"CAPE SMOKE!"
We only stopped at Madeira long enough to get a few purser's stores to
add to the supply with which the generosity of Don Ferdinando had
already provided us. We also took in some water, for two of our tanks
below had been "started" during our bucketting about in the bay, and
Captain Farmer feared we might run short when we reached the warm
latitudes; as, in the event of our falling across the usual calms
prevalent in the neighbourhood of the Equator, we might be rolling about
a week or two, roasting, in the Doldrums!
But, luckily, we were blessed with favouring winds and made a good
passage, picking up the North-East Trades shortly after we said
"good-bye" to Funchal, with its pretty white villas nestling on the
hillside amid a background of greenery; and then, meeting with strong
westerly breezes instead of calms, on getting further south into the
Tropics, we crossed the Line on Christmas Day, when all the good people
at home, I thought at the time, would be shivering with cold and saying,
as they snuggled up to the fire, gazing perhaps on a snow-covered
landscape without, "What seasonable weather we are having!" while we
were sweltering in the heat under a copper sky, with the thermometer up
to 98 degrees in the shade of the awnings!
From the Equator, we had a splendid run to the Cape, taking altogether
exactly sixty-five days clear for our passage from England.
During this interval I and my brother cadets had to attend "school"
every morning from half-past 9 o'clock to 11:30 in the captain's outer
cabin under the poop, where the chaplain, who also filled the post of
naval instructor, officiated as schoolmaster-in-chief, teaching us
mathematics and the theory of navigation, as well as seeing that we kept
up our logs, which Captain Farmer himself inspected once a week, to make
certain that the chaplain, on his part, attended to his duty.
We got on very well with the Reverend Mr Smythe, who had all his
longshore starchiness knocked out of him by his long bout of
sea-sickness, the poor man having been confined to his bunk and
completely prostrate with the fell malady from the hour that we weighed
anchor at Plymouth until we "brought up" at Madeira. I should not,
perhaps, have made use of this term, as it savours of tautology, the
unfortunate chaplain having been industriously occupied in doing little
else save "bringing up" all the time; especially when we were pitching
and rolling in the Bay of Biscay!
Every day, too, at a quarter of an hour before noon, we had to muster on
the poop, where, under the tutelage of the master, Mr Quadrant, we
watched for the dip of the sun; and, as soon as the master reported that
it was twelve o'clock to the captain, who told him "to make it so," and
Eight Bells was struck on the ship's bell forwards, we would adjourn to
the gunroom below.
There we all worked out the reckoning, showing our respective
calculations or "fudgings" as the case might be, to Mr Quadrant; when
if these "passed muster," we entered the result in our log-books, along
with other observations and facts connected with the daily routine of
the ship and her progress towards her destination.
To ascertain this, in addition to taking the sun at noon and noting the
attitude of certain stars at night, the log was hove every hour; and
each of us learnt in turn to fix the pin in the "dead man," as the
log-ship is styled--the triangular piece of wood, with a long line
attached, by which the speed of the ship is ascertained.
The first piece of this cord is termed the "stray line," and is
generally of the same length as the ship, so as to allow for the eddy
and wash of the wake astern; and, at the end of this stray line, a piece
of bunting is inserted in the coil, from which a length of forty-seven
feet three inches is measured off and a disc of leather put on the line
to mark the termination of the first knot, or nautical mile. Two knots
are put at the end of another length of forty-seven feet three inches;
three knots at a third, and so on, until as much of the line has been
thus measured and marked off at equal distances as will test the utmost
sailing capacity of the ship--a single knot being placed midway, also,
between each of these divisions, to denote the half knots.
Two sand-glasses are used in connection with the log-line, as the old
quartermaster, who was our instructor in this branch of our nautical
education, explained, the one called "the long glass," which runs out in
twenty-eight seconds, while the other is a fourteen-second glass, which
is generally adopted at sea when the ship is going over five knots with
a fair wind.
The first mentioned is only used in light breezes; and, as Bob Ricketts
showed us by careful manipulation, reeling off bights of the line and
keeping the slack loosely in his hands, the thing to be particular about
is to heave the log-ship over the side clear of the ship, and see the
glass turned as soon as the bunting mark is reached, denoting that all
the "waste" has run out.
Then, whatever mark you can distinguish on the line nearest to your hand
at the expiration of the allotted twenty-eight or fourteen seconds, when
the man holding the glass sings out "Stop!" as the last grain of sand
empties itself out of the bulb, that will be the speed of the ship.
The division of knots on the log-line bear the same proportion to a
mile, as the twenty-eight or fourteen seconds of the glass does to an
hour of time; so, if the four-knot mark be to hand, and the "long" glass
be used, she is going four knots, or nautical miles, per hour. It will
be eight knots if the "short glass" be the standard of measurement; the
time the line has taken being only half the former, and the number of
the knots having to be doubled to keep the proportion between the length
of line and the space of time equal.
It did not take me long to master what the old quartermaster had to
teach me on this point; but some of the other cadets were awfully stupid
at first, I must say, particularly that brute Andrews, in spite of his
bumptiousness and conceit.
He gave old Ricketts a lot of trouble before he remembered to put in the
pin prior to pitching the log-ship overboard; though without this it
could not float upright, and was as good as useless to gauge our speed.
The ass could not be made to understand this, and omitted putting in the
pin time after time so persistently, that Ricketts had to tell the
commander that he "could make nothing out of him."
In addition to these details of 'boardship life, we were also instructed
in practical seamanship by one of the boatswain's mates.
He was an old hand who had been at sea so long that he seemed to smell
of salt water and tar; while his face was like a piece of pickled beef
covered with a quantity of hair that resembled spunyarn more than
anything else, being as stiff and wiry as an untwisted rope.
Old Oakum, however, was a thorough sailor, every inch of him, and he
taught me much more than I had learned on board the _Illustrious_, not
only in "knotting and splicing" and other things.
Under this worthy's guidance I practised the "goose step" of going
aloft, as it might be described by a drill sergeant, the mizzenmast
being placed at our disposal every fine afternoon, and it was pretty
nearly good weather all the time of our passage southwards, to learn the
art of reefing and furling sails and to send down or cross upper yards;
so that we became in the end almost as expert as our tutor, the old salt
one day telling Tommy Mills and myself that we took in a royal "as good
and better as any two able seamen could a done it, blow me!"
It was not "all work and no play," either, for we had plenty of fun and
skylarking down in the gunroom; making the oldsters there, like Mr
Stormcock and the assistant-paymaster, Mr Fortescue Jones, frequently
wish they, or rather that we, had never been born to come to sea to
torment them.
The very duty of the ship itself was an endless source of occupation and
amusement to us, the commander keeping the men "at it" continually from
sunrise to sunset, until he had so licked us all into shape that we were
the smartest ship's company afloat, I think; for the discipline was such
that the old _Candahar_ might have been four years in commission instead
of the brief three months that had elapsed from our hoisting the pen'ant
to our casting anchor in Simon's Bay, a port to the eastward of the
"Stormy Cape," where our men-of-war usually moor.
Here, we remained for ten days to refit, setting up our lower rigging,
which had got very slack through the heat of the Tropics, and taking in
fresh provisions and water, besides all of us having a run ashore to
shake the reefs out of our legs.
All the men, too, were allowed leave by watches each day of our stay,
and few took advantage of the licence to misbehave themselves although
temptation enough was thrown in their way by the hospitable inhabitants.
Amongst these few, I am sorry to say, Corporal Macan distinguished
himself, falling a victim to his "ould complaint," by coming aboard on
the second day after our arrival in a state of glorious intoxication,
despite his solemn promise to Dr Nettleby, through whom the commander
had given him permission to land, that he "wouldn't touch a dhrop ov the
craythur, not if Ould Nick axed him."
Larkyns, who was in charge of the launch, in which the culprit was
brought back helpless to the ship in the afternoon, noticing his
condition when he tried to go up the side, ordered him to report himself
to the sergeant of marines; but, Mr Macan, who was valiant in his cups,
waxed indignant at this and flatly refused to obey the command, saying
that he would not mind going before the commander, or the first
lieutenant, or even meeting the doctor himself, though he was loth to
see him for the moment with his broken promise staring him in the face;
but as for going and reporting himself to the sergeant he should not,
no, not he.
"An' is it to rayport mesilf to that omahdaun ye're afther axin me,
sor?" he said scornfully, tossing his head and leering out of his little
pig eyes in the most comical way. "Faix, I'd rayther not, wid your
favour, sor. I wouldn't demane mesilf by spakin' to the loikes ov
Sarjent Linstock, sor!"
The upshot was that poor Macan was put under arrest and confined in the
cells that night; and when brought before the captain the next day for
insubordination and drunkenness, as he had no excuse to offer he was
disrated, losing his rank of corporal, with all its perquisites and
privileges!
On the doctor taxing him with breaking his pledged word, however, in an
after interview that worthy had with the delinquent, he vehemently
protested his innocence of that charge at all events.
"I tould yez, sor, I wouldn't touch a dhrop ov the craythur, maynin'
whisky, sure," he said, with a miserable attempt at a grin; for he felt
very much humiliated at losing his stripes, Macan sober being quite a
different man to Macan drunk. "An' faix I niver bruk me wurrud at all,
at all, I'll swear, sor."
"How can you have the face to deny it, man?" cried the doctor, angrily.
"Why, I saw the state you were in myself when you came aboard the other
night!"
"That mebbe, sor," replied the undaunted Irishman, with a little of his
old bravado; "but it warn't the ould complaint, I till ye, sor."
"What was it, then, that made you drunk, you rascal?" rejoined the
doctor, with a twinkle in his eye, knowing his man, "for, drunk you
were--ay, as drunk as Chloe?"
"Faix, sor," said Macan, noting instantly the doctor's change of mood,
and grinning all over his face in consequence, "it wor the Cape shmoke
that did it. Sure, it obfusticated me, sor, entirely!"