John Masefield: Anty Bligh

One night in the tropics I was "farmer" in the middle watch that is, I had neither "wheel" nor "look out" to stand during the four hours I stayed on deck. We were running down the North-east Trades, and the ship was sailing her-self, and the wind was gentle, and it was very still on board, the blocks whining as she rolled, and the waves talking, and the wheel-chains clanking, and a light noise aloft of pattering and tapping. The sea was all pale with moonlight, and from the lamproom door, where the watch was mustered, I could see a red stain on the water from the port sidelight. The mate was walking the weather side of the poop, while the boatswain sat on the booby-hatch humming an old tune and making a sheath for his knife. The watch were lying on the deck, out of the moonlight, in the shadow of the break of the poop. Most of them were sleeping, propped against the bulkhead.

One of them was singing a new chanty he had made, beating out the tune with his pipe-stem, in a little quiet voice that fitted the silence of the night.

Ha ! ha ! Why don't you blow ?

Oho!

Come, roll him over, repeated over and over again, as though he could never tire of the beauty of the words and the tune.

Presently he got up from where he was and came over to me. He was one of the best men we had aboard a young Dane who talked English like a native. We had had business dealings during the dog watch, some hours before, and he had bought a towel from me, and I had let him have it cheap, as I had one or two to spare. He sat down beside me, and began a conversation, discussing a number of sailor matters, such as the danger of sleeping in the moonlight, the poison supposed to lurk in cold boiled potatoes, and the folly of having a good time in port. From these we passed to the consideration of piracy, colouring our talk with anecdotes of pirates. " Ah, there was no pirate," said my friend, "like old Anty Bligh of Bristol. Dey hung old Anty Bligh off of the Brazils. He was the core and the strands of an old rogue, old Anty Bligh was. Dey hung old Anty Bligh on Fernando Noronha, where the prison is. And he walked after, Anty Bligh did.

That shows how bad he was." " How did he walk ? " I asked. " Let's hear about him." " Oh, they jest hung him," replied my friend, "like they'd hang any one else, and they left him on the gallows after. Dey thought old Anty was too bad to bury, I guess. And there was a young Spanish captain on the island in dem times. Frisco Baldo his name was. He was a terror.

So the night dey hung old Anty, Frisco was getting gorgeous wid some other captains in a kind of a drinking shanty. And de other captains say to Frisco, ' I bet you a month's pay you won't go and put a rope round Anty's legs.

And I bet you a new suit of clothes you won't put a bowline around Anty's ankles. And I bet you a cask of wine you won't put Anty's feet in a noose. I bet you I will, says Frisco Baldo.

What's a dead man anyways, he says, and why should I be feared of Anty Bligh ? Give us a rope, he says, and I'll lash him up with seven turns, like a sailor would a hammock. So he drinks up his glass, and gets a stretch of rope, and out he goes into the dark to where the gallows stood. It was a new moon dat time, and it was as dark as the end of a sea-boot and as blind as the toe. And the gallows was right down by the sea dat time because old Anty Bligh was a pirate. So he cornes up under the gallows, and there was old Anty Bligh hanging. And ' Way-ho, Anty, he says. Lash and carry, Anty, he says. I'm going to lash you up like a hammock.'' So he slips a bowline around Anty's feet." . . . Here my informant broke off his yarn to light his pipe. After a few puffs he went on.

"Now when a man's hanged in hemp," he said gravely, "you mustn't never touch him with what killed him, for fear he should come to life on you. You mark that. Don't you forget it.

So soon as ever Frisco Baldo sets that bowline around Anty's feet, old Anty looks down from his

noose, and though it was dark, Frisco Baldo could see him plain enough. Thank you, young man, said Anty; just cast that turn oft again. Burn my limbs, he says, 'if you ain't got a neck ! And now climb up here, he says, and take my neck out of the noose. I'm as dry as a cask of split peas. I Now you may guess that Frisco Baldo feller he come out all over in a cold sweat. Git a gait on you, says Anty. I ain't going to wait up here to please you. So Frisco Baldo climbs up, and a sore job he had of it getting the noose off Anty. Get a gait on you, says Anty, and go easy with them clumsy hands of yours. You'll give me a sore throat he says, the way you're carrying on. Now don't let me fall plop, says Anty. Lower away hand-somely, he says. I'll make you a weary one if you let me fall plop, he says. So Frisco lowers away handsomely, and Anty comes to the ground, with the rope off of him, only he still had his head to one side like he'd been hanged. Come here to me, he says. So Frisco Baldo goes over to him. And Anty he jest put one arm round his neck and gripped him tight and cold. 

Now march, he says; 'march me down to the grog shop and get me a dram. None of your six-water dollops, neither, he says; Tin as dry as a foul block, he says. So Frisco and Anty they go to the grog shop, and all the while Anty's cold fingers was playing down Frisco's neck.

And when they got to der grog shop der captains was all fell asleep. So Frisco takes the bottle of rum and Anty laps it down like he'd been used to it. Ah ! he says, thank ye, he says, and now down to the Mole with ye, he says, and we'll take a boat, he says ; I'm going to England, he says, to say good-bye to me mother.'

So Frisco he come out all over in a cold sweat, for he was feared of the sea ; but Anty's cold fingers was fiddling on his neck, so he t'ink he better go. And when dey come to der Mole there was a boat there one of these perry-acks, as they call them and Anty he says, You take the oars, he says. I'll steer, he says, and every time you catch a crab, he says, you'll get such a welt as you'll remember. So Frisco shoves her off and rows out of the harbour, with old Anty Bligh at the tiller, telling him to put his beef on and to watch out he didn't catch no crabs. And he rowed, and he rowed, and he rowed, and every time he caught a crab whack ! he had it over the sconce with the tiller. And der perry-ack it went a great holy big skyoot, ninety knots in der quarter of an hour, so they soon sees the Bull Point Light and der Shutter Light, and then the lights of Bristol. Oars, said Anty. 'Lie on your oars, he says ; ' we got way enough.' Then dey make her fast to a dock-side and dey goes ashore, and Anty has his arm round Frisco's neck, and ' March,' he says ; ' step lively, he says ; for Johnny comes marching home," he says. By and by they come to a little house with a light in the window. 'Knock at the door, says Anty. So Frisco knocks, and in they go. There was a fire burning in the room and some candles on the table, and there, by the fire, was a very old, ugly woman in a red flannel dress, and she'd a ring in her nose and a black cutty pipe between her lips.

Good evening, mother, says Anty. I come home, he says. But the old woman she just looks at him but never says nothing. It's your son Anty that's come home to you, he says again.

So she looks at him again and, Aren't you ashamed of yourself, Anty, she says, coming home the way you are ? Dont you repent your goings-on ?  she says. ' Dying disgraced, she says, 'in a foreign land, with none to lay you out. ' Mother, he says, ' I repent in blood, he says. ' You'll not deny me my rights ? ' he says.

' Not since you repent,' she says. ' Them as repents I got no quarrel with. You was always a bad one, Anty, she says, ' but I hoped you'd come home in the end. Well, and now you're come,' she says. ' And I must bathe that throat of yours, she says. ' It looks as though you been hit by something.' Be quick, mother," he says ; it's after midnight now he says.

" So she washed him in wine, the way you wash a corpse, and put him in a white linen shroud, with a wooden cross on his chest, and two silver pieces on his eyes, and a golden marigold between his lips. And together they carried him to the perry-ack and laid him in the stern sheets. Give way, young man,' she says ; ' give way like glory.

Pull, my heart of blood," she says, or well have the dawn on us. So he pulls, that Frisco Baldo does, and the perry-ack makes big southing a degree a minute and they comes ashore at the Mole just as the hens was settling to their second sleep. To the churchyard," says the old woman ; 'you take his legs.' So they carries him to the churchyard at the double. Get a gait on you,' says Anty. I feel the dawn in my bones,' he says. My wraith'll chase you if you ain't in time,' he says. And there was an empty grave, and they put him in it, and shovelled in the clay, and the old woman poured out a bottle on the top of it. It's holy water,' she says. It'll make his wraith rest easy.' Then she runs down to the sea's edge and gets into the perry-ack. And immediately she was hull down beyond the horizon, and the sun came up out of the sea, and the cocks cried cock-a-doodle in the henroost, and Frisco Baldo falls down into a swound. He was a changed man from that out."

"Lee fore brace," said the mate above us. "Quit your chinning there, and go forward to the rope."