Wide Courses Part 4

"Aye, lay to it, and we'll eat that turkey for Christmas yet," yells Sam.

"Lay to it, and we'll have more than the turkey." I says.

"What's that we'll have, Alec?" hollers Sam.

"Pull to the Aurora and see." I hollers back. It was blowing so hard we could hardly hear each other, and what with the chop we were driving the dory through we might well have been in swimming.

We made the _Aurora_, and, looking back as I leaped over her rail, I could see Miller running back up the dock.

"Hurry, fellows." I yells to them, "Miller's gone to head us off."

As we drops onto the _Aurora's_ deck a head pops out of the fo'c's'le companion-way. He looked like he'd just come out of a fine sleep.

"You," I yelled, "allay you--rauss--beat it," and rushed him to the dory we'd just come aboard in. He looks up at me in the most puzzled way. Two more heads popped up out of the companion-way. "And allay you two,"

yells Sam and Archie, and grabs 'em and heaves 'em into the dory, casts off her painter, and they drifts off like men in a trance. One minute they were sound asleep in their bunks and the next adrift and half-dressed in a dory in the middle of the harbor with a gale of wind roaring in their ears and a choppy sea wetting 'em down.

"In with her chain-anchor slack," I calls, "and then up with her jibs,"

which they did. "And now her fores'l--up with her fores'l." Then we broke out her chain-anchor. I was to the wheel and knew the second the anchor was clear of the bottom by the way she leaped under me. "Don't stop to cat-head that anchor," I calls, "but cut her hawser." They cut her hawser free, and with the big anchor-rope kinking through the hawse-hole, away went the _Aurora_, picking up, as she went, the chain-anchor with its eight or ten fathoms of chain still out and tucking it under her bilge; and there that anchor stayed, jammed hard against her bottom planking, while she rushed across the harbor.

"Now," I said, "let's see if we c'n work out of this blessed pocket without somebody having to notify the insurance companies afterward."

All along the water-front the people by now were crowding to look at us.

All they saw was an American fis.h.i.+ng schooner with a crazy American crew trying to pick her way through a crowded harbor with her four lowers set in a living gale.

We were across the harbor in no time. "Stand by now--stand by sheets," I sung out. Steady as statues they waited for the word, and when they got it--"Har-r-d a-lee-e!" Whf-f the steam came out of them, and the busiest of all was Sam Leary, with the big turkey between his feet.

As she came around I was afraid her anchor would take bottom and her way be checked. It did touch, but the _Aurora_ spun on her toes so quick that before that anchor knew it was down she was off and flying free again.

All this time I was looking around for Miller and at last I saw him in a little power boat. He had the French gun-boat in mind that was sure, but his craft was making heavy weather of it, and before he was half-way to the gun-boat we were under her stern, on our shoot for the harbor entrance, and from the gun-boat's deck they were peeping down on us, grinning and yelling the same as everybody else, waiting to see us pile up on the rocks somewhere.

But no rocks for the _Aurora_ that Christmas Day. She knew what we wanted of her. There's a spindle beacon in Saint Pierre harbor, white-painted slats on a white-painted rock sticking out of the water, and there was a French packet lying to the other side. We had to go between. I knew they were betting a hundred to one we'd hit one or the other.

We weathered the packet and squeezed by the beacon. The end of our long bowsprit did hit the white-painted slats, gave 'em a good healthy wallop, but that wasn't any surprise--we figured on going close. We were by and safe, and looking back from the wheel to mark her wake swas.h.i.+ng over the very rock itself, I had to whisper _to_ her:

"_Aurora_, girl, you're all I ever said you were." But if you'd seen her, the big spars of her, the set of her rigging, the fine-fitting sails, the beautiful line of the rail, and the straight flat deck, you'd have to admit it wasn't any surprise. You couldn't 've done it with every vessel--but the _Aurora!_ A great bit of wood, the _Aurora!_

And looking past her wake, I picked out Miller's motor boat along inside the French gun-boat. But no gun-boat was worrying me then. They might chase me, but the gun-boat wasn't afloat that could 've chased and caught the _Aurora_ in that gale. A man didn't need to be a French captain to know that.

But for fear they might chase us, I kept her going. And after we'd had time to get our breath, we took a peek into her hold. And it was loaded with cases--wine, brandy--liquors of all kinds. And the gang said: "How about it, skipper?" And I said: "Help yourself--you've earned it," and they helped themselves.

And they had their promised Christmas dinner. The turkey had only to be warmed up. After it was warmed up, it was fine to hear Sam telling about the recapturing of it. "He was in the kitchen--just been hauled out the oven--and the chef, he was standing over him with a big carving knife, when I spots the pair of 'em through the window. 'Stand by, fellows,' I hollers, and jumps through the window and grabs the carving knife and chases cheffie out the room with it. And back through the window comes me and the turk. An' they all hollers murder and comes after us. And look at him now! Twenty-five pounds he weighs--the biggest turkey, I'm tellin' you, ever sailed out of ol' Saint Peer. A whale, twenty-five pounds as he lies there. And four kinds of wine--four kinds. Ca.s.sie, champagne, claret, which you don't have to drink 'less you want to, and that red-colored wine I don't know the name of, but good stuff--I sampled it. And that's what I call a Christmas dinner."

And I guess it was. Pretty soon they were hopping around like a lot of leaping goats. The best-natured crowd ever you see, mind, but it was Christmas Day, and they'd done a good job; the blood was running wild inside them, and I let them run a while. And then when I thinks it time to begin to straighten them out, I looks them over and finally picking out Archie Gillis I says, 'Archie, I think you're the drunkest! Take the wheel and soak it out.'

And Archie stood to the wheel, and up the cabin steps the rest of the gang kept pa.s.sing him drinks of champagne when they thought I wasn't looking.

By dark of that Christmas we shot into Folly Cove in Placentia Bay and came to anchor off John Rose's wharf. And the _Aurora's_ crew were there helping John, and there was the load of herring John had promised. And he thought I'd come for the herring, but I hadn't--not yet. I had a word in private with John, and he found a nice little place among the cliffs, and with John Rose and the _Aurora's_ crew it didn't take long to stow those cases of wine where no stranger would find them in a hurry.

And when that was done I goes over the papers again. And sure enough, her papers read for a fis.h.i.+ng trip to the Grand Banks. Her crew had been s.h.i.+pped for a fis.h.i.+ng trip. Her gear, dories, bait (not much bait though) was all for a fis.h.i.+ng trip. It was plain as could be, I had Miller under my lee. And so we put out again into the night, and before daylight we were back in Saint Pierre harbor again, and all hands ash.o.r.e.

And when Miller woke up in the morning there was the _Aurora_ laying to anchor in the stream just where she'd been the morning before. And we were having a nice little breakfast up to Antone's when Miller and the governor and the gun-boat captain comes to get me. And Miller was going to arrest me, put me in irons, not a minute's delay, not one, and I says "For what?" And Miller throws up his hands and repeats: "For what? He says for what? Mong Doo, for what?" And I says: "Yes, for what? What are you going to arrest me for? For a little excursion trip, a little run off sh.o.r.e, is it?--so's to eat our Christmas turkey in peace?" I see that my play lay with the French naval officer, so I turns to him.

"There was a turkey. Old Antone here will tell you that it belonged to one of my men, Mr. Leary here--that he won it fairly, and that the same turkey was stolen from him in Henri Argand's. And Mr. Leary got it back.

And they would not let him have it in peace, and so, to escape mistreatment, we jumped aboard the first vessel we saw in the stream and put out the harbor. You yourself doubtless, saw us." He nodded. "Your whole crew saw us. The whole harbor saw us. There was no concealment." I stopped for the French captain and the governor to get that. Miller was looking at me goo-goo-eyed, but both the officials nodded and said: "That is true."

"And when we found ourselves safe out to sea, we had our dinner, our Christmas dinner--in the peace we had sought. And surely these gentlemen"--I bowed my best to the gun-boat captain and the magistrate--"do not consider that a crime--to ask to be allowed to eat our Christmas dinner in peace."

Miller was fair up in the air by then--"You pi-rates--pi-rates."

I leaps to my feet. "Pirates--to me? To these men? Simple honest fishermen who know only toil? Who toils harder than they? Pirates--to them! Why, if they were anything but the simplest and honestest set of men, they would have taken that vessel out of my hands and sold her--sold her in the States--and what could you or I or anybody have done about it? But did they--or I? No, sir. As soon as we had finished our Christmas dinner we brought her back."

"But the wine?" shrieks Miller.

"What wine?"

"The wine--the wine--her cargo of wine."

"Wine? Cargo of wine--what's he talking about?" I looks at my crowd, and they all says: "Wine? Cargo of wine?--he's crazy."

I turns impatiently to the governor and French captain. "Gentlemen, this is a serious accusation, but easily settled. If there was wine in that vessel, surely her papers will say something of it. It will be on her manifest, that is certain."

Now these two, the governor and the French naval officer, were honest men. "That is so," they said. "He is quite right--quite right," and looked at Miller, and Miller, with his eyes like door-k.n.o.bs, looks at me. And I gives him a wink with my wind'ard eye and he near blew up.

But he begins to see a thing or two, so he goes off with the French officials, but before we had finished smoking our after-breakfast pipeful he comes back--alone now--and says: "What do you propose?" And I said: "Within a thousand miles of here is a friend of mine with a lot of wine--as good a lot as the _Aurora_ had in her hold yesterday--maybe a couple of dozen quarts shy--you know, a Christmas dinner, and so on--and only last night my friend was figuring it up, and he thought there was twenty thousand dollars' worth in this lot of his, and that without figuring in the duty--but he don't care for wine much--but he does love a good Vessel, and he was looking the _Aurora_ over and he said he'd be willing to exchange all that wine for the _Aurora_. I told him that the _Aurora_ only cost you twenty-five hundred, but he said, 'No matter, I have a weakness for the _Aurora_,' this friend of mine. Of course there'll be a few little extra expenses you'll have to pay for, like the hawser and the big anchor cut away and the keep of a crew for a week over in Newfoundland, and so on, but that won't be much--five hundred dollars ought to cover it all."

And Miller gave back the _Aurora_ and paid over the five hundred, and I gave him an order on John Rose for the wine. And then I took the little baby's brooch out of my pocket and handed it back to him.

And then I sailed over to Placentia Bay in the _Aurora_ and took twenty-one hundred barrels of herring off John Rose and put out, and, getting the first of a stiff easterly, the _Aurora_ carried it all the way to Gloucester. And I was home to the wife and baby by New Year's.

And the baby got a good brooch. I could afford it. From the profits of twenty-one hundred barrels of fine fat herring I could well afford it.

I haven't seen Miller since, but they say he's shyer than he used to be of simple American fishermen.

>Light-s.h.i.+p 67

Perrault was the good old Frenchman who kept the general store just across from the Navy Yard gate, and Baldwin was the chief boson's mate, U.S.N., who commanded the _Whist_, the little tug which was used as a general utility boat by the Navy Yard people.

Old Perrault was born in Paris, and, in G.o.d's goodness, hoped yet to die there. And Baldwin had been in Paris, more than once in his cruising youth, and could converse of Paris; and to converse of Paris, in such loving language, was it not to win one's heart?

Old Perrault had never dissembled his regard for the sailor. A pity he viewed life so carelessly, the brave-hearted Baldwin. So excellent in many respects, if he had but a little ambition for himself! If he but hearkened a little for the world's opinion. But such a man! Sometimes old Perrault wished that his motherless Claire would disregard all his wordly homilies, fall in love with the rugged Baldwin, and marry him.

Baldwin himself maintained no such exalted hopes. A fine husband he'd make after his riotous years! But he had a friend, recently detailed to the yard, and warmly recommended by the boson's mate, this friend Harty, chief wireless operator, soon came to be the most regular of all the Sat.u.r.day night attendants at old Perrault's store. It was on Sat.u.r.day nights that the unmarried foreman on the breakwater job came up to see old Perrault. If you stood well with the old fellow, like as not he would ask you to the house of a Sunday afternoon, and then you could sit around and rest your eyes on the lovely Claire while she played the piano.

One might think that old Perrault, who so casually picked his company, was a careless sort of parent; but not so, as witness his questioning of Baldwin, when it began to dawn on him that this wireless operator was becoming a distinguished member of the Sunday afternoon parties; and the boson's mate, who revered old Perrault, but who also thought a lot of his friend Harty, spoke judiciously.

"He's all right," he replied to old Perrault, "all right. Yes, I know he used to drink an' was generally wild once; but he's over that. Oh, sure, all over that now."

It was beginning to look like Harty for Perrault's son-in-law, when Bowen came along. Bowen was the expert who came to overhaul the wireless plant in the yard. An easy-going, but wide-awake sort, Bowen, who seemed to have been everywhere and who could talk of where he had been, talk without end, and always with the intimate little touches which you never found in the guidebooks. He captured old Perrault at the first a.s.sault. Old Perrault from behind his counter happening to catch a stray word, listened, looked up, and, noting the animated features, hastily signalled the new-comer to come out of the crowd. One minute later he had put the vital question: Had Mr. Bowen ever been to Paris?