A SHORT STORY.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LIV, Issue 13745, 7 September 1908, Page 8

A SHORT STORY.

A DAY OF SQUALLS.

(By Percival Gibbon, in St. James's Budgets

It was when the wheel was relieved for the forenoon watch that the word of warning went abroad. It was a fine, fresh day, with a good sound eightKnot wiud coming from the beam, and the sky a clear grey frqin the horizon to overhead. Yet when the hand took, over the wheel, and had repeated the course according to rule, the other bent aside towards the spit-kid and spoke guardedly. "Squalls to windward," he breathed', cautiously, and nodded meaningly to where the skipper, > just come on deck for a turn before breakfast* stood at the break of the poop and eyed the gear. He nooded to emphasise his warning, and slouched off for'ard, and the man at the wheel pulled over a apokd and steadied her dead on her course. He was not going to be the first to find trouble if he could help it. 1 She steered well — her crew said that • she had no other virtue — and he managed to get a look under careful eyelids as the skipper at last turned and came stumping aft along the weather side of the poop. No critics are so acute as a man's subordinates, and the man at the wheel knew in a moment the significance of that lean harsh set of the fact, the tight purse of the thin precise mouth, and cold unfriendliness of the quick grey eye. The skipper had thrown the wrong leg first over the edge of his bunk that morning. It was a survey of but an instant, but it cost him his peace. The big barque rose to a swell, and her head fell off under his hands. The next moment the skipper was talking to him. '.'Call that steering?" he demanded, earnestly. "D'ye call that steering or do you • not? Maybe* you think a wake like the bellows of a concertina is ornamental ; maybe you reckon you're stuck there for your beauty. But let me tell you " That was»how it began. The apprentices at work cleaning th* for'ard binnacle and the skylight gratings rather enjoyed it, and hoped that the skipper, who had a pretty knack of galling epithet, would work off his bile on the man at the wheel and leave the atmosphere clear. But as he petered out into wrathful rumbles he caught sight of them "And what may you be listening to?" he. inquired. Forthwith both of them were * violently busy cleaning brass. "You eat a man's whack,'.' pursued the skipper, "and anybody'd think you'd took root in your bunks the way you sleep. An' now you just sit about and grin like a pair of blueended apes. By the Iron, if I was to do with you what they did with the yotllQC skrirasliankers in my time, you'd *not Sat an eye from here to Hong j Kong. Now put some elbow into that polishing, or 1 11 have your young hides." Thus opened the inauspicious day. Fortunately, the work was mostly about the fore and main, and the sailmaker made the spouting scupperholes his excuse for working in the sail locker instead of spreading his canvas along the weather deck. While the cabin breakfast was in progress, the second mate, relieving the deck, could hear the voice of the skipper below, reedy and harsh., persistently nagging at the old mate. He listened disgustedly; the skipper' was finding fault with everything he could name in the time he had; and the second mate had a vivid memory of the days of his boyhood, when an .acute parent had fhuinped just such tempers out of him. At that moment he caught sight of the man at the wheel listening too. "Luff you may," he snarled; "and keep ycrar blanky eyes on that blanky compabs." In due time he was relieved; the mate returned to his, watch, and the skipper came on deck again. "There now," he began, "is that your notion of ship-shape gear?" He pointed at • large to the rigging. , "Everything that ain't hanging in a bight is as tight as bit =of elastic. It's a wonder to me how some of you chaps get a berth aH *t all." The old mate's face was dogged ; his grizzled head was bowed to the gust. "Very good, sir," he'replied shortly, and then in a bellow to the hands:

"Flvintr jib halliards there. Get the snatchblock. Bosun, let go the down haul." The skipper snorted, but he had brought it on himself. Solemnly and with great system the n.ato drove his watch from halliard to short, from sheet to brace, and laid -every line as true as though the old oanjn tank were a frigate dressing for th? day. Deep and awful were the curses of the men ; there is no more distasteful work to the sailor than dry 1 fulls on the gear; but the mate was unrelenting. He tailed the whole watch on to everything. One thought he was going to rip the light gear out of her, and in this wasteful manner he consumed the

whole four hours of the watch, and left the deck littered with ropes at eight bells for the starboard watch to coil down and hang up. The afternoon found matters no better. It was one of the old man's days of energy, and no* sooner was dinner at an end, and the cook cursed, than he arrived on deck again. TJbe second mate, officer of the watch, scowled as he saw him appear. He had cause enough; in five minutes he was involved in a positive spate of blame, and the skipper had now got to his querulous stage, when he spoke with a manner of one martyred by" the incapacity of his hired servants. The secnnd mate had in hand a job of turning in the eyes ' of the niizzen rigging afresh; it was a job calling for expert seamanship, but also admitting of a difference of opinion as to how it should be done. The second mate was a clever sailor and a handy man, and, moreover, \w was right. But the skip*per would not hear .him. f "Well, then," said the captain at idsb, "since plain English i.». over your head, I suppose I'll just have to teach you your job. It's always the same; can't get a man who knows the nose of a snip" from the rump of her, no matter what you pay. Gimme hold o' that knife." It was a seizing ho wanted to cut, and he took the second mate's ninepenny sheath-knife impatiently and laid into it. He slashed it through, laid the knife on the rail beside him, and began to pick the seizing away with his fingers. At his side the second mate thrust a cautions elbow along the rail, and the knife slid overboard. "Hey!" shouted the second mate as the thing vanished, "was that my knife you drooped overside?" "Knife?" "queried the skipper. "Why, I put it down hero jumt a second ago. Must ha' slipped. Get yourself another from the slopchcst." % Everyone on deck wa» watching the little comedy; the second mate supported his part to admiration. "From the slopchest " he repeated bitterly. "That was a knife my father gave me — been in our family for years. • Kind of heirloom it wns—passed from father to son!" Ho sighed {bitterly and

turned away. "Serves me right for lending it," he added. "Well, it was an accident," said the skipper apologetically. "I didn't drop the blame thing on purpose." "Oh, it's all right," said the second mate, still in the accents of bereavement. "It's myself I blame. • I oughtn't to have trusted it to you. I ought to ha' known better." Not the captain himself could assume the manner of patient suffering as well as the second mate. He had the appearance and the tone of a man bowed under unmerited adversity. The skipper abandoned the seizing. He patted the second mate's shoulder almost affectionately. "I'm sorry for it," he said; "but on my oath, I never saw the thing go." "No, sir," replied the second mate, forlornly. "I'll give you a knife when we get ashore that'll make up for it." pursued the skipper. "I Can't do no more! can I?" "No, sir," was the weary answer

It was at this moment that eip;ht bells went, and the skipper's further conciliation was lost in the arrival of the port watch. But as the second mate turned over the deck to the chief mate, the dodging apprentices saw ?. wink pass. "He's tamed/ murmured the second mate. "He'd feed out of your hand now."