Short Stories (magazine)/Plundered Cargo/Chapter 4

by Robert Welles Ritchie

 

Chapter IV

QUARTERDECK LAW

A bleary sun with shreds of cold scud driven across its face by a boisterous north wind. Great gray seas tipped with spindrift heaving and tumbling in a pantomime of resistless force. Landward and miles off a succession of bleak mountains marching in line like elephants, whose feet came straight down to kick a froth of surf at the ocean's edge. Alone in the water waste the hundred and twenty ton schooner Lonney Lee, trim of line and rig, was running close- hauled to the wind with mainsail, foresail and both jibs rock-hard under the thrust of the breeze. Her forefoot turned up a wound of white water which sang along her counter and went streaming out in a troubled trail behind.

On the quarterdeck, where a stolid Chinaman grasped the wheel spokes, an interesting tableau was presented to the sun's misty eye. The big skipper stood a little aft of the binnacle, hands in pockets of his blue sea-jacket, a smile of mild cynicism parting the sparse graying beard which ringed mouth and chin like a rusty fetter. Before him, standing unsteadily and suffering pangs of seasickness, were the sorry remnants of Spike Horn's beach party. They had been routed from behind water butts and dark holes of the fo'c's'le where in abject misery they had crawled when first their bonds were cut on leaving Abalone Cove. At the skipper's direction they had been stripped of their shore togs, with the exception of the Iron Man, the sickest of the lot, and arrayed in nondescripts from the Lonney Lee's none-too-complete slop chest—in reality pegs in the paint closet whereon a previous crew had left their cast-offs.

Old Doctor Chitterly wore a pair of Chinaman's cotton trousers, had Cantonese rattan shoe-packs on his feet, and his hard glazed shirt, from which his diamond stud blazed defiantly, was covered by a sleazy jacket inches short, from the arms of which his wrists and big hands protruded like cypress stubs.

Spike Horn carried a challenging grin over the collar of a patched slicker, although his face was putty. His loud checked trousers peeped under the hem of the oilskin and his patent leather “toothpick” shoes had been replaced by brogans which might be rated worse than second-hand. The unfortunate flute player, whose name might well be Angelo, had compromised with his changed status by shedding his jacket in favor of a Chinaman's denim smock, very greasy and smelling to the wide heavens.

I said the skippers smile was one of mild cynicism. There was more cynicism behind that in his demeanor as he let his eye rove over the tatterdemalion crew who had assembled at his summons three hours after the anchor was catheaded, The easy assumption of mastery was in his mien; he was master of the schooner Lonney Lee, and was the law between sea and sky so long as salt water ran under the schooner's foot. Whatever other advantage he fancied to be his, this prerogative went with his master's certificate, and of course he was sensible of the fact.

“Men,” he began in that baffling voice of mildness the four had marked in the room of the house of the cabbage fields when a speaking light was their only introduction, “men, we're going to make a voyage together and it might as well be understood here and now that Cap'n Judah Storrs is master of this schooner, the Lonney Lee. It happened to suit my convenience to press you in to fill a short crew. You understand you're to take orders from me and from my mate, Mr. Hansen.” Captain Storrs jerked a thumb to indicate where a slouching man of Scandinavian stamp leaned against the rail, a dull humor in his eyes.

“Ye-ah, an' we'll get you for this first chance comes up!” Spike growled his defiance with his never failing grin. Captain Storrs acknowledged the threat with a broadening smile.

“Mr. Man, a little piece of advice to you—and I see already you are going to be the hardest to persuade with advice only. While you're aboard this schooner and under command of Cap'n Judah Storrs it'll be best for you to 'vast any notion of 'getting' your skipper. Men have tried that before and found themselves tidily stowed away in a shark's belly. A corpus delicti is mighty hard to discover in a shark's belly, and any sea lawyer'll tell you that.”

The doughty Spike was on the point of compounding a breach of sea discipline by further speech when Doctor Chitterly's uplifted hand stayed him. By a mighty effort the doctor rallied his shreds of dignity, although his stomach was giving him a great deal of trouble, and he spoke in his best medicine wagon manner.

“Captain Judah Storrs, sir,” he said, “we have a just grievance against you. Or perhaps our present situation is due—ah—to an unfortunate misunderstanding. You may see for yourself we are not sailors. I, for example, am the discoverer of Squaw Root Tonic, an unparelleled elixir, the secret of which was imparted to me by the widow of a Medoc chief. This man here—” he pointed to the miserable Walla-Walla—makes his living I am told by letting people strike him in the most resistant part of his body with a baseball bat; not an elevating profession, I admit, nor one necessarily qualifying him to be a sailor.

“Captain Judah Storrs, sir, I give you my solemn word of honor as a medical man that before last night I never so much as set my eyes on any of these men; that I have no part in any—um—conspiracy such as you intimated when we were made your prisoners last night. This—um—kidnapping—not to put too fine a point to the word—works a decided inconvenience upon me personally, and I demand to be put ashore.”

“Demand, eh?” The gray fetter of whisker about Captain Judah's lips suddenly became elastic.

“Well—um—request,” the good doctor amended lamely.

“Neatly spoken, Doctor!” the skipper applauded. “I think, since you know nothing about sailoring, I'll make you my second mate and let you divide watches with Mr. Hansen. No second mate knows anything about navigation anyway, so you'll fill the bill. You'll move your things—” he paused to iron out a grin with the back of a hand—“you'll move your shore coat and shoes aft and mess with me.”

Some instinct of sea craft prompted Doctor Chitterly to quit his position among the vagabonds and step across an invisible line of authority to stand beside the skipper. He tried to put a look of severity into his eyes as he gazed across a gulf of four feet at his erstwhile companions.

“Any of you three swabs know how to cook?” Captain Judah plumped the question suddenly. Angelo the flute player smote himself on the chest resoundingly.

“Cook? Tha's me! One time secon' cook by Fior d'Italia rest'ra', San Francis'. Ravioli, vermicelli, all da pasta: that's me, Angelo!”

“In the galley for you and out goes Hop Wo, the worst cook that ever burned a slum. You—” Captain Judah's finger speared at the Iron Man—“are you the man that takes a ball bat before breakfast?”

The moon face of the Iron Man, green as Roquefort, turned sickly toward his interrogator.

“Well, Bat, you look strong. The galley for you—potwrastler for little Angelo here. Now, you three, get for'ard.”

Walla-Walla and Angelo moved uncertainly to the short flight dropping from the quarter-deck. Spike Horn remained, slouching in his scarecrow rig, his eyes challenging the skipper's.

“You heard me! Get for'ard!” The skipper made two swift strides. His right hand flashed out from a pocket of his sea-jacket. Brass knuckles gleamed dully across the back of his fist. Spike set himself and launched a wide swing at the whiskered chin. By a lightning side-step the skipper dodged and sent in a short hook to Spike's point.

Down he crashed, rolled over once and lay face upward, arms spread-eagled. The captain of the Lonney Lee stepped to the side of the prone figure and stamped once with his boot heel upon the upturned features.

A wave of nausea rippled upward from Doctor Chitterly's solar plexus. He covered his eyes. “Dear God!” he moaned.

As if it was a matter of the day's work, one of the Chinese rats from up for'ard came padding bare-footed with a bucket and line. He dropped the bucket overboard and sluiced the unconscious man twice, thrice.

Spike sat up; studied the hand that came bloodied from his face; clapped exploring fingers to his mouth. He tossed two teeth overboard, then grinned wryly at the back of Skipper Judah by the wheel.

Spike went for'ard with the Chinamen.