"Now, my boy," said Mr Mackay, who had the "first watch," from eight
o'clock till midnight that is, I sharing it with him, speaking as we
were just abreast of the light I've mentioned, although so far to the
southward that it could only be seen very faintly glimmering on the
horizon like a star, a trifle bigger than those which twinkled above it
and on either side in the clear northern sky--"we've run exactly forty-
six miles from our departure point."
"Departure point, sir!" I repeated after him, my curiosity aroused by
the use of such a term. "What is that?"
"The last land sighted before a ship gains the open sea," replied he
kindly, always willing to give me any information, although I'm afraid I
caused him a good deal of trouble with my innumerable questions, in my
zeal to get acquainted with everything connected with the ship and my
profession as an embryo sailor. "Ours was the Lizard; didn't you notice
Cap'en Gillespie taking the bearings of it as we passed this afternoon?"
"Yes, sir. I saw him with his sextant, as you told me that queer
triangular thing was," said I; "but I didn't know what he was doing. I
thought our starting-place was the Thames? We must have gone miles and
miles since we left the Downs."
"So we have, my boy; still, that was only the threshold of our long
journey, and sailors do not begin to count their run until fairly out at
sea as we are now. When you came up to town the other day from that
place in the country--West something or other?"
"Westham, sir," I suggested; "that's where we live."
"Well, then," he went on, accepting my correction with a smile, "when
you were telling your adventures and stated that you came from Westham
to London in three hours, say, you would not include the time you had
taken in going from the door of your house to the garden gate and from
thence to the little town or village whence you started by the railway--
eh?"
"No, sir," said I, laughing at his way of putting the matter. "I would
mean from the station at Westham to the railway terminus in London."
"Just so," he answered; "and, similarly, we sailors in estimating the
length of a voyage, do not take into consideration our passage along the
river and down channel, only counting our distance from the last point
of land we see of the country we are leaving and the first we sight of
that we're bound to. Our first day's run, therefore, will be what we
get over from the Lizard up to the time the cap'en takes the sun at noon
to-morrow, which will tell us our latitude and longitude then, when, by
the aid of this fixed starting-point or `point of departure,' and
calculating our dead reckoning and courses steered, we will be enabled
to know our precise position on the chart."
"I see, sir," said I. "I won't forget what you've told me another time,
and shall know in future what the term means, sir, thank you."
"You're quite welcome, Graham," he replied pleasantly as he resumed his
walk up and down the deck, with an occasional glance to windward and a
look at the compass in the binnacle to see that the helmsman was keeping
the ship on the course the captain had directed before going below a
short time before--west-sou'-west, and as close up to the wind as we
could sail, so as to avoid the French coast and get well across the
mouth of the Bay of Biscay into the open Atlantic. "I hope to make a
good navigator of you in time, my boy."
"I hope so, too, sir," said I, trying to keep pace with his measured
tread, although I always got out of step as he turned regularly at the
end of his walk, which was backwards and forwards between the cabin
skylight and the binnacle. "I will try my best, sir."
While bearing in mind the "departure point," however, I must not forget
to mention, too, that immediately after Captain Gillespie had taken our
bearings off the Lizard, he sang out to Tim Rooney the boatswain to send
the hands aft.
"Aye, aye, sorr," responded Tim, at once sounding his shrill whistle and
hoarse shout. "A-all ha-ands aft!"
"Now for a bit of speechifying," said Tom Jerrold, who was along with me
on the lee-side of the poop, watching the crew as they mustered together
on the main-deck underneath. "The `old man' loves a jaw."
But Tom was mistaken; for the captain's speech was laconic in the
extreme, being "much shorter, indeed, than his nose," as my fellow mid
was forced to acknowledge in a whisper to me!
"My men," said he, leaning over the brass rail at the head of the poop,
and gazing down into the faces of the rough-and-ready fellows looking up
at him expectantly, with all sorts of funny expressions on their
countenances, as they wondered what was to come--"we're now at sea and
entering on a long voyage together. I only wish you to do your duty and
I will do mine. If you have anything to complain of at any time, come
to me singly and I will right it; but if you come in a body, I'll take
no notice of ye. Ye know when I say a thing I mean a thing."
"Aye, aye sir!" shouted the hands, on his pausing here as if waiting for
their answer. "Aye, aye, sir!"
"All right then; ye understand me, I see. That will do the watch."
Whereupon, half of them went back into the forecastle to finish their
tea, while the remainder took their stations about the ship, remaining
on deck until their span of duty was out, the whole lot having been
divided into two groups, styled respectively the port and starboard
watches, under charge of Mr Mackay and the second mate, Mr Saunders--
Tom Jerrold and I being in the port watch with the first mate; while Sam
Weeks and Matthews, who was like the fifth wheel of a coach as "third
mate," a very anomalous position on board-ship, mustered with the
starbowlines under Mr Saunders.
Counting in Captain Gillespie, with the three mates, us apprentices, the
boatswain, sailmaker Adams and carpenter Gregory--the three latter all
"old hands," having sailed several voyages previously together in the
ship--the steward Pedro Carvalho, Ching Wang our cook, Billy the boy,
our "second-class apprentice," and the eighteen fresh men who had come
aboard with the Chinaman at Gravesend, our crew mustered all told some
thirty-one hands; and, to complete the description of the vessel and her
belongings, the Silver Queen was a sharp-bowed, full-rigged ship, with a
tremendous bilge, built for carrying a goodish cargo, which consisted,
as I believe I mentioned before, mainly of Manchester goods and
Birmingham hardware, besides a private speculation of our captain
consisting of a peculiarly novel consignment of Dundee marmalade, packed
up in tins like those used for preserved meats and such like dainties.
About this marmalade I shall have something to say by and by; but I
think I had better go on with my yarn in proper ship-shape fashion,
narrating events in the order in which they occurred--merely stating, in
order to give a full account of all concerning us, that, in addition to
the particulars of our cargo as already detailed, we had sundry items of
live freight in the shape of some pigs, which were stowed in the long-
boat on top of the deck-house; three cats, two belonging to the
Portuguese steward and messing in the cuddy, while the third was a
vagrant Tom that had strayed on board in the docks, and making friends
with the carpenter Gregory, or "old chips" as he was generally called,
was allowed to take up his quarters in the forepeak, migrating to the
cook's cabin at meal-times with unwavering sagacity; a lot of fowls,
accommodated aristocratically in coops on the poop; and, lastly, though
by no means least, the starling which I'd caught coming down Channel,
and which now seemed very comfortable in the boatswain's old canary
cage, hung up to a ringbolt in his cabin next to mine, and regarded as a
sort of joint property between us two.
There, you have our list of passengers; and, now, to continue my story.
Shortly after passing the Bishop's Rock lighthouse, which we did some
few minutes before "Billy," the ship's boy, came out of the forecastle
and struck "six bells," eleven o'clock, near the end of the port watch's
spell on deck, the wind, which had freshened considerably since sunset,
began to blow with greater force, veering, or "backing" as sailors say,
more and more round to the north; so that, although our yards were
braced up to the full and the vessel was sailing almost close-hauled, we
had to drop off a point or two within the next half-hour from our true
western course.
Within the next half-hour, south-west by west was as close as we could
now keep her head outward across "The Bay," the wind even then
continuing to show a tendency to shift further round still to the
northwards and westwards, and naturally forcing us yet more in a
southerly direction before gaining the offing Captain Gillespie wished.
The sea, too, had got up wonderfully during the short period that had
elapsed from our leaving the Chops of the Channel--I suppose from its
having a wider space to frolic in, without being controlled by the
narrow limits of land under its lea; for, the scintillating light of the
twinkling stars and pale sickly moon, whose face was ever and anon
obscured by light fleecy clouds floating across it in the east, showed
the tumid waste of waters heaving and surging tempestuously as far as
the eye could reach. The waves were tumbling over each other and racing
past the ship in sport, sending their flying scud high over the
foreyard, or else trying vainly to poop her; and, when foiled in this,
they would dash against her bows with the blow of a battering-ram, or
fling themselves bodily on board in an angry cataract that poured down
from the forecastle on to the main-deck, flooding the waist up to the
height of the bulwarks to leeward, for we heeled over too much to allow
of the sea running off through the scuppers, these and our port gunwale
as well being well-nigh under water.
Presently, we had to reduce sail, brailing up the spanker and taking a
single reef in the topsails; but still keeping the topgallant-sails set
above them, a thing frequently done by a skipper who knows how to
"carry-on."
Then, as the wind still rose and as with less canvas the ship would go
all the better and not bend over or bury herself so much, the
topgallants were taken in. At length, when Mr Mackay and I quitted the
deck at midnight, the men were just beginning to clew up the main-sail,
the captain, who had come up from below with Mr Saunders when the
starboard watch relieved us, having ordered it to be furled and another
reef to be taken in the topsails, as it was then blowing great guns and
the ship staggering along through a storm-tossed sea, with the sky
overcast all round--a sign that we had not seen the worst of it yet!
The Silver Queen pitched so much--giving an occasional heavy roll to
starboard as her bows fell off from the battering of the waves, with her
stern lifting up out of the water, and rolling back quickly to port
again on her taking the helm as the men jammed it hard down--that I
found it all I could do to descend the poop ladder safely. I climbed
down gingerly, however, holding on to anything I could clutch until I
reached the deck-house, which was now nearly knee-deep in the water that
was sluicing fore and aft the ship with every pitch and dive she gave,
or washing in a body athwart the deck as she rolled, and dashing like a
wave against the bulwarks within.
I went to turn in to my bunk, which was on top of that occupied by Sam
Weeks, who, very luckily for him, had to turn out, going aft on duty
with the rest of the starboard watch; for, in my struggles to ascend to
the little narrow shelf that served me for a bed, and which from the
motion of the ship was almost perpendicular one moment and the next
horizontal, I would have pretty well trampled him to jelly, having to
stand on the lower bunk to reach the upper one assigned to me.
Ultimately, however, I managed to climb up to my perch and pulled my
blankets about me; and then I tried to sleep as well as the roaring of
the wind and rushing wash of the sea, in concert with the creaking of
the chain-plates and groaning of the ship's timbers and myriad voices of
the deep, would let me.
But, it was all in vain!
Hitherto, although I had been more than two days and two nights on board
and had sailed all the way from the docks along the river and down the
Channel, I had never yet been sea-sick, smiling at Tim Rooney's
stereotyped inquiry each day of me, "An' sure, Misther Gray-ham, aren't
ye sorry yit ye came to say?"
Since the afternoon, however, when the water had become rougher and the
ship more lively, I had begun to experience a queer sensation such as I
recollect once having at home at Christmas-time--on which occasion Dr
Jollop, who was called in to attend me, declared I had eaten too much
plum-pudding, just in order to give me some of his nasty pills, of
course!
I hadn't had the chance of having anything so good as that now; but, at
tea-time Tom Jerrold, who, like myself, had made friends with Ching
Wang, had induced him to compound a savoury mess entitled, "dandy funk,"
composed of pounded biscuits, molasses, and grease. Of this mess, I am
sorry to say, I had partaken; and the probable source of my present
ailment was, no doubt, the insidious dandy funk wherewith Jerrold had
beguiled me.
Oh, that night!
Dandy funk or no, I could not soon forget it, for I never was so sick in
my life; and what is more, every roll of the ship made me worse, so that
I thought I should die--Tom Jerrold, the heartless wretch, who was
snoring away as usual in the next bunk to Weeks' below, not paying the
slightest attention to my feeble calls to him for help and assistance
between the paroxysms of my agonising qualms.
Somehow or other a sympathetic affinity seemed to be established between
the vessel and myself, I rolling as she rolled and heaving when she
heaved; while my heart seemed to reach from the Atlantic back to the
Channel, and I felt as if I had swallowed the ocean and was trying to
get rid of it and couldn't!
_Ille robur et aes triplex_, as Horace sang on again getting safely
ashore--for he must have been far too ill when afloat in his trireme--
and as father used to quote against me should I praise the charms of a
sailor's life, "framed of oak and fortified with triple brass" must have
been he who first braved the perils of the sea and made acquaintance
with that fell demon whom our French neighbours style more elegantly
than ourselves _le mal de mer_!
Weeks had his revenge upon me now with a vengeance indeed for all he
might have suffered from my pummelling of the previous day; yes, and for
the reproach of the two black eyes I had given him, which had since
altered their colouring to the tints of the sea and sky, they being now
of a bluish-purple hue shaded off into green and yellow, so that the
general effect harmonised, as Tom Jerrold unkindly remarked, with his
sandy hair and mottled complexion.
But, my whilom enemy and now friend Sammy must have been amply
indemnified for all this when, at the end of the middle watch, he came
in due course to rouse me out again for another turn of duty, not
knowing that Mr Mackay, as if anticipating what would happen after the
shaking up I had had, had given me leave to lie-in if I liked and "keep
my watch below;" for, when Weeks succeeded in opening the door of the
deck-house, which he did with much difficulty against the opposing
forces of the wind and the water that united to resist his efforts, he
found me completely prostrate and in the very apogee of my misery.
"Hullo, Graham!" he called out, clutching hold of the corner of the
blanket that enveloped one of my limp legs, which was hanging down
almost as inanimate over the side of the bunk, and shaking this latter,
too, as vigorously as he did the blanket. "Rouse out, it's gone eight
bells and the port watch are already on deck, with Mr Mackay swearing
away at a fine rate because you're not there--rouse out with you,
sharp!"
There was no rousing me, however, pull and tug and shake away as much as
he pleased both at my leg and the blanket.
"Leave me alone," I at last managed to say loud enough for him to hear
me. "Mr Mackay told me I needn't turn out unless I felt well enough;
and, oh, Weeks, I do feel so awfully ill!"
"Ill! what's the row with you?"
"I don't know," I feebly murmured. "I think I'm going to die; and I'm
so sorry I hurt your eyes yesterday, they do look so bad."
"Oh, hang my eyes!" replied he hastily, as if he did not like the
subject mentioned; and I don't wonder at this now, when I recollect how
very funny they looked, all green and yellow as if he had a pair of
goggle-eyed spectacles on. "Why can't you turn out? You were well
enough when you called me four hours ago--shamming Abraham, I suppose,--
eh?"