I did but little on this the first day of my entering upon my strange new duties. The steward distrusted my sea-legs, and he and his mate fetched the dishes from the galley. I hung about the fore-end of the cuddy, put the dirty plates into the basket, collected the knives and forks, went on errands to the pantry and the like. The picture of the cuddy was bright and hearty. Two large illuminated globes, in silver holders, swung under the ceiling; the light of them flashed in the mirrors and rippled with the movements of the ship in the polished woodwork. The captain sat at the head of the table, the doctor on his right. Captain Barrett and Lieutenant Chimmo sat together on the other side. Once or twice Captain Barrett screwed his glass into his eye and looked at me, but his gaze expressed no more than surprise to find me at work as a cuddy-servant. The others took not the least notice of me.
Captain Barrett had a loud laugh and a hearty manner of speaking; Lieutenant Chimmo was thin of voice, stilted and affected, so stiff and snobbish as to satisfy me he was not a born gentleman. I wondered to find neither of the mates at the table, but I soon discovered that it was the custom on board the Childe Harold for the mate of the watch to come below and eat after the captain was done, the other two mates joining him when possible, so as to make a separate table.
The talk at the beginning was not very interesting. The convict guard, it seems, had come to the ship from Chatham, and neither Captain Barrett nor the lieutenant could say too much in abuse of that place. There was no society; dirt and drink formed the life of the town. Deptford, nay even Sheerness, was sweet and desirable compared to Chatham. The doctor ate and drank water with a little wine in it and seemed to listen. The captain frequently lifted his eyes to the skylight as though thinking more of the weather than of the officers’ chatter. Presently Captain Barrett, leaning across the table, said to the doctor:
‘Chimmo and I have been wondering whether you’d have any objection, after the fellow’s irons are knocked off, I mean, to Barney Abram coming aft to give us a few lessons in sparring? I dare say, captain, your sailmaker could contrive to furnish out an arrangement of canvas and oakum to answer for boxing-gloves.’
‘It would be impossible to imagine any objection stronger than mine to your suggestion,’ said the doctor.
‘There’d be always a sentry at hand, you know,’ said Lieutenant Chimmo.
‘Let us change the subject,’ said the doctor severely.
Captain Barrett looked at the doctor with a slight sneer and said: ‘We’ll not talk of bringing Barney Abram aft: we’ll talk of Barney Abram as he is. Pity so much talent should go wrong. Transport your felonious clergy, attorneys, farmers, medical men,’ he added, with a significant look at the doctor, ‘there’d always then be too many to spare. But to send such a prize-fighter as Barney Abram out of the kingdom! To ship him into a country where there’ll be nobody to appreciate him! By Heaven, it’s as bad as robbing the crown of England of a jewel!’
The captain, observing that the doctor did not like this talk, changed the subject by speaking of the fine progress the ship was making. At this moment I was sent to the pantry by the steward. When I returned, I heard Lieutenant Chimmo say: ‘What would those chaps under hatches give for a taste of that curried fowl! Your cook’s a neat hand, captain.’
‘The provisions served out to the convicts are infernally bad,’ said Captain Barrett.
‘“They are not good, but they may be eaten,” as Charles XII. said to the soldier who showed him some mouldy pieces of bread,’ exclaimed the doctor.
‘At such a table as this,’ said Lieutenant Chimmo, ‘a man can take a philosophic view of the tastes and appetites of people who are ill-fed.’
‘Convicts are as well fed as sailors,’ said Captain Sutherland.
‘I’d rather be a convict than a sailor,’ said Captain Barrett.
‘One’s t’other more often than not,’ observed Lieutenant Chimmo. ‘’Stonishing what a lot of rascals sail afore the mast!’
‘Take care that whisper don’t get forward of the main-hatch sentry,’ said the captain, with a glance at the steward. ‘Jack’s got a sensitive side to his nature.’
‘Doctor, what’s to be the routine when decent weather sets in?’ inquired Captain Barrett.
‘Schools, Bible classes, and frequent prayer-meetings, sir,’ answered the doctor.
‘Don’t educate them,’ said Lieutenant Chimmo. ‘They’re very bad now; education’ll make them worse.’
‘I’m with Chimmo,’ said Captain Barrett. ‘Doctor, I’ll wager you what you will that the worst of your people are those who are most intelligent and best educated.’
‘I must state this as a fact,’ said Captain Sutherland, with a side look at the doctor, as though distrusting his topic: ‘Mr. Bates, my chief officer, recognised one of the convicts. His name—’ The doctor made a motion with his hand. ‘Well, enough if I say,’ exclaimed the captain, stammering, ‘that this same man is a person of excellent antecedents, was for years at sea, and held several posts of trust, and finally wound up a flourishing career by investing his savings in a smart little barque for no other purpose than to scuttle her that he might pocket about triple the amount of his venture in insurance money.’
I heard this, and my heart turned hot. I longed to walk up to Captain Sutherland, look him in the eyes, and call him a beast and a liar. No one observed me, which was lucky. I was conscious that my face worked with agitation and that my cheeks were red with the blood which the captain’s lie had driven into my head. At this point the steward bade me carry a basket of dirty dishes to the galley, and I stepped out with my burden upon the quarter-deck.
The evening was black and the wind wet, and it swept athwart the bulwark-rail with a shriek and a bite of frost. Over the lee-rail the seas ran from the ship in pale, cloudy heaps. Occasionally the brine lashed the forecastle like a showering of small shot, and again and again you’d feel the blow of a sea on the bow striking the ship before she could rise, and the white water of it was flashed back into the dark wind, though the hissing body came like a thunder-squall, an instant later, soaking the decks till the scuppers sobbed again.
I staggered along with the basket of crockery, and passing the sentry, slipped and slid forward through the convicts’ inclosure till I came to the ship’s galley. A number of seamen were gathered under the lee of this place. The red fire of the stove illuminated the fat figure of the cook as he stood pointing a piece of paper to the flame of the lamp to light his pipe. Another fellow was busy at a kind of dresser. Against the closed weather-door leaned the boatswain with folded arms and an inverted pipe betwixt his lips. It was a hot, snug, mellow interior to look in upon after the cheerless scene of the decks and the leaning and waving heights of dim canvas above.
‘So they’ve found work for you, hey?’ said the boatswain, giving me a large nod. ‘Yet you’d better ha’ stopped at home.’
‘Who’s this?’ said the cook.
‘The youngster as I found rolled up in a spare t’gallan’s’l,’ answered the boatswain. ‘They’re a-going to keep him in the land o’ knives and forks.’
‘And you’d rather be a waiter than a steward, Joey?’ said the cook with a greasy chuckle. ‘I don’t blame you. It’s all night in with us idlers, and a warm blanket’s better than a lee earing, ain’t it, Mr. Balls? But what’s brought the covey to ship in this here convick barge?’
‘What ha’ you got there?’ said the fellow at the dresser.
‘Dirty plates,’ said I.
This man, who was the cook’s mate, who had but one eye, and whose cast of face was certainly more villainous than any of the felons I had watched taking their exercise that day, put his head out of the galley-door, and exclaimed: ‘Fire that there steward! Here’s a gallus look out o’ dishes! If that there perishin’ Stiles could foul six plates ’stead o’ wan he’d do’t to spite me.’ He continued to grumble hideously, and I backed away from his ugly tongue and uglier face and walked toward the cuddy, but slowly, and holding on as I went, for the decks were steep and greasy and the ship was taking the seas in quick, angry jumps.
As I passed through the quarter-deck barricade my elbow was touched, and Will accosted me.
‘I’m going to bounce a mattress out of the steward for you, Marian,’ said he, ‘but as no more lies than can be helped must be told, follow me.’
I accompanied him up the lee poop-ladder. He led me a little way along the deck and then crossed it to where a man was standing under the shelter of one of the quarter-boats.
‘Here’s this stowaway lad asked me to help him to a mattress, sir,’ he exclaimed. ‘They’ve given him a bunk in the steerage, but there’s nothing in it to lie upon.’
‘He deserves the cat for hiding aboard us,’ answered the man, who was indeed Mr. Bates, the first mate. ‘What have they put him to, d’ye know, Johnstone?’
‘He’s cuddy bottle-washer, sir.’
‘What’s brought you to sea, you young fool?’
‘I want to get to Tasmania, sir.’
‘Why didn’t you concern yourself in some riot, or turn Irish politician; they’d have clothed and bedded and fed and sent you across handsomely, and perhaps have fitted you with a good berth ashore at the end; instead, you start as a sneak, and, no doubt, you’ll come home as a sneak. Mattress—mattress—I’ve got nothing to do with that. Shift for yourself and be off.’
I went on to the quarter-deck, wondering what on earth Will meant by taking me to the mate, as though to provoke him to abuse me. Before I entered the cuddy my cousin was at my elbow. You will remember that it was very dark and nobody but the sentry was on the quarter-deck.
‘It’s all right,’ said he eagerly. ‘I’ll manage it now. Wait a bit. You must have a bed to lie on, you know. Don’t take to heart what the mate says. It’s his duty to growl at you, but as a man he’s sound to the heels.’
They were still at table in the cuddy. It was hard to realise that the vessel was a prison-ship when you looked at this bright, rich interior, with its soft yellow lamps flashing under the skylights and the looking-glasses reduplicating the sparkling and hospitable furniture of the table. It was like passing from another state of life to enter this brightness and warmth from the wet and nipping blackness outside, with the grim, dark figure of the sentry, the barricades, the blackness and silence of the sentinelled main-hatch.
The steward sent me to the pantry to wash glasses, and I went with his assistant, a fellow named Franz or Frank, a young German. I had not before known him for a German; I believe I had not heard him speak. He was a freckled, ginger-coloured man, as expressionless of face as an oyster. But he was good-tempered and willing, and when we were in the pantry washing glasses he said that he hoped we should be friends. I answered it would not be my fault if we were not good friends. On this he shook hands with me and asked if I was ever in Germany. He wished to know why I had stowed myself away in this convict ship and if I had friends in Tasmania.
‘I need not have hidden,’ said I. ‘My friends are well-to-do.’
‘Dot I can believe,’ said he, polishing a tumbler and closing one eye while he held it to the lamp. ‘You vhas a young gentleman. Dot I hear in your voice. Maybe you vhas more of a gentleman dan some dot ve vaits on. How do you like Mr. Stiles?’ naming the steward.
‘He is a funny man.’
‘How vhas he funny?’ said he.
‘He made you laugh heartily when he talked to me.’
‘Dot vhas to please him. For my part——’ He shrugged his shoulders. He then inquired if I had agreed for any wages, and expressed sorrow that we were not to share a berth. ‘I likes to make you my chum—dot is der verdt—whilst ve vhas togedder.’
Presently the steward called to us, and when I entered the cuddy I found Mr. Bates at table and the captain and officers gone. Mr. Bates was very quick with his dinner. He had charge of the deck. I believe he was not above ten minutes in despatching his meal. He took no notice of me. When he was gone, I helped the two stewards to strip the table, and whilst this was doing Will Johnstone put his head in at the cuddy door and called to the steward.
‘There’s some spare convicts’ mattresses stowed away aft,’ said he, in the peremptory voice of the sea. ‘You’re to let Marlowe have one; and throw in a couple of the convicts’ blankets for his use. D’ye hear me, steward?’
‘Yes, I hear you, young gentleman,’ answered the steward. ‘But who sent me that bit of noose?’
Will, however, had backed a step and disappeared in the blackness.
‘The order comes from Mr. Bates, I expect,’ said I. ‘I stepped on to the poop some time since, to see if he’d let me have a mattress.’
‘Well, pink me if you was behind the door when cheek was sarved out,’ said the steward. ‘Did he offer to throw you overboard?’
‘He asked me many questions. Mr. Bates seems one of the kindest-hearted of men.’
The steward stared at me for a moment, muttered to himself, and then, with something of an agitated hand, proceeded in his work of stripping the table. However, Will’s ruse, or ‘bounce,’ as he had called it, proved successful. Mr. Stiles, of course, supposed that the apprentice had come with direct instructions; and when he had cleared the table he took me into the steerage and, opening a cabin door, held up a lantern and bade me choose a mattress. A number of convicts’ mattresses lay stowed here, every one with a little pillow attached to it, and every one was numbered, as though as a provision for a larger assemblage of miscreants than had been shipped. Here, also, were two or three bales of spare blankets, to a couple of which I helped myself; and now, thanks to Will, I had a bed to lie on and clothes to cover me.
In my own berth, as I may call it, I said to the steward, pointing to the bundle in the upper bunk: ‘That can be left there. It will not be in the way.’
‘What is it?’ said he. ‘Oh, it was brought aboard just afore we started, and the captain gave it to me, thinking it might belong to some of the soldiers or their wives as’d presently be claiming it. It’s a herror,’ said he, looking at the parcel, ‘though the name of this vessel’s wrote big enough for a monkey to read without glasses. Let it lie. It’s out of the ways here.’ Then, looking around him, he lost his temper. ‘Here’s a pretty go!’ he cried. ‘To think of a Woolwich stowaway berthed in such a beautiful bedroom as this here! It’s a-flying in the face of right, and it’s a-courting and caressing of wickedness to make any one as has done wrong so comfortable. If this gets wind, suffocate me if stowaways won’t breed thick as fleas in vessels’ holds! But you’ll have to work.’
‘I’ll work, and work well,’ said I, smiling; ‘and as you treat me so shall your reward be.’
He held the lantern to my face and said: ‘Where?’
‘Hobart Town.’
‘There’s no use a-dangling that sort of fly,’ said he; ‘I’m no one-eyed fish. When I rise, it’s to summat juicy, with ne’er a hook in its inside. Never you mind about Hobart Town, but turn to and get your supper.’
I went to the pantry, where I found Frank. We supped off a dish that had come from the cabin table. Frank informed me that had the captain sent me to live before the mast, I should never have beheld or tasted such a dish even in my dreams. ‘They starfs you,’ said he; ‘pork dot vhas deadt of der measles, und beef dot vhas a horse until dey salt her down into casks.’ Again he endeavoured to ascertain who I was and what I meant to do on my arrival in Hobart Town. He said, if my connections were flourishing people, he’d be very grateful if I’d put in a good word for him. He was not born to this sort of life; he had seen better days, wrote a good hand, and could correspond in three tongues. He had signed articles for the round voyage, but was ready to run from the ship if a chance offered.
I looked mysterious and smiled knowingly, and said I guessed that when my friends heard my story they would be glad to do a kindness to any one who had proved a friend to me during the passage. He put oil into my cabin-lamp and showed me how to trim it, and assured me that any little conveniences which he possessed were at my service. I learned that my work ended at nine. At half-past eight, the materials for grog were placed upon the cabin table, and at two bells I was at liberty to go to bed.
‘But you’ll understand,’ said the steward, who gave me this information, ‘that if all ’ands is called you must turn out. It’ll be for me to sing down the hatch “All ’ands,” and you don’t stop to dress, but rush up, for you’re never to know what hawful things ain’t on the heve of ’appening when that loud cry of “All ’ands” rings through such a big ship as this, and if you don’t turn out, then of course you’ll be one of them parties as feel sorry for themselves next day.’
When two bells were struck I went into the recess under the poop to take a look at the labouring ship and the dark night before going to bed. The canvas had been reefed at eight o’clock; at that hour, and for some time after, I had heard the wild hoarse notes of sailors singing out at the ropes, and the cannonading of heavy sails whose released halyards had abandoned the slack canvas to the thrashing gale. The ship was rushing along her course, climbing the high seas and whitening out the water till the seething waves gleamed like moonlight round about her. Captain Barrett and the doctor were playing at chess in the cuddy; the subaltern looked on with a paper cigar drooping at his mouth. All seemed dark and at rest down the hatch where the soldiers’ quarters were. I thought to myself if this ship were to strike another and founder, what chance for their lives would the two hundred and thirty men below have, lying, for all I knew, in their irons, so battened down that nothing short of an explosion could lift the hatch for them.
A figure approached and peered in my face; the cabin lamp-light was upon him; it was Will.
‘Is that you?’ said he doubtfully.
On my replying, he put his hand into his pocket and gave me a little parcel. ‘Here’s a pencil and paper for you, Marian,’ said he. ‘Be mighty careful in writing, and don’t mention my name. You can’t be too cautious. The sentries’ eyes are as keen as their bayonets. Have you a mattress?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why don’t you go to bed?’
‘I am off in a minute.’
‘This is no place for you. I wish you were at home in Stepney.’ He went on to the poop, and I descended to my berth.