Part 1 (1/2)

The Bra.s.sbounder.

by David W. Bone.

I

THE 'BLUE PETER'

Ding ... dong.... Ding ... dong. The university bells toll out in strength of tone that tells of south-west winds and misty weather. On the street below my window familiar city noises, unheeded by day, strike tellingly on the ear--hoof-strokes and rattle of wheels, tramp of feet on the stone flags, a s.n.a.t.c.h of song from a late reveller, then silence, broken in a little by the deep mournful note of a steamer's siren, wind-borne through the Kelvin Valley, or the shrilling of an engine whistle that marks a driver impatient at the junction points.

Sleepless, I think of my coming voyage, of the long months--years, perhaps--that will come and go ere next I lie awake hearkening to the night voices of my native city. My days of holiday--an all too brief spell of comfort and sh.o.r.e living--are over; another peal or more of the familiar bells and my emissary of the fates--a Gorbals cabman, belike--will be at the door, ready to set me rattling over the granite setts on the direct road that leads by Bath Street, Finnieston, and Cape Horn--to San Francisco. A long voyage and a hard. And where next? No one seems to know! Anywhere where wind blows and square-sail can carry a freight. At the office on Sat.u.r.day, the s.h.i.+pping clerk turned his palms out at my questioning.

”Home again, perhaps. The colonies! Up the Sound or across to j.a.pan,”

he said, looking in his _Murray's Diary_ and then at the clock, to see if there was time for him to nip home for his clubs and catch the 1.15 for Kilmacolm.

Nearly seventeen months of my apprentices.h.i.+p remain to be served.

Seventeen months of a hard sea life, between the masts of a starvation Scotch barque, in the roughest of seafaring, on the long voyage, the stormy track leading westward round the Horn.

It will be February or March when we get down there. Not the worst months, thank Heaven! but bad enough at the best. And we'll be badly off this voyage, for the owners have taken two able seamen off our complement. ”Hard times!” they will be saying. Aye! hard times--for us, who will now have to share two men's weight in working our heavily sparred barque.

Two new apprentices have joined. Poor little devils! they don't know what it is. It seemed all very fine to that wee chap from Inverary who came with his father to see the s.h.i.+p before he joined. How the eyes of him glinted as he looked about, proud of his bra.s.s-bound clothes and badge cap. And the Mate, all smiles, showing them over the s.h.i.+p and telling the old Hielan' clergyman what a fine vessel she was, and what an interest he took in boys, and what fine times they had on board s.h.i.+p, and all that! Ah yes--fine times! It's as well the old chap doesn't know what he is sending his son to! How can he? We know--but we don't tell.... Pride! Rotten pride! We come home from our first voyage sick of it all.... Would give up but for pride.... Afraid to be called 'stuck sailors' ... of the sneers of our old schoolmates....

So we come home in a great show of bravery and swagger about in our bra.s.s-bound uniform and lie finely about the fine times we had ... out there! ... And then nothing will do but Jimmy, next door, must be off to the sea too--to come back and play the same game on young Alick!

That's the way of it! ...

Then when the Mate and them came to the half-deck, it was: ”Oh yes, Sir! This is the boys' quarters. Well! Not always like that, Sir--when we get away to sea, you know, and get things s.h.i.+pshape. Oh, well no! There's not much room aboard s.h.i.+p, you see. This is one of our boys--Mister Jones.” (Jones, looking like a miller's man--he had been stowing s.h.i.+p's biscuits in the tanks--grinned foolishly at the Mate's introduction: 'Mister!') ”We're very busy just now, getting ready for sea. Everything's in a mess, as you see, Sir. Only joined, myself, last week. But, oh yes! It will be all right when we get to sea--when we get things s.h.i.+pshape and settled down, Sir!”

Oh yes! Everything will be all right then, eh? Especially when we get down off the Horn, and the dingy half-deck will be awash most of the time with icy water. The owners would do nothing to it this trip, in spite of our complaints. They sent a young man down from the office last week who poked at the covering boards with his umbrella and wanted to know what we were growling at. Wish we had him out there--off Diego Ramirez. Give him something to growl at with the s.h.i.+p working, and green seas on deck, and the water las.h.i.+ng about the floor of the house, was.h.i.+ng out the lower bunks, bed and bedding, and soaking every st.i.tch of the clothing that we had fondly hoped would keep us moderately dry in the next bitter night watch. And when (as we try with trembling, benumbed fingers to buckle on the sodden clothes) the ill-hinged door swings to, and a rush of water and a blast of icy wind chills us to the marrow, it needs but a hoa.r.s.e, raucous shout from without to crown the summit of misery. ”Out there, the watch! Turn out!” in tone that admits of no protest. ”Turn out, d.a.m.n ye, an' stand-by t' wear s.h.i.+p!”

(A blast of wind and rain rattles on my window-pane. _Ugh_! I turn the more cosily amid my blankets.)

Oh yes! He would have something to growl at, that young man who asked if the 'Skipp-ah' was aboard, and said he ”was deshed if he could see what we hed to complain of.”

He would learn, painfully, that a s.h.i.+p, snugly moored in the south-east corner of the Queen's Dock (stern-on to a telephone call-box), and the same craft, labouring in the teeth of a Cape Horn gale, present some points of difference; that it is a far cry from 58 South to the Clyde Repair Works, and that the business of s.h.i.+pping is not entirely a matter of ledgers.

Oh well! Just have to stick it, though. After all, it won't always be hard times. Think of the long, sunny days drowsing along down the 'Trades,' of the fine times out there in 'Frisco, of joys of strenuous action greater than the s.h.i.+pping clerk will ever know, even if he should manage to hole out in three. Seventeen months! It will soon pa.s.s, and I'll be a free man when I get back to Glasgow again.

Seventeen months, and then--then----

Ding ... dong.... Ding ... dong.... Ding dong....

Quarter to! With a sigh for the comfort of a life ash.o.r.e, I rise and dress. Through the window I see the Square, shrouded in mist, the nearer leafless shrubs swaying in the chill wind, pavement glistening in the flickering light of street lamps. A dismal morning to be setting off to the sea! Portent of head winds and foul weather that we may meet in Channel before the last of Glasgow's grime and smoke-wrack is blown from the rigging.

A stir in the next room marks another rising. Kindly old '_Ding ...

dong_' has called a favourite brother from his rest to give me convoy to the harbour.

Ready for the road, he comes to my room. Sleepy-eyed, yawning. ”Four o'clock! _Ugh_! Who ever heard of a man going to sea at four in the morning! Ought to be a bright summer's day, and the sun s.h.i.+ning and flags flying an'----” A choked laugh.

”Glad I'm not a sailorman to be going out on a morning like this! Sure you've remembered everything? Your cab should be here now. Just gone four. Heard the bells as I was dressing----”

Rattle of wheels on the granite setts--sharp, metallic ring of shod heels--a moment of looking for a number--a ring of the door-bell.

”Perty that's tae gang doon tae th' Queen's Dock wi' luggage.... A'