The Cook Of The "Spreetoo Santoo"--A Study In Beachcombers

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Title:     The Cook Of The "Spreetoo Santoo"--A Study In Beachcombers
Author: Louis Becke [More Titles by Becke]

We were in Kitti Harbour, at Ponape, in the Carolines, when, at breakfast, a bleary-eyed, undersized, more-or-less-white man in a dirty pink shirt and dungaree pants, came below, and, slinging his filthy old hat over to the transoms, shoved himself into a seat between the mate and Jim Garstang, the trader.

"Mornin', captin," said he, without looking at the skipper, and helping himself to about two pounds of curry.

"Morning to you. Who the deuce are you, anyway? Are you the old bummer they call 'Espiritu Santo'?" said Garstang.

"That's me. I'm the man. But I ain't no bummer, don't you b'lieve it. I wos tradin' round here in these (lurid) islands afore you coves knowed where Ponape was."

"Are you the skunk that Wardell kicked off the Shenandoah for stealing a bottle of wine?" said the mate.

"That's me. There was goin' ter be trouble over that on'y that the Shennydor got properly well sunk by the _Allybarmer_ (history wasn't his forte), and that ------ Wardell got d------d well drownded. Hingland haint a-goin' to let no Yankee insult nobody for nuthin'--an' I'm a blessed Englishman. I didn't steal the wine. Yer see, Wardell arst me off to dinner, and then we gets talkin' about polertics, an' I tells 'im 'e wos a lyin' pirut. Then he started foolin' around my woman, an' I up with a bottle of wine an'----"

"Why, you thundering liar," said Garstang, "you stole it out of the ward-room."

"I wouldn't call no man a liar if I was you, Mister--by G----, that Chinaman cook knows how to make curry."

He ate like a starving shark, and between mouthfuls kept up a running fire of lies and blasphemy. When he had eaten three platefuls of curry and drunk enough coffee to scald a pig, the skipper, who was gettin' tired of him, asked him if he had had enough.

Yes, he had had enough breakfast to last him a whole (Australian adjective) week.

"Then clear out on deck and swab the curry off your face, you beast!"

"That's always the way with you tradin' skippers. A stranger don't get no civility unless he comes aboard in a (red-painted) gig with a (crimson) umbrella and a (gory) 'elmet 'at, like a (vermilion) Consul."

The mate seized him, and, running him up the companion way, slung him out on deck.

*****

"What do you think of him?" asked the skipper, a man fond of a joke--it was Bully Hayes. "I thought I'd let you all make his acquaintance. He's been bumming around the Ladrones and Pelews since '50; used to be cook on a Manilla trading brig, the _Espiritu Santo_."

Then he told us how this wandering mass of blasphemy got his name of "Spreetoo Santoo." While in the brig he had been caught smuggling at Guam by the guarda costas, and had spent a year or two in the old prison fort at San Juan de 'Apra. (I don't know how he got out: perhaps his inherently alcoholic breath and lurid blasphemy made the old brick wall tumble down.)

After that he was always welcome in sailors' fo'c's'les by reason of his smuggling story, which would commence with--"When I was cook on the _Espiritu Santo_" (only he used the English instead of the Spanish name) "I got jugged by the gory gardy costers," &c, &c.

*****

When we came on deck he was sitting on the main-hatch with the Chinese carpenter--whose pipe he was smoking--and telling him that he ought to get rid of his native wife, who was a Gilbert Island girl, and buy a Ponape girl.

"I can git yer the pick o' the (crimson) island, an' it won't cost yer more'n a few (unprintable) dollars. I'm a (bad word) big man 'ere among the (adjective) natives."

Hung looked up at him stolidly with half-closed eyes. Then he took the pipe out of his mouth and said in a deadly cold voice--

"You palally liar, Spleetoo."

*****

He slouched aft again presently, and asked the mate, in an amiable tone of voice, if he had "any (ruddy) noospapers from Sydney."

"What the devil do _you_ want newspapers for?" inquired Hayes, turning round suddenly in his deck-chair, "you can't read, Spreetoo."

"Can't read, eh?" and his red-rimmed, lashless eyes simulated intense indignation. "Wot about that 'ere (red) bishop at Manilla, as wanted me to chuck up me (scarlet) billet on the _Spreetoo S antoo_ and travel through the (carnaged) Carryline Grewp as 's (sanguinary) sekketerry? 'Cos why? 'Cos there ain't any (blank) man atween 'ere an' 'ell as can talk the warious lingoes like me."

"Here," said the mate, giving him two or three old Maoriland newspapers--"here's some Auckland papers. Know anybody there?"

"No," he answered, promptly, "not a soul, but he knowed Sydney well. Larst time I wos there I sold old Bobby Towns L6,000 worth of oil--a bloomin' shipful. I got drunk, an' a (blank) policeman went through me in the cell and took the whole blessed lot outer me (scarlet) pocket." (Nine bad words omitted.)

"Bank notes?" queried Bully.

"No, sov'reigns--(gory) sov'reigns."

*****

He asked us if we had seen any men-o'-war about lately, and said that the captain of H.M.S. -------- had wanted to marry his daughter, but he wouldn't let her marry no man-o'-war cove after the way that ------ Wardell had treated him. He thought he would go back to Sydney again for a spell. His brother had a flaming fine billet there.

The Cook of the "Spreetoo Santoo" 243

"What is he?" asked Hayes.

"'E's a (blessed) Soopreme Court Judge, wears a (gory) wig big enough to make chafin' gear for a (crimson) fleet o' ships; 'e lives at Guvment 'Ouse, and Vs rollin' in money an' drinks like a (carmine) fish. I thought I might see somethin' about the ------ in a (blank) Sydney noospaper. I'll come in for all his (ensanguined) money when 'e dies."

Bully gave him a bottle of gin after a while. Then he hurriedly bade us farewell and went ashore.

[The end]
Louis Becke's short story: The Cook Of The "Spreetoo Santoo"--A Study In Beachcombers

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