Read Ebook: Sailor and beachcomber Confessions of a life at sea in Australia and amid the islands of the Pacific by Safroni Middleton A Arnold

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I run away to Sea--Outbound for Australia--Appointed Solo Violinist in the Saloon--I watch Sailors asleep

I WILL write you that which no man has written before. I will tell you the truth as I found it. I will tell you of the aspirations of rough but brave men in distant lands and on the ships of distant tropic seas. I will tell you the truth of many thrills that buoyed me up with hope in my wanderings, and also of the chills that crushed in the last forlorn stand on the field of adversity. Aye, you shall hear of those things that men dream of in silence. I will pour them out of my soul for the calm eyes of stern reality.

MY pages of romance have long since been shrivelled up in tropic seas, under blinding suns, on the plains and in the primeval bush lands, but still I am the living book of all that has been in the dear old dead romance of passionate boyhood. The glorious poems, the dreams of what should be, the flinchless fight for right, have all faded away and left in the secret pages of life the withered flowers of old friendship, tied up with magic threads of women's kisses, the memories of dead, brave comrades, some under the seas and others under the bush flowers of Australian steeps or beneath the tropic jungle of the South Sea Islands. There they sleep with the memories of savage native men singing by their tiny huts which have long ago vanished before the tramp of the white men. All these things are in this book, with the poetry of life which is mine, mingled with the memories of haunting dreams of that world of Romance which so many of us sail away to but never, never find.

I cannot promise that in the chapters to follow I can tell all that befell me in the exact order in which the events happened, for it must be that after the flight of years I should stumble a bit in the days and months of a life that was lived in the midst of wild adventure and incessant travel from land to land; but it will be enough to assure you that the characters that I tell you of really lived and for all I know many are still living. When I tell you that an old cockatoo dropped down from the tropic sky on to a blue gum twig overhead and surveyed me with a sideways melancholy eye as I sat alone by my camp fire, be quite sure that that cockatoo lived and breathed, took stock of me and flew away into the sunset, and has doubtlessly dropped into the scrub, a small bunch of dead feather and bone, years ago.

At school I read more from the pages of romance than from school-books. At fourteen years of age the opportunity arrived, and secretly, with the help of an older friend, I succeeded in securing a berth on a full-rigged sailing ship, and, within four hours of my trembling carcass creeping up the gangway and down on to the great decks, I was before the masts going down Channel bound for Australia.

I soon recovered, and discovered that sea captains do not stand on the poop cracking jokes and shying oranges and coco-nuts up at the crew, as they laughingly toil among the sails. I also found that the Bo'sun wore very stout boots, and I have never met a man in my life who could kick so true and aim with such precision. Five years after, whilst I was in 'Frisco, I called on a phrenologist and speculated one dollar, and discovered that the contusion and everlasting bump formed at the back of my head by a Bo'sun's belaying-pin was an inherited taint derived from the over-burdened brains of my passionate ancestors!

Well, I recovered my equilibrium, secured good sea-legs, went aloft, crawled along the yards, and helped to reef the sails. Often in the wild nights the sailors cursed and swore as I clung with might and main, my hands and teeth clinging to the rolling rigging up in the foremast top-gallants. My comrades shouted orders to me, their voices blown away on the thundering night gales, but I only heard the instinctive cry of self-preservation within me as the moon and the great beast-like clouds swayed like mighty pendulums across the night skies, swept from skyline to skyline, while the masts shivered to the roll and thunder of the broadside swell as the ship flew along at eighteen knots before the gale. Often I would gaze down deckwards, watching the praying figurehead's lifted hands heaving skywards when the tropic moonlight made wonderfully brilliant the hills of bubbling foam over the bows as she dived and plunged along. I loved that figurehead, for often as I gazed from aloft on moon-bright nights it seemed to wear a strong resemblance to my dear mother, and with my legs curled round the yards aloft in the lonely sea-nights I would often look down and fancy in my dreams that her shadow ever moved along over the waters below the swaying jib-boom with extended hands, praying for me, as no one ever prayed for me before or since!

I slept amidships with the cook and three other apprentices. I was a favourite with them all, being of a cheerful temperament and a good fiddle player. Often in the off watches I would play old familiar strains while they joined in the rollicking chorus, awaking the silence of the lonely calm tropic nights in moving waters that belted the whole world, when the sails swayed silently along beneath strange stars, filled out at intervals like drums, then flopped, as the lazy tropic breeze once more sighed and fell asleep.

The old Scotch Captain heard me playing one night; he was a religious man and taught me some beautiful sea-hymns, and in due course I played in the cabin aft during Sunday service, when all the crew mustered, and John the cook, who swore and cursed most fearfully all day long in his galley, opened his big-bearded mouth and sung most expressively those old pious hymns, knocking even the Skipper out in melodious reverential pathos!

The dear old Skipper had brought his daughter with him. She was a pretty Scotch girl--a crew of thirty-six men, and one pretty girl and me! Well, I combed my hair, cleaned my teeth, gazed in my little bit of cracked mirror-glass fifty times an hour, for alas! the family failing asserted itself; I had fallen in love! I have never been what you would call really lucky in love, like some happy men; trouble always arose after the first embarrassment had worn off and I felt truly happy, and blessed the universe. And it was so in this my first love affair. One dark night as she stood in shelter by the bulwarks near the saloon door I was admiring her eyes and swearing eternal love, calling all the bright stars to be witnesses to my unchangeable fidelity, and just as I kissed her sweet white ear and, in my madness of love, breathed secretly through her beautiful dishevelled, scented hair, as it waved in the moonlight over her lovely curved shoulders, I received a tremendous clump from the old Skipper! That night I also received stern orders from the Chief Mate never to be seen near the saloon again after dark!

I crept into my bunk heartsick and wretched. The affair got about the ship. I was chaffed a good deal by the whole crew. Real old sea-salts they were. I can see them now as I dream, walking across the decks by moonlight, muffled up to the teeth in oilskins, some with big crooked noses, all with weary sea-beaten faces. Up aloft they go. Again I see their big figures move up the ratlings as they reach the moonlit sails, and climbing, vanish in the sky. All around is sky and water and stars, fenced in by eternal skylines, as the ship travels silently onward, a tiny grey-winged world under blue days, starry and stormy skies, towards a skyline that for ever fades, following sunset after sunset across boundless seas. They were a motley crew those sailors. Some read books, some believed in spirits, and some in beer, and one would tell us over and over again of his experiences in distant lands and his brave deeds and his wonderful self-sacrifices and many other virtues, not one of which he really possessed.

There was one old sailor who on arriving home on his last voyage found that his wife was dead. He would sit on a little empty salt-beef tub and tell me about his courting days and his "old girl who was one of the best," the tears rolling down his coarse-looking face all the time. He was an extraordinary mixture; in one breath he would almost curse his wife's memory, and in the next ask me if I thought there was really another world. He could not read or write, and seeing me play the violin and read music as well as books made me almost omnipotent to his sad old eyes. I remember well enough how my heart was touched by his manner and questions as I put on a wise air and convinced him of the soul's immortality. I even went so far as to tell him that my dead relations had returned to my family as shadows from the other world, and the poor old fellow perched on his tub listened eagerly, believing all I said, and then went off and found his comrades, who sat playing cards by the fo'c'sle door, and laughed the loudest, till they all snored in the fo'c'sle bunks, half stupefied by the smoke and smell of ship's plug tobacco. I have often seen them by the dingy fo'c'sle oil-lamp fast asleep, seared unshaved faces, all their worldly passions asleep, looking like big children, so innocent, as they snored away, and some of them who had fallen asleep whilst they were chewing tobacco dribbled black juice from the corners of their mouths, their big chests upheaving at each slumbering breath. Outside, just overhead, the night winds wailed and whistled weirdly in the rigging as the jib-boom swayed along, and at regular intervals came the thunder of the diving bows as the ship dipped and heaved and plunged along over the primeval waters.

Five months passed away on that ship. Storms blew from all directions and sometimes dead ahead and then we never slept. Hauling the mainsail up and tacking is more nuisance than flying before a thousand gales. To stand by the top-gallant halyards as comes the wind; to clew the main sky-sails up, singing chanteys, as you cling to the yards with a thundering gale smashing the highways of the water world into a myriad travelling hills as the wild poetry of the sea singing to the ears of the sailor, and I was never so happy as when the green chargers ramped across the world.

I shall never forget my delight as we were towed down Brisbane River, with the everlasting hills all around. I will not weary you with any more details beyond telling you that when we lay alongside the next night I hired a wharf loafer and got my sea-chest secretly ashore and bolted!

Stranded in Brisbane--I look for a Shop--Meet typical House Agent--The Vanity of Youth--I stock my Shop--Alone in the Bush--House Agent calls for Agreement Money and the Rent--I do a Moonlight Flit

AS I have previously told you, all I am writing is the truth, so I must tell you that I never saw the Captain's daughter again, but in my chest of old letters and unaccepted manuscripts I still keep her little notes, dropped near me on the deck of the ship that took me to Australia.

The atmosphere of a new world sparkled in my head as I stood in the old colonial town of Brisbane. It was a sweltering hot night, and as I stood by the river and gazed up the gas-lamp-lit streets, watching the passing Australian girls in many-coloured attires and the colonial "corn-stalks" in big hats slouching about, I felt a tremendous loneliness come over me, a strange homesick longing crept and crept, and from my heart to my eyes a mist arose. I have had many homesick breakdowns in my time, but never one as deep and sincere as I experienced standing there alone in that strange country. I was not yet fifteen years of age, and the thought of my being absolutely dependent on my own exertions was naturally a big oppression to a boy of my inexperience. I was tall for my age and looked two or three years older than I was. A good comrade by my side at that moment would have been untold wealth to me. Under a lamp-post I counted my money. I had just three pounds ten shillings! That night I slept in a little low lodging-house by North Quay. With daylight and a good breakfast my courage returned and I sat up in bed and played several old operatic airs on my violin. A week after I pawned it for three pounds.

I had made no friends. My money was going. I knew that I must get a job or meet disaster. The idea of starting work was most distasteful to me, and yet what was I to do? Walking along Queen Street one night I stood by a tea shop. I gazed at the window. My old school-chum's father was a tea merchant and I had helped them to blend the teas in England, and as I stood there thinking, the thought suddenly occurred to me that I would start a shop and be a tea merchant.

The next day I tramped my legs off looking for a likely shop. I found the rents too high and moreover I had no references and the agents gazed suspiciously at my cheese-cutter hat. I at once bought a large big-rimmed straw hat in a second-hand shop, and on the advice of a more sympathetic agent than the rest I made for the outskirts of Brisbane. Here and there on the scrub-covered slopes were scattered wooden houses raised on posts. Upon a post board just off the main track I saw written "Jonathan Bayly, House Agent." Taking my handkerchief out I carefully dusted my boots, wiped the sweat from my sunburnt face, walked into the little office room, and there came face to face with the gentleman whose name appeared on the board outside. I did not like the look of him at all. He had a long goat-like face and grew pointed whiskers on the chin only.

"Are you the House and Shop Agent?" I asked.

"Yes," he said as he eyed me attentively.

"Oh," I said, "I am looking out for a small shop which would be suitable for a tea shop."

I had observed business men in London put on important voices and cough in an affluent way, and as he once more eyed me I made a bold effort, placed my hand in an affected way to my mouth and coughed in two little important jerks, swayed slightly on one leg and gazed round his office.

In a moment his manner changed. I had impressed him with the sense of my own assumed importance, and to clinch the coming deal, I dropped my remaining three sovereigns on the floor, picking them up carelessly as though they were buttons.

I have travelled the world over since, made deals with moneyed men, bought gold claims worth thousands of pounds, which I sold for a dollar--and glad to get it!--and done many more strange and unfortunate things in my time, but never since did I so completely gull a human being as I did that old colonial house agent--but nevertheless he did me also.

Taking down his big white helmet hat from a solitary peg, he placed it carefully over the three remaining hairs of his cranium, and bowed me out of the door to view the proposed shop. Walking off the main track he led me across the bush, and after walking for about one hour, he apologised for the distance and the solitary bush surroundings, telling me that the shop I was about to view was in an excellent position, inasmuch as it was in the centre of a proposed Township, and indeed when at last I stood by its little shanty-like front door I inwardly realised that it needed a good deal of apology on its behalf. A small broken-down shanty was the only other habitation in view for miles! The description of this shop's position would sound like a silly attempt to be humorous. I only wish it were, for I took that shop! I listened to that old Agent's palaver; I was only a boy and I had some dim idea in my head that gold-miners and bushrangers passed by it at regular intervals, and when he waved his arms about and pointed out the proposed spot for the Church, the Bank and the main streets, I choked down my misgivings and clinched the bargain. I took the place on a "seven years' agreement with the option of a renewal of fourteen more years at the expiration of the aforesaid term." Of course, all this long lease was proposed by the old Agent. I knew no more about agreements and expirations of leases than a baby, but as I signed the long important-looking document in his office that same afternoon, I carefully read it through and through as though I were taking my ninety-fifth shop, and did not intend to be taken in as I had been taken in before! Well, I signed it.

Next day I obtained the key and went into Brisbane, bought a pair of scales, some paper bags, a bottle of ink, a pen and one chest of cheap tea--I think it was fourpence a pound by the thirty-six-pound chest. I also got the manager of the wholesale department to send me ninety-five empty chests for show purposes. I was full of business. I kept thinking of my old father's advice to my elder brothers when he said, "My sons, do not go in for professions, nothing succeeds like business; sell and trade in something that the world must have. Who wants poets, musicians and authors?--with their men and women made of moonrise!" And well was he able to speak on the subject, since he had reared a large family up by his pen, which is in no wise mightier than the sword in many cases, excepting when you sit concocting letters to your immediate creditors for kind consideration and more time before you pay up!

Well, I will proceed and tell you all about that shop, and you must remember that it is only a very minor detail in the story of my experiences to follow, as I slowly but deliberately unfold my travels and troubles, my love affairs and losses in Australia and the South Sea Islands.

Oh, the vanity and pride of youth! As I turned the key of my shop door and entered beyond the portals, placing carefully on the floor my parcel, which contained a cup and saucer, a small oil lamp and the few absolutely necessary things to sustain a decent domestic life, a thrill of extreme pride went through me. I gazed around the spacious room, my hands were itching to get hold of the ninety-five empty tea-chests and place them in commercial rows in the two large shop windows that gazed at the sunset like two mammoth glass eyes of melancholy and fate-like loneliness across the silent Australian Bush. Behind lay my back garden which also extended to the skyline!

I took a stroll around, and you can imagine my delight as I stumbled across some foundations already half dug out, which no doubt were for the future homesteads of the coming Township! They looked pretty old and I noticed that a young gum-tree had grown to a considerable height in one of them, but I did not stop to criticise; time, growth of gums and Townships were outside my experiences of life. I simply lent my imagination to the future scenery and saw myself a prosperous tea merchant; around me rose in the dreamy rays of the dying sunset the grey terraces of splendid villas; I heard the hum of human voices, the laughter of the bush children romping on the streets-to-be of that Unbuilt Township. Like a grey old pioneer of the desert, uncharted on the map of civilisation, stood my shop, and I the proud landlord, stroking the first sprout of down on my upper lip, gazed innocently around, and wondered what my kind old father would think of my first business move up the steps into the portals of the grim commercial world. I felt considerably bucked up at the splendid outlook, I even felt a tenderness springing up in my heart for that old Agent. He had patted me on the shoulder too, and told me that I was a plucky young chap with real business ability in my head!

Next morning, standing under my piazza, I spied a large carrier van rapidly moving across the thin track that divided the immense grey slopes of the outstretching country. It was my ninety-five empty tea-chests and one full one approaching me! The old colonial carrier grinned from ear to ear as he dumped the lot in my shop, smelt my sixpence twice, and placing it in his pocket, drove away leaving me once more alone in the vast solitudes.

Profiting by my memories of a tea shop in the Old Kent Road, I at once set to work and wrote on white cards, "Genuine Pekoe Ceylon Tea, 2/ per pound," and underneath, in very bold letters, "The cup that cheers but does not inebriate." Of course, in those days I knew nothing whatever of the Australian Bushman's temperament; had I done so I should, of course, have written, "The cup that inebriates and cheers!"

Ah, how I remember my pride as I stood on the slope and gazed at my solitary shop window. Sunset was once more sinking into its saffron sea out westward, and sent over the hills a dying beam that touched as though with tenderness those words, written in big chalk letters over the doorway of my shop, "Middleton & Co., Tea Merchants." As I gazed up at it I climbed once more on the old tub and added this after-thought, "late of London," and the sunbeam died away as my eyes instinctively turned westward. I knew that that same sun was stealing round the world and those beams would steal likewise over the lattice windows of my sleeping parents, my brothers and my sisters, all dreaming and snoring in velvet comfort, and I wondered if they dreamed of me, and whether their wildest dreams could picture my shop and my heroic ignorance as the shadow of the Australian night crept over me and the parrots stirred in the leafy gums, and the innumerable frogs and locusts in the swamps hard by chanted a fit accompaniment to my retrospective dreams.

I tell you, I felt pretty lonely in that old place. I would stand at the shop door and watch the fleets of parrots and magpies sail away into the sunset, day after day. And oh, the lonely nights! I often would climb up to the extreme tip of a hill near by and stare across the scrub to catch the last gleam of the old Agent's house; its slim brows far off would twinkle with good comradeship and cheered me up wonderfully.

He was a burly, brick-coloured, dusty-looking fellow, and as he sat astride by my shop door gazing first at me, then at my shop, and then again on the surrounding country, he coughed twice and spat over his shoulder. I felt extremely riled by his manner. Then he said, "How's biz?" With good business forethought I replied, "Pretty good the last two days!" Then suddenly making a bold effort I asked, "Would you like to try a pound of my Pekoe?"

With a kindly look in his grey eyes he said, "Good tea I 'spose?" "Nothing to beat it," I answered quickly.

Looking quietly across the country he remarked, "No complaints about its quality round these parts I bet." Without another word he gave me two shillings, took the tea and galloped away.

I think it was about four days after selling that pound of tea that I spotted the Agent coming down the hill-side track right opposite my shop. The month was up, and the rent due!

"Well," he said as I stood at the door and boldly faced him, "I've called for the rent."

For a moment I fumbled in my pocket. I knew, to be an honourable citizen, I should pay my way and let all earthly considerations of sustaining existence and thoughts of the future go to the winds, but I had only fifteen shillings in the world, and the month's rent was four pounds, and the cost of the agreement two pounds ten shillings. Pulling myself together I said, "Can you give me another month?"

"Not a day," he answered hotly, and then looking up quickly asked, "Where's the agreement money?"

Then I saw that my first boyish instincts were to be relied upon--the man was a hard-hearted scoundrel. I answered quickly, "Where's the Township you spoke of?" At this he almost spat with rage, and thrusting his pointed whiskered chin in my face said, "Do you expect me to supply you with a Town as well as with a shop?"

I pretended to see some fine logic in that remark, quieted myself down, and then said, "Parrots, magpies, 'possums and mosquitoes do not buy tea, so how can I pay the rent?"

His temper now got the upper hand of him. "You've taken the shop," he snarled; "where the hell's your capital?"

On hearing him say this, the sudden inspiration that has stood me in such good stead in the sorrows and joys which I am going to tell you of, flashed in my brain, and I quickly answered, "You cannot supply a Town, and yet you expect me to supply capital. Put your Township here and I'll soon show you the capital." And then I trembled and forced a smile to my lips. He looked so dangerous that I did not know what might occur to me in those lonely parts. But he was only a bully after all. For a moment he looked me up and down with interest, and then said, "Can you pay me to-morrow?"

Pointing my trembling hand to my rows of empty tea-chests, I said, "Look here, I'll go to Brisbane to-morrow, sell that tea at cost price, and you shall have your rent and the agreement money." At this he turned and went away. That night I hastened off to Brisbane, hired a van, got my sea-chest out of that wretched shop and was never seen in any shop in those parts or anywhere else on earth again.

No Money--Sleeping Out--Bushed!--The Stockman's Shanty

STRANDED in Brisbane without a cent I slept down on the wharfs and sometimes curled my half-starved body up by the warm funnel of the deep-sea tramp boats. I will not weary you with the details of those days and nights, excepting to tell you that hundreds of English boys, and the pluckiest boys of your country too, go through all that I went through in the land of the Golden Fleece. I was soon in rags, sunburnt and miserable. I mixed with English and Colonial tramps, some good men and some no good; most of them wore shaggy beards and others tried to keep shaved and had forgotten their names in the attempt to lose their identity--sad "ne'er-do-wells" of the civilised world, who had hurried across the world to save their necks or preserve their liberty!

It is wonderfully easy to sink into the depths of Failure's Hell. The human relics that make up the sad side of existence are fascinating folk, full of sarcastic wit and most of them of a sentimental turn of mind, and strange as it may seem, deep in their hearts better men than those who climb the heights of ambition on one leg--instead of crawling up on all-fours and dying of old age half-way up.

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