Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 14, 2025
Jack Shreve was no Newman; I had not his cool nerve when it came to flouting hell-ship rules. In truth, I was in a blue funk all the time I was aft, for fear I would be discovered. And there was another reason for my haste in getting forward. There was a sudden uproar in front of the foc'sle that bade fair to carry through the ship. There was trouble in the air; I could sniff it as I ran.
Yet I cannot but believe for I have never yet caught him in a lie, while he has a cyclopaedic knowledge of sealing and the men of the sealing fleets. As it is forward and in the galley, so it is in the steerage and aft, on this veritable hell-ship. Men fight and struggle ferociously for one another's lives.
I was soon to learn that there was plenty of rebellious spirit forward, and shrewd, daring fellows eager to lead, because of piratical greed. Also, she was a hell-ship. It was part of a hell-ship's routine to thump the crew to the raw edge of mutiny, and keep them there.
But I heard Fitzgibbon without, as well as Lynch, and, from the gossip I had heard at the Swede's, I suspected the foc'sle was about to be introduced to the orthodox hell-ship manner of turning to the watch. Both mates would meet us coming up, and the first man on deck would get a clout for not being sooner, and the last man a boot for being a laggard.
It was evident his slow moving peasant's mind was grappling with the bloody fact of a hell-ship. It was something new in his experience. He was trying to fathom it. Why were he and his mates thumped, when they willingly did their work? What for? "Nils iss goot boy," he said to us. "So hard he vork, ja."
"A pretty tale for the court in Seattle," he exulted. "It'll only make my case that much stronger. And wait till the reporters get hold of it! The hell-ship Elsinore! They'll have pretty pickin's!" "I haven't seen any hell-ship," I said coldly. "You've seen my treatment, ain't you?" he retorted. "You've seen the hell I've got, ain't you?" "I know you for a cold-blooded murderer," I answered.
Of course, the police wanted my story, and I gave it to them on the spur of the moment. They were landlubbers, in the heart of the continent, and what better story for them than a sea story? They could never trip me up on that. And so I told a tearful tale of my life on the hell-ship Glenmore. I was an English apprentice, I said. And they said that I didn't talk like an English boy.
It was a terrific shock to most of them, that sudden return of brutality. Aye, just in that I saw the devilish cunning of Captain Swope. He knew what the effect would be upon the minds of the men of slackening his hell-ship discipline, and then, when the habit of passive endurance was weakened, suddenly tightening the reins. He knew that then the bit would be well nigh unendurable.
He smiled as though it were all settled. "I won't be mate on this hell-ship!" I cried defiantly. I saw his face grow hard and the merciless glitter come into his eyes. He walked to the door of his room, saying: "And now, Mr. Van Weyden, good-night." "Good-night, Mr. Larsen," I answered weakly.
You must understand the Golden Bough, and to understand her you must understand the knock-down-and-drag-out system in vogue on board a good many American ships of that day, and later. A hell-ship was not just the result of senseless brutality on the part of the officers. She was the product of a system.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking