OFF DUTY AMUSEMENTS.
When off duty the sailors amused themselves by spinning yarns and singing
songs. Sometimes they got up a sparring match, and occasionally hazing of
the duller or less active of the crew was indulged in. It is related that
one sailor was nicknamed "Top-robbin" because he usually began his stories
with the introduction, "When I sailed in the Taprobane, East Ingyman."
Once he was induced to attempt a song, and began in a voice in which a
hoarse bass struggled with a squeaky treble:
Jerry Lee was hung at sea
For stabbing of his messmate true.
And his body did swing, a horrible thing,
At the sport of the wild sea mew!
The whole watch shouted for him to stop, and he was warned:
"If you ever sing again in this 'ere watch while we're off soundings,
we'll fire you through a lee port. Such a voice as that would raise a
harrycane."
"Top-robbin's" yarns, however, were treated with more tolerance. He had a
lively imagination and a very impressive delivery. His themes were of the
ghostly sort--of phantom ships sailing against wind and tide, and women in
white gliding on board in the midst of storms.
Curiously enough, Captain Semmes, who was constantly called a pirate and
whose name was associated in the minds of New England people with that of
Captain Kidd, had gained the reputation in the forecastle of his own ship
of being a sort of preacher, the impression doubtless dating from that
introductory speech of his off Terceira, in which he predicted the
blessings of Providence upon the Alabama's efforts to rid the South of the
Yankees. One of the forecastle songs is said to have run thus:
Oh, our captain said, "When my fortune's made,
I'll buy a church to preach in,
And fill it full of toots and horns,
And have a jolly Methodee screechin'.
"And I'll pray the Lord both night and morn
To weather old Yankee Doodle--
And I'll run a hinfant Sunday School
With some of the Yankee's boodle."
One sailor who claimed to have been an officer in the British navy had an
excellent tenor voice, and delighted not only his messmates, but
frequently the officers as well, with his rendering of popular songs. Even
the captain used occasionally to stroll out on the bridge and listen with
pleasure to the entertainment furnished with voice or violin. The
following song, said to have been improvised by one of the crew, was sung
on the night before the fight with the Kearsarge:
We're homeward bound, we're homeward bound,
We soon shall stand on English ground;
But ere that English land we see,
We first must lick the Kersar-gee.
At the Cape of Good Hope fourteen of the Alabama's crew deserted. Captain
Semmes records in his journal the fact that the Irish fiddler was one of
the number, and calls this "one of our greatest losses." When the
desirability of keeping the crew in a state of subordination and
contentment was taken into consideration, there is no doubt that a petty
officer or two could have been better spared.
The engineer now reported only four days' coal in the bunkers, and Captain
Semmes determined to shape his course for Martinique, in the West Indies,
to which point Captain Bulloch had arranged to dispatch a fresh supply in
a sailing vessel.
Early on the morning of Nov. 2d, a sail was discovered and the Alabama
immediately gave chase. The master of the fleeing stranger was not even
reassured by the United States flag which flew from his pursuers' mast
head, and made all haste to get out of the dangerous vicinity. He was
overhauled about noon and a hint from the "Persuader," as the Blakely
rifle had come to be called, induced him to heave to. The boarding officer
found himself on the deck of the Levi Starbuck, a whaler expecting to
spend two and a half years in the Pacific, and consequently supplied with
an abundance of provisions, considerable quantities of which were
transferred to the Alabama. New Bedford papers on board were only four
days old, and contained the latest war news.
On the morning of November 8th two sails were in sight, one of them a
very large vessel. Master's Mate Evans, the oracle of the ship in the
matter of the nationality of vessels, pronounced both of them Yankee. In
this dilemma the chase of the smaller vessel, which had gone on during the
greater part of the night, was abandoned, and attention concentrated upon
the big ship. She made no effort to escape, evidently placing all faith in
the lying United States flag which the Alabama showed her. Her master was
dumbfounded when on nearer approach the stars and stripes dropped to the
deck and were replaced by the colors of the Confederacy.
The prize was an East India trader, the T. B. Wales, of Boston, homeward
bound from Calcutta, with a cargo consisting principally of jute, linseed
and 1,700 bags of saltpetre, the latter destined for the Northern powder
mills. The ship had been five months on her voyage and her master had
never heard of the Alabama. He had his wife on board and also an ex-United
States consul returning homeward with his family consisting of his wife
and three little daughters.
The Wales was one of the most useful of the Alabama's captures. She
yielded spars and rigging of the best quality. Her main yard proved to be
of almost the exact length of the one which the cruiser had broken in the
cyclone, and was taken aboard and afterward transferred to the place of
the old one, which had been temporarily repaired. Eight able seamen were
secured from her for the Alabama's crew, bringing the number up to 110
within half a score of a full complement.
Semmes was on his good behavior, and evidently anxious to disprove the
appellation of "pirate" which had been so constantly flung at him of late.
Southern chivalry was at its best in the polite consideration with which
he treated the ladies. Several of the officers were turned out of their
staterooms to make room for them, a proceeding to which they submitted
with apparent good grace. The Wales was burned.
The Alabama now entered the calm belt about the tropic of Cancer, across
which she proceeded by slow stages and dropped anchor in the harbor of
Fort de France, in the French island of Martinique, on November 18th,
1862.