‘Not you,’ I said. ‘Get aboard and find something to do on deck. This job ’ud kill a horse.’
Cheyne came down soon after in dirty clothes with a shovel, and asked what ‘that chap’ was doing aboard. He grumbled a little when I told him Voogdt couldn’t do heavy work. ‘This is an all-hands job. If I can take a shovel, he ought to.’
‘He can’t,’ I said, ‘and that’s all there is about it,’ and Cheyne said no more.
I’m bound to say he worked like a good one himself: by my reckoning we got a hundred and twenty tubs aboard in three hours. That made a good twelve tons and when the tide drove us off the mud I told him we were ready for sea.
‘No hurry,’ said he. ‘I haven’t got your sailing orders yet. Turn your chaps in for a spell, and we’ll get a few more tubs aboard next ebb.’
Next ebb wasn’t till midnight, and I told him so.
‘Can’t your tender babes work after dark?’ he sneered.
‘They’ll work when I tell ’em,’ I said rather hotly, for his tone annoyed me.
‘Then tell ’em now,’ he said. ‘Tell ’em it’s pay and a quarter for night work, if you like. I’ve got plenty of lanterns in the shed.’
Who could make anything of such ways? Employing fools because they were cheap, and paying able seamen pay and a quarter to help them! Extra pay for night work at putting more ballast in a boat than she needed, because he wanted mud cleared away! A dredger would have cleared the lot in a couple of days. I thought of Voogdt’s warning, and decided I might as well see if I could get another advance. I’d spent thirty pounds in fitting out and victualling, and clothes and things for the three of us, but that left me nearly twenty in hand, and of the money spent certainly ten or twelve pounds had been unauthorised expenditure on our personal needs. On the other hand, the freight worked out at about thirty pounds, so that really I still owed the company the twenty I had left. However, when I asked for an advance, Cheyne made no bones about granting it. ‘How much?’ was all he said.
I hung in the wind a minute, uncertain what to ask. ‘I spent thirty fitting out,’ I said, ‘and the freight’s thirty. Would another twenty be too much?’
‘Say thirty, to be on the safe side,’ said he. ‘The Oost-Nederland Bank in Terneuzen’ll cash my cheque for you,’ and he drew me a cheque on the spot. This after his harping on economy and grumbling about Voogdt being idle! I concluded finally that he was an unbusinesslike fool.
As I was leaving the office he called after me. ‘We’re paying two bob ballast allowance,’ said he.
‘Two bob?’ I was ashamed to confess my ignorance of what he meant by ballast allowance.
‘Two bob a ton. So it’s worth your while to ballast pretty deep. Two quid in your pockets if you take away twenty tons, and only four and twenty bob if you go as you are. So you’ll see it pays you to wait a tide.’
‘It would pay me to fill her full, then,’ I said, surprised.
‘A sure thing it would. But of course that’s nonsense. Twenty tons is ample, as you say. Take twenty-five if you’ve got time; but you must get away next tide. I’m expecting the Olive Leaf tomorrow from Grangemouth, and there’s no room at the wharf for the two of you.’
When I got aboard after cashing the cheque Voogdt was standing by the hatch looking at the heaps of slimy muck in the hold. I jingled the canvas bag in his face.
‘Did you touch him?’ he asked.
‘For thirty. So we’re still a quid or two ahead of ’em.’
‘What d’ye make of the man?’ he asked, jerking his head towards the office.
‘A bumptious, silly fool. That’s what I make of him.’
‘What was the man Ward like? Another fool?’
‘Not he,’ I said. ‘Unbusinesslike he may be, but a fool he is not, if I’m any judge. I hope this chap isn’t going to let him down.’
‘So he isn’t going to let you down, that don’t matter much,’ Voogdt grunted. ‘When are we going to get hatches on?’
‘Next tide. There’s some more ballast to come aboard first.’
‘What on earth d’you want more ballast for?’
‘I don’t want it,’ I said. ‘At least the boat doesn’t. But there’s two bob a ton allowance on all we take away it seems.’
‘That’s a rum notion, paying on ballast, isn’t it?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I’ve only been in steam since I served my apprenticeship. Come to think of it, I’ve never carried ballast before. Even when I was serving my apprenticeship in sail we always had freights both ways. I suppose ballast allowance is a custom in this coasting trade.’
‘A rum custom,’ said Voogdt. ‘Tempting skippers to strain their vessels with useless stuff. And seems to me I’ve heard of paying for ballast before now.’
‘Well, that’s possible,’ I said. ‘P’raps the ship that left just before had a good ballast allowance and swept the quay clean. Besides, they want this stuff cleared away.’
‘Ah! That explains it,’ said he. ‘Why didn’t you say so before? How d’ye expect to make a sailorman of me if you don’t instruct me as we go along?’
We worked that night by the light of hand-lanterns, but all hands were tired out, and though I promised ’Kiah and Voogdt to share the new allowance equally, we couldn’t get more than about ten tons aboard. Cheyne said that would do. ‘It’ll have to. The Olive Leaf ’ll be here next thing. You can charge for twenty-three tons, Capt’n. That do you? Here’s your papers. You’re for Dartmouth, to load deals. Now get your hatch cover on, and slip it with the morning tide.’
It came on to blow a little when we got outside. Nothing to hurt; a northerly breeze, too, which was all in our favour, but we had a bit of bucketing in the Straits of Dover. The Luck and Charity I knew I could rely on; with her extra ballast she was as stiff as a church, and I felt a bit more amiable towards Cheyne when I saw how well she behaved. We got wet jackets, of course, but nothing worse. ’Kiah I’d tried before and could trust, too, but Voogdt and the running-gear were new, and I watched them both. The man shaped as well as the hemp and manilla: both were inclined to give a bit under the strain at first, but a brace now and then to the tackle and a helping hand and a joke with the man did wonders. Both, were working sweetly before we reached the Race of Portland, and Voogdt took us through it, only laughing whenever some nasty cross-sea slopped aboard and slatted down over him. It was pretty to see him, the veins standing out like twisted wire on his wet, lean hands as he strained to steady the kicking wheel, and to think how scared he’d looked when he came on deck two days before and found me driving through it with the lee rail under water and the hatch cover awash. Working like a Trojan, laughing at the smashing of our bows and the cataracts the Race was sending over him, he didn’t look much like an indoor man with his death warrant signed, sealed and delivered by the doctors.
‘Gad! This is fine!’ he cried, when I went to give him a hand. ‘No, let me go, skipper. I can take her through it myself. I like it.’
He was able to bear a hand in Dartmouth now, when it came to loading the deals. In fact I think he handled more of them than did the quay-lumpers, who were half asleep, like all Devonshire men. Good food and a regular life were telling on him; he was putting on flesh, and the sea air was beginning to colour his sallow sunburnt cheeks a bit.