In the Misty Seas: A Story of the Sealers of Behring Strait

It was a week later when Appleby, who had slipped away from the rest, sat somewhat moodily in a corner of a little ante-room opening out of a large one that was brilliantly lighted. The chords of a piano rang through the swish of dresses, patter of feet, and light-hearted laughter, for it was Mrs. Niven's birthday, and she had invited her son's and daughter's friends to assist in its celebration. Appleby was fond of music, and he drummed with his fingers on the arm of his chair, and now and then glanced wistfully towards the doorway.

Under the glances of bright eyes that seemed to find his clumsiness amusing, and amidst the dainty dresses, he had grown horribly conscious that his clothes were old and somewhat shabby. The fact had not troubled him before, but he had never been brought into contact with pretty girls of his own age hitherto.

Niven, however, always looked well, and Appleby sighed once or twice as he watched him, and found it hard not to envy him. Chriss could do everything well, and he was to sail south in a great iron merchant ship by and by. Appleby had lived beside the warm tropic sea in his childhood and had loved it ever since, but now, when the sight of the blue uniform of his friend stirred up the old longing so that his eyes grew almost dim, he knew that he was to begin a life of distasteful drudgery in an office. Presently Mr. Niven, who had a lean face and keen dark eyes, came in.

"All alone, Tom. Have the girls frightened you?" he said with a smile.

"Well, sir," said Appleby quietly, "you see, when I tried to turn over the music for Miss Lester I couldn't quite guess the right time and it only worried her, while it didn't seem much use to stand about in everybody's way. I'm going back when they start a game."

Mr. Niven nodded, for the unembarrassed gravity of the answer pleased him. "That's right. There's very little use in pretending one can do things when one can't," he said. "And you are going into business, eh! I fancy, however, that Chriss told me you wanted to go to sea."

"Yes," said Appleby with a reluctance that did not escape the listener. "Still, it seems all the owners ask a good big premium, and of course there is nobody to lend me the money. The little my father left was spent on my education, and my guardian writes me that he has heard of an office where I could earn enough to keep me."

"How did you know they wanted a premium?" asked Mr. Niven.

"Because I went round all the shipowners' offices I could find in the directory, sir," said Appleby.

The merchant nodded gravely to hide his astonishment. "Your father died abroad, and your mother too?" he said.

"Yes, sir," said Appleby quietly. "At Singapore. I can only just remember them. I was sent back to England when I was very young – and never saw either of them again."

Mr. Niven noticed the self-control in the lad's face as well as the slight tremble in his voice which would not be hidden. It was also if somewhat impassive a brave young face, and there was a steadiness that pleased him in the grave, grey eyes, he wished his own son looked as capable of facing the world alone.

"And you would still like to go to sea? It is a very hard life," he said.

Appleby smiled. "Isn't everything a little hard, sir, when you have no friends or money?"

"Well," said Mr. Niven dryly, "it not infrequently is, and I found it out at your age, though not many youngsters do. Who taught it you?"

Appleby looked a trifle confused. "I," he said slowly, "don't quite know – but it seems to make things a little easier now. Of course I did want to go to sea, but I know it's out of the question."

The merchant looked at him curiously. "You will probably be very thankful by and by, but hadn't you better go back to the others? We'll have a talk again."

Appleby went out to take part in a game, and Mr. Niven sat looking straight before him thoughtfully until his wife came in.

"They are getting on excellently, and I am glad the affair is a success, because it is difficult to please young people now-a-days, and I want Chriss to have only pleasant memories to carry away with him," she said.

She glanced towards the doorway with a little wistfulness in her eyes as Chriss passed by holding himself very erect while a laughing girl glanced up at him, and Mr. Niven guessed her thoughts.

"It will be his own fault if he hasn't," he said with a smile. "It was, however, the other lad I was thinking of."

Mrs. Niven sat down and gazed at the fire for almost a minute reflectively. "You have had an answer from that relative of his?"

The merchant nodded. "To-day," he said. "He is evidently not disposed to do much for the lad, and has found him an opening in the office of a very third-rate firm. Appleby does not like the prospect, and from what I know of his employers I can sympathize with him."

"He has no other friends. I asked him," said Mrs. Niven. "Jack, I can't help thinking we owe a good deal to that lad, and you know I am fond of him. He has always taken Chriss's part at Sandycombe, and you will remember he thrashed one of the bigger boys who had been systematically ill-using him. Then there was another little affair the night before they left the school. Chriss told Millicent, though he didn't mention it to me."

"Nor to me," said Mr. Niven. "A new, senseless trick, presumably?"

The lady smiled a little as she told the story of Jimmy's duck. "The point is that the plan was Chriss's, but when they were found out Appleby took the punishment," she said. "Now I scarcely fancy every lad would have done that, or have been sufficiently calm just then to remember that the master, who it seems was very busy, would probably be content when he had laid his hands on one of them. It was also a really cruel blow he got."

"Did he tell you?" said Mr. Niven dryly.

"No," said the lady. "That was what pleased me, because though I tried to draw him out about it he would tell me nothing, but a night or two ago I remembered there were some of his things that wanted mending. The lad has very few clothes, but he is shy and proud, and I fancied I could take what I wanted away and replace it without him noticing. Well, he was fast asleep, and I couldn't resist the temptation of stooping over him. His pyjama jacket was open, and I could see the big, purple weal that ran right up to his neck."

"If he knew, he would never forgive you," said Mr. Niven with a little laugh. "But what did they do with the duck? Chriss would certainly have forgotten it."

"Appleby brought it away, and gave it to some poor body in Chester," said Mrs. Niven.

"That was the one sensible part of the whole affair, but I want to know why you told me."

"Well," said the lady slowly, "you know he wants to go to sea, and I feel sure his relative would be only too glad to get rid of him. Now it wouldn't be very difficult for you to get him a ship almost without a premium."

"A ship?" said Mr. Niven with a little smile.

"Yes," said the lady. "Chriss's ship. Chriss is – well, you know he is just a trifle thoughtless."

"I fancy you mean spoiled," said her husband. "Still, as usual, you are right. It is quite probable that Chriss will want somebody with a little sense behind him. Going to sea in a merchant ship is a very different kind of thing from what he believes it is."

Mrs. Niven sighed. "Of course. Still, about Appleby?"

"Well," said her husband smiling, "I think I could tell you more when I have had a talk with the owners to-morrow."

He nodded as he went away, and it was next afternoon when he sat talking with an elderly gentleman in a city office.

"We would of course be willing to take a lad you recommended," said the latter. "Still, I was not altogether pleased to hear that my partner had promised to put your son into the Aldebaran."

"No?" said Mr. Niven with a twinkle in his eyes. "Now I fancied you would have been glad of the opportunity of obliging me."

The other man looked thoughtful. "To be frank, I would sooner have had the son of somebody we carried less goods for," said he. "With the steamers beating us everywhere we have to run our ships economically, and get the most out of our men, and I accordingly fancy that while it would not have made him as good a seaman, your son would have been a good deal more comfortable as one of the new cadet apprentices on board a steamer."

Mr. Niven smiled dryly. "I have no great wish to make my lad a seaman. The fact is, there's a tolerably prosperous business waiting for him, but in the meanwhile he will go to sea, and it seems to me that the best thing I can do is to let him. He will probably be quite willing to listen to what I have to tell him after a trip or two, and find out things I could never teach him on board your vessel."

"Well," said the shipowner with a little laugh, "it is often an effective cure as well as a rough one."

Mr. Niven left the office with a document in his pocket, and on Christmas morning Appleby found a big, blue envelope upon his breakfast plate.

"I wonder what is inside it," said Mrs. Niven.

Appleby sighed. "It has a business appearance," he said. "It will be to tell me when I'm to go to the office."

"Hadn't you better open it?" said Mrs. Niven with a glance at her husband, and there was silence while Appleby tore open the envelope. Then the colour crept into his face, and his fingers trembled as he took out a document.

"I can't understand it," he said. "This seems to be an apprentice's commission – indentures – for me. The ship is the Aldebaran."

There was a howl of delight from Chriss, and a rattle as he knocked over his coffee, but Appleby sat still, staring at the paper, while belief slowly replaced the wonder in his eyes. Then he rose up, and his voice was not even as he said, "It is real. I am to go in the Aldebaran. I have to thank you, sir, for this?"

Mr. Niven laughed. "No, my lad," he said. "It was my wife's doing, and if you are sorry by and by you will have her to blame."

Appleby turned to the lady, and his eyes were shining. "It's almost too much," he said. "Chriss and I are going together. It is everything I could have hoped for."

Mrs. Niven smiled, though there was a little flush in her face. "Sit down and get your breakfast before Chriss goes wild and destroys all the crockery," she said.

Chriss laughed uproariously. "Crockery!" he said. "If we'd been at Sandycombe we'd have smashed every pane in the Head's conservatory. Tom, it's – oh, it's jim-bang, blazing, glorious!"

That was the happiest Christmas Appleby had ever spent, and he remembered it many a time afterwards when he kept his lonely watch peering into the bitter night from plunging forecastle and spray-swept bridge, or while he clung to the slanted topsail yard clawing at the canvas that banged above him in the whirling snow.

Then, when he knew the reality, he could smile a little at his boyish dream, but that day he only felt his blood tingle and every fibre in him thrill in answer to the calling of the sea. He was English, and the spirit which had from the beginning of his nation's history driven out hero and patriot, as well as cutthroat slaver and privateer, to scorch, and freeze, and suffer, do brave things, and some that were shameful, too, and with it all keep the red flag flaunting high in symbol of sovereignty, was in him also. All that day shield-ringed galley, caravel, towering three-decker, steel-sheathed warship, and ugly cargo tramp sailed through his visions, and they had for a background palms and coral beaches, mountains rolled in snow cloud, and the blink of frozen seas. They and their crews' story were a part of his inheritance, because, although the times have changed and canvas is giving place to steam, English lads have not forgotten, and the sea is still the same.

Appleby, however, had commenced to realize that going to sea is not all luxury when he stood on the Aldebaran's sloppy deck one bleak morning in February. It was drizzling, and the light was dimmed by a smoky haze, while the ship was foul all over with black grime from the coaling staithes and the dust that had blown across her from a big elevator hurling up Indian wheat. It was also very raw, and Niven's face was almost purple with the cold, while the moisture glistened on his new uniform. A few bedraggled women and a cluster of dripping men stood on the dock wall above them. Other men tumbled dejectedly about the forecastle, falling over the great wet hawsers, while one or two who had crawled out of the mate's sight lay rather more than half-asleep in the shadow beneath it.

A grey-haired man with a sour face paced up and down the poop, raising one hand now and then when a dock official shouted, while Appleby sprang aside when another man he spoke to came down the poop-ladder and along the deck in long, angry strides. He wore a woolly cloth cap, knee-boots, and a very old pilot-coat, and he had a big, coarse face, with heavy jawbone and cruel eyes. Still, the very way he put his feet down denoted strength, and Appleby noticed the depth of his chest and the spread of his shoulders. Niven, who had not seen him, did not move in time, and the man flung him backwards.

"Out of the way!" he said.

Niven's face was flushed when he recovered his balance, and there was an angry flash in his eyes as he watched the man plunge into the shadow below the forecastle. In another moment several figures came scrambling out of it, and went up the ladder as for their lives, with the man in the pilot-coat close behind.

"If that's the new mate he looks more like a prize-fighter than a sailor," said Niven. "How does he strike you, Tom?"

"I think he's a brute," said Appleby quietly.

They said nothing further, for that was their first acquaintance with the under-side of life at sea, and their thoughts were busy, while in another minute the mate looking in their direction signed to them, and it did not appear advisable to keep a man of his kind waiting.

"Give these beasts a hand," he said when they stood among the seamen on the sloppy forecastle. "You can't be more useless than they are, anyway."

Niven stooped, and clawed disgustedly at the great wet hawser behind the swaying men, and one of them, who was dark-haired and sallow, glanced over his shoulder when the mate swung away.

"Ah, cochon!" he said.

Another, who had tow-hair, stood up and stretched his stalwart limbs. "Der peeg! Oh, yes. Dot vas goot," he said. "I tink der vas some troubles mit dot man soon."

A little man with high cheek bones and curious half-closed eyes loosed his grasp upon the rope and laughed softly. He also said something to himself, but as it was Finnish neither Appleby nor Niven were much the wiser.

It, however, occurred to them that the language they had listened to was not quite what one would have expected to hear on board an English ship. There were a few Englishmen on board her, but they did not talk, and for the most part leaned up against anything handy, or slouched aimlessly about looking very unfit for work, which was not altogether astonishing considering the fashion in which they had spent the previous night.

Still the hawser was paid out at last, and Appleby stood up breathless, smeared with slime and coal-dust when the ropes astern fell with a splash, and there was a hoot from the bustling little tug. Somebody roared out orders on the quay above, paddles splashed, and the lad felt his heart give a curious little throb as the Aldebaran slowly commenced to move. She was a big iron barque loaded until her scuppers amidships were apparently only a foot or two from the scum of the dock.

He stood forward behind the maze of wire rope about the jibboom, which was not yet run out, on the forecastle, but just below him this broke off, and the deck ran aft sunk almost a man's height between the iron bulwarks to the raised poop at the opposite end of the ship. Half-way between stood a little iron house, and down the middle of the deck rose the three great masts, the last and smallest of them, springing from the poop. Behind it a man in shining oilskins was spinning the wheel. The deck looked very long and filthy, for the wheat-dust and the coal-dust were over everything, and bales, and boxes, and cases strewn amidst the straggling lengths of rope.

Then he heard a fresh shouting, and saw that the bowsprit was already raking through the open gate of the dock, and there were faces smiling down on him from the wall above.

"Chriss," he said, "look up."

Niven did, and Appleby swung his cap off when a hoarse and somewhat spiritless cheer went up. Mr. Niven was shouting something he could not catch, Mrs. Niven was smiling down at them with misty eyes, and the very pretty girl at her side waving a handkerchief.

Appleby glanced at his comrade out of the corner of his eyes and saw that Chriss's face had grown unusually red. Still, he was shouting lustily, and swinging his cap, while in the silence that followed the cheer a hoarse voice rose up —

Blow the men down,Blow the men down,Oh, give us timeTo blow the men down.

There was another scream from the whistle, and a roar from the mate, and while the last ropes were cast off the two lads ran aft along the deck. Paddles splashed, ropes slid through the water, and while the red ensign thrice swung up and sank above their heads the Aldebaran slid out into the Mersey. Once more the voices rang out hoarsely in farewell, and then while the groups on the quay grew blurred and dim they were sliding away with the ebb-tide into the haze and rain. Niven looked astern until the speck of waving handkerchief was lost to him, and then turned to Appleby with a little gulp.

"That's the last of them!" he said. "They're going back to dinner, and we – now I wonder what we're going to out there."

He pointed vaguely with a hand that shook a little across the dismal slate-grey waters beyond the bows, but Appleby understood him, for it was the unknown that was filled as yet with great and alluring possibilities the jibboom pointed to. Yet deep down within him he felt as Niven did, a regret and a yearning after the things he had left behind. It was very cold and wet on the Aldebaran's deck.

CHAPTER III

DOWN CHANNEL

The first day at sea is seldom very pleasant to anybody, especially on board a sailing ship, and the one the lads had looked forward with bright hopes to, dragged by dismally. For an hour or two painted buoy and rolling red lightship came crawling back towards them out of the rain, and then when the last of the Lancashire sandhills had faded over their starboard hand, there was only smoky cloud before them and a grey sea, across which little white ripples splashed.

Still, the tug was powerful and hauled them steadily along with a rhythmical splash and tinkle at the bows that rose and fell a little, and a muddy wake streaked with froth astern. Once or twice they caught a blink of the hills of Wales, but the vapours that unrolled a trifle closed in again, and the lads were glad they had not much opportunity for looking about them. There were huge ropes to be coiled up and stowed away, bales and cases to be put below, the jibboom to be rigged out, decks washed and everything cleaned down, and while the drizzle blew about them they stumbled amidst the litter and got in everybody's way. Now and then a seaman laughed at them or another growled. One or two they offered to assist shoved them aside, and it commenced to dawn upon Chriss Niven for the first time that he was of very little use in the busy world. The knowledge was not pleasant, but it was probably good for him.

Then the daylight died out, and while now and then coloured lights crept up ahead and grew dim again behind, one after another long streamers of brilliance whirled up across the sea. They, too, grew brighter, flashed, and blinked, and flickered, and faded away, and Appleby grew more chilly when he could find nothing more to do, until at last he sighed with contentment when somebody told him to go into the deckhouse if he wanted any tea.

When he entered it he saw a lamp that smoked a good deal swinging from a blackened iron beam, and two lads a little older than himself sitting on their sea-chests with enamelled plates on their knees, and a great can of steaming tea before them. They were just out of port, and having brought their own things they feasted for once royally on fresh bread and butter, sardines and marmalade. One of them who had a pleasant face filled up Niven's pannikin, and pointed to the bread.

"Wire in. You'll not have the chance very long," he said. "It's your job to go to the galley and bring the senna in, but we have let you off this time. I'd take those things you're wearing off, if I was you. We don't dress like gunboat commanders on board the Aldebaran."

"You brought this grub yourselves. They don't feed you very well," said Appleby, and the others laughed.

"No," said one. "None of the Aldebarans would get a prize at a cattle show, and you'd be glad to steal the dog's dinner in a week or two, only we haven't got one. You see a dog can't live on nothing as we're almost expected to do, and the old man's too mean to waste food on anything that can't handle sail."

"What's he like apart from his stinginess?" asked Niven.

"Well," said one of the others, "I have sailed with worse – a little – but the old man don't count for very much, anyway, because it's the mate who runs the ship, and the one we've got now's a terror."

"He's a pig-faced Geordie with a tiger's heart. I'd sooner live with a shark," said a lad who sat in a corner. "Hadn't been out two hours when he pitched one of the fellows forward down the hold. Of course it was tolerably full, and he didn't fall very far."

"What did the man do?" asked Appleby.

"Crawled away out of sight, and went to sleep – of course," said the first speaker; "none of them will be much good until to-morrow, but there'll be a circus or two on board this packet before we fetch Vancouver."

It was not very encouraging, but it was evident that they must make the best of it, and Appleby solaced himself with a long draught from his pannikin. The tea was hot and sweet at least, though there was very little else to recommend it, and it and the crumbly bread that tore beneath the knife put a little warmth and vigour into him. There was very little of the loaf left when all were contented, and following the example of the others, he and Niven crawled into their shelf-like bunks. Appleby flung off his jacket only because Lawson the eldest lad warned him that he might be wanted at any moment, but though his clothes were wet and his straw mattress might have been more cosy, he was glad to feel the warmth begin to creep back into his chilled limbs. The lamp creaked dolefully above him as it swung to and fro, casting a brightness that flickered and vanished on the brass of the ports. Moisture stood beaded on the iron beams, and the wooden floor was wet, while now and then one of the big sea-chests groaned as it moved a little. Nothing was quite what Appleby had expected, but he did not think there was anything to be gained by mentioning it, and his eyes were growing dim when a shout roused him. Lawson was out of his berth in a moment and struggling into a black oilskin.

"You should have had yours handy, but you'll have to turn out without it. They're getting sail on to her," hee said.

It seemed very black and cold when Appleby went out into the rain again. The wind had evidently freshened, and sang through the maze of cordage above him with a doleful wailing, while as he peered into the darkness a burst of bitter spray beat into his eyes. It was almost a minute before he could see again, and then he made out the reeling lights of the tug with a row of paler ones behind them, and not far away a great whirling blaze.

"That's the Skerries," said Lawson, who appeared at his elbow. "Yonder's Holyhead. Wind's freshening out of the south-east, and she'll about fetch Tuskar on a close jam down channel."

Appleby did not understand very much of this, but he had little time to wonder as to its meaning, for the mate went by just then, and Lawson vanished into the darkness when his voice rang out, "Fore and main topsails. Forward there, loose the jibs."

Dark objects went by at a floundering run, and Appleby followed some of them to the foremost shrouds which ran spreading out with the rattlings across them from the lower mast-head to the rail. He had swung himself up on to it, and was glancing down at the leaping foam below, when somebody grabbed him by the arm, and next moment he was staggering across the deck.