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It was comparative, a period of less misery slipped in between a past of great miseries and a future of great miseries. For the Ghost, so far as the seamen were concerned, was a hell-ship of the worst description. They never had a moment's rest or peace.
It was Dana's fortune, for the sake of the picture, that the Pilgrim was an average ship, with an average crew and officers, and managed with average discipline. Even the hazing that took place after the California coast was reached, was of the average sort. The Pilgrim savoured not in any way of a hell-ship.
The bucko mates usually contented themselves with working the men at top speed, depriving them of their afternoon watches below, and thumping the stiffs, because they were lubberly at their work. This treatment was sufficiently severe to produce the desired results. This was normal hell-ship style. The few sailors, in the crew, providing they were willing, rarely received more than verbal abuse.
I suppose some sleek-jowled, comfortable pillar of church and society first thought of it, and whispered it into his skipper's ear. And the skipper whispered it to his mates, and they made that ship so hot the crew cleared out at the first port or call, leaving their wages behind. So was the hell-ship born.
Aye, but the very beasts of the field might have pitied the wife of Yankee Swope. Her body seemed so slender and childlike. Too fine and dainty to hold the woe of a hell-ship, and, Heaven knew, what private sorrow besides.
Of course, not all American ships, or even a majority of them, adopted this system. But enough did to give American ships an evil name among sailors that has endured to the present day. And this evil name helped sustain the system. It completed a kind of vicious circle. The crew ran away from the hell-ship, and spread the evil fame of the vessel over the five oceans.
Did he think that Captain Swope was planning the cold-blooded murder of an able seaman? There was the question. In one way, it opposed my reason. Of course, this was a hell-ship, and murder might very well take place on board. But that the captain should deliberately plot the removal of a foc'sle hand! Able seamen were not of such importance in a hell-ship.
And I noticed the boyish face of Harrison, a good face once, but now a demon's, convulsed with passion as he told the new-comers of the hell-ship they were in and shrieked curses upon the head of Wolf Larsen.
Oh, aye, he was but following his nature and training; he could not bear being idle himself, and he knew that busy men don't brood themselves into trouble. And running a watch ragged was hell-ship style. We were aft on a job brailling in the spanker, I recall when I missed Newman. An instant before we were together, we had handed the same line; suddenly he was gone from my side.
"Must ha' thought he was fitting out a Yankee hell-ship when he bought this," said Elisha, in disgust, as he looked into the ill-smelling barrels. "Overboard with it, boys!" Overboard went the provisions, for starving animals could not eat of them, and the odor permeated the ship.
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