MUCH WATER AND MUTINY.
On the fourth day out the _Wizard_ was found to have four feet of water
in her hold. The ship was pumped dry in about four hours, when she
proceeded to fill up again. The Captain seemed a man of many minds for
the next two or three days. First the ship was put back for New York.
This course was altered and her bows pointed for Africa. Then the
foremast hands became worried, and going aft one morning in a body,
asked Captain S---- what he meant to do and where he meant to go,
because they had shipped for San Francisco and they did not intend going
anywhere else. The Captain answered, that his own safety and that of the
vessel were as dear to him as their lives were to them, and that he
intended doing the best for the general good. This answer was not very
satisfactory to the crew, who went grumbling back to their quarters.
Ultimately it turned out that we were to take the leak with us to San
Francisco. At the rate the water was running in it was judged that the
bone, muscle, and sinews of the crew could manage to keep it down. So we
pumped all the way round Cape Horn. We pumped during our respective
watches every two hours. In good weather and on an even keel it took
half an hour to “suck the pumps.” If the vessel was heeled to larboard
or starboard, it took much longer. In very rough weather we pumped all
the time that could be spared from other duties. There were two pumps at
the foot of the mainmast worked by levers, and these were furnished with
“bell ropes” to pull on. Half the watch worked at each lever, and these
were located exactly where on stormy nights the wild waves were in the
habit of flinging over the bulwarks a hogshead or two of water to drench
us and wash us off our feet.
The _Wizard_ was a very “wet ship.” She loved giving us moist surprises.
Sometimes on a fine day she would gracefully, but suddenly, poke her
nose under, and come up and out of the Atlantic or Pacific ocean with
fifteen or twenty tons of pea-green sea water foaming over the t’gallant
forecastle, cascading thence on the spar deck and washing everything
movable slam bang up and sometimes into the cabin. This took place once
on a washday. Sailors’ washday is often regulated by the supply of water
caught from the clouds. On this particular occasion the fore deck was
full of old salts up to their bared elbows in suds, vigorously
discoursing washtub and washboard. Then the flood came, and in a moment
the deck was filled with a great surge bearing on its crest all these
old salts struggling among their tubs, their washboards, their soap and
partly-washed garments. The cabin bulkhead partly stopped some, but the
door being open others were borne partly inside, and their woollen
shirts were afterward found stranded on the carpeted cabin floor. One
“duff day” we had gathered about our extra repast in the boys’ house.
The duff and New Orleans molasses had just commenced to disappear. Then
a shining, greenish, translucent cataract filled the doorway from top to
bottom. It struck boys, beef, bread, duff, and dishes. It scattered
them. It tumbled them in various heaps. It was a brief season of terror,
spitting, and sputtering salt water, and a scrambling for life, as we
thought. It washed under bunks and in remote corners duff, bread, beef,
plates, knives, forks, cups, spoons and molasses-bottles. The dinner was
lost. Going on deck we found a couple of feet of water swashing from
bulwark to bulwark with every roll, bearing with it heavy blocks and
everything movable which had been loosened by the shock, to the great
risk of legs and bodies. But these were trifles. At least we call them
trifles when they are over. I have noticed, however, that a man may
swear as hard at a jammed finger as a broken leg, and the most
efficacious means in the world to quickly develop a furious temper is to
lose one’s dinner when hungry, get wet through, then abused by a Dutch
mate for not stirring around quicker, and finally work all the afternoon
setting things to rights on an empty stomach, robbed and disappointed of
its duff. This is no trifle.
Learning the ropes isn’t all a boy’s first lessons at sea. He must learn
also to wash and mend his own clothes. At least he must try to learn and
go through the forms. I never could wash a flannel shirt, and how the
extraneous matter called dirt, which the washing process is intended to
disperse, is gotten rid of by soap and muscle at an equal average over
the entire surface of the garment is for me to-day one of earth’s
mysteries. I could wash a shirt in spots. When I tried to convince
myself that I had finished it I could still see where I had washed clean
and where I had not. There is a certain system in the proper
manipulation of a garment in a washtub which to me is incomprehensible.
An old sailor is usually a good washer. It’s part of his trade. Those on
the _Wizard_ would reprove the boys for their slipshod work. “Such a
slovenly washed shirt as that,” said Conner, an old man-of-war’s man,
“hung in the rigging is a disgrace to the ship.” He alluded to one of
mine. The failure was not from any lack of labor put on it. The trouble
lay in that I didn’t know where to put the labor on. It was easier to
tie a shirt to a line, fling it overboard and let it tow. This will wash
clothes--wash all the warp out of them in time. The practice was at last
forbidden the boys on the _Wizard_. It’s a lazy boy’s wash. The adage
“It’s never too late to mend” is not applicable on shipboard. It should
there read “It’s never too early to mend.” Of course a boy of sixteen,
whose mother has always stitched for him, will allow his clothes to go
until they fall off his body before using his needle. As I did. And I
sewed myself up only to rip asunder immediately. I went about decks a
thing of flaps, rips, rags, and abortive patches, until they called me
the ship’s scarecrow. And so would many another spruce young man under
similar discipline. It’s good once in one’s life to be brought thus low.
It was particularly disagreeable at midnight as we assembled at the bell
ropes to give her the last “shake-up,” and more asleep than awake pulled
wearily with monotonous clank. Sometimes at that hour, when our labors
were half through, the valves would get out of order. It was then
necessary to call the carpenter and have them repaired. This would keep
us on deck half an hour or more, for by mutual compact each watch was
obliged to “suck its own pumps.” Such delays made the men very angry.
They stopped singing at their work--always a bad sign--and became
silent, morose, and sullen. For the first six weeks all the “shanti
songs” known on the sea had been sung. Regularly at each pumping
exercise we had “Santy Anna,” “Bully in the Alley,” “Miranda Lee,”
“Storm Along, John,” and other operatic maritime gems, some of which
might have a place in our modern operas of _The Pinafore_ school.
There’s a good deal of rough melody when these airs are rolled out by
twenty or thirty strong lungs to the accompaniment of a windlass’ clank
and the wild, shrill sweep of the winds in the rigging above. But the
men would no longer sing. The fact was reported to the Captain. He put
on his spectacles, walked out on the quarter-deck and gazed at them
mournfully and reprovingly. The mates tried to incite them to renewed
melody. But the shipping articles did not compel them to sing unless
they felt like it. The pumps clanked gloomily without any enlivening
chorus. The Captain went sadly back to his cabin and renewed his novel.
One night the pumps broke down five minutes before 12 o’clock. Our watch
was at work on them. The carpenter was called as usual, and after the
usual bungling and fishing in the well for the broken valves, they were
put in order again. It was then nearly 1 <small>A.M.</small> Meanwhile all the able
seamen in our watch had at eight bells walked below. The watch newly
come on deck refused to pump the ship clear, alleging it was the
business of the others. The watch below were bidden to come on deck and
perform their neglected duty. They refused. This was mutiny. The four
mates got their pistols, entered the forecastle and stormed, ordered,
and threatened. It was of no avail. The fifteen able seamen who refused
constituted the main strength and effectiveness of that watch. They were
threatened with being put in irons. They preferred irons to pumping out
of their turn. They were put in irons, fifteen stout men, by the four
mates, who then returned and reported proceedings to the Captain. The
men remained shackled until the next morning. It was then discovered
that it was impossible to work the ship without their aid. Of course
they couldn’t handle the vessel in irons. In reality double the number
of able men were needed in both watches. The _Wizard_ rated over 3,000
tons, and many a frigate of her size would have been deemed poorly off
with less than one hundred men for handling the ship alone. We rarely
secured the lower sails properly in heavy weather, from the mere lack of
physical strength to handle them. So Captain S---- pored sadly at his
breakfast through his gold-bowed spectacles, and when the meal was over
issued orders for the release of the fifteen men in irons. In this
little affair the boys and ordinary seamen belonging to the mutinous
watch took no part. They were strictly neutral and waited to see which
side would win. I felt rather unpleasant and alarmed. Though not a
full-fledged mutiny and a conversion of a peaceful merchantman into a
pirate, it did look at one time as if the initiatory steps to such end
were being taken.
One of the great aims of existence at sea is that of keeping the decks
clean. The scrubbing, swishing, and swashing is performed by each watch
on alternate mornings, and commences at daylight. It was the one ordeal
which I regarded with horror and contempt. You are called up at four in
the morning, when the sleep of a growing youth is soundest. The maniacal
wretch of the other watch, who does the calling, does it with the glee
and screech of a fiend. He will not stop his “All Ha-a-a-nds!” until he
hears some responsive echo from the sleepers. He is noisy and joyous
because it is so near the time he can turn in. And these four hours of
sleep at sea are such luxuries as may rarely be realized on shore. But
the mate’s watch is calling us, screeching, howling, thumping on the
forecastle door, and making himself extremely pleasant. The old sailors
being called gradually rise to sitting postures in their berths with
yawns, oaths, and grumblings. If the hideous caller is seen, a boot or
other missile may be shied in that direction. Otherwise the prejudice
and disgust for his clamor on the part of those called expresses itself
in irritable sarcasms such as, “Oh, why don’t you make a little more
noise?” “Think yourself smart, don’t you?” “Say, don’t you s’pose we can
hear?” To-morrow morning at 12 or 4 these personalities and conditions
of mind will be reversed. The awakened irritable grumbler will be the
joyous caller, and the joyous caller of this early morn will be
searching about his bunk for some offensive implement to hurl at the
biped who thus performs the matutinal office of the early village cock.
We are called and on deck, and stumbling about, maybe with one boot half
on, and more asleep than awake and more dead than alive. We are in the
warm, enervating latitude of the tropics, with every sinew relaxed from
the steaming heat. Perhaps there is a light wind aft. We are carrying
studding-sails. Studding-sails are beautiful to look at from a distance.
But when once you have sailed in a ship carrying them from the royals
down and know something of the labor of rigging them out all on one
side, fore, main, and mizzen-masts, and then, if the breeze alters a
couple of points, taking the starboard sails all down and rigging out
the larboard, or perhaps on both sides--and this on a Sunday afternoon,
when there are no jobs and you’ve been expecting plenty of leisure to
eat your duff and molasses; or if you have ever helped carry those heavy
yards about the deck when the ship was rolling violently in a heavy
ground swell, and every time she brought up, sails, blocks, and
everything movable was bringing up also with a series of pistol-like
reports; or if you have ever laid out on a royal yard trying to pass a
heavy rope through the “jewel block,” at the extreme end thereof, while
the mast and yard were oscillating to and fro with you through the air
in a rapidly recurring series of gigantic arcs caused by the lazy swell,
in the trough of which your ship is rolling--and at the end of each roll
you find yourself holding on for dear life, lest at the termination of
each oscillation you be shot like an arrow into the sea from your
insecure perch--why in all these cases the beauty and picturesqueness of
a ship under studding-sails will be tempered by some sober realities.
It is 5:30 or 6 o’clock. The morning light has come. The cry of “Turn
to!” is heard. That is, “turn to” to wash down decks, an operation which
will tax the already exhausted resources of an empty stomach until
breakfast time at 8 o’clock. The mates have their fragrant “cabin
coffee” and biscuit served them on the brass capstan aft; we can smell
its aroma, but nothing warm can get into our stomachs for over two long
hours of work. The basic idea in this regular washing down decks at sea
seems to be that of keeping men busy for the sake of keeping them busy.
The top of every deck plank must be scrubbed with a care and scrutiny
befitting the labors of a diamond polisher on his gems, while the under
side may be dripping with foulness, as it sometimes is. I had the post
of honor in scrubbing the quarter-deck. That was the drawing of water in
a canvas bucket from the mizzen chains to wash over that deck. The
remaining five boys would push wearily about with their brooms,
hand-brushes, squabs, and squilgees, superintended by our extraordinary
fourth mate (always to me an object of interest, from the fact of the
secret carefully hoarded in my breast that I had pulled him into the New
York dock), who, with a microscopic eye inspected each crack and seam
after the boys’ labors, in search of atomic particles of dirt, and
called them back with all the dignity of command, and a small amount of
commanding personality behind it, whenever he deemed he had discovered
any. When this labor was finished I was generally so exhausted as to
have no appetite for breakfast. But a sailor’s stomach is not presumed
to be at all sensitive under any conditions. And above all a “boy”--a
boy belonging to a squad of boys who about once a day were encouraged
and enthused to exertion and maritime ambition by the assurance conveyed
them by one of the mates that they weren’t “worth their salt”--what
business had a boy’s stomach to put on airs at sea? Most landsmen if
called up at 4 o’clock on a muggy morning and worked like mules for a
couple of hours on a digestive vacuum, would probably at the breakfast
hour feel more the need of food than the appetite to partake of it.
Though I followed the sea nearly two years, I am no sailor. The net
result of my maritime experience is a capacity for tying a bow-line or a
square knot and a positive knowledge and conviction concerning which end
of the ship goes first. I also know enough not throw hot ashes to
windward.
But on a yard I could never do much else but hold on. The foolhardy men
about me would lie out flat on their stomachs amid the darkness and
storm, and expose themselves to the risk of pitching headlong into the
sea in the most reckless manner while trying to “spill the wind” out of
a t’gallant sail. But I never emulated them. I never lived up to the
maritime maxim of “one hand for yourself and the other for the owners.”
I kept both hands for myself, and that kept me from going overboard.
What would the owners have cared had I gone overboard? Nothing. Such an
occurrence twenty-five odd years ago would, weeks afterward, have been
reported in the marine news this way: “Common sailor, very common
sailor, fell from t’gallant yard off Cape Horn and lost.” The owner
would have secretly rejoiced, as he bought his Christmas toys for his
children, that the t’gallant yard had not gone with the sailor. No; on a
yard in a storm I believed and lived up to the maxim: “Hold fast to that
which is good.” The yard was good. Yet I was ambitious when a boy before
the mast on the clipper which brought me to California. I was quick to
get into the rigging when there was anything to do aloft. But once in
the rigging I was of little utility.
The first time I went up at night to loose one of the royals, I thought
I should never stop climbing. The deck soon vanished in the darkness of
a very black tropical night, the mastheads were likewise lost in a
Cimmerian obscurity--whatever that is. At last I found the yard. I
wasn’t quite sure whether it was the right one or not. I didn’t know
exactly what to do. I knew I had to untie something somewhere. But
where? Meantime the savage Scotch second mate was bellowing, as it then
seemed, a mile below me. I knew the bellow was for me. I had to do
something and I commenced doing. I did know, or rather guessed, enough
to cast off the lee and weather gaskets, or lines which bind the sail
when furled to the yard, and then I made them up into a most slovenly
knot. But the bunt-gasket (the line binding the middle and most bulky
portion of the sail), bothered me. I couldn’t untie it. I picked away at
it desperately, tore my nails and skinning my knuckles. The bellowing
from below continued as fiercely as ever, which, though not intelligible
as to words, was certainly exhorting me, and me only, to vigilance. Then
the watch got tired waiting for me. Thinking the sail loosed, they began
hoisting. They hoisted the yard to its proper place and me with it. I
clung on and went up higher. That, by the way, always comes of holding
fast to that which is good. Then a man’s head came bobbing up out of the
darkness. It was that of a good-natured Nantucket boy, whose name of
course was Coffin. He asked me the trouble. I went into a lengthy
explanation about the unmanageable knot. “Oh--the knot!” said he. “Cut
it!” and he cut it. I would never have cut it. In my then and even
present nautical ignorance I should have expected the mast or yard to
have fallen from cutting anything aloft. Only a few days previous I had
seen the Captain on the quarter-deck jumping up and down in his tracks
with rage because a common seamen had, by mistake, cut a mizzen brace,
and the second mate, as usual, had jumped up and down on the seaman when
he reached the deck. I feared to set a similar jumping process in
operation. Coming on deck after my lengthy and blundering sojourn
loosing a royal, I expected to be mauled to a pulp for my stupidity. But
both watch and bellowing mate had gone below and I heard no more of it.