Part 14 (1/2)
”Merryweather, how are you, my friend?” he cried, coming up and shaking the captain warmly by the hand.
”Ah, Thomson, is that you?” said the other, returning the grasp. ”I was very sorry indeed to hear of your misfortune.”
”A bad business--a shocking business,” said his friend, shaking his head despondingly. ”Not a spar saved. Three poor fellows drowned. And all my papers and goods gone to the bottom.”
”Yes, I heard something of it, and I was truly grieved. How did it happen?”
”Why, I'll tell you how it was. I don't know what it is, Merryweather, but you're a very lucky fellow. Some men seem born to luck: it hasn't been so with me. It's all gone wrong ever since I left Australia. We'd fair weather and a good run till we were fairly round the Horn; but one forenoon the gla.s.s began to fall, and I saw there was heavy weather coming. After a bit it came on to blow a regular gale. The sea got up in no time, and I had to order all hands up to reef topsails. We were rather short-handed, for I could hardly get men when I started, for love or money. Well, would you believe it?--half a dozen of the fellows were below so drunk that they couldn't stand.”
”Ah, I feared,” said Captain Merryweather, ”that the drink had something to do with your troubles. But how did they manage to get so tipsy?”
”Oh, they contrived to get at one of the spirit-casks. They bored a hole in it with a gimlet, and sucked the rum out through a straw. There was nothing for it but to send up the steward, and Jim, my cabin-boy, along with the others who were on deck. But poor Jim was but a clumsy hand at it; and as they were lying out on the yard, the poor fellow lost his hold, and was gone in a moment. I never caught one look at him after he fell. Ay, but that wasn't all. About a week after, I was wanting the steward one morning to fetch me something out of the lazarette; so I called him over and over again. He came at last, but so tipsy that I could make nothing of him; and I had to start him off to the steerage, and take on another man in his place. He'd been helping himself to the spirits. It was very vexing, you'll allow; for he was quite a handy chap, and I got on very poorly afterwards without him. I don't know how you manage, but you seem always to get steady men.”
”Yes,” said Captain Merryweather; ”because I neither take the drink myself nor have it on board.”
”Ay, but I can never get on without my gla.s.s of grog,” said the other.
”Then I'm afraid you'll never get your men to do without it. There's nothing like example--'example's better than precept.'”
”I believe you're right. But you haven't heard the end of my misfortunes, nor the worst either. It was a little foggy as we were getting into the Channel, and I'd given, of course, strict orders to keep a good look-out; so two of our sharpest fellows went forward when it began to get dark, and I had a steady man at the wheel. I'd been on deck myself a good many hours; so I just turned in to get a wink of sleep, leaving the first mate in charge. I don't know how long I'd slept, for I was very weary, when all in a moment there came a dreadful crash, and I knew we were run into. I was out and on deck like a shot; but the sea was pouring in like a mill-stream, and I'd only just time to see the men all safe in the _Condor_--the s.h.i.+p that ran into us--and get on board myself, before the poor _Elizabeth_ went down head foremost.
It's very strange. I hadn't been off the deck ten minutes, and that was the first time I'd gone below for the last sixteen hours. It's just like my luck. The captain of the _Condor_ says we were to blame; and our first mate says their men were to blame. I can't tell how it was.
It was rather thick at the time; but we ought to have seen one another's lights. Some one sung out on the other s.h.i.+p; but it was too late then, and our two poor fellows who were forward looking out were both lost.
It's very strange; don't you think so?”
”It's very sad,” replied the other; ”and I'm heartily sorry for it.
It's a bad job anyhow; and yet, to tell you the honest truth, I'm not so very much surprised, for I suspect that the drink was at the bottom of it.”
”No, no; you're quite mistaken there. I never saw either the mate or the man at the wheel, or any of the men who were then on deck, drunk, or anything like it, during the whole voyage.”
”That may be,” said the other; ”but I did not say it was drunkenness, but the drink, that I thought was at the bottom of it. The men may have been the worse for drink without being drunk.”
”I don't understand you.”
”No, I see you don't; that's the worst of it. Very few people do see it, or understand it; but it's true. A man's the worse for drink when he's taken so much as makes him less fit to do his work, whatever it may be. You'll think it rather strange, perhaps, in me to say so; but I _do_ say it, because I believe it, that more accidents arise from the drink than from drunkenness, or from moderate drinking, as it is called, than from drunkenness.”
”How so?”
”Why, thus. A man may take just enough to confuse him, or to make him careless, or to destroy his coolness and self-possession, without being in the least drunk; or he may have taken enough to make him drowsy, and so unfit to do work that wants special attention and watchfulness.”
”I see what you mean,” said the other.
”Perhaps you'd all been drinking an extra gla.s.s when you found yourselves so near home.”
”Why, yes. To tell you the truth, we had all of us a little more than usual that night; and yet I'll defy any man to say that we were not all perfectly sober.”
”But yet, in my way of looking at it,” said Captain Merryweather, ”you were the worse for liquor, because less able to have your wits about you. And that's surely a very serious thing to look at for ourselves, and our employers too; for if we've taken just enough to make us less up to our work, we're the worse for drink, though no man can say we're drunk. Take my advice, Thomson, and keep clear of the grog altogether, and then you'll find your luck come back again. You'll find it better for head, heart, and pocket, take my word for it.”
”I believe you're right. I'll think of what you've said,” was the reply; and they parted.
”Jacob, my lad,” said Captain Merryweather, as they walked along, ”did you hear what Captain Thomson said?”