Captain Miles

“ Captain Miles was quite triumphant over it.
“There, Marline, what do you think of that?” he said, rubbing his hands with much gusto. “Didn’t I tell you so?”
“Yes, sir, so you did,” answered the other; “but we’ll wait and see how long it lasts.”
“Bah! it will last our turn,” said the captain, with a laugh at Mr Marline’s obstinate retention of his own opinion. “Anyhow, it has eased the ship already.”
“It hasn’t eased the steering, though,” retorted the mate. “We’ll want six men at the helm if she goes on jumping like this. She’s worse than a kangaroo now.” ”

“ On board the Josephine, however, all went along pleasantly enough, although we were becalmed and the seamen, had plenty of leisure time for airing their grievances.
Captain Miles, it is true, did not come on deck looking jolly and beaming with good-humour, as he used to do when we were bowling along before a stiff breeze; but he was not a bit cantankerous, and if there was no legitimate work to occupy the crew with, he did not go out of his way unnecessarily to “haze” them by inventing new sorts of tasks, as a good many other masters of vessels are in the habit of doing in similar cases. ”

“ To me, however, all these little disagreeables seemed immensely jolly; so, whenever the captain or Mr Marline or Harry happened to get capsized in this way down in the cabin during the day, it sent me at once into fits of merriment, the fact of my being washed off my feet as well only adding to the enjoyment of the joke, for I could grin quite as much with my own head in the scuppers and my mouth full of water as I would when the others were similarly situated.
“Bless the boy!” Captain Miles said. “He’s a regular sailor. He laughs at everything.” ”

“ The instant after, the wind shifted round to the opposite quarter, and then a series of squalls, hot and strong, seemed to assail us from almost every point of the compass at once.
“Hands shorten sail!” roared out Captain Miles again, using the palms of his two hands before his mouth for a speaking trumpet. “Be smart, men! Some of you brail up the spanker here and man the jib downhaul. Right! Now, away aloft the rest of you; we must have those topsails close-reefed. Cast-off the halliards—there—cheerily, men; that’s the way to do it!” ”

“ The lee rigging, tautened by the strain of the masts dependent from it, was soon severed; and then, the ship being more buoyant, floated away some yards leeward—the spars veered out to the length of the braces, serving as a sort of breakwater and keeping the waves from coming in over the bows as she tended, for her stern at once coming round caused her to ride easily, head to wind, just as if she were anchored.
“Now, men,” cried Captain Miles when this was managed, and no pressing danger stared us in the face, “we must now see whether we can’t get up anything to eat from the after-hold. ”

“ In another minute, however, the look out in the foretop discerned Jackson, and he hailed the deck at once.
“There he is! there he is!” he sang out.
“Where?” cried Captain Miles impatiently.
“About four cables’ length off the weather bow. I can see his head quite clear above the wash of the sea; and he seems swimming towards us.”
“All right then, keep your eye on him, so as to pilot us! Mr Marline,” continued Captain Miles, “lower the boat at once with four hands; we can’t go close enough without it to the poor fellow, for we are to leeward of him.” ”

“ Captain Miles himself then took a gulp of the grateful contents of his old hat, passing it on to Moggridge; and, when emptied, as it very soon was, the wide-awake was filled and refilled by Jackson until every man had satisfied his thirst—the last to enjoy the water which he had been the means of procuring being the brave young seaman himself, just in the same way as he had been the last to quit the post of danger when helping his shipmates out of the main-chains.
Quenching our thirst gave us all new life ”

“ All the men worked with the greatest perseverance in spite of their weak state; and, just before sunset, when the mast was about half cut through, it gave signs of at length yielding, sundry sharp cracks being heard as its natural buoyancy forced it to rise, the different purchases that previously held it to the deck being also now severed.
“Bravo, men, one spell more all round, and we’ll have the spar loose!” cried Captain Miles, going down into the waist himself to head this last attack, and taking a longer turn with the axe than anyone. ”

“ Meanwhile, filled with anxiety on the behalf of Jeremy Miles--for he was always a general favourite amongst the youths in and around Lymington--Constance and I resumed our way, endeavouring to appear as unconcerned as possible.
Less than a minute must have passed since we saw Captain Miles's great frame disappear beneath the bracken, when we heard the clatter of the troopers' horses as their hoofs struck the road. Knowing that it would ill play our part to refrain from curiosity, we stopped and looked back at the pursuing soldiers. ”

“ Captain Miles, therefore, at once closed with the planter, and the last of the launches conveying the rum puncheons to the Josephine brought off in addition this cow.
But, taking an animal of this sort away from the shore, and out to a ship lying some distance from the land is one thing, and getting it on board is another! This the captain found presently, when, having completed all his business ashore and cleared the last of his cargo, he was rowed out in his gig to regain the vessel. He had intended making sail the moment he stepped on the deck again ”

“ The captain especially claimed my attention when he “took the sun” at noon, an operation which I watched with the most absorbed interest; and I found out afterwards the use of the sextant, and the way in which the difference between the ship’s mean time and that of the chronometer below in the cabin—which showed what the hour was at Greenwich—enabled Captain Miles to tell almost to a mile on the chart what was our position with regard to our longitude, our latitude being “worked out” in a different fashion. ”

“ That will lift her bows out of the water, if it only holds.”
So saying, Captain Miles yelled out for the watch below, and the men presently came out from the forecastle, Davis, the whilom second mate, along with them, the lot shambling unwillingly along the deck to the galley, where they clustered in a body.
“Now, men,” said the captain, “we must try and get some sail on the ship, or else we’ll have all our timbers crushed in forwards by these seas; who’ll volunteer to go aloft and help stay the foremast? It’s risky work, and I don’t like to order anyone to go.” ”

“ Sailors are never allowed a minute to be idle on a vessel at sea save on Sundays, and then they find work for themselves, as a rule, in the way of mending their clothes and putting their chests in order.
I noticed this device on Captain Miles’s part to provide employment for the men when he came on deck after luncheon; when, seeing some of the seamen lounging about in the waist, he immediately set them to pump out the bilge. This, however, did not occupy them very long, the ship being pretty dry ”

“ There is no more ticklish operation than that of wearing a ship in a heavy sea where there is a strong following wind; and Captain Miles, for one, I could see, intended to let the vessel drive on as long as the gale lasted, unless it should try to head us, when of course he would have no alternative left but that of laying-to. ”

“ Whatever the package contained, I now felt certain that 'twas the same stuff as Jeremy Miles had attempted to swallow.
"Now, look you, Captain Miles," said my father, as we prepared to return homewards, "neither Lymington nor Pitt's Deep offers an asylum for you. To go to either place is to set your head in a trap. I have made up my mind that you must tarry with us at Brockenhurst till this storm has blown over."
"Nay, 'tis unfair to saddle you with the presence of a proclaimed rebel," objected Captain Jeremy stoutly. ”

“ Yet the roundhouse proved a harmless place, with its shipshape bunks and table and stools; and one of the mates, who lay upon a bunk, rose up at Jones's bidding, to do nothing more formidable than fill Miles's jug from a keg that stood in one corner.
"Now see to it thou dost not filch the beer by the way," grumbled Master Jones. "I be ready to give to your Captain's wife, but not to fill the stomach of every knavish lad on shipboard; dost thou hear?"
"I wouldn't take the beer that was meant for Mistress Standish," Miles said indignantly.
"Nay, but boys be a slippery race," growled the Master. ”

“ At mid-day, more from curiosity than anything else, as we had lost all track of our dead reckoning, Captain Miles had the log hove, when it was found that the vessel under her bare poles was going close on fourteen knots an hour. The force of the wind on her hull and spars was quite sufficient alone to achieve this speed, for the yards were braced square and the helm kept as steady amidships as the send of the waves would allow and the four men in charge of the spokes could manage. ”

“ Captain Miles, however, did not stop merely at taking in the studding-sails, for the royals were next furled as well as the topgallant-sails; and then, under reefed topsails and courses, in addition to her jib and spanker which were still set, he awaited what the weather might have in store for his vessel. An experienced seaman, such as he was, when forewarned, as in the present instance, by a falling barometer, always prepares for eventualities of the worst possible character, never leaving anything to chance or neglecting to take proper precautions. ”

“ The Captain’s Cow.
“Why, Jake!” I cried out. “How have you contrived to come here?”
“Am dat you, Mass’ Tom?” he answered catching sight of me behind the captain. “Golly, I tole you so; I’se tole you I come ’board ship wid you somehow or nudder. Who ’peak de trute now, hey? golly, yah, yah, I’se so berry glad!” and the poor faithful fellow commencing with one of his hearty African laughs ended in his voice breaking into a sob of joy that evidently came from the bottom of his heart.
From hearing his words Captain Miles immediately began to “smell a rat,” as the saying goes. ”

“ Dad and I stopped with Captain Miles until late in the afternoon; when, the glare of the sun having gone off, we were rowed ashore in the captain’s gig. My friend Moggridge took charge of us, and a crew of hardy sailors made the boat spin ashore at a very different rate of speed to that which the heavy old launch displayed on our trip out to the vessel with the sugar hogs-heads.
Jake met us at the jetty with the horses, which he had put up in the stables of the adjoining plantation during our absence ”

“ Master Hopkins answered with a grim sort of chuckle, and just there the house-door banged open and upon it Miles heard Giles's eager voice, "Father, may I not carry Ned's musket, since he is not here? [312] Bart Allerton has one; the Captain himself said all who could fight should get under arms."
Miles struggled up, with head still dizzy. "I can fight too," he murmured, but the older folk, without heeding him, tramped forth with their weapons and left him to Constance and her stepmother. ”

“ See now, I’se handy boy aboard ship!” So saying, Jake at once scrambled up the rigging and in a minute or two was away up in the foretop, waving his arms about and shouting with laughter in great glee.
“Yah, yah!” he cried. “I’se go higher, if um like.”
“No, that will do now,” sang out Captain Miles, “you can come down and go and warm yourself, after your wetting, by the galley fire, where you’ll find another darkey to keep you company. You must enter his name in the list of the crew, Mr Marline,” added the captain, turning to the first mate; “and see, too, about messing him in the fo’c’s’le. ”

“ I tell you wat, I’se gib him goss if um kick up any bobbery wid me!”
So saying, he was preparing to plunge again into the water, when Captain Miles ordered him to refrain, having to repeat his command twice before the brave fellow would stop from making the venture.
“No, Jake,” said the captain, “I can’t allow you to risk your life in such a foolhardy way for what may be only a wild-goose chase. Wait awhile and see if the brute is going to remain here. Perhaps, too, there may be some more of his comrades about; they generally hunt in couples in stormy weather.” ”

“ The men believed that he would not have taken things so quietly unless he had some sure hope of our speedy release from such a precarious position.
“He is a rare brave un,” put in Moggridge. “I’ve sailed with him man and boy for many a v’y’ge afore this, and I allers found him the same, calm and plucky in danger, and keeping a stiff upper lip when in perils that frighten other folk. Captain Miles, sir, is a man as a sailor should be proud to sail under—that’s what I says!” ”

“ And a little young fellow like you would be better off in a household where there are women than with two clumsy men. So they have arranged it all for your best good."
Miles nodded, not trusting his voice to speak. He was thinking of what the Captain had said about being a man and things that had to be done, and he meant to make a good showing before him. "I like Giles," he began slowly, "and I like Constance, and Ned Lister will be there too; I'll try to like Master Hopkins—if he'll let me bring Trug." ”

“ So saying, and emphasising the threat by raising Cuffee at arm’s length, to the level of the bulwarks, he dragged the irate pair along to where Captain Miles was standing by the mainmast bitts, there setting them down before him for judgment.
“Now, you quarrelsome black rascals!” exclaimed the captain confronting them, “what the dickens do you mean by kicking up all this bobbery? I don’t allow any fighting aboard my ship.”
“It ain’t me, Mass’ Cap’en,” said Jake eagerly, “it’s dat nasty niggah dere dat make all de muss ’bout nuffin’ at all!” ”