The Captain’s Exploit Page #2

"The Captain’s Exploit" by W. W. Jacobs is a humorous short story that explores themes of adventure and the unexpected while focusing on the misadventures of a captain. Set against a nautical backdrop, the tale unfolds with wit and charm, revealing the captain's encounters and challenges. Jacobs' signature style, filled with colorful characters and clever dialogue, brings to life the quirks of maritime life, culminating in amusing situations that entertain and engage readers.

• Fiction

								

climbed aloft, and sail after sail was spread to the gentle breeze.

“Hi! you there,” cried the captain to one of the men who stood near
him, coiling up some loose line.

“Sir?” said the man.

“Where is the mate?” inquired the captain.

“Man with red whiskers and pimply nose?” said the man interrogatively.

“That’s him to a hair,” answered the other.

“Ain’t seen him since he took me on at eleven,” said the man. “How many
new hands are there?”

“I b’leeve we’re all fresh,” was the reply. “I don’t believe some of
’em have ever smelt salt water afore.”

“The mate’s been at it again,” said the captain warmly, “that’s what he
has. He’s done it afore and got left behind. Them what can’t stand
drink, my man, shouldn’t take it, remember that.”

“He said we wasn’t going to sail till Wen’sday,” remarked the man, who
found the captain’s attitude rather trying.

“He’ll get sacked, that’s what he’ll get,” said the captain warmly. “I
shall report him as soon as I get ashore.”

The subject exhausted, the seaman returned to his work, and the captain
continued steering in moody silence.

Slowly, slowly darkness gave way to light. The different portions of
the craft, instead of all being blurred into one, took upon themselves
shape, and stood out wet and distinct in the cold grey of the breaking
day. But the lighter it became, the harder the skipper stared and
rubbed his eyes, and looked from the deck to the flat marshy shore, and
from the shore back to the deck again.

“Here, come here,” he cried, beckoning to one of the crew.

“Yessir,” said the man, advancing.

“There’s something in one of my eyes,” faltered the skipper. “I can’t
see straight; everything seems mixed up. Now, speaking deliberate and
without any hurry, which side o’ the ship do you say the cook’s
galley’s on?”

“Starboard,” said the man promptly, eyeing him with astonishment.

“Starboard,” repeated the other softly. “He says starboard, and that’s
what it seems to me. My lad, yesterday morning it was on the port
side.”

The seaman received this astounding communication with calmness, but,
as a slight concession to appearances, said “Lor!”

“And the water-cask,” said the skipper; “what colour is it?”

“Green,” said the man.

“Not white?” inquired the skipper, leaning heavily upon the wheel.

“Whitish-green,” said the man, who always believed in keeping in with
his superior officers.

The captain swore at him.

By this time two or three of the crew who had over-heard part of the
conversation had collected aft, and now stood in a small wondering knot
before their strange captain.

“My lads,” said the latter, moistening his dry lips with his tongue, “I
name no names—I don’t know ’em yet—and I cast no suspicions, but
somebody has been painting up and altering this ’ere craft, and
twisting things about until a man ’ud hardly know her. Now what’s the
little game?”

There was no answer, and the captain, who was seeing things clearer and
clearer in the growing light, got paler and paler.

“I must be going crazy,” he muttered. “Is this the Smiling Jane, or
am I dreaming?”

“It ain’t the Smiling Jane,” said one of the seamen; “leastways,” he
added cautiously, “it wasn’t when I came aboard.”

“Not the Smiling Jane!” roared the skipper; “what is it, then?”

“Why, the Mary Ann,” chorused the astonished crew.

“My lads,” faltered the agonised captain after a long pause. “My lads—”
He stopped and swallowed something in his throat. “I’ve been and
brought away the wrong ship,” he continued with an effort; “that’s what
I’ve done. I must have been bewitched.”

“Well, who’s having the little game now?” inquired a voice.

“Somebody else’ll be sacked as well as the mate,” said another.

“We must take her back,” said the captain, raising his voice to drown
these mutterings. “Stand by there!”

The bewildered crew went to their posts, the captain gave his orders in
a voice which had never been so subdued and mellow since it broke at
the age of fourteen, and the Mary Ann took in sail, and, dropping her
anchor, waited patiently for the turning of the tide.

The church bells in Wapping and Rotherhithe were just striking the hour
of mid-day, though they were heard by few above the noisy din of
workers on wharves and ships, as a short stout captain, and a mate with
red whiskers and a pimply nose, stood up in a waterman’s boat in the
centre of the river, and gazed at each other in blank astonishment.

“She’s gone, clean gone!” murmured the bewildered captain.

“Clean as a whistle,” said the mate. “The new hands must ha’ run away
with her.”

Then the bereaved captain raised his voice, and pronounced a pathetic
and beautiful eulogy upon the departed vessel, somewhat marred by an
appendix in which he consigned the new hands, their heirs, and
descendants, to everlasting perdition.

“Ahoy!” said the waterman, who was getting tired of the business,
addressing a grimy-looking seaman hanging meditatively over the side of
a schooner. “Where’s the Mary Ann?”

“Went away at half-past one this morning,” was the reply.

“’Cos here’s the cap’n an’ the mate,” said the waterman, indicating the
forlorn couple with a bob of his head.

“My eyes!” said the man, “I s’pose the cook’s in charge then. We was to
have gone too, but our old man hasn’t turned up.”

Quickly the news spread amongst the craft in the tier, and many and
various were the suggestions shouted to the bewildered couple from the
different decks. At last, just as the captain had ordered the waterman
to return to the shore, he was startled by a loud cry from the mate.

“Look there!” he shouted.

The captain looked. Fifty or sixty yards away, a small
shamefaced-looking schooner, so it appeared to his excited imagination,
was slowly approaching them. A minute later a shout went up from the
other craft as she took in sail and bore slowly down upon them. Then a
small boat put off to the buoy, and the Mary Ann was slowly warped
into the place she had left ten hours before.

But while all this was going on, she was boarded by her captain and
mate. They were met by Captain Bing, supported by his mate, who had
hastily pushed off from the Smiling Jane to the assistance of his
chief. In the two leading features before mentioned he was not unlike
the mate of the Mary Ann, and much stress was laid upon this fact by
the unfortunate Bing in his explanation. So much so, in fact, that both
the mates got restless; the skipper, who was a plain man, and given to
calling a spade a spade, using the word “pimply” with what seemed to
them unnecessary iteration.

It is possible that the interview might have lasted for hours had not
Bing suddenly changed his tactics and begun to throw out dark hints
about standing a dinner ashore, and settling it over a friendly glass.
The face of the Mary Ann’s captain began to clear, and, as Bing
proceeded from generalities to details, a soft smile played over his
expressive features. It was reflected in the faces of the mates, who by
these means showed clearly that they understood the table was to be
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