VARIOUS KINDS OF STORMS
THE first mate, Mr. Menzies, was a man of wide experience and
knowledge. He was a great powerful man, a thorough old sea-dog, with a
face and fist like a prize-fighter. He was never happy unless paddling
about the deck up to his waist in salt water; all his clothes were
white with brine. He was always on the alert, and never caught napping,
in fact, he slept with his eyes open, which perhaps accounts for it.
Well I remember the first time I went to his room to call him, and the
fright he gave me. Opening the door gently, I was going to call him,
when I saw him lying in his berth with his eyes wide open. Thinking
he was awake, I closed the door and went forrard without speaking. At
eight bells he did not appear to relieve the second mate, so I went aft
again to his room, and after turning his lamp up I found he was lying
in the same position looking straight at me with his eyes wide open,
but the eyes had a glazed, dull appearance about them. I began to feel
quite nervous. Speaking quietly I said:
“It has gone eight bells, sir.”
He never moved, but lay there with his eyes wide open. I gave one jump
and was out on deck trembling like a leaf. Rushing up the poop ladder,
I said to the second mate:
“Oh, sir, please go to Mr. Menzies, I think he’s dead.”
In a moment he had sprung down the ladder, and was at the mate’s room.
“Mr. Menzies,” he called out loudly, as he opened the door--the mate
woke at once.
“Hello, what’s up? What does this mean why are you off the poop, Mr.
Ross,” he asked?
The second mate ran up on deck again, and caught me by the scruff of
the neck, and was just about to strike me for telling him falsely, as
he thought, when the captain stepped out of the companion on deck.
Seeing the action of the second mate, he called out:
“Here Mr. Ross, what’s this about, what has the lad done?”
“He told me a lie, sir, when I sent him to call the mate.”
“I did not,” I retorted, “I’m not in the habit of telling lies, I told
you I thought the mate was dead.”
Just then Mr. Menzies came on the poop and asked what was the reason
the second mate came off the poop at night to call him.
The second mate then told him what I had said.
“Oh is that so!”
Turning to me he said:
“When you come to call me in future, knock at the door loudly, you need
not come in. Now go to your berth.”
I did so at once, for I was rather upset, it being my first experience
of anything in the shape of a blow since coming to sea.
After I left the poop, the mate explained to the captain and second
mate that he often slept with his eyes wide open he had been told, and
no doubt it had given the lad a start. For my part, I took care that I
never went into his room again to call him.
The second mate, Mr. Ross, was a young officer of athletic build,
inexperienced, hot-headed, and stubborn as a mule. Overwhelmed with
a sense of the dignity of his position, he thought the only way to
impress a sailor was by knocking him down--a bad principle at any time,
(perhaps some of his ancestors had been slave-drivers, and the taint
clung.) He considered it quite beneath him to let a sailor explain
anything to him. The man might have far greater experience, and might
possibly be able to teach him far more than he knew, but he would
never admit he was wrong, and was continually calling the men duffers
and loafers. For instance, one of his Frenchmen had been twelve years
boatswain in the French navy, and no duffer could hold that post,
neither was he a loafer, for a harder working man I never sailed with.
George, the Greek, had for years been acting second mate and boatswain
in American ships, and it is well known that a man may be a duffer when
he joins an American ship, but they will make a sailor of him before
he leaves her. And so it was with most of our crew, they were fairly
willing workers, but their knowledge of the Queen’s English was very
limited and the second mate had not patience to try and explain to
them, although the mate had no trouble with them at all. The second
mate’s arbitrary and tyrannical ways were causing a bitter feeling to
spread amongst the men, and I heard many a smothered threat from them,
growing louder after each outburst on his part, vowing to be even with
him some day when he least expected it.
Another thing I found out before we had been long at sea, and that
was that the crew were a lot of confirmed gamblers, and every minute
they could spare was spent in playing cards for stakes. I have since
watched an English crew gamble day by day and night by night for weeks
together, and never an angry word from the loser, but not so with these
men, they were like perfect demons while playing, their eyes gleamed
with the gambling fever, fairly starting out of their heads, one hand
meanwhile played with the sheath knife in their belt, and the moment a
man began to lose he at once accused the others of cheating, and the
end was a fight. They cannot stand a losing game. When they come to
blows they generally grip the blade of their knife, leaving about half
an inch of the blade protruding, and always cut downwards, or across
the face, and arms, making superficial wounds that are rarely mortal
or even dangerous, but are horribly disfiguring. When things got to
this stage, Old George the Greek and the big Frenchman would step in
and quieten them. The officers very seldom had to interfere, which was,
perhaps, just as well.
One night, while running through the south-east trade winds, the
weather was very unsettled and squally, and a hard-looking squall
rose up to windward. Mr. Menzies saw it, and called out to stand by
the royal and top-gallant halliards. The watch were in the forecastle
playing cards, and did not hear him. The man on the look-out heard the
mate, and stamped his feet on the deck, but the watch were too intent
on their game, and either did not, or would not hear him. Seeing no one
stirring about the deck, and the squall rising fast, the mate sang out
to the man at the wheel, “Keep her off, hard up!” and then, rushing
along the deck into the forecastle he seized the Spaniards by their
throats, and fairly flung them out on the deck. Just at that moment the
squall struck the ship with all sail set, and she heeled over until
the lee rail was under water. I thought the masts would have gone over
the side, but the helm being up the vessel rushed through the water
like a frightened deer. But thank God there was no sea running, or it
would have been disastrous. All hands now rushed on deck as fast as
they could at the angle the ship was lying over. The captain sprang
to the wheel, but the helmsman had already got it hard over, and the
ship was paying off before the wind. The royal and small stay sails had
all blown to ribbons. As the ship swung off before the wind, she came
upright again--by this time the squall had passed over. The mate and
second mate then set to with their fists and belaying pins, and laid
about the four men who should have been on deck, and in a few minutes
the deck was like the floor of a slaughter house with blood.
The captain came along the deck afterwards and ordered all hands to
stop on deck until the torn sails were replaced. This was done in
sullen silence, and the watch on deck, all cut and bruised with the
blood running from their heads and faces, were sent aloft to send down
the old sails and bend the new ones. By the time this was done it was
four a.m.
But our troubles were not yet over--one of the Turks standing by me as
the new sails were set, swore he would knife the mate for striking him.
I told him to be careful of what he said, or he would get himself into
trouble, if he had been on deck, as he should have been when the mate
called, the sails would not have been lost, and there would have been
no cause for the mate to strike him. No sooner had I said this than
he struck me in the mouth and knocked me down, as I sprang up again I
seized him by the ankles and jerked his feet from under him. Down he
fell, striking his head violently against the hatchcombing. He lay
where he fell, senseless.
The other one made a move towards me, knife in hand, but the mate came
along the deck just then and caught hold of him. On learning the cause
of the row, he put him in irons. The insensible man was carried aft,
and it was seen he had a severe scalp wound. The captain dressed it,
and the man on slowly coming to his senses was locked in a spare room
until later on in the day.
I told the mate that the Turk threatened to knife him. He smiled and
told me not to be alarmed as he was not. “I have sailed with those
sort of men before” he said, and taking a six chambered revolver from
his hip pocket, he showed it to me, remarking at the same time, “I am
prepared for them one and all.”
Strange though it may seem, from that day we had no trouble with them.
They all seemed to pull together. Old George the Greek, in some way,
got complete control over them. He was the most powerful man on board,
standing six feet two in his stockings and built in proportion, with a
long bristling moustache, and hair as white as snow. He was sixty years
of age, the strongest and most active man on board, and withal, in his
bearing and manner a courteous gentleman. I often thought what a model
he would have made for a picture of a brigand chief.