Rodman The Boatsteerer And Other Stories

Then for six years Proctor was seen no more in Sydney. He went steadily to the devil elsewhere—mostly in the South Sea Islands, where he was dismissed from one vessel after another, first as skipper, then as mate, then as second mate. One day in a Fiji hotel he met a man—a stranger—who knew Rothesay well.

“What is he doing now?” asked Proctor.

“Don’t know exactly. He’s no friend of mine, although I was mate with him for two years. He married a girl that was engaged to another man—a poor devil of a chap named Proctor—married her a week after Proctor got the run from his ship for being drunk. And every one says that it was Rothesay who made him drunk, as he was mad to get the girl. And I have no doubt it’s true. Rothesay is the two ends and bight of a damned sneak.”

Proctor nodded, but said nothing.

He drank now whenever he could get at liquor, ashore or afloat. Sometimes he would steal it. Yet somehow he always managed to get another ship. He knew the islands well, and provided he could be kept sober there was not a better man to be found in the Pacific labour trade. And the “trade”—i.e., the recruiting of native labourers for the Fijian and Queensland sugar plantations from among the New Hebrides and Solomon Groups—was a dangerous pursuit. But Proctor was always a lucky man. He had come down to a second mate’s berth now on the brig Bandolier; but then he was “recruiter” as well, and with big wages, incurred more risks than any other man on the ship. Perhaps he had grown careless of his life, which was lonely enough, for though not a morose man, he never talked with his shipmates. So for two years or more he cruised in the Bandolier among the woolly-haired, naked cannibals of the Solomon Group and thereabout, landing at places where no other recruiter would get out of his boat, and taking a box of trade goods with him, sit calmly down on the beach surrounded by savages who might without a moment’s warning riddle him with spears or club him from behind. But Proctor knew no fear, although his armed boat’s crew and the crew of the covering boat would call to him to get aboard again and shove off. Other labour ships there were cruising on the same ground who lost men often enough by spear or bullet or poisoned arrow, and went back to Fiji or Queensland with perhaps not a score of “recruits,” but Proctor never lost a single man, and always filled the crazy old Bandolier with a black and savage cargo. Then, once in port again, his enemy seized him, and for a week at a time he would lie drunk in the local hells, till the captain sought him out and brought him on board again. Going back to the recruiting grounds with an empty ship and with no danger to apprehend from a sudden rush of naked figures, the captain gave him as much liquor as he wanted, else Proctor would have stolen it. And one night he was drunk on his watch, ran the Bandolier upon a reef, and all hands perished but himself and six others. One boat was saved, and then followed long days of hunger and thirst and bitter agony upon the sea under a blazing sun, but Proctor brought the boat and crew safely to the Queensland coast. A month later he was in Sydney penniless, and again “looking for a ship.” But no one would have him now; his story was too well known.

And so for weeks past he had slept in the park at night, and wandered down about the wharves during the day. Sometimes he earned a few shillings, most of which went in cheap rum.

Half an hour’s walk through the long shady avenue of Moreton Bay figs, and then he emerged suddenly into the noise and rattle of the city. Four coppers was all the money he possessed, and unless he could earn a shilling or two during the day on the wharves he would have to starve on the morrow. He stopped outside the Herald office presently, and pushing his way through a number of half-starved outcasts like himself, he read down the “Wanted” column of the paper. And suddenly hope sprang up in his heart as he saw this—

WANTED, for the Solomon Islands Labour trade, four able Seamen used to the work.    High wages to competent men. Apply to Harkniss & Co., George Street.

Ten minutes later he was at Harkness & Company’s office waiting to see the manager. Ten o’clock, the clerks said, would be time enough to come. Proctor said he would wait. He feared that there would be other applicants, and was determined to see the manager before any one else. But he need not have been so anxious. Men such as Harkness & Company wanted were hard to get, and the firm were not disposed to be particular as to their character or antecedents, so long as they could do the “work” and hold their tongues afterward. Ten o’clock came, and at half-past ten Proctor and two other men went out of the office each with a £1 note in his pocket, and with orders to proceed to Melbourne by steamer, and there join the barque Kate Rennie. Before the steamer left for Melbourne, Proctor had parted with half of his pound for another man’s discharge. He did not want to be known as Proctor of the Bandolier if he could help it. So he was now Peter Jensen; and Peter Jensen, a hard-up Norwegian A.B., was promoted—on paper—to John Proctor, master. At Melbourne they found the barque ready for sea, and they were at once taken to the shipping office to meet the captain and sign articles, and Proctor’s heart beat fiercely with a savage joy when he heard the voice of the man who had stolen Nell Levison from him! So Rothesay was the captain of the Kate Rennie! And the Solomon Islands was a good place to pay off one’s old scores.

The Kate Rennie sailed the next day. As soon as the tug cast off, the crew were mustered on the main-deck, and the watches and boats’ crew picked. Peter Jensen, A.B., was standing furthest away when the captain’s eye fell on him.

“What’s your name?” he asked, and then in an instant his face paled—he recognised the man.

Jensen made no answer. His eyes were fixed in a dull stare upon the features of a little boy of six, who had come up from the cabin and had caught hold of Rothesay’s hand. For Nell Levison’s face was before him again. Then with an effort he withdrew his gaze from the child and looked down at the deck.

“You can have him, Mr. Williams,” said Rothesay curtly to the mate.

From that day till the barque made the Solomon Islands, Rothesay watched the man he had injured, but Jensen, A.B., gave no sign. He did his work well, and spoke to no one except when spoken to. And when the boy Allan Rothesay came on deck and prattled to the crew, Jensen alone took no notice of him. But whenever he heard the child speak, the memory of the woman he had lost came back to him, and he longed for his revenge.

One night, as the barque was slipping quietly through the water, and the misty mountain heights of Bougainville Island showed ghostly grey under myriad stars, Rothesay came on deck an hour or two before the dawn. Jensen was at the wheel, and the captain walked aft, seated himself near him, and lit a cigar. Williams, the mate, was at the break of the poop, and out of earshot.

Presently Rothesay walked over to the wheel and stood beside the steersman, glancing first at the compass, and then aloft at the white swelling canvas. The barque was close-hauled and the course “full and by.”

“Is she coming up at all?” said Rothesay quietly, speaking in a low voice.

“No, sir,” answered Jensen steadily, but looking straight before him; “she did come up a point or so a little while back, but fell off again; but the wind keeps pretty steady, sir.”

Rothesay stood by him irresolutely, debating within himself. Then he walked up to the mate.

“Mr. Williams, send another man to the wheel, and tell Jensen to come below. I want to speak to him about Bougainville; he knows the place well, I have been told. And as neither you nor I do, I may get something out of him worth knowing.”

“Ay, ay, sir,” answered the Welsh mate. “But he’s mighty close over it, anyway. I’ve hardly heard him open his mouth yet.”

A minute or two passed, and Jensen was standing at the cabin-door, cap in hand.

“Come in,” said Rothesay, turning up the cabin lamp, and then he said quietly, “Sit down, Proctor; I want to talk to you quietly. You see, I know you.”

The seaman stood silent a moment with drooping eyes. “My name is Jensen, sir,” he said sullenly.

“Very well, just as you like. But I sent for you to tell you that I had not forgotten our former friendship, and—and I want to prove it, if you will let me.”

“Thank you, sir,” was the reply, and the man’s eyes met Rothesay’s for one second, and Rothesay saw that they burned with a strange, red gleam; “but you can do nothing for me. I am no longer Proctor, the disgraced and drunken captain, but Jensen, A.B. And,” with sudden fury, “I want to be left to myself.”

“Proctor,” and Rothesay rose to his feet, and placed his hands on the table, “listen to me. You may think that I have treated you badly. My wife died two years ago, and I–”

Proctor waved his hand impatiently. “Let it pass if you have wronged me. But, because I got drunk and lost my ship, I don’t see how you are to blame for it.”

A look of relief came into Rothesay’s face. Surely the man had not heard whom he had married, and there was nothing to fear after all.

For a minute or so neither spoke, then Proctor picked up his cap.

“Proctor,” said Rothesay, with a smile, “take a glass of grog with me for the sake of old times, won’t you!”

“No, thank you, sir,” he replied calmly, and then without another word he walked out of the cabin, and presently Rothesay heard him take the wheel again from the man who had relieved him.

Two days later the Kate Rennie sailed round the north cape of Bougainville, and then bore up for a large village on the east coast named Numa Numa, which Rothesay hoped to make at daylight on the following morning.

At midnight Jensen came to the wheel again. The night was bright with the light of shining stars, and the sea, although the breeze was brisk, was smooth as a mountain lake, only the rip, ripy rip of the barque’s cutwater and the bubbling sounds of her eddying wake broke the silence of the night. Ten miles away the verdure-clad peaks and spurs of lofty Bougainville stood clearly out, silhouetted against the sea-rim on the starboard hand. The wind was fair abeam and the ship as steady as a church, and Proctor scarce glanced at the compass at all. The course given to him was W.S.W., which, at the rate the ship was slipping through the water, would bring her within two miles of the land by the time he was relieved. Then she would have to go about and make another “short leg,” and, after that, she could lay right up to Numa Numa village.

Late in the day Rothesay had lowered one of the ship’s boats, whose timbers had opened under the rays of the torrid sun, and was keeping her towing astern till she became watertight. Presently Proctor heard a voice calling him.

“Peter, I say, Peter, you got a match?”

Looking astern, he saw that the native who was steering the boat had hauled her up close up under the stern.

“Yes,” he answered, taking a box of matches out of his pocket and throwing them to the native sailor. “Are you tired of steering that boat, Tommy?”

“No, not yet; but I wanted to smoke. When four bell strike I come aboard, Mr. Williams say.”

Two bells struck, and then Proctor heard Williams, who was sitting down at the break of the poop, say, “Hallo, young shaver, what do you want on deck?”

“Oh, Mr. Williams, it is so hot below, and my father said I could come on deck. See, I’ve got my rug and pillow.”

“All right, sonny,” said the mate good-naturedly; “here, lie down here on the skylight.”

The child lay down and seemed to sleep, but Proctor could see that his eyes were wide open and watched the stars.

Four bells struck, and Proctor was relieved by a white seaman, and another native came to relieve the man who was steering the boat, which was now hauled up under the counter. Just then, as the mate called out, “Ready about,” Proctor touched the child on the arm.

“Allan, would you like to come in the boat with me?”

The boy laughed with delight. “Oh, yes, Peter, I would like it.”

Proctor turned to the native who was waiting to relieve the man who was steering the boat. “You can go for’ard, Jimmy, I’ll take the boat for you.”

The native grinned. “All right, Peter, I no like boat,” and in another moment Proctor had passed the child down into the boat, into the arms of the native sailor whose place he was taking, and quickly followed. As she drifted astern, the Kate Rennie went about, the towline tautened out, and a delighted laugh broke from the boy as he sat beside Proctor and saw the white canvas of the barque looming up before him.

“Hush!” said Proctor, and his hand trembled as he grasped the steer-oar. Then he drew the child to his bosom and caressed him almost fiercely.

For half an hour the barque slipped along, and Proctor sat and steered and smoked and watched the child, who now slumbered at his feet. Then the stars darkened over, a black cloud arose to the eastward, the wind died away, and the mate’s voice hailed him to come alongside, as a heavy squall was coming on. “And you’ll have trouble with the captain for taking his boy in that boat,” added Williams.

“Ay, ay, sir,” answered Proctor, as he looked at the cloud to windward, which was now quickly changing to a dullish grey; and then he sprang forward and cut the tow-line with his sheath-knife.

Five minutes passed. Then came a cry of agony from the barque, as Rothesay, who had rushed on deck at Williams’s call, placed his hand on the tow-line and began to haul it in.

“Oh, my God, Williams, the line has parted. Boat ahoy, there, where are you?”

And then with a droning hum the squall smote the Kate Rennie with savage fury, and nearly threw her over on her beam ends; and Proctor the Drunkard slewed the boat round and let her fly before the hissing squall towards the dimmed outline of Bougainville.

For two days the Kate Rennie cruised off the northern end of Bougainville, searching for the missing boat. Then Rothesay beat back to Numa Numa and anchored, and carefully examined the coast with his boats. But no trace or Proctor nor the child was ever found. Whether the boat was dashed to pieces upon the reef or had been blown past the north end of the island and thence out upon that wide expanse of ocean that lies between the Solomons and New Guinea was never known, and the fete of Proctor the Drunkard and his innocent victim will for ever remain one of the many mysteries of the Western Pacific till the sea gives up its dead.

A PONAPEAN CONVENANCE

“Here also, as at Yap, the youngest wives and sisters of the chiefs visited the frigate.... Somewhat shocking at first to our feelings as Christians.... Yet to have declined what was regarded by these simple and amiable people as the very highest token of their regard for the officers of the expedition, would have been bitterly resented.... And, after all, our duties to our King and Queen were paramount… the foundation of friendly relations with the people of this Archipelago!… The engaging manners and modest demeanour of these native ladies were most commendable. That this embarrassing custom was practised to do us especial honour we had ample proof.”

Chester, the trader, laid down the book and looked curiously at the title, “A Journal of the Expedition under Don Felipe Tompson, through the Caroline Islands.” It was in Spanish, and had been lent him by one of the Jesuit Fathers in Ponapé.

“Ninety years haven’t worked much difference in some of the native customs,” thought he to himself. “What a sensation Don Felipe would have made lecturing at St. James’s Hall on these pleasantly curious customs! I must ask Tulpé about these queer little functions. She’s chock-full of island lore, and perhaps I’ll make a book myself some day.”

“Huh!” said Tulpe, Chester’s native wife, whipping off her muslin gown and tossing it aside, as she lay back and cooled her heated face and bared bosom with a fan, “‘tis hot, Kesta, and the sun was balanced in the middle of the sky when we left Jakoits in the boat, and now ‘tis all but night; and wind there was none, so we used not the sail.”

“Foolish creature,” said Chester, again taking up his book, “and merely to see this new white missionary woman thou wilt let the sun bake thy hands and feet black.”

Handsome, black-browed Tulpé flashed her white, even teeth as she smiled.

“Nay, but listen, Kesta. Such a woman as this one never have I seen. Her skin is white and gleaming as the inside of the pearl-shell. How comes it, my white man, that such a fair woman as this marrieth so mean-looking a man? Was she a slave? Were she a woman of Ponapé, and of good blood, Nanakin the Great would take her to wife.”

“Aye,” said Chester lazily; “and whence came she and her husband?”

“From Kusaie (Strong’s Island), where for two years have they lived, so that now the woman speaketh our tongue as well as thee.”

“Ha!” said the trader quickly; “what are their names?”

She told him, and Chester suddenly felt uncomfortable.

Two years before, when spending a few idle months in Honolulu, he had met that white woman. She was waiting to be married to the Rev. Obadiah Yowlman, a hard-faced, earnest-minded, little Yankee missionary, who was coming up from the Carolines in the Planet. There had been some rather heavy love-passages between her and Chester. He preserved his mental equilibrium—she lost hers. The passionate outburst of the “little she missionary,” as he called her when he bade her goodbye, he regarded as the natural and consistent corollary of moonlit nights beneath the waving palms on white Hawaiian beaches. When he returned to Ponapé he simply forgot all about her—and Tulpé never asked him inconsiderate questions about other women whom he might have met during the six months he was away from her. He had come back—that was all she cared for.

“I wonder how Tulpe would take it if she knew?” he thought. “She might turn out a bit of a tiger.”

“What are thy thoughts, Kesta?” And Tulpé came over to him and leant upon his shoulder. “Is it in thy mind to see and talk with the new missionary and his wife?”

“No,” said Chester promptly; “sit thou here, wood-pigeon, and tell me of the customs I read of here.”

She sat down beside him, and leant her dark head against his knee, fanning herself the while she answered his questions.

“As it was then, Kesta, so is it now. And if it were to advantage thee I should do likewise. For is it not the duty of a woman to let all men see how great is her love for her husband? And if a great chief or king of thy land came here, would I not obey thee?”

Chester laughed. “No great chiefs of my land come here—only ship-captains and missionaries.”

She turned and looked up into his face silently for a few moments, then rose.

“I know thy meaning now. But surely this mean-faced missionary is not to be compared to thee! Kesta, ‘tis the fair-faced woman that is in thy mind. Be it as you will. Yet I knew not that the customs of thy land were like unto ours.”

“What the devil is she driving at!” thought Chester, utterly failing to grasp her meaning.

Early next morning Tulpe was gone.

****

“Deny it not, white woman. If thou dost not love my husband, how came it that yesterday thou asked his name of me? See now, I deal fairly with thee. For three days will I stay here although thy husband is but as a hog in my eyes, for he is poor and mean-looking, while mine is–, well, thou shalt see him; and for three days shalt thou stay in my house with my husband. So get thee away, then—the boat waits.”

Pretty Mrs. Yowlman fled to her room and, wondering whether Chester knew, began to cry, while Tulpé sat down, and, rolling a cigarette, resignedly awaited the appearance of the Rev, Obadiah Yowlman.

An hour afterwards the Rev. gentleman came in with Chester, who had walked across the island on discovering Tulpé’s absence.

“No, thank you,” he said to the missionary; “I won’t stay now.... Some other time I will do myself the pleasure of calling upon Mrs. Yowlman, and yourself… You must excuse my wife having called upon you twice. She is deeply imbued with the native customs and observances, and I—er—sincerely trust she has given no offence.”

Then took he Tulpé’s hand and led her, wondering, back to his home. And Tulpé thought he and the white woman were both fools.

IN THE KING’S SERVICE, SOME EPISODES IN THE LIFE OF A BEACH-COMBER

I

The white cloud mantle that had enwrapped the wooded summit of Lijibal was slowly lifting and fading before the red arrow-rays of the tropic sun—it was nearly dawn in Lêla Harbour. A vast swarm of sooty terns, with flapping wing and sharp, croaking note, slid out from the mountain forest and fled seaward, and low down upon the land-locked depths of Lela a soft mist still hovered, so that, were it not for the deadened throbbing beat and lapping murmur of the flowing tide, one might have thought, as he looked across from land to land, that the high green walls of verdure in whose bosom the waters of Lela lay encompassed were but the portals to some deep and shadowy mountain valley in a land of utter silence, untenanted by man.

But as the blood-redness of the sun paled and paled, and then changed into burnished gold, the topmost branches of the dew-laden trees quivered and trembled, and then swayed softly to the sea-breeze; the fleecy vapours that hid the waters of the harbour vanished, and the dark bases of the mountains stood out in purest green. Away out seawards, towards the hiss and boil of the tumbling surf, tiny strips of gleaming sandy beach showed out in every nook and bay. And soon the yellow sunlight flashed through the gloomy shadows of the forest, the sleeping pigeons and the green and scarlet-hued parrakeets awoke to life amid the sheltering boughs, and the soft, crooning note of one was answered back by the sharp scream of the other. Along the mountain sides there was a hurried rustling and trampling among the thick carpet of fallen leaves, and a wild boar burst his way through the undergrowth to bury in his lair till night came again; for almost with the first call of the birds sounded the hum and murmur of voices, and the brown people of Léla stepped out from their houses of thatch, and greeted each other as they hurried seaward for their morning bathe—the men among the swirl and wash of the breaking surf, and the women and children along the sandy beach in front of the village.

Out upon the point of black and jagged reef that stretched northward from the entrance to the harbour was the figure of a young boy who bathed by himself. He was the son of the one white man on Strong’s Island, whose isolated dwelling lay almost within hail of him.

The father of the boy was one of those mysterious wanderers who, in the days of sixty years or so ago, were common enough on many of the islands of the North Pacific. Without any material means, save a bag of silver dollars, he had, accompanied by his son, landed at Lêla Harbour on Strong’s Island from a passing ship, and Charlik, the king of the island, although at first resenting the intrusion of a poor white man among his people, had consented to let him remain on being told by the captain of the ship that the stranger was a skilful cooper, and could also build a boat. It so happened that many of the casks in which the king stored his coconut-oil were leaking, and no one on the island could repair them; and the white man soon gave the native king proof of his craft by producing from his bag some of a cooper’s tools, and going into the great oil shed that was close by. Here, with some hundreds of natives watching him keenly, he worked for half an hour, while his half-caste son sat upon the beach utterly unnoticed by any one, and regarded with unfavourable looks by the island children, from the mere fact of their having learned that his mother had been a native of a strange island—that to them was sufficient cause for suspicion, if not hostility.

Presently the king himself, attended by his mother, came to the oil shed, looked in, and called out to the white man to cease his work.

“Look you, white man,” he said in English. “You can stop. Mend and make my casks for me, and some day build me a boat; but send away the son of the woman from the south lands. We of Kusaie (Strong’s Island) will have no strangers here.”