Drifting about the world, as the great fucus wanders from shore to shore, having once been dislodged from its parent rock, I one day found myself ashore at Quilimane, desperately anxious to get a berth in any capacity on board ship for the sole purpose of getting away. My prospects were not very rosy, for the only vessels in the hateful place were two or three crazy country craft with Arab crews, that looked exceedingly like slavers to me. At last, to my intense relief, a smart looking barquentine entered the port and anchored. I was, as usual, lounging about the beach (it seemed the healthiest place I could find) and my longing eyes followed every move of the crew as they busied themselves in getting the boat out. When the captain stepped ashore I was waiting to meet him, and the first words he heard were--
Taking keen stock of me, he said, “What sort of a berth do you want?”
“Well, sir,” I replied, “I’ve got a second-mate’s ticket, but I’ll go as boy for the chance of getting away from here, if necessary.”
“I want a cook-and-steward,” he murmured dubiously, “and as I’ve got my wife aboard the cooking’s rather important.”
“I’m your man, sir,” I cried, “if I can’t cook you can dump me overboard. I never shipped as cook yet, but I’ve had to teach a good few cooks how to boil salt water without burning it.”
He smiled pleasantly at this, and said, “I must say I like your looks and--well there, jump into the boat. I’ll be back directly.”
Sure enough, in a couple of hours I was busy in her cosy galley, while the chaps were rattling the windlass round with a will, anxious enough to get clear of that sweltering coast. From the first my relations with all hands were of the pleasantest kind. They had suffered many things at the hands of several so-called cooks during the eighteen months they had been away from home, each dirty destroyer of provisions being worse than his predecessor. But especially were my efforts appreciated in the cabin. The skipper had with him his wife and two little girls, aged four and five respectively, who made that little corner of the ship seem to a homeless, friendless wanderer like myself a small heaven. Mrs. Brunton was a sweet-faced grey-eyed woman of about thirty, with a quiet tenderness of manner and speech that made a peaceful atmosphere about her like that of a summer Sunday evening in some tiny English village. Her husband was a grand specimen of a British seaman, stalwart and fair-haired, with a great sweeping beard and bright blue eyes that always had a lurking smile in their depths. The pair appeared to have but one mind. Their chief joy seemed to be in the silent watching of their children’s gambols, as, like two young lambs, they galloped round the decks or wriggled about the cramped fittings of the small saloon. The charm of that happy home-circle was over all hands. You might say that the ship worked herself, there was so little sign of the usual machinery of sea-life.