Even at ten in the morning, Bute Street teemed like an Asiatic bazaar. The sidewalk bustled with sailors, railway men, shipwrights, boatmen, foundrymen, longshoremen, tavern keepers and doxies of all sizes, shapes and colors. Fred could identify a half-dozen European languages being spoken, but his ear also caught what he thought was Chinese, Arabic, Urdu and Russian.
Every nation and race seemed to be represented, a Cardiff cauldron, a melting pot of souls, jabbering and yelling at each other boisterously. There was a fair share of Welshmen, speaking a blend of Welsh and such heavily accented English that it might as well have been a foreign language. Indian Gujuratis and Bengalis wore softly colored linens, just a bit more rumpled than the Arabs, who seemed to favor white. Africans with skin as black as coal blended in with the local coal-blackened tippers, trimmers and hobblers who worked loading the coal ships.
Fred wondered what his classmates at Yale would think of this crowd. They would no doubt be horrified at the mixing of so many races and creeds with so little care for decorum, yet they might be impressed by the relative harmony evident in all the chaos.
Fred had finished his first year at college when his father died and the family business collapsed. With just enough money to support his mother but none for tuition, Fred did what he had always dreamed of doing. He ran off to sea. He was sick of desks, stuffy classrooms and starched collars anyway. He was sure that what he could learn on the deck of ship mattered more than the ancient history that he was learning in a classroom.
One thing that he had learned for certain was the truth in the old proverb, "be careful what you wish for." There was less romance to the endless toil and miserable conditions that were a sailor's life than he had imagined as a boy. Then again, he had gone to the places of which he had dreamed. He had sailed schooners from New England to the Caribbean and square-riggers back and forth across the Atlantic. As hard as the work was and as miserly the wages, he had few real regrets.
And now, he stood on the street in the famous Tiger Bay, Cardiff's polyglot sailor town where anything was possible, any pleasure or diversion was for sale, and a man could be whatever he wished to be, so long as a crimp didn't dope his drink or a bully boy didn't crack open his skull to steal his purse.
An impressive row of bars and taverns lined the street, all having either opened early or never closed, as both music and drunken sailors spilled from the doors as they swung open and shut. Carts and carriages dodged the inebriated men tumbling off the sidewalks, and Fred was surprised not to have seen any fatalities.
A young lady, heavily painted and perfumed, cruised out from the Anglesea Pub and plotted a crossing course for the young sailor. She grabbed Fred boldly by the arm.
Such beautifully red lips, the exact color of desire, Fred thought. She demanded, "Come, my handsome. Let's have some fun," tugging insistently on his arm.
Fred looked her over. She had bright eyes and a lovely smile, but his glance immediately shifted. Her flowered frock was only partially buttoned in front, displaying her charms to maximum advantage. Ah, the fair orbs of Aphrodite, Fred thought to himself, and it required great presence of mind to not be drawn away.
“Not right now, my sweet," he replied. "I need to find a ship. I shall return this evening. What's your name, my lovely?”
“Lucretia," she replied. "And yours?”
Fred laughed. "Lucretia! Mother of the Roman Republic! How could I stay away? My name is Frederick, dear lady. Until this evening, Miss Lucretia of the Anglesea.”
Having failed to slow his progress, the fair maiden released her towline, letting go of her grasp on his arm. "Don't forget me now, Freddy.”
“Never, Lucretia, never," he called out, without looking back.
As he walked toward the docks, the street became more boisterous while the buildings became darker with layer on layer of coal dust. Coal made Cardiff one of the largest ports in the British Empire. Fred recalled reading somewhere that eight million tons of the Welsh black diamonds moved through the port every year.
When he finally reached Bute Dock, it didn't take long before he found a ship. Perhaps the ship. She was a steel, three-masted windjammer with lines that reminded him of a clipper ship. Her name was the Lady Rebecca. She was deeply laden, with two hatches still open and a black cloud of coal dust rising from each, as carts of coal were tipped in. The wharfinger told him that the ship would be signing on a crew that very afternoon. And best of all, she was bound for Chile via Cape Horn.
Somehow, Fred had gotten it into his head that he wouldn't be a real sailor until he took a trip or two around Cape Horn. The Horn was like no place else on the watery globe and any Jack who had rounded it under sail was indeed worthy of respect. And now here she was, a Cape Horner in need of a crew. It was time to find his way to the shipping office. Fred hoisted his sea chest back on his shoulder and headed off.
Captain Barker bounded up the granite steps of the Cardiff Shipping Office. The building was a series of large rooms on either side of the main hall. Sunlight filtered through the high windows as hundreds of sailors milled in and out, checking the chalkboards with the listings of ships and voyages. The crowd ranged from hearty tars in their shore-going rig, eager to get back to sea, to dissipated souls bearing the signs of too much drink, under the watchful eyes of crimps or boardinghouse masters, who would make sure to claim the month's advance owed to their tattered charges, in repayment of debts, real or imagined.
A clerk directed Captain Barker to a room where the board read:
Lady Rebecca—twenty able seaman required.
2 PM
Voyage to Pisagua, Chile, thence for orders.
Several men stood near the board and one spoke up loudly, "Who's going to sail around Cape Stiff on that old windbag? Not me, I'll warrant ya." The sailor spit a stream of tobacco juice at the chalkboard.
Captain Barker clenched his right hand around his cane. If he had been on the deck on his ship, he would have knocked the man down, but ashore, the rules were different. He looked over at the man, sallow with dull eyes, and decided that he was no real sailor in any case.
“And what are you doing here anyway, you stinking cur? You don't look like any sort I'd ever want on my ship. Now, go back to your smoke box, you damned fireman.”
The man spun around and looked at Captain Barker, who stood holding his cane in one hand and his bowler hat in the other. The man began to speak, but then just snorted, turned and stomped out of the room. The captain heard chuckles from sailors behind him.
There were many like that steamboat drudge who believed that the days of sail were over. Freight rates had fallen and times were getting tougher, but the wind wagons weren't dead yet. As long as there were winds that blew, there would be sailing ships to sail. Captain Barker had a fine ship and all he needed was a crew.
In a few minutes, a rotund shipping master in a faded blue jacket, waddled in and sat at a large desk at the far end of the room. He bellowed, "Lady Rebecca! Lady Rebecca!”
The din of chatter stopped and sailors drifted in. Captain Barker scanned the milling crowd. He needed twenty good able seamen. The Rebecca was a heavy ship and needed strong and experienced hands. This was his one chance to pick a crew worthy of the ship, a crew that could sail her and who wouldn't be broken by her. It was like picking out cattle at a stockyard, except that this beef had to know its business.