Part 53 (1/2)

Dirrik ran her up into the wind as well as he could, but was afraid of going about. Then: Crack! from aloft, and crack! went the jibboom, and the flying jib was off and away to leeward like a bat. The skipper thrust up his head to take in the situation.

”Got her clear?” he asked. ”Ay,” says Dirrik calmly, ”clear enough, and all we've got to do now is pull in the rags that's left, and paddle home as best we can.”

We were not a pretty sight when we made Drobak, but the guns were landed safely, and that was the main thing.

After that, I saw no more of Dirrik till I met him at the Seaman's School in Piperviken in 1872.

There were three of us chums there: Rudolf, a great big giant of eighteen, with fair curly hair and smiling blue eyes. A good fellow was Rudolf, but uncommonly powerful and always ready to get to hand grips with anyone if they contradicted him.

Dirrik was fifteen years our senior at least. He had been twenty years at sea already, and reckoned the pair of us as ”boys.”

Dirrik had never got beyond the rank of ”first-hand” on board; it was always this miserable exam that stood in his way. It was his highest ambition to pa.s.s for mate, and then perhaps some day, with luck, get a skipper's berth on some antiquated hulk along the coast. But Dirrik was unfortunate. It counted for nothing here that he had been several times round the Horn, and received a silver knife from the Dutch Government for going overboard in a gale, with a line round his waist, to rescue three Dutchmen whose boat was capsizing on the Dogger.

It was as much as he could do to write. I can still see his rugged fingers, misshapen after years of rough work at sea, gripping the penholder convulsively, as if it had been a marlin-spike, and s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g his mouth up, now to one side, now to the other, as he painfully scrawled some entry in the ”log.”

”No need to look as if you were going to have a tooth out,” said Rudolf.

”I'd rather be lying out on Jan Mayen, shooting seal in forty degrees of frost,” said Dirrik, wiping his brow.

”Devil take me, but I've half a mind to s.h.i.+p for the Arctic myself next spring,” said Rudolf.

”Got to get through with this first,” I said.

”Ay, that's true,” said Dirrik. ”I've been up four times now, and if I don't pa.s.s this time, my girl won't wait any longer.”

”Girl?” said Rudolf, with sudden interest.

”Margine Iversen's her name. We've been promised now eleven years, and we _must_ get married this spring.”

”Must, eh?” said I.

”He's been drawing in advance, what!” said Rudolf, nudging me in the ribs.

”No more of that, lads,” said Dirrik. ”Womenfolk, they've their own art of navigation, and I know more about it than you've any call to do at your age.”

Just then Captain Wille, the princ.i.p.al of the school, came up.

”Well, boys, how goes it?”

”Nicely, thank ye, Captain,” answered Dirrik. ”But this 'ere blamed azimuth's a hard nut to crack.” Dirrik wiped the sweat from his brow with a blue-checked handkerchief, and blew his nose with startling violence. ”You won't need a foghorn next time you get on board,” said Wille slyly.

”I say, though, Captain,” said Rudolf, ”we must get old Dirrik through somehow. If he doesn't pa.s.s this time, he'll be all adrift.”

”Oho!” said the Captain, smiling all over his kindly face. ”And how's that?”

”Why, he's got to get married this spring, whether he wants to or no.”

”But he doesn't need that certificate to get married.”

”Ay, but I do, though, Captain,” said Dirrik earnestly. ”For look you, navigation's badly needed in these waters, and I'll sure come to grief without.”