Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1912-11-26
comes to think of it, your pore

well he was Welsh, owen, me
man, and we'll leave It at that. But l
will say that at any rate there's moth
ing of the thief about you, and never
caught you in lie In all your life
Well, Mr.. Mate, don't let me keep you
from your duty
With which formal dismissal Cap
tain Saturday Parrish drank the rest
of his whisky and water, closed his
eyes, opened his mouth, and was
promptly asleep,
The smart, keen, chief officer
stepped out into the sunshine, and
from place to place on the seedy m
der.manned steamer went about his
many duties, walking crisply, talking
crisply, getting maximum OF work
done with the limited means at his
disposal. They were voyaging from
Vera Cruz to Liverpool; had passed
o. t of the Gulf stream through the
Bahamas, south Of the island Of Abaco,
by that channel known to the western
ocean sailor folk as the Hole IN the
Wall: and were we'll out In the Sar-
gasso sea. ..-
So far as the eye could see the only
things that floated on the turquoise
blue swells were lunches Of orange
yellow weed. The steamers rusty
black bows sawed regularly up and
down, always pushing crumbling
cascade of white water ahead OF her.
In sea phrase, she carried a good bone
in her teeth, and in and out of this
played iridescent flying-fish Of the
bigress and shape of dragon-flies.
Other flying.fish like silver rats
SKINNED along the sleek blue hollows
OF the swells, and plunged with q
splash into the next appearing hill
side. And astern and overhead seven
gulls held steady station, and could
be depended on to keep convoy till the
gulls on the Azores beat met them In
the wastes of mid-ocean, and took
over relief.
On to the top Of the fiddley grimy
fireman presently clambered, one cor
ner Of his sweat rag between his
teeth. and slued round ventilator to
catch more of the breeze.
A deck-hand, who was setting up
funnel stays, turned his head. That's
the fourth time you ash cats have
been up here messing with the
ventilators this watch. And the winds
cts mighty poor game. We're fir
ing on the sweepings Of the bunkers,
and it's horses work to keep steam
in her"
Well it's your job, not mine =
praise the Lord!-but it's struck me
before that your old coffee.mill's not
running her usual revolutions. Just
give the chief my kind dooty, and say
I'll be glad II he'll breach new
bunker and give you some good hard
coal to fire on. You're blowing all this
sludge clean out Of the stack, and 1t
drops on our decks, and it's up to us
to sweep it into the ditch. You may
tell him to-Whisht! There's the
mattel"
The fireman stumped off down steel
ladders out of sight, the deck-hand
worked with intense application at
setting up his funnel stay, and Mr..
Kettle, the mate. went below to bring
up his sextant for the midday sight.
The heat OF the engines certainly was
stacking. He wondered why. The rea-
son would have to be entered up un-
der distance run according to en-
gine.rooms reckoning" when the chief
handed in his days report, and even
easy-going Captain Saturday Farnish
could not avoid officially commenting
upon it. But 1t was no affair Of the
deck officer's-and Kettle dropped 1t
from his mind. He was always very
keen stickler for the rigid steamer
etiquette which states that the en-
gine.room shall not meddle with the
deck, and the deck shall have no truck
with the engine staff except for purely
deck purposes.
I So the Norman Towers chief officer
took his sextant from its box In the
rack over his berth, gave 1t rub over
with It's own piece Of wash-leather-
he was a very natty man about his
trade utensils went out on deck. and
gave a warning knock at the chart
house door.
give minutes to noon, sir"
The elderly second mate, who
couldn't have worked out sight II
his life had depended on 1t, was look
ing wise over his instrument and fid-
ding with the smoked glasses; the
smart, young, school-bred third was
nervously fidgeting away to make
sure the sun did not play tricks on
him by making sudden lunge
downward before he brought 1t to the
horizon; and then out shambled Cap
tain Farnish. blowsy and slippered,
and put up his sextant also, like the
practised old man Of the sea he was.
All four of them solemnly stared,
working the vernier screws each ac-
cording to his temperament, and then
Farnish went in to his chronometer,
and gave out the Greenwich time. The
mates went below to work out the
reckoning (Which the second, by the
way, laboriously copied from Kettle)
and in due time these were handed
into the chart house, and from them
Captain Farnish marked up on the
chart the Norman Towers position on
the face of the waters. He never
worked out the figures for himself. AS
he said, he knew good mate when
he saw one, and it helped lad on TO
give him a bit of responsibility And
after this it was his custom to add an
other ten minutes sleep to the short
doze he had already enjoyed so as to
have quarter Of an hours rest to
the good before dinner.
put thic dav DOrtent was showing