Deej Recommends: The Sextant

by J. Allan Dunn

Here is another J. Allan Dunn story from the pages of Boys’ Life, with a solid Christmas theme and, if there’s a bit less “adventure” than you might expect, it makes up for it in heart.

I have a feeling this was a bit of a rush job, not necessarily in the writing, but somewhere in the process of getting it ready for publication. There were a few clear typos, which I’ve corrected, at least one sentence which seemed to be missing an important word, which I added, and a few more cases where the prose feels slightly off from Dunn’s usual absolute clarity, but which I left as is. Another peculiarity is that the two ship names that occur in the story were not italicized (which, again, I fixed), something that feels completely off for Dunn, and makes me think the page layouts were rushed, or something along those lines.

While, as I say, this story seems a little short of adventure in the purest sense, it is bang on in depicting the yearning for adventure that every boy has, and which is discouraged by certain types of mothers almost by reflex. Those types of mothers, who seem to be in charge of the culture at present, cannot understand a story like this, except to disdain, demean, and dismiss it.

For everyone else, though… well, have some tissues ready, because the room will get pretty darn dusty by the end.

The Sextant

J. Allan Dunn

Ben Martin, cabin boy aboard the Southern Star, sat forward of the galley in the lee of the wind that was driving the bark northwards with bellying and squared yards, laboriously making a wriggly with blue beads on the front of the little canvas bag he had sewn with his own hands. The bag was shaped to hold a slab of chewing tobacco and it was designed as a present for Simpkins, the first mate.

Ben sat in a puddle of sunshine glad to feel the warmth of the sun. Cape Stiff had been left behind with all its horrors of fog and ice, of snow and headwinds and bitter, bitter cold. They were speeding north up the South American coast, towards the tropics. The mate said earlier in the day, soon after the noon observation, that they might sight the island of San Juan Fernandez before sunset. Not to touch there—too much time had been lost in making their westing against the Cape Horn weather—but, to Ben, the mere name of the island conjured up a vision of Robinson Crusoe, clad in goatskins, wandering along the lonely strand, umbrella in hand, suddenly halting as he saw the naked footprint that was the trail to his faithful Man Friday. Every now and then he looked over the port rail to see if the island was visible, then went on with his laborious beading.

Simpkins would have been astounded if he had known the gift was for him. He had small use for cabin boys and Ben had come in for the usual share of cuffs and harsh words, of mean jobs and blame for being stupid, which he was not. Neither was the bag intended to curry favor. It was one of several gifts to be bestowed two days later, in a simplicity that was a part of Ben’s nature.

For Hansen, the second mate, a pipe stopper carved of bone. The cook had shown him how to do that and given him the material. For Dennett, the steward, Ben’s immediate superior and taskmaster; Ben’s own luckpiece; a Chinese coin of scant value, but long precious to the boy. For the cook, some pads made of bits of canvas, to be used in handling hot metal. Trivial gifts but the best that Ben could devise.

He would have liked to have one for each man aboard but that was impossible so he confined himself to the after-guard and to the cook, to whom, as to the steward, he was assistant.

As for the skipper, Captain Bedford, that grizzled seadog, long salted by the sea, always gruff and often as tempestuous as a Cape Stiff flurry, to whom Ben looked up with mingled fear and admiration, as for that gift, Ben thought as little of it as possible. He had made up his mind to the supreme sacrifice, it was the fitting thing to give but it had cost Ben much fortitude and some tears to come to it. As he made the second straggly curve in the S he fought hard to dismiss it from his mind by thinking of Crusoe and of the fact that he was now a salted sailor who had rounded the Horn and was one day to walk the poop and issue thunderous orders in a gale.

Sound was all about him, in the creak of the blocks, the strain of the deck planks, the song of the wind in the shrouds, the muffled thunder of it in the sails, the whistle of it up aloft, the crunch of the forefoot as it smashed the seas and the hiss of the water along the run. There was the surge of the sea itself rising in ordered phalanx of deep blue waves, mounting and dissolving, speeding the ship as they ran beside it in escort.

Sound and light. Light that poured down from the sky, sometimes diffused by racing clouds, high up, like great puff balls. Dazzling back from the waves, filtering through the canvas, flinging sharp down on the deck.

Motion, in sea and sky and in the ship as it lunged and lifted, as it sped down the watery valleys and tried to fight the pressure of the helm, in the pendulum swing of the tall masts and all the airy fabric of the sails. Sound and Light and Motion with Ben in the midst of them, cradled, a part of them, his soul responding to the strength and glory of it all until he forgot hardships passed and hardships sure to come and only knew that here he was, where he had longed to be, afloat.

The desire of the sea had been born in him. He knew that though he could not understand the reason for the longing that had always possessed him through all the dirt and drudgery of earlier days—none the less vital now but glorified by the fact that he had achieved his ambition. This numbed the pain of his bruises, it offset the soaked and inefficient clothing, the long days at the beck and call of many masters, careless of his comfort, his aching body, tired legs and arms, it made all things a wonderful apprenticeship, a glorious experience leading to the day when Captain Ben Martin—Captain Ben Martin the Third—would shoot the sun and cast a shrewd eye along the horizon, over the sky, the swelling canvas, with a wise look to the binnacle, a word to the quartermaster at the wheel and snappy orders to the hustling crew.

That day would come—Ben was sure of that. His grandfather had started as cabin boy though his father had the advantages of a start he did not bestow upon Ben the Third.

Ben’s mother had fought against her only child going to sea. It was a cruel monster, she declared, always lying in wait, deceitful and treacherous. She had married a sailor but she had not given birth to one.

She had, though she would not acknowledge it, even if she secretly feared. Ben was brought up to imagine his father engaged in a precarious calling that was far from enviable. Yet the salt was in the boy’s blood. It went back many generations with here and there a skip but ever a return. He loved to hear his father’s tales and from him he learned how to tie knots and the canvas and rigging of schooner, barkentine, brig, bark and full rigged ship. From such talks and lessons his mother would hale him out and he would hear her voice lecturing his father on the folly of putting wrong ideas in the boy’s head.

From one voyage his father never returned—was never to return. And in time the widow, with her eight years old Ben, married again. The new head of the household was a contractor, a builder of small houses, a big man with harsh ways and little love for Ben.

Five years passed and the influenza left Ben doubly orphaned. The scowl his stepfather cast on him when they returned from the funeral told the lad that he was no longer welcome in that house. Soon he was thrust into the attic from his own bedroom and barred from the rest of the house except the kitchen by the sister of the man, who had come to keep house for him. They made a drudge out of Ben, they unwillingly gave in to the school authorities, they made it very plain that the moment Ben was going to be able to earn his own living he would be expected to do so. So ran their talk while they expressed their opinion of his incompetence. Yet Ben knew they would not lightly let him go, just as he knew that he did the work of a paid servant who would not have suffered his accommodations.

Ben did not mind the attic though it was sometimes bitter cold. He hauled his cot and insufficient bedding close to the central chimney, hugging its warmth, supplementing his covering with odds and ends of old clothing, rummaged from the attic trunks. There was an old pea-jacket of his father’s that did more than keep him warm.

He could finger the buttons of it in the dark, feeling the anchors embossed there and finding them magic buttons that, when pressed, let him through to another world, another element. The sloping walls disappeared, the uneven boards of the attic became the deck of a ship, the deep sea was all about him, with the stars shining overhead and the winds blowing on him as he sailed.

There were dreams in which he walked the poop and watched the rigging of a plank out on which his step-father and the sister were presently to be pricked by cutlasses and prodded by pistol barrels until they fell off the end to the expectant sharks. How they pleaded with him. At last he condescended to maroon them, sending them off in a small boat with a small keg of water and one of salt-horse.

Other nights he sailed over purple seas that creamed as they broke on dazzling sand where a crescent beach sloped gently to waving cocopalms and savage figures rushed down from the bush, brandishing spears and clubs. Always Captain Ben Martin the Third, cool and resourceful, was in command, the admiring crew jumping to his lightest word.

The memory of such dreams held through the days. Slowly a purpose crystallized from them.

There were other things found in the attic. Ben was usually roused from there before it was light by a vicious alarm clock, usually he crept up there in the dark, forbidden a lamp or matches for the fear of fire. But there were rare times when the house was empty, save for himself, and his tasks were forward enough for him to steal up to the attic—to mount the ladder to the poop—and there haul out two treasures.

One of these was a small lithograph, about the size of a postal card, framed in dark wood, the colored picture of a brig brought to the wind. It was an unnamed craft but his father had bought it once because it resembled the Nancy, the brig that he commanded.

The other was a box made of mahogany, brass-bound, lined with green felt and holding a strange shaped instrument. It was the sextant of his father and his father’s father—the latter had called it a quadrant. With it they had determined the altitude of sun and stars, the angular distances between stars and other objects, with it they had determined their position on the water wastes and won their way to distant shores and back again to home.

Ben knew how it was used, how to hold it properly, how to peer through the telescope and swing the vernier over the graduated arc, set in a slip of silver. He could do nothing with mathematics of it, so far, they were a closed book to him, but he could imagine.

It was the best kind of magic. Light coming in through the grimy attic window, the little picture propped up in front of him on a beam, the sextant in his hand and—presto—he was off in broad daylight!

Such books as he found time to read were stories of the sea. Their contents were like water to a thirsty flower.

There came a day when one accident followed another in the house, for all of which Ben shouldered the blame, for part of which, harassed and driven, he was responsible. There came the evening with the contractor’s return, disgruntled by the insistence of an inspecting architect, seeing profits turned to losses; the recitation of the day’s woes by his sister, Ben brought to judgment for the sins of many—a scapegoat.

“Get out of here, you dirty, ungrateful brat! I’m tired of feeding you out of charity!”

Ben was dirty—that he could not help. He had been washing fouled pots, he had been scrubbing dirty places, toiling in the cellar. He could think of nothing he should be grateful for and the word ‘charity’ stung.

Something like a cold fury possessed him and showed in his grey eyes. He felt strangely cool though the blood was hot in his veins. The contractor was three times a match for him but he could not quite meet Ben’s look.

“All right,” Ben said slowly. “I wont be here in the morning.”

He did not know that brother and sister gazed at each other with the fire of their anger suddenly slackening.

“Suppose he’ll cut and run?” asked the contractor.

“It ’ud be just like him,” replied his sister. “But he won’t. He’s not a fool. He knows where his bread is buttered and where he gets it.”

“Not much butter, I’ll be bound,” said the contractor and then they both laughed.

But Ben was out of the house before they were awake, walking through far Brookline and through the narrow confusion of Boston’s streets to the wharves, an old grip of his father’s in one hand, stuffed with his miserable wardrobe; in the other the sextant.

“What about your folks?” demanded Captain Bedford before whom Ben presented himself that same afternoon, hungry, discouraged, but with a gleam still in his grey eyes. If Bedford had not happened to need a cabin boy and Simpkins, the first mate, to know of it, Ben would never have won through to the cabin. To him it was a treasure house, Bedford a majestic figure.

“I haven’t any,” said Ben. “My stepfather told me to get out. My mother is dead.”

“Lazy?”

“No, sir.” He said it stoutly and Captain Bedford’s cold eyes, appraising the lad’s strength and willingness, showed a faint spark of approval at the tone.

“How old?”

“Fourteen, sir.”

“What’s your name?”

“Martin, sir. Ben Martin.”

Again there came a flicker of speculation in the skipper’s gaze.

“All right,” he said. “I’ll sign you on. We sail tomorrow. You can meet me at the Commissioner’s in an hour. You’ll get eight dollars a month and food.”

Ben did not know where the Commissioner’s was. He waited, watching Simpkins oversee the lading of the ship, running errands for him, and, when the skipper went ashore, he trailed him.

“Wait here,” said Captain Bedford, as he saw Ben at his heels by the office door. What he said to the Commissioner Ben did not guess but he was not asked any questions about his folks, relieving the fear that they had power to drag him back. That night he helped the steward to serve supper in the cabin.

And ever since he had been happy. He had won through to his magic. It gave him heart ease despite aching limbs, despite seasickness, despite what must have been drudgery save for the wonder of being at sea. He never tired of the sea, even when he feared it, as he often did during the days and nights that they fought to round the Horn. He loved its changing moods, it was a lullaby to put him to sleep and turned his rude bunk into a cradle of comfort as he heard it boom and crash and thunder against the ship, it gave him energy when he came out on deck, perhaps in the middle of the night when the call of “All Hands” included him.

Then the seas rolled black like moving hills sometimes laced with phosphorescence. They were blue, purple, green and gray, they were never the same and the sky above them and the winds that blew over them told Ben that he had come into his own. He had suffered a sea-change, drunk a wizard’s draught.

His hours were not too long for him. He had to be on deck every time eight bells was struck, save at the end of the middle watch at night. He actually put in more time than the regular crew but he never tired of going on deck, even when his eyes were glued with sleep. He was learning, all the time and he had more knowledge stowed away than was suspected. With what his father had taught him brought fresh to mind by being actually aboard, he soon knew every rope, sheet, brace and halliard, every stay, every sail with clew and tack and downhaul. When an order was given he followed it with his eyes, knowing just what the men would do.

A few times he had been aloft and that too he loved. His was the true seaman’s inheritance, sure foot, sure hand, sure eye. No dizziness for him. All he lacked was greater strength to control the windful canvas and that was coming to him for he fared well enough in the galley where the cook by turns abused him and made a pet of him in a rough way.

“The lad’s a born sailor,” he would tell the crew. “Wait till he gits length an’ strength, he’ll crowd the best of ye!”

Such praise was music, lightening the hundred tasks below deck, the work in cabin and galley, the bedmaking, sweeping, dishwashing and serving.

The skipper took scant notice of him. The mates sometimes vented their ill humor on him but his willingness spared him a lot. What he yearned for most was a chance to really enter an apprenticeship as a sailor, to help work the ship, not merely work on her as the steward’s helper.

Thus he invested every man aboard who was a seaman with something not far from reverence, as a novitiate looks on the master craftsman. The skipper and the two mates, shouting orders in a storm, with the men hurrying to haul, to climb the swaying masts and fight with the the rebellious canvas, were demi-gods. And one day he would be one of them.

They did not know it, they did not know he was sailor-born but he would show them and he hugged his secret. To tell them would be to provoke laughter. They rated him only a landlubber, they did not guess at his magic birthright. They did not guess the ability that the salt winds, and the surging blue swell called up within him. Some day—some day soon they would know.

There was one fly in his ointment, his demi-gods only appeared super-human in their work. At other times they were far from demi-godly. There was bad blood between the first and the second mate, the skipper and the first mate were over-civil with their “mistering”. Between the first and second there was jealousy, between the skipper and the first it was a question of seamanship.

Ben was not a sailor enough to understand the reason, nor were the men in the forecastle, though they took sides. Ben heard them sniggering about the “dressing-down” the old man had given the first. A matter of judgment as to a change of sails in a midnight shift of wind. The mate had resented it and taken it out on his watch and the skipper, who had not turned in, rounded on him. Ben had heard that.

“I’ll not have the men hazed, Mister,” said the skipper. “I need no bucko mate aboard this ship. I do my own bullying.”

“There’s no doubt about that,” the mate muttered, a bit too loudly, and Captain Bedford had turned on him.

“What’s that, sir? What’s that?”

The mate spat sullenly to leeward.

“I said I’d attend to that, sir,” he answered finally.

“See that you do, or I’ll attend to you. I’ll have no words flung back at me. You can’t teach me my business, Mr. Simpkins. Don’t try or you’ll lose the handle to your name. I’ll disrate you.”

The men heard. That was what rankled in the soul of the mate and he showed it. Some of the men in his watch revealed that they took his part-time-serving for the favors he could show them. The harmony of the ship was gone. The skipper wrapped himself in the dignity of his office and the first mate rode the second. Not all the smiling sea and sky, the warm sun and favorable wind could dispel the gloomy spirits of the crew, cabin to foc’sle. It was a ship beginning to be divided against itself.

And the next day was Christmas.

The cook sent Ben to the steward for an issue of raisins to make a real plum duff, a regular custom.

“There’ll be no Christmas cheer aboard this v’yage,” said the steward. “I’ll not ask the skipper in his mood. I’m not anxious to have my head snapped off. Let cookee ask him if he wants to. Not me.”

The news spread. The cook did not tackle what the steward evaded. And the foc’sle became a gloomy place. Some blamed the mate and others cursed the skipper. Ben wondered and worried.

His father had told him of Christmases at sea, when fiddle and accordion sounded for’ard and there was a good cheer aft. Peace and goodwill, talk of home with songs in the middle watch and discipline relaxed. It was the time for mending quarrels, when seamen became comrades and swore fellowship beneath the stars, some of them thinking vaguely of boyhood Christmases beneath a sheltered roof, beside a glowing fire, a tree full of simple gifts and topped with the tinsel emblem of Star of Bethlehem. Ben thought of these things. Once he had found Robinson Crusoe in his stocking and his mother had read it aloud to him. She had used it as an example of the perils of the sea, little knowing how her boy’s heart had leaped to the adventures of the marooned mariner.

There would be no tree aboard, no fire, but should there not be gifts? There had been on his father’s ship—for all hands. He could not compass that but—what if he brought Christmas into the cabin?

It was a simple thought but it was born of the simplicity that is sincerity. Ben thought out his gifts and worked on them. He held back the picture of the ship that looked like the Nancy. It was in his bunk, underneath the scant mattress. And his father’s pea-jacket was under the pillow. He fingered its brass buttons nightly and he dreamed that his father told him, in his deep, kind voice, that he was doing the right thing.

The first mate broke in upon his musing as he tied off the thread of the last bead in the S. He had turned the bag inside out for this and it looked just like something a boy might make for himself. The mate snatched it from his hand, gave it a swift inspection and flung it on the deck. Wind breezed it to the scuppers with Ben’s eyes on it fearfully.

“Malingerin’ eh, you scallawag!” bellowed the mate, his voice as rough as if he was accusing the lad of murder. “We’ll have none of that. I’ll find somethin’ for you to do.”

It was unfair. Ben’s work was done for the time. His next call would come from the galley. This was his own time, if a cabin-boy ever had right to leisure.

“I’ll teach you,” said Simpkins, “litterin’ up the deck.”

That stung. Ben’s fingers were sore where the needle had pricked him working over the gift that Simpkins called litter. The mate’s eyes burned, his face was deeply flushed beneath its tan. Since his encounter with the skipper, when the captain had talked of disrating in front of the crew, the man’s temper had been set on a hair-trigger, the least provocation released it and a fiery burst of rage.

It was plain enough, even to Ben, that the ship was nearing the condition known to old salts as a “sour ship”. First, the trouble between the officers and, last, the word that Christmas privileges were not to be recognised had brought about an atmosphere that was as dangerous as chokedamp in a coal mine, trick as dynamite. When men grow silent and brood over their troubles there is bound to be an accumulation of compressed resentment that is ripe for explosion. Small things count on shipboard where one man may not get away from another.

The cook and the steward, wise men both as far as experience went, shook their heads and whispered together.

“’Twill be luck if we make port ’thout bad trouble,” said the cook.

“An’ there’s no sayin’ will it break fore or aft,” agreed the steward. “Simpkins is sour, an’ he’s packin’ a gun. The skipper bawled him out in front of all hands an’ threatened to disrate him an’ send him for’ard. Simpkins ’ll not be peaceful. There’ll be blood spilled first, you mark my words.”

“There’s a pile of the men back of him,” said cookee. “Unless somethin’ clears the decks there’ll be mutiny on the high seas.”

“Nothin’ ’ll clear that off except a miracle,” replied the steward gloomily. “You don’t wait on ‘em an’ see ‘em gloomin’ at each other. All the misterin’ in the world, an’ politeness so thick that it’s an insult.”

Ben had seen and sensed all this too, as he helped the steward and the cook and listened to fragments of their talk together.

“Blood spilled—mutiny on the high seas!” His father had told him such things, the shame and disgrace of all seamen. Already there were covert looks between the men. The first mate’s watch had drawn apart. The trouble in the cabin was reflected in the foc’stle.

So the spirit of discontent brooded and trouble was hatched under the shining, windy sky as the ship fled north. and the porpoises gambolled in her wake. And so a lad dreamed of high traditions of the service, handed down to him, and thought that he could work the miracle the steward declared necessary.

There are times when a miracle is the direct answer to prayer and often the most effective prayer needs no voicing. Clean thought engenders prayer without petition.

Ben crouched to dodge or receive the blow he felt was imminent from the mate’s uplifting arm and the red flecks in his eyes. There came a call.

“Land ho!”

“Where away?”

“On the weather bow, sir.”

“Go tell the captain,” the mate ordered curtly.

Ben darted off, snatching up the canvas bag as he went, like a bird swooping on the wing.

“Land,” said the skipper with a scowl. “That’ll be Juan Fernandez.”

“Robinson Crusoe’s Island,” said Ben, without thinking. For all his reverence of the skipper’s position Ben could not help but be ingenuous at times.

“What’s that?” demanded the captain, taking his binouculars from their hook.

“I said Robinson Crusoe’s Island, sir.”

“Robinson….? Hmph!”

The captain went on deck without another word but Ben could have sworn there was the ghost of a twinkle in his eyes, the twitch of a smile to his mouth. It gave him better heart for his experiment.

The men had gathered by the rail, hoping against hope for a run ashore. Fresh meat and water, fruit and vegetables were there, a hearty welcome by the inhabitants. It was Christmas. They strained their hearing to catch what the skipper said to the mate when the latter reported stiffly.

“San Juan Fernandez, sir, four points off the weather bow.”

“Very good, sir. You’ll keep your course, Mr. Simpkins. And you will kindly find something else for your men to do than loll on the rail.”

The skipper swept the horizon and focussed his glasses briefly on the land then went below as the mate, almost black with anger, set the crew to work. Ordinarily the deck would be specially holystoned for Christmas, the brasswork polished to a special dazzle. This had not been done but he set them at it.

Slowly the wind that had been with them began to fail. The sails hung listless. By evening there was a dead calm. The island was no longer on the weather bow, for there was no weather. It rose in a blue mount to the west against the gathering glory of the sunset and the ship seemed held where she was, as if the island had been a lodestone and the Southern Star a bit of sensitive material hovering on the outer zone of attraction. It was still there when the stars came out, if anything, there seemed to be some current that slowly drew them closer, though that might well have been the illusion of the change of light.

Here it showed, abeam on the port bow, like the meal of tantalus, while the watches gathered together and muttered in low tones with oaths and threats that so far were idle. The sea was like glass with only the long heaving of the swell to make the reflections of the stars streaks instead of points of light. The night wore on and the moon came up and still there was no breeze.

They had drifted closer in the night. The lifting sun touched the crags where Crusoe had hunted goats with a crimson brush. It was Christmas morning.

There were no greetings as the watches changed. The crew went off deck sullen and mounted to their work in the same disaffected fashion

The second mate relieved the first so that the latter might breakfast with the captain. The two officers met without a word or nod. The steward pursed his lips and shook his head sagely at Ben in the pantry. Ben could feel the tension between the two men. A gathering hatred in the mate. Hardening determination in the skipper to enforce the full extent of his authority, also full knowledge of the attitude of the men.

The steward set a cup of coffee by the captain’s right hand as Captain Bedford took his seat. The skipper reached for it, then his eyes became fixed, stoney in their cold regard of the quartermaster who came part way down the companionway, knuckling at his grizzled hair. He was almost the oldest seaman aboard the Southern Star, the best helmsman and one who had been many voyages under Captain Bedford.

Again the steward looked at Ben as if to say, “I told you so.” Ben knew enough of such matters to feel that here was the warning of coming collision between the fore and after guard.

The skipper glared without speaking. The intruder looked uneasy but resolute.

“I’ve come on ’count of the men, sir,” he said huskily. “They’d like you to give ‘em a hearin’ at the mast between now an’ eight bells.”

That meant twelve o’clock noon. Eight bells had just sounded as the officers went down for breakfast. Captain Bedford’s eyes dilated, narrowed, the veins on his face and neck swelled until it seemed they must burst. The audacity of the men setting a time for the hearing of their complaints roused him to fury. Any hearing of this sort was an imputation that the captain’s methods were unsatisfactory and Captain Bedford was the last man to hear himself criticised with complacency. But his voice, when he spoke, was quiet and even, though his eyes were full of menace.

“All hands at the mast at four bells,” he said. “I’ll give them a hearing. Will you ask Mr. Hansen to kindly step below, with my compliments?”

The steward stuck his tongue in his cheek. It boded ill for Mr. Hansen that he had let the old quartermaster descend to the cabin though it was his right of complaint that took him there.

“And fetch my gun from my cabin, steward,” continued the captain, not lifting his voice but somehow putting a ring into it that carried it to the ears of the old quartermaster as he went up the companionway.

“You’ll be needing yours, I’m thinking, Mr. Simpkins, if you’re to back me in this,” went on the skipper with a searching look at the mate.

“Blood spilled!” Ben could see the red stains on the planks. His experiment had not worked. It could not work now that the challenge had been passed. The skipper would tongue lash the men, gun in belt. What would the men do? What would the first mate do? The second, after the captain’s anger had broken on him.

The first mate sat glowering at his plate, his fingers working nervously, pinching up the cloth. Then they encountered Ben’s gift, set on his napkin but he did not appear to notice it as anything strange to the table.

The steward came from the captain’s cabin with his revolver in a holster, a grim emblem of trouble and death. The second mate came slowly down the companionway, a tall, fair man, his face troubled.

Captain Bedford raised his hand impressively as Hansen stood at the foot of the table opposite him.

“Mr. Hansen,” he said in the quiet tone that suggested the grating of sharp steel on sharp steel, “would you mind telling me why……..”

The second mate’s face flushed and he stiffened. The skipper’s hand descended and touched the mahogany box, brass-bound that had been set at his place.

“What’s this, what’s this?” he asked as he looked at the case, guessing its contents.

Ben took his courage in his hands. But his voice trembled a little.

“A Merry Christmas to you, Captain Bedford,” he said.

The skipper turned in his seat and looked hard at his cabin boy. Ben’s eyes were filled with a light that seemed to illuminate the captain’s mind. It may have gone deeper. Slowly the opened the case and took out the instrument, polished to the last degree of shining by Ben. He turned it about wonderingly while all in the cabin stood or sat motionless their gaze centered.

“Benjamin J. Martin. 1865” read off the skipper. Then “Benjamin J. Martin. 1897.

A change came over the skipper.

“You’re making a gift of this to me, my lad?” he asked.

“Yes, sir.”

“This sextant was your father’s?”

“Yes sir, and my grandfather’s.”

“What was your father’s last ship, my boy?” The cold voice was warming.

“The Brig, Nancy, sir.”

“Martin of the Nancy. Lost at sea.” The skipper spoke as if to himself.

“Why do you want to give this to me, my lad?”

“It’s Christmas, sir. I thought you’d like it. It was the best I had.”

“The best. Aye, surely that.”

“He gave me a luckpiece, cap’en,” put in the steward. “His father gave him that, too. Got it in Pekin. I didn’t want to take it.”

“What’s that you are handling, Simpkins?”

The first mate twisted about the beaded bag.

“It’s for your chewing, sir,” said Ben.

Simpkins had a recollection of having seen the canvas bag before. Remembrance grew plain. He swore softly under his breath, not in a curse but in forgiven condemnation of his eyes.

Ben, his spirit mounting, as the mercury mounts, when the temperature turns from cold to warmth; produced the tobacco stopper, explained its use. Hansen took it and held it in the palm of his hand.

The captain stood upright.

“Gentlemen,” he said, “the lad wishes us a Merry Christmas, and he gives us his best gifts. I think that perhaps we have all forgotten the day. I pass on to you his greetings. A Merry Christmas to you, Simpkins, and to you Hansen.”

He shook hands with them. Then with the steward and, last of all, with Ben. The air in the cabin seemed sweeter, purer.

“The lad tells me,” said the captain. “That the island off our beam is Robinson Crusoe’s island. I had almost forgotten that, too. Mr. Simpkins, if a breeze comes, head up for it. The men might like to spend Christmas ashore. Steward, see that the cook is given supplies for a good dinner. Tell the cook to do his best. That’s all, gentlemen, except our breakfast. Ben, I’ll have a word with you later.”

They were all standing with their eyes shining and their faces cleared. The spirit of goodwill was with them. The miracle had happened.

“I can’t take the sextant, Ben,” said the captain, later. “It’s yours my lad. You’ll have your name on it some day. Why did you come to sea? Just because you could not live with your stepfather?”

“No sir. I wanted to be a sailor, like my father.”

“And like your father you shall be. I knew him. You’ve the makings. We’ll ship a boy at Lima. We’ll change your rating, Ben. To apprentice.”

Captain Bedford had not looked forward eagerly to the meeting at the mast.

When that meeting came the crew appeared shamefaced. Word had gone out from the galley. Already there were savors of holiday fare about the ship. It was the cook who saved the situation with a word in the old quartermaster’s ear.

“What is it men?” asked Captain Bedford, dressed in his best serge and braid.

The ancient mariner stood forward. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

“We’d like to wish you a Merry Christmas, sir,” he said and stepped back.

“Three cheers for the skipper,” said someone and the huzzas went up.

“I wish you the same, my lads,” said the captain. “The calm holds. It is too far to tow. Tomorrow we may have a wind. We’ll make a landing for a run ashore and fresh provisions. Meantime we’ll spend our Christmas aboard. Make it a merry one.”

He turned away, maintaining discipline, affecting not to hear the voice suggesting cheers for Benny Martin.