The Foreigner

I

I’M a ‘Limey.’ I served my four-year apprenticeship in a lime-juice ship. That’s another way of saying a British ship, sir. Under the law every man in a British ship had to be served a half gill of lime juice a day as a preventive of scurvy. I’m talking of sailing ships, of course. That’s why I say ‘had.’ There are no sailing ships left now.

Thanks for the drink, sir. . . . Oh, very well. I’ll spin you a yarn if you say so, sir. I’ll tell you about the bloody foreigner.

Steam was fast crowding sail from the oceans when I went to sea, and sailing-ship owners were being forced to economize in every possible way. A sailor’s work was very hard, because, from economy, ships invariably went to sea with barely men enough to handle them. That would n’t have mattered so much if the food had been good, but the food was never enough and what there was was vile. Most white men would n’t go to sea under such conditions; we Limeys called none but British and Americans ‘white men.’

With the exception of Frenchmen, our crews were made up of men from every seagoing nation. You seldom saw a Frog in any but a Frog ship. Men from the Northern nations were most numerous, though there were plenty of others. More than once in my apprentice days I went to sea with no two men of the same nationality in the forecastle. Jabber, jabber, jabber, in all manner of languages. It made a fellow savage to hear it in a ship that flew the old Red Duster at her peak. You ’d see some young apprentice walk up behind a foreigner and kick him. ‘ English aboard of an English ship!’ he’d say. If the jabberer was a big six-foot Scandinavian, or one of those chunky, broad-chested Russian Finns, the young lad would maybe just shake a fist in the fellow’s face and say, ‘That talk does n’t go in this packet! Cut it out!’

And one needed to be a bit careful with the Dagos, too. The South Europeans and South Americans were apt to be handy with a knife. But the foreign sailors were commonly a very peaceful lot — stolid, or cowed. If they were not being kicked and cursed by hardcase mates at sea, they were being preyed upon by the crimps and the sailors’ boarding-house masters ashore. Enough to break any man’s spirit, such a life was. A patient lot of poor sea slaves they were.

We young apprentices were a proud lot. ‘One Froggy Frenchman, a Dane, a Portugee — one jolly Britisher can lick ’em all three.’ That was our credo. Our history books had omitted to mention that even Lord Nelson’s ships were manned largely by foreigners. Well, I’m older now, and I learned something from the bloody foreigner.

II

I was just turned twenty-two when, having finished my apprenticeship, I took the exam and passed for my second mate’s ticket. The luck was with me, for on the very next day I chanced on a ship that wanted a second mate and on a skipper who had no objection to a young chap just out of his time.

The mate was on the quarter-deck when I came from interviewing the skipper in his cabin. He was pacing to and fro, his pipe in his lips and his hands in his pockets, and he looked as though he owned the earth. A man of around thirty-five or so, he stood better than six feet and was broad in proportion. ‘Who in hell are you?’ he asked when he saw me.

‘I’m the second mate, sir,’ said I, and his scowl changed to a comradely grin.

‘You’ve struck a good ship and a damned fine skipper,’ said the mate.

I was relieved to hear that, for I’d thought the skipper rather stony and had been half afraid that I’d shipped with a hard man to get along with.

The mate told me all about it while we sat on the hatch together, and the more he told me the better I liked it. The skipper’s name was Mostyn. His father had commanded one of the grand tea clippers in the days before steam came to spoil the sea for sailors — days when our ships were manned by crews in which a foreigner was very rarely seen.

‘ Mostyn’s chock-full of the good old tradition. He hates bloody foreigners like the Devil himself,’ said the mate.

‘ He don’t hate ’em any more than I do, sir,’ said I.

‘You and me both,’ he replied. ‘And that’s what I meant when I told you he was a damned fine skipper. There’ll be no foreigners in this packet. He’s signed an all-white crew.’

‘Glory be! ’ said I, and added, ‘Who’s the kid?’ A little slip of a lad had just come from the deck house amidships.

The skipper’s fifteen-year-old son was coming in the ship as an apprentice — her only apprentice. ‘He’s been a bit delicate,’ the mate told me. ‘The skipper’s been pretty much worried about him, but now the doctors have told him that the sea’ll probably be the making of the boy.’

‘Fresh from home and mother, and delicate at that!’ said I. ‘I suppose we’ll have to favor the little lubber, sir, eh?’

‘His mother’s been dead quite a while,’ replied the mate. ‘The skipper’s had some old woman taking care of him. And as for favoring him — not on your life! The skipper wants us to treat him just as we ’d treat any apprentice. He’ll sweep decks, chip rust, scrape cable, and start at the bottom same as you and I had to.’

The ship was going to sea next morning, and the crew came aboard soon after dark. They’d all been drinking a bit, of course. When we went to the forecastle to look them over we found that there was one man short. ‘He’s probably drunk, sir,’ said the mate, reporting to the skipper. ‘He’ll show up before very long.’

But when the tug came to take us out next morning the missing man had not joined. ‘We’ll have to take a pierhead jump, eh, sir ? ’ asked the mate.

‘See that you get a white man,’ tersely ordered the skipper.

When the ship came to the last lock, just before entering the river, there was the usual crowd of idlers on the pierhead. ‘Now then,’ called the mate, ‘ who wants to make a voyage in a good ship?’

None of the idlers made any answer, but in a minute we saw a lean, shabby little fellow pushing his way toward the ship.

‘ Where the devil do you come from?' asked the mate when the little fellow jumped from the pierhead to the deck. ‘You look like a bloody foreigner to me.’

Making no answer, the little fellow grinned placatingly up at the mate.

The skipper was furious, for, with the tide at the flood and the wind fair, he could n’t lose time hanging round to wait for a white man. ‘Very well, mister,’ said he, ‘put him to all the common deck work. I’ll have no foreigner doing any sailor work in my ship.’ So while the rest of the hands went about setting sail the foreigner was put to sweeping the decks down.

Pretty soon the skipper looked down from the poop and saw his kid and the foreigner sweeping the decks side by side. He immediately called the mate. ‘I’ll not have that boy working with a foreigner, mister. Find him something else to do,’ said he. So the mate told the kid to lend a hand setting sail, and the foreigner was left to sweep by himself.

It was n’t long before the hands were growling because they had to do the foreigner’s share of the work as well as their own. He caught on at once, laid down his broom, and started forward to help them. ‘You, damn you! Get hold of that broom! ’ bellowed the mate.

You can know how popular the foreigner was by the way he was treated when the hands went below for breakfast. It was mighty little breakfast for him! Just the few scraps of fat and gristle that they left him. When the meal was done they ordered him to take the empty mess kid back to the cook, and by way of putting him in his place one of them booted him. He took it all without a murmur of remonstrance — meek as he was shabby.

A dog’s life the little foreigner led from the first. When he was n’t sweeping the decks he was chipping rust from the bulwarks, or wiping off the paint work, or polishing the brass, or down on his knees scouring the planks with a holystone. As for sailor work, he was n’t allowed so much as to coil up a rope. When he was off duty the hands made him wait on them. Instead of the forecastle’s being scrubbed out on Saturday morning, as was customary, they made him scrub it every day. They made him wash their clothes when Sunday came round. They made him dubbin their sea boots and oil their oilskins. Nothing more than a poor common servant he was; and in the minds of everyone, from skipper to skipper’s son, being just a poor common servant was all that he was fit for. ‘The meek shall inherit the earth,’ grinned the mate. ‘I’ll be damned if they’ll inherit the sea!’

III

Thanks to the foreigner’s presence in the ship, young Mostyn had a good time from the first. There was no sweeping, no chipping rust, no polishing or scouring for him. Instead of having to wait a year before being allowed to do any sailor work, he was set to helping the hands right away. For all that he looked a bit sickly, he was full of devilment, and the hands very naturally made a pet of him and went out of their way to teach him to splice, knot, hand canvas, and so forth. It was easy to see how pleased the skipper was. While he had n’t intended to have the lad shown any favors, circumstances had played into his hands. You’d hardly blame a parent, I suppose.

You can’t blame the kid for taking his cue from the mates and the men, either. And of course he knew how his old man felt about it. He was forever ragging the foreigner. He’d grimace at him. He’d mock his broken English. If the fellow had a shirt hung out to dry, he’d tie it into knots and break the buttons. If he was at work a little way up the rigging and the foreigner happened to be at work right below, he’d manage to spill tar down the foreigner’s neck.

Maybe the fact of his being a bit sickly made the boy more of a tease than he’d have been otherwise. He was a regular young devil at finding ways to torment the little foreigner, and of course no one interfered. It was a big joke with the hands. They were always watching to see what he’d think of next, and sometimes they’d make suggestions. They never had to suggest anything twice. And the queer thing was that the foreigner never became the least bit mad. He’d look at young Mostyn and he’d grin, and his eyes would shine as though he actually enjoyed it all. It was n’t long till the hands were setting him down as halfwitted even for a foreigner.

As was often the case, there was one man in the crew who stood out above his fellows. He was a first-rate sailor, and of magnificent physique. He could box, wrestle, run, and jump better than any man in the forecastle — agile as a monkey when he was in the rigging, light-footed as a cat when he was on deck. It was with him that the skipper’s son usually worked as helper. In the dogwatch, when the day’s work was done, the sailor would call the kid out to the deck and give him a boxing lesson, or, having set the boy to wrestle with some light member of the crew, would teach him the different holds.

One day a week or two after we sailed, the wind died and the sea fell flat. In the dogwatch that evening the big sailor climbed up to the topsail yard. He had stripped himself naked, and for a moment he stood on the slender yardarm sixty feet above the sea with the setting sun shining on his bare hide. All hands gathered at the rail to watch his dive. Down he went, and down, and out of sight in the sunset-shadowed water. The ripples died. The sea was still. Long seconds passed.

Craning their heads over the side, the hands peered down to the sea. Perhaps the dive had been too high. Perhaps, though we were too far north for many sharks to be about, a shark had got him.

‘By God,’ said the mate at my side, ‘that fellow’s gone!’ And then, when all hands were giving the big man up, there was a shout from the sea at the other side of the ship. He’d dived clear under her, and had come up on her opposite side.

‘I’ll teach ye to swim one o’ these days, sonny,’ called the big sailor to young Mostyn, who was looking down at him from the rail. And down he went again, out of sight, under her keel, and up at the opposite side. A whale of a man, he was; and it was always he who was hardest on the little foreigner. Over the rail he climbed now, and saw the foreigner staring at him. ‘Ye bloody furriner, go git me clothes!’ he ordered. And the foreigner fetched his clothes and held them while the big sailor took them one by one. ‘Now, damn ye, put on me boots! ’ he ordered. While he sat on the hatch the foreigner put on his bluchers, and laced them.

‘An’ now ye can go to the devil!’ said the big man, and pushed his foot against the little fellow’s chest and sent him sprawling. The deck rang with laughter.

What with shark, barracouta, squid, and so forth, it was against orders for men to go swimming from a ship at sea. When the hands gathered on the quarter-deck at eight bells the skipper looked down on them. ‘There’ll be no more going over the side. D’ ye hear me? No more swimming under any circumstances!’ said he.

‘Aye, aye, sir,’ responded the big man, and, as the hands turned to go forward, he grasped the little foreigner by the neck. ‘D’ye hear that, ye bloody furriner?’ he demanded. ‘Let me catch ye takin’ a swim, an’ just look out for yerself! ’ A big joke, the hands thought that. Even the skipper had to smile.

A few days later the ship was rambling along with the northeast trade in her canvas. Dusk fell, and, their forms dim in the starlight, the hands sat yarning on the hatch. Beside the rail, alone as always, stood the foreigner. All day he’d been down in the dark, smelly chain locker, chipping rust from the cables, while the others worked in the bright sun and balmy breeze. The mate and I had forgotten him, and he had n’t been called up till after supper was done. None of the hands had given him a thought. They’d eaten all the supper hash and had drunk all the skilly by the time he came to the forecastle, so that there was nothing for him but hard-tack and cold water. His hands and his face, his dungaree shirt and pants, were grimy with rust stain. If it had n’t been for young Mostyn he’d have had clean things to change into. Young Mostyn had taken his spare shirt and pants from the line where he had left them to dry and had daubed them with fresh tar. The kid was in the half deck now, in the snug little quarters that he had all to himself.

Suddenly there was a flapping on the deck halfway between the hatch and where the foreigner stood. A flying fish had come over the rail. The one to get it would have a fine breakfast next morning. All hands started up, but the big man was in the lead and the others sat down again.

‘Hand it over, damn ye!’ordered the big man, for the foreigner had come first to the fish.

Without a word, the foreigner turned away and stepped to the half-deck door, ‘Here ees nice feesh for leeder poy,’ said he, and handed the fish to young Mostyn, who took it without so much as a word of thanks.

‘Playin’ up to the kid, eh? A lot o’ good that’ll do ye!’ sneered the big sailor. And it did the foreigner no good, for thenceforth the big man was harder on him than before and young Mostyn ragged him no less. But there was never a murmur of complaint from him. Meek as a lamb among wolves he was.

IV

That was the way of things all the way down the Atlantic. Always dirty, always denied his full share of the grub, the little foreigner grew leaner and shabbier as the weeks passed.

We were a few hundred miles north of the corner when, going forward one evening, I heard a lot of laughter in the forecastle. The door was open. The big sailor was seated on his sea chest, pointing at the little foreigner, who stood before him. ‘Ye blitherin’ fool,’ said he, ‘ye can’t go round Stiff without oilskins and sea boots. Ye got to go aft an’ git ’em from th’ Old Man.’

All down the Atlantic we’d had no weather bad enough to necessitate the wearing of oilskins or sea boots. I’d never realized that the foreigner lacked them. Now I remembered that all he carried when he jumped from the pierhead had been a small canvas bundle.

The big man winked up at me. ‘ Take a squint at the bloody furriner’s dunnage, will ye, sir?’ said he.

They had fetched out the foreigner’s bundle. It lay open on the table, its contents in full view. An extra dungaree shirt, an extra pair of dungaree pants, both of them ragged and tarstained, a couple of pairs of old socks — and the picture of a kid of about the age of young Mostyn.

The foreigner picked up the picture and held it out to me. ‘Mine leeder poy, sir,’ said he, and you should have seen how his eyes shone! I felt sorry for the poor little swab, for I understood now why it was that he had always been so patient with young Mostyn. But I said, ‘You can’t go round the Horn without oilskins and sea boots. You’ll have to get some from the skipper.’

He shook his head. ‘I safes mine moneys for mine leeder poy, sir,’ he said.

I did n’t ask about it then, but later I found out that his wife was dead and his kid was being taken care of by some woman to whom he sent all his pay.

I’ve seen some hard cases among crews, but not till that voyage had I seen a man hard enough to face Cape Stiff without oilskins or sea boots. And it was June, the black heart of the Horn winter!

We were two weeks beating round the Horn, two weeks of screaming gale and mountain seas. Hail bouncing from mast and spar and deck house; snow flying; spray, bitter cold, slapping over the rails unceasingly; always the deck deep in wintry white water.

‘There’s no law to make a man buy oilskins and sea boots if he don’t want to,’ said the mate. As for the skipper, he never so much as saw the foreigner, I think. Certainly he took no notice at all of him.

Down there off Stiff the foreigner was allowed to go aloft, to take his share of the sailor work. There was not a better man aboard. He was often first man into the gale-battered rigging, often the last man down. Always he was wet to the bone. Salt-water boils came at his wrists, his knees, his ankles. Yet, while the white men damned old Stiff and cursed the raging seas, no murmur came from his blue lips.

After twenty-four hours off Stiff, young Mostyn began to look a bit white about the gills. Though the hands tried to keep an eye on him, he was knocked down and washed round the decks a time or two that first day. He started to cough. ‘Fetch him to the cabin, mister,’ ordered the skipper when the mate told him that. It was blowing like the devil just then, and all hands were on the way aloft to furl a topsail — all but the foreigner, that is. A ‘grayback’ came roaring aboard and bowled the foreigner over before he could get into the shrouds. He was washed across the deck and back before he could regain his feet.

At the moment that the mate came from the half deck with his hand on young Mostyn’s arm, one of the hands shouted something from aloft. The foreigner had found his feet and was close to the half deck. The mate ordered him to take the kid to the cabin, and hurried aloft to see what was wrong with the topsail.

You should have seen the skipper’s face when the little foreigner came to the cabin door! He was carrying the kid tucked under one arm, and hanging to the life line with his other hand. The kid was dry, but the foreigner was soaked, of course. The skipper looked at him as one might look at a leper. The thought that that skinny little ragged foreign chap could face the Horn without oilskins or sea boots while his own son could n’t face it with the very best possible outfit was too much for him. He shoved the lad through the door and banged it in the foreigner’s face. And d’ you suppose the little foreigner cared? Why, by the shine of his eyes you’d have supposed that the skipper had given him a hot shot of the best Jamaica!

V

At the end of two weeks we headed her nor’ard, and away she went with a souther in her canvas, everyone merry. The hands let up some on ragging the foreigner now. Even the big man quit badgering him quite so much. He’d earned his mite of respect. The mate and I would have set him to work with the others had we dared, but we knew that the skipper would not have allowed it.

When the souther died we picked up a fine westerly, and out of the cabin came young Mostyn. His cough was gone, and he was going back to the half deck. The hands gave a cheer when they saw him, and it was easy to see how pleased the skipper was at that.

If the hands quit ragging the foreigner, young Mostyn did n’t. Maybe it was the spleen that you’ll often find in those who are sickly. He tormented the little fellow even more than before.

On a Sunday when we were just at the edge of the tropics the westerly left us and we lay becalmed for a day. The mate and I were walking the quarter-deck together when the big sailor turned from looking over the flat sea and ran to the galley. ‘Shark-oh, doctor!’ said he to the cook. ‘Gimme a hunk o’ pork fat, will ye?’ From the galley he went to the carpenter’s shop for the shark hook.

It was a small shark, not over seven or eight feet long, but it took four men to haul it aboard.

‘Keep clear there, boy!’ called the skipper to his son, who was interestedly watching the hauling aboard of the first shark he’d seen.

‘Aye, get away! Stand back, lad! He’ll be takin’ a leg off ye! ’ said the big sailor.

When the shark lay flapping on the deck the big man fetched an eight-foot wooden capstan bar from the rack and rammed it down the brute’s throat. ‘Bite on that, ye devil!’said he. They drove sheath knives into its brain, cut off its tail and fins, and, last, severed its head.

‘Look at that, will ye, sonny?’ said the big man, as the jaws of the severed head still gnashed on the bar. ‘If ever ye fall over the side, look out as it ain’t in the tropics, for no one’s goin’ to go in after ye.’

Just as they were about to throw the shark back to the sea the little foreigner came up. ‘Vait,’ said he. ‘Vait yoost a leeder.’

‘What’s he doing that for?’ asked young Mostyn as the foreigner cut off a slice of the warm flesh.

‘Think o’ eatin’ shark, son! Them bloody furriners is no diff’rent from dogs,’ said the big man.

Young Mostyn looked disgustedly at the foreigner. ‘You dirty beast,’ said he.

That night we picked up the southeast trades and footed it nor’ard again. When we were a degree or so south of the line the wind left us and we lay becalmed once more, idle canvas hanging flat from idle spars. Blue cloudless sky above, unshadowed blue sea beneath and all about the ship. For a couple of days she lay so, and then the black doldrum squalls appeared. One after another, blowing up now from one quarter and now from another, they passed over us, each bringing its brief breeze and torrent of rain.

With the exception of the big man and the foreigner, the hands were down in the sail locker that morning. The foreigner was scouring rust spots from the bulwarks. In the rigging a little way above him the big sailor was at work, with young Mostyn to help him.

In mid-forenoon a squall heavier than any we’d had yet came over the water. I could see the whitecaps at its forefoot and the solid wall of the rain while it was still far off. It was almost on us when the big man glanced up. He dropped to the deck, and, looking back up at young Mostyn, called, ‘ Ye’d best be comin’ down, son, till yon squall’s blown over.’

Young Mostyn looked down. The foreigner looked up. Their glances met. ‘Why don’t you stay in your own ships?’ sneeringly asked young Mostyn. The big man laughed, and next instant the squall struck the ship and over she went till her lee rail lay level with the seething sea.

A scream rang high above the noise of wind and seething sea and hissing rain. A yell rose from the big sailor, and, hearing him, the hands came rushing from the sail locker. I flung a lifebuoy to the sea. The skipper sprang from the chart room to the poop deck.

‘Who is it overboard?’ the skipper asked me when in a few moments the boat was away.

‘Your son, sir,’ I replied.

Torrents of rain lashed down. Wind boomed. Searching for the hidden boat, Captain Mostyn from his poop gazed white-faced into the gloom.

The big sailor’s voice came from the quarter-deck. ‘Where’s yon bloody furriner? W’y wasn’t ’e ’elpin’ to get the boat away?’

In vain I looked up and down the deck for the foreigner. ‘He’s somewhere shuddering below,’ I thought.

The rain thinned. While Captain Mostyn stood too horrified to move, I strode to the chart room and fetched the telescope.

The squall passed on; the sun shone bright upon the stilled blue sea. Beyond the distant boat I saw young Mostyn clinging to the buoy. ‘What luck!’ I thought, supposing that, since he could not have swum to it, I must have thrown the buoy right to him. Next moment, close to the buoy, I saw a man swimming — and then, with the swimmer between it and the buoy, I saw a sharp triangular fin!

The fin vanished. The shark had dived! And instantly the swimmer vanished too. And then in another moment I saw him again, and between his lips was something that flashed in the sun. ‘By God, he knifed the shark!’ I cried.

And now, on the other side of the buoy, I saw another fin, and at once saw the swimmer making fast toward it. That fin dived too, and the swimmer also dived again.

The boat was nigh the buoy now. Faintly there came to me the distant uproar of the mate’s and rowers’ voices.

‘He got that shark too, sir,’ I said to Captain Mostyn, for now I saw them hauling both swimmer and skipper’s son into the boat. ‘Your son’s safe, sir,’ said I.

Captain Mostyn took the telescope from me, looked through it, and murmured, ‘Thank God!’

VI

They lifted the foreigner first from the boat, and very gently they passed him up over the ship’s high side. And I saw that the bottom of the boat was red.

The little foreigner’s face was deathly white, but his eyes were unafraid and shining. We bore him into the cabin and laid him there, on the deck; and, as the bottom of the boat had been, the deck grew red.

At sunset that evening we stopped the ship once more. The trade wind thrummed softly in the rigging and the sea was brightly blue when four sailors entered the cabin and came forth again bearing a stretcher.

Upon the silent quarter-deck young Mostyn stood beside his father.

‘We therefore commit this body to the deep,’ read Captain Mostyn, and there his voice faltered. All hands gazed at him, all save his son, who gazed at the old Red Duster covering the canvas-sewn form that lay so still upon the stretcher.

‘ We therefore commit — this body — to the deep,’ read Captain Mostyn again, and stopped for a space ere he went on with the words of the burial service for such as die at sea.

’According,’ continued Captain Mostyn, ‘according to the mighty working — whereby He — He is able — to subdue all things unto Himself.’

And then Captain Mostyn turned away and took his son’s arm, and without a gesture, without another word, went falteringly through the cabin door and shut it after him; so that it was the mate who must raise a hand, must make to the stretcher bearers that final gesture at which we of the sea commit to the sea our dead.