The Mutiny of the Elsinore

on the starving mutineers.

* * * * *

The days pass, and nothing of moment happens.  We get nowhere.  The Elsinore , without the steadying of her canvas, rolls emptily and drifts a lunatic course.  Sometimes she is bow on to the wind, and at other times she is directly before it; but at all times she is circling vaguely and hesitantly to get somewhere else than where she is.  As an illustration, at daylight this morning she came up into the wind as if endeavouring to go about.  In the course of half an hour she worked off till the wind was directly abeam.  In another half hour she was back into the wind.  Not until evening did she manage to get the wind on her port bow; but when she did, she immediately paid off, accomplished the complete circle in an hour, and recommenced her morning tactics of trying to get into the wind.

And there is nothing for us to do save hold the poop against the attack that is never made.  Mr. Pike, more from force of habit than anything else, takes his regular observations and works up the Elsinore’s position.  This noon she was eight miles east of yesterday’s position, yet to- day’s position, in longitude, was within a mile of where she was four days ago.  On the other hand she invariably makes nothing at the rate of seven or eight miles a day.

Aloft, the Elsinore is a sad spectacle.  All is confusion and disorder.  The sails, unfurled, are a slovenly mess along the yards, and many loose ends sway dismally to every roll.  The only yard that is loose is the main-yard.  It is fortunate that wind and wave are mild, else would the iron-work carry away and the mutineers find the huge thing of steel about their ears.

There is one thing we cannot understand.  A week has passed, and the men show no signs of being starved into submission.  Repeatedly and in vain has Mr. Pike interrogated the hands aft with us.  One and all, from the cook to Buckwheat, they swear they have no knowledge of any food for’ard, save the small supply in the galley and the barrel of hardtack in the forecastle.  Yet it is very evident that those for’ard are not starving.  We see the smoke from the galley-stove and can only conclude that they have food to cook.

Twice has Bert Rhine attempted a truce, but both times his white flag, as soon as it showed above the edge of the ’midship-house, was fired upon by Mr. Pike.  The last occurrence was two days ago.  It is Mr. Pike’s intention thoroughly to starve them into submission, but now he is beginning to worry about their mysterious food supply.

Mr. Pike is not quite himself.  He is obsessed, I know beyond any doubt, with the idea of vengeance on the second mate.  On divers occasions, now, I have come unexpectedly upon him and found him muttering to himself with grim set face, or clenching and unclenching his big square fists and grinding his teeth.  His conversation continually runs upon the feasibility of our making a night attack for’ard, and he is perpetually questioning Tom Spink and Louis on their ideas of where the various men may be sleeping—the point of which always is: Where is the second mate likely to be sleeping ?

No later than yesterday afternoon did he give me most positive proof of his obsession.  It was four o’clock, the beginning of the first dog-watch, and he had just relieved me.  So careless have we grown, that we now stand in broad daylight at the exposed break of the poop.  Nobody shoots at us, and, occasionally, over the top of the for’ard-house, Shorty sticks up his head and grins or makes clownish faces at us.  At such times Mr. Pike studies Shorty’s features through the telescope in an effort to find signs of starvation.  Yet he admits dolefully that Shorty is looking fleshed-up.

But to return.  Mr. Pike had just relieved me yesterday afternoon, when the second mate climbed the forecastle-head and sauntered to the very eyes of the Elsinore , where he stood gazing overside.

“Take a crack at ’m,” Mr. Pike said.

It was a long shot, and I was taking slow and careful aim, when he touched my arm.

“No; don’t,” he said.

I lowered the little rifle and looked at him inquiringly.

“You might hit him,” he explained.  “And I want him for myself.”

* * * * *

Life is never what we expect it to be.  All our voyage from Baltimore south to the Horn and around the Horn has been marked by violence and death.  And now that it has culminated in open mutiny there is no more violence, much less death.  We keep to ourselves aft, and the mutineers keep to themselves for’ard.  There is no more harshness, no more snarling and bellowing of commands; and in this fine weather a general festival obtains.

Aft, Mr. Pike and Margaret alternate with phonograph and piano; and for’ard, although we cannot see them, a full-fledged “foo-foo” band makes most of the day and night hideous.  A squealing accordion that Tom Spink says was the property of Mike Cipriani is played by Guido Bombini, who sets the pace and seems the leader of the foo- foo.  There are two broken-reeded harmonicas.  Someone plays a jew’s-harp.  Then there are home-made fifes and whistles and drums, combs covered with paper, extemporized triangles, and bones made from ribs of salt horse such as negro minstrels use.

The whole crew seems to compose the band, and, like a lot of monkey-folk rejoicing in rude rhythm, emphasizes the beat by hammering kerosene cans, frying-pans, and all sorts of things metallic or reverberant.  Some genius has rigged a line to the clapper of the ship’s bell on the forecastle-head and clangs it horribly in the big foo-foo crises, though Bombini can be heard censuring him severely on occasion.  And to cap it all, the fog-horn machine pumps in at the oddest moments in imitation of a big bass viol.

And this is mutiny on the high seas!  Almost every hour of my deck-watches I listen to this infernal din, and am maddened into desire to join with Mr. Pike in a night attack and put these rebellious and inharmonious slaves to work.

Yet they are not entirely inharmonious.  Guido Bombini has a respectable though untrained tenor voice, and has surprised me by a variety of selections, not only from Verdi, but from Wagner and Massenet.  Bert Rhine and his crowd are full of rag-time junk, and one phrase that has caught the fancy of all hands, and which they roar out at all times, is: “It’s a bear !  It’s a bear !  It’s a bear !”  This morning Nancy , evidently very strongly urged, gave a doleful rendering of Flying Cloud .  Yes, and in the second dog-watch last evening our three topaz-eyed dreamers sang some folk-song strangely sweet and sad.

And this is mutiny!  As I write I can scarcely believe it.  Yet I know Mr. Pike keeps the watch over my head.  I hear the shrill laughter of the steward and Louis over some ancient Chinese joke.  Wada and the sail-makers, in the pantry, are, I know, talking Japanese politics.  And from across the cabin, along the narrow halls, I can hear Margaret softly humming as she goes to bed.

But all doubts vanish at the stroke of eight bells, when I go on deck to relieve Mr. Pike, who lingers a moment for a “gain,” as he calls it.

“Say,” he said confidentially, “you and I can clean out the whole gang.  All we got to do is sneak for’ard and turn loose.  As soon as we begin to shoot up, half of ’em’ll bolt aft—lobsters like Nancy, an’ Sundry Buyers, an’ Jacobsen, an’ Bob, an’ Shorty, an’ them three castaways, for instance.  An’ while they’re doin’ that, an’ our bunch on the poop is takin’ ’em in, you an’ me can make a pretty big hole in them that’s left.  What d’ye say?”

I hesitated, thinking of Margaret.

“Why, say,” he urged, “once I jumped into that fo’c’s’le, at close range, I’d start right in, blim-blam-blim, fast as you could wink, nailing them gangsters, an’ Bombini, an’ the Sheeny, an’ Deacon, an’ the Cockney, an’ Mulligan Jacobs, an’ . . . an’ . . . Waltham.”

“That would be mine,” I smiled.  “You’ve only eight shots in your Colt.”

Mr. Pike considered a moment, and revised his list.  “All right,” he agreed, “I guess I’ll have to let Jacobs go.  What d’ye say?  Are you game?”

Still I hesitated, but before I could speak he anticipated me and returned to his fidelity.

“No, you can’t do it, Mr. Pathurst.  If by any luck they got the both of us . . . No; we’ll just stay aft and sit tight until they’re starved to it . . . But where they get their tucker gets me.  For’ard she’s as bare as a bone, as any decent ship ought to be, and yet look at ’em, rolling hog fat.  And by rights they ought to a-quit eatin’ a week ago.”