McClure's Magazine/Volume 33/Number 5/John Galbraith, Able-Bodied Seaman
WE were talking idly, leaning back in our chairs on the lanai of the Moana Hotel in Honolulu. My companion was telling me about the loss of the bark Quickstep, whose captain sat across the lawn, gazing stupidly out at the gaudy Pacific, with an expression of bewilderment.
"Yes, they fired him. The local inspector went for him, I can tell you! Just sailed into him and told him he was no seaman at all! Took away his masters papers for one year, by Jove! and nearly kicked him out of the office. A shame, too! Look at the man's reputation: never had an accident before. Because he abandons a leaky old tub that's sinking under his feet, they disgrace him."
The speaker lit another cigar, flinging the match away with a nervous and scornful gesture. "It's a shame!"
Across the lanai came Thomas Price, master of the tank steamer Murray Wells, and my friend hailed him jovially. "What you doin' out here at Waikiki, you old fraud? Is the Wells in drydock, that you're free for an hour?"
Captain Price smiled gently, shook hands quite formally, with a vast grip, and sat down. "The ship's all right," he announced. "But that wharf-pump is choked. Been choked two hours. So I thought I'd run out here." He took off his cap and laid it on the table.
"Yes, of course something happened." The speaker turned to me, tossing his head to emphasize the satire of his remark. "The Wells has been crossing the Pacific for three years, carrying crude oil, and in all those three years Captain Price here hasn't been ashore an hour at either end of the run. Think of it! Gets into Monterey eight days out from Honolulu, ties up, and the pumps start throwing oil into her hold again, while Price skips out, buys a morning paper, gets a box of cheap cigars, hands in his accounts and papers at the office, comes back, and sails for Honolulu after being just four hours in port after a voyage of twenty-five hundred miles. Crosses the ocean and gets into Honolulu at 10 p.m., pumps the oil out, buys an evening paper, turns in his accounts, buys six sacks of rice, and is off for Monterey again before daylight. Wah! Why don't you quit and be a street-car conductor? The sea's no place for a man any more."
"We keep pretty steadily at it," Price agreed gently, looking at me with a slightly humorous glance, as much as to say, "Listen to the lad!"
"Why, they run ships nowadays just like the old Fifth Avenue busses in New York. Up and down and up and down. Then they fire you if they don't like the color of your hair or you're sassy to a lady passenger.—Look at poor old Stuntser, there. Left the Quickstep just half an hour before she foundered. Did his best, by Jove! And they take his ticket away from him—disgrace him! Punish him as if he were a thief! It's a rotten shame, by Jove!" He looked at us with great ferocity, chewing on his cigar and evidently enraged to the last degree.
Price nodded slightly and thoughtfully. "Well," he said gently, "I suppose they looked at it this way: he didn't bring her in."
"Bring her in! Man, she sank!"
"Well, then, he let her sink," Price went on imperturbably.
"My heavens, Price, what sort of a machine-made man are you, anyway?" came the cross demand. "Would you have had the man go down with an old tub like the Quickstep? Ain't one man's life worth more than ten Quicksteps? Say, ain't it, now?"
The captain of the tanker looked at us meditatively. "Oh, of course," he said presently, digesting the matter thoroughly. "If they were passengers. Certainly, of course."
"Passengers!" roared our companion, in huge disgust. "Aren't sailors worth saving? Say, aren't they? You're a sailor. Answer me."
Price flushed faintly. "Stuntser was the captain. He was paid to bring the Quickstep into port."
"Look here," was the response. "The Quickstep's cargo was plain cement, worth something or other a barrel. She carried a crew of sixteen. She was sinking. Stuntser quit her three hundred miles offshore—came in in a little open boat, without the loss of a man. By Jove! after all that,—saving his crew an' all,—they fire him. It's a burning shame! And you run your old tanker like a street-car, at the beck and call of some little clerk in Monterey and another little clerk in Honolulu. Say, do you ring in on a time-clock when you get in and when you leave?"
I almost got up, the tone was so insulting. But Price simply flushed a little deeper and shook his head mildly. "You're young," he said very gently. "I used to think just that way. But I always remember Galbraith—James Galbraith, A. B."
"Galbraith? Galbraith? Don't remember him. Who was he? What did he do?"
The captain of the Murray Wells glanced at me apologetically. "He shipped with me once. I was very young at the time; really had no business with a command. It was a long time ago. It doesn't matter."
For the first time I interfered. "I'd like to hear about him, if you don't mind," I insisted.
"Mind? Oh, of course not. Why should I mind? Well, this was the way of it.
"I was a youngster on the steamship Ardmore, one of the steel wool-ships the Yellow Funnel line ran years ago to the Colonies. I was fourth officer—just out of my 'prentice days, you know, and quite lucky to get a start in so good a line. We carried coal up to Vladivostok that voyage from Japan, and found no place to discharge our cargo. It was in the fall, cold and a little stormy. We lay there for a month.
"Just above us I used to see an ancient, dingy, bark-rigged steamer, lying to a weedy cable. She was small, topheavy, and miserable-looking. Her name—it was in white capitals across her stern—was the Patrick Dare. I understood she was a sealer that had been caught by the cruisers off the Pribilof Islands and condemned as a poacher. She was waiting to be sold.
"They found us a place to discharge our coal, and we set to work, sweating through the short, chilly days, up to our eyes in dust and grime. I didn't like the job. We of the second mess used to complain bitterly at night. Not where the old man could hear us, though. We were afraid of him. One morning the captain came and called me up out of the 'tween-decks. 'Do you want to take the Patrick Dare to Honolulu?' he asked me. 'A Japanese has bought her and loaded her with stuff for his firm down there. There isn't a man in port who can or will take her out. They came to me about it. You'll have command, of course. An ugly job—pick-up crew. Will you go?'
"I am amazed now that I took it. But I was young. I had never commanded a vessel. That old, weedy sealer suddenly became magnificent in my eyes and utterly desirable. I left the Ardmore in an hour, looking back at the cloud of grime and dust that hung over her with pity for the men who were condemned to stay with her in their vile and commonplace toil. I even thought a little scornfully of the old man, who would continue in his decent, unadventurous position, conning that big steel hull through commercial waters, with freight rates at one end of the vista and engineers' indents at the other. While I
"Well, I saw my new employer. He was a delicate-fingered Japanese, quite alert and businesslike. 'You had better sail immediately,' he told me. 'The ice will soon freeze here. You will make the voyage in nineteen days. Leave to-morrow. That will get you into Honolulu on Wednesday, the thirtieth of November. See?' He laid it out for me with his pencil on the blotter that lay on the counter. And when he was done, he went and counted out a small bag of gold coin and handed that to me. 'For the ship's expenses. I have engaged a crew. The engineer is an American; the mate also. The rest are Japanese, Captain.'
"I left that little office with the last word ringing in my ears. I suppose I strutted through the bazaar with the air cf an emperor or a freshly commissioned ensign. I took a sampan and started out on the bay for my new command, with the bag of coin in my pocket, my instruments on my lap, and the ship's papers in a tin case at my feet. My pride received a slight setback when I told the Chinese boatman, 'The Patrick Dare,' for he glanced at all my paraphernalia, my uniform (minus the insignia, which I had turned in to the steward of the Ardmore, of course), and then at the rotten craft I was bound for. The final insult was when he took his fare and turned away without the usual demand to be my sampan-man for the ship. Evidently he thought that the Patrick Dare could not afford a sampan during its stay in port.
"The mate received me at the gangway, and the engineer thrust his tousled head out of the half-deck with watery eyes fixed on me. 'How-do, Cap'n,' he greeted me. 'When are them stores comin' off?'
"Now, this was a natural question which I should have been able to answer. I knew it, but I knew nothing of the stores. Nobody had said a word about them. I carried it off with a 'Stores will be off this afternoon. Got all your coals?'
"He nodded apathetically, and I turned to the mate with relief. He was a slight, energetic-looking, sharp-faced fellow, about my own age. He told me the crew was on board, and that what things he could find to do he had done. 'We've all Japs, sir,' he informed me.
"'This is a Japanese vessel,' I responded with dignity. 'Cargo stowed?'
"'Yes. This old tub leaks.'
"'What did you expect?' I demanded.
"'Nothing,' was the sulky answer, and he went off cursing the Japanese roundly.
"You have no notion how disappointed I was as I inspected my new craft. The solitary virtue that I could find in her was possibilities of speed. The engineer, who cursed her from keelson to truck, admitted that she was heavily engined and that her lines were good. 'But she'll shake the plates out of her,' he asserted loudly. 'She's got high-speed, single-actin' machines, and they'll chew and chew and chew till the hull opens up like a rotten orange or she drops her propeller.' The boilers were bad. The starboard water-tank leaked like a sieve. The donkey-engine was wholly out of commission from rust and disuse. The bunkers were filled with the vilest of coal.
"I left him and went ashore, after long signaling for a sampan, to fetch off some provisions which the Japanese steward said were to come to us. They had not arrived, and I was bent on sailing at dawn. So I went after them.
"I found the comprador, and made him understand that there was no pay coming unless the provisions were on board by sundown. Then I went up to the Admiralty Building to get my correct time.
"As I came out and was hurrying through the bazaar, an old man met me. He looked at me a moment and then said, 'Captain, want another hand?'
"I stopped and stared at him. I saw an aged, rather feeble-looking European. His hands were stubby-fingered, and the backs of them tattooed. His face was big, round, with a fringe of white beard. He took off his cap. and I saw that his hair was thick and gray. But he gave every appearance of being too old to work. I told him so.
"'I've got good discharges, sir,' he croaked, reaching into some huge pocket and dragging out a tremendous book of them. 'All V. G., sir.'
"Now, I was in a hurry. However, it suddenly ran through my mind that here was an old seaman who might have to starve all winter if he didn't get a ship for the outside. I knew the Ardmore wouldn't take him, and the only other craft in port was the American ship Charles F. Sargent. She had been laid up, for my mate had been third on her and was taking this chance to get out of Vladivostok. The old man held out his preposterous bunch of papers and repeated, 'They're all V. G., sir. In sixty years I never got a bad discharge, sir.'
"Why didn't I tell him he was too old? you ask. God knows. Because I was young and pitiful and puffed up with pride and anxious to show my capacity, I nodded to this ancient shellback, and he followed me into the sampan and out to the Patrick Dare. Here I turned him over to the mate. 'I guess we'll take this man with us,' I told him. 'Put him on the articles, will you?' Then I was busy till dark.
"I had had my supper alone in the dingy saloon, when the same old sailor came into my cabin, cap in hand, and croaked out, 'Speak to you, sir?'
"'What is it?' I demanded crossly.
Mr. Buxton wants to sign me on as ordinary seaman, sir. I'm A. B., sir; I've been A. B. for sixty years. James Galbraith, A. B., sir.'
"I fancy I stared at him a long while, for he started to draw out his bundle of discharges again. I capitulated on the spot. 'Present my compliments to Mr. Buxton,' I told him, 'and ask him to come here.'
"When Buxton came I ordered him to sign the old man on as able-bodied seaman.
"'He's too old to be any good,' the mate protested. But I insisted, and he went off grumbling.
"Before turning in I went out on deck to see that all was well. The engineer was sitting in his cabin scrawling on his slate. In response to my inquiries, he said that he was all ready to go, as ready as his engines ever would be—giving me to understand that he had doubts of our arriving anywhere, on account of the weakness, inefficiency, and general worthlessness of the Patrick Dare's machinery. On my way back to my room I passed the old seaman. He was busy over a boat-lashing and paid no attention to me.
"I was up shortly after midnight, and at dawn the Patrick Dare had sixty fathoms of grass-grown cable dripping on her forward deck, an ancient wooden-stocked anchor was at the cat head, and down below the rusty, high-speed engines were whining shrilly. From my place on the bridge I saw the harbor-lights swing a little and then begin to drop astern. The mate joined me, and wanted to know what to do with the anchor-cable. I told him to stow it as best he could, regardless of its weeds and barnacles. Then I rang to the engine-room for full speed, and we trundled off into the eye of the belated dawn, making something like twelve knots an hour, I reckoned. As we passed the Ardmore, standing out of the dark water like a huge building, I pulled the whistle-cord, and an appalling guttural blast of sound rose into the chill air. Ten minutes later we signaled the guard-vessel below and tooled out into the lower bay.
"Three days afterward the mate and the engineer and I sat at table, at our meager supper. We were disgusted with the ship and with each other. Buxton, the mate, threw his roving eyes about the saloon and openly cursed the whole outfit, easily and freely. 'By heavens, I never thought I'd get down to this,' he told me. 'Now, you've got a good berth waiting for you, Captain, when you get this old tub into port. But, I swear, I'll be ashamed to look for another ship. Who'd have thought I'd ever work for a Jap?'
"The engineer glanced up from his plate, and his watery eyes held a doubtful, sly look that offended me. 'If she breaks down we'll have a devil of a time getting to shore,' he said, almost menacingly. 'And it'll serve these stingy Japs right, too. Just serve the villains right to lose this old tub, blast 'em. Nobody but a heathen would send such a craft to sea. And of course she's not insured?' He glanced carefully at me. I nodded, and he burst out, 'Yes, that's the way! Couldn't trust their own dirty countrymen to take this hooker to Honolulu; had to get white men! We get nothin' but wages, and they rake in the profits!' He shook his head threateningly and departed to his engine-room, quivering with rage.
"The mate glanced at me and winked. 'Booth ain't stuck on his job,' he remarked. 'Well, if we don't fetch her in, there's no harm done. What's a Jap, anyway? Let 'em run their own coffins.' And he strolled away.
"I sympathized with my two officers; they were the only two white companions I had; I really was much of the same opinion as they. I cursed my first command and the Japanese that owned her. Really, she was a scandal.
"But we mogged along, and as the engines recovered from their years of disuse we made steadily better time. The weather grew better after we were out of the Japan Sea and into the Pacific, and the days grew fewer that I must count before I handed the Patrick Dare over in Honolulu.
"My only recreation these days was James Galbraith. The mate had watched him about his work for a day or so, and then dubbed him Able-Bodied, a grim jest on his rating on the articles and his real physical weakness. The doddering old chap pottered round the deck, did odd jobs, kept himself incessantly busied over useless tasks. As the rest of the crew r were Japanese, I accepted with great formality Buxton's jesting remark that we ought to make him second mate. I can see the old chap's face yet when I called him up and told him I had decided to have him act as second mate, and for him to move his luggage (he had only a little bag of it) into the empty room next to mine. He fumbled his cap, stared up at the stubby masts of the Patrick Dare, and croaked, 'I never was an officer, sir. I've stood the second mate's watch, but I'm no officer, sir. I've discharges, sir, to show that I've always done my duty. If you say so, I'll act as second mate.'
"'Certainly,' I responded curtly, and Buxton, with infinite humor, promptly handed him over my watch, as the mate and I were standing watch and watch. 'It will give the captain a rest,' I heard him explain solemnly, when I had stepped away. It was a great joke, of course.
"The old fellow took it all seriously. For two days we enjoyed it, and at the end of that time I was slightly astonished to find that it had ceased to be a joke. Old Galbraith was a good officer. He was far better than Buxton. He handled the crew in an easy, masterful style that even I envied. And the Japs seemed perfectly satisfied to jump when he croaked at them. Now and again he would say in all seriousness to me, 'I've never been an officer, sir, before. I've always been an A. B., not having the learning required. My discharges will show that I have done my duty well, sir.' And I'd respond, 'You are doing all right, Mr. Galbraith.' Then the old chap would stare out of his old eyes and clasp the bridge-rail in his worn old fingers and stand a little straighter and throw a little more volume into his queer, husky voice.
"Once Galbraith insisted on showing me his discharges. I sat at the little desk in his room while he stood hovering over me, handling the musty, stained, crackling papers that recorded his sixty years at sea. By Jove! you ought to have seen that prodigious mass of papers! Old discharges written by some long-dead captain by the light of a torch on some East Indian wharf fifty years before; others with the neat scrawl of Her British Majesty's consul in some port you never heard of—an endless succession of slips of paper testifying under oath that James Galbraith had done his duty as an able-bodied seaman with good will and good judgment.
"'I'm getting old, now,' he said suddenly. 'It's hard to get a ship these days. They tell me I'm too old, sir.'
"'How old are you?' I asked him.
'"Seventy years old,' he croaked, gathering the papers up in his shaking hands.
'"That's too old to work,' I said carelessly. 'Why don't you quit it?'
"He glanced at me apologetically, with a feeble shake of his gray head. 'I'm only an A. B.,' he muttered. 'What would I do ashore? I never stopped ashore.'
"What was there to say to him? Nothing. I looked at him. His years of arduous and ill-paid toil were heavy upon him. He was losing the strength that had fought and vanquished so many seas on so many ships. His eyes were dimming. He was old. What could he do? What was the reward of this outrageous task that destiny had imposed on his manhood and which he had accomplished? It made me think, I tell you. It occurred to me that each day some seaman suddenly reached the limit of his inglorious activity, was no longer signed on by mates or picked out by anxious skippers—passed up forever by the users of the sea. And what had he learned? What had his life amounted to? It was a question, wasn't it?
"Day after day I watched Galbraith about his self-appointed duties and wondered what would become of him when he 'signed clear' in Honolulu. Probably this was his last voyage. Nobody else would be so foolish as I. What would become of him?
"I am not sure that I determined that all this was an injustice to Galbraith. In those days I accepted most of what was as right and proper. I might try to explain, but I don't remember questioning the justice of fate or Providence. I was young, and why should I? Age brings the doubts that hurt and destroy.
"One thing did impress itself slowly on my mind: the difference between Buxton and the acting second mate. Buxton was cock-sure, able, alert, loud-mouthed, quite fancy at times in his language and his notions of his own dignity. Galbraith was silent, slow, impassive, inexorably busy, never giving utterance to a thought, an imagination, or anything but an order. The endless spangles of stars in the sky, the rolling horizon, the changing sea never seemed to call up a single abstraction in his mind. He seemed to move in a world where things came up in regular order to be done and, being done, passed into the preterit forever. Now and then he displayed an odd skill or silently employed a daring manoeuver that showed that he had studied his profession with thoroughness and understanding. But otherwise he was simply an old man, fast declining in strength and able-bodiedness.
"I set our course so as to enter the Hawaiian archipelago much farther south than is usually done. In fact, I made so that I would see the island of Laysan, which is very far out of the ordinary course. But I reckoned that we should lose little time by doing this, and, to tell the truth, I didn't trust the seaworthiness of the Patrick Dare. First, she was ill laden; second, she was leaking badly somewhere aft. I thought it would do no harm to run among the islands in case of accident.
"We sighted Laysan and headed east for Honolulu, engines going full speed, smooth sea, fair breeze. Then, with the suddenness of an explosion, the engines jarred off the propeller, sent the tail-shaft grinding after it, and stopped with a roar of steam and a leaping of decks. Booth, the engineer, crawled out on deck, hanging to a Japanese oiler, and swore feebly. The firemen and the assistant engineer followed them with yelps of fear.
"It was mid-afternoon, and Galbraith was on watch, Buxton was asleep in the saloon, and I was reading a book. I came on deck with a jump, Buxton hard at my heels. Galbraith was staring down at the engineer, flinging questions at him which that scalded artisan answered with groans and tossings. It did not take us long to estimate the damage. It was irreparable. The water was pouring in the broken stern-bearings, flooding the engines. In time the Patrick Dare would sink. True, she might live for a day. She might live for a week, could we get the pumps going. But the pumps were below, clouded in hot steam. And the white plume on the funnel showed that the fires were going out fast.
"While the crew stood round with gaping mouths, Buxton and I talked it over. 'We gotta quit her right away,' he said. 'Laysan is astern there, not over a hundred miles. We can make it to-morrow' in a small boat. We gotta do it, and do it quick.'
"Really, that seemed the only course. I ordered him to get the boats ready, and went about the work of saving the papers, finding out the particulars of the breakage, and assuring myself the case was hopeless. I must say. had we been in any steamer track I would have held on, waiting to be picked up. But we were a hundred miles out of the usual track. We might lie there a month without sighting a sail.
"The poor old craft settled very gradually, by the stern. Now and then she rolled in a queer, distressing way. Buxton passed and repassed with anxious face. The engineer was squatted on the deck, oiling his burns and wrapping his arms and neck with waste. Galbraith was on the bridge, silent and apparently asleep, so far as any comprehension of what had happened was concerned.
"It was just sundown when Buxton reported that all was ready. He had our three boats swung out, with provisions and water in them, and the crew mustered. The Dare was riding, her bow acock, tumbling wildly in the heavy swell. 'She won't last long, sir,' Buxton rattled off. 'We're all ready to go now. What's the course, sir?'
"'West by south,' I told him.
"'All right, sir. We'll follow you.—Mr. Booth, take No. 2 and keep just astern of the Captain!'
"I suppose I hesitated, for he snapped out, 'Shall you take Galbraith with you?'
"'Certainly,' I replied, and looked around for him. I did not see him, and turned and told them to clear away their boats and start out. 'I'll follow later,' I said.
"The two boats pulled away, and the six or seven Japanese who composed my boat's crew waited impassively. I went in search of Galbraith. I found him nowhere on deck. I searched the ship for him, and at last I heard the sound of a hammer tinkling on metal, somewhere in the hold. I went down the engine-room ladder to the 'tween-decks and yelled, 'Galbraith! Galbraith!'
"Far below I saw a sudden gleam of light on the shallow water that swept back and forth as the Dare rolled in the seaway. A white face was turned up to me, and the old fellow's croak ascended. 'Send another man down here, Captain.' The face was withdrawn, and I heard the tin-tink-tinkle of metal on metal again.
"Now, I fully intended to order Galbraith up and into the boat. Instead, I went on deck and ordered two Japs down to help him. They went without a word, lowering themselves into the dark engine-room swiftly and silently. I sat down on the nearest hatch and wondered what Galbraith was doing. A pretty thing for the master of a ship to do!
"Presently it struck in on me that I had better be doing something myself. Four sailors were still standing round, watching the departing boats, which were now mere specks on the fast-darkening ocean. I set to work to hoist what sail I could to the freshening breeze.
"An hour later the Dare was swinging along to the westward at a very fair gait. I put a man at the wheel and took a lantern and went below. It was not till I reached the platform far below that I saw Galbraith's light. There were three or four feet of water washing about the engine hold, and I saw that he was at work far in the shaft-tunnel. I managed to find sufficient footing to claw my way to him. He was jamming some calking in about the edges of a plank shutter he had made to stop the tunnel. The water was squirting round him, and he swore as he worked.
"When he had braced it to suit him, he croaked out. 'That'll hold a while. Now let's get them pumps a-going.' He saw me and waved his hand respectfully. 'She was leaking down this tunnel over the shaft, sir. So I stopped it up. Not enough 'll come in now to hurt, just so we can get the pumps going. Where's the engineer? He can get his fires going again and pump her out.'
"'The engineer's gone,' I told him. 'But the assistant is here.' I turned and ordered the Japanese machinist to start the fires, get up steam, and clear the pumps.
"Without a word those heathen went to their task alertly and energetically. As Galbraith climbed up the ladder and I followed him, I looked back into the hold and saw the lanterns glow out into the murk as they lit them. Then came a rattle of orders in Japanese, and the grunting song of the men swinging to their gear.
"On deck, Galbraith glanced at the sails, nodded, spat over the side, and asked, 'Where's the mate and the engineer, Captain?'
"'They thought the ship was sinking and skipped out with two boats for Laysan.'
"He pondered this, and shook his head, with profound wisdom. 'The mate's too young,' he rasped mildly. 'Does he think he's a passenger?'
"His voice rolled along the deserted deck to the bridge and the man at the wheel: 'Full and by, you !' He followed it with a bellow into the engine-room: 'Come up here, two of you, and set the foretopmast stays'l!'
"I was amazed. You could not have imagined such a volume of tone issuing from so feeble a frame. And it carried the note of command, of insistent and relentless discipline. Two men rushed up and on deck, staring round fearfully, muttering, 'Foretopmas' stays'l, sir!' as though suddenly wakened from a deep slumber.
"They ran the staysail up smartly; other sails, too. I saw Galbraith dive into lockers and drag out huge rolls of clumsily bound canvas. His men sweated under his quick orders, and the slender, ill-stayed masts of the Dare were clothed, yard by yard, with drumming sails. And as each new cloth went aloft and was spread, she drove on more swiftly.
"By midnight we were under all plain sail, and the assistant engineer reported that the leak was under control. Galbraith was on the bridge, conning the little vessel with skill and prudence, his gray head barely crowned by his old cap, now rakishly on one side. His great bellow filled the decks when he hurled an order, and I saw his pale eyes steady like those of a youth whenever they caught something amiss.
"Dawn found us hastening along with a big curl of white water under our bows. The wind was gradually hauling, and we headed the Dare up for Honolulu. Galbraith smiled as he saw how close to the wind we sailed, and muttered, 'Better'n steam, any day.'
"I had difficulty to get him to turn in and sleep. His long-slumbering spirit seemed to have wakened. He betrayed no sign of fatigue or weariness. His hands still shook, to be sure, but they obeyed his muscles easily. Now and then he glanced at me with a triumphant, respectful glance, as much as to say, 'You still have a mate; don't worry because Buxton is gone.'
"After his sleep he came on deck, and we determined on our course for Honolulu. When that was done Galbraith said hoarsely, 'Them other fellows must have thought they was passengers! What did they sign on for? Heh? Scared! Heh? But we'll take her in, sir.'
"Another time he approached the subject from another point of view.
'"Some of these young chaps think their bally hides are too precious to risk. What'd that owner sign 'em on for? To save their own skins? Heh? No. To take the ship to Honolulu.'
"Now I have confessed that I nearly left the Dare myself—my first command, too. But I could not have explained why I stayed, or why Buxton's going was so paltry an affair, till the old seaman's words rang in my ears: 'What did the owner sign them on for?... To take the ship to Honolulu.'
"During the next three days, as we beat up for Oahu, I pondered this long.
"At my elbow was James Galbraith, for sixty years a sailor before the mast, unhonored, ill-paid, cared for by no one, yet doing his single duty with great steadfastness of purpose and simplicity of heart—earning his wage. I, in the heat of youth, had been willing to throw away my trust and save my own life, thinking that it was worth more than the business I was on. I had been saved from that. The big lesson had been written before me—by James Galbraith, A. B. Because he had learned this, and lived it, his pocket bulged with insignificant papers, discharges from a hundred ships that he had served well. Now, at the end of a long life, he passed on to me the duty of earning my wage, handing over to me the sum of his laborious toil: to take my ship to its port.
"It is a hard lesson. You will find many who value a human life above all else. That is right and proper. But at sea you are not paid to live: you are paid to do your duty, as others do it, without repining, steadfastly, earning your wage."
"And you got in all right?" I demanded, when he paused.
"We did. I left Galbraith to look after the ship, and I went to the office of the consignees. I'm afraid I laid some stress on the shape the Dare was in, but the Japanese merely nodded and paid me off, after my accounting. Never a word about my bringing in a steamer that was practically a wreck. And, after all, he was quite just. I recall that I said nothing about the six hands who had stayed with us because we had needed them."
"And James Galbraith?"
The master of the Murray Wells put on his cap and prepared to go. "Galbraith? I don't know. Shipped out for some place or other, I suppose. Good man, too. I gave him a first-class discharge to put with all the others in his big book."
"Nothing more?" I demanded incredulously—"after all his work and"
Price glanced down at me with a faintly puzzled expression. "More? What more? He was paid for it."
He left us, striding back to the big tanker and his incessant industry, leaving me and my companion to stare at the disrated master of the wrecked Quickstep, still bowed down by the weight of a punishment he could not comprehend.
This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.
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