A GLANCE AT THE PRINCIPAL DIVISIONS,
INTO WHICH A MAN-OF-WAR’S CREW IS DIVIDED.
Having just designated the place where White-Jacket belonged, it must
needs be related how White-Jacket came to belong there.
Every one knows that in merchantmen the seamen are divided into
watches—starboard and larboard—taking their turn at the ship’s duty by
night. This plan is followed in all men-of-war. But in all men-of-war,
besides this division, there are others, rendered indispensable from
the great number of men, and the necessity of precision and discipline.
Not only are particular bands assigned to the three _tops_, but in
getting under weigh, or any other proceeding requiring all hands,
particular men of these bands are assigned to each yard of the tops.
Thus, when the order is given to loose the main-royal, White-Jacket
flies to obey it; and no one but him.
And not only are particular bands stationed on the three decks of the
ship at such times, but particular men of those bands are also assigned
to particular duties. Also, in tacking ship, reefing top-sails, or
“coming to,” every man of a frigate’s five-hundred-strong, knows his
own special place, and is infallibly found there. He sees nothing else,
attends to nothing else, and will stay there till grim death or an
epaulette orders him away. Yet there are times when, through the
negligence of the officers, some exceptions are found to this rule. A
rather serious circumstance growing out of such a case will be related
in some future chapter.
Were it not for these regulations a man-of-war’s crew would be nothing
but a mob, more ungovernable stripping the canvas in a gale than Lord
George Gordon’s tearing down the lofty house of Lord Mansfield.
But this is not all. Besides White-Jacket’s office as looser of the
main-royal, when all hands were called to make sail; and besides his
special offices, in tacking ship, coming to anchor, etc.; he
permanently belonged to the Starboard Watch, one of the two primary,
grand divisions of the ship’s company. And in this watch he was a
maintop-man; that is, was stationed in the main-top, with a number of
other seamen, always in readiness to execute any orders pertaining to
the main-mast, from above the main-yard. For, including the main-yard,
and below it to the deck, the main-mast belongs to another detachment.
Now the fore, main, and mizen-top-men of each watch—Starboard and
Larboard—are at sea respectively subdivided into Quarter Watches; which
regularly relieve each other in the tops to which they may belong;
while, collectively, they relieve the whole Larboard Watch of top-men.
Besides these topmen, who are always made up of active sailors, there
are Sheet-Anchor-men—old veterans all—whose place is on the forecastle;
the fore-yard, anchors, and all the sails on the bowsprit being under
their care.
They are an old weather-beaten set, culled from the most experienced
seamen on board. These are the fellows that sing you “_The Bay of
Biscay Oh!_” and “_Here a sheer hulk lies poor Torn Bowling!_” “_Cease,
rude Boreas, blustering railer!_” who, when ashore, at an eating-house,
call for a bowl of tar and a biscuit. These are the fellows who spin
interminable yarns about Decatur, Hull, and Bainbridge; and carry about
their persons bits of “Old Ironsides,” as Catholics do the wood of the
true cross. These are the fellows that some officers never pretend to
damn, however much they may anathematize others. These are the fellows
that it does your soul good to look at;—hearty old members of the Old
Guard; grim sea grenadiers, who, in tempest time, have lost many a
tarpaulin overboard. These are the fellows whose society some of the
youngster midshipmen much affect; from whom they learn their best
seamanship; and to whom they look up as veterans; if so be, that they
have any reverence in their souls, which is not the case with all
midshipmen.
Then, there is the _After-guard_, stationed on the Quarterdeck; who,
under the Quarter-Masters and Quarter-Gunners, attend to the main-sail
and spanker, and help haul the main-brace, and other ropes in the stern
of the vessel.
The duties assigned to the After-Guard’s-Men being comparatively light
and easy, and but little seamanship being expected from them, they are
composed chiefly of landsmen; the least robust, least hardy, and least
sailor-like of the crew; and being stationed on the Quarter-deck, they
are generally selected with some eye to their personal appearance.
Hence, they are mostly slender young fellows, of a genteel figure and
gentlemanly address; not weighing much on a rope, but weighing
considerably in the estimation of all foreign ladies who may chance to
visit the ship. They lounge away the most part of their time, in
reading novels and romances; talking over their lover affairs ashore;
and comparing notes concerning the melancholy and sentimental career
which drove them—poor young gentlemen—into the hard-hearted navy.
Indeed, many of them show tokens of having moved in very respectable
society. They always maintain a tidy exterior; and express an
abhorrence of the tar-bucket, into which they are seldom or never
called to dip their digits. And pluming themselves upon the cut of
their trowsers, and the glossiness of their tarpaulins, from the rest
of the ship’s company, they acquire the name of “_sea-dandies_” and
“_silk-sock-gentry_.”
Then, there are the _Waisters_, always stationed on the gun-deck. These
haul aft the fore and main-sheets, besides being subject to ignoble
duties; attending to the drainage and sewerage below hatches. These
fellows are all Jimmy Duxes—sorry chaps, who never put foot in ratlin,
or venture above the bulwarks. Inveterate “_sons of farmers_,” with the
hayseed yet in their hair, they are consigned to the congenial
superintendence of the chicken-coops, pig-pens, and potato-lockers.
These are generally placed amidships, on the gun-deck of a frigate,
between the fore and main hatches; and comprise so extensive an area,
that it much resembles the market place of a small town. The melodious
sounds thence issuing, continually draw tears from the eyes of the
Waisters; reminding them of their old paternal pig-pens and
potato-patches. They are the tag-rag and bob-tail of the crew; and he
who is good for nothing else is good enough for a _Waister_.
Three decks down—spar-deck, gun-deck, and berth-deck—and we come to a
parcel of Troglodytes or “_holders_,” who burrow, like rabbits in
warrens, among the water-tanks, casks, and cables. Like Cornwall
miners, wash off the soot from their skins, and they are all pale as
ghosts. Unless upon rare occasions, they seldom come on deck to sun
themselves. They may circumnavigate the world fifty times, and they see
about as much of it as Jonah did in the whale’s belly. They are a lazy,
lumpish, torpid set; and when going ashore after a long cruise, come
out into the day like terrapins from their caves, or bears in the
spring, from tree-trunks. No one ever knows the names of these fellows;
after a three years’ voyage, they still remain strangers to you. In
time of tempests, when all hands are called to save ship, they issue
forth into the gale, like the mysterious old men of Paris, during the
massacre of the Three Days of September: every one marvels who they
are, and whence they come; they disappear as mysteriously; and are seen
no more, until another general commotion.
Such are the principal divisions into which a man-of-war’s crew is
divided; but the inferior allotments of duties are endless, and would
require a German commentator to chronicle.
We say nothing here of Boatswain’s mates, Gunner’s mates, Carpenter’s
mates, Sail-maker’s mates, Armorer’s mates, Master-at-Arms, Ship’s
corporals, Cockswains, Quarter-masters, Quarter-gunners, Captains of
the Forecastle, Captains of the Fore-top, Captains of the Main-top,
Captains of the Mizen-top, Captains of the After-Guard, Captains of the
Main-Hold, Captains of the Fore-Hold, Captains of the Head, Coopers,
Painters, Tinkers, Commodore’s Steward, Captain’s Steward, Ward-Room
Steward, Steerage Steward, Commodore’s cook, Captain’s cook, Officers’
cook, Cooks of the range, Mess-cooks, hammock-boys, messenger boys,
cot-boys, loblolly-boys and numberless others, whose functions are
fixed and peculiar.
It is from this endless subdivision of duties in a man-of-war, that,
upon first entering one, a sailor has need of a good memory, and the
more of an arithmetician he is, the better.
White-Jacket, for one, was a long time rapt in calculations, concerning
the various “numbers” allotted him by the _First Luff_, otherwise known
as the First Lieutenant. In the first place, White-Jacket was given the
_number of his mess_; then, his _ship’s number_, or the number to which
he must answer when the watch-roll is called; then, the number of his
hammock; then, the number of the gun to which he was assigned; besides
a variety of other numbers; all of which would have taken Jedediah
Buxton himself some time to arrange in battalions, previous to adding
up. All these numbers, moreover, must be well remembered, or woe betide
you.
Consider, now, a sailor altogether unused to the tumult of a
man-of-war, for the first time stepping on board, and given all these
numbers to recollect. Already, before hearing them, his head is half
stunned with the unaccustomed sounds ringing in his ears; which ears
seem to him like belfries full of tocsins. On the gun-deck, a thousand
scythed chariots seem passing; he hears the tread of armed marines; the
clash of cutlasses and curses. The Boatswain’s mates whistle round him,
like hawks screaming in a gale, and the strange noises under decks are
like volcanic rumblings in a mountain. He dodges sudden sounds, as a
raw recruit falling bombs.
Well-nigh useless to him, now, all previous circumnavigations of this
terraqueous globe; of no account his arctic, antarctic, or equinoctial
experiences; his gales off Beachy Head, or his dismastings off
Hatteras. He must begin anew; he knows nothing; Greek and Hebrew could
not help him, for the language he must learn has neither grammar nor
lexicon.
Mark him, as he advances along the files of old ocean-warriors; mark
his debased attitude, his deprecating gestures, his Sawney stare, like
a Scotchman in London; his—“_cry your merry, noble seignors!_” He is
wholly nonplussed, and confounded. And when, to crown all, the First
Lieutenant, whose business it is to welcome all new-corners, and assign
them their quarters: when this officer—none of the most bland or
amiable either—gives him number after number to
recollect—246—139—478—351—the poor fellow feels like decamping.
Study, then, your mathematics, and cultivate all your memories, oh ye!
who think of cruising in men-of-war.