NEPTUNE COMES ON BOARD
We were then in about five degrees of North Latitude, the trades had
failed us, and the doldrums claimed their share of bracing and hauling,
giving us little time for any other work. Every ripple on the brazen
sea called for a different angle of the yards, and in dead calm we lay
with our head yards braced sharp up and the after yards square, the
courses guyed out from the masts by slap lines and bowlines. During the
day a vertical sun beat down on our bare deck in unmerciful fashion,
lifting the scorching pitch from the seams and all but addling our
senses with the heat. The mates became more and more exacting, every
job palled, and the stuffy, unpalatable food of the fo'c'sle stuck in
our throats. The vessel was a chip of hell floating on the unforgiving
ocean; riveted for days, that stretched to weeks, amid the patches of
rusty sea weed, a thousand feet across, that tangled about the rudder
post, great sun-scorched fragments of the dead Sargasso Sea.
And all of this time we knew that the Southern branch of the Equatorial
Current was sending us back to the W. N. W. at the rate of several
miles a day!
In watch below, choking with the heat, we lay tossing sleeplessly in
our bunks while the sickly smell of the bilges came up from the fore
peak through the wind sails let down to ventilate the hold. Cockroaches
throve in added millions, and we were treated to our first rations
of weevily tack. The little white worms seemed to be everywhere. The
cracker hash was riddled with them as Chow selected the rottenest bread
for this purpose. Most of us developed boils, and the dark brown taste,
left by the vile food, resulted in a general loss of appetite. The heat
even forced the rats from the hold and on a dark night we could hear
them scampering about under the fo'c'sle head. The healthy sea tan of
the temperate zone left our faces, and we became peevish and morose.
Some of us tried to forget our misery by reading the books sent aboard
by the Seamen's Friend Society, others whiled away the hot watches
below, when sleep was impossible, by making wonderful models of ships
in bottles, almost a lost art nowadays, and revived on board the
_Fuller_ by Frenchy. Most of these works of art found resting places
behind the bars of waterfront saloons in Honolulu.
One blessing that came to us in this hell afloat was the fact that the
mates winked at the snatching of a few hours' sleep during the night
watches on deck, otherwise there is no telling how some of us would
have survived.
Our fo'c'sle scuttle butt soured, and Old Smith of the starboard watch
emptied it one Sunday morning and charred the inside with a bundle of
rope yarns to which he set fire. He told us how water gets bad in the
tropics, and then how its own impurities destroy themselves. "The bugs
scoff each other and die," and, went on Smithy, "they drops to the
bottom of the butt, like white skeletons, and the water is as clean and
good as ever."
About this time considerable activity went on forward among the old
sailors in both watches. One dog watch, men from both sides of the
fo'c'sle went aft and interviewed the captain.
"We are near the line," said Frenchy to me shortly afterward. "Don't
make any fuss about what goes on, and you'll get off easy," he
cautioned.
There were quite a few of us who had never crossed the equator, and
the preparations in the dog watches augured ill for those who chose to
resist the just tribute demanded by Father Neptune of all green sailors
who, in those days, ventured across the magic bounds.
A fair slant of wind had helped us along for a few days, when the Old
Man called Jimmy aft and imparted important information.
At eight bells in the afternoon watch, as all hands were mustering in
the waist, a hoarse hail from forward greeted us.
"_Ship Ahoy! Ship Ahoy!_" came the deep bass summons from a point
beneath the bow.
"Forward, there! Who hails us?" answered the captain, who stood out on
the poop, replying to the voice from forward.
"Father Neptune hails us, Captain," answered Hitchen, returning from
the bow. "He asks if there are any of his children on board who would
receive his blessing on their heads."
"Aye, bring him on board," ordered the skipper, a broad grin lighting
his features, and the two mates reflected the feeling aft by joining in
the smiles.
A noise of trudging along the deck followed, the King of the Sea, his
own whiskers hidden behind a broad beard of rope yarns, a bright red
harpoon in his right hand serving as a trident, and a large razor, made
of hoop iron, stuck in his belt, walked aft. He was draped in the folds
of an old boat sail, and for all of his regal trimmings we recognized
the famous Jimmy. A retinue followed, rigged out in true deepwater
style, and carrying a tub between them, which was deposited on deck
just aft of the mainmast.
"Captain," said Neptune, "I am told as 'ow you 'ave green 'ands on
board who 'ave to be shaved."
"Yes, Your Majesty, we have some with the hayseed still in their
whiskers," answered the skipper.
"Bring 'em forth!" thundered the King, unlimbering his razor and
passing the trident to the safe keeping of his wife, Amphitrite, in the
person of Axel, who towered two feet above the head of the King.
However, what Jimmy lacked in stature he made up in efficiency, and in
the imperious glance of scorn with which he greeted eight of us who
were lined up for his inspection.
Old Smith grabbed me by the neck; I was seated on the bottom of an
upturned bucket at the feet of the King.
"Your name?" demanded His Majesty, and as I was about to answer a
filthy swab of soapsuds and grease was thrust in my mouth and smeared
over my face and the shaving began, ending by a back somersault into
the tub of water behind.
"Next!" called Neptune in true barber shop style, and so, in turn, each
of the green hands went through the ordeal; the least willing getting
the most attention. Scouse and Joe were among the lubbers, and were
accorded special rites to the vast amusement of all hands. Australia
wound up the entertainment by handing Scouse and Joe pieces of gunny
sack, smeared with black paint, with which to wipe their faces.
"All right now!" called the mate, after the skipper had left the deck.
"Turn to and clean up," and we were back again to the rigid discipline
of the sea, relaxed for a brief hour to let King Neptune hold his sway.
After crossing the line we picked up the first whisperings of the S.
E. trades, that soon began to blow steadily and ushered in another
busy stage of the voyage. The refreshing wind and falling temperature
brought renewed vigor to our jaded crew. Although we had commenced to
feel the lack of fresh provisions, scurvy did not bother us, possibly
owing to the regular issue of lime juice, but the constant repetition
of salt pork and salt beef, the weevily hard tack, and the abominable
slumgullion, a stew made from canned mutton, made us crave for
something decent to eat.
Frenchy often drove us to the verge of distraction with his stories of
the cooks at home in Dunkirk, until we finally had to put the ban on
that sort of discourse. Again, we landed several bonitas teeming with
energy, and, after the silver coin test, all hands fell to with a will,
myself included. We also hooked a shark and hauled him on board by a
"handy billy" snatched to the fore rigging.
The regular routine of setting up shrouds and stays preparatory to
entering the heavy weather off the Horn, now began in earnest. We
had left New York with a full set of new hemp lanyards in our lower
rigging. The lanyard knots were turned in in a slovenly manner, with a
lubberly disregard for appearances, that proved an eyesore to Captain
Nichols. We cast new knots in these, and set up all standing rigging
anew; a long, interesting job that initiated us into the mysteries of
"rackings" and the "Spanish windlass," and the practical workings of
the various "purchases" and "burtons"; the "luff tackles," and the "gun
tackles."
The mate was the leading spirit in these proceedings, staying on deck
practically all day to supervise the work. As we would set up one pair
of shrouds to port and another to starboard, bringing them to a "full
due," the mate was always there to say when to clap on the racking and
"come up" on the rigging luffs.
How the mate stood it often amazed me, for he was very lively at night,
but toward the end of this work the second mate would stand his last
dog watch for him, giving our first officer a six hour spell of sleep
every other day. What this means on a watch and watch racket, sailors
who have traveled the long voyage route will know.
The real sailors came to the fore during this time in both watches,
and Frenchy, Brenden, and Marshall, of our side, with Smith, Axel, and
Hitchen of the starboard watch, proved their rightful claim to the full
rating of A. B. Mr. Stoddard, who was a bit weak on his marline spike
seamanship, though a good watch officer, made up for things by the way
he bawled about and hurried and scurried his watch during the time the
mate was on deck. His men hated him thoroughly and we were glad that
he had very little to do with us.
Aboard a real shipshape and Bristol fashion deepwaterman of the old
school, if there be any such left today, everything is done according
to the custom of the sea. From the main truck to the keel, from the
outermost end of the flying jibboom to the last band on the spanker,
the ancient art of seamanship has decreed the exact way in which
certain things shall be done. The deadeyes carry their knots inboard,
forward to starboard, and aft to port. The lanyard lengths are justly
proportioned to the length of the stay they extend, so the required
"give" will be right, and the shroud pairs, stays, and backstays, are
passed over the mast heads and rest upon the trestle trees, in due and
proper form; the same in all ships worthy of the name.
Nations differ in their customs, and likewise in their rigs. No Italian
ship can sail the sea with a straight martingale, and no other ship
would venture forth with one that was anything but true.
For weeks at a time, after our entry into the southern trades, it was
hardly necessary to touch a brace except for the sweating up each night
in the last dog watch, when a swig or two on the ropes would bring
back any slack that had worked around the pins. The job of setting up
standing rigging completed, we turned our attention to the running
gear. We rove off new whips on all the braces, using an eye splice
that was a favorite with the mate, being tucked after the manner of a
sailmaker's splice, that is, the continuity of the strands of the rope
was preserved, the appearance of the whips being very trim.
The tops'l downhauls were rove off with new rope, and the gear of
all the lower stays'ls, lower tops'ls and courses was overhauled and
replaced where needed.
As we began to lift the Southern Cross and the trades left us, we again
shifted sail, an all day job that this time fell on a Sunday, and when
completed found us under our best suit of canvas ready for that storm
corner of the voyage, Cape Horn. We overhauled the rudder tackles,
reeving new purchases "with the sun," as indeed all purchases are
rove. Oil bags were made, shaped like beech nuts, bound with ratline
stuff, and fitted with a stout becket. By filling these with heavy
non-freezing animal or vegetable oil and puncturing them with a sail
needle, they afforded the best means for spreading oil on the waters
in time of storm.
One sail in particular that we bent at this time made a great
impression on me; this was a heavy storm spencer made of dark hemp
canvas, soft and pliable even when wet, unlike the stiff white American
cotton stuff that rips out your finger nails when fighting the bellying
folds, tough as sheet iron, as it slams out from a bucking yard. The
main spencer was evidently an acquisition from some Asiatic or European
voyage. It bent to an iron jackstay, and furled in to the mast with a
set of brails, being cut "leg-o'-mutton," the sheet hauling aft to big
eyebolts on either side of the waist.
Double lashings were passed on all of the lifeboat gripes. Rolling
and jumper tackles were got ready for the lower and tops'l yards,
to relieve the stress on yards and parrals, and straps and whips
were prepared, and laid aside, for use as preventer braces should
the necessity arise. In these preparations on the _Fuller_ we had a
foresight of what to expect when off the dreaded Cape; at the same time
we were certain that no vessel was ever better or more intelligently
groomed for heavy weather.
These preparations carried us well down to the latitude of the River
Plate; here we were warned by the wise ones to expect some weather,
which was not long in coming.
Our watch had just gone below at midnight, when a sou'wester zipped in
from the distant land, a live whole gale, sweetened with the breath of
the Patagonian prairies that stretched for leagues beneath its origin.
The starboard watch started to shorten sail, but by four bells in the
midwatch things were getting so far ahead of them that all hands were
called, and we tumbled out in the midst of a Bedlam of thrashing gear
and general confusion.
Most of the port watch were ordered aloft to take in the fore upper
tops'l, thrashing in its gear, while the ship plunged ahead under lower
tops'ls, reefed fore course and stays'ls. The starboard watch were
completing the job of furling the main tops'l, and with two of our men
to help, were about to tackle the mains'l.
I was on the fore upper tops'l yard, with Frenchy at the lee yardarm,
and Scouse in between me and the mast. We were just passing the last of
the sea gaskets, when the lower tops'l yard seemed to lift up in the
air with a sudden jump for we were standing on it, instead of on the
footropes of the upper tops'l. A great smashing below us, and the loud
impact of something big and hard banging against the yard under our
feet, sent us clambering to the upper stick for our lives.
"_Lee fore sheet's adrift!_" someone shouted. There was a rush in to
the mast to escape the heavy spectacle iron, and the cluster of flying
clew garnet blocks, and the next thing we knew we were ordered to lay
out on the fore yard and secure the sail.
"_Lay down and secure fores'l!_" came the order from the mate, who
stood on the fo'c'sle head, back to the gale, bellowing up his
instructions.
Six of us slid down to the top and out on the jumping foreyard. The
buntlines and leechlines were finally hauled home, and we got our
gaskets about the flying iron. A weird morning light was then breaking
in the east and as our watch below was gone, all hands remained on deck
for morning coffee after we hove her to under lower tops'ls, fore and
main storm stays'ls, and trys'l.
The Pampero gave us a taste of real weather, and came as an actual
relief after the long monotonous passage through the trades and
doldrums.