Jack Harvey's Adventures: or, The Rival Campers Among the Oyster Pirates

“Wake up, Tom,” he said, shaking him gently; “it’s time to get up.”

Tom Edwards opened his eyes, looked into the face of his new friend and groaned.

“Oh, I can’t,” he murmured. “I just can’t get up. I’m done for. I’ll never get out of this alive. I’m going to die. Jack, old fellow, you tell them what happened to me, if I never get ashore again. You’ll come through, but I can’t.”

Harvey looked at the sorry figure, compassionately.

“It’s rough on you,” he said, “because you’re soft and not used to exercise. But don’t you go getting discouraged this way. You’re not going to die – not by a good deal. You’re just sea-sick; and every one feels like dying when they get that way. You’ve just got to get out, because Adams will make you. So you better start in. Come on; we’ll get some of that beautiful coffee and that other stuff, and you’ll feel better.”

By much urging, Harvey induced his companion to arise, and they went on deck.

It was a fine, clear morning, and the sight that met their eyes was really a pretty one. In the waters of Tar Bay were scores of craft belonging to the oyster fleet. They were for the most part lying at anchor, now, with smoke curling up in friendly fashion from their little iron stove funnels. There were vessels of many sorts and sizes; a few large schooners, of the dredging class, bulky of build and homely; punjies, broader of bow and sharper and deeper aft, giving them quickness in tacking across the oyster reefs; bug-eyes, with their sharp prows, bearing some fancied resemblance, by reason of the hawse-holes on either bow, to a bug’s eye, or a buck’s eye – known also in some waters as “buck-eyes” – clean-lined craft, sharp at either end; also little saucy skip-jacks, and the famous craft of the Chesapeake, the canoes.

These latter, known also as tonging-boats, were remarkably narrow craft, made of plank, about four feet across the gunwales and averaging about twenty feet long. Some of them were already under weigh, the larger ones carrying two triangular sails and a jib. It seemed to Harvey as though the sail they bore up under must inevitably capsize them; but they sailed fast and stiff.

A few of these craft were already engaged in tonging for oysters, in a strip of the bay just south of Barren Island, where the water shoaled to a depth of only one fathom. The two men aboard were alternately raising and lowering, by means of a small crank, a pair of oyster tongs, the jaws of which closed mechanically with the strain upon the rope to which it was attached.

To the southward, other vessels were beginning to come in upon the dredging grounds, until it seemed as though all of Maryland’s small craft must be engaged in the business of oyster fishing.

With an eye to the present usefulness of his men, more than from any compassion upon their condition, Captain Hamilton Haley had ordered a better breakfast to be served. There was fried bacon, and a broth of some sort; and the coffee seemed a bit stronger and more satisfying. Harvey urged his comrade to eat; and Tom Edwards, who had rallied a little from his sea-sickness, with the vessel now steady under him, in the quiet water, managed to make a fair breakfast.

They made sail, shortly, and stood to the southward, following the line of the island shores, but at some distance off the land. The hard, monotonous labour of working the dredges began once more. Jack Harvey, lame and stiff in his joints, found it more laborious than before.

Tom Edwards, somewhat steadier than on the previous day, but in no fit condition to work, was forced to the task. He made a most extraordinary, and, indeed, ludicrous figure – like a scarecrow decked out in an unusually good suit of clothes. He had no overcoat left him, but had sought relief from the weather by the purchase of an extra woollen undershirt from Captain Haley’s second-hand wardrobe. His appearance was, therefore, strikingly out of keeping with his surroundings.

In him one would have beheld a tall, light complexioned man; with blond moustache, that had once been trimly cut and slightly curled; clad in his black suit, with cut-away coat; his one linen shirt sadly in need of starching, but worn for whatever warmth it would give; even his one crumbled linen collar worn for similar purpose; and, with this, a bulky pair of woollen mittens, to protect his hands that were as yet unused to manual labour.

Watching him, as he toiled at the opposite winch, Harvey could not restrain himself, once, from bursting into laughter; but, the next moment, the pale face, with its expression of distress, turned his laughter into pity. It was certainly no joke for poor Tom Edwards.

Mate Adams brought on the other two recruits, after a time, and they took their places at the winders. They were not strong enough to work continuously, however, and the two and Tom Edwards “spelled” one another by turns.

The wind fell away for an hour about noon, and there was a respite for all, save for the culling of the oysters that had been taken aboard; and Jack Harvey found opportunity to speak with the two newcomers.

Theirs was the old story – only too familiar to the history of the dredging fleet.

“My name is Wallace Brooks,” said one of them, a thick-set, good-natured looking youth of about twenty years. “I come from up Haverstraw way, on the Hudson river – and I thought I was used to hard work, for I’ve worked in the brick-yards there some; but that’s just play compared to this.

“Well, I went down to New York, to look for work, and I fell in with this chap. His name’s Willard Thompson. He’s a New Yorker, and has knocked around there all his life. I’m afraid he won’t stand much of this work here. He was a clerk in a store, but always wanted to take a sea voyage.”

Willard Thompson, standing wearily by the forecastle, did not, indeed, present a robust appearance, calculated to endure the hardships of a winter on Chesapeake Bay. He was rather tall and thin and sallow, dressed more flashily than his friend, Brooks, and was of a weaker type.

“We fell in with a man in South street, one day,” continued Brooks, “and he told us all about what a fine place this bay was; how it was warm here all winter, and oyster dredging the easiest work there is – ‘nothing to do but watch the boat sail, dragging a dredge after it,’ was the way he put it. He didn’t say anything about this everlasting grind of winding at the machines. Said the pay was twenty-five a month, and live like they do at the Astor House.

“He fooled us, all right, and we signed with him in New York, and he sent us down to Baltimore. They put us into a big boarding-house there, with a lot of men. Well, we found out more what it was going to be like, and we were going to back out and get away; but they were too smart for us – drugged our coffee one night – and, well, you know the rest. We’ve waked up at last. Whew, but’s tough! I wish I was back in the brick-yard, with a mile of bricks to handle. Isn’t old Haley a pirate?”

They were ordered to work again, soon, and the conversation ended.

Working that afternoon with the sailor, Sam Black, at the winch, Harvey got a further insight to the devious ways and the shrewdness of the dredgers, of the type of Hamilton Haley.

There sailed up, after a time, a smaller bug-eye, which ran along for some miles abreast of the Brandt, while the two captains exchanged confidences.

“Ahoy, Bill,” called Haley; “what d’yer know?”

“The Old Man’s looking for you,” returned the other.

“What’s he want of me?”

“Wants to see your license.”

“Well, I’ve got it, all right.”

Haley glanced, as he spoke, at his license numbers, displayed on two of the sails.

“Where is he now?”

“Down below Smith’s Island.”

“Has he boarded you?”

“Yes, looked us all over. We’re all clear.”

“Then,” continued Haley, “I’ll run alongside at sundown; where’ll you be?”

“Just around the foot of the island.”

“What does he mean?” inquired Harvey. “Who’s the Old Man?”

“Oh, he means the captain of the police tub,” replied Sam Black, grinning. “They’ll look us over, by and by, just to see if everything’s straight. It’s one of the state’s oyster navy.”

Harvey’s heart gave a jump. Might not here be a chance for liberty? But, the next moment, his hopes were dashed.

“Don’t you go reckoning on it, though, youngster,” continued Sam Black, “for ’twon’t do you a bit of good. There’s no police as slick as Ham Haley, nor the rest of his crowd. What’s the good of two old police steamers and a few schooners in goodness knows how many hundred square miles of bay, with hundreds of harbours to run to and hide, and islands to dodge ’round, and a score of pirates like Haley to help each other dodge? And any captain in the fleet willing to tell where the police tub is?”

“I tell you, it ain’t often they catch a captain napping, no matter what he’s done. Let ’em swear out a warrant, up in Baltimore, for a captain that has been beating up his men. Well, I dunno how it does come, hardly; but, all the same, the news gets down the bay and spreads all through the fleet like a field of grass afire. Pshaw! By the time they gets him, that cap’n has got half a new crew, and there isn’t a man aboard as saw the beating done, except the cap’n and his mate; and if they’ve done any beating up, you bet they’ve clean forgotten it.”

Harvey’s face looked blanker than before. “Then there isn’t much hope in the law, no matter what happens,” he said.

“Haley and the rest of ’em have got the law,” responded Black. “Haley showed that fellow, Edwards, the law. Don’t you get in the way of it. That’s my advice.”

“All the captains alike?” asked Harvey.

“About a score or so of ’em are downright pirates,” replied Sam Black. “They’re the kind I’ve fell in with, mostly. There’s good ones, too, I suppose – or not so bad.”

For all the sailor said, Jack Harvey was not without some faint hope, as the afternoon wore away and the bug-eye headed for the foot of lower Hooper Island, that the expected visit of the police boat might afford him and Tom Edwards the opportunity for escape. He gave the news to Tom Edwards, at supper time, and that weary unfortunate beamed with renewed hope.

“It’s our chance,” he said. “Won’t I fill that navy captain full of what that brute Haley has done aboard here!”

They rounded the foot of Hooper Island, after a time, and anchored in a bight of the north shore. Presently the craft that had hailed the Brandt bore up; and, shortly after, still another. The two came alongside, with their sails fluttering – but they did not let them run.