COOKING FOR ALL.
Day by day the Kantoon’s heart softened toward me. The performance
of my executive duties about the ship occupied my mind, and assisted
greatly in reconciling me to my enforced absence from my native land.
The presence of Fidette had much more than all things else to do with
my contentment of mind. One of the pleasantest of my daily tasks was
to keep guard over her while she took her morning swim. Armed with a
long pole, at the end of which was fixed a very large knife, ground
to sharpness of both sides, I swung over the side of the ship upon a
broad board, suspended much as is a painter’s scaffolding. Upon this
I walked back and forth, with the heavy spear poised in such a way
that I could hurl it at a shark and prevent the endangering of my
pretty sweetheart’s life. A section of the sod twenty feet square had
been hewn away at the side of the ship, disclosing beneath the clear,
warm water of the mid-Atlantic. Into this bottomless tank Fidette
would dive from the window of her stateroom. She usually spent an
hour at her bath, and then, seizing a knotted rope, she would climb
back into the vessel, and into the same window from which she had
emerged.
Thus, for weeks, the monotonous routine of my life continued. I
passed as much of my time in Fidette’s company as possible. The
Kantoon’s threat had not been carried out. On several occasions we
had dined together, and, after the pretty Sargasson fashion, she had
fed me with her own fingers from a bowl of seaweed pudding.
An incident of importance about this time was my visit to the great
floating kitchen, to which I have heretofore referred. It is needless
to say that I was not trusted to make this journey until I had
shown by my conduct that I was wholly reconciled to my Sargasson
surroundings. The distance was not great, and, having learned in my
boyhood to wield the paddle with cleverness, I found no difficulty in
performing my share of the work.
Armed with a formal requisition from our Kantoon for the week’s
supply of cooked food for the cantonment of the Happy Shark, we set
out. This demand was inscribed upon a tarpon’s scale with a shark’s
tooth. The character and the amounts of the supplies were to me
undecipherable, because of the peculiar hieroglyphics in which they
were written. We occupied the leading boat, being accompanied by ten
others, fully manned, in which the week’s supply of provisions would
be brought back.
We set out at sunrise and pulled steadily along the Grand Canal for
two hours. This was a trip of great interest to me. For the first
time I enjoyed the opportunity of seeing the other ships of the
floating community close at hand, and of studying the faces of their
inhabitants.
I had decided before we had passed a dozen ships that our crew was in
many ways superior to most of the others, and that, if I had to spend
the rest of my days among the Sargassons, I had been quite fortunate
in landing upon the Happy Shark.
I felt very sad when we passed the Caribas. I found her moored in
a new slip, cut for her reception in the floating debris. Several
chains had been cast over the bow and stern, attaching her to stumps
and trees firmly imbedded in the surrounding sod. I scrutinized the
dear old craft thoroughly. Nothing was changed about her.
It was a mere fancy, but I imagined that she knew me!
On her deck were strange faces, all bearing the stamp of the
Sargasson race. I was curious to learn who was occupying my cabin and
sleeping in my berth, but the man in the boat with me could not, or
would not, impart any information.
We reached the kitchen ship about 11 o’clock, and I was soon on board.
I have seen many strange places afloat and ashore, but none so
thoroughly novel as was that vessel. Its main deck contained a series
of rude furnaces and ovens, about which fifty men busied themselves
preparing the food for the floating city. The work must have been
very warm in hot weather and very dangerous to health in the cold
season. I visited the lower decks and witnessed the reception of
the seaweed, its assortment into fuel and food, and studied every
stage of its preparation for the messroom. The great problem on
board that ship was the procurement of fresh water, with which the
cooking, obviously, had to be done. Several large condensers were set
up and ready for use, but I could not discover that fires had ever
been built under them. Most of the fresh water was caught from the
skies upon a great awning of shellacked matting suspended over the
masts. This awning was concave in shape, exceeding the deck area of
the vessel, and was capable of catching a great deal of water from
the skies. As it rained every second or third day, and the downpour
sometimes equaled an inch and a half to two inches in half an hour,
as shown by the rain gauge, the great tanks in the centre of the hulk
were constantly kept filled.
As a rule, the Sargassons ate only one meal a day. This was partaken
of on each ship in two messes, one consisting of the crew and the
other of the officers.
The Kantoon of the Happy Shark, respecting the fact that I had been
the commander of the Caribas, always insisted upon my dining with
his daughter, himself and first and second mates. The service was of
the rudest possible character. All surrounded a large porridge dish,
and each person helped himself or herself therefrom. When the number
of persons about to dine exceeded five or six there were two bowls
or more of this glutinous material. One fish was always regarded as
a portion. The fish were laid upon the deck on the usual strip of
matting, and each diner helped himself or herself.
As I have stated, fish formed a staple article of diet, and it was
prepared very much as dried herrings are put up in the English
seaport towns. Long rows of men were seen cleaning and dressing the
fish, which were then placed in an oven, through which hot air from
the furnaces passed. Thus they were slowly dried, like our desiccated
fruits in the United States. The oil was rendered out, and found its
way to a tank, where it was kept for greasing shark and porpoise
leather.
In this floating kitchen I discovered an article of diet I had never
before encountered. It was a sort of wild rice or wheat, that was
boiled in the grain and then hastily dried. In this condition it
would keep for years. I afterward became very fond of this food,
and was surprised to learn that it was not liked on board the Happy
Shark. It had the taste of parched corn, upon which I know the
soldiers in our armies had sustained life for months together.
The equipment of the cook ship was kept up by details of men sent
from time to time from the various communities. But some of the older
men had grown very expert, and occasionally concocted special dishes
for the Kantoon of the vessel from which they had been originally
drafted, hoping in this way to ingratiate themselves with him.
For example, a most delicious soup was made from barnacles. A
bucketful of these small shellfish would be scraped from the side
of a vessel or from floating logs, carefully washed and then boiled
in several waters. In taste this soup was very much like rich clam
broth. Of course, it was difficult to obtain hot, away from the cook
ship, for the reason that fires were prohibited upon any of the other
vessels. Yet this rule was often broken, as we shall see.
While I was inspecting the ship, our men were loading the fleet of
boats that had accompanied us, and early in the afternoon our return
journey began. After a long and laborious tug at the paddle we
reached the Happy Shark, in the darkness, and were welcomed back with
a wild, weird chant. In this the Kantoon joined, and, rising sweetly
above all the singers, I readily distinguished the rich, musical
voice of Fidette, welcoming me home again.
Where separation is so unusual, and, from the very necessity of
circumstances, people are compelled to live in such close and
constant association, absence of a day or more over the ship’s side
seems a much more important event than it otherwise would.