_In Which Captain Bowditch Crowds On Sail and There Is Much Excitement_
In writing a story of the sea--even a narrative of personal
experiences--it is difficult to give the reader a proper idea of the
daily life of the man before the mast. It naturally falls that the high
lights of adventure are accentuated while the shadows of monotony are
very faint indeed. But the sailor’s life is no sinecure.
Saving on occasion the work on shipboard is not very hard. The
watch-and-watch system followed on all ships makes the work easy in
fair weather; and foul weather lasts but for short spells, save in
certain portions of the two hemispheres.
“Eight bells! Rise and shine!”
This order, shouted into the fo’castle at four o’clock in the morning,
roused Thankful Polk and I from our berths. No turning over for another
nap--or for even a wink of sleep--with that command ringing in one’s
ears. We tumbled out, got into our outer clothing, ran our fingers
through our hair (no chance for any fancy toilets at this hour) and
went on deck with the other members of the captain’s watch.
There was plenty of light by which to chore around, and Mr. Barney’s
sharp voice kept us stirring until five when we lined up at the galley
door and each man got a tin of hot coffee--and good coffee it was too,
aboard the Gullwing. Then buckets and brooms was the order and the
ship began to be slopped and scrubbed from the bowsprit to the rudder
timbers. No housewife was ever half as thorough as we had to be to
satisfy Mr. Barney and the old man. Thank and I learned that Captain
Bowditch made a tour of the deck every morning after breakfast, and if
there had been any part of the work skimped he would call up the watch
and have the whole job done over again.
“But that don’t happen more’n once on a v’yage,” chuckled Tom Thornton,
working beside us. “The feller that skips any part of the work he’s set
to do on this here packet, gets to be mighty onpopular with his mates.”
Thus warned, we two boys were very careful with our share of the
scrubbing--and likewise the coiling down of ropes which followed. I can
assure the reader that, when we were through, everything in sight was
as spick and span as it could be--every stain was holystoned from the
deck, the white paint glistened, and the brasswork shone.
At seven-thirty the watch below was given breakfast and at four
bells--eight o’clock--we were relieved and went below to our own
breakfast; and that was not a bad meal aboard the Gullwing. There are
no fancy dishes tacked onto Jack Tar’s bill of fare--nor does he expect
it; but on this ship food was served with some regard to decency.
On the Gypsey Girl “souse” was served in a bucket, set down in the
middle of the long fo’castle table, and every man scooped his cup into
the mess, broke in his hardtack, and inhaled it a good deal after the
style of a pig at a trough. But for breakfast on this ship there was
more good coffee, tack that was not mouldy and scraps of meat and
potatoes fried together--a hearty, satisfying meal.
Each man washed and put away his own cup, plate and knife and fork.
Some used their gulleys, or sheath-knives; but Thank and I had brought
aboard proper table tools in our dunnage bags. After the breakfast
was cleared away, and the fo’castle itself tidied up, the watch below
busied itself in mending, sock darning, and such like odd jobs. A
sailor has got to be his own tailor, seamstress and housewife; and
even such a horny-handed and tar-fingered giant as Tom Thornton was
mighty handy with his needle and “sailor’s palm.”
Some of the men shaved at this time, one cut another’s hair and trimmed
his beard. The crew of the Gullwing respected themselves; the deck of
the fo’castle was kept as well scrubbed as the deck above. Nobody came
to the table without having scrubbed his face and hands clean; nor was
the men’s clothing foul with tar or the grease of the running gear.
They may all have been “sword-swallowers” when it came to “stowing
their cargo ’tween hatches,” but cleanliness was the order, and the
ordinary decencies of life were not ignored. These men may not have
been particularly strong on etiquette, and were not “parlor broke,”
as the saying is; but they were neat, accommodating, cheerful, and if
they skylarked some, it was fun of a good-natured kind and was not
objectionable.
I liked old Tom Thornton, for despite the cast in his eye, and his
gorilla-like appearance, he was good hearted. He was just about
covered with tattooing, I reckon. As he said, if he’d wanted to take
any more indigo into his system he’d have to swallow it! Most of the
work had been done on him by a South Sea Islander who had sailed in
whaling ships and the like and made a little “on the side” by tattooing
pictures on foolish sailors.
“’Taint done now, no more,” old Tom said, shaking his head. “But when
I was a youngster it was the fashion. Poor Jack can’t afford to buy
picters and have a family portrait gallery, or the like. But he used to
be strong for art,” and the old man grinned.
“I was wrecked with this here nigger-man I tell you about. About all he
saved from the wreck was his colors and bone needles, and the patterns
he outlined his figgers from. We was held prisoner on that blamed reef,
living on stuff from the wreck, for three months. There wasn’t nothing
else to do. His tattooing me kept him from going crazy, and the smart
of the thing kept me alive. So there you have it--tit for tat! He never
charged me nothing for his work, neither, and I allus was a great lad
for gittin’ a good deal for my money.”
Tom’s legs were mural paintings of serpents and sea monsters. He had
anklets and bracelets worked in red and blue. On his back was a picture
of three gallows with a man hanging in chains from the middle one. I
believe that it was the ignorant South Sea native’s idea of the story
of Calvary, for there was the typical cross and crown worked above
it at the back of Tom’s neck. The mermaid on Tom’s chest could have
won a job as fat woman with a traveling circus; but then, Tom had an
enormous chest which had given the tattooer plenty of space to work on.
Around his waist was tattooed a belt like a lattice-work fence. When he
stripped to “sluice down,” as he called his daily bath, he looked as
gay as a billboard.
At ten o’clock (six bells) of the forenoon watch most of the watch
below turned in for a nap, and at half past eleven we answered the
call to dinner. At noon we were on duty again until four o’clock. In
pleasant weather this afternoon watch is a mighty easy one. Besides the
man at the wheel and the two on lookout, the others haven’t much to do
but tell stories, play checkers, or read. As long as everything was
neat and shipshape the old man did not hound us to work at odd jobs as
some masters do.
From four to eight p. m. the time is divided into two dog-watches,
although the second half of that spell is the actual dog-watch. “Dog”
is a corruption of “dodge,” the object of this division being to make
an even number of watches to the twenty-four hours so that there
will be a daily changing or shifting, thus dodging the routine. For
example, the watch that goes below one day at noon will the next day
come on deck at that hour.
At five-thirty our watch had supper and at six we took the deck once
more until eight o’clock. Then we could sleep until midnight and from
thence had the watch until four in the morning. It is a monotonous
round--especially in fair weather. We were like to welcome a bit of a
blow now and then, although the Gullwing was such a big ship, and her
crew was so small, that all hands had to turn out to shorten or make
sail. On some ships this fact would have made the crew ugly but these
boys had even a good word for the cook or “doctor,” and usually Jack
looks upon that functionary as his natural enemy.
But during those first few days of the run down the coast of Chile it
was seldom that we were called on to shorten sail. Captain Bowditch
was living up to his reputation; the Gullwing foamed along through the
short green seas with every sail she would bear spread to the favoring
gale. With her four whole sails on the lower spars and all her jibs
set, she spread a vast amount of canvas to the wind. And the only
changes we made were in her topsails. Those the skipper kept spread
every moment that he dared; and it took a pretty strong gust to make
him give the order to reef down.
When he left the deck himself, either day or night, he instructed his
mates to call him before they took in an inch of cloth. And Mr. Gates
and Mr. Barney were just as hungry for speed, as the old man. The
Gullwing was heavily laden, but there was probably few stiffer vessels
at sea that day than she. With plenty of ballast there was no gale or
no sea that could capsize her.
She took cheerfully all the wind and all the sea could give her. A
little loose water flopping around her deck didn’t trouble Captain
Bowditch. “Tarpaulin her hatches, clamp ’em down, and let her roll!”
had been his order when we had got well away from our anchorage at
Valpariso. We had good weather, however, as I have said, for some days.
Then suddenly, one afternoon in the first dog-watch, it came on to
blow. Carefully as the captain watched the glass, I do not think this
squall was foretold. A more cautious navigator might have been better
prepared for a squall. He wouldn’t have had his topsails spread in
any such gale as had been blowing. And when all hands were called to
go aloft, the wind shrieked down upon us and the foretopsail and two
staysails were blown clean out of the boltropes before the men could
get at them.
“What are ye about, ye sawneys!” yelled Captain Bowditch, dancing up
and down on the deck and shaking his fists at the men above. “Save
my sails for me! Think I’m _made_ o’ sailcloth? And them right new
fixin’s, too! Git busy there!”
Oh, we were busy! I had been sent aloft and so had Thank. We were
nimble enough in the shrouds; but we were not as smart about handling
the stiff canvas as some. I found my chum beside me as we hauled down
the stiff canvas upon the spar, and threw ourselves upon the folds to
hold them till they could be secured.
“My law-dee!” gasped the Georgian boy, grinning. “Jest as lives try to
pin an apron around the waist of a baby hippopotamus--what?”
I saw his wet, red, grinning face for a moment looking across at me.
Then, suddenly, the ship keeled over, the rope on which we stood
overhung those leaping, green, froth-streaked waves--waves which seemed
hungrily trying to lap our feet. Thank disappeared! Something gave way,
his weight left the sail to me alone. And perhaps, fearful for my chum,
I bore off the canvas myself to look for him.
The next instant I was cast back by the wind tearing under the canvas
and lifting it in a great balloon.
“Swish--r-r-rip!”
Like a banshee on a broomstick that sail kited off to leeward, and I
was left hanging desperately to the shrouds, with the wind booming in
my ears so that I could not even hear the angry roaring of the skipper
below.
And all the time this question kept thumping in my head: “Where was
Thankful Polk?”