stood by, but no sign of him and no call from him. And then it was return to your s.h.i.+p, sound quarters and call the roll. But everybody was present or accounted for, and the skipper gave the captain of marines the devil, and the marine captain gave the devil to his marine guard, the Georgia boy, who by this time was beginning to doubt that he hadn't been asleep.
”Next afternoon the admiral was on deck taking the air, and after a while he asks, 'Where was that marine guard standing when he says he heard that air-port uns.c.r.e.w.i.n.g and that splash last night?' And they dug the marine out of the brig and brought him up, and he stood on the same spot leaning over the rail, and the old man stands there and takes a look down. And he looks to see if there was an air-port handy. And there was--the air-port of the flag office. 'H'm!--h'm!' he says. 'That's all now, Lyman,' to the marine officer. Nothing more; but an hour later the marine was released from the brig--n.o.body knew why.”
Throughout all the story Dalton had been sitting atop of the coffer-dam, hands with flat palms pressing down, and feet hanging, with heels drumming against the coffer-dam sides. After he had done he pushed himself up by the palms of his hands, rearranged his row of tin letter-files, s.h.i.+fted his electric bulkhead light, picked up a fat folk-lore volume and waited, with eyes twinkling down on us, for somebody to say something.
”And how long ago was that, Dallie?” asked somebody, at last.
”Five years.”
”And never a word from the admiral?”
”Never a word.”
”H-m-ph! Don't you suppose--”
”Suppose what, fat Reggie? D' y' mean to hint at conspiracy between a rear-admiral of the United States Navy and an enlisted man--a yeoman?
Why, Reggie!”
”Of course not. But nothing more from anybody? Not from Was.h.i.+ngton, either?”
”Nothing, inquisitive child. But there's an old flat-footed friend of mine in the department--and he, whenever he writes me, never forgets to mention that every once in a while the chief clerk, or somebody or other in his division, is sure to look out the window and across the street at the White House grounds, as if trying to remember something; and whenever he takes a particularly long look he is always sure to turn around and say to the man at the nearest desk, 'What d' y' s'pose ever became of that hose-pipe spook used to haunt this place?' And the man at the nearest desk he'll look up and nibble at the end of his pen-holder, or maybe he'll get up and have a look out of the window at the Cabinet playing tennis, and after a while he'll say: 'That's so; I wonder what ever did become of that? But'--maybe another look across at the tennis court--'that'll turn up again, no fear.'
”But it won't,” concluded the flag yeoman, with a smile we could have buried one of his tin letter-files in; ”for we were two hundred miles out of Hong-kong at that time, steaming 14.6 miles an hour through the China Sea, and you know it's good and deep there. And now”--he rolled flat on his back, balanced his neck on the head-rest under the bulkhead light, and his fat book on his chest--”now I'm not advising anybody, and particularly not you, Fatty, but that's the way a competent yeoman, with a little advice from a couple of old s.h.i.+pmates, laid that hose-pipe ghost of other days. But mind, I'm not telling you to go and do anything like that.”
”No, of course not,” says our captain's yeoman, and rubs his fat chin.
”Of course not.”
”But if you do,” says Dalton, and sets his head sideways to see how Reginald was taking it--”if you do, you'd make a hit with your skipper, you betcher--only he'd never tell you.”
”Why wouldn't he, if he liked it?”
”Why? 'Twouldn't be regulations. And now, you fellows, beat it. Seven bells gone and the Old Man is due aboard at twelve o'clock. And sometimes he takes a notion to go cruising around the cabin country before he turns in. Besides, I want a chance to peruse a little improving literature before I turn in myself. So beat it, all of you.”
And out into the pa.s.sageways and up the hatchways we beat it; all but our captain's fat yeoman, who went back to his office at a grave thoughtful pace.
The Seizure of the ”Aurora Borealis”
I had no notion in the beginning of going anywhere near Newfoundland that winter, but the word was pa.s.sed to me from old John Rose of Folly Cove that if I thought of running down for a load of herrin', then he'd ought to have a couple o' thousand barrels, by the looks o' things, fine and fat in pickle, against Christmas Day, and old John Rose being a great friend of mine, and the market away up, I kissed the wife and baby good-by and put out for Placentia Bay in the _Aurora_.
Now if anybody'd come to me before I left Gloucester that trip and asked me to turn a smuggling trick, why, I'd 'a' said: ”Go away, boy, you're crazy.” But on the way down I put into Saint Pierre. You know Saint Pierre? In the Miquelons, yes, where in the spring the fis.h.i.+ng vessels from France put in--big vessels, bark-rigged mostly, and carrying forty or fifty in a crew--they put in to fit out for the Grand Banks fis.h.i.+ng.
And they come over with wine mostly for ballast. And in the fall they sail back home, but without the wine.
And, of course, somethin's got to be done with that wine, and though wine's as cheap in Saint Pierre as 'tis to any port in France, yet 'tisn't all drunk in Saint Pierre--not quite. The truth is, those people in Saint Pierre aren't much in the drinking line. One American shacking crew will come in there and put away more in one night than that whole winter population will in a week--that is, they would if they could get the kind they wanted. But that Saint Pierre wine isn't the kind of booze that our fellows are looking for after hauling trawls for a month o'
winter days on the Banks. No, what they want is something with more bite in it. And what becomes of it? H-m--if you knew that you'd know what a lot of people'd like to know.
Well, I put into Saint Pierre, for I knew old John Rose and his gang of herring netters would cert'nly relish a drink of red rum now and again on a cold winter's night, and, going ash.o.r.e, I runs into a sort of fat, black lad about forty-five, half French, half English, that was a great trader there, named Miller. 'Twas off him I bought my keg of rum for old John Rose. I'd heard of this Miller before, and a slick, smooth one he was reported to be, with a warehouse on one of the docks.