The Wreck of the Grosvenor. William Clark Russell
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pouring away from it. Several times when she pitched I said to myself, "Now she is gone!" Her bows went clean under, heaving aloft a prodigious space of foam: up cocked her stern, and, with the help of the glass, I could see her screw skurrying round in the air. Her decks were lumbered with cattle-pens, but the only living thing I could see on board was a man steering her on the bridge. She vanished all on a sudden, amid a Niagara of spray; but some minutes after I saw her smoke on the horizon. Had I not seen her smoke I should have been willing to wager that she had foundered. These mysterious disappearances at sea are by no means rare; but are difficult to account for, since they sometimes happen when the horizon is clear. I have sighted a ship and watched her for some time: withdrawn my eyes for a minute, looked again, and perceived no signs of her. It is possible that mists of small extent may hang upon the sea, not noticeable at a distance, and that they will shut out a vessel suddenly and puzzle you as a miracle would. The fascinating legend of the "Phantom Ship" may have originated in disappearances of this kind, for they are quite complete and surprising enough to inspire superstitious thoughts in such plain, unlettered minds as sailors'.
They were breakfasting in the cuddy and in the forecastle, and I was waiting for the skipper to come on deck that I might go below and get something to eat. But before he made his appearance, the confounded copper-coloured cook, accompanied by a couple of men, came aft.
"Sar," said this worthy, who looked lovely in a pink-striped skirt and yellow overalls, "me ask you respeckfly to speak to de skipper and tell him him biscuit am dam bad, sar."
"I'm messman for the starboard watch, sir," exclaimed one of the men, "and the ship's company says they can't get the bread down 'em nohow."
"Why do you come to me?" I demanded of them angrily. "I have already told you, cook, that I have nothing to do with the ship's stores. You heard what Captain Coxon said yesterday?"
"Can't the steward get us up a fresh bag of bread for breakfast?" exclaimed the third man.
"He's in the cuddy," I replied; "ask him."
They bobbed their heads forward to see through the cuddy windows, and at that moment Duckling came on deck up through the companion.
"You can get your breakfast," said he to me. "I'll keep watch until you've done."
"Here are some men on the quarter-deck complaining of the bread," said I. "Will you speak to them?"
He came forward at once, very briskly, and looked over.
"What's the matter?" he called out.
"We've come to complain of the ship's bread, sir," said one of the men, quite civilly.
"Dam bad bread, sar. Me honest man and speak plain truff," exclaimed the cook, who possibly thought that his position privileged him to be both easy and candid on the subject of eating.
"Get away forward!" cried Duckling, passionately. "The bread's good enough. You want to kick up a shindy."
The men made a movement, the instinct of obedience responding mechanically to the command. But the cook held his ground, and said, shaking his head and convulsing his face—
"De bread am poison, sar. All de flour's changed into worms. Nebber see such a ting. It get here"—touching his throat—"and make me—yaw!"
"Go forward, I tell you, you yellow-faced villain!" shouted Duckling. "D'ye hear what I say?"
"Dis chile is a cook," began the fellow; but Duckling sprang off the poop, and with his clenched fist struck him full under the jaw: the poor devil staggered and whirled round, and then up went Duckling's foot, and cook was propelled at a great pace along the main-deck towards the galley. He stopped, put his hand to his jaw, and looked at the palm of it; rubbed the part that had been kicked, turned and held up his clenched fist, and went into the galley. The two other men disappeared in the forecastle.
"Curse their impudence!" exclaimed Duckling, remounting the poop-ladder and polishing his knuckles on the sleeve of his coat. "Now, Mr. Royle, get you down to your breakfast. I want to turn in when you've done."
I entered the cuddy, not very greatly edified by Duckling's way of emphasizing his orders, and made a bow to the captain, who was still at table. He condescended to raise his eyes, but for some minutes afterwards took no notice of me whatever, occupying himself with glancing over a bundle of slips which looked like bill-heads in his hand.
The vessel was rolling so heavily that the very plates slided to and fro the table, and it not only required dexterity, but was no mean labour to catch the coffee-pot off the swinging tray as it came like a pendulum over to my side, and to pour out a cup of coffee without capsizing it. The mahogany panelling and cabin doors all round creaked incessantly, and in the steward's pantry there was a frequent rattle of crockery.
"What was going forward on the main-deck just now?" demanded Coxon, stowing away the papers in his pocket, and breaking fragments from a breakfast roll.
I explained.
"Ah!" said he; "they're still at that game, are they?"
"Mr. Duckling punched the cook's head——"
"I saw him, sir. Likewise he kicked him. Mr. Duckling knows his duty, and I hope he has taught the cook his. Steward!"
"Yes, sir?" responded the steward, coming out of the pantry.
"See that a piece of the pork you are serving out to the men is put upon my table to-day."
"Yes, sir."
The captain fell into another fit of silence, during which I ate my breakfast as quickly as I could, in order to relieve Duckling.
"Mr. Royle," said he presently, "when we ran that smack down this morning, what were you for doing?"
"I should have hove the ship to," I replied, meeting his eyes.
"Would you have hove her to had you been alone on deck, sir?"
"Yes, and depended on your humanity to excuse me."
"What do you mean by my humanity?" he cried, dissembling his temper badly. "What kind of cant is this you have brought on board my ship? Humanity! Damn it!" he exclaimed, his ungovernable temper blazing out: "had you hove my ship to on your own hook, I'd have had you in irons for the rest of the voyage."
"I don't see the use of that threat, sir," said I, quietly. "You have to judge me by what I did do, not by what I might or would do."
"Oh, confound your distinctions!" he went on, pushing his hair over his ears. "You told me that you would have hove the ship to had you been alone, and that means you would have whipped the masts out of her. Do you mean to tell me that you knew what sail we were carrying, to talk like this?"
"Perfectly well."
My composure irritated him more than my words, and I don't know what savage answer he was about to return; but his attention was on a sudden arrested and diverted from me. I turned my eyes in the direction in which he was staring, and beheld the whole ship's company advancing along the main-deck, led by the big seaman whose name was Johnson, and by the tortoise-backed, small-faced man who was called Fish—Ebenezer Fish.
The moment the captain observed them, he rose precipitately, and ran up the companion-ladder; and as I had finished breakfast, I followed him.
By the time I had reached the break of the poop the hands were all gathered about the mainmast. A few of them held tin dishes in their hands, in which were lumps of meat swimming in black vinegar. One carried some dozen biscuits supported against his breast. Another held a tin pannikin filled with treacle, and another grasped a salt-jar, or some such utensil, containing tea.
The coup d'œil from the poop was at this moment striking. All around was a heavy sea with great waves boiling along it; overhead a pale blue sky, along which the wildest clouds were sweeping. The vessel running before the wind under double-reefed topsails, rolled deeply both to port and to starboard, ever and anon shipping a sheet of green water over her bulwarks, which went rushing to and fro the decks, seething and hissing among the feet of the men, and escaping, with loud bubbling