Captains Courageous by Rudyard Kipling (e manga reader .txt) đ
- Author: Rudyard Kipling
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ââMost full, but thereâs just room for another piece.â
The cook was a huge, jet-black negro, and, unlike all the negroes Harvey had met, did not talk, contenting himself with smiles and dumb-show invitations to eat more.
âSee, Harvey,â said Dan, rapping with his fork on the table, âitâs jest as I said. The young anâ handsome menâlike me anâ Pennsy anâ you anâ Manuelâweâre second haâaf, anâ we eats when the first haâaf are through. Theyâre the old fish; anâ theyâre mean anâ humpy, anâ their stummicks has to be humoured; so they come first, which they donât deserve. Aeneid that so, doctor?â
The cook nodded.
âCanât he talk?â said Harvey in a whisper.
ââNough to get along. Not much oâ anything we know. His natural tongueâs kinder curious. Comes from the innards of Cape Breton, he does, where the farmers speak homemade Scotch. Cape Bretonâs full oâ niggers whose folk run in there durinâ aour war, anâ they talk like farmersâall huffy-chuffy.â
âThat is not Scotch,â said âPennsylvania.â âThat is Gaelic. So I read in a book.â
âPenn reads a heap. Most of what he says is soââcepâ when it comes to a caount oâ fishâeh?â
âDoes your father just let them say how many theyâve caught without checking them?â said Harvey.
âWhy, yes. Whereâs the sense of a man lyinâ fer a few old cod?â
âWas a man once lied for his catch,â Manuel put in. âLied every day. Fife, ten, twenty-fife more fish than come he say there was.â
âWhere was that?â said Dan. âNone oâ aour folk.â
âFrenchman of Anguille.â
âAh! Them West Shore Frenchmen donât caount anyway. Stands to reason they canât caount Ef you run acrost any of their soft hooks, Harvey, youâll know why,â said Dan, with an awful contempt.
âAlways more and never less, Every time we come to dress,â
Long Jack roared down the hatch, and the âsecond haâafâ scrambled up at once.
The shadow of the masts and rigging, with the never-furled riding-sail, rolled to and fro on the heaving deck in the moonlight; and the pile of fish by the stern shone like a dump of fluid silver. In the hold there were tramplings and rumblings where Disko Troop and Tom Platt moved among the salt-bins. Dan passed Harvey a pitchfork, and led him to the inboard end of the rough table, where Uncle Salters was drumming impatiently with a knife-haft. A tub of salt water lay at his feet.
âYou pitch to Dan anâ Tom Platt down the hatch, anâ take keer Uncle Salters donât cut yer eye out,â said Dan, swinging himself into the hold. âIâll pass salt below.â
Penn and Manuel stood knee deep among cod in the pen, flourishing drawn knives. Long Jack, a basket at his feet and mittens on his hands, faced Uncle Salters at the table, and Harvey stared at the pitchfork and the tub.
âHi!â shouted Manuel, stooping to the fish, and bringing one up with a finger under its gill and a finger in its eyes. He laid it on the edge of the pen; the knife-blade glimmered with a sound of tearing, and the fish, slit from throat to vent, with a nick on either side of the neck, dropped at Long Jackâs feet.
âHi!â said Long Jack, with a scoop of his mittened hand. The codâs liver dropped in the basket. Another wrench and scoop sent the head and offal flying, and the empty fish slid across to Uncle Salters, who snorted fiercely. There was another sound of tearing, the backbone flew over the bulwarks, and the fish, headless, gutted, and open, splashed in the tub, sending the salt water into Harveyâs astonished mouth. After the first yell, the men were silent. The cod moved along as though they were alive, and long ere Harvey had ceased wondering at the miraculous dexterity of it all, his tub was full.
âPitch!â grunted Uncle Salters, without turning his head, and Harvey pitched the fish by twos and threes down the hatch.
âHi! Pitch âem bunchy,â shouted Dan. âDonât scatter! Uncle Salters is the best splitter in the fleet. Watch him mind his book!â
Indeed, it looked a little as though the round uncle were cutting magazine pages against time. Manuelâs body, cramped over from the hips, stayed like a statue; but his long arms grabbed the fish without ceasing. Little Penn toiled valiantly, but it was easy to see he was weak. Once or twice Manuel found time to help him without breaking the chain of supplies, and once Manuel howled because he had caught his finger in a Frenchmanâs hook. These hooks are made of soft metal, to be rebent after use; but the cod very often get away with them and are hooked again elsewhere; and that is one of the many reasons why the Gloucester boats despise the Frenchmen.
Down below, the rasping sound of rough salt rubbed on rough flesh sounded like the whirring of a grindstoneâsteady undertune to the âclick-nickâ of knives in the pen; the wrench and shloop of torn heads, dropped liver, and flying offal; the âcaraaahâ of Uncle Saltersâs knife scooping away backbones; and the flap of wet, open bodies falling into the tub.
At the end of an hour Harvey would have given the world to rest; for fresh, wet cod weigh more than you would think, and his back ached with the steady pitching. But he felt for the first time in his life that he was one of the working gang of men, took pride in the thought, and held on sullenly.
âKnife oh!â shouted Uncle Salters at last. Penn doubled up, gasping among the fish, Manuel bowed back and forth to supple himself, and Long Jack leaned over the bulwarks. The cook appeared, noiseless as a black shadow, collected a mass of backbones and heads, and retreated.
âBlood-ends for breakfast anâ head-chowder,â said Long Jack, smacking his lips.
âKnife oh!â repeated Uncle Salters, waving the flat, curved splitterâs weapon.
âLook by your foot, Harve,â cried Dan below.
Harvey saw half a dozen knives stuck in a cleat in the hatch combing. He dealt these around, taking over the dulled ones.
âWater!â said Disko Troop.
âScuttle-buttâs forâard anâ the dipperâs alongside. Hurry, Harve,â said Dan.
He was back in a minute with a big dipperful of stale brown water which tasted like nectar, and loosed the jaws of Disko and Tom Platt.
âThese are cod,â said Disko. âThey ainât Damarskus figs, Tom Platt, nor yet silver bars. Iâve told you that ever single time since weâve sailed together.â
âA matter oâ seven seasons,â returned Tom Platt coolly. âGood stowinâs good stowinâ all the same, anâ thereâs a right anâ a wrong way oâ stowinâ ballast even. If youâd ever seen four hundred ton oâ iron set into theââ
âHi!â With a yell from Manuel the work began again, and never stopped till the pen was empty. The instant the last fish was down, Disko Troop rolled aft to the cabin with his brother; Manuel and Long Jack went forward; Tom Platt only waited long enough to slide home the hatch ere he too disappeared. In half a minute Harvey heard deep snores in the cabin, and he was staring blankly at Dan and Penn.
âI did a little better that time, Danny,â said Penn, whose eyelids were heavy with sleep. âBut I think it is my duty to help clean.â
ââWouldnât hev your conscience fer a thousand quintal,â said Dan. âTurn in, Penn. Youâve no call to do boyâs work. Draw a bucket, Harvey. Oh, Penn, dump these in the gurry-butt âfore you sleep. Kin you keep awake that long?â
Penn took up the heavy basket of fish-livers, emptied them into a cask with a hinged top lashed by the focâsle; then he too dropped out of sight in the cabin.
âBoys clean up after dressinâ down anâ first watch in caâam weather is boyâs watch on the âWeâre Hereâ.â Dan sluiced the pen energetically, unshipped the table, set it up to dry in the moonlight, ran the red knife-blades through a wad of oakum, and began to sharpen them on a tiny grindstone, as Harvey threw offal and backbones overboard under his direction.
At the first splash a silvery-white ghost rose bolt upright from the oily water and sighed a weird whistling sigh. Harvey started back with a shout, but Dan only laughed.
âGrampus,â said he. âBegginâ fer fish-heads. They up-eend the way when theyâre hungry. Breath on him like the doleful tombs, hainât he?â A horrible stench of decayed fish filled the air as the pillar of white sank, and the water bubbled oilily. âHainât ye never seen a grampus up-eend before? Youâll see âem by hundreds âfore yeâre through. Say, itâs good to hev a boy aboard again. Otto was too old, anâ a Dutchy at that. Him anâ me we fought considâble. âWouldnât haâ keered fer that ef heâd hed a Christian tongue in his head. Sleepy?â
âDead sleepy,â said Harvey, nodding forward.
âMustnât sleep on watch. Rouse up anâ see ef our anchor-lightâs bright anâ shininâ. Youâre on watch now, Harve.â
âPshaw! Whatâs to hurt us? âBrightâs day. Sn-orrr!â
âJest when things happen, Dad says. Fine weatherâs good sleepinâ, anâ âfore you know, mebbe, youâre cut in two by a liner, anâ seventeen brass-bound officers, all genâelmen, lift their hand to it that your lights was aout anâ there was a thick fog. Harve, Iâve kinder took to you, but ef you nod onet more Iâll lay into you with a ropeâs end.â
The moon, who sees many strange things on the Banks, looked down on a slim youth in knickerbockers and a red jersey, staggering around the cluttered decks of a seventy-ton schooner, while behind him, waving a knotted rope, walked, after the manner of an executioner, a boy who yawned and nodded between the blows he dealt.
The lashed wheel groaned and kicked softly, the riding-sail slatted a little in the shifts of the light wind, the windlass creaked, and the miserable procession continued. Harvey expostulated, threatened, whimpered, and at last wept outright, while Dan, the words clotting on his tongue, spoke of the beauty of watchfulness and slashed away with the ropeâs end, punishing the dories as often as he hit Harvey. At last the clock in the cabin struck ten, and upon the tenth stroke little Penn crept on deck. He found two boys in two tumbled heaps side by side on the main hatch, so deeply asleep that he actually rolled them to their berths.
It was the forty-fathom slumber that clears the soul and eye and heart, and sends you to breakfast ravening. They emptied a big tin dish of juicy fragments of fishâthe blood-ends the cook had collected overnight. They cleaned up the plates and pans of the elder mess, who were out fishing, sliced pork for the midday meal, swabbed down the focâsle, filled the lamps, drew coal and water for the cook, and investigated the fore-hold, where the boatâs stores were stacked. It was another perfect dayâsoft, mild, and clear; and Harvey breathed to the very bottom of his lungs.
More schooners had crept up in the night, and the long blue seas were full of sails and dories. Far away on the horizon, the smoke of some liner, her hull invisible, smudged the blue, and to eastward a big shipâs top-gallant sails, just lifting, made a square nick in it. Disko Troop was smoking by
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