The Mutiny of the Elsinore

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And yet it is not like mutiny--not like the conventional mutiny I
absorbed as a boy, and which has become classic in the literature of
the sea. There is no hand-to-hand fighting, no crash of cannon and
flash of cutlass, no sailors drinking grog, no lighted matches held
over open powder-magazines. Heavens!--there isn't a single cutlass
nor a powder-magazine on board. And as for grog, not a man has had a
drink since Baltimore.

Well, it is mutiny after all. I shall never doubt it again. It may
be nineteen-thirteen mutiny on a coal-carrier, with feeblings and
imbeciles and criminals for mutineers; but at any rate mutiny it is,
and at least in the number of deaths it is reminiscent of the old
days. For things have happened since last I had opportunity to write
up this log. For that matter, I am now the keeper of the Elsinore's
official log as well, in which work Margaret helps me.

And I might have known it would happen. At four yesterday morning I
relieved Mr. Pike. When in the darkness I came up to him at the
break of the poop, I had to speak to him twice to make him aware of
my presence. And then he merely grunted acknowledgment in an absent
sort of way.

The next moment he brightened up, and was himself save that he was
too bright. He was making an effort. I felt this, but was quite
unprepared for what followed.

"I'll be back in a minute," he said, as he put his leg over the rail
and lightly and swiftly lowered himself down into the darkness.

There was nothing I could do. To cry out or to attempt to reason
with him would only have drawn the mutineers' attention. I heard his
feet strike the deck beneath as he let go. Immediately he started
for'ard. Little enough precaution he took. I swear that clear to
the 'midship-house I heard the dragging age-lag of his feet. Then
that ceased, and that was all.

I repeat. That was all. Never a sound came from for'ard. I held my
watch till daylight. I held it till Margaret came on deck with her
cheery "What ho of the night, brave mariner?" I held the next watch
(which should have been the mate's) till midday, eating both
breakfast and lunch behind the sheltering jiggermast. And I held all
afternoon, and through both dog-watches, my dinner served likewise on
the deck.

And that was all. Nothing happened. The galley-stove smoked three
times, advertising the cooking of three meals. Shorty made faces at
me as usual across the rim of the for'ard-house. The Maltese Cockney
caught an albatross. There was some excitement when Tony the Greek
hooked a shark off the jib-boom, so big that half a dozen tailed on
to the line and failed to land it. But I caught no glimpse of Mr.
Pike nor of the renegade Sidney Waltham.

In short, it was a lazy, quiet day of sunshine and gentle breeze.
There was no inkling to what had happened to the mate. Was he a
prisoner? Was he already overside? Why were there no shots? He had
his big automatic. It is inconceivable that he did not use it at
least once. Margaret and I discussed the affair till we were well a-
weary, but reached no conclusion.

She is a true daughter of the race. At the end of the second dog-
watch, armed with her father's revolver, she insisted on standing the
first watch of the night. I compromised with the inevitable by
having Wada make up my bed on the deck in the shelter of the cabin
skylight just for'ard of the jiggermast. Henry, the two sail-makers
and the steward, variously equipped with knives and clubs, were
stationed along the break of the poop.

And right here I wish to pass my first criticism on modern mutiny.
On ships like the Elsinore there are not enough weapons to go around.
The only firearms now aft are Captain West's .38 Colt revolver, and
my .22 automatic Winchester. The old steward, with a penchant for
hacking and chopping, has his long knife and a butcher's cleaver.
Henry, in addition to his sheath-knife, has a short bar of iron.
Louis, despite a most sanguinary array of butcher-knives and a big
poker, pins his cook's faith on hot water and sees to it that two
kettles are always piping on top the cabin stove. Buckwheat, who on
account of his wound is getting all night in for a couple of nights,
cherishes a hatchet.

The rest of our retainers have knives and clubs, although Yatsuda,
the first sail-maker, carries a hand-axe, and Uchino, the second
sail-maker, sleeping or waking, never parts from a claw-hammer. Tom
Spink has a harpoon. Wada, however, is the genius. By means of the
cabin stove he has made a sharp pike-point of iron and fitted it to a
pole. To-morrow be intends to make more for the other men.

It is rather shuddery, however, to speculate on the terrible
assortment of cutting, gouging, jabbing and slashing weapons with
which the mutineers are able to equip themselves from the carpenter's
shop. If it ever comes to an assault on the poop there will be a
weird mess of wounds for the survivors to dress. For that matter,
master as I am of my little rifle, no man could gain the poop in the
day-time. Of course, if rush they will, they will rush us in the
night, when my rifle will be worthless. Then it will be blow for
blow, hand-to-hand, and the strongest pates and arms will win.

But no. I have just bethought me. We shall be ready for any night-
rush. I'll take a leaf out of modern warfare, and show them not only
that we are top-dog (a favourite phrase of the mate), but WHY we are
top-dog. It is simple--night illumination. As I write I work opt
the idea--gasoline, balls of oakum, caps and gunpowder from a few
cartridges, Roman candles, and flares blue, red, and green, shallow
metal receptacles to carry the explosive and inflammable stuff; and a
trigger-like arrangement by which, pulling on a string, the caps are
exploded in the gunpowder and fire set to the gasoline-soaked oakum
and to the flares and candles. It will be brain as well as brawn
against mere brawn.

I have worked like a Trojan all day, and the idea is realized.
Margaret helped me out with suggestions, and Tom Spink did the
sailorizing. Over our head, from the jiggermast, the steel stays
that carry the three jigger-trysails descend high above the break of
the poop and across the main deck to the mizzenmast. A light line
has been thrown over each stay, and been thrown repeatedly around so
as to form an unslipping knot. Tom Spink waited till dark, when he
went aloft and attached loose rings of stiff wire around the stays
below the knots. Also he bent on hoisting-gear and connected
permanent fastenings with the sliding rings. And further, between
rings and fastenings, is a slack of fifty feet of light line.

This is the idea: after dark each night we shall hoist our three
metal wash-basins, loaded with inflammables, up to the stays. The
arrangement is such that at the first alarm of a rush, by pulling a
cord the trigger is pulled that ignites the powder, and the very same
pull operates a trip-device that lets the rings slide down the steel
stays. Of course, suspended from the rings, are the illuminators,
and when they have run down the stays fifty feet the lines will
automatically bring them to rest. Then all the main deck between the
poop and the mizzen-mast will be flooded with light, while we shall
be in comparative darkness.

Of course each morning before daylight we shall lower all this
apparatus to the deck, so that the men for'ard will not guess what we
have up our sleeve, or, rather, what we have up on the trysail-stays.
Even to-day the little of our gear that has to be left standing
aroused their curiosity. Head after head showed over the edge of the
for'ard-house as they peeped and peered and tried to make out what we
were up to. Why, I find myself almost looking forward to an attack
in order to see the device work.

CHAPTER XLV

And what has happened to Mr. Pike remains a mystery. For that
matter, what has happened to the second mate? In the past three days
we have by our eyes taken the census of the mutineers. Every man has
been seen by us with the sole exception of Mr. Mellaire, or Sidney
Waltham, as I assume I must correctly name him. He has not appeared-
-does not appear; and we can only speculate and conjecture.

In the past three days various interesting things have taken place.
Margaret stands watch and watch with me, day and night, the clock
around; for there is no one of our retainers to whom we can entrust
the responsibility of a watch. Though mutiny obtains and we are
besieged in the high place, the weather is so mild and there is so
little call on our men that they have grown careless and sleep aft of
the chart-house when it is their watch on deck. Nothing ever
happens, and, like true sailors, they wax fat and lazy. Even have I
found Louis, the steward, and Wada guilty of cat-napping. In fact,
the training-ship boy, Henry, is the only one who has never lapsed.

Oh, yes, and I gave Tom Spink a thrashing yesterday. Since the
disappearance of the mate he had had little faith in me, and had been
showing vague signs of insolence and insubordination. Both Margaret
and I had noted it independently. Day before yesterday we talked it
over.

"He is a good sailor, but weak," she said. "If we let him go on, he
will infect the rest."

"Very well, I'll take him in hand," I announced valorously.

"You will have to," she encouraged. "Be hard. Be hard. You must be
hard."

Those who sit in the high places must be hard, yet have I discovered
that it is hard to be hard. For instance, easy enough was it to drop
Steve Roberts as he was in the act of shooting at me. Yet it is most
difficult to be hard with a chuckle-headed retainer like Tom Spink--
especially when he continually fails by a shade to give sufficient
provocation. For twenty-four hours after my talk with Margaret I was
on pins and needles to have it out with him, yet rather than have had
it out with him I should have preferred to see the poop rushed by the
gang from the other side.

Not in a day can the tyro learn to employ the snarling immediacy of
mastery of Mr. Pike, nor the reposeful, voiceless mastery of a
Captain West. Truly, the situation was embarrassing. I was not
trained in the handling of men, and Tom Spink knew it in his chuckle-
headed way. Also, in his chuckle-headed way, he was dispirited by
the loss of the mate. Fearing the mate, nevertheless he had depended
on the mate to fetch him through with a whole skin, or at least
alive. On me he has no dependence. What chance had the gentleman
passenger and the captain's daughter against the gang for'ard? So he
must have reasoned, and, so reasoning, become despairing and
desperate.

After Margaret had told me to be hard I watched Tom Spink with an
eagle eye, and he must have sensed my attitude, for he carefully
forebore from overstepping, while all the time he palpitated just on
the edge of overstepping. Yes, and it was clear that Buckwheat was
watching to learn the outcome of this veiled refractoriness. For
that matter, the situation was not being missed by our keen-eyed
Asiatics, and I know that I caught Louis several times verging on the
offence of offering me advice. But he knew his place and managed to
keep his tongue between his teeth.

At last, yesterday, while I held the watch, Tom Spink was guilty of
spitting tobacco juice on the deck.

Now it must be understood that such an act is as grave an offence of
the sea as blasphemy is of the Church.

It was Margaret who came to where I was stationed by the jiggermast
and told me what had occurred; and it was she who took my rifle and
relieved me so that I could go aft.

There was the offensive spot, and there was Tom Spink, his cheek
bulging with a quid.

"Here, you, get a swab and mop that up," I commanded in my harshest
manner.

Tom Spink merely rolled his quid with his tongue and regarded me with
sneering thoughtfulness. I am sure he was no more surprised than was
I by the immediateness of what followed. My fist went out like an
arrow from a released bow, and Tom Spink staggered back, tripped
against the corner of the tarpaulin-covered sounding-machine, and
sprawled on the deck. He tried to make a fight of it, but I followed
him up, giving him no chance to set himself or recover from the
surprise of my first onslaught.

Now it so happens that not since I was a boy have I struck a person
with my naked fist, and I candidly admit that I enjoyed the trouncing
I administered to poor Tom Spink. Yes, and in the rapid play about
the deck I caught a glimpse of Margaret. She had stepped out of the
shelter of the mast and was looking on from the corner of the chart-
house. Yes, and more; she was looking on with a cool, measuring eye.

Oh, it was all very grotesque, to be sure. But then, mutiny on the
high seas in the year nineteen-thirteen is also grotesque. No lists
here between mailed knights for a lady's favour, but merely the
trouncing of a chuckle-head for spitting on the deck of a coal-
carrier. Nevertheless, the fact that my lady looked on added zest to
my enterprise, and, doubtlessly, speed and weight to my blows, and at
least half a dozen additional clouts to the unlucky sailor.

Yes, man is strangely and wonderfully made. Now that I coolly
consider the matter, I realize that it was essentially the same
spirit with which I enjoyed beating up Tom Spink, that I have in the
past enjoyed contests of the mind in which I have out-epigrammed
clever opponents. In the one case, one proves himself top-dog of the
mind; in the other, top-dog of the muscle. Whistler and Wilde were
just as much intellectual bullies as I was a physical bully yesterday
morning when I punched Tom Spink into lying down and staying down.

And my knuckles are sore and swollen. I cease writing for a moment
to look at them and to hope that they will not stay permanently
enlarged.

At any rate, Tom Spink took his disciplining and promised to come in
and be good.

"Sir!" I thundered at him, quite in Mr. Pike's most bloodthirsty
manner.

"Sir," he mumbled with bleeding lips. "Yes, sir, I'll mop it up,
sir. Yes, sir."

I could scarcely keep from laughing in his face, the whole thing was
so ludicrous; but I managed to look my haughtiest, and sternest, and
fiercest, while I superintended the deck-cleansing. The funniest
thing about the affair was that I must have knocked Tom Spink's quid
down his throat, for he was gagging and hiccoughing all the time he
mopped and scrubbed.

The atmosphere aft has been wonderfully clear ever since. Tom Spink
obeys all orders on the jump, and Buckwheat jumps with equal
celerity. As for the five Asiatics, I feel that they are stouter
behind me now that I have shown masterfulness. By punching a man's
face I verily believe I have doubled our united strength. And there
is no need to punch any of the rest. The Asiatics are keen and
willing. Henry is a true cadet of the breed, Buckwheat will follow
Tom Spink's lead, and Tom Spink, a proper Anglo-Saxon peasant, will
lead Buckwheat all the better by virtue of the punching.

Two days have passed, and two noteworthy things have happened. The
men seem to be nearing the end of their mysterious food supply, and
we have had our first truce.

I have noted, through the glasses, that no more carcasses of the
mollyhawks they are now catching are thrown overboard. This means
that they have begun to eat the tough and unsavoury creatures,
although it does not mean, of course, that they have entirely
exhausted their other stores.

It was Margaret, her sailor's eye on the falling barometer and on the
"making" stuff adrift in the sky, who called my attention to a coming
blow.

"As soon as the sea rises," she said, "we'll have that loose main-
yard and all the rest of the top-hamper tumbling down on deck."

So it was that I raised the white flag for a parley. Bert Rhine and
Charles Davis came abaft the 'midship-house, and, while we talked,
many faces peered over the for'ard edge of the house and many forms
slouched into view on the deck on each side of the house.

"Well, getting tired?" was Bert Rhine's insolent greeting. "Anything
we can do for you?"

"Yes, there is," I answered sharply. "You can save your heads so
that when you return to work there will be enough of you left to do
the work."

"If you are making threats--" Charles Davis began, but was silenced
by a glare from the gangster.

"Well, what is it?" Bert Rhine demanded. "Cough it off your chest."

"It's for your own good," was my reply. "It is coming on to blow,
and all that unfurled canvas aloft will bring the yards down on your
heads. We're safe here, aft. You are the ones who will run risks,
and it is up to you to hustle your crowd aloft and make things fast
and ship-shape."

"And if we don't?" the gangster sneered.

"Why, you'll take your chances, that is all," I answered carelessly.
"I just want to call your attention to the fact that one of those
steel yards, end-on, will go through the roof of your forecastle as
if it were so much eggshell."

Bert Rhine looked to Charles Davis for verification, and the latter
nodded.

"We'll talk it over first," the gangster announced.

"And I'll give you ten minutes," I returned. "If at the end of ten
minutes you've not started taking in, it will be too late. I shall
put a bullet into any man who shows himself."

"All right, we'll talk it over."

As they started to go back, I called:

"One moment."

They stopped and turned about.

"What have you done to Mr. Pike?" I asked.

Even the impassive Bert Rhine could not quite conceal his surprise.

"An' what have you done with Mr. Mellaire!" he retorted. "You tell
us, an' we'll tell you."

I am confident of the genuineness of his surprise. Evidently the
mutineers have been believing us guilty of the disappearance of the
second mate, just as we have been believing them guilty of the
disappearance of the first mate. The more I dwell upon it the more
it seems the proposition of the Kilkenny cats, a case of mutual
destruction on the part of the two mates.

"Another thing," I said quickly. "Where do you get your food?"

Bert Rhine laughed one of his silent laughs; Charles Davis assumed an
expression of mysteriousness and superiority; and Shorty, leaping
into view from the corner of the house, danced a jig of triumph.

I drew out my watch.

"Remember," I said, "you've ten minutes in which to make a start."

They turned and went for'ard, and, before the ten minutes were up,
all hands were aloft and stowing canvas. All this time the wind, out
of the north-west, was breezing up. The old familiar harp-chords of
a rising gale were strumming along the rigging, and the men, I verily
believe from lack of practice, were particularly slow at their work.

"It would be better if the upper-and-lower top-sails are set so that
we can heave to," Margaret suggested. "They will steady her and make
it more comfortable for us."

I seized the idea and improved upon it.

"Better set the upper and lower topsails so that we can handle the
ship," I called to the gangster, who was ordering the men about,
quite like a mate, from the top of the 'midship-house.

He considered the idea, and then gave the proper orders, although it
was the Maltese Cockney, with Nancy and Sundry Buyers under him, who
carried the orders out.

I ordered Tom Spink to the long-idle wheel, and gave him the course,
which was due east by the steering compass. This put the wind on our
port quarter, so that the Elsinore began to move through the water
before a fair breeze. And due east, less than a thousand miles away,
lay the coast of South America and the port of Valparaiso.

Strange to say, none of our mutineers objected to this, and after
dark, as we tore along before a full-sized gale, I sent my own men up
on top the chart-house to take the gaskets off the spanker. This was
the only sail we could set and trim and in every way control. It is
true the mizzen-braces were still rigged aft to the poop, according
to Horn practice. But, while we could thus trim the mizzen-yards,
the sails themselves, in setting or furling, were in the hands of the
for'ard crowd.

Margaret, beside me in the darkness at the break of the poop, put her
hand in mine with a warm pressure, as both our tiny watches swayed up
the spanker and as both of us held our breaths in an effort to feel
the added draw in the Elsinore's speed.

"I never wanted to marry a sailor," she said. "And I thought I was
safe in the hands of a landsman like you. And yet here you are, with
all the stuff of the sea in you, running down your easting for port.
Next thing, I suppose, I'll see you out with a sextant, shooting the
sun or making star-observations."

CHAPTER XLVI

Four more days have passed; the gale has blown itself out; we are not
more than three hundred and fifty miles off Valparaiso; and the
Elsinore, this time due to me and my own stubbornness, is rolling in
the wind and heading nowhere in a light breeze at the rate of nothing
but driftage per hour.

In the height of the gusts, in the three days and nights of the gale,
we logged as much as eight, and even nine, knots. What bothered me
was the acquiescence of the mutineers in my programme. They were
sensible enough in the simple matter of geography to know what I was
doing. They had control of the sails, and yet they permitted me to
run for the South American coast.

More than that, as the gale eased on the morning of the third day,
they actually went aloft, set top-gallant-sails, royals, and
skysails, and trimmed the yards to the quartering breeze. This was
too much for the Saxon streak in me, whereupon I wore the Elsinore
about before the wind, fetched her up upon it, and lashed the wheel.
Margaret and I are agreed in the hypothesis that their plan is to get
inshore until land is sighted, at which time they will desert in the
boats.

"But we don't want them to desert," she proclaims with flashing eyes.
"We are bound for Seattle. They must return to duty. They've got
to, soon, for they are beginning to starve."

"There isn't a navigator aft," I oppose.

Promptly she withers me with her scorn.

"You, a master of books, by all the sea-blood in your body should be
able to pick up the theoretics of navigation while I snap my fingers.
Furthermore, remember that I can supply the seamanship. Why, any
squarehead peasant, in a six months' cramming course at any seaport
navigation school, can pass the examiners for his navigator's papers.
That means six hours for you. And less. If you can't, after an
hour's reading and an hour's practice with the sextant, take a
latitude observation and work it out, I'll do it for you."

"You mean you know?"

She shook her head.

"I mean, from the little I know, that I know I can learn to know a
meridian sight and the working out of it. I mean that I can learn to
know inside of two hours."

Strange to say, the gale, after easing to a mild breeze, recrudesced
in a sort of after-clap. With sails untrimmed and flapping, the
consequent smashing, crashing, and rending of our gear can be
imagined. It brought out in alarm every man for'ard.

"Trim the yards!" I yelled at Bert Rhine, who, backed for counsel by
Charles Davis and the Maltese Cockney, actually came directly beneath
me on the main deck in order to hear above the commotion aloft.

"Keep a-runnin, an' you won't have to trim," the gangster shouted up
to me.

"Want to make land, eh?" I girded down at him. "Getting hungry, eh?
Well, you won't make land or anything else in a thousand years once
you get all your top-hamper piled down on deck."

I have forgotten to state that this occurred at midday yesterday.

"What are you goin' to do if we trim?" Charles Davis broke in.

"Run off shore," I replied, "and get your gang out in deep sea where
it will be starved back to duty."

"We'll furl, an' let you heave to," the gangster proposed.

I shook my head and held up my rifle. "You'll have to go aloft to do
it, and the first man that gets into the shrouds will get this."

"Then she can go to hell for all we care," he said, with emphatic
conclusiveness.

And just then the fore-topgallant-yard carried away--luckily as the
bow was down-pitched into a trough of sea-and when the slow,
confused, and tangled descent was accomplished the big stick lay
across the wreck of both bulwarks and of that portion of the bridge
between the foremast and the forecastle head.

Bert Rhine heard, but could not see, the damage wrought. He looked
up at me challengingly, and sneered:

"Want some more to come down?"

It could not have happened more apropos. The port-brace, and
immediately afterwards the starboard-brace, of the crojack-yard-
carried away. This was the big, lowest spar on the mizzen, and as
the huge thing of steel swung wildly back and forth the gangster and
his followers turned and crouched as they looked up to see. Next,
the gooseneck of the truss, on which it pivoted, smashed away.
Immediately the lifts and lower-topsail sheets parted, and with a
fore-and-aft pitch of the ship the spar up-ended and crashed to the
deck upon Number Three hatch, destroying that section of the bridge
in its fall.

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