THE NOVELIST.

Otago Witness, Issue 3429, 2 December 1919, Page 54

THE NOVELIST.

[Published dt Special Abban-zemsmt.] TEACH.

By C. J. Cutclifke Hyne

(Copyright, 1919, in the United States, by C. J. Cutcliffe llyne.)

L—KING ENEiSTINO'S SPOONS.

Even in these so-called democratic days the affairs of King Etnestino are a ticklish subject to' write about. His Majesty is, I suppose, openly related to every current or late reigning family in Europe, and, according to scandal, connected with many tribal headmen from Asia, who can and do pull strings. So, not being anxious for a clout on tne head from that Hidden Hand, which all over the globe protects Hun interests, I am going to "go canny," andf like the collier, pull about one-half of my available weight. That is one reason why I call the potentate '' Ernestino " —since it is not his name,—and describe as "spoons" articles of considerable higher value. But there is no camouflage about Teach. Teach is Captain Edward Teach all the time. No others are genuine. When the censor first let his name be published, the papers, in view of the always-dreaded libel action, spoke of him for exactly one week as the " alleged pirate." After that they dropped their nervousness, and labelled him PIRATE, pure and simple, with all the gusto of heavily leaded' block type. Teach biographies abounded. They traced the descent of Captain Teach back tp his greatagreat-grandfather, also an Edward Teach, who, under the nom de guerre of Blackboard, had a nourishing practice in the earlv seventeen-hundreds amongst the West Indies and off the coasts of the Curolinas, and who came to a premature end in the year eighteen of that century. They gritted' the teeth of the members of Brown's Club in St. James's street, S.W., and the Porterhouse Club of. New York by putting on record the fact that Captain Teach was a member of bath those exclusive institutions. their inaccuracies about the connection of Captain Teach with the Dale Steamship Line irritated Sir Joseph Dale, K.8.E., the managing owner of that-com-pany, into print. As his letter does not appear to have got beyond the Liverpool paper in which it was originally published, it seems good to repeat it (by permission) in this record.

"Sir," began the knight, and one could almost feel the stenographer's pencil tremble at his dictation. " Sir! In view of the scurrilous libels poured forth from practically every section of the press except your own, anent the connection between the man Teach and my firm, I deem it well to give you the true facts. "The fellow came into our service exactly eight months ago, being engaged at Bahia by cable as Master of our s.s. Littondale, 1700 tons, vice late master died of fever, we having np other officer unfortunately out there \vith full ticket. He did voyage home to Liverpool under schedule time on satisfactory coal consumption. We had no complaints against him. He earned bonus. Personally I did not like him, but could find no possible grounds for firing, and so let him sign on for next voyage. He did well for mv firm up to the jbime of the trouble; I will say that. But it appears he Avas in the hands of a Jew money-lender in Jermyn street, a thing we always warn our officers against (see confidential circular enclosed). It was that which brought about his deplorable downfall, not drink, the curse of so many. " His embezzlement of moneys by which my firm suffered so heavily (but has not prosecuted), was entirely due to the fact that, owing to the war, we are staffed now with fools of girls, who spend their time manicuring instead of attending to masters' accounts. With my old office staff he would not have got awav * with one-tenth as much. With regard "to the impudent forgeries bv which he extracted the four much-talked-ahout 6in guns and ammunition from the naval stores, that is the Navy's lookout. A child wouldn't have been taken in by those forgeries. The Navy was. I say no more. " I can only deplore the manner in which he carried off Miss Marv Arncliffe, a lady for whom I have the highest regard, as her father, Mr William Arncliffe, of Arncliffe's Bentwood Works, "a well known to me. This lady, it appears, is the promised wife of oiir Mr James Buckdcn, chief officer of our s.s. Litton dale, and was on board seeing him off. The man Teach sent our Mr Buckden ashore with a bogus errand, and put to sea with Miss Arncliffe still on board.

"As to our ' connivance." so-called, In the whole outrage, I should like to point out it looks like our having a total loss over, our s.s. Littondale and claims on cargo, as underwriters so far have refused to pay. But as legal proceedings are pending I had bettor say no more, and so remain, Yours, etc.'. "Joseph Dale, K.8.E., "Mng. Owner Dale S.S. Co., Ltd."

Sir Joseph's literary style may oe doubtful in its grammar, but it can be commended at least for its vigour. He did not like Captain Edward Teach; in fact, he never liked him; there are no bones about that. And bv a singular coincidence no ship-owners do seem to have been fond of Captain Teach. They had no fault to find with his professional attainments; they all admit he was a brilliant seaman, and, up to the time of the debacle, exactly honest •. but they were always relieved when there was a chance of moving him out of their ships and sending him along with flaming testi-

monials to the opposition line. It was a parallel case, one supposes, to that of the late Dr Fell. The Royal Naval Reserve seems to have had identical qualms. Like all smart young mercantile marine officers, Teach wished to write R.X.R. after his name. But somehow the scheme failed. He was dismissed for no fault. Merely the Naval Reserve got too hot to hold him, and—let me see—l think he " resigned." But in Brown's Club in London and the Beefsteak in New York any member, if you ask him quietly, will tell you the man was extremely popular. He was generous, but never lavish; he was undeniably clubbable ; he was travelled, a good talker, modest, could choose a good dinner, and could carry his liquor like a gentleman—which he undoubtedlv was. In fact that much abused word "gentleman" always seemed to be used in conjunction with his name. "Teach k an infernal pirate," one old member of his St. James's street club admitted to me, "and I hope to hear he's hanged. But he was a gentleman all the time he was inside these doors. I wish Brown's had more of 'em. We've too many of the other sort."

Women, too, liked him—probably because of his looks. He was a big, upstanding 6ft _ man of 30, always in the pink of condition, and immensely powerful. -He weighed just upon 13 stone," and had not an ounce of fat on him anywhere. He had blue-black hair and a very dark olive complexion, and personally I think he made a mistake in being clean shaved, as his chin and jowl were always distinctly dusky. .But, as I say, women liked him. He, however, had very little truck with them. He was distinctly a man's man. That is, until he met Mary Arncliffe. And even as regards her . However, that will wait. One further letter to the newspapers from the acid pen of Sir Joseph Dale should be read here.

"Sir," wrote that sore knight} "we have traced certain of the sums of money embezzled by the man Teach from this office. He handed them across to' a certain 'Guild of Sailors' Mothers,' in which he is interested, and which it appears he founded. We are pleased to record that some of the monev has been recovered by us, but not all, some having -been spent by mothers who have no assets. We understand that a larger part of the sum extracted from the Jermyn street Jew went to the same source. We need hardly point out that even philan-thropy—so-called—is not the least" excuse for dishonesty in a ship master's accounts."

Rightly or wrongly, the press declined to publish this effusion, and how a copy came into my hand I decline to state. But as all sides of Teach's twisted character ought to be balanced up before one can get a clear conception of the man, this small fact cannot be omitted. So I ask you to look at him now on the bridge of his steamer Littondale dodging his way down Liverpool River during the last davs of the war. His cargo was coal from South Wales.

Now Liverpool ships most things, but it is not a coal port. South Welsh .coal for export to Central America would have been put aboard in the ordinary way, under the shoots at Newport or Cardiff. But the ways of the War Lords were inscrutable. They seemed to possess a vast and comprehensive ignorance on all known subjects. And so, in view of the shortage of railway waggons, they decreed that the Littondale's load should be hauled from the Rhondda Valley and shipped at Liverpool. Quod erat faciendum. But it was the fly in Captain •Edward Teach's otherwise perfect ointment of content from the very start. It looked so infernally improbable. Trouble first arrived out of a patch of grey mist off Holyhead in the shan e of a converted tug, which called herself an "Examination ship." She, armed to the teeth with one maxim, which was trained doggedly on the Littondale's bridge, bustled up and made the usual curt inquiries. v

"Littondale, Teach, master, out of Liverpool for Coatzacoalcos," came the brisk answer.

" What's your cargo?" "Coal." "What sort?" " Welsh steam." '' What, South Wales coal out of Liverpool? The devil! Here, you, bring up. I'm coming aboard. And don't forget my guns will clean your decks in two ticks if you show awkward." The examining officer came and went, impressed, but not satisfied. All papers were in exact order. The guns on poop and forecastle were 6in instead of the usual 4in, but Teach with a wink explained that his office had a pull. The other four guns that he had wangled out of the naval authorities were carefully out 01 sight under a layer of innocent looking coal. (The examination officer had hatches removed, and saw the coal himself.) There was nothing more to be said. So the officer went back to his boat, curtly refusing the drink which his throat hankered for. This tug presumably wirelessed her tidings over the Irish Sea, as the Littondale was, for reasons best known to Che authorities, proceeding without convoy as far as Queenstown. M.L.'s, a*convertcd yacht, a couple of smoky destroyers, and yet more M.L.'s, narrowly inspected her through binoculars during the passage across, but none of them spoke to- her, and, what was more to the point, none of them ordered her to stop. But the four extra guns stayed hid under their shroud of coal, and Miss Mary Arncliffe still remained in extreme discomfort in a damp and grimy compartment of th'2 double bottom. Also the plump William Pickles, late Petty Officer, R.N., and one-time orize gun layer of the Mediteranean fleet, wore a face disguised with black dust and trimmed coal in a bunker. William was singularly anxious to* avoid meeting old naval comrades. He had fulfilled with much completeness the old

nautical rule which ordains that a sailor should have a wife in every port that the clay the Littoujdale sailed Civil Law had stretched out unpleasant lingers in his direction. It seemed that tnree of the wives had foregathered and compared notes —the nasty cats. So he had unostentatiously exchanged his Majesty's service for that of 'Captain Teach, but wa,3 bashful about advertising the fact. Distinguished men often have their shynesses. The convoy, painted in freakish camouflage, formed up in the sheltered waters of Queenstown Harbour, and ship masters were given sheaves of instructions. The name of King Ernestine • was being bandied about, though there was nothing in the official orders about him. Captain Teach wanted to know more on the matter, but had a delicacy about putting direct inquiries, because oil account of that wretched coal he felt that naval eye 3 were boring through him from waistcoat buttons to backbone. The eyes of these officers fairly snapped with suspicion. But Captain Teach never lost countenance. He remained the cheerful, competent ship master through it all, in spite of those extra guns and shells under the coal, and the girl behind the manhole door, and the bigamous deserter in his bunker. Only this big blaekbrowed man was beginning to chafe badly at the irritating delay. He had an appointment off one of the Canary Islands, -which would not keep. One weakness did he permit himself. He tossed a halfpenny with himself—heads he would go and look at Miss Arncliffe, tails he would let her stay on where she was. The coin fell heads.

To the officer on watch "in the engine room he gave a curt " Clear out of here, ' and the pirate engineer, a dull-eyed man of sixty, climbed up the steel ladders and disappeared. Then Teach unnutted bolts and swung away a manhole door. "Phui!" said a girl's voice from the dark interior. "That fresh air tastes good. It's horribly stuffy in here; you should see to it. And knobby. I've finished both siphons of lemonade, but one of the tins of sardines you left was bad. You' ought to complain to your grocer." " I'll see to that," said Teach. ".Would you like to have further supplies inside that cubby hole, or would you prefer to come out?"

"I suppose there are conditions attached to coming out." "There are. I want your parole that you will do exactly as you are told, and not interfere with what is going on *n any way whatever." "And what guarantee have I that you will treat me properlv if I do promise?" " None," said Teach, drily. " That's a delicate thing to admit in Queenstown Harbour, with about a quarter of the British fleet buzzing" round and asking impertinent questions, but I suppose "the word ' pirate ' does define my present branch of the profession. So you will clearly understand that if you do not behave yourself most exactly you will be knocked on the head at once or sooner."

" That is quite clear, thank you, Captain Teach, and as I have no possible other choice, I give you the parole you ask for —during one week. By the end of that I hope you will set me ashore. This place is horribly cramping and smelly. And I think there are rats. Quick!" Teach lent a hand, and the girl squeezed out through the narrow manhole door. Her W.A.A.C. uniform was streaked with gamboge irtm rust, and oo was her face. Her bobbed hair was clotted with it. Her trim shoes and shapely ankles were rust-smeared as far as one could see. She swayed when Teach had plucked her to her feet.

An hour later he came to see her in a dark cubby hole of a storeroom, which had been fitted with a bunk, a wash basin, and a hairbrush. He carried a tray of food "and a teapot. "It beats conjuring,' he said, " the way you women.can prink yourselves up out of nothing. Here's some grub. I can't stay. Those fussy blighters on the escort may want me on deck any moment." " You might bring me a novel or something to read." He looked at her admiringly. " You're a cool one. But I'm afrnid there's not such a human thing on board. D'ye care for plays, by any chance?" " Bather Keen on them."

" Good." He pulled a typed manuscript from his pocket. " Here is a thing I came across the other day. You might tell 'me what you think of it." The convoy was a mixed one, of ships making for many ports, and the Littondale's orders were to keen with ud to a point in the middle of the Bay of Biscay. From there she was to strike west to her South Mexican port.

She- carried out this programme with exactness, received her signal to part, shifted helm, and steered west to the best of her 13 knots. For a dav she held that course, and. Teach wa& just on the ■point of altering it for one more conformable with his immediate needs when smoke blotted the horizon dead astern. Captain Teach bib back his orders, and » watched ah oil-fired destroyer slice up from the direction of Europe at 30 knots. "And now what do you want?" ne mused. " Still got that Liverpool-South Welsh coal for Coatzacoalcos on your chest, or has some new bug bit you?" But the destroyer did not open any conversation. She merely circled round the little tramp at outrageous- speed, glared at her through prismatic binoculars, and returned whence she had come. " So that's that," said Captain Teach, and proceeded to make his southing. Now sometime previous fo all these happenings H. M. Kinsc Ernestino had received "a very unmistakable notice to quit his throne,' not only from the Allied

Powers, but also from a tidy majority of his own faithful subjects. He sailed from his country's shores in a good deal of a hurry, and told Swiss newspapers that he had left his heart behind there. That may possibly be so., But what gave him considerably more mental worry was the plain fact that he had left also a very warm sum in bullion and American bearer bonds, lacking which he saw prospects of spending a very hard-up old age. The mere index of King Ernes'tino's faults would fill several pages: but some of his talents shone, and conspicuous amongst these stood out his knack" for •subterranean diplomacy. Men who know will tell you that there is not a crookeder eld rogue in Europe, or one more competent in covering his shifty tracks. So he summoned physicians, who assured the S'wiss press that their Royal guest was moribund, retired to a dying bed, and got very busy! The generous details of who was bought and who sold are beyond the scope of this memoir; but'the main fact juts out that the goods were ferried in smelling fishing boats under the noses of a very incfuisitive British patrol, and transferred (at sea under cover of night) to a ramshackle old steamboat which the patrol aforesaid had satisfied itself very completely carried no other cargo beyond currants .and lead ore. " They were carried down the Meditei'ranean in this venerable craft at a steady six knots, when engines were in order, and the Navy, which discovered too late what had slipped through, made sure that their destination was Spain. (To be Continued.}