A Whaleman's Wife by Frank T. Bullen

Author:Frank T. Bullen [Bullen, Frank T.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781411444256
Publisher: Barnes & Noble
Published: 2017-02-06T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER XVI

A REIGN OF TERROR

FAR more frequently than any shore-living people can imagine, there occur times on board ship when it seems as if the whole condition of things must be overwhelmed in one red holocaust. No ship, whatever her position or character may be, is quite exempt from such crises as these. For at sea all hands are compelled to feel that they have been driven back upon primitive conditions, and the one paramount question demanding answer is: "How much longer can I bear this?" No such problem ever confronts shore people, for the most obvious reason: there is always a way of escape—at sea there is none. And, if the true inwardness of all the awful sea tragedies that have ever been known were inquired into, it would be found that nearly all of them originated in a condition of things such as I have been sketching. A brutal, unscrupulous villain (we have had them in the British Navy) at the head of affairs, a vilely truckling gang of officers ready at a nod to carry out that villain's behests, and before the mast a mob of men driven frantic by ill-treatment yet lacking initiative, the one ignition spark which only a genius can supply. A case in point is afforded by the tragedy of the Bounty. Concerning that terrible mutiny reams have been written wherein the horrid crimes of the sailors are continually held up to execration, but how seldom is passing mention given to the true cause of the whole awful business—the treatment of the men by the commander, who seemed to have felt it his duty to make his men realize before death what sort of a place the infernal regions must be. Only the lack of initiative has prevented the tale of sea tragedies from being a hundredfold as many, not the desert of those in charge, who seem to have exhausted the ingenuity of fiends in their behavior toward their hapless crews.

Still, it must be confessed, and gladly, too, that few indeed are the captains or officers who set out with the deliberate intention of goading their crews to the point of madness just apparently in order to exhibit their power of command, their ability to control even the most frantic crowd of men. Few men are as wicked as that. But Captain Da Silva certainly was, and his visit to Brava was made with deliberate intent to procure certain auxiliaries upon whom he could rely for aid in the vile purpose he had set before himself—viz., that of trampling under foot triumphantly men of the hated Anglo-Saxon race, with all their nonchalant assumption of moral and mental superiority. Therefore it was that no sooner had sail been made and filled away for the southward than his plan of campaign began. The recruits—all of whom, be it noted, had been to sea before—were carefully apportioned by him throughout the two watches. They alone were allowed to steer the ship, and with each of

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