THE OUTWARD PASSAGE
When well clear of the coast we roused the bower anchors up on the
fo'c'sle head and lashed them. "A sure sign, sonny, that you are off
soundings," said Brenden; "these wind wagons don't take no chances
till they get a safe offing." The cables were unshackled, and the ends
stoppered abaft the wildcats. Canvas coats were put on to them, just
over the chain pipes leading to the locker. "Jackasses" were then
bowsed into the hawse holes _for fair_, taking the "tails" to the
windlass. With the ground tackle secured, the "cat" and "fish" were
unrove, and this gear stowed away in the fore peak. We had entered upon
the real deepwater stage of the voyage, with lee shores, and soundings,
many miles away.
The _Fuller_[3] carried a complement of sixteen hands forward, and
a "boy," not counting the "idlers"--that is, the carpenter, cook and
cabin steward--a small enough crew for a vessel displacing in the
neighborhood of 2,500 tons, dead weight, a craft 229 feet between
perpendiculars, 41-1/2 feet beam and 23 feet depth of hold, ship
rigged, with skysails, royals, single t'gans'ls, double tops'ls, and
courses. Her main yard was 90 feet from tip to tip. A crojik was
carried as well as a spanker. On her stays, she carried flying jib,
jib tops'l, jib and fore topmast stays'l, main t'gallant stays'l, main
topmast stays'l. Mizzen t'gallant stays'l and a main spencer completed
her spread of canvas. When on a wind, in a whole-sail breeze, with
crojik furled, and spanker set, the ship _Fuller_ spread twenty-five
kites to the wind.
[3] Data re _A. J. Fuller_.
Ship _A. J. Fuller_.
Flint and Co. The California Clipper Line, Owners.
Signal letters J.V.G.B. International Code.
Built at Bath, Maine, 1881, of wood.
Gross tonnage 1,848.76
Net " 1,781.88
Length 229.3 ft.
Breadth 41.5 "
Draft (mean) 17.8 "
Depth of hold 23.0 "
Now think of the handsome way in which they manned their ships in the
olden days of the tea clippers when a vessel half her size would carry
_forty_ men forward! And a vessel of equal size would carry from 80 to
90 _seamen_. As it was, we were hard put to it in an emergency and "all
hands" was the rule on every occasion demanding quick work, in going
about, or in making or taking in sail. When tacking it was "all hands,
and the cook at the fore sheet." One watch could not hoist the main
upper tops'l, except in the finest kind of weather, and then only by
taking the halyards to the main deck capstan, and "inching" the great
yard up in slow and painful fashion with much singing and "_yo ho_"ing.
[Illustration:
SHIP A.J.FULLER OF NEW YORK
_Built at Bath Maine 1881_
DECK PLAN]
Captain Nichols shaped a course well to the eastward, fetching almost
to the Azores, before hauling his wind aft and squaring away for an
easy run through the N. E. trades. Skysails and flying jib were up and
down a score of times a day at this restless stage of the voyage, for
every rag was kept drawing to the last moment. In squally weather,
and we had plenty of it, the ship would race along, her lee scuppers
boiling in white water as she heeled to the blast, hands standing by
at the halyards, which were always flaked down clear for running, and
every mother's son keyed to a high pitch, ready for quick work at
braces, clewlines and buntlines.
To have a "wheel" or a "lookout" during the night watch was a rest,
although the trick at the helm was a wideawake job, whether on a
course, or "by the wind." I had a fondness for steering and often
stood the wheel for Frenchy or Brenden, especially during the daytime
when they were employed on sailor jobs that no one else of our watch
was able to do. The mate winked at this practice, and as they often
let me take their tricks at night, I was able to side step a lot of
the skysail climbing that would ordinarily have fallen to me as the
youngster of the watch.
My training on the old _St. Mary's_ now stood me in good stead, and by
remembering a lot of the advice given me by that prince of sailor-men,
old Bos'un Dreilick of the schoolship,[4] I found myself rated with the
best men in the ship, and far ahead of such fellows as Scouse, and Joe,
and Martin, who were strong as bulls, but knew nothing. In between us
ranged Australia and Fred, good ordinary sailors who knew the ropes,
could hand, reef, and steer, but lacked that finished technique so
essential to the proper able seaman. I must admit that in classing
myself with men like Marshall, Frenchy, and Brenden, I am doing so at
the tail end of this trio, and then only because of my skill at the
helm, at heaving the "blue pigeon," and at sailing and handling boats,
accomplishments that, except for steering, are rare among deep water
sailors.
[4] Now Boatswain of the Schoolship _Newport_.
"You seem to stand the wheel a lot," the Skipper remarked one night,
having noted me by the dim light of the binnacle, for I also had done a
trick in the first dog watch when he happened to change the course.
The Old Man grinned, "Well, I suppose you like to be aft. Keep at it,
boy, and you'll get there. But it's a lonesome life; dammit, I would
rather be a farmer any day."
Captain Nichols thought this a great joke, the idea of being a farmer
pleased him so he had a good laugh as he surveyed the great spread of
canvas bowling along under his command. I felt sure he was joking.
Since then, I have often pondered over his remark and am now of the
opinion that he was in dead earnest.
Standing lookout on the fo'c'sle head was a favorite duty that no one
delegated. Finally, however, when we were well clear of the coast,
the mates began to pull down the lookout whenever there was any work
to be done. There always was considerable, for the mates would start
something as soon as they felt the least bit sleepy and would horse
their watches about even though it was absolutely unnecessary to start
a single rope.
Our fare on the _Fuller_ was of the regular deep water variety, made
palatable by the fact that we were living the open air life of a lot of
human gorillas. Our labors were torture, to me at least, until at last
the outraged muscles adjusted themselves to the unaccustomed work. Poor
Peter, he was a hundred times harder hit than I, and the four hours
below were barely enough to keep him alive. One night, a few days after
leaving port, when we mustered at midnight, Peter was not to be found.
"Was he called?" thundered the mate, as Old Smith reported him "not
present," doing so in a hesitating sort of way. "Was that ---- ----
called?" again thundered the mate. "By ---- I'll call him!" he shouted,
and strode forward, the second mate following. Peter lay half out of
his bunk, one leg over the edge. He had fallen back exhausted as soon
as he got his trousers on; he was dead to the cruel, hard world.
Mr. Zerk grabbed him by the leg, and, swinging him like a bag of meal,
he yanked Peter clear through the fo'c'sle door, landing him on the
deck with a thud, amid a shower of curses and the startled cry of the
victim.
This type of brutality was calculated to "put the fear of God into
us," as they say, and to strengthen discipline, and add snap and
vigor to our movements. It certainly had the effect of showing us how
important it was to be in the waist when the watch was mustered.
At the morning washdown the black slops that went by the name of coffee
tasted like the very nectar of the gods. We dipped in with our hook
pots, drinking it with relish, and the fact that it possessed mild
cathartic properties, may have had something to do with the excellent
state of our health. Cockroaches were not mentioned in the old scale
of provisions[5] adopted by a kind Congress for the nourishment of
the simple sailor-man. This was no doubt an oversight on the part of
some bucolic "sailor's friend," for they might have specified that "one
ounce of cockroaches may be substituted for an ounce of tea."
[5] The following is the Scale of Provisions allowed and served out to
the Crew during the voyage in addition to the daily issue of lime and
lemon juice and sugar, or other antiscorbutics in any case required by
law.
---------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+------+---+------+-----+-----
|Bread|Beef |Pork |Flour|Peas |Rice |Barley|Tea|Coffee|Sugar|Water
| lb. | lb. | lb. | lb. | pt. | pt. | pt. |oz.| oz. | oz. | qt.
---------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+------+---+------+-----+-----
Sunday | 1 |1-1/2| ... | 1/2 | ... | ... | ... |1/8| 1/2 | 2 | 3
Monday | 1 | ... |1-1/4| ... |1-1/8| ... | ... |1/8| 1/2 | 2 | 3
Tuesday | 1 |1-1/2| ... | 1/2 | ... | ... | ... |1/8| 1/2 | 2 | 3
Wednesday| 1 | ... |1-1/4| ... |1-1/8| ... | ... |1/8| 1/2 | 2 | 3
Thursday | 1 |1-1/2| ... | 1/2 | ... | ... | ... |1/8| 1/2 | 2 | 3
Friday | 1 | ... |1-1/4| ... |1-1/8| ... | ... |1/8| 1/2 | 2 | 3
Saturday | 1 |1-1/2| ... | ... | ... | ... | ... |1/8| 1/2 | 2 | 3
---------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+------+---+------+-----+-----
SUBSTITUTES
One ounce of coffee or cocoa or chocolate may be substituted for one
quarter ounce of tea; molasses for sugar, the quantity to be one
half more; one pound of potatoes or yams; one half pound of flour or
rice; one third pint of peas or one quarter pint of barley may be
substituted for each other.
When fresh meat is issued, the proportion to be two pounds per man,
per day, in lieu of salt meat.
Flour, rice, and peas, beef and pork, may be substituted for each
other, and for potatoes onions may be substituted.
NOTE BY AUTHOR.--The above is from the fo'c'sle card of the ship
_A. J. Fuller_, taken when I left her. This scale of provisions was
greatly amplified a few years later. It was found that a shipmaster
sticking close to the law in the matter of provisioning could easily
starve a crew, as there was no control over quality. On the _Fuller_,
the owners were liberal in provisioning. Such trouble as we had was
due to the conditions of deep water voyages.
Our tea was never without these disgusting vermin and none of us was
ever able to tell what gave it the peculiar flavor that we came to
relish--the twigs and leaves floating about in the brown liquor, or the
roaches lying drowned in the bottom of the can.
"They's no worse nor shrimps," philosophized Jimmy Marshall, and we
tried to believe him.
The cook, an ancient Celestial named Chow, hailing from Hong Kong, had
evidently put all of his gods behind him. His pigtail was gone, and
with it all sense of decency, so far as preparing food for sailor-men
was concerned. Those human precepts that all cooks are supposed to act
upon, the ethics, if you will, of the noble profession, that Marryat
tells us entitled the practitioner to wear a sword, in those good old
days when the Admiralty recognized the cook, were lacking in the breast
of Chow. He was a typical deepwater cook. What went aft was right, so
far as looks count anyway, but the kids that left for the fo'c'sle
often contained the most unsavory messes that ill-fortune can concoct.
Some of the men had words with Chow about this but the result was
increased carelessness and decreased portions.
"It don't do no good to scrap with the cook," was Jimmy Marshall's sage
advice. "If the dirty bum wants to be dirty he can fix us all up. I
knowed a cook once wot ---- in the soup an' bully on a English bark.
The skipper, he caught him at it, an' puts him in irons. The cook had
to be let out though because he was the only one wot could do the work,
an' they was mighty careful aft not to rile him after they knowed wot
he was. You got to leave them cooks alone."
We left Chow severely alone, and some of the crowd, Joe and Tommy
especially, constituted themselves his volunteer assistants, and almost
every first dog watch, one of them would be around the galley helping
out. Chow rewarded them by allowing the use of the oven to make "dandy
funk," a mess of broken hard tack and molasses, baked to a crisp.
When ten days had elapsed, after the final rations of fresh provisions
had been issued, a tot of lime juice, that reeked suspiciously
of vinegar, was served each day--by Act of Congress--to keep the
sailor-man from getting scurvey. At the same time the "harness casks,"
beef to starboard, and pork to port, did their duty nobly and each week
or so we would lift the forehatch and rouse up a slimy, wooden hooped
barrel, and roll it aft to the galley door, alternating to the port and
starboard harness casks.
After a month of chumming it with Frenchy, talking steadily from
three to four hours a night, we were both pretty well cleaned out
of experiences and ideas. Other groups had long before reached that
deplorable state, and new combinations were formed in the night walks
on deck. One night as we came on deck in the midwatch, Frenchy and
I noticed Jimmy Marshall and Martin standing at the lee of the main
hatch, in silence, after the watch had been mustered. The absence of
their usual animated discussions of everything temporal and mundane
attracted our attention. Soon we found ourselves at the lee of the
hatch; Martin and Jimmy warmed up to us and presently Jimmy and myself
were walking just aft of the forward house, and Martin and Frenchy
began to pace the deck to windward.
Jimmy was a new sort of chum and the poorest listener I have ever met,
which may have accounted for the peculiar one sided lay of his mind.
The hard knocks of experience were alone accountable for his knowledge,
varied and picturesque in the telling. He was chockful of religion and
was constantly repenting the bad deeds of his youth, telling them at
great length, and with such relish, that it seemed they had come to be
his one unfailing source of enjoyment. A terrible drunk in his day, he
had also indulged in robbery, having looted a house in Australia while
tramping overland to Sydney from Port Hunter, where he had "jumped" a
schooner, leaving everything behind, because of a row with the mate, in
which he felled him with a handspike.
"Walked away with a piece o' change an' a whole kit o' dunnage," was
the way he put it.
And also, according to his story, Jimmy had been a lightweight fighter
in his youth, many, many years before. He was the best chantey-man in
the crew; to hear him "sing" a rope was an inspiration to tired arms
and backs.
[Illustration: Jimmie Marshall]
While memory lasts, the picture of our first chantey, a few days after
leaving port, will remain with me as one of the great thrills that
have come my way. A heavy squall in the forenoon watch sent all of our
tops'l yards to the caps, everything coming down by the run, to hang
slatting in the gear. Sky sails, royals, flying jib, t'gans'ls, jib
tops'l, jib, fore topmast stays'l, and then the upper tops'ls were
lowered, the latter thrashing and straining against the downhauls as
the ship heeled to it almost on her beam ends, gaining headway with
a rush, and righting herself as we spilled the wind from the bulging
canvas.
Passing as quickly as it came, the squall left us wallowing under lower
tops'ls, the courses hanging in their gear.
All hands were called to make sail, and as we manned the main tops'l
halyards Jimmy Marshall jumped to the pin rail, and with one leg over
the top of the bulwark, he faced the line of men tailing along the deck.
"A chantey, boys!" shouted Mr. Stoddard as he took his place
"beforehand" on the rope. "Come now, run her up, lads. _Up! Up!_" and
the heavy yard commenced to creep along the mast to the sound of the
creaking parral, the complaining of the blocks, and the haunting deep
sea tune of "Blow the Man Down," greatest of all the two haul chanteys.
Jimmy--"Now rouse her right up boys for Liverpool town,"
Sailors--"Go way--way--blow the man down."
Jimmy--"We'll blow the man up and blow the man down,"
Sailors--"Oh, give us some time to blow the man down."
Jimmy--"We lay off the Island of Mader_de_gascar."
Sailors--"Hi! Ho! Blow the man down."
Jimmy--"We lowered three anchors to make her hold faster,"
Sailors--"Oh, give us some time to blow the man down."
_Chorus_
All hands--"Then we'll blow the man up,
And we'll blow the man down,
Go way--way--blow the man down.
We'll blow him right over to Liverpool town,
Oh, give us some time to blow the man down.
Ho! Stand by your braces,
And stand by your falls;
Hi! Ho! Blow the man down,
We'll blow him clean over to Liverpool town,
Oh, give us some time to blow the man down."
Old Marshall faced to windward, his mustache lifting in the breeze, the
grey weather worn fringe of hair bending up over his battered nose. He
always sang with a full quid in his cheek, and the absence of several
front teeth helped to give a peculiar deep-sea quality to his voice.
"We have a man-o-war crew aboard, Mr. Zerk!" shouted the Captain from
the top of the cabin, where he had come out to see the fun.
"Aye, aye, sir! Some crew!" returned the Mate, looking over us with a
grim smile.