I had slung a cot, although there was a good mahogany bunk in the
cabin. No sensible person would sleep in a bunk at sea when he could
swing in a hammock or cot. Suppose the bunk is athwart-ship: when the
vessel goes about you must shift your pillow; and very often she will
go about in your watch below and catch you asleep, so that when you
wake you find your feet are in the air, and all the blood in your body
in your head. When I first went to sea I slept in a 'thwartship bunk.
The ship was taken aback one night when I was asleep, and they came and
roared, "All hands shorten sail!" down the booby hatch. I heard the
cry and tried to get out of my bed, but my head was jammed to leeward
by the weight of my body, and I could not move. Had the ship foundered,
I should have gone to the bottom, in bed, helpless. Always after that I
slept in a hammock.
The watch on deck had orders to call the captain if a change of wind
came; also I knew that the pilot would be up, sniffing about, off and
on, through the night: so I turned in properly and slept soundly until
two; when, waking up, I drew on my small clothes and went on deck,
where I found Duckling mousing about in the moonshine in a pair of
yellow flannel drawers, he having, like myself, come up to see if any
wind was stirring. He looked like a new kind of monkey in his tight
white rig and immense head of hair. "No wind, no wind," he muttered, in
a sleepy grumble, and then went below with a run, nearly tumbling, in
fact, head over heels down the companion-ladder.
I took a turn forward to see if the riding lights burned well and
the man on the look-out was awake. The decks were wet with dew, and
the moon was now hanging over the South Foreland. The sky was still
cloudless, and not a breath of air to be felt. This being the case, I
went back to my cot.
When I next awoke I found my cot violently swinging. I thought for the
moment that we were under way and in a heavy sea; but on looking over
I saw Mr. Duckling, who exclaimed, "Out with you, Mr. Royle! There's a
good breeze from the east'ards. Look alive and call the boatswain to
pipe all hands."
Hearing this, I was wide awake at once, and in a few minutes was making
my way to the boatswain's cabin, a deck-house on the port side against
the forecastle. He and the carpenter were fast asleep in bunks placed
one over the other. I laid hold of the boatswain's leg, which hung over
the bunk--both he and the carpenter had turned in "all standing," as
they say at sea--and shook it. His great brown hairy face came out of
the bolster in which it was buried; he then threw over his other leg
and sat upright.
"All hands, sir?"
"Yes; look sharp, bo'sun."
He was about to speak, but stopped short and said, "Ay, ay, sir;"
whereupon I hurried aft.
It was twenty minutes past five by the clock in the cuddy. The sun had
been risen half an hour, and was already warming the decks. But there
was a fine breeze--not from the eastward, as Duckling had said, but
well to the northward of east--which brought ripe, fresh morning smells
from the land with it, and made the water run in little leaps of foam
against the ship's side.
Captain Coxon and the pilot were both on the poop, and as I came up the
former called out--
"Is the boatswain awake yet?"
"Yes, sir," I answered, and dived into my cabin to finish dressing. I
heard the boatswain's pipe sound, followed by the roar of his voice
summoning the hands to weigh anchor. My station was on the forecastle,
and thither I went. But none of the hands had emerged as yet, the
only man seen being the fellow on the look-out. All about us the
outward-bound vessels were taking advantage of the wind: some of them
were already standing away, others were sheeting home their canvas; the
clanking of the windlasses was incessant, and several Deal boats were
driving under their lugs among the shipping.
"Mr. Royle," cried out the captain, "jump below, will you, and see what
those fellows are about."
I went to the fore-scuttle and peered into it, bawling, "Below there!"
"There's no use singing out," said a voice; "we don't mean to get the
ship under way until you give us something fit to eat."
"Who was that who spoke?" I called. "Show yourself, my man."
A fellow came and stood under the fore-scuttle, and looking up, said in
a bold, defiant way--
"_I_ spoke--'Bill Marling, able seaman.'"
"Am I to tell the captain that you refuse to turn to?"
"Ay, and tell him we'd rather have six months of chokee than one
mouthful of his damned provisions," he answered; and immediately a lot
of voices took up the theme, and as I left the forecastle to deliver
the message, I heard the men cursing and abusing us all violently, the
foreigners particularly--that is, the Portuguese and a Frenchman, who
was half a negro--swearing in the worst English words and worst English
pronunciation, shrilly and fiercely.
Coxon pretty well knew what was coming. He and Duckling stood together
on the poop, and I delivered the men's message from the quarter-deck.
Coxon was in a great rage and quite pale with it. The expression in
his face was really devilish. His lips became bloodless, and when he
glanced his eyes around and saw the other ships taking advantage of
the fine breeze and sailing away, he seemed deprived of speech. He had
sense enough, however, with all his fury, to know that in this case no
good could come from passion. He seized the brass rail with both hands,
and made a gesture with his head to signify that I should draw nearer.
"Who was the man who gave you that message, sir?"
"A fellow who called himself Bill Marling."
"Do they refuse to leave the forecastle?"
"They refuse to get the ship under way."
"Is the boatswain disaffected?"
"No, sir; but I fancy he knows the men's minds."
He turned to Mr. Duckling.
"If the boatswain is sound, we four ought to be able to make the
scoundrels turn to."
This was like suggesting a hand to hand fight--four against twelve, and
Duckling had the sense to hold his tongue. The boatswain was standing
near the long-boat, looking aft, and Coxon suddenly called to him,
"Lead the men aft."
I now thought proper to get upon the poop; and in a short time the men
came aft in twos and threes. They were thirteen in all, including the
carpenter, four ordinary seamen, the cook, and the cook's mate. The
boatswain kept forward.
There was a capstan just abaft the mainmast, and here the men
assembled. There was not much in the situation to move one's gravity,
and yet I could scarcely forbear smiling when I looked down upon
their faces fraught with expressions so various in kind, though all
denoting the same feelings. Some were regular old stagers, fellows who
had been to sea all their lives, with great bare arms tattooed with
crucifixes, bracelets, and other such devices, in canvas or blanket
breeches and flannel shirts, with the invariable belt and knife around
their middle. Some, to judge from their clothes, had evidently signed
articles in an almost destitute condition, their clothes being complete
suits of patches, and their faces pale and thin. The foreigners were,
of course, excessively dirty; and the "Portugee's" wonderfully ugly
countenance was hardly improved by the stout silver earrings with which
his long ears were ornamented.
The first movement of mirth in me, however, was but transient. Pity
came uppermost in a few moments. I do think there is something touching
in the simplicity of sailors, in the childlike way in which they go
about to explain a grievance and get it redressed. They have few words
and little experience outside the monotonous life they follow; they
express themselves ill, are subdued by a harsh discipline on board,
or by acts of cruelty which could not be tolerated in any kind of
service ashore; the very negroes and savages of distant countries have
more interest taken in them by the people of England than sailors,
for whom scarcely a charity exists; the laws which deal with their
insubordination are unnecessarily severe; and of the persons who are
appointed to inquire into the causes of insubordination, scarce five in
the hundred are qualified by experience, sympathy, or disinterestedness
to do sailors justice.
Some such thoughts as these were in my mind as I stood watching the men
on the quarter-deck.
Coxon, with his hands still clutching the rail, said, "The boatswain
has piped you out to get the ship under way. Do you refuse?"
The man named Bill Marling made a step forward. The men had evidently
constituted him spokesman.
"We don't mean to work this here ship," said he, "until better food is
put aboard. The biscuits are not fit for dogs; and I say that the pork
stinks, and that the molasses is grits."
"That's the truth," said a voice; and the Portuguese nodded and
gesticulated violently.
"You blackguards!" burst out the captain, losing all self-control.
"What do you know about food for dogs? You're not as good as dogs to
know. Aren't you shipped out of filthy Ratcliffe Highway lodgings,
where the ship's bread and meat and molasses would be eaten by you
as damned fine luxuries, you lubbers? Turn to at once and man the
windlass, or I'll find a way to make you!"
"We say," said the spokesman, pulling a biscuit out of his bosom and
holding it up, "that we don't mean to work the ship until you give us
better bread than this. It's mouldy and full of weevils. Put the bread
in the sun, and see the worms crawl out of it."
"Will the skipper pitch the cuddy bread overboard and eat ourn?"
demanded a voice.
"And the cuddy meat along with it!" exclaimed a man, a short,
powerfully built fellow with a crisp black beard and woolly hair,
holding up a piece of pork on the blade of a knife. "Let Captain Coxon
smell this."
The captain looked at them for a few moments with flashing eyes, then
turned and walked right aft with Duckling. Here they were joined by
the pilot, and a discussion took place among them that lasted some
minutes. Meanwhile I paced to and fro athwart the poop. The men talked
in low tones among themselves, but none of them seemed disposed to give
in. For my own part, I rather fancied that though their complaint
of the provisions was justifiable enough, it was advanced rather as
a sound excuse for declining to sail with a skipper and chief mate
whose behaviour so far towards them was a very mild suggestion of the
treatment they might expect when they should be fairly at sea, and in
these two men's power. I heard my name mentioned among them and one
or two remarks made about me, but not uncomplimentary. The cook had
probably told them I was well-disposed, and I believe that some of them
would have harangued me had I appeared willing to listen.
Presently Mr. Duckling left the captain and ordered the men to go
forward. He then called the boatswain, and turning to me, said that I
was to be left in charge of the ship with the pilot whilst he and the
captain went ashore.
The boatswain came aft and got into the quarter-boat which Duckling and
I lowered; and I then towed her by her painter to the gangway, where
Duckling and the captain got into her.
As no signal was hoisted I was at a loss to conceive what course
Captain Coxon proposed to adopt. Duckling and the boatswain each took
an oar while Coxon steered, and away they went, sousing over the little
waves which the fresh land breeze had set running along the water.
By this time all the outward-bound ships had got their anchors up, and
were standing down Channel. Some of them which had got away smartly
were well around the Foreland, and we were the only one of them all
that still kept the ground. Captain Coxon's rage and disappointment
were, of course, intelligible enough; for time to him was not only
money, but credit--I mean that every day he could save in making the
run to Valparaiso would improve him in his employers' estimation.
The men peered over the bulwarks at the departing boat, wondering
what the skipper would do. There was a tide running to the southward,
and they had to keep the boat heading towards Sandwich. Strong as the
boatswain was, I could see what a much stronger oar Duckling pulled by
the way the boat's head swerved under his strokes.
I stood watching them for some time and then joined the pilot, who had
lighted a pipe and sat smoking on the taffrail. He gave me a civil nod,
being well-disposed enough now that Coxon was not by, and made some
remark about the awkwardness of the men refusing work when the breeze
was so good.
"True," said I; "but I think you'll find that the magistrates will give
it in their favour. There's some mistake about the ship's stores. Such
bread as the men have had served out to them ought never to have been
put on board, and the steward has owned to me that it's all alike."
"The captain don't intend to let it come before the magistrates,"
answered the pilot with a wink, and pulling his pipe from his mouth
to inspect the bowl. "He wants to be off, and means to telegraph for
another crew and turn those fellows yonder adrift."
"Won't he ship some better provisions?"
"I don't know, sir. Preehaps he's satisfied that the provisions is
good enough for the men, and preehaps he isn't. Leastways he'll not be
persuaded contrarily to his belief."
"So, then, the police are to have nothing to do with this matter, and
the stores will be retained for another crew?"
"That's as it may be."
"There will be a mutiny before we get to Valparaiso."
"Something 'll happen, I dare say."
I not only considered the captain's behaviour in this matter bad
morally, but extremely impolitic. His motives were plain enough. The
stores had been shipped as a cheap lot for the men to eat; and I dare
say the understanding between Coxon and the owners was that the stores
should not be changed. This view would account for his going on shore
to telegraph for a new crew, since sending the old crew about their
business would promise a cheaper issue than signalling for the police
and bringing the offenders before the magistrates, and causing the
vessel to be detained while inquiries were made. But that he would be
imperilling the safety of his vessel by shipping a fresh crew without
exchanging the bad stores for good was quite certain, and I wondered
that so old a sailor as he should be such a fool as not to foresee some
disastrous end to his own or his owners' contemptible cheese-paring
policy.
However, I had not so good an opinion of the pilot's taciturnity as to
make him my confidant in these thoughts; we talked on other matters for
a few minutes and he then went below, and after a while, on passing the
skylight, I saw him stretched on one of the cuddy benches sound asleep.
The Downs now presented a very different appearance from what they had
exhibited an hour before. There were not above four vessels at anchor,
and of those which had filled and stood away scarce half a dozen were
in sight. These were some lumbering old brigs with a barque among them,
with the water almost level with their decks; picturesque enough,
however, in the glorious morning light, as they went washing solemnly
away, showing their square sterns to the wind. A prettier sight was a
fine schooner yacht coming up fast from the southward, with her bow
close to the wind; and over to the eastward the sea was alive with
smacks, their sails shining like copper, standing apparently for the
North Sea.
The land all about Walmer was of an exquisite soft green, and in the
breezy summer light Deal looked the quaintest, snuggest little town in
the world.
A little after eight the steward called me down to breakfast, where I
found the pilot impatiently sniffing an atmosphere charged with the
aroma of broiled ham and strong coffee. I own, as I helped myself
to a rasher and contrasted the good provisions with which the cuddy
table was furnished with the bad food served to the men, that I was
weak enough to sympathize very cordially with the poor fellows. The
steward told me that not a man among them had broken his fast; this he
had been told by the cook, who added that the men would rather starve
than eat the biscuit that had been served out to them. Such was their
way of showing themselves wronged; and the steward declared that he
did not half like bringing our breakfast from the galley, for the men,
when they smelt the ham and saw him going aft with a tin of hot rolls,
became so forcible in their language that he every moment, during his
walk along the main-deck, expected to feel himself seized behind and
pitched overboard.
"It's the old story, sir," said the pilot, who was making an immense
breakfast, "and it's true enough what Mr. Duckling said last night,
which I thought uncommonly good. They ship sailors out of places where
there's nothing to be seen but rags and rum--rum and rags, sir; they
give 'em a good cabin to live in, pounds sterling a month, grog every
day at eight bells, plenty of good livin', considering what they was,
where they come from, and what they desarves: and what do they do but
turn up their noses at food which they'd crawl upon their knees to get
in their kennels ashore, and swear that they won't do ne'er a stroke of
work unless they're bribed by the very best of everything. What do they
want?--lobsters for breakfast, and wenison and plum-duff for dinner,
and chops and tamater sauce for supper? It's the ruination of owners,
sir, are these here new-fangled ideas; and I don't say--mind, I don't
say that it don't go agin pilots as a body. A pilot can't do his dooty
as he ought when he's got such crews as sarve nowadays to order about.
Here am I stuck here, with a job that I knows of waitin' and waitin'
for me at Gravesend. And all because this blessed ship's company wants
wenison and plum-duff for dinner!"
He helped himself to a large slice of broiled ham and devoured it with
sullen energy.
I could have said a word for the men, but guessed that my remarks would
be repeated to the skipper; and since I could not benefit them, there
was no use in injuring myself.
After breakfast I went upon deck, and saw a Deal boat making for the
ship. She came along in slashing style, under her broad lug--what
splendid boats those Deal luggers are, and how superbly the fellows
handle them!--and in a short time was near enough to enable me to see
that she towed our quarter-boat astern, and that Coxon and Duckling
were among her occupants. I went to the gangway to receive her: she
fell off, then luffed, running a fine semicircle; down dropped her
lug, her mizzen brought her right to, and she came alongside with
beautiful precision, stopping under the gangway like a carriage at your
door.
I caught the line that was flung from her, took a turn with it, and
then Coxon and the chief mate stepped on board. The moment he touched
the deck, Coxon called to the men who were hanging about the forecastle.
"Get your traps together, and out with you! If ever a man among you
stops in my ship five minutes, I'll fling him overboard."
With which terrible threat he walked into the cuddy. Duckling remained
at the gangway to see the crew leave the ship. The poor fellows were
all ready. They had made up their minds to go ashore, but hardly knew
under what circumstances. I had noticed them pressing forward to look
into the boat when she came alongside, no doubt expecting to see the
uniform of a police-superintendent there. The presence of such an
official would, of course, have meant imprisonment to them; they would
have been locked up until brought before the magistrates. They were
clearly disappointed by the skipper's procedure, for as they came to
the gangway, carrying their bags and chests, all kinds of remarks,
expressive of their opinion on the matter, were uttered by them.
"The old blackguard," said one, flinging his bag into the boat,
and lingering before Duckling and myself in order to deliver his
observations, "he hasn't the pluck to have us tried. Pitch us
overboard! let him try his (etc.) hand upon the littlest of us! I'd
take six months, and thank 'em, just to warm my fist on his (etc.)
face!" and so forth.
Duckling was wise to hold his peace. The men were furious enough to
have massacred him had he opened his lips.
The older hands got into the boat in silence; but none of the rest left
the ship without some candid expression of his feelings. One said he'd
gladly pay a pound for leave to set fire to the ship. Another called
her a floating workhouse. A third hoped that the vessel would be sunk,
and the brutes commanding her drowned before this time to-morrow.
Every evil wish that malice and rage could invent was hurled at the
vessel and at those who remained in her. In after days I recalled that
beautiful morning, the picture of the lugger alongside the ship, the
hungry, ill-used men with their poor packs going over the vessel's
side, and the curses they pronounced as they left us.
An incident followed the entry of the last of the men in the boat.
The sail was hoisted, the rope that held the boat let go, and her head
was shoved off; when the "Portugee," in the excitement and fury of his
feelings, drew in his breath and his cheeks, and spat with tremendous
energy at Duckling, who was watching him: but the missile fell short;
in a word, he spat full in the face of one of the old hands, who
instantly knocked him down. He tumbled head over heels among the feet
of the crowd of men, while Duckling roared out, "If the man who knocked
that blackguard down will return to his duty, I'll be his friend." But
all the answer he got was a roar which resembled in sound and character
the mingled laughter and groans of a large mob; the fresh wind caught
and filled the sail, the boat bounded away under the pressure, and in a
few minutes was a long distance out of hail.