_HE SAILS FROM GRAVESEND._
The ship lay motionless as a rock on the smooth water off Gravesend;
nevertheless, owing to the strong fumes of the tobacco, probably coupled
with the close atmosphere of the berth, and its warm flavouring of lamp
oil, water-proof clothes, pickled onions, and black tea, I felt somewhat
sick and crept quietly out of the cabin, trusting that the fresh air
on deck might revive me. Just outside our berth, in the open space of
’tween-decks, which was entered from above by means of the booby-hatch,
were the emigrants’ quarters. We carried about thirty of these poor
people, and here they now were all of a jumble, using mine as well as the
chests of the other midshipmen for seats and tables, the women talking
vehemently, some of them still crying, here and there a man smoking in
a sullen posture, others sitting over greasy packs of cards, whilst a
few children played at hide-and-seek in and out of the sleeping-places,
and amongst the emigrant’s bundles; three or four quite young babies
meanwhile setting the whole picture to music with shrill, melancholy
cries. A single lamp of the same pattern as ours illuminated this grimy
grotesque scene.
[Illustration: A SCENE IN THE EMIGRANTS’ QUARTERS.]
I pushed my way on deck, but on my arrival found that it was raining
hard, which accounted for the emigrants being crowded below. There was
shelter to be had under the break of the poop, as the ledge of deck
is called that overhangs the entrance to the cuddy; and there I stood
awhile, gazing along the dark length of gleaming, streaming deck that
was deserted, and listening to the complaining of the wind, amid the
stirless shadow of the spars and rigging on high, or watching the damp
and dusky winking of the lamps ashore, or of the lights of ships at
anchor round about us. Ah! thought I, this is not so comfortable as being
in my father’s snug parlour at home, with a sweet and airy bedroom all to
myself to pass the night in, and a kind mother at the fresh and fragrant
breakfast table next morning to help me to a plateful of eggs and bacon,
and a cup of fine aromatic coffee and cream! Maybe I shed a tear or two;
I was but a little boy fresh from home, and amidst a great strange scene,
with the darkness and the sobbing of the rain and the deserted deck, and
the cold noise of the running waters of the river washing along the
ship’s side to bitterly increase the sense of loneliness in my childish
heart.
It was not long before I went below. Most of the midshipmen were turned
in, that is to say, they were lying down in their clothes and shoes with
nothing but their jackets removed. I thought I could not do better than
follow their example and how wearied I was I could not have imagined till
I put my head down upon the bolster at the end of my bunk, when I almost
instantly fell asleep.
Being a very green, raw, quite young hand, I could be of no use on deck
for the present, and it was for this reason, I suppose, they let me sleep
in the morning, for when I woke I was the only midshipman in the cabin.
There was a queer noise of scraping overhead, sounds as of the flinging
down of coils of rope, the noises of water being swooshed along the
planks; and the sunlight that shone through the portholes was tremulous
with the play of glittering, moving waters. I went on deck and found the
ship in tow of the tug, with the land a long way past Gravesend gliding
astern, and the river so wide that over the bows it looked like the
ocean. There were jibs and staysails hoisted, and the ship appeared to
be sailing along. It was a fresh, windy morning; there were great white
clouds rolling from off the distant land over our mast-heads, and the
dark brown smoke of the tug ahead fled in a wild scattering low down
upon the waters. The decks were being “washed down” as it is called at
sea; sailors on legs naked to the knees were scrubbing and pounding away
with brushes, buckets of water were being emptied over the planks, and a
sturdy mariner with a whistle round his neck and great whiskers standing
out from his cheeks, went about amongst the seamen, directing them in
a voice that sounded like a roll of thunder. He was the boatswain.
I was not a little surprised to find the midshipmen with scrubbing
brushes in their hands washing down the poop. I mounted the ladder and
stood a moment looking on. One of them worked a pump just before the
mizzen-mast, whilst another filled buckets at it, the third mate threw
the water about, and the middies plied their brooms with the energy of a
crossing-sweeper. The youth with a great nose who spoke with a lisp was
polishing the brass-rail that ran athwartship in front of the poop. A
man in a long coat and a tall rusty hat paced the deck alone. His face
might have been carved out of a large piece of mottled soap. I afterwards
found out that he was the pilot. There was another man standing near the
wheel. He had a ginger-coloured beard that forked out from under his
chin, pleasant dark-blue eyes and a copper-coloured face. It was not long
before I discovered that he was Mr. Johnson, the chief officer. He came
along in a pleasant way to where I stood staring.
“How is it you’re not at work, youngster?” said he.
“I’ve just woke up,” said I.
“Look here,” said he, “if you don’t call me sir, I shall have to call
_you_ sir, and I am sure it’s easier for you to say it than for me. Pull
your boots and stockings off like a man, put them in that coil of rope
there upon the hencoop, tuck your trousers up, lay hold of that scrubbing
brush yonder and see what sort of job you’re going to make at whitening
these decks.”
In a minute I was scrubbing with the rest of them, and it made me feel as
if I was on the Margate sands to be trotting about with bare feet, with
the salt brine sparkling and flashing about my ankles.
My memory at this point grows dim again, for I was rapidly approaching
the unpleasant experience of sea-sickness. I recollect that I helped to
dry the decks with a swab that was so heavy I could scarcely flourish
it, and that I was shown by the third mate how to coil away a rope over
a pin, also that I dragged with the others upon some gear which caused a
staysail between the mainmast and the mizzen-mast to ascend; I then went
below to breakfast, at which there was served up a dish of hissing brown
steaks, each of them wide enough to have served as a garment for my young
ribs. But by this time something of the weight of the wide sea beyond was
in the river, the ship was faintly pitching, much too faintly perhaps to
be taken notice of by anything but a delicate young stomach like mine.
I felt that I was pale, and the sight of the heap of great brown steaks
floating handsomely in grease, which took a caking of white, even as
the eye watched, added not a little to the uncomfortable sensation that
possessed me. The others plunged their knives and forks into the layers
of meat and ate with avidity; but for my part I could only look on.
“Take and turn in, my lad,” said the third mate kindly; “it’s bound to
occupy you a day or two to get rid of your longshore swash, and then
we’ll be having you jockeying the weather mizzen-topsail yard-arm, and
bawling ‘haul out to leeward’ in a voice loud enough to be heard at
Blackwall.”
I was glad to take his advice, and was presently at my length in the
bunk, too ill to speak, yet with a glimmering enough of mind in me to
bitterly deplore that I had not heeded my mother’s counsel and remained
at home.
The wind hardened as the river widened, and much dismal creaking and
groaning rose out of the hold and sides, the bulkheads, strong fastenings
and freight of the lofty fabric as she went rolling stately in the wake
of the tug that was thrashing through the hard green Channel ridges in
a smother of foam. The wind was south-east, I heard some of our fellows
say, with a lot of loose black scud flying along the marble face of
the sky, and a gloomy thickness to windward, that was promise of tough
weather, ere we should have settled the South Foreland well down upon the
quarter. One of the lads said that if the wind headed us yet more, we
should bring up in the Downs, and lie there till it blew a fair breeze,
which might signify a fortnight’s waiting.
“If so,” says he, “I shall put on a clean shirt and go straight ashore,
then button my ears behind me, and never stop running till I get to
London town; for twenty miles of salt water’s enough for me; and here
we are bound away for six thousand leagues of it, with all the way back
again on top!”
In this fashion the lads would talk as they came below from the deck, and
sick as I was I managed to heed enough of their conversation to pick up
what was going forward. I cannot express how I envied their freedom from
sea-sickness. Some were making their third voyage, others their second.
I was the only “first-voyager” as they call it. It sometimes rained on
deck, and the fellows would come below gleaming in oilskins, the sight
of which made me feel pitifully girlish, insomuch that on three several
occasions I made a desperate effort to get up and act my part of a sailor
as they did theirs; but the oppression of nausea was too violent, and
down I lay again, saving the third time when, contriving to feel my feet,
the ship at the instant gave a lurch which sent me headlong into one of
the fore and aft bunks where I lay half stunned, and so miserably sick
that the third mate had to lift me in his arms to enable me to return to
my own bed.
Sea-nausea is at all times distressing, and I do not know that one is
easier for suffering in a fine saloon, with looking-glasses and flowers
and the electric-light, and the fresh breezes of heaven blowing through
the open skylights to keep the place sweet. But if this _mal de mer_, as
the French call it, is more unendurable in one interior than in another
it must be so I think in a midshipmen’s berth—at least such a berth as
ours was:—Twelve sleeping shelves and nine lads to sleep in them, with a
huge giant of a third mate to fill the tenth; a sort of twilight draining
in through the three scuttles, the immensely thick glass of which was
often eclipsed by the roaring wash of a green sea sweeping along the
sides; a lamp burning night and day, from whose untrimmed flame there
arose to the ceiling of the cabin a pestilential coil of smoke.
In these narrow gloomy quarters we lived and moved, and had our being.
Here we ate our meals, here we slept, here we washed ourselves, here
the youngsters smoked. Hardest part of all were the confusing noises
made by the emigrants just outside our berth. Unlashed chests slided to
and fro; children were incessantly falling down and squealing; many
heart-disturbing lamentations arose from such of the poor wretches as
lay sick and helpless in their dark bulkheaded compartments. They had to
fetch their meals from the galley, and not yet having acquired the art of
walking on a tumbling deck, those who had to bring the rations of beef
or pork along, would repeatedly come with a run through the booby-hatch,
and lie at the bottom of the ladder badly scalded in a little lake of
pease-soup, or with the beef rolling away among the chests, whilst the
air resounded with execrations, scarcely stifled by the complaining
sounds of the ship’s fabric.
The third mate was very kind to me; told me there was no hurry; I was
welcome to lie in my bunk till I felt equal to coming on deck.
“I was sick for a fortnight when I first went to sea,” I heard him say.
“I was one of four apprentices. Those shipmates of mine were brutes, and
the very first night we were out they hauled me from my hammock and ran
me to the mizzen shrouds, up which they forced me to go, saying that
the topgallant sail would be clewing up shortly, and I must be in the
cross-trees in readiness to help furl it. A ratline carried away, and
I fell through the rigging on to the deck. I broke no bones, but I lay
senseless, which so terrified the young bullies that when I was taken
to my hammock they never more offered to trouble me. I was ill for a
fortnight, I say, and the memory of it makes me sorry for every youngster
when he first comes to the life and is sea-sick.”
However, on the morning of the third day from our quitting Gravesend,
though I was still very ill, I could stand no longer the miseries of my
confinement to the cabin. Since I was bound to suffer, I thought it was
better to feel wretched in the open air than amid the smells and noise
and gloom of the midshipmen’s berth.
[Illustration: “I FELL THROUGH THE RIGGING.”]
It was the forenoon watch, as the hours from eight to twelve are called.
The fellows who had been on deck since four o’clock had come below at
eight bells, and after breakfasting had turned in to smoke a pipe and
then get some sleep. They were in the port or chief mate’s watch, to
which division of the ship’s company I was supposed to belong, though I
don’t remember how I came to know this. We were still in “soundings” as
it is termed—that is to say, not yet out of the Channel, though we were a
long way down it.
On this morning there was a strong sea running on the bow, but not so
much wind as the motion of the ship would have led one to suppose. The
mids, when they came below, had told the others who were to relieve them
that the vessel was under all plain sail saving the flying jib and fore
and mizzen royals, and that the “old man” as they termed the captain,
was driving her; that they had heard the mate say that he expected it
would be an “all hands” job before four bells had gone—ten o’clock. I
caught all this, scarce comprehending it, and lay drowsily and stupidly
watching the lads get their breakfast and then vault into their bunks
with all their clothes on—“all standing” as the sea saying is—ready to
rush on deck to the first summons. The ship was lying over at a sharp
angle, and there was a great roaring and seething along her sides of
swollen waters smitten into yeast, and the cabin portholes came and went
like the winking of eyes to the shrouding of the glass by the liftings
and leapings of the green billows. Presently there were certain sounds on
deck which unmistakably denoted that sail was being shortened.
“It’s ‘in main royal’ now, I suppose,” said one of the middies, sleepily,
“and about time too. What’s the hurry all this side of Sydney, New South
Wales?”
Presently more hoarse songs resounded on deck, along with the echo of
tramping feet and of rigging dropped hastily from the hand.
“Old man’th growing alarmed, I reckon!” exclaimed the lisping long-nosed
midshipman, whose name was Kennet. “Oh, how I do with,” he cried,
feigning to speak in a voice as though he wept, “that I had thtoptht at
home to bottle vinegar for my poor deah mamma. Eh, Rockafellar? Better
to bottle vinegar athore, my beauty, than to lie thick and hungry in a
nathty cabin.”
As he spoke, the third mate’s voice was to be heard ringing like the roar
of a bull down through the booby-hatch—“All hands reef topsails! Up you
come, all you young gentlemen bee-low there! Lively, now! before the ship
falls overboard!”
The youngsters sprang from their bunks, and were out of the cabin in a
breath. Then it was that I made up my mind to linger no longer sea-sick
in this dismal, straining cabin. I pulled on my shoes, plunged into my
jacket, and, setting my cap firmly upon my head, went clawing my way to
the steps of the hatch, up which I staggered, feeling exceedingly ill and
weak, but determined now to push on even to perishing sooner than suffer
in darkness and loneliness below.