Tramping on Life Part 25

"Remember this--all sailors are thieves, aboard s.h.i.+p, if the chance to take anything good to eat or drink comes their way."

I promised to keep a good look-out.

On the other hand....

"Mind you keep your mouth shut ... and don't find things so d.a.m.ned funny, neither," this from the first mate, early one morning, as I scrubbed the floors. He stirred my posteriors heavily with a booted foot, in emphasis.

The sea kicked backward in long, speedy trails of foam, lacing the surface of a grey-green waste of waves....

When I had any spare time, I used to lie in the net under the bowsprit, and read. From there I could look back on the entire s.h.i.+p as it sailed ahead, every sail spread, a magnificent sight.

One day, as I lay there, reading Sh.e.l.ley, or was it my Vergil that I was puzzling out line by line, with occasional glances at the great s.h.i.+p seeming to sail into me--myself poised outward in s.p.a.ce--

There came a great surge of water. I leaped up in the net, bouncing like a circus acrobat. My book fell out of my hand into the sea.

I looked up, and saw fully half the crew grinning down at me. The mate stood over me. A bucket that still dripped water in his hand showed me where the water had come from.

"Come up out of there! The captain's been bawling for you for half an hour ... we thought you'd gone overboard."

I came along the net, drenched and forlorn.

"What in h.e.l.l were you doing down there?"

"I--I was thinking," I stammered.

"He was thinking," echoed the mate scornfully. "Well, thinking will never make a sailor of you."

Boisterous laughter.

"After this do your thinking where we can find you when you're wanted."

As I walked aft, the mate went with me pace for pace, poking more fun at me. To which I dared not answer, as I was impelled, because he was strong and I was very frail ... and always, when on the verge of danger, or a physical encounter, the memory of my Uncle Lan's beatings would now crash into my memory like an earthquake, and render my resolution and sinews all a-tremble and unstrung.

I was of a mind to tell the captain _who_ was drinking his liquor--but here again I feared, and cursed myself for fearing.

When the mate told him of where he had found me, at last--what he had done--what I had said--Schantze laughed....

But, later on, he sympathised with me and unexpectedly remarked:

"Johann, how can you expect a heavy-minded numbskull like Miller to understand!"

Then, laughing, he seized me by the ear--his usual gesture of fondness for me--

"Remember me if you ever write a book about this voyage, and don't give me too black a name! I'm not so bad, am I, eh?"

The Australian coast had lain blue across the horizon for several days.

"Watch me to-morrow!" whispered Franz cryptically to me as he strolled lazily by....

Next day, around noon, I heard a big rumpus on the main deck, I hurried up from the cabin.

There lay Franz, sprawled on his back like a huge, lazy dog, and the mate was shaking his belly with his foot on top of it, just as one plays with a dog ... but to show he was not playing, he delivered the prostrate form of the sailor a swift succession of kicks in the ribs....

"You won't work any longer, you say?"

"No."

"I'll kick your guts out."

"Very well."

"Stand on your feet like a man."

"What for? You'll only knock me down again!" and Franz grinned comically and grotesquely upward, through the gap in his mouth where two of his teeth had been punched out earlier in the voyage.

It was easy to see that Franz's curious att.i.tude of non-resistance had the mate puzzled what to do next. All the sailors indulged in furtive laughter. None of them had a very deep-rooted love for Miller, and, for the first time, they rather sympathised with the man who had been shanghaied ... some of them even snickered audibly ... and straightway grew intent on their work....

Miller turned irritably on them. "And what's the matter with _you_!"...

"Bring him up here!" shouted Captain Schantze.

Four sailors picked Franz up and carried him, unresisting, b.u.mping his back on the steps as he sagged like a sack half full of flour....

"Here! I've had about enough of this!" cried the captain, furious, "tie him to the rail again!..."

"Now, we'll leave you there, on bread and water, till you say you'll work."

"What does it matter what you do," sauced Franz; "we'll be in port in four days ... and then you'll see what I'll do!"

"What's that?" cried the captain. Then catching an inkling of Franz's scheme, he hit the man a quick, hard blow in the mouth with his clenched fist.

"Give him another!" urged the mate.

But the captain's rage was over, though Franz sent him a bold, mocking laugh, even as the blood trickled down in a tiny red stream from where his mouth had, been struck.

I never saw such courage of its kind.

They left him there for ten hours. But he stood without a sign of exhaustion or giving in. And they untied him. And let him loose.

And, till we hove to at Dalghety's Wharf, in Sydney Harbour, unnoticed, Franz, the Alsace-Lorrainer, roamed the boat at will, like a pa.s.senger.