THE SOUTH ATLANTIC
_Friday, 20th October._--We foamed through it all night close hauled
under topgallant sails, going about 8 knots.
We are on the banks now, and there is a pretty big sea running.
Occasional hail-storms in the morning, but by noon we had crossed the
terrible banks, and were in lat. 52°.14 S., long. 55°.41 W. The glass
is very low and is falling rapidly, and I suppose we are in for another
blow.
It is our afternoon watch on deck. Every few minutes the second mate
dashes into the chart-house and looks at the barometer.
At 3 P.M. the glass was down to 28°.60, and the sea and wind are
beginning to get up.
All of a sudden the wind chopped round into the S.W., and began blowing
harder every minute.
We soon had her squared before it, and it was a case of in with the
topgallant sails, and reefing the upper-topsails; so we had a hard
afternoon’s work up aloft. My thumb is very awkward and painful still,
as, though I keep a rag round it, the salt water gets in, and salt
water, wherever it gets in, eats to the bone.
A very wild sunset to-night, but as yet the wind is not very bad,
though an occasional hail squall stings us up.
All night we never touched a rope, and foamed through it, going a good
10 knots.
_Saturday, 21st October._--A lovely morning, with the sun shining!
It is blowing hard, and we are reeling off the knots under reefed
upper-topsails, lower-topsails, and foresail.
The Falkland Islands are well to the south-west of us now.
I had another very bad fall last night in the first watch. Feeling very
hungry, and finding that our bread barge in the half-deck was empty, I
went forward to cadge some from our forecastle.
They gave me as much as I could carry; but, alas! just as I got past
the after-hatch on the starboard side, the ship gave a very heavy roll,
and my feet slipped up from under me on the greasy, wet deck.
Down I came with a terrific crash, hurting my hip, and smashing the
biscuits into atoms.
The old man and mate were aft by the wheel, and they said that my fall
shook the whole poop.
Well, I lost all my biscuits, and damaged my hip; but scored all the
same, for the old man went below and presently emerged with a tin of
potted meat, which he gave me out of his private store.
How we in the half-deck licked our lips over that potted meat! for
myself, I thought I never tasted anything half as good in all my life.
The men are beginning to suffer a great deal from sea-boils.
Poor old Taylor has got a very bad finger. It started with a whitlow,
which got poisoned from not being cut, as the captain, who is always
the doctor on board a ship where no doctor is carried, did not like to
cut it, having made a mess of a finger before through cutting it badly.
Taylor has had to lie up, and is in terrible pain.
Loring has taken his wheel, and is a very good helmsman. I do not like
this at all, as now I have to keep time the whole watch at night,
instead of only two hours in the watch.
The third mate is also laid up, as he has got very bad sea-boils on his
wrist, and they have paralysed his right arm the whole way up.
Pipes are beginning to get very scarce on board. I had four pipes in
Frisco; I gave one, a little beauty of Lowe’s, Haymarket, to Don. It
passed from man to man, until I think Loring had it at last, and by
that time it was minus its stem piece.
Another I gave to Mac, and it got washed overboard off the Horn.
Another was a corn cob--sweetest of all pipes to smoke--which got its
bottom broken in; and my last, and old favourite, a bull-dog, from
being constantly scraped out, got a hole through the bottom of the bowl.
This hole I plugged with everything I could think of, but it was no
use, the only thing to do was to keep one’s finger over the hole when
smoking.
The mate gave the nipper a pipe, which the nipper in turn gave to Scar;
from Scar it went to Don, from Don to Mac, from Mac to Loring, and from
Loring it went to the bosun.
Mac had a clay, the stem of which was broken off so short that he had
to hold it to his mouth.
Scar had an old silver-mounted pipe which was everlastingly choked up.
So now, what pipes remain have to be shared; and in the half-deck,
Loring, Don, and Mac taking turns to smoke one, and occasionally I let
Don have a pipe out of my old bull-dog.
Scar and the nipper have only one pipe between them, and are
everlastingly at loggerheads as to whose smoke it is.
It is hard work to keep a pipe alight this weather, as the tobacco gets
so damp that it won’t keep burning.
I cut up a couple of plugs to-day, and putting them in a tin, got old
Slush to put it in the oven for a bit.
But we both forgot to take it out, and the tobacco got roasted almost
to a cinder, and now has a very peculiar taste.
Still anything is better than having to do without, as I have often
found, and this roasted ’baccy had one advantage, it burnt well, and
kept alight.
Cigarettes and cigarette tobacco have, of course, always been very
scarce on board.
Don used to roll cigars out of the leaves of ship’s tobacco.
Don, Loring, and the second mate, who are the chief cigarette smokers,
got a fine haul on the other side of the Horn.
The old man had got a lot of fine cut English tobacco which he could
not smoke, as he preferred the strongest and blackest ship’s plug, so
he presented this to the second mate, Don, and myself. As I preferred
a pipe, I swapped mine for some plugs of American tobacco which Don
had got, so now Don, Loring, and the second mate have got plenty of
cigarette tobacco, and there is only the trouble of cigarette papers.
The second mate has only got a few left, and neither Don or Loring have
got any; but luckily for them I managed to get some out of the Turk in
the port watch, as he of course only smokes cigarettes.
_Sunday, 22nd October._--A fine morning, and we set the topgallant
sails again, and staysails, and shook the reefs out of the topsails.
It was our forenoon watch on deck, and we chantied the topsails up in
fine form, taking the halliards to the capstan.
Scar is an authority on chanties, and he says that the real old
chanties are very seldom heard now; all the same, we have had a good
number of fine chanties sung on board.
The thing to hear is a nigger crew chantying. They sing most
beautifully, with splendid minor and half notes; they cannot do the
least little bit of work without chantying.
A celebrated chanty, which I am very fond of, is “Haul on the Bowlin’,”
which is a setting sail chanty, and runs thus:--
_Solo._ “Haul on the bowlin’, the fore and maintop bowlin’,”
_Chorus._ “Haul on the bowlin’, the bowlin’ haul!”
_Solo._ “Haul on the bowlin’, the packet is arolling,”
_Chorus._ “Haul on the bowlin’, the bowlin’ haul!”
_Solo._ “Haul on the bowlin’, the skipper he’s agrowling,”
_Chorus._ “Haul on the bowlin’, the bowlin’ haul!”
_Solo._ “Haul on the bowlin’, to London we are going,”
_Chorus._ “Haul on the bowlin’, the bowlin’ haul!”
_Solo._ “Haul on the bowlin’, the good ship is abowling,”
_Chorus._ “Haul on the bowlin’, the bowlin’ haul!”
_Solo._ “Haul on the bowlin’, the main-topgallant bowlin’,”
_Chorus._ “Haul on the bowlin’, the bowlin’ haul!”
A real good old-time chanty is “Storm along, Stormie!” which runs
thus:--
_Solo._ “Stormie’s gone, the good all man,”
_Chorus._ “To my aye, Storm along!”
_Solo._ “Oh, Stormie’s gone, that good old man,”
_Chorus._ “Aye! aye! aye! Mister Storm along!”
_Solo._ “They dug his grave with a silver spade,”
_Chorus._ “To my aye, Storm along!”
_Solo._ “His shroud of finest silk was made,”
_Chorus._ “Aye! aye! aye! Mister Storm along!”
_Solo._ “They lowered him with a golden chain,”
_Chorus._ “To my aye, Storm along!”
_Solo._ “Their eyes all dim with more than rain,”
_Chorus._ “Aye! aye! aye! Mister Storm along!”
_Solo._ “He was a sailor, bold and true,”
_Chorus._ “To my aye, Storm along!”
_Solo._ “A good old skipper to his crew,”
_Chorus._ “Aye! aye! aye! Mister Storm along!”
_Solo._ “He lies low in an earthen bed,”
_Chorus._ “To my aye, Storm along!”
_Solo._ “Our hearts are sore, our eyes are red,”
_Chorus._ “To my aye, Storm along!”
_Solo._ “He’s moored at last, and furled his sail,”
_Chorus._ “To my aye, Storm along!”
_Solo._ “No danger now from wreck or gale,”
_Chorus._ “Aye! aye! aye! Mister Storm along!”
_Solo._ “Old Storm has heard an angel call,”
_Chorus._ “To my aye, Storm along!”
_Solo._ “So sing his dirge now, one and all,”
_Chorus._ “Aye! aye! aye! Mister Storm along!”
This is a pumping chanty. One of the most celebrated chanties is “The
Black Ball Line,” the first verse of which runs thus:--
_Solo._ “In the Black Ball Line I served my time,”
_Chorus._ “Hurrah for the Black Ball Line!”
_Solo._ “In the Black Ball Line I served my time,”
_Chorus._ “Hurrah for the Black Ball Line!”
This is a long capstan chanty, and has fourteen verses in the original
words; of course you hardly ever hear two men sing the same words in
the solo of a chanty, though the choruses are always the same.
Chanties such as “Blow, my bully boys, blow!” “A long time ago!” “A
poor old man,” “The plains of Mexico,” “John Brown’s whisky bottle’s
empty on the shelf,” “Boney was a warrior,” “Blow the man down,”
“Reuben Ranzo,” “Away for Rio!” “Whisky for my Johnnie,” we were
constantly singing.
“The Girls of Dublin Town” is also a very popular chanty.
We had hardly got sail set when it came on to blow hard again, with
heavy squalls, and the other watch had to take in the upper-topgallant
sails in the afternoon.
In the first dog watch it was a case of all hands on deck.
“Haul up the mainsail, and get the lower-topgallant sails tied up,”
said the old man to the mate.
Each watch is a man short, Taylor being laid up in our watch, and Scar
in the port.
The decks are full of water again, some very big seas coming aboard,
and we had a difficult job clewing up the mizen upper-topsail, which
had to come in directly the topgallant sails were fast.
Then came the terrific business of squaring in the yards, one of the
most dangerous of all jobs when a heavy sea is running.
Many a ship has lost a whole watch over the side whilst at work at the
braces.
Both watches tailed on to the port main-brace.
I was about fifth on the rope, with old Wilson, who was singing out on
one side of me, and Higgins on the other.
We had hardly taken two pulls at the brace, when a huge sea broke
aboard right over our heads, and both watches were swept off their feet
in every direction.
Wilson, Higgins, and I received the full force of it. For one tiny
moment of time I saw the great hissing mass as it reared its foaming
top higher and higher above us, and then crash! and it toppled its
whole weight upon us.
Knocked down, crushed, overwhelmed by the monster, I was quite
conscious of what was going on, as I hung on to the brace with all my
strength. Under water as I was, with my heels above my head, I saw
dimly the round bundles washing about close to me which represented
Wilson and Higgins.
Over and over the sea rolled me, and hurled me with terrific force
against the main-hatch, and three times did my poor right knee come
with a crash against a ring-bolt.
It was worse than being upset out of a canoe whilst shooting rapids,
infinitely worse; there was no chance of getting your head above water,
and one could only hold one’s breath or swallow gallons of water, until
the sea rolled off.
I hung on to the brace until the terrific weight of water tore it from
my grasp, and away I went, first my head up then my feet, rolling
over and over, a plaything of the furious sea, which made me turn
somersaults, balance myself on my nose or on the back of my head, just
as the whim took it.
It washed me round the hatch; it bumped me against the fife-rail, which
I clutched at madly; it rolled me like a beer barrel into the scuppers;
I got entangled and disentangled again with other human bundles, and
never for a second could I get my head above water.
At last the water began to run off, and I found that I could sit up and
get my head above water.
Once more able to breathe, I gasped and gasped, and looking around me,
saw yellow bundles lying about in every position.
I lay to starboard of the main-hatch; close to me, in the scuppers, lay
three men in a tangled mass; mixed up in the fife-rail were two more;
another lay gasping on his back under the break of the poop.
Above the roar of the gale I heard the second mate’s stentorian voice,
“Main-brace there! Up you get, d--n it, get a move on!”
I pick myself up, dazed and half-drowned. My sou’wester had gone, and I
found I could hardly put my leg to the ground, I was in such pain from
my knee.
Poor old Higgins was very far gone, and Wilson was not much better, and
Don, of course, had as bad a time as anybody.
I think the second mate was the only one who escaped a ducking: he
scrambled up on to the skids when he saw it coming, and his agility
saved him.
The old man, who was on the poop, seeing the whole of his ship’s crew
washing about the decks, dashed down on to the main-deck up to his
waist in water, went to the head of the brace, and cheering us on, and
hauling to his own singing out, he soon got us all going again.
It took us a terrible time to get those yards squared. Again and again
seas broke over us; but there is no such thing as giving in on board
a sailing-ship--those yards had got to be squared, and squared they
eventually were.
The old man told me afterwards, that when that sea broke over us, all
he could see was my feet sticking up for a moment out of the water, as
the wave rolled me over and hurled me against the hatch.
He made sure that I must have been badly hurt, but on examining damages
I found that my poor old knee was the only cripple.
It was pretty bad, however, the knee-cap being turned right on end, so
that instead of being flat it pointed straight up.
My sou’wester would have been a serious loss, but the old man very
kindly presented me with a brand-new silk sou’wester.
It makes the sixth piece of headgear I have lost, blown away, or washed
overboard, since I have been on board.
The second mate did not like the old man leaving the poop, declaring
that it was as bad for a captain to leave the poop in bad weather as
it was for a general to expose himself to the fire of the enemy. But
I must say I rather admired him for doing so, as he left the security
of the poop for the most dangerous part of the ship, jumping like a
soldier into the breach and rallying his men. There is one thing about
our skipper, he shines in moments of danger.
There is no funk about him, and his nerves are of the best, as is his
seamanship--everybody acknowledges that he is the best sailor in the
ship.
We spent a wet, cold, and I myself a very painful night.
However, it began to clear up again towards morning, and we set
everything to the main-royal.
_Monday, 23rd October._--In 46 latitude now, and romping along with a
fair wind.
My knee is very painful, and I am quite a cripple, as it won’t bear
walking upon, and is very swollen.
As I cannot get about on it, the second mate got out a couple of
Martini rifles from the armoury in the captain’s cabin, and giving me
some chalk and oil, allowed me to sit on the after-hatch and clean them.
This was a pretty good job, as they were frightfully rusty.
It started blowing hard again towards night, and the _Royalshire_ was
stripped of everything but her six topsails.
Very squally, and wet decks again.
As I am quite useless on deck, on account of my knee, the second mate
let me have all night in, and Jennings had to keep time.
Although I was in great pain all night as I lay in my sleeping-bag,
I could not help gloating over the fact that I had so many hours of
warmth and rest whilst the sea and wind roared and battered on the deck
outside.
My good old waterproof sheet protects me from the water which pours in
at times through the cracks in the door, for our wretched half-deck is
full of water again, and is in as bad a state as it was off the Horn.
Unable to sleep from the pain, I lay in my bunk and watched the
wreckage washing backwards and forwards with the roll of the ship.
Sometimes an extra big wave would fill up the half-deck until, as the
ship rolled to port, the water would splash up in my face.
_Tuesday, 24th October._--Splendid sailing! Our run to-day was 270
miles, pretty good under six topsails only.
It is blowing hard, and big dollops are coming aboard.
I can’t get about yet, so I am at work again cleaning the old man’s
shot-gun on the after-hatch.
If this weather continues, we shall soon be into the south-east trades.
Already everybody is beginning to talk about getting home.
The second mate has all along said, that, notwithstanding her foul
bottom, she was coming home in ninety-seven days, which is quite
possible if all goes well.
Don gives her forty days home from now. We sailed on 25th August, which
makes us sixty days out to-day. So far, we have done a very fairly
good passage, and I certainly think another sixty days ought to see us
docked.
Scar is very gloomy, and says we are going to take one hundred and
sixty days, and he hopes we’ll never get back,--
“I feel something’s going to happen this passage,” is his favourite
grumble.
His temper is so bad that he is quite soured by it, and looks on the
gloomy side of everything.
_Wednesday, 25th October._--The weather is moderating, and we set all
sail this morning. Lovely sunshine and fresh breeze again, and it is
fast getting warmer.
Bower and the bosun had a row in the morning watch.
The bosun, who is not very fond of Bower, called him by a name that
would have caused “gun-play” if they had been in Arizona.
Bower retaliated by blacking the bosun’s starboard peeper with his
grimy fist.
The bosun seemed to take no notice of this, and only said sharply,
“Go to the bosun’s locker and bring aft the handy billy, and look damn
quick!”
Bower, all unsuspecting, turned his back and started off on his errand:
but the moment his back was turned the bosun jumped for him, and,
knocking him down, started to kick him in the ribs.
The end of it was, that Mac and Jamieson had to haul the bosun off, or
Bower would have got badly hurt.
The bosun has got a very black eye, and is in very low spirits; he is
in rather bad odour aft just now, as we all think it was a very dirty
trick to play.
But whilst yarning with me in the first watch, Bower told me that it
was a regular old German trick, and that he was a fool not to have
thought of it at the time.
He and the bosun, though both naturalised Yankees, are both German born.
The wind dropped in the afternoon, and the first watch found us
rolling our rails under in a very long, heavy swell, without a breath
of wind.
As the ship rolled the swell gushed in through the ports, and she even
dipped her rail under to it. The cataract of water pouring across
the deck carried one off one’s feet if one was unfortunate enough
to get caught by it, and it was impossible even to sit down without
holding on. The lower yards look as if they would pierce the sea every
time, and we had to haul up the courses, or they would have flogged
themselves into shreds.
As we were all sitting round smoking and reading before one bell, the
third mate suddenly hove the magazine he was reading on the deck and
cried,
“Well, I thought Clarke Russell knew more than that!” and he showed
us a passage in the magazine, in which Clarke Russell, talking of
sailing-ships, says that they do not roll, they only list.
Well, this ship proved he was wrong anyhow; here we were, a long,
modern iron ship, and nearly rolling our masts out.
Scar even went so far as to say that no steamer ever rolled like a
modern sailing-ship.
From my experience on the _Royalshire_ I am sure that he is right,
though I have seen some steamers rolling very badly, especially foreign
men-of-war. I once passed the _Lucania_ lying at anchor just inside the
bar at New York, and she was rolling very badly, but nothing like a
sailing-ship in a calm with a heavy swell running.
_Thursday, 26th October._--Lat. 41°.48 S., long. 38°.31 W. Course--N.
43 E. Run 148 miles.
It was quite calm all night, but a light head wind sprang up towards
morning, and we are sneaking along quieter than we have been for many a
day.
We have started scrubbing and painting again. My knee is better, but I
dare not rest my whole weight upon it, and the knee-cap is still out
of place, but the swelling has gone down. It is hard work getting the
rust off the topgallant-rail, standing on one leg all the time like a
pelican.
The second mate and Loring are hard at work on their models again.
Scar and the nipper are talking a good deal about starting models also,
but they have not got beyond the talking.
Loring’s is the model of the _Talus_, his last ship. This ship,
which is a very handsome clipper, was in Frisco with us, and sailed
thirty-two days before us.
The second mate is making a very small model of the _Royalshire_, and
is doing it beautifully, its yards being cut out of matches, and its
ropes the thinnest of cotton. How on earth he does it with his big
hands, I can’t imagine.
We had a terrific argument in the half-deck this evening about
schoolmasters swishing and caning boys.
Don and I both maintain that it is an excellent thing, but Scar and Mac
apparently think that it is the greatest disgrace that can fall upon
one.
“When I was about twelve, I remember our schoolmaster at Findhorn
caning me,” said Mac. “I scratched, and kicked, and bit, and fought
every time. The cad! he soon got to funk it; and if a schoolmaster had
ever tried to swish me when I was seventeen or eighteen, great Harry,
but I would have killed him.”
Scar endorsed this, and was, if anything, more furious than Mac at the
terrible cruelty of caning boys.
“Well,” I said, “I’ve had plenty of it myself, and it’s thought nothing
of at Eton, where a boy would far sooner have a swishing than a long
pœna; and I believe that if you asked each boy out of the eleven
hundred at Eton, pretty nearly every one of them would say it was a
good thing.”
“Why, I used to prefer being caned at school to learning half a dozen
lines of saying lesson,” said Don.
Scar and Mac regarded the pair of us with wonder and surprise as being
without shame or pride.
But it was too fearful a thing to be argued about, and they relapsed
into silence.
Then we began talking about Wellington, and I happened to mention that
he said that the battle of Waterloo was won in the playing fields of
Eton.
Oh, what a hullabaloo this raised! Don lay back in his bunk and laughed
at the tangle I had got myself into.
They actually screamed at me in their rage; at first they did not
believe it, then they pronounced Wellington a liar of the first
water--for who did not know that the battle of Waterloo was won by the
Scotch regiments!
Scar worked himself up into such a frenzy that I thought he would have
a fit. He bashed in the lid of his chest with his fist; he hove his
knife on the deck, and spat on it; he stamped, he tore his hair, he
screeched inarticulately, until one bell in the first watch, when the
light was turned down and our watch turned in.
Talk about bigoted people, but Scotch boys take the cake!
_Friday, 27th October._--A fine breeze all day. We are romping along
under full sail, yards almost square, and averaging 8-1/2 to 10 knots.
In latitude 39 S. at noon to-day.
There are a whole heap of birds all round us, including a lot of
albatross, which have come up here to get out of the bad weather down
to the southward.
I think the albatross is a wonderful bird. He sails in a stately,
majestic way instead of flying, and not once in twenty-four hours does
he give a flap to his immense wings.
Like the shark amongst fish, he is a devourer of offal--the scavenger
of the South Seas--as he is not quick enough in his movements to catch
fish.
His appetite is enormous; and when he can get a good meal, such as a
dead whale, he will gorge himself until he is unable to rise into the
air. Despite his appetite, his powers of abstinence are wonderful also,
and he will go for days without any food. For instance, the young bird
(the albatross only lay one egg) is left by its parents when it is
still too young to fly, and for six months has to live without any food
whatever; it is very fat when they leave it, and apparently lives on
its own fat, never leaving the nest during the whole of the time. At
the end of the six months the parents return, and forcibly eject the
poor young bird, and he has to go straight out into the world to earn
his own living after having had a six months’ starve. His parents take
no further interest in him, and busy themselves over the hatching of
another egg.
A large flock of “whale birds” passed us to-day.
Old Slush is very keen to catch an albatross, and has got a hook over,
but we are going too fast through the water.
Once more voice is raised in song in the half-deck, and we made Don
sing all his old favourites.
_Saturday, 28th October._--It fell calm last night, and has been calm
all day.
In the second dog watch Loring and the cook caught an albatross. It
measured 10 feet across the wings, and had a splendid grey-white
plumage.
We skinned him at once; Scar got the breast plumage, the cook the
wing bones for pipe-stems, the nipper and Mac taking the feet for
tobacco-pouches. Scar also got his head and beak, which is a tremendous
affair, and so I think he got the best of the spoils.
There is a bigger one than this one about, which we have nearly caught
several times; it has a big snow-white head, and I think must be a very
old bird.
These birds are of course the great wandering albatross, as, besides
them, there are heaps of sooty albatross and mollymawks around us.
Lat. 37°.06 S., long. 34°.06 N. Course--N. 30 E. Run 154 miles.
My knee is still very painful, but might have been much worse, and I am
able to get about better now.
_Sunday, 29th October._--A light wind sprang up in the middle watch
last night, and is dead ahead; we can’t head better than N.E. by E.
There has been a lot of betting lately as to whether we shall be home
for Christmas. It is odds on at present, but a few days of a “dead
muzzler” like this will soon alter matters.
No more burgoo for breakfast, as we are out of the “Roaring Forties”
again; and our allowance of water has been reduced, as we are running
short, having only about sixty days’ water left in the tanks.
Taylor’s finger is very bad, and is fast rotting away, his whole hand
being swollen up.
The old man can do nothing but poultice it, as it is too late to lance
it now.
If it goes on getting worse at the rate it is doing now, he will lose
his hand.
Though landsmen are constantly sent to sea for their health, sailors as
a class (that is, deep-watermen) are by no means free from ailments,
caused on the one hand by the shocking food they have to eat, on
the other by the action of the salt water on the skin, which causes
sea-cuts and sea-boils.
From the captain down, I think I was the only man on board who came
ashore without having had something wrong with him during the passage.
True, I had a twisted knee-cap; but that was an accident, not an
ailment, though it was caused by salt water.
The mate and the nipper suffered chiefly from toothache.
The captain, the second mate, and Mac, suffered very much from cramp in
the stomach in the North Atlantic.
Scar had a very bad time with sea-boils on his arms.
Poor old Taylor, of course, is on the sick list, and won’t do a hand’s
turn again on this ship. He is in great pain, and cannot sleep at night.
Bower has suffered all the passage with boils: Rooning has also very
bad sea-boils; he can only use one arm, and has to keep his head on one
side.
Jamieson, besides having a huge boil on one of his arms, which left a
hole as large as a five’s ball, nearly fainted one day at the wheel,
and had a short go of malaria.
Don consumes quinine and chlorodyne wholesale, for jungle fever, which
lays him low every now and then.
I have got a small medicine-case on board, which I had up in the
Klondyke with me.
I never took a thing out of it for myself, but during this passage,
pretty nearly every second dog watch, someone would come along for a
dose of something or other.
Podophyllin and cascara pills I gave away, a half-dozen a dose. I have
used half a large bottle of quinine tabloids already, and half a small
bottle of chlorodyne, two bottles of cascara and one of podophyllin,
and a lot of fever tabloids.
This dosing, of course, goes on all unknown to the old man, who has
been pretty busy himself dealing out his pet remedies for sailors’ ills.
If it was not for the lime-juice, I am sure we should have scurvy on
board; for I have seen scurvy caused by much better food than any going
here, up in the Klondyke.
I really wonder how I kept so well, when I think of the bad pork
swimming in grease and slush, and one mass of fat, which we had to
consume every other day, even on the equator.
Pea-soup and hard-tack are my great mainstay. The pea-soup is very
bad, without any flavour, and very dirty; but that does not prevent it
filling up the great hollow, which is the main thing.
There is not much superfluous flesh on our ship’s crew, and though I
was in splendid condition and without a bit of fat on me when I came on
board, I have taken my belt in six holes already, and it is only the
muscles which prevent my ribs from breaking through my skin.
Lat. 36°.19 S., long. 32°.22 W. Course--N. 60 E. Run 96 miles.
By the way, I have never explained how it is that I can give the lat.
and long. every day. Of course, I do not take a sight at noon, or
anything of that sort--though Jamieson told me that he sailed out of
Aberdeen once in a small barque, and on the first Sunday out every man
in the forecastle except himself brought out a sextant, and going on to
the forecastle head, shot the sun.
It appeared that, except himself, every man had either a master’s,
mate’s, or second mate’s ticket, and they took the sun on Sundays just
to keep their hands in. This incident is a small proof of the terrible
overcrowding of officers in the Mercantile Marine.
But to return, the captain and officers are always very careful on most
wind-jammers never to let out to the crew the position of the ship, and
on the _Royalshire_ even the third and fourth mates were not told it.
So the way we found out was this: on alternate days Don and the nipper
used to clean out the mate’s cabin, and, whilst doing so, they used to
take a peep into the log-book, and jot down the position and run for us.
_Monday, 30th October._--Wind a dead muzzler, fresh, with rain squalls.
“A dead muzzler” is a sailor’s way of saying that the wind is blowing
from right ahead, so that the ship cannot lay her course, and can only
beat backwards and forwards, making very little headway in the right
direction.
We had a great treat for breakfast this morning: we cut up the
albatross, and made the cook broil it for us. The meat of the great
bird was as dark as mutton, and tasted very like mutton, with a strong,
fishy flavour. Don could not touch it, but I thought it was awfully
good.
The wind is freshening, and just as we had got started on our
everlasting sand and canvasing this morning, a squall came up.
“Stand by your royal halliards!” roared the second mate.
I stood by the main royal halliards.
Down came the squall upon us with a shriek, the wind howling, and the
rain hissing, and the _Royalshire_ groaning as she lay over to it.
“Clew up your fore and mizen royals!” yelled the second mate.
Then the main-royal had to come in. I ought to have gone aloft and made
the mizen-royal fast, as it was one of my sails; but as I could only
just hobble about, the second mate would not let me go. But, alas! it
blew harder and harder, and the upper-topgallant sails had to come in.
This time there was no help for it, and I had to go aloft. I was pretty
well done by the time I had got on to the mizen upper-topgallant yard,
as I could not bear any weight on my knee without it giving.
Going over the futtock-shrouds into the top was a job, and I had half
a mind to go through the lubber’s hole for once in my life; but I could
not bring myself to do it, even though I was a cripple.
That forenoon watch fairly did me up: hobbling about on a rolling deck,
pulling and hauling, climbing and swinging on a foot-rope, all with a
twisted knee-cap, is no joke.
Lat. 35°.47 S., long. 29°.08 W.
Heading about N.E. by E., and gradually coming up to our course.
_Tuesday, 31st October._--Wind still ahead, and blowing fresh.
We furled the crossjack at midnight last night, and my wretched knee
got into the wars again.
The wind being dead ahead, the yards were braced up so that they were
hard on the backstays, and whilst on the crossjack-yard I managed to
get my knee crushed in between the yard and the backstays as the ship
rolled; the consequence is, that it is as painful and weak as ever this
morning.
Lat. 35°.01 S., long. 26°.18 W.
We are not making much northing.
We set the crossjack again this morning whilst the port watch were
below.
There is a queer, unhealthy look about the sky to-day, and squalls are
numerous.
At 8 P.M. we furled the crossjack again, and at 9 the mainsail was
hauled up and made fast.
The horizon to windward is beautifully lit up with sheet and fork
lightning, and it is raining.
I am afraid we are in for something; the old man is on the poop,
watching the lightning to windward, but for which the night is as dark
as the inside of a cow, as the wild man from Findhorn expresses it.
I was just thinking of striking four bells (ten o’clock), when I heard
the second mate roar from the poop,
“Haul down the jigger-staysail!”
At the same moment the squall struck us, the wind coming with such
force that one could hardly stand up against it.
Over and over went the _Royalshire_, the lee rail went out of sight
in the smother of broken water to leeward, and then the hatches were
covered; the ship was almost on her beam ends; here we were nicely
caught with all our flying kites set.
The decks were on such a slope that one could not stand up without
hanging on.
Everything was in confusion.
“On to the poop some hands and get the spanker in!” I heard the second
mate yelling.
Up I dashed in the pitch darkness, and ran full tilt into the
jigger-mast, striking my game knee on an iron belaying pin.
I fell to the deck, and writhed in the greatest agony I have ever been
in in my life.
All of a sudden there was a terrific crash of thunder, and a fork of
lightning zigzagged into the sea from right above us.
This lit up the scene, and with a glance, as I tried to get on to my
legs, I took in everything.
The ship was lying as far over as she did that night off the Horn; the
second mate had carried away and nearly gone overboard, one of the
poop stanchions bringing him up (as it was, he had both legs dangling
overboard); the old man and Jamieson were fighting with the wheel,
trying to put the helm up; and Jennings, of all people, was making
frantic efforts to get on to the top of the chart-house by jumping up
against it, just like a dog trying to get up a wall it can’t jump.
Some of the men had lost their heads, and were shouting and screaming,
“The sticks will go! the sticks will go!”
“Get the topgallant sails off her!” shouted the old man to the second
mate, who, picking himself up, dashed on to the main-deck, bellowing at
the top of his voice,
“Aft the watch and clew up the mizen-topgallant sail; look alive, men,
and get your wits together. Great Cæsar! don’t you know where the lower
topgallant clew-lines are yet, you sodgers!”
Meanwhile Loring and I were struggling with the spanker. Luckily for
us, it was not the big spanker, but only the three-cornered storm
spanker, which we soon had fast, making it fast on the boom with a
couple of gaskets like a yacht’s mainsail.
This done, we hurried down on to the main-deck to help clew up the
topgallant sails. I managed to hobble along somehow, though in terrible
pain.
The scene was now extraordinary. The lightning forked from one horizon
to the other; there was a “Jack o’ Lantern” or “St Elmo’s Light” at
each mast head, perched on the truck; the masts, yards, and stays were
outlined in electric fluid, as if the ships were lit up with electric
light.
The flashes were blinding, so close and dazzling white were they, but
between the flashes the darkness was so intense that you might have cut
it up in blocks of ebony.
“Stay on deck and help me,” the second mate said to me, as I prepared
to struggle somehow up to the mizen lower-topgallant yard.
Loring is one of those people who have a horror of lightning,
nevertheless up he had to go, right in amongst the electricity, with
the thunder crashing just over his head.
At last Jamieson got the helm up, and we went off before it on a level
keel.
The rain was coming down in solid sheets, and the decks were soon full
of fresh water, as it could not run off quick enough.
The men had trouble up aloft, as in the hurry and darkness the sails
had not been clewed up enough.
“Haul up your port clew-line!” came down from the fore lower-topgallant
sail.
The second mate and I buckled to it, but it was a tough job for two
men, though we were both over thirteen stone.
The rain was so heavy and the wind so strong that you could not face it
except with your eyes shut, and between the flashes it was so dark that
eyes were not the slightest bit of good. We groped about until we got
the right ropes in our hands, often almost pulling our hearts out on
the wrong ones.
The men were an extraordinary long time up aloft, and no doubt had a
hard job of it; but I think they had the best of the second mate and
myself as we fumbled and stumbled about the main-deck, dollops breaking
over us, sprays taking the breath out of us, tearing our hands and
breaking our shins, as we pulled, hauled, and struggled.
I was in such pain that I had to keep my teeth clenched, and my knee
had swollen to the size of a cricket ball.
Hardly had the hands got down from aloft, when another puff came, and
the second mate roared,
“Stand by your topsail halliards!”
But the old man hung on, and after this last squall the wind soon began
to slack off.
As I struggled on to the poop to strike one bell, and wake the mate,
for it was now a quarter off midnight, the old man called me to him,
and said,
“Hey, Lubbock, did you ever see an electric storm the like o’ that
before? Did ye mind the Jack o’ Lanterns--four of them--four, one at
each mast head,--never have I seen so much electric fluid before, no,
not in all my seafaring career!”
I was pretty glad to get below at eight bells, dead tired as I was,
soaking wet, and in great pain.
The port watch had had a scare when the squall struck her. Don was
chucked clean out of his bunk, and, picking himself up in a dazed state
as the ship lay over, woke up Scar and the nipper with the cry,
“All hands on deck!”
They were all dressing with utmost dispatch, when Jennings, to whom the
old man had given two binnacles to light whilst I was making fast the
spanker, poked his head in, and asked for a match.
Mac seemed to have had a rough time of it on the fore lower-topgallant
yard (our old friend, by-the-bye, of the South Pacific).
“There were only Jennings and Higgins up there with me, and the
sail was thrashing about and trying to knock us off the yard, with
neither clew-line hauled up. Why the deuce you could not haul up those
clew-lines, Bally, beats me; I nearly burst myself yelling to you.”
“Well, they got foul somewhere, and the second mate and I nearly burst
ourselves hauling on them, and it was so dark we kept getting hold of
the wrong ropes.”
At this moment the second mate looked in to smoke the butt-end of a
cigarette before turning in.
“Did you see me nearly go overboard?” he asked me, laughing.
“Yes; and did you see Jennings trying to run up the side of the
chart-house?”
“Ha! ha! ha! I should think I did. The old man saw him too, and thought
he was off his head.”
“The old man and Jamieson could not get the wheel up,” said Loring,
“and the old man chucked it as a bad job, and walked to the break of
the poop, saying to himself, ‘She wil’na go off; she wil’na go off.’”
“He told me he expected to see the sticks go when the first squall
struck her,” said the second mate.
“He wasn’t the only one who thought that,” said Mac.
“Well, it would not have worried me at all if she had turned turtle at
the time, as I was in such pain,” I said.
“Poor old Bally,” laughed the second mate, “up he dashes on to the
poop, and runs crash bang into the jigger-mast. I heard him groaning to
himself as I slid past him to leeward on my way to the scuppers.”
“Let’s have a look at your knee,” said Loring. “By Jove, it looks
nasty.”
And it was nasty too; the knee-cap was twisted more than ever, and was
right up on its edge, and the knee was swollen into a plum-pudding all
round.
I could not bend it, and had great difficulty getting into my
sleeping-bag, and when I did get in, the pain was so great that I could
not sleep.
Meanwhile the storm had cleared up as rapidly as it had come on, and
the other watch were hard at work setting everything to a light breeze
dead aft.
So much for an electric storm at sea; though it was a wonderful and
extraordinary sight, it was too near touch-and-go to be pleasant, and
in cold blood I am sure I could not have done what I did, with my knee
good-for-nothing and in sickening pain.
_Wednesday, 1st November._--Coming on deck again at 4 P.M., we found
the ship under all sail.
There was a lovely sunrise this morning, the sky being divided up into
bars of different colours and gradually so shading off, each colour
running into the other; right overhead it was indigo, and sloping
towards the east ran from purple to pink, greeny-blue to gold, with
great yellow sunbeams spreading out fan-shape from the horizon.
My knee is quite useless, so I am cleaning guns on the after-hatch.
Tarring down is the order of the day, but I escape it, as, with my leg
as it is now, I cannot possibly get aloft.
Lat. 33°.40 S., long. 25°.10 W.
There are about a dozen albatrosses about, and Loring succeeded in
catching one of them in our watch below. It is a bit smaller than the
one the cook caught, though its feet (one of which I have got for a
tobacco-pouch) are larger.
We were hoping that we had got rid of our dead muzzler, but, alas! this
afternoon the wind went ahead again, and we had to brace sharp up.
We sighted a full-rig ship on the lee quarter in the second dog watch.
I wonder if she is the ship we saw running in the bad weather off the
Horn!
_Thursday, 2nd November._--Lat. 32°.00 S., long. 26°.09 W.
Our watch came on deck at 8 this morning to find ructions going
on; the old man was raging up and down the poop, every other moment
stopping to hurl a torrent of invective at the mate.
The cause of all this trouble was the fact that the ship we sighted
yesterday is now right ahead of us, leaving us and going to windward at
the same time.
The _Royalshire_ is terribly foul now, and very hard to steer, besides
which, the dagos in the other watch are a very bad lot of helmsmen,
which no doubt accounts for the vessel ahead.
As we could only head about N.W., the old man put her about in the
first dog watch, and now we are heading N.E. 1/2 E.; thus we are making
very little progress north.
It is blowing a bit harder, and in the middle watch we took in the
royals, gaff-topsail, flying-jib and jigger-topmast staysail.
I am afraid I shall have to lie up for my knee, which does not get any
better.
_Friday, 3rd November._--Lat. 30°.33 S., long. 24°.29 W.
A fine breeze, but still dead ahead; we are going 7-1/2 knots through
the water, and steering N.E.
Johnsen has been having a lot of trouble with the watch lately, and
this morning he and Bower had a fight on the forecastle head.
Neither (both being Dutchmen) knew how to use his fists, and they both
just banged about anyhow. Bower at last managed to knock Johnsen down,
and he, craven-hearted, refused to fight any more, but, getting up,
slunk off muttering murderous threats.
Johnsen has now got pretty nearly everybody logged for some severe
offence or other, and swears he will not let a man go ashore when we
get in. He is going to get a lawyer, and prosecute the old man and
second mate for bad treatment, and he is also going to make charges
against the rest of us, and at the same time says he will hold us as
witnesses against the second mate.
It is quite laughable. There is no doubt that he has got a screw loose,
and he is quite dangerous; he won’t speak a word to anyone, except to
swear at them, and he thinks that we are all on the watch to do him a
bad turn or steal his things.
One day, in the South Pacific, he had got a shirt hung up on the
forestay on the forecastle head.
It was a Sunday, and I happened to be up there washing clothes, when
his shirt carried away, and would have been blown overboard if it had
not caught on the rail.
I took it and threw it down on to the fore fife-rail, where it was not
so likely to be blown away.
That afternoon he kicked up the deuce of a row, and accused each man in
turn of stealing his shirt, as he could not find it on the forecastle
head.
He was so persistent, that the watch began to get angry about it.
I happened to go forward, and hearing the row going on, said,
“Here’s your shirt. I threw it here out of harm’s way; it blew off the
stay when I was on the forecastle head, and would have gone overboard
if it had not caught on the rail. I should have thought you were an old
enough sailor to be able to stop up a shirt without its blowing away.”
He was completely nonplussed, and did not know what to say; luckily
for him our watch were a good-tempered lot of men, or they would have
half-killed him.
Another time, in Crockett, Don and I had just left the forecastle for
the half-deck.
Johnsen came aft and accused me of stealing his knife.
“Go away; I have not got your knife,” I said.
He went away, but presently came back again and started to abuse me.
I was about to argue the matter with my fist, when I caught sight of
the knife slung on his belt.
“Get forward, you infernal fool, it’s on your belt the whole time.”
Again he was caught out, and slunk forward without a word.
_Saturday, 4th November._--We had two heavy squalls in the night. It
is a lovely day, but the head wind still continues blowing fresh, and
keeping us from heading better than N.E.
Lat. 28°.36 S., long. 22°.17 W.
My knee is much worse, and I have had to lie up with it. The old man
has given me some turpentine lotion to rub on it; it is very painful,
and the cap does not seem inclined to come down into its right place.
The wild man from Findhorn had a great feast to-day. Fish is his great
delight, and the steward gave us a tin of bad salmon which they could
not tackle in the cabin, but old Mac fairly gloats over it.
He really is a sight at meals, and Loring says he puts him off his grub.
He does not believe in a knife and fork, and prefers to eat everything
in his fingers, even bad salmon.
His plate is heaped high with layers of food--salt junk, pork, and
hard-tack. It is never cleaned, and he seldom gets down to the bottom
layer, though he occasionally pokes a finger in and fishes out an extra
tasty bit from the depths which has probably been there for over a
month.
He sits there, his plate on his knees, and fairly chuckles over his
food, gnawing the bones and scraping them clean, for all the world like
a savage.
He is really very amusing to study.
Though he is a very good sailor and a hard worker, he is as simple as
a child. He has the sweetest temper of anyone I have ever come across;
nothing puts him out except being turned out at one bell, and then his
anger is all over directly he is really awake.
He has got rather a good voice for singing, but is much given to
war-whoops and blood-curdling yells, and he has got some peculiar
war-dances he occasionally gives us. He truly is a wild Highlandman,
the wildest I have ever come across.
_Sunday, 5th November._--The same weather; a fresh head wind; going
about 7 knots.
Lat. 27°.05 S., long. 20°.05 W. Course--N. 52 E. Run 148 miles.
Rather slow lying in my bunk all day, and literature is very scarce on
board; all ours in the half-deck was washed away off the Horn, but the
old man has given me some _Weekly Times_, which are two years’ old, but
better than nothing.
The odds about getting home for Christmas are getting worse.
_Monday, 6th November._--Lat. 26°.10 S., long. 17°.50 W. Course--N. 46
E. Run 168 miles.
The day is superb, but, alas! the wind is still in the wrong quarter.
Scar, that prophet of evil, puts all this head wind down to our killing
the albatross, and hints gloomily at an awful fate awaiting us:--
“And I had done a hellish thing,
And it would work ’em woe:
For all averred, I had killed the bird
That made the breeze to blow.
Ah, wretch! said they, the bird to slay,
That made the breeze to blow!”
It is a sailor’s superstition, that within the breast of each albatross
dwells the soul of a dead mariner.
The steward has found me a job, peeling onions for him to pickle. I
don’t see the fun of it much, though; I hate the smell of onions, and
they make one’s eyes smart and water very much.
It is the wild man of Findhorn’s nineteenth birthday to-day; he is very
young to have served his time already.
After a great deal of coaxing, he succeeded in getting some pancakes
out of the cook for tea. Though they were pretty nearly all grease, it
is needless to say that they were all consumed with great relish.
Scar’s temper has been very bad lately, and Don, who would give
anything to be in our watch, says he is absolutely unbearable.
Don, who is frightfully hot-tempered himself, is nearly bursting with
the strain he keeps upon himself; it does not matter what he says, he
is promptly contradicted by Scar, who is, of course, backed up by the
nipper.
Poor old Don, who hoped this voyage would do him a lot of good, is
getting very run down; he does twice the work of anybody else in the
other watch. Scar, who has got a down upon him for a bad thrashing
which he gave him one day in the South Pacific, hazes him about
eternally in his watch on deck, and gives him all the dirty and
heaviest jobs.
Don says he is getting too old and worn out for manual labour.
Their watch is very different to ours. At meals, Loring, Mac, and I are
as cheerful as crickets, cracking jokes, laughing, and spinning yarns,
often being joined by the second mate.
But in the other watch, Scar, Don, and the nipper sit there in solemn
silence, except when Scar and the nipper have a row, which is not
infrequent, then there are blows and oaths, snorts of rage from Scar,
and shrill cries from the nipper.