The Sandman: His Sea Stories Part 11

THE TRAFALGAR STORY

Once upon a time there was a wide river that ran into the ocean, and beside it was a little city. And in that city was a wharf where great s.h.i.+ps came from far countries. And a narrow road led down a very steep hill to that wharf and anybody that wanted to go to the wharf had to go down the steep hill on the narrow road, for there wasn't any other way.

And because s.h.i.+ps had come there for a great many years and all the sailors and all the captains and all the men who had business with the s.h.i.+ps had to go on that narrow road, the flagstones that made the sidewalk were much worn. That was a great many years ago.

The brig _Industry_ was one of the s.h.i.+ps that used to sail from that wharf and, afterwards, she sailed from a wharf in Boston. And Captain Solomon had been the captain of her for many years; but he had got tired of going to sea and had bought a farm that was not near the ocean. And Sol, Captain Solomon's son, had got tired of staying on the farm and had gone off to sea, and he had risen to be the captain of the brig _Industry_.

Once, in the long ago, the brig _Industry_ sailed from a wharf in Boston for Manila and Singapore and other far countries; but, first, she was going to Leghorn. She carried flour, apples, salt fish, tobacco, lumber, and some other things that Captain Jonathan and Captain Jacob thought that the people in Leghorn would buy. It was Captain Sol's first voyage as captain and he had been a sailor about four years.

The _Industry_ sailed along over the great ocean for many days, and she had good weather and nothing happened that was worth mentioning. Captain Sol had his eyes open, because there was a war between England and France and sometimes an English wars.h.i.+p would meet an American s.h.i.+p and stop her and do things that neither the captain nor the crew of the American s.h.i.+p liked to have done. But there didn't seem to be anything that the American s.h.i.+p could do except run away; and sometimes they could get away and sometimes it wouldn't do any good to try.

And the _Industry_ kept getting nearer to the coast of Spain and to the Straits of Gibraltar. It was the twenty-second of October, 1805, and Captain Sol thought that he should sight Cape Trafalgar the next day.

So, the next morning, he began to look out for Cape Trafalgar before it was light. And, when it was light enough to see anything, he saw that they were very near to a lot of great s.h.i.+ps. They were wars.h.i.+ps and they were battered and there were great shot holes in their sides and some of the yards and topmasts had been shot away and there were great rents in their sails and, altogether, they looked like a lot of wrecks. It didn't take a man as smart as Captain Sol very long to guess that there had been a great battle a few days before. And he was right. The battle of Trafalgar was fought between the English fleet of s.h.i.+ps and the fleets of France and Spain; and the s.h.i.+ps that Captain Sol saw were English s.h.i.+ps. The sailors were mending the s.h.i.+ps, as well as they could, so that they would be fit to sail.

And Captain Sol wanted to know what was going on, so he sailed nearer; and, when he was as near as he dared to go, he had the sailors fix the sails so that the s.h.i.+p wouldn't go ahead, and he waited there.

Pretty soon some sailors got into a boat from one of the English s.h.i.+ps, and then an officer got in, and they rowed the boat over to the _Industry_, and the English officer came on board of the _Industry_.

Captain Sol met him and he had some of the sailors stand in line on each side of the gangway. And Captain Sol and the English officer talked together, very politely, although the officer was plainly very much surprised to see so young a man as captain. Captain Sol was only twenty-one.

And the officer told Captain Sol about the battle, and he told him that Lord Nelson had been shot in that battle, and he had died on board the _Victory_ a few hours after the battle was over. And the officer saw the lumber that the _Industry_ had on her deck, and he asked Captain Sol what other cargo he carried. And Captain Sol told him about the flour and the apples and the salt fish and the tobacco, and the officer got into his boat again and was rowed back to the _Victory_.

Captain Sol stayed there, waiting to see what would happen; for he thought that, perhaps, he might sell some of his cargo to the English s.h.i.+ps and not have to carry it to Leghorn. And, sure enough, the officer got into the boat again and came back. And he told Captain Sol that the commander of the fleet would be much obliged to him if he would sell some of his lumber and some flour and some apples; but he didn't ask for any of the salt fish nor for any of the tobacco. And Captain Sol agreed and the officer rowed away.

Then the _Victory_ made signals to the other s.h.i.+ps, telling them to send boats for the lumber and the flour and the apples that they needed. And a boat came to the _Industry_ for each s.h.i.+p, until they were cl.u.s.tered about her as thick as bees about a hive. And the sailors were very busy, putting into the boats the lumber and the flour and the barrels of apples. Captain Sol had to have a tackle rigged over the hatchway of the _Industry_ to hoist out the barrels. And when each boat had got its load, it was rowed back to its s.h.i.+p.

It took them a long time to get all those things out of the _Industry_, but at last it was all done and the last boat had rowed away; and Captain Sol found that he had sold all of his lumber and about half of his flour and about half of his apples. The English sailors needed all that lumber to mend the s.h.i.+ps. Then another boat came from the _Victory_, and it was rowed to the _Industry_, and the paymaster of the English fleet came aboard and two men came after him carrying bags of gold money.

Captain Sol and the paymaster and the men with the bags of money went down into the cabin; and the paymaster counted out the gold money for the lumber and the flour and the apples, and left it on the cabin table.

And, besides, he thanked Captain Sol for selling them the things. Then he went away.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Then Captain Sol had the sailors fix the sails so that the s.h.i.+p would go ahead, and he had a sailor stand at the flag halliards and dip the flag for a salute to the English s.h.i.+ps. And the _Industry_ sailed away from those English s.h.i.+ps towards Gibraltar, and pretty soon the s.h.i.+ps were out of sight.

And that's all.

THE CARGO STORY

Once upon a time there was a wide river that ran into the ocean, and beside it was a little city. And in that city was a wharf where great s.h.i.+ps came from far countries. And a narrow road led down a very steep hill to that wharf, and anybody that wanted to go to the wharf had to go down the steep hill on the narrow road, for there wasn't any other way.

And because s.h.i.+ps had come there for a great many years and all the sailors and all the captains and all the men who had business with the s.h.i.+ps had to go on that narrow road, the flagstones that made the sidewalk were much worn. That was a great many years ago.

That wharf was Captain Jonathan's and Captain Jacob's and they owned the s.h.i.+ps that sailed from it; and, after their s.h.i.+ps had been sailing from that wharf in the little city for a good many years, they changed their office to Boston. After that their s.h.i.+ps sailed from a wharf in Boston.

Once the brig _Industry_ was all ready to sail from Boston for far countries. She had her cargo all stowed, but Captain Sol hadn't seen it stowed, for he had had to be away from Boston while it was being put aboard. So a lumper, or 'longsh.o.r.eman, had told the men where to put things. A lumper was a man who did the work of carrying things into a s.h.i.+p, or out of it. This man was a pretty good 'longsh.o.r.eman, but a lumper wasn't a sailor and couldn't be expected to get the things stowed quite so well as a captain or a mate. The captain or the mate would be more interested in having the things stowed well, for it makes a great difference, in the sailing of a s.h.i.+p and in her behavior, how the cargo is stowed. Captain Sol generally liked to attend to those things himself.

They had put on board all the things that they would eat and the water that they would drink; and Captain Sol came back and the _Industry_ sailed away from that wharf out upon the great ocean. And she sailed the length of the Atlantic, but she met a good deal of rough weather and she ran into three or four storms.

Captain Sol soon found that the cargo hadn't been well stowed and it bothered him a good deal. For, in his log-book, he wrote things like these:

Aug. 27, Heavy sea from the eastward. s.h.i.+p labors very badly.

Sept. 1, Squally with rough, heavy sea. s.h.i.+p labors very much.

Sept. 10, s.h.i.+p rolls and labors hard through the night.

Sept. 22, Heavy gales & Squally with tremendous sea. s.h.i.+p'd much water.

Sept. 25, Strong gales and rough sea. s.h.i.+p rolls heavy.

Sept. 30, Hard squalls and tremendous sea from N. & E. s.h.i.+p labors very hard.

Oct. 3, A very heavy sea running during the 24 hours. s.h.i.+p labors too much, owing to bad stowage of cargo. It must be corrected.

So, before the _Industry_ had got around the Cape of Good Hope, Captain Sol had made up his mind that he would have that cargo overhauled and stowed the way it ought to be. For he thought that the s.h.i.+p would sail enough faster to make up for the time it would take, and all hands would be more comfortable. And he had the sailors steer her to a little island that he knew about, where there was a good harbor and where he wouldn't be bothered. And she got to that island and the sailors let her anchor down to the bottom of the harbor, and they began to take out her cargo.

First they rigged tackles to the yards high up on the masts, and they swung the yards so that the tackles would be just above the hatchways; and one was over the forward hatchway and one was over the after hatchway. Then Captain Sol sent one gang of men down into the hold of the _Industry_ by the after hatch, with the mate to tell them what to do; and he sent another gang of men into the hold by the fore hatch, with the second mate to tell them what to do. And he divided the sailors that were left into two parts, six men for the fore hatch and six men for the after hatch. The sailors were all stripped to the waist and barefooted, for they knew, from the way the crew was divided up, that they would have to work hard and as quickly as they could. Captain Sol was a driver for work, but his crew didn't think any the less of him for that.

And Captain Sol called to the mates. "Are you all ready?" he said.

And the mates answered that they were all ready when he was.

"Well, rout it out, then, as fast as you're able," said Captain Sol; "I'll see that we keep up with you."

And he ordered four men to tail on to each rope. He meant for four men to take hold of the free end of the rope that ran through the blocks of the tackle.

"And run away with it," he said. "And when I say run I don't mean walk, either."

The sailors already had hold of the ropes, and they grinned when Captain Sol said that.

"Aye, aye, sir," they shouted.

And he ordered the other two men at the fore hatch and the other two men at the after hatch to be ready to handle and loose the bales and to be lively about it.

"All ready!" he called to the mates.

Then the fun began. The bales and the barrels and the boxes seemed to fly out of the hatchways and to alight on the deck like a flock of great birds. And the men who had to handle them and to cast off the hooks did it in the liveliest way that can be imagined, and they hustled the boxes and the barrels and the bales to one side so that there should be room for the next thing that came up. And there was a great noise of a lively chanty, that the sailors sang all the time, without stopping. It wasn't worth while to stop; for then, as soon as they had stopped singing, they would have to begin again, so they kept on all the time. And there was the soft noise of their bare feet stamping on the deck but they didn't stamp very hard because that would hurt their feet.

Pretty soon the bodies and the faces of the sailors began to glisten; and, before long, the sweat was running down in streams. For, working there, at that island, was just about the same as it would have been if they had been working at Charleston or Savannah in May. It was pretty hot for such hard work. But the sailors were merry at it, and grinned and shouted their chanty, and they kept at it until all the things were out on the deck of the _Industry_ that had to be taken out. The things that were the heaviest they didn't take out, but just moved them to one side and left them in the hold.

By dinner time, they had all the cargo taken out that had to be taken out, and the heaviest freshly stowed in the middle of the s.h.i.+p at the very bottom. Then Captain Sol told the mates and the sailors to come up.