Books: Many Cargoes
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W.W. Jacobs >> Many Cargoes
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"If you put it that way," said the captain hesitatingly.
"Have some more gin," said the artful pilot.
The captain had some more, and, what with flattery and gin, combined
with the pleadings of his friend, began to consider the affair more
favourably. Pepper stuck to his guns, and used them so well that when
the captain saw him off that evening he was pledged up to the hilt to
come down to Sunset Bay and personate the late Captain Budd on the
following Thursday.
The ex-pilot passed the intervening days in a sort of trance, from which
he only emerged to take nourishment, or answer the scoldings of his
wife. On the eventful Thursday, however, his mood changed, and he went
about in such a state of suppressed excitement that he could scarcely
keep still.
"Lor' bless me!" snapped Mrs. Pepper, as he slowly perambulated the
parlour that afternoon. "What ails the man? Can't you keep still for
five minutes?"
The ex-pilot stopped and eyed her solemnly, but, ere he could reply, his
heart gave a great bound, for, from behind the geraniums which filled
the window, he saw the face of Captain Crippen slowly rise and peer
cautiously into the room. Before his wife could follow the direction of
her husband's eyes it had disappeared.
"Somebody looking in at the window," said Pepper, with forced calmness,
in reply to his wife's eyebrows.
"Like their impudence!" said the unconscious woman, resuming her
knitting, while her husband waited in vain for the captain to enter.
He waited some time, and then, half dead with excitement, sat down, and
with shaking fingers lit his pipe. As he looked up the stalwart figure
of the captain passed the window. During the next twenty minutes it
passed seven times, and Pepper, coming to the not unnatural conclusion
that his friend intended to pass the afternoon in the same unprofitable
fashion, resolved to force his hand.
"Must be a tramp," he said aloud.
"Who?" inquired his wife. "Man keeps looking in at the window," said
Pepper desperately. "Keeps looking in till he meets my eye, then he
disappears. Looks like an old sea-captain, something."
"Old sea-captain?" said his wife, putting down her work and turning
round. There was a strange hesitating note in her voice. She looked at
the window, and at the same instant the head of the captain again
appeared above the geraniums, and, meeting her gaze, hastily vanished.
Martha Pepper sat still for a moment, and then, rising in a slow, dazed
fashion, crossed to the door and opened it. Mermaid Passage was empty!
"See anybody?" quavered Pepper.
His wife shook her head, but in a strangely quiet fashion, and, sitting
down, took up her knitting again.
For some time the click of the needles and the tick of the clock were
the only sounds audible, and the ex-pilot had just arrived at the
conclusion that his friend had abandoned him to his fate, when there
came a low tapping at the door.
"Come in!" cried Pepper, starting.
The door opened slowly, and the tall figure of Captain Crippen entered
and stood there eyeing them nervously. A neat little speech he had
prepared failed him at the supreme moment. He leaned against the wall,
and in a clumsy, shamefaced fashion lowered his gaze, and stammered out
the one word--"Martha!"
At that word Mrs. Pepper rose and stood with parted lips, eyeing him
wildly.
"Jem!" she gasped, "Jem!"
"Martha!" croaked the captain again.
With a choking cry Mrs. Pepper ran towards him, and, to the huge
gratification of her lawful spouse, flung her arms about his neck and
kissed him violently.
"Jem," she cried breathlessly, "is it really you? I can hardly believe
it. Where have you been all this long time? Where have you been?"
"Lots of places," said the captain, who was not prepared to answer a
question like that offhand; "but wherever I've been"--he held up his
hand theatrically--"the image of my dear lost wife has been always in
front of me."
"I knew you at once, Jem," said Mrs. Pepper fondly, smoothing the hair
back from his forehead. "Have I altered much?"
"Not a bit," said Crippen, holding her at arm's length and carefully
regarding her. "You look just the same as the first time I set eyes on
you."
"Where have you been?" wailed Martha Pepper, putting her head on his
shoulder.
"When the Dolphin went down from under me, and left me fighting with the
waves for life and Martha, I was cast ashore on a desert island," began
Crippen fluently. "There I remained for nearly three years, when I was
rescued by a barque bound for New South Wales. There I met a man from
Poole who told me you were dead. Having no further interest in the land
of my birth, I sailed in Australian waters for many years, and it was
only lately that I heard how cruelly I had been deceived, and that my
little flower was still blooming."
The little flower's head being well down on his shoulder again, the
celebrated actor exchanged glances with the worshipping Pepper.
"If you'd only come before, Jem," said Mrs. Pepper. "Who was he? What
was his name?"
"Smith," said the cautious captain.
"If you'd only come before, Jem," said Mrs. Pepper, in a smothered
voice, "it would have been better. Only three months ago I married that
object over there."
The captain attempted a melodramatic start with such success, that,
having somewhat underestimated the weight of his fair bride, he nearly
lost his balance.
"It can't be helped, I suppose," he said reproachfully, "but you might
have waited a little longer, Martha."
"Well, I'm your wife, anyhow," said Martha, "and I'll take care I never
lose you again. You shall never go out of my sight again till you die.
Never."
"Nonsense, my pet," said the captain, exchanging uneasy glances with the
ex-pilot. "Nonsense."
"It isn't nonsense, Jem," said the lady, as she drew him on to the sofa
and sat with her arms round his neck. "It may be true, all you've told
me, and it may not. For all I know, you may have been married to some
other woman; but I've got you now, and I intend to keep you."
"There, there," said the captain, as soothingly as a strange sinking at
the heart would allow him.
"As for that other little man, I only married him because he worried me
so," said Mrs. Pepper tearfully. "I never loved him, but he used to
follow me about and propose. Was it twelve or thirteen times you
proposed to me, Pepper?"
"I forget," said the ex-pilot shortly.
"But I never loved him," she continued. "I never loved you a bit, did I,
Pepper?"
"Not a bit," said Pepper warmly. "No man could ever have a harder or
more unfeeling wife than you was. I'll say that for you, willing."
As he bore this testimony to his wife's fidelity there was a knock at
the door, and, upon his opening it, the rector's daughter, a lady of
uncertain age, entered, and stood regarding with amazement the frantic
but ineffectual struggles of Captain Crippen to release himself from a
position as uncomfortable as it was ridiculous.
"Mrs. Pepper!" said the lady, aghast. "Oh, Mrs. Pepper!"
"It's all right, Miss Winthrop," said the lady addressed, calmly, as she
forced the captain's flushed face on to her ample shoulder again; "it's
my first husband, Jem Budd."
"Good gracious!" said Miss Winthrop, starting. "Enoch Arden in the
flesh!"
"Who?" inquired Pepper, with a show of polite interest.
"Enoch Arden," said Miss Winthrop. "One of our great poets wrote a noble
poem about a sailor who came home and found that his wife had married
again; but, in the POEM, the first husband went away without making
himself known, and died of a broken heart."
She looked at Captain Crippen as though he hadn't quite come up to her
expectations.
"And now," said Pepper, speaking with great cheerfulness, "it's me
that's got to have the broken heart. Well, well."
"It's a most interesting case," cried Miss Winthrop; "and, if you wait
till I fetch my camera, I'll take your portrait together just as you
are."
"Do," said Mrs. Pepper cordially.
"I won't have my portrait took," said the captain, with much acerbity.
"Not if I wish it, dear?" inquired Mrs. Pepper tenderly.
"Not if you keep a-wishing it all your life," replied the captain
sourly, making another attempt to get his head from her shoulder.
"Don't you think they ought to have their portrait taken now?" asked
Miss Winthrop, turning to the ex-pilot.
"I don't see no 'arm in it," said Pepper thoughtlessly.
"You hear what Mr. Pepper says," said the lady, turning to the captain
again. "Surely if he doesn't mind, you ought not to."
"I'll talk to him by-and-bye," said the captain, very grimly.
"P'raps it would be better if we kept this affair to ourselves for the
present," said the ex-pilot, taking alarm at his friend's manner.
"Well, I won't intrude on you any longer," said Miss Winthrop. "Oh! Look
there! How rude of them!"
The others turned hastily in time to see several heads vanish from the
window. Captain Crippen was the first to speak.
"Jem!" said Mrs. Pepper severely, before he had finished.
"Captain Budd!" said Miss Winthrop, flushing.
The incensed captain rose to his feet and paced up and down the room. He
looked at the ex-pilot, and that small schemer shivered.
"Easy does it, cap'n," he murmured, with a wink which he meant to be
comforting.
"I'm going out a little way," said the captain, after the rector's
daughter had gone. "Just to cool my head."
Mrs. Pepper took her bonnet from its peg behind the door, and, surveying
herself in the glass, tied it beneath her chin.
"Alone," said Crippen nervously. "I want to do a little thinking."
"Never again, Jem," said Mrs. Pepper firmly. "My place is by your side.
If you're ashamed of people looking at you, I'm not. I'm proud of you.
Come along. Come and show yourself, and tell them who you are. You shall
never go out of my sight again as long as I live. Never."
She began to whimper.
"What's to be done?" inquired Crippen, turning desperately on the
bewildered pilot.
"What's it got to do with him?" demanded Mrs. Pepper sharply.
"He's got to be considered a little, I s'pose," said the captain,
dissembling. "Besides, I think I'd better do like the man in the poetry
did. Let me go away and die of a broken heart. Perhaps it's best."
Mrs. Pepper looked at him with kindling eyes.
"Let me go away and die of a broken heart," repeated the captain, with
real feeling. "I'd rather do it. I would indeed."
Mrs. Pepper, bursting into angry tears, flung her arms round his neck
again, and sobbed on his shoulder. The pilot, obeying the frenzied
injunctions of his friend's eye, drew down the blind.
"There's quite a crowd outside," he remarked.
"I don't mind," said his wife amiably. "They'll soon know who he is."
She stood holding the captain's hand and stroking it, and whenever his
feelings became too much for her put her head down on his waistcoat. At
such times the captain glared fiercely at the ex-pilot, who, being of a
weak nature, was unable, despite his anxiety, to give his risible
faculties that control which the solemnity of the occasion demanded.
The afternoon wore slowly away. Miss Winthrop, who disliked scandal, had
allowed something of the affair to leak out, and several visitors,
including a local reporter, called, but were put off till the morrow, on
the not unnatural plea that the long-separated couple desired a little
privacy. The three sat silent, the ex-pilot, with wrinkled brows, trying
hard to decipher the lip-language in which the captain addressed him
whenever he had an opportunity, but could only dimly guess its purport,
when the captain pressed his huge fist into the service as well.
Mrs. Pepper rose at length, and went into the back room to prepare tea.
As she left the door open, however, and took the captain's hat with her,
he built no hopes on her absence, but turned furiously to the ex-pilot.
"What's to be done?" he inquired in a fierce whisper. "This can't go
on."
"It'll have to," whispered the other.
"Now, look here," said Crippen menacingly, "I'm going into the kitchen
to make a clean breast of it. I'm sorry for you, but I've done the best
I can. Come and help me to explain."
He turned to the kitchen, but the other, with the strength born of
despair, seized him by the sleeve and held him back.
"She'll kill me," he whispered breathlessly.
"I can't help it," said Crippen, shaking him off. "Serve you right."
"And she'll tell the folks outside, and they'll kill you," continued
Pepper.
The captain sat down again, and confronted him with a face as pale as
his own.
"The last train leaves at eight," whispered the pilot hurriedly. "It's
desperate, but it's the only thing you can do. Take her for a stroll up
by the fields near the railway station. You can see the train coming in
for a mile off nearly. Time yourself carefully, and make a bolt for it.
She can't run."
The entrance of their victim with the tea-tray stopped the conversation;
but the captain nodded acceptance behind her back, and then, with a
forced gaiety, sat down to tea.
For the first time since his successful appearance he became loquacious,
and spoke so freely of incidents in the life of the man he was
impersonating that the ex-pilot sat in a perfect fever lest he should
blunder. The meal finished, he proposed a stroll, and, as the
unsuspecting Mrs. Pepper tied on her bonnet, slapped his leg, and winked
confidently at his fellow-conspirator.
"I'm not much of a walker," said the innocent Mrs. Pepper, "so you must
go slowly."
The captain nodded, and at Pepper's suggestion left by the back way, to
avoid the gaze of the curious.
For some time after their departure Pepper sat smoking, with his anxious
face turned to the clock, until at length, unable to endure the strain
any longer, and not without a sportsmanlike idea of being in at the
death, he made his way to the station, and placed himself behind a
convenient coal-truck.
He waited impatiently, with his eyes fixed on the road up which he
expected the captain to come. He looked at his watch. Five minutes to
eight, and still no captain. The platform began to fill, a porter seized
the big bell and rang it lustily; in the distance a patch of white smoke
showed. Just as the watcher had given up all hope, the figure of the
captain came in sight. He was swaying from side to side, holding his hat
in his hand, but doggedly racing the train to the station.
"He'll never do it!" groaned the pilot. Then he held his breath, for
three or four hundred yards behind the captain Mrs. Pepper pounded in
pursuit.
The train rolled into the station; passengers stepped in and out; doors
slammed, and the guard had already placed the whistle in his mouth, when
Captain Crippen, breathing stentorously, came stumbling blindly on to
the platform, and was hustled into a third class carriage.
"Close shave that, sir," said the station-master as he closed the door.
The captain sank back in his seat, fighting for breath, and turning his
head, gave a last triumphant look up the road.
"All right, sir," said the station-master kindly, as he followed the
direction of the other's eyes and caught sight of Mrs. Pepper. "We'll
wait for your lady."
* * * * *
Jackson Pepper came from behind the coal-truck and watched the train out
of sight, wondering in a dull, vague fashion what the conversation was
like. He stood so long that a tender hearted porter, who had heard the
news, made bold to come up and put a friendly hand on his shoulder.
"You'll never see her again, Mr. Pepper," he said sympathetically.
The ex-pilot turned and regarded him fixedly, and the last bit of spirit
he was ever known to show flashed up in his face as he spoke.
"You're a blamed idiot!" he said rudely.
A CASE OF DESERTION
The sun was just rising as the small tub-like steamer, or, to be more
correct, steam-barge, the Bulldog, steamed past the sleeping town of
Gravesend at a good six knots per hour.
There had been a little discussion on the way between her crew and the
engineer, who, down in his grimy little engine-room, did his own stoking
and everything else necessary. The crew, consisting of captain, mate,
and boy, who were doing their first trip on a steamer, had been
transferred at the last moment from their sailing-barge the Witch, and
found to their discomfort that the engineer, who had not expected to
sail so soon, was terribly and abusively drunk. Every moment he could
spare from his engines he thrust the upper part of his body through the
small hatchway, and rowed with his commander.
"Ahoy, bargee!" he shouted, popping up like a jack-in-the-box, after a
brief cessation of hostilities.
"Don't take no notice of 'im," said the mate. "'E's got a bottle of
brandy down there, an' he's 'alf mad."
"If I knew anything o' them blessed engines," growled the skipper, "I'd
go and hit 'im over the head."
"But you don't," said the mate, "and neither do I, so you'd better keep
quiet."
"You think you're a fine feller," continued the engineer, "standing up
there an' playing with that little wheel. You think you're doing all the
work. What's the boy doing? Send him down to stoke."
"Go down," said the skipper, grinning with fury, and the boy reluctantly
obeyed.
"You think," said the engineer pathetically, after he had cuffed the
boy's head and dropped him down below by the scruff of his neck, "you
think because I've got a black face I'm not a man. There's many a hoily
face 'ides a good 'art."
"I don't think nothing about it," grunted the skipper; "you do your
work, and I'll do mine."
"Don't you give me none of your back answers," bellowed the engineer,
"'cos I won't have 'em."
The skipper shrugged his shoulders and exchanged glances with his
sympathetic mate. "Wait till I get 'im ashore," he murmured.
"The biler is wore out," said the engineer, re-appearing after a hasty
dive below. "It may bust at any moment."
As though to confirm his words fearful sounds were heard proceeding from
below.
"It's only the boy," said the mate, "he's scared--natural."
"I thought it was the biler," said the skipper, with a sigh of relief.
"It was loud enough."
As he spoke the boy got his head out of the hatchway, and, rendered
desperate with fear, fairly fought his way past the engineer and gained
the deck.
"Very good," said the engineer, as he followed him on deck and staggered
to the side. "I've had enough o' you lot."
"Hadn't you better go down to them engines?" shouted the skipper.
"Am I your SLAVE?" demanded the engineer tearfully. "Tell me that. Am I
your slave?"
"Go down and do your work like a sensible man," was the reply.
At these words the engineer took umbrage at once, and, scowling
fiercely, removed his greasy jacket and flung his cap on the deck. He
then finished the brandy which he had brought up with him, and gazed
owlishly at the Kentish shore.
"I'm going to have a wash," he said loudly, and, sitting down, removed
his boots.
"Go down to the engines first," said the skipper, "and I'll send the boy
to you with a bucket and some soap."
"Bucket!" replied the engineer scornfully, as he moved to the side. "I'm
going to have a proper wash."
"Hold him!" roared the skipper suddenly. "Hold him!"
The mate, realising the situation, rushed to seize him, but the
engineer, with a mad laugh, put his hands on the side and vaulted into
the water. When he rose the steamer was twenty yards ahead.
"Go astarn!" yelled the mate.
"How can I go astarn when there's nobody at the engines?" shouted the
skipper, as he hung on to the wheel and brought the boat's head sharply
round. "Git a line ready."
The mate, with a coil of rope in his hand, rushed to the side, but his
benevolent efforts were frustrated by the engineer, who, seeing the
boat's head making straight for him, saved his life by an opportune
dive. The steamer rushed by.
"Turn 'er agin!" screamed the mate.
The captain was already doing so, and in a remarkably short space of
time the boat, which had described a complete circle, was making again
for the engineer.
"Look out for the line!" shouted the mate warningly.
"I don't want your line," yelled the engineer. "I'm going ashore."
"Come aboard!" shouted the captain imploringly, as they swept past
again. "We can't manage the engines."
"Put her round again," said the mate. "I'll go for him with the boat.
Haul her in, boy."
The boat, which was dragging astern, was hauled close, and the mate
tumbled into her, followed by the boy, just as the captain was in the
middle of another circle?-to the intense indignation of a crowd of
shipping, large and small, which was trying to get by.
"Ahoy!" yelled the master of a tug which was towing a large ship." Take
that steam roundabout out of the way. What the thunder are you doing?"
"Picking up my engineer," replied the captain, as he steamed right
across the other's bows, and nearly ran down a sailing-barge, the
skipper of which, a Salvation Army man, was nobly fighting with his
feelings.
"Why don't you stop?" he yelled.
"'Cos I can't," wailed the skipper of the Bulldog, as he threaded his
way between a huge steamer and a schooner, who, in avoiding him, were
getting up a little collision on their own account.
"Ahoy, Bulldog! Ahoy!" called the mate. "Stand by to pick us up. We've
got him."
The skipper smiled in an agonised fashion as he shot past, hotly pursued
by his boat. The feeling on board the other craft as they got out of the
way of the Bulldog, and nearly ran down her boat, and then, in avoiding
that, nearly ran down something else, cannot be put into plain English,
but several captains ventured into the domains of the ornamental with
marked success.
"Shut off steam!" yelled the engineer, as the Bulldog went by again.
"Draw the fires, then."
"Who's going to steer while I do it?" bellowed the skipper, as he left
the wheel for a few seconds to try and get a line to throw them.
By this time the commotion in the river was frightful, and the captain's
steering, as he went on his round again, something marvellous to behold.
A strange lack of sympathy on the part of brother captains added to his
troubles. Every craft he passed had something to say to him, busy as
they were, and the remarks were as monotonous as they were insulting. At
last, just as he was resolving to run his boat straight down the river
until he came to a halt for want of steam, the mate caught the rope he
flung, and the Bulldog went down the river with her boat made fast to
her stern.
"Come aboard, you--you lunatic!" he shouted.
"Not afore I knows 'ow I stand," said the engineer, who was now
beautifully sober, and in full possession of a somewhat acute intellect.
"What do you mean?" demanded the skipper.
"I don't come aboard," shouted the engineer, "until you and the mate and
the bye all swear as you won't say nothing about this little game."
"I'll report you the moment I get ashore," roared the skipper. "I'll
give you in charge for desertion. I'll"--
With a supreme gesture the engineer prepared to dive, but the watchful
mate fell on his neck and tripped him over a seat.
"Come aboard!" cried the skipper, aghast at such determination. "Come
aboard, and I'll give you a licking when we get ashore instead."
"Honour bright?" inquired the engineer.
"Honour bright," chorused the three.
The engineer, with all the honours of war, came on board, and, after
remarking that he felt chilly bathing on an empty stomach, went down
below and began to stoke. In the course of the voyage he said that it
was worth while making such a fool of himself if only to see the
skipper's beautiful steering, warmly asseverating that there was not
another man on the river that could have done it. Before this insidious
flattery the skipper's wrath melted like snow before the sun, and by the
time they reached port he would as soon have thought of hitting his own
father as his smooth-tongued engineer.
OUTSAILED
It was a momentous occasion. The two skippers sat in the private bar of
the "Old Ship," in High Street, Wapping, solemnly sipping cold gin and
smoking cigars, whose sole merit consisted in the fact that they had
been smuggled. It is well known all along the waterside that this
greatly improves their flavour.
"Draw all right?" queried Captain Berrow?-a short, fat man of few ideas,
who was the exulting owner of a bundle of them.
"Beautiful," replied Captain Tucker, who had just made an excursion into
the interior of his with the small blade of his penknife. "Why don't you
keep smokes like these, landlord?"
"He can't," chuckled Captain Berrow fatuously. "They're not to be 'ad--
money couldn't buy 'em."
The landlord grunted. "Why don't you settle about that race o' yours an'
ha' done with it," he cried, as he wiped down his counter. "Seems to me,
Cap'n Tucker's hanging fire."
"I'm ready when he is," said Tucker, somewhat shortly.
"It's taking your money," said Berrow slowly; "the Thistle can't hold a
candle to the Good Intent, and you know it. Many a time that little
schooner o' mine has kept up with a steamer."
"Wher'd you ha' been if the tow rope had parted, though?" said the
master of the Thistle, with a wink at the landlord.
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