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Updated: June 18, 2025
So, having spent our own last charge of powder, we backed away into the bow with our faces to the enemy, and the only sounds to be heard were flapping sails and rattling blocks, the groans of the poor fellow Roger had shot, and the click of a powder-flask as Falk reloaded and passed his ammunition to Kipping. "So," said Falk at last, "we have a fine little mutiny brewing, have we?"
In terror lest the relief spy me and reveal my presence by some exclamation that Kipping or the second mate would overhear, I threw myself down flat on the deck just forward of the scuttle-butt, where the moon cast a shadow; and with the fervent hope that I should appear to be only a heap of old sail, I lay without moving a muscle. The steps came slowly nearer.
The mate looked sternly at Blodgett, and I thought he was going to hit him; but instead, after a moment of hesitation, he started forward alone. We scarcely believed our eyes. By and by he came back again, but to us he said nothing. He went into the cabin, and when next we saw him Captain Falk was by his side. "I don't like the looks of it," Kipping was saying, "I don't at all."
By and by he came to me where, overcome by a wave of nausea, I had sat down on the deck with my back against the bulwark. "Dey ain't none of 'em Kipping," he said grimly. Then he saw my bleeding shoulder and instantly got down beside me. "You jest let dis yeh ol' nigger took a hand," he cried. "Ah's gwine fix you all up. You jest come along o' me!"
A heavy sea having blown up, all signs indicated that a bad night was before us; and just as we emerged from the hatch, she came about suddenly, which brought the wind on the starboard quarter and laid all aback. In the darkness and rain and wind, we sprang to the ropes. Mr. Kipping was forward at his post on the forecastle and Captain Falk was on the quarter-deck.
"You crawling black nigger, you," he yelled. "Now what'll you give me for a piece of pie?" Holding the cleaver close at his side, the negro looked up at the fox who was abusing him, and burst into wild vituperation. Although Kipping only laughed in reply, there was a savage and intense vindictiveness in the negro's impassioned jargon that chilled my blood.
The infantry had hard work of it after the positions were taken, as there were numerous underground caverns and passages which had to be mopped out. This was done by dropping smoke bombs in the entrances and smoking the Boches out like bees. When we came up, we inherited these underground shelters, and they were mighty comfortable after the kipping in the muck.
Neddie lay in a heap, moaning fitfully; Blodgett and Davie Paine slept; Roger sat with his back to a tree and watched the incoming tide; the cook stirred about uneasily and muttered to himself. Coming over to me, he crouched at my side and spoke of Kipping. He was savagely vindictive. "Hgh!" he grunted, "dat yeh crimp! He got dis nigger once, yass, sah.
We worked the boat outboard in silence and made no further resistance, though I knew from Roger's expression as he watched Falk and Kipping and their men, that, if he had seen a fair chance to turn the scales in our favor, he would have seized it at any cost.
No wonder that Kipping and Davie and the carpenter and all the rest of that lawless clique were well pleased. No wonder that old Bill Hayden and some of the others, for whom Kipping and his friends had not a particle of use were downcast by the prospect.
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