DEPARTURE FROM BOSTON.--OUT AT SEA.--WHAT HAPPENED TO ME.--MEETING
A STRANGER.
In the morning the last of the crew came on board, or rather were
brought there, as the most of them were so intoxicated that they were
unable to walk. I told David I didn't want to go to sea with such men
as that, and he agreed with me. He suggested that we had better go and
speak to the captain before the ship got away from the dock, and ask
him to let us go ashore and stay there.
Our conversation was overheard by Bill Haines, who laughed heartily at
the proposal to see the captain and be let off from going to sea. When
his laugh was ended, a serious look came over his face, and he said,--
"Now, my lads, you'll be making fools of yourselves. You've signed
articles for the voyage, and the captain wouldn't dream of letting you
off. Besides, those drunken fellows that you've just seen hauled on
board will be all right by to-morrow. They've been having a bit of a
spree, and that's all there is about it. When the rum gets out of them
they'll be good enough sailors, you may be sure."
"But I don't want to go to sea with them," I said. "They'll be getting
this way every day; and I don't care to live among such men."
"You're a green 'un, and no mistake," said Haines. "They won't be
getting this way at all while they're at sea; the captain wouldn't let
'em. They can't get a drop of grog except when it's served out, and
there isn't enough of it served at one time for a man to get drunk on.
You're all right, lads; wait and see how it comes out."
Just then we were joined by another sailor, Joe Herne, with whom we
had already made some acquaintance. Joe and Bill were great friends,
and both David and I took a liking to the two men. They were bluff,
hearty, good-natured fellows, who had fought on a ship-of-war during
the Revolution, and since the declaration of peace had sailed in the
merchant marine. They could read and write, but their education did
not go much farther than that. Of the two I fancied Haines rather than
Herne; David took to Herne more than to Haines, and in this way each of
us found a friend from the very first day of our voyage.
With so many of the crew intoxicated to a degree of helplessness, the
ship was decidedly short-handed; and when the pilot came on board he
brought with him six or eight men, who were to help work the ship into
the lower bay. Several boxes and barrels were brought down to the dock
at the last moment and rolled on board; and the last thing that was
brought was a bag of letters, which I carried to the captain's room.
Then the lines were cast off, and the ship was slowly hauled into the
water, beyond the wharf where we had been tied up. It was just the
top of the tide when we left the wharf, and as we reached the middle
of the stream the ebb set in. I didn't know then what was meant by
ebb and flood; I had read about them in some of the books, but the
definitions were not clear to me. I spoke to Haines on the subject, and
he explained the terms to me; you may be sure that I thanked him very
earnestly for the information.
With the falling tide we drifted down the harbor and into the lower
bay, a slight wind from the north-west favoring our movements. We went
slowly, and it was pretty late in the afternoon before we reached the
point where the pilot had decided upon anchoring for the night. We
dropped anchor; and then a boat came alongside to take away the men who
had come on board with the pilot to assist in working the Washington to
where she lay.
It was much quieter that night on board the ship than on the previous
one; the intoxicated men were proving the truth of Haine's prediction,
as the next morning saw them all sobered up, though some were in a
condition which Herne described as "very shaky." All were able to work,
however, and were set about their duties, supervised by the first and
second mates, so that there was no danger of the rust accumulating in
their joints.
Some of the sailors had brought their chests with them; others had
come with bundles of varied size; and others had nothing except the
clothing in which they stood. To these last, the mate served out
shirts, trousers, and jackets, from the slop-chest, and the garments
thus obtained were charged to the account of the man who received them.
You may be sure that the prices were high enough, as it was not the
intention of the owners of the ship to lose money in any transactions
with the crew. I suspected as much at the time; since I became mate and
captain I have learned all about it.
It was a dead calm all through the forenoon, and the pilot went
anxiously about the ship, hoping, whistling, praying, and swearing,
for a wind. He obtained what he wanted after a time, but whether his
prayers or his oaths brought it, "deponent sayeth not."
The wind came from the westward, and was favorable to our getting to
sea. When the first puffs of the breeze ruffled the water, the anchor
was lifted, and the sails were unfurled. Slowly the ship started from
where she had been lying, and as the breeze increased her sails filled
out, and in less than half an hour from the time the anchor left the
muddy bed where it had rested for the night, we were going ahead at a
fairly good speed.
Just outside of Cape Cod the ship backed her sails and hove-to long
enough to let the pilot and his men descend into a boat that came
alongside. I confess to a momentary longing to jump into the boat and
go ashore with them. My sea life thus far had not been what my fancy
painted it, and I feared that the reality, as time went on, would be
altogether unlike what I had seen in my dreams. I think, too, that
David had the same thought in his mind; but both of us had the good
sense to keep our thoughts to ourselves and make no attempt to go
ashore. I remembered what Haines had told me the day before, and did
not make any exposition of my ignorance of marine ways.
When the pilot had been dropped we squared away, and were speedily
plowing again through the water. When David and I signed articles we
did not know where we were bound; we were going to sea, that was all.
It did not occur to me to ask about our destination until we had left
the dock and were directing our course towards the lower bay. Haines
told me that we were bound on a voyage up the Mediterranean; we should
go first to Gibraltar, from Gibraltar to Barcelona, and thence perhaps
to Marseilles. As he phrased it, we were going to "Gibraltar and a
market;" that is, Gibraltar was our first destination, and then we
would go wherever our cargo could be sold and a return one bought to
the best advantage.
The wind freshened, and gradually went around into the south-east. The
sea was smooth enough at the time we dropped the pilot, but very soon
it became rough, and I found the motion too much for me. The fact is, I
was having an attack of sea-sickness, and David was undergoing the same
experience. Haines noticed our condition, and kindly suggested to the
mate that the youngsters had better be sent below. The mate took a good
look at us, smiled for an instant, and then said,--
"Bear a hand there, kids, and go below; you'll appear best alone. Go
below, both of you."
I would have preferred to remain on deck, but the orders were
imperative, and besides I was rapidly getting into a condition in which
I would be unable to stand. So we disappeared and lay down in our
bunks. David pitched headforemost into his sleeping-place as the ship
gave a lurch. Under ordinary circumstances I should have laughed at
the sight, but at that moment I was in no laughing mood. The bunks in
the forecastle, the low deck over our heads, and the swinging lantern
were moving in a variety of directions. Everything whirled, including
my head, and so rapidly that I thought it a good plan to stand still
where I was, and, when my bunk came around, jump into it and be safe.
I jumped, but did so at the wrong time, and came down with a sprawl. My
success was greater at the next effort, and I landed in the berth.
When I got myself stretched out I was as helpless as any of the drunken
men had been the day before, and I wondered if it were not the case
that they had been sea-sick in anticipation of going to sea, just as
one loses his appetite at the expectation of something unpleasant.
As for appetite, I had absolutely none. I should have refused the
finest viands from a king's kitchen, and even the very thought of
eating seemed to add to my illness. Joe Herne came to see if we wanted
anything, but there was nothing we cared for; and we made the same
answer to Bill when he came in during the next watch to look after
us. David whispered to me that he wished himself back at home, and I
acknowledged to precisely the same desire. "It's a pity," said David,
"that the man who thought we were runaway apprentices did not arrest
us, and supply us with masters who would keep us on land."
I would willingly have been apprenticed to a cobbler or a traveling
tinker rather than be in the predicament where I then found myself.
But there's no cloud without a silver lining, and no night that is not
followed by day. For about forty hours, it must have been fully that,
we lay in our bunks without eating a morsel. By and by our appetites
returned, and David said to our friend Bill that he thought he could
eat a little gruel.
"Gruel, you greenhorn," said Haines, "you'll get no gruel here. What
you'll get is scouse and dundy funk, and prog of that sort. Gruel ain't
a forecastle dish, anyhow. D'yer think you could manage a bit o' salt
horse?"
"Salt horse," said David, "no, I don't want to eat any kind of
horse-meat, salt or fresh. Do we really have to eat horse on this ship?"
Haines laughed, and said,--
"No, my lad; you don't have to eat horse-meat, though the stuff they
give us might just as well be out of a horse as from an ox. Salt horse
is the name they give to the beef they salt down for sailors' use. It
ain't the choicest kind of chicken cutlet in the world, by no means.
Anything's good enough for a sailor, and they give us the meat of bulls
and worked out oxen cut up and packed in brine and kept till it's as
hard as a handspike. That's salt horse.
"We had scouse to-day for dinner," continued Haines, "and I'll go and
see if I can't get you some. I told the cook that you two greenhorns
might be getting alongside of your appetites, and if so you'd want
something to eat."
Bill went away, leaving David and myself wondering what scouse could
be. In a little while he returned with a dish of meat, stewed with
potatoes and pieces of bread. Then we knew what scouse was. Later on in
our voyage, when the potatoes gave out, we had it of stewed meat and
bread only.
We ate some of the stew, and drank a pot of coffee which Bill brought
along at the same time as the scouse. Then Bill left us and we settled
down to sleep.
We slept better than at any time since we came on board, and felt much
refreshed when we waked. We also felt hungry, which Joe Herne remarked
was a very good sign, and went off to the cook's galley to see what he
could get for us. He brought a good-sized piece of the so-called salt
horse, and divided it between us. We ate this, along with some bread,
and then concluded to get up.
"Stay where you are, my lads, stay where you are," said Joe in a
fatherly sort of way; "if you go on deck now you'll run the risk of
being set to work, and you're not quite ready for it. To-morrow you'll
be all right, and can do your share. Take it easy to-day, and keep
quiet."
Very soon I realized the force of his advice, as I found on trying to
stand up that I was decidedly weak. We spent the rest of that day and
all of the night in our bunks, but the next morning we went out to
breakfast when our watches were called, and did our share of eating.
From that time forward we had our sea-legs on, as Bill Haines expressed
it, and our appetites were like those of young tigers. Sea-sickness had
no further terrors for either David or myself.
Perhaps I ought to explain that the crew of a ship is divided into
"watches;" that is, they are separated into two lots, or divisions, one
of them known as the larboard, and the other as the starboard watch.
The larboard watch is on duty with the first mate, and the starboard
with the second mate. I am speaking now of a good-sized craft. There's
many a vessel that has no second or third officer, simply a captain
and mate. The captain and mate stand watch and watch, and the crew is
so small that when changes are made in the positions of the sails, or
anything else out of the ordinary routine takes place, all hands are
called. The day and night are divided into watches of four hours each,
except the period from four to eight o'clock in the afternoon, which is
divided into two "dog-watches," of two hours each. The object of the
dog-watch is to prevent the same men being always on duty at the same
hours.
David was put into the larboard watch, while I was assigned to the
starboard; Bill was in the watch with me, and Joe Herne was in David's.
At first David and I were sorry that we had not been put together, but
we very soon realized that it was an advantage for us to be separated.
We could see quite enough of each other daily, especially in the
dog-watches, and we were likely to learn more about the sea and its
ways, separated as we were, than if we had been put together. Each of
us had a staunch friend in his own watch, Haines in mine, as I before
stated, and Herne in David's. They were our warm and sincere friends
from the start, and, live as long as I may, I shall never forget them.
When we went on deck, after our recovery from sea-sickness, I looked
around me and scanned the entire horizon. Nothing but water was in
sight; no land, no sail, not even the tiniest island to break the
monotony of the view. Sea and sky comprised everything in the range of
our vision. Our footing was somewhat unsteady, as there was quite a sea
on, which had been raised by the steady wind which was then about due
south.
"We're at sea, sure enough," remarked David, "and what a pretty color
the water is!"
"You've not seen the prettiest of it yet by a long shot," said Haines;
"wait till we get into blue water, where it's a mile or two to the
bottom."
"Isn't this blue water we're in now?" queried David.
"No," was the reply, "we're not off soundings yet, though we probably
shall be before the day is over. When we get off soundings we'll be in
what the sailors call blue water; on soundings we call it green water.
Look at the waves where they're breaking, and in the wake behind us,
and you'll see that the water has a greenish color. Later on we won't
see so much of that; the green will disappear and blue will take its
place."
We were much interested in this bit of information, and in many other
things which were told to us by our friends. On the whole we had quite
a good lesson in sea-life during the morning, as we were informed what
our duties were in our watches on deck, and afterwards learned the
meaning of a watch below.
While we were talking there was a cry from the mast-head of "Sail ho!"
"Where away?" called the mate, who was then in charge of the deck.
"Two points on the weather bow!" was the reply.
The captain was below at the time, and the mate sent word to him
immediately. In three minutes he was on deck with his glass, but the
stranger was too far away to be made out. We held our course for
an hour or more, and by the end of that time the sail was clearly
discernible from the deck.
The captain scanned her eagerly, and after a careful survey ordered a
change of course, so that we should avoid meeting the stranger.