Kitabı oku: «Jack Harvey's Adventures: or, The Rival Campers Among the Oyster Pirates», sayfa 4
“Shake things up now, Jim Adams, shake ’em up,” urged Haley. “Here we are losing good wind over a lot of tramps that costs ten dollars apiece to get here, and little good after we’ve got ’em. How’s a man goin’ to make his livin’ dredging, when he pays high for men an’ gets nothin’ to show for his money? I’d like to get that fellow, Jenkins, out here once, himself. I’d show him this isn’t a business for school-boys and counter-jumpers. I’d get ten dollars’ worth of work out of him, and a good many more ten dollars’ worth that he’s got out of me, or he’d know the reason why.”
Thus relieving his mind of his own troubles, Captain Hamilton Haley, in a state of highly virtuous indignation, watched with approval the actions of the mate. The latter, seizing Tom Edwards, hurried him forward unceremoniously and bade him take hold at the handle of the winch and help raise the anchor. Tom Edwards weakly grasped the handle, as directed, in company with one of the sailors. Jack Harvey and the other seaman worked at the opposite handle.
Two men could have done the job easily, and the four made quick work of it. By the time the anchor chain was hove short, the mate and Haley had got the main-sail up. One of the seamen left the windlass and set one of the jibs; the anchor was brought aboard and stowed. The bug-eye, Brandt, began to swing off from its mooring, as the wind caught the jib, which was held up to windward. Easily the craft spun ’round, going before the wind out of the harbour and running across the bay, headed for the Eastern shore.
CHAPTER VI
THE WORKING OF THE LAW
“Shake out the reefs and get the foresail on her,” called Haley. “Lively, now, we’ve lost time.”
The mate repeated the order; the two available seamen began untying the reef-points, which had been knotted when sail had been shortened in the breeze of the previous day. It was simple enough work, merely the loosening and untying of a series of square knots. Harvey had done the like a hundred times aboard his own sloop. He hastened to assist, and did his part as quickly as the other two. Jim Adams, somewhat surprised, eyed him curiously.
“You’re a right smart youngster, ain’t you?” he said, patronizingly. “Reckon you’ll be so mightily pleased you’ll come again some time.”
There was something so insolent in the tone, so sheer and apparent an exulting in his power to compel the youth to do his bidding, that the blood mounted in Harvey’s cheeks, and he felt his pulses beat quicker. But he went on soberly with his work, and the mate said no more.
Ignorant of all things aboard a vessel, and too weak to work if he had been skilled at it, Tom Edwards stood helplessly by. The humiliation of his repulse at the hands of the captain, and his dismay at the dismal prospect, overwhelmed him. He gazed at the receding shore, and groaned.
The foresail was run up, and with that and the mainsail winged out on opposite sides, the bug-eye ran before the wind at an easy clip. She responded at once to the increased spread of canvas. Her evident sailing qualities appealed to Harvey, and lifted him for the moment out of his apprehension and distress.
“Now you get your breakfas’,” said Jim Adams, and the two sailors shuffled aft, followed by Harvey and Tom Edwards. Harvey was hungry, with the keen appetite of youth and health, and he seated himself with a zest at the table in the cabin. But the place would have blunted the appetite of many a hungry man.
It was a vile, stuffy hole, reeking, like the forecastle, with a stale fishy odour, uncleanly and shabby. A greasy smell of cooking came in from the galley. A tin plate and cup and a rusty knife and fork set for each seemed never to have known the contact of soap and water. Jack Harvey recalled the praise which his absent friend, Mr. Jenkins, had bestowed upon the quarters of the schooner, and that young gentleman’s disparagement of the comparative accommodations of a bug-eye; and he endorsed the sentiments fully. Compared with the cabin of the schooner, the cabin of the Z. B. Brandt was, indeed, a kennel.
There was little comfort, either, apparently, in the association of the two sailors. The fellow directly opposite Harvey, whom the mate had addressed once that morning as “Jeff,” stared sullenly and dully at the youth, with a look that was clearly devoid of interest. He was a heavy set, sluggish man of about thirty-five years, for whom hard work and ill usage had blunted whatever sensibilities he may have once possessed. Evidently he was willing to bear with the treatment, and the poor food aboard the vessel, for the small wages he would receive at the winter’s end.
The other man was slightly more prepossessing, but clearly at present not inclined to any sociability. He had a brighter eye and a face of more expression than his companion; though he, too, under the grinding labour aboard the oyster dredger, had come to toil day by day silently, in dumb obedience to the captain and mate. He was one Sam Black, by name, somewhat taller and larger than his comrade.
These two paid little heed to the new arrivals. It is doubtful if they really took notice of their being there, in the sense that they thought anything about it. Life was a drudgery to them, in which it mattered little whether others shared or not. They scarcely spoke to each other during the meal, and not at all to Harvey or Tom Edwards.
Presently there stepped out of the galley an uncouth, slovenly appearing man, who might have passed as a smaller edition of Captain Hamilton Haley, by his features. He was, in fact, of the same name, Haley, and there was some relationship of a remote degree between them, which accounted for his employment aboard the vessel. He was not so stout as his kinsman, however, and more active in his movements.
Whatever may have been the latent abilities of Mr. George Haley in the art of cooking, they were not in evidence, nor required aboard the bug-eye. Jack Harvey and Tom Edwards were now to behold the evidence of that fact.
The cook bore in his hands a greasy wooden box, that had once held smoked fish, and set it down on the table. Just what its contents consisted of was not at first apparent to Harvey. When, however, the two sailors reached over with their forks, speared junks of something from the box and conveyed them to their plates, Harvey followed their example.
He looked at the food for a moment before he made out what it was. It proved to be dough, kneaded and mixed with water, and a mild flavouring of molasses, and fried in lard. Harvey gazed at the mess in dismay. If it should prove to taste as bad as it looked, it must needs be hard fare. But he observed that the sailors made away with it hungrily; so he cut off a piece and tasted it. It was, indeed, wretched stuff, greasy and unpalatable. There was nothing else of food forthcoming, however, and he managed to swallow a few more mouthfuls.
The cook came to his aid in slight measure. He reappeared, bringing a pail of steaming, black liquid, the odour of which bore some slight resemblance to coffee. It was what passed for coffee aboard the bug-eye, a sorry composition of water boiled with several spoonfuls of an essence of coffee – the flavour of which one might further disguise, if he chose, with a spoonful of black molasses from a tin can set out by the cook.
Harvey filled his cup with alacrity, hoping to wash down the mess of fried bread with the hot coffee. He made a wry face after one swallow, and looked with dismay at his companion in misery.
“It’s awful,” he said, “but it’s hot. You better drink some of it. It will warm you up.”
Tom Edwards put out a shaky hand and conveyed a cup of the stuff to his lips. He groaned as he took a swallow, and set the cup down.
“Beastly!” he exclaimed; and added, “I never did like coffee without cream, anyway.”
Harvey laughed, in spite of his own disgust. “The cream hasn’t come aboard yet, I guess,” he said. “But you drink that down quick. You need it.”
Like one obeying an older person, instead of a younger, Tom Edwards did as Harvey urged. He drained the cup at a draught. Then he staggered to his feet again.
“I can’t eat that mess,” he said. “Oh, but I’m feeling sick. I think I’ll go out on deck. It’s cold out there, though. I don’t know what to do.”
He was not long in doubt, however; for, as Harvey emerged on deck, the mate approached.
“You tell that Mister Edwards,” he said, “he can jes’ lie down on one of them parlour sofas in the fo’-castle till we gets across to Hoopers. Then we’ll need him.”
Harvey did the errand, and the unhappy Tom Edwards made his way forward once more, and threw himself down in the hard bunk, pale and ill. Harvey returned on deck. The morning was clear, and not cold for November, but the wind sent a chill through his warm sweater, and he beat himself with his arms, to warm up.
“Didn’t get you’self any slickers, did you, ’fore you came aboard?” inquired the mate.
“No, sir,” replied Harvey, remembering how the man had cautioned him to address him; “I didn’t have a chance. They sailed off with me in the night.”
The mate grinned. “That was sure enough too bad,” he said, mockingly. “Well, you see the old man ’bout that. He sells ’em very cheap, and a sight better than they have ashore in Baltimore. Awful advantage they take of poor sailors there. Mr. Haley, he’ll fit you out, I reckon.”
They stepped aft, and the mate made known their errand.
Haley nodded. “He’ll need ’em sooner or later,” he assented. “May as well have ’em now, as any time. Take the wheel.”
The mate assumed the captain’s seat on the wheel box, and Captain Haley nodded to Harvey to follow him below. He fumbled about in a dark locker and finally drew forth two garments – the trousers and jacket of an oil-skin suit. They were black and frayed with previous wear, their original hue of yellow being discoloured by smears and hard usage.
“There,” said Haley, holding up the slickers approvingly, “there’s a suit as has been worn once or twice, but isn’t hurt any. As good as new, and got the stiffness out of it. Cost you seven dollars to get that suit new in Baltimore. You’ll get it for five, and lucky you didn’t buy any ashore. There’s a tarpaulin, too, that you can have for a dollar. I oughtn’t to let ’em go so cheap.”
Harvey hardly knew whether to be angry or amused. He had not shipped for the money to be earned, to be sure, and the absurd prices for the almost worthless stuff excited his derision. But the gross injustice of the bargain made him indignant, too. He had bought oil-skins for himself, before, and knew that a good suit, new, could be had for about three dollars and a half, and a new tarpaulin for seventy-five cents. But he realized that protest would be of no avail. So he assented.
“There’s a new pair of rubber boots, too,” continued Haley, producing a pair that were, indeed, much nearer new than the oil-skins. “Those will cost you five dollars. They’re extra reinforced; not much like that slop-shop stuff.”
The boots thereupon became Harvey’s property; likewise a thin and threadbare old bed quilt, for the bunk in the forecastle, at an equally extortionate price. Then a similar equipment was provided for Harvey’s friend, Tom Edwards, the captain assuring Harvey that they would surely fit Edwards, and he could take them forward to him.
Suddenly the captain paused and looked at Harvey shrewdly, out of his cold gray eyes.
“Of course I provide all this for a man, in advance of his wages,” he said, “when he comes aboard, like the most of ’em, without a cent; but when he has some money, he has to pay. Suppose he gets drowned – it’s all dead loss to me. You got any money?”
Harvey thanked his stars for Tom Edwards’s precaution.
“I’ve got some,” he said, and began to feel in his pockets, as though he were uncertain just how much he did have. “Here’s five dollars – and let’s see, oh, yes, I’ve got some loose change, sixty-three cents.” He brought forth the bill and the coins. Haley pounced on the money greedily. He eyed Harvey with some suspicion, however.
“Turn your pockets out,” he said. “I can’t afford to take chances. Let’s see if you’ve been holding back any.”
Harvey did as he was ordered.
“All right,” muttered Haley. But he was clearly disappointed.
“Can that fellow, Edwards, pay?” he asked.
“He told me he hadn’t a cent,” answered Harvey, promptly. “He was robbed after they got him drugged.”
Haley’s face reddened angrily.
“He wasn’t drugged – nor robbed, either,” he cried. “Don’t you go talking like that, or you’ll get into trouble. Leastwise, I don’t know nothin’ about it. If he was fixed with drugs, it was afore he came into my hands. I won’t stand for anything like that. Get out, now, and take that stuff for’ard.”
Harvey went forward, carrying his enforced purchases. An unpleasant sight confronted him as he neared the forecastle.
The two men that had been brought aboard the bug-eye, stupefied, had been dragged out on deck, where they lay, blinking and dazed, but evidently coming once more to their senses. The mate gave an order to one of the sailors. The latter caught up a canvas bucket, to which there was attached a rope, threw it over the side and drew it back on deck filled with water.
“Let’s have that,” said the mate.
He snatched it from the sailor’s hand, swung it quickly, and dashed the contents full in the face of one of the prostrate men. The fellow gasped for breath, as the icy water choked and stung him; he half struggled to his feet, opening his eyes wide and gazing about him with amazement. He had hardly come to a vague appreciation of where he was, putting his hands to his eyes and rubbing them, to free them of the salt water, before he received a second bucket-full in the face. He cried out in fright and, spurred on by that and the shock of the cold water, got upon his feet and stood, trembling and shivering. Jim Adams laughed with pleasure at the success of his treatment.
“Awful bad stuff they give ’em in Baltimore, sometimes,” he said, chuckling, as though it were a huge joke; “but this fetches ’em out of it just like doctor’s medicine. You got ’nuff, I reckon. Now you trot ’long down into the cabin, and get some of that nice coffee, an’ you’ll feel pretty spry soon.”
The fellow shambled away, led by one of the crew.
Jack Harvey, his blood boiling at the inhumanity of it, saw Jim Adams’s “treatment” applied with much the same success to the other helpless prisoner; and this man, too, soon went the way of the other, for such comfort and stimulus as the cabin and coffee afforded. Harvey deposited his load of clothing in the forecastle, and returned to the deck.
In the course of some seven miles of sailing, as Harvey reckoned it, they approached a small island which he heard called out as Barren island. Still farther to the eastward of this, there lay a narrow stretch of land, some two or three miles long, lying lengthwise approximately north and south. Off the shore of this, which bore the name of Upper Hooper island, the dredging grounds now sought by the Brandt extended southward for some ten miles, abreast of another island, known as Middle Hooper island.
Preparations were at once begun to work the dredges; and Harvey watched with anxious interest. Here was the real labour, that he had by this time come to look forward to with dread. He recalled the utterance of the dismal sailor aboard the schooner, “You breaks yer back at a bloody winder;” and he saw a prospect now of the fulfilment of the man’s description of the work.
In the mid-section of the bug-eye, on either side, there were set up what looked not unlike two huge spools. Wound around each one of these was fathom upon fathom of dredge line. Each spool rested in a frame that was shaped something like a carpenter’s saw-horse, and, in the process of winding, was revolved by means of a crank at either end, worked by men at the handles. The frame was securely bolted to the deck at the four supports.
Connected with each dredge line, by an iron chain, was the dredge. This consisted, first, of four iron rods, coming to a point at the chain, and spread out from that in the form of a piece of cheese cut wedge-shaped, and rounded in a loop at the broad end. Fastened to this was a great mesh of iron links, made like a purse, or bag, This metal bag was a capacious affair, made to hold more than a bushel of oysters. There were two larger iron links in the mesh, by which it could be hooked and lifted aboard, when it had been wound up to the surface of the water.
There was a locking device on the end of the support, so that the spool would hold, without unwinding, when the handles were released.
The huge spools were set up lengthwise of the vessel. On either side of the craft were rollers; one of these was horizontal, to drag the dredge aboard on; one was perpendicular, for the dredge-line to run free on, as it was paid out, or drawn in, while the vessel was in motion.
Captain Haley, at the wheel, gave his orders sharply. The sailors and Jim Adams, lifting the dredges, threw them overboard on either side, and the work was begun. The bug-eye, with sheets started, took a zig-zag course, laterally across the dredging ground.
Obeying orders, Harvey took his place at one of the handles of a winder; one of the sailors at the other. Presently appeared Jim Adams, followed by the disconsolate Tom Edwards. The latter, pale and sea-sick, seemed scarcely able to walk, much less work; but the mate led him along to the handle of the other winder. Tom Edwards was not without making one more feeble attempt as resistance, however.
“See here,” he said, addressing Adams, “you’ve got no right to force me to work here. I’m a business man, and I was brought down here by a trick, drugged. You’ll pay dear for it. I warn you.”
Jim Adams grinned from ear to ear, his expansive mouth exhibiting a shining row of white teeth. He put a big, bony hand on Tom Edwards’s shoulder.
“Don’t you go worrying ’bout what I’ll get, mister,” he answered; and there was a gleam of fire in his eyes as he spoke. “I reckon you might as well know, first as last, that I don’t care where we get you fellows, nor how we gets yer; nor I don’t care whether you come aboard drugged or sober; nor whether you’ve got clothes on, nor nothin’ at all. All I cares is that you’s so as you can turn at this ere windlass. That’s all there is ’bout that. Now you jes’ take a-hold of that handle, and do’s you’re told, or you’ll go overboard; and don’t you forget that.”
Tom Edwards was silent. He stood, hand upon the windlass, shivering.
“You’ll be warm ’nuff soon, I reckon,” was Jim Adams’s consolation.
They got the order to wind in, presently, and the men began to turn the handles. It was hard work, sure enough. The huge iron bags, filled with the oysters, torn from the reefs at the bed of the bay, were heavy of themselves; and the strain of winding them in against the headway of the bug-eye was no boys’ play.
Harvey and his companion at their winder were strong and active, and presently the dredge was at the surface, whence it was seized and dragged aboard. There it was emptied of its contents, a mass of shells, all shapes and sizes. Then followed the work of “culling,” or sorting and throwing overboard the oysters that were under two inches and a half long, which the law did not allow to be kept and sold.
“You need a pair of mittens,” volunteered Harvey’s working comrade, as Harvey started in to help, with bare hands. “You’ll get cut and have sore hands, if you don’t,” he added. “The cap’n sells mittens.”
The mittens, at a price that would have made the most hardened shop-keeper blush, were provided, and Harvey resumed work.
The seriousness of the situation had developed in earnest. It was drudgery of the hardest and most bitter kind.
“Just wait till the month is up,” said Harvey, softly; “I’ll cut out of this pretty quick. A sea experience, eh? Well, I’ve got enough of it in the first half hour.”
Spurred on by the harsh commands of the mate, Tom Edwards managed to hold out for perhaps three quarters of an hour. Then he collapsed entirely; and, seeing that nothing more could be gotten out of him for the rest of the day, the mate suffered him to drag himself off to the forecastle.
“But see that you’re out sharp and early on deck here to-morrow morning,” said Jim Adams. “We don’t have folks livin’ high here for nothin’. You’ll jes’ work your board and lodgin’, I reckon.”
Thus the day wore on, drearily. The exciting sea experience that Jack Harvey had pictured to himself was not at present forthcoming; only a monotonous winding at the windlass – hard and tiring work – and the culling of the oysters, and stowing them below in the hold from time to time. He was sick of it by mid-day; and, as the shades of twilight fell, he was well nigh exhausted.
“And only to think of this for nearly four weeks more,” he groaned. “Next time – oh, hang it! What’s the use of thinking of that? I’m in for it. I’ve got to go through. But won’t I scoot when the month is up!”
Toward evening, they ran up under the lee of Barren island, in what the mate said was Tar Bay, and anchored for the night. Almost too wearied to eat, too wearied to listen to the commiseration of Tom Edwards, who lay groaning in his bunk, Jack Harvey tumbled in with his clothes on, and was asleep as soon as he had stretched himself out.
