Part 5

"You was shipped in her," said Eales. "You came aboard in Astoria. Your name's Juggins."

"I'm Brogger--Captain William Brogger!" said Brogger.

"Hush, hush!" said Eales. "Don't say it. All the men 'ere 'as sworn to 'ave Brogger's life if 'e's alive. They say Brogger was mean, and made them un'appy. 'E called good sailormen sojers; 'e give 'em bad grub; 'e wouldn't 'ave no clothes dried in the galley off the 'Orn; 'e never gave 'em no forenoon watch in. In the dirtiest weather he 'ad 'em makin' sennit between shortenin' and makin' sail. 'E wasn't no sailor, they says, to add to it all. And it's a sayin' 'ere that Brogger saved 'is life by bein' killed, same as the pig did 'is by dyin'. For Gawd's sake don't say you're Brogger, or there'll be blood knee-deep--if there's blood in Brogger!"

"I'll--I'll go aft," said Brogger tremulously.

"Don't you do it!" said Eales. "There's a new skipper on board; 'e's as fierce and 'ard as if 'e was a bucko tough out of a Western Ocean packet of the old days. 'E won't stand taffy, nor any sort of guff; but 'e'll jump on your stummick quick."

"Oh, what shall I do?" moaned Brogger. "Why, I know you! You're Eales!"

"And you're Juggins!" said Eales fiercely. And just then in came one of the port watch and banged a tin can.

"Starbowlines, ahoy! Turn out, you sleepers!" he roared. "Turn out, turn out, my bully boys!"

The starboard watch yawned and groaned and grunted, and showed unwilling legs, and at last crawled out upon their chests as the boys brought the tea and grub in.

"Holy Moses!" said big Pizzey; "don't I remember that there was one of the starboard watch that allowed he was Brogger?"

"This is 'im," said Corlett, pointing. And the whole crowd roared.

"'E's no more like old beast Brogger than I'm like the mate," said Pizzey contemptuously. For Plump was a nice-looking man, and Pizzey had a face like a bruised apple. "Where's your beard, Brogger?"

"It's--it's shaved," said Brogger.

"And where did you get them brown 'ands and that ma'og'ny face? Brogger was as white as muck," said Bush. "And, besides, 'e's dead, and there's no more in it than that."

"I'm goin' aft," said Brogger. "There's a dreadful mistake somewhere."

But Corlett caught him by the tail of his jacket and sat him down on a chest suddenly.

"Less talk and more work, shipmate. Eat your breakfast."

He helped the poor devil to a pannikin of tea and to a tin plate full of bad bacon.

"This tea's beastly," he declared.

"Brogger's notion of wot's fit for sailors," said Corlett. "Drink 'is 'ealth in it."

And Brogger drank. The hot infusion of the Lord knows what did him good. The fumes of fusel oil and the clouds of laudanum rolled away from him.

"I know 'em all," he said--"I know 'em, every one. This is my ship; this is the _Enchantress_. If it isn't, I'm mad!"

He rose up suddenly and made a bolt for the door, and ran aft. As his evil luck would have it, the very first person he ran against was the new skipper, who looked at him very fiercely.

"Where the devil are you running to?" asked Greig, giving him a push in the chest that sent him reeling.

"I'm Captain Brogger," said Brogger with the most lamentably weak air of dignity. It sat on him like a frock-coat on a gorilla.

"The devil you are?" said Greig. "So you're still drunk. Go for'ard, or I'll cure you so quick!"

But just then Plump came for'ard to the break of the poop.

"Mr. Plump, Mr. Plump," cried Brogger. It has to be owned that the mate started just a trifle at the sound of his voice. "Mr. Plump, I'm Captain Brogger, and who's this?"

"Stop," said Greig, "stop right here. Mr. Plump, do you recognise this man?"

It was impossible to recognise him by anything but his voice, and Plump truly denied that he saw the least resemblance to the dead skipper.

"Call Mr. Dodman," said Greig. And Dodman said he couldn't see the faintest likeness.

"Then how do I know you all?" asked Brogger.

"It's my belief you sailed with us three voyages back," said Dodman. "I seem to have seen you somewhere."

"That will do," said Greig; "go for'ard and behave yourself, or you'll find out, whether you're Brogger or Juggins, or the Lord Muck from Bog Island, that I'm captain here. Bo'son!"

The bo'son came from the galley, where he was taking in the situation with the cook.

"Set this man to work," said Greig, "and keep your eye on him."

And Brogger went for'ard like a lamb.

"It's cruel! it's cruel!" said Brogger. But in less than two shakes of a lamb's tail he found himself getting paint out of the bo'son's locker in company with Corlett and Jack Eales.

"What you've got to do, sonny," said Jack, who had half a mind to be sorry for him, "is to do your duty and do it smart and quick. Just now you're off-colour, so to speak, in spite of that 'ealthy complexion of yours, and you don't feel well. Exercise will do you good. We'll have you on a topsail-yard yet singin' out: ''Aul out to loo'ard' with the best." He turned to Corlett.

"What's all this bally paint for, Corlett?" he asked.

"Blamed if I know," said his mate.

But the other men were rigging up stages and getting them over the side, while the bo'son mixed the paint. It was blue, and Corlett stared hard at Eales.

"Well, I'm d-dashed," said Eales; "this is the queerest start!"

He watched the bo'son go up to the new hand and take him carefully by the collar.

"'Ere, you sculpin, take this pot and this brush and get down on this stage----"

"What for?" asked Brogger. "I'm--I'm----"

"Oh, no, you ain't," said the bo'son quickly,--"you ain't 'im by a long sight."

"It's blue paint," said Brogger weakly. "It's blue."

"Very blue," replied the bo'son drily. "And all that's white you'll paint blue."

He half-lifted Brogger on the rail, and watched him clamber down upon the stage. A strange, quiet ripple of laughter ran along the men at work.

"I--I don't understand," said Brogger to Eales, who was sitting on the stage with him.

"It's a good sea compliment to them that's gone," said Eales. "Paint, you beggar, paint."

The bo'son put his head over the rail.

"If you don't get to work, Juggins, I'll have to come down there and talk with you."

And the man who was spoken to knew of old what a terror the bo'son could be if he liked. He shivered and dipped his brush in paint. After he had made a few feeble strokes, the bo'son's head disappeared, and Brogger whispered to Eales--

"Who's it for?"

"It's for poor old Brogger," said Eales.

THE OVERCROWDED ICEBERG

There was a deal of ice about, and it came streaming south, in all kinds of shapes, right into the track of ships. There were flat-topped bergs and ice-fields, and there were all kinds of pinnacled danger-traps which were obviously ready to turn turtle and load up any unwary steamer with more ice than she would ever require to make cocktails with. That year ice was reported in great quantities as far south as latitude 40°, and there is every reason to believe that there was more ice run into than was ever reported by one unlucky liner and five tramps which were posted at Lloyd's as 'Missing.' The Western Ocean is no-peace-at-any-price body of water, and it tries those who sail it as high as any sea in the world, but when the Arctic turns itself loose and empties its refrigerator into the ocean fairway it becomes what seamen call 'a holy terror.' For ice brings fog, and fog is the real sea-devil, worse than any wind that blows. It was a remarkable thing in such circumstances that Captain Harry Sharpness Spink of Glo'ster preserved his equanimity. As Ward, the mate of the _Swan of Avon_, said, he wasn't likely to preserve the _Swan_.

"Dry up, Ward," said his commanding officer, "be so good as to dry up. When I require your advice to run the _Swan_ I'll let you know, but in the meantime any uncalled-for jaw on that or any other subject will make me very cross."

"Do you think you can lick me since you went to see that swab at the Foreign Office?" asked Ward, as he edged towards Spink. "Don't you savvy, Spink, that I'm just as able as I was before to pick you up and sling you off of this bridge on to the main-deck?"

"That's as may be," said Spink, "and I don't deny by any means that you are a truculent and insubordinate beast. That's why I shipped you. But it don't follow by no means that because my unfortunate disposition compels me to have officers that can lick me, that I should let 'em navigate the _Swan_ on the high lonesome principle. As I said before, you will be so good as to shut your head. Ice or no ice, I'm going at my speed, not yours. Do you think you are out yachting that I should look after your precious carcase?"

"I believe you are ready to cast her away," said Ward. "Are the bally owners going shares with you?"

Spink shook his bullet head.

"They ain't, and you know it, Ward. There are men would take such an insinuation as an insult, and if I could lick you perhaps I would. But you know as well as I do that if I wanted to cast her away I'd not do it here. There's no kind of fun that I so despise as open boats in cold weather, and the Western Ocean in ice-time isn't my market for a regatta. I ain't called on to explain to a subordinate my idea in running full speed through this fog and ice, but out of more regard for your feelings than you ever show for mine I don't mind revealing to you that I'm trusting to my luck."

"Your luck!"

"Yes, my luck," replied Spink with great firmness; "for luck I have and no fatal error. I've been thinking of it a lot this trip, and come to the conclusion that I've more solid luck than any man I know intimate. To say nothing of my commanding a rust and putty kerosine can like this old tramp at the age of thirty, when you, that can lick me in a scrap, have to be my mate though you're older, didn't I come out of that little affair at Aguilas with flying colours?"

"You came out with a hole in the funnel that you had to pay for yourself," said Ward. "I don't see where your luck came in."

"Don't you see it might have been worse, you ass?" cried Spink irritably. "But that's nothing. What I've been pondering over chiefly is my very remarkable luck in never having been caught, for a permanency, by any of the ladies that have been after me."

"They haven't lost much," said Ward discourteously. "And I reckon that you are mistook when you think you're that enticing that women hankers to drag you in by the hair of your head and kiss you by force."

"I never said so," replied Spink; "but the fact remains that I'm not married."

"You're a selfish beast, Spink, and I sincerely hope you'll be married before you're through," said Ward.

"You are the most insolent mate I ever had," replied Spink, "and the most unfeeling. Did you hear a fog-horn?"

Though it was in the middle of the forenoon watch it was pretty nearly as dark off the Banks as it would have been inside a dock warehouse, for the fog was as thick as a blanket. The rail and the decks were slimy with it, and the skipper and his mate were as wet as if it had been raining. The fog came swirling in thick wreaths, and sometimes half choked them. The wind from the north-east was light but very cold, as if it blew off the face of an iceberg, as it probably did. The _Swan_ had an air of thorough discomfort, and in spite of it was steaming into the west at her best speed of nine knots an hour.

It is no wonder that Spink and Ward quarrelled; there was hardly a soul on board who was not in a bad temper. Nothing disturbs seamen as much as fog, and the fact that Spink refused to be disturbed by it made it all the worse for the others. Ward was distinctly nervous, and let the fog play on his nerves. He saw steamers ahead that had no existence, and heard fog-horns that were nothing but the sound of his own blood in his ears.

"Yes, I do hear a fog-horn. It's on the starboard bow," he said anxiously.

"Not a bit of it, Ward, it's on the port bow. It's some darned old wind-jammer. I'll give her a friendly hoot."

He made the whistle give a melancholy wail, which was not answered by the ship for which it was intended, but by a gigantic liner which burst through the fog looking like high land, and booming at the rate of at least twenty knots. She loomed over them in the obscurity, and Ward gave an involuntary howl which fetched the _Swan's_ crowd out on deck in time to see that there was no need to kick their boots off and swim for it. They were also in time to answer the insulting remarks of the liner's two officers on the bridge, as she scraped past them with about the length of a handspike to spare.

"You miserable, condemned tramp," said the liner as she swept by.

"Oh, you man-drowning dogs," replied the crowd of the _Swan_.

And everything else that was said never reached its mark. The liner was swallowed up, and resumed her attempt to make a good passage in spite of what she logged as 'hazy' weather.

"What did I tell you about my luck?" asked Spink coolly, and Ward very naturally had nothing to say till he got his breath. What he said then could only have been said to a skipper who had so unfortunate a disposition towards violence that he had to ship officers who could lick him.

"You are a wonder," said Ward, "and I wish you had been dead before I saw you. Ain't you thinking of others' lives if you ain't of your own?"

"What's the use of arguing with a thick-head like you, Ward?" asked Spink. "If that blamed express packet slowed down to our jog-trot her skipper would feel as sick as if he had anchored, and he'd log it 'dead slow,' and the rotters that judge divorces and collisions would call him the most praiseworthy swine that ever ran another ship down. What's the logic of it? Why should I daunder along at five knots? I might be lingering just where I'd be caught by such another or by a berg. I trust in Providence and my luck, and if you don't like it you can get out and walk."

At this moment a bellow was heard for'ard, 'Ice on the starboard bow,' and Spink, who for all his talk had the eyes of a cat, motioned to the man at the wheel to starboard the helm a few spokes. The _Swan_ ground past a small berg, and had a narrower shave than with the liner.

"If we'd been going a trifle slower, Ward," said the skipper, "I might have plugged that lump plump in the middle, and you would have been down on the main-deck seeing the boats put over the side."

"There's no arguing with you," growled the mate, "you'd sicken a hog, and I wish it was Day's watch instead of mine. If he has the same temper when he wakes that he went below with, you'll have a dandy time with him."

He relapsed into a silence which Spink found more trying than open insubordination, for Spink was a cheerful soul.

"Here, I can't stand this, Ward----"

"What can't you stand?" asked Ward sulkily.

"Not being spoken to, of course," replied the skipper. "I order you to be more cheerful. I don't ask you to be polite, for I know you can't be; but you can talk when you aren't wanted to, so you just talk now."

"I won't unless you slow down," said Ward. "I don't see why I should talk and be cheerful with a sea-lunatic."

"Well," said Spink, "I'll slow her down to half speed to please you, for the Lord knows there's enough ice about without my having a lump of it for a mate. Ring her down to half speed, and be damned to you!"

Ward rang her to half speed without any second order.

"And I sincerely hope I shan't regret bein' weak enough to give way," said Spink, "for I'm a deal too easy-going and reasonable."

He lighted his pipe and smoked steadily. As both Ward and Day admitted, he might be hard to get along with, but he had nerves which would have done credit to a bull. Most skippers in the Western Ocean get into the state of mind which sees disaster before it is in sight, and if they don't take to drink it is because they die of continued scares. Spink feared nothing under heaven, and though he sometimes drank more than was good for him, it was not because he wanted it, but because he liked it. There is a great distinction between these two ways of drinking. After a few minutes of silence he turned to Ward.

"Do you feel easier in your mind, Ward?"

"I do," said Ward. "I own it freely."

Spink snorted.

"As sure as ice is ice when you get a command of your own you'll take to drink," said Spink. "And now, as you're satisfied at getting your own way, I'll go below and have a snooze."

About six bells in the forenoon watch the _Swan_ ran out of 'Bank weather' into beautiful sunlight, and Ward rang her up to full speed. All about them were icebergs small and large, which sparkled like jewels in the sun. There was one long, low berg right ahead of them, there was one to the south'ard which was peaked and scarped and pinnacled into the semblance of a mediaeval castle. Ward, as Spink said, had no soul for beauty unless it wore petticoats, and to him, as to all seamen, ice in any shape was ugly.

"If he'd had his way she'd have come a mucker on that beggar ahead," said Ward, as he passed to windward of the big, table-topped berg. "I wish we was out of it. This fine spell won't last long, and there is more thick weather ahead of us or I'm a Dago."

He gave her up to Day at noon with pleasure, and took his grub alone as the skipper was fast asleep. When he turned out again at four o'clock he found the fog as thick as ever, and Bill Day as cross as he could stick at having to yank the whistle laniard every minute or so. As soon as Ward showed his nose on the bridge Bill let out at him.

"What kind of a relief do you call this?" he demanded savagely. "I wish I'd had this laniard round your neck, I'd have had you out of your bunk in good time, I swear."

As a matter of fact, Ward was only three minutes behind time, and always prided himself on giving a good relief.

"Has Double Glo'ster been worrying you that you're so sick?" he asked. "You know damn well that you owe me hours. Oh, don't talk, go below and die, as you always do when you see blankets. Has there been much ice?"

"It's blinking all round the bally shop," returned the second mate. "Didn't you wake when I stopped her dead?"

"No," said Ward.

"And you talk of my dying when I get below," retorted Day. He slid off the bridge, and proceeded to justify the mate's accusation by falling asleep before his head touched the pillow, in spite of the melancholy hootings of the _Swan_ as she picked her way delicately in the fog and ice. It was very nearly eight bells again before Captain Harry Sharpness Spink of Glo'ster showed on deck. As he meant to stay on deck all night he had really been very moderate.

"So I've missed Newcastle?" he said.

"Lucky for you," returned Ward; "his temper was horrid."

Spink sighed.

"I'm the most unfortunate man that ever commanded any blasted hooker that ever sailed the seas," he said. "Day tries me more than you do, Ward. There are times I regret I ever knew him. I must have been brought up badly to have such a disposition as I have. Well, well, it can't be helped, a man is what he was meant to be, there is no get-away from that. But I should admire to see you plug him. Oh, I say, it's fairly thick, ain't it?"

It was a deal thicker than much of the pea-soup served up in the _Swan_, though Spink rather prided himself on the way the men were fed in her.

"Are you nervous?" asked Spink.

"I ain't by any means happy," said Ward; "and no seaman worthy of the name can be happy on the Banks in weather like this."

"That's a slur on me, I know," said Spink, "but I look over it."

"What would you do if you didn't?" asked Ward.

Spink did not reply to this challenge, and inside of a minute both he and Ward had something to think of besides quarrelling about nothing. The fog lifted for a moment, and showed ice all about them. The air grew bitterly cold, and was soon close on the freezing point, Spink slowed her down again, and almost literally felt his way through the obstacles. Once he touched a small berg, but when he did so he was going dead slow. Ward stood by and saw the 'old man' handle the _Swan_ with admiration. When they were once more through the thick of it he spoke.

"I wish I could understand you, Spink," he said, with far more respect than he often showed. "You're the most reckless skipper I ever sailed with, and now you're more careful than I should be."

"I don't trust in my luck till I can't see," said Spink, and he turned her over to Ward, saying, "Go your own pace, my son. It's most agreeable when you are civil."

And next minute the catastrophe happened, for at half speed the old _Swan_ bunted her nose into a low but very solid berg, and the result was very much the same as if she had tried conclusions head on with a dock wall. She crumpled up like a bandbox when it is inadvertently sat on, and it would have been obvious to the least instructed observer that her chance of going much farther was a very small one indeed. She trembled and was jarred to her vitals, her iron decks lifted up like a carpet with the wind underneath it, one of the funnel stays parted with a loud twang, and the crowd forward came out on deck as if the devil was behind them. And the fog was still so thick that it was impossible to see them from the bridge. But they soon saw Bill Day, for even his ability to sleep through most things could not stand being thrown out of his bunk.

"What's up now?" roared the second mate. And the skipper showed at his very best.

"Ward would have her at half speed," said Spink coolly, "and that gave the southerly drift time to bring that blasted berg just where it could do its work."

And poor Ward hadn't a word to say. Spink had plenty. He spoke to the crew below.

"Keep quiet there you," he snapped, without the least sign of a disturbed mind. And up came the chief engineer, M'Pherson, in pyjamas and a blue funk.

"What's happened, captain? Oh, what's gone wrang the noo?" he cried.

"She's hit more than a penn'orth of ice, Mr. M'Pherson," replied the skipper, "and if I were you I'd get my clothes on. Tell me what water she is making, and look slippy. Mr. Ward, see to the boats. Mr. Day, take the steward and a couple of hands and get some stores up on deck."

He was so cool that he inspired unlimited confidence, although it was now obvious to them all that the _Swan's_ very minutes were numbered. It did not require old Mac's report that the water was coming on board like a millstream to show them that. The engineers and firemen came on deck, and Spink addressed them in what he considered suitable and encouraging terms.

"Now then, you stokehold scum, less jaw there, you won't get drowned this trip."

They were exceedingly glad to hear it, for a lot of them were of a different opinion and said so. There was no time to waste, and indeed none was lost. The real trouble began when it was found that one boat wouldn't swim, after the manner and custom of boats in the Mercantile Marine, and when another was staved in by a swinging lump of ice the moment it took the water. This lump was a small 'calf' of the larger berg which they had struck on, and the next moment the original obstacle swung alongside and ground heavily against the steamer.

"There ain't enough boats," said the skipper. "Mr. Ward, d'ye think you could hook on to that berg? We'll have to board it and make out as best we can."

As the _Swan_ was a vessel of close on fourteen hundred tons, her kedge anchor ought to have weighed something like four and a half hundredweight. As a matter of fact it had once belonged to something in the shape of a tug, and it weighed barely two. Ward picked it up as if it was a toy and hove it on the berg, and followed it with a warp.