GETTING MY SEA LEGS ON.
We were towed into the stream and anchored for the night. To look at New
York City, with its many lights and its thousands amusing themselves in
various ways, from the ship’s deck, without the possibility of joining
them, was to feel for the first time the slavery of marine life.
Emerging very early next morning from the “boys’ house,” I found
everything in the bustle and confusion of getting under way. A long file
of men were tramping aft with a very wet hawser. As I stood looking at
them my ear was seized by our Dutch third mate, who accompanied the
action with the remark, “Cooms, I puts you to work.” He conducted me in
this manner to the rope and bade me lay hold of it. I did so. I could
have done so with a better heart and will had it not been for the
needless and degrading manner in which he enforced his command. Most men
do their work just as well for being treated with a certain courtesy of
command due from the superior to the inferior.
At noon the tug cast off. The Highlands of Navesink sank to a cloud in
the distance. The voyage had commenced. All hands were mustered aft. The
Captain appeared and made them a short speech. He hoped we would all do
our duty and that the voyage would be a pleasant one. It was not a
pleasant one at all. However, that was all in the future. The first and
second mates then chose the men for their respective watches, commencing
with the able seamen, then picking out the ordinary seamen, and finally
descending to the boys. Of course the best of all these grades were
picked off first. I think I was among the last of the boys who were
chosen.
The first night out was fine. The _Wizard_ slightly bowed to the ocean,
and the sails seemed great black patches, waving to and fro against the
sky. The six boys, so soon to be miserable, gathered in a cluster on
deck. Jed Coles proposed that we “spin yarns.” It was the nautically
correct way of passing the time. So we “spun yarns,” or at least Jed
did. He had a batch ready for the occasion. He sat on a tub, put an
enormous chew of tobacco in his mouth, hitched up his trousers and felt
every inch a sailor. I noticed the second mate, that incarnation of evil
and brutality, hovering about us, dark as it was. I saw his fiendish
grin and the glare of his greenish eye. A precious lot of young fools we
must have seemed to him. A little after our yarn spinning was
interrupted by shrieks and cries of distress proceeding from the forward
part of the ship. We had then our first exhibition of the manner of
enforcing American merchant-service discipline. The second mate was
beating Cummings, a simple being, who, having sailed only in
“fore-and-aft” coasting vessels, had made the mistake of shipping as an
ordinary seaman on a square-rigged craft, and was almost as much at sea
in his knowledge of the ropes as the “boys.” This officer had singled
out Cummings for his awkwardness as the proper man to “haze.” He was
showering upon him blows, thick and fast, with the end of one of the
fore braces. It was the first time I had ever seen a man beaten by one
in authority. The cringing attitude, the cries, sobs, and supplications
of a full-grown man, and the oaths and terrible ferocity of his
castigator, were inexpressibly shocking to me. The incident, which was
often repeated during the voyage, broke up our amateur yarning and made
us very thoughtful.
Jedediah Coles was not at all nautically loquacious the next night. Then
the Gulf Stream gave us a touch of its tantrums. All during the
afternoon the sky grew more and more threatening. By dark it was blowing
hard. The lighter sails one by one were stowed. Then it blew harder. The
mate swore the harder. The Captain came on deck and swore at everybody.
One of the “boys” asked him if he thought it would be stormy. He
considered himself privileged to ask the Captain that question. He was a
native of the same village. His father and the Captain were friends, and
his mother and the Captain’s wife visited each other. So he deemed it
advisable to establish himself on a sociable footing with the Captain at
the commencement of the voyage. Poor boy! Never again during the trip
did he consult the Captain meteorologically. He learned speedily the
great gulf which yawns between the cabin and the forecastle.
It grew dark, the waves became bigger and bigger, and the ship seemed
taxed to her utmost trying to clamber them one after another as they
presented themselves. The mates came out in their oilskins. The order
was given to reef topsails. Gangs of men ran hither and thither, pulling
here, hauling there, and running straight over us whenever we got in
their way, and it seemed impossible to get out of their way. Everything
became unsettled and uncomfortable. The ship would not keep still. New
complications of ropes and hauling-gear were developed. The capstan in
the waist was manned, and round and round went the sailors, while the
deck they trod was inclined in all manner of uncomfortable angles.
Tackle and great blocks were hooked to ringbolts, and a vast amount of
what seemed to me fruitless hauling went on. Barrels of water swashed
over the bulwarks, knocking us down and drenching us. Wet and shivering
we clung to belaying pins or anything within reach, of no earthly use to
anybody, thinking of the cheerfully lit, well-warmed rooms and
comfortable tea-tables even then set but so few miles away on the shores
of Long Island. When the order came to reef, and I saw the men
clambering up the fore and main rigging, I added myself to their number,
though I felt I should never come down again--at least in one piece. It
was my debut aloft off soundings. Many a time had I clambered about the
rigging of the old whalers as they lay at the village wharf, but they
were not roaring, kicking, and plunging like this vessel. Heavy seamen’s
boots kicked me in the face as I followed their wearers up this awful
ascent; other heavy boots trod on my fingers; they shook the ratlines,
too, in a most uncomfortable manner. The mast strained and groaned
fearfully. Somehow, after climbing over some awful chasms, I got on the
yard with the men. I dared not go out far. The foot rope wobbled,
jerked, and gave way under me at times with the weight and notion of the
men upon it. The great sail seemed in no humor to be furled. It hauled
away from us, bellied, puffed, and kept up a gigantic series of
thundering flaps. Laying over on the yard the men would gather in as
much of the hard, wet, wire-like canvas as possible and then together
haul back on it.
This I objected to. It was risky enough to lay out on an enormous stick
sixty feet in the air, while the wind tore our voices from us and seemed
to hurl the words far away ere they had well got out of our mouths, and
the white-topped waves, dimly seen below, seemed leaping up and
snatching at us. But at that height, and amid all that motion, to
balance one’s body on the stomach, grasp with outstretched arms a hard
roll of struggling, wet canvas, while the legs were as far extended the
other way and the feet resting only against a rope working and wobbling
and giving way here and there from the weight of fifteen hundred pounds
of men unequally distributed over it, was a task and seeming risk too
great for my courage. I dared do nothing but hold on. The conduct of the
maintopsail was desperate and outrageous. It seemed straining every
nerve--supposing, for the sake of forcible expression, that it had
nerves--to pull us off the yard and “into the great deep.” I found
myself between two old sailors, who lost no time in convincing me of my
complete and utter worthlessness aloft. I concurred. They bade me clear
out and get down on deck. I was glad to do so. Reefing topsails in
reality was very different from reefing them in books or in imagination.
On reaching the deck I concluded to lie down. All through the evening I
had experienced an uneasy sensation in the stomach. I argued with myself
it was not seasickness--something did not agree with me. But when I lay
down in the scuppers I admitted being seasick. Then I only cared to lie
there. Life was too miserable even to hope in. The tumult went on as
ever. The sailors trampled over me. Being in the way, they dragged me
aside. I cared not. Finally some one bawled in my ear, “Sick! go below.”
I went. The five other boys, all similarly affected, all caring naught
for life or living, lay in their bunks.
The boys’ house was about the size of a respectable pig pen--a single
pig pen. There was room in it for two boys to turn at once, providing
they turned slowly and carefully. On going on board we had bestowed such
of our outfit as could be brought into this pen in the manner in which
boys of sixteen bestow things generally on first commencing to “keep
house.” Everything was arranged on a _terra firma_ basis. We made no
calculation for the ship’s deviating from an even keel. When she did
commence to pitch everything fell down. Clothing fell on the floor;
plates, knives, forks, cups and bottles rolled from shelf and bunk;
bread, meat, and the molasses kegs fell; plum and sponge cake, pie and
sweetmeats fell; for each boy had a space in his sea-chest filled with
these articles, placed there by kind, dear relatives at home. It was
intended that we should not refer to them until the ship was far
advanced on her voyage. But we never had such large supplies of cake and
sweetmeats at hand before; so we went for these things immediately. The
house abounded with them the first night out. The roof leaked. We left
our sliding-door carelessly open, and a few barrels of the ocean slopped
over the bulwarks into the apartment. At midnight our combined clothing,
plates, mugs, knives, forks, bottles, water-kegs, combs, hair-brushes,
hats, pants, coats, meat, bread, pie, cake, sweetmeats, molasses, salt
water, and an occasional seasick and despairing boy, united to form a
wet, sodden mass on the floor two feet in depth. Above the storm howled
and swept through the rigging, with little sail to interrupt it. Six
sick and wretched boys in their berths lay “heads and pints,” as they
pack herring; that is, the toe of one rested on the pillow of the other,
for it was not possible to lie otherwise in those narrow receptacles for
the living. But the horrors of that second night are not to be related.
No solicitous stewards with basins and tenders of broth and champagne
attended us. We were not cabin passengers on an ocean steamer. Barely
had the next morning’s dawn appeared when our door was flung open. In it
stood that dreadful second mate of the greenish eyes, hard, brick-red
complexion, horny fists and raspy voice--a hard, rough, rude, unfeeling
man, who cried: “Come out of that! Oh, you’re young bears--your troubles
ain’t commenced yet!” Then his long, bony arm gripped us one after the
other and tore us from our bunks. How unlike getting up at home on a
cold winter’s morning, as, snuggling in our warm feather beds, we heard
our mothers call time after time at the foot of the stairs: “Come now,
get up! Breakfast is ready!” And with the delay prone to over-indulged
youth, we still lay abed until the aroma of buckwheat cakes and coffee
stealing to our bedrooms developed an appetite and induced us to rise.
Out, this dreadful morning, we tumbled, in the wet clothes wherein we
had lain all night, weak, sick, staggering, giddy. A long iron hook was
put in my hand and I was desired to go forward and assist in hauling
along length after length of the cable preparatory to stowing it away.
Sky and sea were all of dull, monotonous gray; the ship was still
clambering one great wave after an another with tiresome and laborious
monotony. All the canvas of the preceding day had disappeared, save a
much-diminished foretop-sail and storm staysail. The mates on duty were
alert and swearing. The men, not all fully recovered from their last
shore debauch, were grumbling and swearing also. The cook, a dark-hued
tropical mongrel, with glittering eyes, was swearing at something amiss
in his department. It was a miserable time. But a cure was quickly
effected. In thirty-six hours all seasickness had departed. With the
delicate petting process in vogue with wealthy cabin-passengers it would
have required a week. But we had no time in which to be seasick.
Life for us on board this ship was commenced on a new basis. We were
obliged to learn “manners.” Manners among modern youth have become
almost obsolete. The etiquette and formality required from the younger
to the elder, and common to the time of perukes and knee-breeches, has
now little place save on shipboard, where such traditions and customs
linger. We were surprised to find it our duty to say “Sir” to an
officer, and also to find it imperative to recognize every order
addressed us by the remark; “Aye, aye, sir!” The sullen, shambling
fashion of receiving words addressed us in silence, so that the speaker
was left in doubt as to whether he was heard or not, had no place off
soundings. In short, we were obliged to practice what is not common now
to many boys on shore--that is, an outward show of respect for
superiors. If business called us to the “West End” of a ship, the
quarter-deck, our place was to walk on the lee side of that deck and
leave the weather side the moment the duty was done. If sent for any
article by an officer, it was our business to find it without further
recourse to him.
Petted boys have little patience for hunting for things. At home two
minutes is about the limit of time spent in looking for a mislaid poker,
and then “Ma!” “Pa!” or “Aunt!” is called on to turn to and do this
disagreeable work. The second mate once ordered me to find a certain
iron hook, wherewith to draw the pump boxes, and when, after a short
search, I returned and asked him where it might be I was horrified by
the expression of astonished indignation spreading over his face as he
yelled: “Great Scott, _he_ expects _me_ to help him find it!” I saw the
point and all it involved, and never so wounded an officer’s dignity
again. It is a sailor’s, and especially a boy’s business on shipboard,
to find whatever he is ordered to. It must be produced--no matter
whether it’s in the ship or not. At all events that’s the sentiment
regarding the matter. But it is good discipline for boys over-nursed at
home and only physically weaned. The “cold, cold world” would not, in
some cases, be so cold to the newly-fledged youth first trying his
feeble wings outside the family nest, did parents judiciously establish
a little of this maritime usage at home.
We soon learned on the _Wizard_ how well we had lived at home. Our sea
fare of hard tack and salt junk taught us how to appreciate at their
true value the broiled streaks, hot cakes, and buttered toast of home
tables. The quart of very common molasses served out to us weekly soon
became a luxury, and when the steward occasionally brought us
“Benavlins” (the nautical term for the broken fragments from the cabin
table), we regarded it as very luxurious living, though a month previous
we should have deemed such food fit only for the swill-tub.
In about two weeks we had settled down into the routine of life at sea.
Sailors are apt to term theirs a “dog’s life.” I never did. It was a
peculiar life, and in some respects an unpleasant one--like many others
on land. But it was not a “dog’s life.” There was plenty to eat, and we
relished our “lobscouse,” hard tack, salt junk, beans, codfish, potatoes
and Sunday’s and Thursday’s duff. The hours for labor were not
exhausting. It was “watch and watch, four hours off and four hours on.”
Many a New York retail grocer’s clerk, who turns to at 5 in the morning
and never leaves off until 11 at night, would revel on such regulation
of time and labor. So would many a sewing-girl. We had plenty of time
for sleep. If called up at 4 every alternate morning, and obliged to
stand watch until 8 <small>A.M.</small>, we could “turn in” at that hour after
breakfast and sleep till noon. Apart from the alternate watches the work
or “jobs” occupied about six hours per day. True, there was at times
some heavy work, but it was only occasional. Sailor-work is not heavy as
compared with the incessant fagging, wearing, never-ending character of
some occupations on shore. Skill, agility, and quickness are in greater
demand than mere brute strength.
Lobscouse is a preparation of hard bread, first soaked and then stewed
with shredded salt beef. It looks somewhat like rations for a delicate
bear when served out by the panful. But it is very good. Salt beef is
wonderfully improved by streaks of fat through it. These serve the
foremast hands in place of butter. I know of no better relish than good
pilot bread and sliced salt junk, with plenty of clean white fat. On
shore that quart of boiling hot liquid, sweetened with molasses and
called tea, would have been pitched into the gutter. At sea, after an
afternoon’s work, it was good. With similar content and resignation, not
to say happiness, we drank in the morning the hot quart of black fluid
similarly sweetened and called coffee. It was not real coffee. I don’t
know what it was. I cared not to know. Of course we grumbled at it. But
we drank it. It was “filling,” and was far better than the cold,
brackish water, impregnated thickly with iron rust, a gallon of which
was served out daily. For the fresh water was kept below in an iron
tank, and, as the deck leaked, a small portion of the Atlantic had
somehow gained admission to it and slightly salted it. It resembled
chocolate to the eye, but not to the palate.