A Master of Fortune | Page 2

The Congo people want men who can handle steamers.
Their own bloomin' Belgians aren't worth a cent for that, and so they
have to get Danes, Swedes, Norwegians, English, Eytalians, or any one
else that's capable. They prefer to give small pay, and are willing to
take the men that for various reasons can't get better jobs elsewhere.
Guess you'll know the crowd I mean?"
"Thoroughly, sir," said Kettle, with a sigh. "There are a very large
number of us. But we're not all unfortunate through our own fault."
"No, I know," said the agent. "Rascally owners, unsympathetic Board
of Trade, master's certificate suspended quite unjustly, and all that--"
The agent looked at his watch. "Well, Capt'n, now, about this berth?
Are you going to take it?"
"I've no other choice."
"Right," said the agent, and pulled a printed form on to the desk before
him, and made a couple of entries. "Let's see--er--is there a Mrs.
Kettle?"
"Married," said the little sailor; "three children."
The agent filled these details on to the form. "Just as well to put it
down," he commented as he wrote. "I'm told the Congo Free State has
some fancy new pension scheme on foot for widdys and kids, though I
expect it'll come to nothing, as usual. They're a pretty unsatisfactory lot
all round out there. Still you may as well have your chance of what
plums are going. Yer age, Capt'n?"
"Thirty-eight."
"And--er--previous employment? Well, I suppose we had better leave
that blank as usual. They never really expect it to be filled in, or they
wouldn't offer such wretchedly small pay and commission. You've got
your master's ticket to show, and that's about all they want."

"There's my wife's address, sir. I'd like my half-pay sent to her."
"She shall have it direct from Brussels, skipper, so long as you are
alive--I mean, so long as you remain in the Congo Service."
Captain Kettle sighed again. "Shall I have to wait long before this
appointment is confirmed?"
"Why, no," said the agent. "There's a boat sailing for the Coast
to-morrow, and I can give you an order for a passage by her. Of course
my recommendation has to go to Brussels to be ratified, but that's only
a matter of form. They never refuse anybody that offers. They call the
Government 'Leopold and Co.' down there on the Congo. You'll
understand more about it when you're on the spot.
"I'm sorry for ye, Capt'n, but after what you told me, I'm afraid it's the
only berth I can shove you into. However, don't let me frighten ye.
Take care of yourself, don't do too much work, and you may pull
through all right. Here's the order for the passage down Coast by the
Liverpool boat. And now I must ask you to excuse me. I've another
client waiting."
* * * * *
In this manner, then, Captain Owen Kettle found himself, after many
years of weary knocking about the seas, enlisted into a regular
Government service; and although this Government, for various
reasons, happened to be one of the most unsatisfactory in all the wide,
wide world, he thrust this item resolutely behind him, and swore to
himself that if diligence and crew-driving could bring it about, he
would rise in that service till he became one of the most notable men in
Africa.
"What I want is a competence for the missus and kids," he kept on
repeating to himself, "and the way to finger that competence is to get
power." He never owned to himself that this thirst for power was one of
the greatest curses of his life; and it did not occur to him that his lust
for authority, and his ruthless use of it when it came in his way, were

the main things which accounted for his want of success in life.
Captain Kettle's voyage down to the Congo on the British and African
S.S. M'poso gave time for the groundwork of Coast language and Coast
thought (which are like unto nothing else on this planet) to soak into his
system. The steamer progressed slowly. She went up rivers protected
by dangerous bars; she anchored in roadsteads, off forts, and straggling
towns; she lay-to off solitary whitewashed factories, which only see a
steamer twice a year, and brought off little doles of cargo in her
surf-boats and put on the beaches rubbishy Manchester and
Brummagem trade goods for native consumption; and the talk in her
was that queer jargon with the polyglot vocabulary in which commerce
is transacted all the way along the sickly West African seaboard, from
the Goree to St. Paul de Loanda.
Every white man of the M'poso's crew traded on his own private
account, and Kettle was initiated into the mysteries of the