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Updated: June 10, 2025
At all hazards, we must get Newman out of the lazaret before the sailors' attack occurred. We must get him forward, she said, so that he might squelch the mutiny before it began. Oh, Newman could tame Boston and Blackie, he could tame the stiffs and compose the squareheads; she had no doubt he could do all that, and instantly. I was not so sure.
You and I must attend to this boy." Presently I was standing by Nils' bunk, together with the squareheads, marveling at the gentleness with which Newman's huge hands handled the sufferer. It was an exhibition of practiced skill. The feeling was strong on me that moment that Newman had gained this skill in no foc'sle, but in a cabin, where as master he had doctored his own sick.
Cappy Ricks allows me the luxury of a third mate whenever I run across a young fellow that appears to be worth a whoop in hell, so grab your duds, and go aft, and don't bring any cockroaches with you. I'll dig up a bosun among the squareheads." "Thank you, sir." "Name?" "Mr. Peasley, sir."
He was not in his bunk, so I stepped into the port foc'sle, expecting to find him by Nils' side. Nils was dying we had been expecting him to go at almost any hour for a week past and Newman had been spending a goodly share of his watches below by the lad's side. But he was not there now. The parson, and some of the squareheads of the port watch, were keeping sick vigil.
Some of my watch went into the foc'sle, to their bunks. Most of the men sat about the decks, and smoked and talked in whispers. But the topic of Nils was avoided, as was talk of mutiny. The squareheads did not mutter threats, the stiffs did not curse. The spell of the parson's words was still upon us, and peace reigned. Newman had won, I thought, and danger was passed.
But the big jasper in my watch, Newman, went into the foc'sle and squelched the scheme with a word. He clapped a stopper on the Cockney's jaw, and told the squareheads there was to be no trouble. So there will be none, Captain." A black curse slid out of the skipper's mouth. Aye, the man breathed fury. "So he commands for'ard, eh?" he said. "Well, I command aft."
"Who is safe in this ship?" they thought. "Who, now, may go aloft feeling secure he will reach the deck again, alive and unhurt?" Those squareheads had proof of the mate's temper in the person of their young landsman, lying broken in his bunk. Now, they had proof of the skipper's temper.
The few seamen, besides myself and Newman, were squareheads, quiet peasants of Scandinavia and Germany, who felt lost and unhappy without somebody always at hand to order them about. So, within half an hour after going below for that first time, I found myself giving orders to men and being obeyed. They were the first orders I had ever given, and, oh, they were sweet in my mouth!
And each man said to himself, "I may be the next to get what the little squarehead got." Misery loves company, so these stiffs naturally drew close together. Their common hatred and fear of the afterguard fused them into a unit. By the time we were a month at sea, the stiffs, like the squareheads, were in a most dangerous temper, and ripe for any deviltry.
As I learned afterwards, Holy Joe, when he learned of the intended mutiny, threatened, in vain attempt to stop it, to go aft and blow the plot. Blackie and Boston wanted to kill him for the threat, but the squareheads would not have it so, and he was shut up in the galley with the Chinamen.
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