Chapter 5

by Rudyard Kipling

　　That was the first of many talks with Dan, who told Harvey why hewould transfer his dory's name to the imaginary Burgess-modelledhaddocker. Harvey heard a good deal about the real Hattie atGloucester; saw a lock of her hair - which Dan, finding fair wordsof no avail, had "hooked" as she sat in front of him at schoolthat winter - and a photograph. Hattie was about fourteen yearsold, with an awful contempt for boys, and had been trampling onDan's heart through the winter. All this was revealed under oathof solemn secrecy on moonlit decks, in the dead dark, or inchoking fog; the whining wheel behind them, the climbing deckbefore, and without, the unresting, clamorous sea. Once, ofcourse, as the boys came to know each other, there was a fight,which raged from bow to stern till Penn came up and separatedthem, but promised not to tell Disko, who thought fighting onwatch rather worse than sleeping. Harvey was no match for Danphysically, but it says a great deal for his new training that hetook his defeat and did not try to get even with his conqueror byunderhand methods.That was after he had been cured of a string of boils between hiselbows and wrists, where the wet jersey and oilskins cut into theflesh. The salt water stung them unpleasantly, but when they wereripe Dan treated them with Disko's razor, and assured Harvey thatnow he was a "blooded Banker"; the affliction of gurry-sores beingthe mark of the caste that claimed him.Since he was a boy and very busy, he did not bother his head withtoo much thinking. He was exceedingly sorry for his mother, andoften longed to see her and above all to tell her of his wonderfulnew life, and how brilliantly he was acquitting himself in it.Otherwise he preferred not to wonder too much how she was bearingthe shock of his supposed death. But one day, as he stood on thefo'c'sle ladder, guying the cook, who had accused him and Dan ofhooking fried pies, it occurred to him that this was a vastimprovement on being snubbed by strangers in the smoking-room of ahired liner.He was a recognised part of the scheme of things on the "We'reHere"; had his place at the table and among the bunks; and couldhold his own in the long talks on stormy days, when the otherswere always ready to listen to what they called his "fairy-tales"of his life ashore. It did not take him more than two days and aquarter to feel that if he spoke of his own life - it seemed veryfar away - no one except Dan (and even Dan's belief was sorelytried) credited him. So he invented a friend, a boy he had heardof, who drove a miniature four-pony drag in Toledo, Ohio, andordered five suits of clothes at a time, and led things called"germans" at parties where the oldest girl was not quite fifteen,but all the presents were solid silver. Salters protested thatthis kind of yarn was desperately wicked, if not indeed positivelyblasphemous, but he listened as greedily as the others; and theircriticisms at the end gave Harvey entirely new notions on"germans," clothes, cigarettes with gold-leaf tips, rings,watches, scent, small dinner-parties, champagne, card-playing, andhotel accommodation. Little by little he changed his tone whenspeaking of his "friend," whom Long Jack had christened "the CrazyKid," "the Gilt-edged Baby," "the Suckin' Vanderpoop," and otherpet names; and with his sea-booted feet cocked up on the tablewould even invent histories about silk pajamas and speciallyimported neckwear, to the "friend's" discredit. Harvey was a veryadaptable person, with a keen eye and ear for every face and toneabout him.Before long he knew where Disko kept the old green-crustedquadrant that they called the "hog-yoke" - under the bed-bag inhis bunk. When he 'took the sun, and with the help of "The OldFarmer's" almanac found the latitude, Harvey would jump down intothe cabin and scratch the reckoning and date with a nail on therust of the stove-pipe. Now, the chief engineer of the liner couldhave done no more, and no engineer of thirty years' service couldhave assumed one half of the ancient-mariner air with whichHarvey, first careful to spit over the side, made public theschooner's position for that day, and then and not till thenrelieved Disko of the quadrant. There is an etiquette in all thesethings.The said "hog-yoke," an Eldridge chart, the farming almanac,Blunt's "Coast Pilot," and Bowditch's "Navigator" were all theweapons Disko needed to guide him, except the deep-sea lead thatwas his spare eye. Harvey nearly slew Penn with it when Tom Platttaught him first how to "fly the blue pigeon"; and, though hisstrength was not equal to continuous sounding in any sort of asea, for calm weather with a seven-pound lead on shoal water Diskoused him freely. As Dan said: "'Tain't soundin's dad wants. It'ssamples. Grease her up good, Harve." Harvey would tallow the cupat the end, and carefully bring the sand, shell, sludge, orwhatever it might be, to Disko, who fingered and smelt it and gavejudgment. As has been said, when Disko thought of cod he thoughtas a cod; and by some long-tested mixture of instinct andexperience, moved the "We're Here" from berth to berth, alwayswith the fish, as a blindfolded chess-player moves on the unseenboard.But Disko's board was the Grand Bank - a triangle two hundred andfifty miles on each side a waste of wallowing sea, cloaked withdank fog, vexed with gales, harried with drifting ice, scored bythe tracks of the reckless liners, and dotted with the sails ofthe fishing-fleet.-For days they worked in fog - Harvey at the bell - till, grownfamiliar with the thick airs, he went out with Tom Platt, hisheart rather in his mouth. But the fog would not lift, and thefish were biting, and no one can stay helplessly afraid for sixhours at a time. Harvey devoted himself to his lines and the gaffor gob-stick as Tom Platt called for them; and they rowed back tothe schooner guided by the bell and Tom's instinct; Manuel's conchsounding thin and faint beside them. But it was an unearthlyexperience, and, for the first time in a month, Harvey dreamed ofthe shifting, smoking floors of water round the dory, the linesthat strayed away into nothing, and the air above that melted onthe sea below ten feet from his straining eyes. A few days laterhe was out with Manuel on what should have been forty-fathombottom, but the whole length of the roding ran out, and still theanchor found nothing, and Harvey grew mortally afraid, for thathis last touch with earth was lost. "Whale-hole," said Manuel,hauling in. "That is good joke on Disko. Come!" and he rowed tothe schooner to find Tom Platt and the others jeering at theskipper because, for once, he had led them to the edge of thebarren Whale-deep, the blank hole of the Grand Bank. They madeanother berth through the fog, and that time the hair of Harvey'shead stood up when he went out in Manuel's dory. A whiteness movedin the whiteness of the fog with a breath like the breath of thegrave, and there was a roaring, a plunging, and spouting. It washis first introduction to the dread summer berg of the Banks, andhe cowered in the bottom of the boat while Manuel laughed. Therewere days, though, clear and soft and warm, when it seemed a sinto do anything but loaf over the hand-lines and spank the drifting"sun-scalds" with an oar; and there were days of light airs, whenHarvey was taught how to steer the schooner from one berth toanother.It thrilled through him when he first felt the keel answer to hishand on the spokes and slide over the long hollows as the foresailscythed back and forth against the blue sky. That was magnificent,in spite of Disko saying that it would break a snake's back tofollow his wake. But, as usual, pride ran before a fall. They weresailing on the wind with the staysail - an old one, luckily - set,and Harvey jammed her right into it to show Dan how completely hehad mastered the art. The foresail went over with a bang, and theforegaff stabbed and ripped through the stay-sail, which, was ofcourse, prevented from going over by the mainstay. They loweredthe wreck in awful silence, and Harvey spent his leisure hours forthe next few days under Torn Platt's lee, learning to use a needleand palm. Dan hooted with joy, for, as he said, he had made thevery same blunder himself in his early days.Boylike, Harvey imitated all the men by turns, till he hadcombined Disko's peculiar stoop at the wheel, Long Jack's swingingoverhand when the lines were hauled, Manuel's round-shouldered buteffective stroke in a dory, and Tom Platt's generous Ohio stridealong the deck."'Tis beautiful to see how he takes to ut," said Long Jack, whenHarvey was looking out by the windlass one thick noon. "I'll laymy wage an' share 'tis more'n half play-actin' to him, an' heconsates himself he's a bowld mariner. 'Watch his little bit av aback now!""That's the way we all begin," said Tom Platt. "The boys they makebelieve all the time till they've cheated 'emselves into bein'men, an' so till they die - pretendin' an' pretendin'. I done iton the old Ohio, I know. Stood my first watch - harbor-watch -feelin' finer'n Farragut. Dan's full o' the same kind o' notions.See 'em now, actin' to be genewine moss-backs - every hair a rope-yarn an' blood Stockholm tar." He spoke down the cabin stairs."'Guess you're mistook in your judgments fer once, Disko. What inRome made ye tell us all here the kid was crazy?""He wuz," Disko replied. "Crazy ez a loon when he come aboard; butI'll say he's sobered up consid'ble sence. I cured him.""He yarns good," said Tom Platt. "T'other night he told us abaouta kid of his own size steerin' a cunnin' little rig an' fourponies up an' down Toledo, Ohio, I think 'twas, an' givin' suppersto a crowd o' sim'lar kids. Cur'us kind o' fairy-tale, but blameinterestin'. He knows scores of 'em.""'Guess he strikes 'em outen his own head," Disko called from thecabin, where he was busy with the log-book. "'Stands to reasonthat sort is all made up. It don't take in no one but Dan, an' helaughs at it. I've heard him, behind my back.""Y'ever hear what Sim'on Peter Ca'houn said when they whacked up amatch 'twix' his sister Hitty an' Lorin' Jerauld, an' the boys putup that joke on him daown to Georges?" drawled Uncle Salters, whowas dripping peaceably under the lee of the starboard dory-nest.Tom Platt puffed at his pipe in scornful silence: he was a CapeCod man, and had not known that tale more than twenty years. UncleSalters went on with a rasping chuckle:"Sim'on Peter Ca'houn he said, an' he was jest right, abaoutLorin', 'Ha'af on the taown,' he said, 'an' t'other ha'af blamefool; an' they told me she's married a 'ich man.' Sim'on PeterCa'houn he hedn't no roof to his mouth, an' talked that way.""He didn't talk any Pennsylvania Dutch," Tom Platt replied. "You'dbetter leave a Cape man to tell that tale. The Ca'houns wasgipsies frum 'way back.""Wal, I don't profess to be any elocutionist," Salters said. "I'mcomin' to the moral o' things. That's jest abaout what aour Harvebe! Ha'af on the taown, an' t'other ha'af blame fool; an' there'ssome'll believe he's a rich man. Yah!""Did ye ever think how sweet 'twould be to sail wid a full crew o'Salterses?" said Long Jack. "Ha'af in the furrer an' other ha'afin the muck-heap, as Ca'houn did not say, an' makes out he's afisherman!"A little laugh went round at Salters's expense.Disko held his tongue, and wrought over the log-book that he keptin a hatchet-faced, square hand; this was the kind of thing thatran on, page after soiled page:"July 17. This day thick fog and few fish. Made berth tonorthward. So ends this day."July 18. This day comes in with thick fog. Caught a few fish."July 19. This day comes in with light breeze from N. E. and fineweather. Made a berth to eastward. Caught plenty fish."July 20. This, the Sabbath, comes in with fog and light winds. Soends this day. Total fish caught this week, 3,478."They never worked on Sundays, but shaved, and washed themselves ifit were fine, and Pennsylvania sang hymns. Once or twice hesuggested that, if it was not an impertinence, he thought he couldpreach a little. Uncle Salters nearly jumped down his throat atthe mere notion, reminding him that he was not a preacher andmustn't think of such things. We'd hev him rememberin' Johnstownnext," Salters explained, "an' what would happen then?" So theycompromised on his reading aloud from a book called "Josephus." Itwas an old leather-bound volume, smelling of a hundred voyages,very solid and very like the Bible, but enlivened with accounts ofbattles and sieges; and they read it nearly from cover to cover.Otherwise Penn was a silent little body. He would not utter a wordfor three days on end sometimes, though he played checkers,listened to the songs, and laughed at the stories. When they triedto stir him up, he would answer. "I don't wish to seemunneighbourly, but it is because I have nothing to say. My headfeels quite empty. I've almost forgotten my name." He would turnto Uncle Salters with an expectant smile."Why, Pennsylvania Pratt," Salters would shout. "You'll fergit menext!""No - never," Penn would say, shutting his lips firmly."Pennsylvania Pratt, of course," he would repeat over and over.Sometimes it was Uncle Salters who forgot, and told him he wasHaskins or Rich or McVitty; but Penn was equally content - tillnext time.He was always very tender with Harvey, whom he pitied both as alost child and as a lunatic; and when Salters saw that Penn likedthe boy, he relaxed, too. Salters was not an amiable person (heesteemed it his business to keep the boys in order); and the firsttime Harvey, in fear and trembling, on a still day, managed toshin up to the main-truck (Dan was behind him ready to help), heesteemed it his duty to hang Salters's big sea-boots up there - asight of shame and derision to the nearest schooner. With Disko,Harvey took no liberties; not even when the old man dropped directorders, and treated him, like the rest of the crew, to "Don't youwant to do so and so?" and "Guess you'd better," and so forth.There was something about the clean-shaven lips and the puckeredcorners of the eyes that was mightily sobering to young blood.Disko showed him the meaning of the thumbed and pricked chart,which, he said, laid over any government publication whatsoever;led him, pencil in hand, from berth to berth over the whole stringof banks - Le Have, Western, Banquereau, St. Pierre, Green, andGrand - talking "cod" meantime. Taught him, too, the principle onwhich the "hog-yoke" was worked.In this Harvey excelled Dan, for he had inherited a head forfigures, and the notion of stealing information from one glimpseof the sullen Bank sun appealed to all his keen wits. For othersea-matters his age handicapped him. As Disko said, he should havebegun when he was ten. Dan could bait up trawl or lay his hand onany rope in the dark; and at a pinch, when Uncle Salters had agurry-sore on his palm, could dress down by sense of touch. Hecould steer in anything short of half a gale from the feel of thewind on his face, humouring the "We're Here" just when she neededit. These things he did as automatically as he skipped about therigging, or made his dory a part of his own will and body. But hecould not communicate his knowledge to Harvey.Still there was a good deal of general information flying aboutthe schooner on stormy days, when they lay up in the fo'c'sle orsat on the cabin lockers, while spare eye-bolts, leads, and ringsrolled and rattled in the pauses of the talk. Disko spoke ofwhaling voyages in the Fifties; of great she-whales slain besidetheir young; of death agonies on the black, tossing seas, andblood that spurted forty feet in the air; of boats smashed tosplinters; of patent rockets that went off wrong-end-first andbombarded the trembling crews; of cutting-in and boiling-down, andthat terrible "nip" of '71, when twelve hundred men were madehomeless on the ice in three days - wonderful tales, all true. Butmore wonderful still were his stories of the cod, and how theyargued and reasoned on their private businesses deep down belowthe keel.Long Jack's tastes ran more to the supernatural. He held themsilent with ghastly stories of the "Yo-hoes" on Monomoy Beach,that mock and terrify lonely clam-diggers; of sand-walkers anddune-haunters who were never properly buried; of hidden treasureon Fire Island guarded by the spirits of Kidd's men; of ships thatsailed in the fog straight over Truro township; of that harbour inMaine where no one but a stranger will lie at anchor twice in acertain place because of a dead crew who row alongside at midnightwith the anchor in the bow of their old-fashioned boat, whistling- not calling, but whistling - for the soul of the man who broketheir rest.Harvey had a notion that the east coast of his native land, fromMount Desert south, was populated chiefly by people who took theirhorses there in the summer and entertained in country-houses withhardwood floors and Vantine portieres. He laughed at the ghost-tales, - not as much as he would have done a month before, - butended by sitting still and shuddering.Tom Platt dealt with his interminable trip round the Horn on theold Ohio in the flogging days, with a navy more extinct than thedodo - the navy that passed away in the great war. He told themhow red-hot shot are dropped into a cannon, a wad of wet claybetween them and the cartridge; how they sizzle and reek when theystrike wood, and how the little ship-boys of the Miss Jim Buckhove water over them and shouted to the fort to try again. And hetold tales of blockade -long weeks of swaying at anchor, variedonly by the departure and return of steamers that had used uptheir coal (there was no change for the sailing-ships); of galesand cold - cold that kept two hundred men, night and day, poundingand chopping at the ice on cable, blocks, and rigging, when thegalley was as red-hot as the fort's shot, and men drank cocoa bythe bucket. Tom Platt had no use for steam. His service closedwhen that thing was comparatively new. He admitted that it was aspecious invention in time of peace, but looked hopefully for theday when sails should come back again on ten-thousand-ton frigateswith hundred-and-ninety-foot booms.Manuel's talk was slow and gentle - all about pretty girls inMadeira washing clothes in the dry beds of streams, by moonlight,under waving bananas; legends of saints, and tales of queer dancesor fights away in the cold Newfoundland baiting-ports. Salters wasmainly agricultural; for, though he read "Josephus" and expoundedit, his mission in life was to prove the value of green manures,and specially of clover, against every form of phosphatewhatsoever. He grew libellous about phosphates; he dragged greasy"Orange Judd" books from his bunk and intoned them, wagging hisfinger at Harvey, to whom it was all Greek. Little Penn was sogenuinely pained when Harvey made fun of Salters's lectures thatthe boy gave it up, and suffered in polite silence. That was verygood for Harvey.The cook naturally did not join in these conversations. As a rule,he spoke only when it was absolutely necessary; but at times aqueer gift of speech descended on him, and he held forth, half inGaelic, half in broken English, an hour at a time. He wasspecially communicative with the boys, and he never withdrew hisprophecy that one day Harvey would be Dan's master, and that hewould see it. He told them of mail-carrying in the winter up CapeBreton way, of the dog-train that goes to Coudray, and of the ram-steamer Arctic, that breaks the ice between the mainland andPrince Edward Island. Then he told them stories that his motherhad told him, of life far to the southward, where water neverfroze; and he said that when he died his soul would go to lie downon a warm white beach of sand with palm-trees waving above. Thatseemed to the boys a very odd idea for a man who had never seen apalm in his life. Then, too, regularly at each meal, he would askHarvey, and Harvey alone, whether the cooking was to his taste;and this always made the "second half" laugh. Yet they had a greatrespect for the cook's judgment, and in their hearts consideredHarvey something of a mascot by consequence.And while Harvey was taking in knowledge of new things at eachpore and hard health with every gulp of the good air, the "We'reHere" went her ways and did her business on the Bank, and thesilvery-grey kenches of well-pressed fish mounted higher andhigher in the hold. No one day's work was out of the common, butthe average days were many and close together.Naturally, a man of Disko's reputation was closely watched -"scrowged upon," Dan called it - by his neighbours, but he had avery pretty knack of giving them the slip through the curdling,glidy fog-banks. Disko avoided company for two reasons. He wishedto make his own experiments, in the first place; and in thesecond, he objected to the mixed gatherings of a fleet of allnations. The bulk of them were mainly Gloucester boats, with ascattering from Provincetown, Harwich, Chatham, and some of theMaine ports, but the crews drew from goodness knows where. Riskbreeds recklessness, and when greed is added there are finechances for every kind of accident in the crowded fleet, which,like a mob of sheep, is huddled round some unrecognised leader."Let the two Jeraulds lead 'em," said Disko. "We're baound to layamong 'em fer a spell on the Eastern Shoals; though ef luck holds,we won't hev to lay long. Where we are naow, Harve, ain'tconsidered noways good graound.""Ain't it?" said Harvey, who was drawing water (he had learnedjust how to wiggle the bucket), after an unusually long dressing-down. "Shouldn't mind striking some poor ground for a change,then.""All the graound I want to see - don't want to strike her - isEastern Point," said Dan. "Say, dad, it looks 's if we wouldn'thev to lay more'n two weeks on the Shoals. You'll meet all thecomp'ny you want then, Harve. That's the time we begin to work. Noreg'lar meals fer no one then. 'Mug-up when ye're hungry, an'sleep when ye can't keep awake. Good job you wasn't picked up amonth later than you was, or we'd never ha' had you dressed inshape fer the Old Virgin."Harvey understood from the Eldridge chart that the Old Virgin anda nest of curiously named shoals were the turning-point of thecruise, and that with good luck they would wet the balance oftheir salt there. But seeing the size of the Virgin (it was onetiny dot), he wondered how even Disko with the hog-yoke and thelead could find her. He learned later that Disko was entirelyequal to that and any other business, and could even help others.A big four-by-five blackboard hung in the cabin, and Harvey neverunderstood the need of it till, after some blinding thick days,they heard the unmelodious tooting of a foot-power fog-horn - amachine whose note is as that of a consumptive elephant.They were making a short berth, towing the anchor under their footto save trouble. "Squarerigger bellowin' fer his latitude," saidLong Jack. The dripping red headsails of a bark glided out of thefog, and the "We're Here" rang her bell thrice, using seashorthand.The larger boat backed her topsail with shrieks and shoutings."Frenchman," said Uncle Salters, scornfully. "Miquelon boat fromSt. Malo." The farmer had a weatherly sea-eye. "I'm most outer'baccy, too, Disko.""Same here," said Tom Platt. "Hi! Backez vouz - backez vouz!Standez awayez, you butt-ended mucho-bono! Where you from - St.Malo, eh?"Ah, ha! Mucho bono! Oui! oui! Clos Poulet - St. Malo! St. Pierreet Miquelon," cried the other crowd, waving woollen caps andlaughing. Then all together, "Bord! Bord!""Bring up the board, Danny. Beats me how them Frenchmen fetchanywheres, exceptin' America's fairish broadly. Forty-six forty-nine's good enough fer them; an' I guess it's abaout right, too."Dan chalked the figures on the board, and they hung it in themain-rigging to a chorus of mercis from the bark."Seems kinder unneighbourly to let 'em swedge off like this,"Salters suggested, feeling in his pockets."Hev ye learned French then sence last trip'?" said Disko. "Idon't want no more stone-ballast hove at us 'long o' your calm'Miquelon boats 'footy cochins,' same's you did off Le Have.""Harmon Rush he said that was the way to rise 'em. Plain UnitedStates is good enough fer me. We're all dretful short onterbakker. Young feller, don't you speak French?""Oh, yes," said Harvey, valiantly; and he bawled: "Hi! Say!Arretez vous! Attendez! Nous sommes venant pour tabac.""Ah, tabac, tabac!" they cried, and laughed again."That hit 'em. Let's heave a dory over, anyway," said Tom Platt."I don't exactly hold no certificates on French, but I knowanother lingo that goes, I guess. Come on, Harve, an' interpret."The raffle and confusion when he and Harvey were hauled up thebark's black side was indescribable. Her cabin was all stuck roundwith glaring coloured prints of the Virgin - the Virgin ofNewfoundland, they called her. Harvey found his French of norecognised Bank brand, and his conversation was limited to nodsand grins. But Tom Platt waved his arms and got along swimmingly.The captain gave him a drink of unspeakable gin, and the opera-comique crew, with their hairy throats, red caps, and long knives,greeted him as a brother. Then the trade began. They had tobacco,plenty of it - American, that had never paid duty to France. Theywanted chocolate and crackers. Harvey rowed back to arrange withthe cook and Disko, who owned the stores, and on his return thecocoa-tins and cracker-bags were counted out by the Frenchman'swheel. It looked like a piratical division of loot; but Tom Plattcame out of it roped with black pigtail and stuffed with cakes ofchewing and smoking tobacco. Then those jovial mariners swung offinto the mist, and the last Harvey heard was a gay chorus:"Par derriere chez ma tante,

　　Il y a un bois joli,

　　Et le rossignol y chante

　　Et le jour et la nuit...

　　Que donneriez vous, belle,

　　Qui I'amnerait ici?

　　Je donnerai Qubec,

　　Sorel et Saint Denis.""How was it my French didn't go, and your sign-talk did?" Harveydemanded when the barter had been distributed among the "We'reHeres"."Sign-talk!" Platt guffawed. "Well, yes, 'twas sign-talk, but aheap older'n your French, Harve. Them French boats are chock-fullo' Freemasons, an' that's why.""Are you a Freemason, then?""Looks that way, don't it?" said the man-o'war's man, stuffing hispipe; and Harvey had another mystery of the deep sea to broodupon.