it was the heart of the arctic summer and the high hills that rose all about the town were green with deep grass—it looked as if it would reach a man's waist—and ablaze with wild flowers. i was surprised to see such a riot of blooms in this far northern latitude, but there they were, and every off-shore breeze was sweet with their fragrance. the village was dingy enough, but the country looked alluring and, as the day after we dropped anchor was sunday and nothing to do aboard, the crew decided to ask for a day's liberty ashore. bill white, the englishman, and slim, our royal life guardsman, agreed to act as the forecastle's ambassadors to the cabin. they dressed up in their smartest clothes and went aft to interview captain shorey on the quarter-deck. white made the speech of the occasion and proffered the forecastle's request in his best rhetoric. captain shorey puffed silently at his cigar. "i'll see about it," he said. that closed the incident as far as the captain was concerned. we got no shore leave.
as the day wore away and the desired permission failed to materialize, the forecastle became piqued at what it considered the skipper's gratuitous ungraciousness. slim waxed particularly indignant.
"he'll 'see about it,'" slim sneered. "he never had no idea of letting us go in the first place. he's a cold-blooded son of a sea cook—that's what he is—and as for me, i'll never do another tap of work aboard the bloody hooker."
this was strong language. of course, none of us took it seriously, feeling sure slim would reconsider by the next morning and turn to for work with the rest of us. but we did not know slim. bright and early monday morning, the men mustered on deck and went to work, but slim remained in his bunk.
having rowed our whale bone to the dock and stored it in a warehouse to await the first steamer for san francisco, a boat's crew towed three or four hogsheads roped together ashore for water. another boat went ashore for coal. those left aboard the brig were put to work in the hold near the main hatch under the supervision of mr. winchester. the mate suddenly noted slim's absence.
"where's slim?" he asked.
nobody answered.
"he didn't go ashore in the boats," said the mate. "where is he?"
someone volunteered that slim was sick.
"sick, eh?" said the mate.
he hustled off to the forecastle scuttle.
"slim," he sang out, "what's the matter with you?"
"i'm sick," responded slim from his bunk.
"if you're sick," said the mate, "come aft and report yourself sick to the captain."
in a little while, slim shuffled back to the cabin. a few minutes later wild yells came from the cabin. we stopped work. the mate seemed to think we might rush to the rescue.
"get busy there," he roared. "slew that cask around."
the yells broke off. we went to work again. for a half hour, there was silence in the cabin. we wondered what had happened. slim might have been murdered for all we knew. finally slim emerged and went silently forward. we noticed a large shaved spot on the top of his head where two long strips of court-plaster formed a black cross.
the first thing slim did after getting back to the forecastle was to take one of his blue flannel shirts and, while none of the officers was looking, shin up the ratlines and hang it on the fore-lift. this is an old-time sailor sign of distress and means trouble aboard. the mate soon spied the shirt swinging in the breeze.
"well, i'll be darned," he said. "jump up there one of you and take that shirt down."
no one stirred. the mate called the cabin boy and the young kanaka brought down the shirt. slim told us at dinner time all about his adventure in the cabin.
"i goes down in the cabin," said slim, "and the captain is standing with his hands in his pants pockets, smiling friendly-like. 'hello, slim,' he says. 'sit down in this chair.' i sits down and the captain says, 'well, my boy, what's the matter with you?' 'i'm sick,' says i. 'where do you feel bad?' he says. 'i ache all over,' says i. he steps over in front of me, still with that little smile on his face. 'i've got good medicine aboard this ship,' he says, 'and i'll fix you up in a jiffy, my boy,' says he. with that he jerks one of his hands out of his pocket and he has a revolver clutched in it. 'here's the medicine you need,' he says and he bats me over the cocoanut with the gun.
"the blood spurts all over me and i jumps up and yells, but the captain points his pistol at me and orders me to sit down again. he storms up and down the cabin floor. 'i'll teach you who's master aboard this ship,' he shouts and for a minute he was so purple in the face with rage, i thought he was going to murder me for sure. by and by he cools down. 'well, slim,' he says, 'i guess i hit you a little harder than i meant to, but i'm a bad man when i get started. you need tending to now, sure enough.'
"so he has the cabin boy fetch a pan of warm water and he washes the blood out of my hair with his own hands and then shaves around the cut and pastes sticking plaster on. that's all. but say, will i have the law on him when we get back to frisco? will i?"
it was a long way back to frisco. in the meantime we wondered what was in store for the luckless irish grenadier.
that afternoon, the revenue cutter corwin came steaming into port towing a poaching sealer as a prize. it was the same schooner, we learned, we had seen the corwin chasing a few days before. as the cutter passed us, slim sprang on the forecastle head while captain shorey and everybody aboard the brig looked at him and, waving a blue flannel shirt frantically, shouted: "please come aboard. i've had trouble aboard." "aye, aye," came back across the water from the government patrol vessel. waving a shirt has no significance in sea tradition, but slim was not enough of a sailor to know that, and besides, he wanted to leave nothing undone to impress the revenue cutter officers with the urgency of his case.
no sooner had the corwin settled to her berth at the pier than a small boat with bluejackets at the oars, two officers in gold braid and epaulettes in the stern, and with the stars and stripes flying, shot out from under her quarter and headed for the brig.
"aha," we chuckled. "captain shorey has got his foot in it. he has uncle sam to deal with now. he won't hit him over the head with a revolver."
the boat came alongside and the officers climbed over the rail. captain shorey welcomed them with a smile and elaborate courtesy and ushered them into the cabin. slim was sent for.
"tell 'em everything, slim," we urged. "give it to the captain hot and heavy. he's a brute and the revenue cutter men will take you off the brig as sure as shooting. they won't dare leave you aboard to lead a dog's life for the rest of the voyage."
"i'll show him up, all right," was slim's parting shot.
slim came back from the cabin a little later.
"i told 'em everything," he said. "they listened to everything i had to say and took down a lot of notes in a book. i asked 'em to take me off the brig right away, for, says i, captain shorey will kill me if they leave me aboard. i guess they'll take me off."
an hour later, the two officers of the corwin emerged from the cabin, accompanied by captain shorey. they were puffing complacently at a couple of the captain's cigars. they seemed in high good humor. after shaking hands with captain shorey, they climbed down into their boat and were rowed back to their vessel. that was the last we ever saw of them. poor slim was left to his fate.
and his fate was a rough one. there was no outward change in the attitude of the captain or the officers of the brig toward him. whenever they spoke to him, they did it with as much civility as they showed the rest of us. but slim was compelled to work on deck all day and stand his regular night watches into the bargain. that meant he got eight hours sleep during twenty-four hours one day and four hours sleep during the next. as the ship was in whaling waters from now on, the crew had little to do except man the boats. but slim always had plenty to do. while we smoked our pipes and lounged about, he was kept washing paint work, slushing down masts, scraping deck and knocking the rust off the anchors. any one of a hundred and one little jobs that didn't need doing, slim did. this continued until the brig squared her yards for the homeward voyage. slim had more than three months of it. the lord knows it was enough. when his nagging finally ended, he was a pale, haggard shadow of his former self. it almost killed him.
