Under Sail 11

Under Sail 11

Tony, of the starboard watch, was "beforehand" with Axel and the second

mate, on the main tops'l halyards. The rest of the ship's company

tailed along the deck from the lead block bending their "beef" on the

rope to the refrain of "Ranzo, boys, Ranzo." The deck was slippery with

the wet, and a high sea, in which the _Fuller_ wallowed without sail

enough to steady her, made footing precarious.

 

At the order "Belay!" given by the mate, and the sharp "Come up behind"

of the second officer, Tony failed to hold on to the rope, and the

consequence was a slight loss as the man next the lead block hitched

the halyard over the pin.

 

"You lazy dago ---- ---- ---- ----! Why did you let go that rope?"

shouted Mr. Stoddard, at the same time making a lunge for Tony and

smashing him on the side of the face with his fist. The Dago blocked

as best he could, and the second mate drove home a second blow on the

Dago's nose. Tony clinched, the blood spurted right and left as they

went to the deck, rolling over and over, first one on top and then the

other.

 

"What's this?" shouted the mate. "You dirty bum, ---- ---- you!" he

exploded, jumping into the scramble, while all hands lined up in a

threatening attitude, determined to see some sort of fair play.

 

The mate grabbed Tony by the shirt, as he was on top, and yanked him

over. The fact that the Dago had Mr. Stoddard down seemed to rile the

mate beyond all reason. He ripped off the shirt of the Dago, and as he

threw him across the deck a knife flashed and the mate kicked it into

the scuppers, at the same time digging his heavy sea boots into the

side of the Italian. The second mate staggered to his feet, a jagged

streak of blood on his face where Tony had landed, and his jacket

covered with gore.

 

This scene, common enough perhaps in the annals of the sea, made a

deep impression on us. His watchmates carried the Italian forward, and

Mr. Stoddard went to his room under the starboard side of the poop.

Bad as the feeling had been toward our officers, up to this time it

had mingled with it a certain element of respect. Artistic and fluent

profanity never hurt anybody, and was almost always justified by some

bungling piece of work on the part of the lubbers who "gummed up"

their action whenever the least chance was afforded them. But in the

attack of the second mate on Tony there was something that looked like

deliberate planning, and in the mixup a number of us saw the mate jerk

the knife from the Dago's belt.

 

As Mr. Zerk went aft he picked up the knife from the scuppers. "Irons

for you!" he hissed at the Dago as they took him to the fo'c'sle.

 

But we heard nothing more of it. The captain had come out on deck in

the height of the excitement, following the fight, and called the mate

to his side; he was wise in his day, and knew a thing or two about the

tactics of his officers.

 

Soon we were tailing again to the halyard, tautening out the leeches

of the tops'l, an embittered crowd who but a few moments before were

singing at the ropes. Peter, in the meantime, was swabbing up the

bloody deck.

 

One who has never been there can hardly realize the absolute

subjugation under which a crew may be placed by their officers,

especially if they are on a deep-sea voyage under sail. None of us is

perfect, and the humble sailor-man as well as the rest of the human

race is prone to take things as easy as the law of the craft on which

he sails will allow. This fact, coupled with the hard circumstances

under which a small crew is compelled to work a very large ship, may,

in a measure, condone the tactics which have for their object the

putting the "fear of God" into a crew.

 

Young officers at times are inclined to be a bit "easy" with men,

thinking it will result in more willingness. The more seasoned members

of the cloth, men who have sailed as merchant officers for many years,

realize that the maintenance of discipline aboard ship is only possible

under a rule of autocratic severity, demanding instant obedience to

orders and quick punishment for the first departure from the iron

bonds. This is as necessary as life itself. The least hesitation, the

slightest possibility of argument, when ordering men to places of

danger or extreme difficulty, would soon result in disaster.

 

At sea we have the sharp distinction of caste--the wonderful potency

of _Mister_ So and So. He is an officer, if not always a gentleman. To

forget the "_sir_" when addressing one of our mates would have been a

dangerous thing to do. In fact only one man ever did it, but he was a

Kanaka and signs on later in the story.

 

In many ships, captain and mates never fail to use their "handles"

in addressing each other, and this was so on the _Fuller_, in fact

there was as little familiarity aft, in the personal relations of our

officers, as one might expect to find between the representatives of

two armies meeting to arrange a truce. And the wonderful part of it was

that they left the ship at the end of the voyage as coldly distant as

the day they stepped aboard; that is all but the second mate, which is

again running me ahead of the lawful progress of this yarn.

 

However, to get back to the deck and to the lives of our particular

little sea community, plowing their painful way over the cruel surface

of the many wrinkled ocean, we resented the underhanded flavor of the

affair between the mates and Tony. With all the excuses for hazing

granted and allowed for, there is nothing to be said in favor of lying

about a fight. The imputation of the knife, held as evidence by the

mate, and the whole character of the mixup left a bad taste in our

mouths for many weeks.

 

From that time on we entered upon a stage of the voyage notable for

its hardship. The officers were drivers from the time we dropped

the Navesink Highlands, but for a long time after the incident off

the River Plate, nothing but harsh words found any place in their

vocabulary. Weather conditions became more unsettled and severe and one

blow followed close on the heels of another. We were in oilskins for

weeks at a time, soaked to the skin through the worn out "slickers."

Most of us developed salt water boils and one formed on my left wrist,

through the constant chafing, and has left a scar to this day, as I

had the habit of stopping the sleeves of my coat with a few turns of

marline to keep the water out. It was impossible to dry things in

the brief four hours below, and the "slop chest" was soon depleted

of its stock of new oil clothing. It would be hard to picture a more

depressing period than that through which we passed just before

entering the real weather off Cape Horn.

 

In one of our brief periods below some of us were patching the tears

in our oilskin coats and pants, resulting from a tussle with the fore

upper tops'l, the downhauls having carried away, and left the sail

a bellying fighting mess of canvas that four of us were ordered to

subdue. Sewing oiled cloth is a poor job, and a loosened finger nail on

my right thumb, added nothing to the cheerfulness of the sewing party.

 

"I'll bet few lads would go to sea if they could look in here for a

half hour," I remarked, following a turn of thought that revolved more

or less about my own folly.

 

"An' I don't think you would stay in 'ere or out on deck or anywhere

else in this leaky old bucket if you knowed what is afore us," chipped

in Jimmy. "You 'aven't never gone round the Horn yet, so God 'elp you,

is wot I says."

 

"Yes, Gott help all of us," said Scouse with a heartfelt grunt from

the sea chest at the forward end of the fo'c'sle where he and Joe

were playing checkers on a new "heavy weather" board just made by the

resourceful Joseph. This board was covered with a piece of canvas,

the squares being marked off with pencil. The checkers (and here is

where Joe prided himself) were made by sawing pieces from an old broom

handle, and Joe had driven a sharp brad through each one of them so

they would cling to the canvas on the checker board.

 

On deck chanties had ceased to enliven us, and we went through the hard

watches in a dogged spirit of endurance. We felt like martyrs, a state

of mind not altogether without its compensations. In the watch below,

in a steaming atmosphere of gloom, lighted by a single oil lamp set

into a hole in the partition bulkhead between the two sides of the

fo'c'sle, we slept as much as possible, which was not half enough, ate

our rude meals, and had our dreams of happier days to come. Each man

respected the rights of his neighbors and each bunk was a sort of damp

narrow castle. Here in the smelly air, in the dim light, cold, tired,

and often hungry, we lived, or rather, existed.

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER VII

 

CAPE HORN

 

 

On a clear Monday morning, the seventh of February, 1898, to be exact,

the captain, after working up his A. M. sight, came on deck and

announced a good observation. It was the first time the sun had been

visible in some days, and by working a Sumner he found we were on a

line cutting close past Cape St. John, on Staten Land, having sailed

the ship down between the Falkland Islands and Cape Virgins by dead

reckoning. We were coiling down the gear after the morning washdown,

and I was busy at the monkey rail when he came on deck with his

results, and imparted the above information to the mate in my hearing.

 

"Better send a hand to the main skys'l yard, Mr. Zerk," said the

captain, in conclusion.

 

I was handy, and at a nod from the mate sprang up the Jacob's ladder

and onto the ratlines, going up like a monkey, out over the futtock

shrouds, up the topmast rigging, narrowing to the topmast crosstrees,

in through the horns of the crosstrees, and on farther up the t'gallant

and royal rigging, on the slight rope ladders abaft the mast. Coming to

the skysail mast, hardly larger round than the stick of a fair catboat,

I shinned up with the help of the halyards, and swung myself astride of

the yard, my arm about the aerie pinnacle of the main truck. From my

vantage point the sea was truly an inspiring sight; clear as crystal,

the limpid air stretched free to the distant horizon without a mist or

cloud to mar the panorama of vast blue ocean. I felt as though I had

suddenly been elevated to a heaven far above the strife and trouble of

the decks below.

 

For the moment I forgot the object of my climb in the contemplation of

the sparkling scene stretching as far as eye could reach. I glanced

down to the narrow deck far beneath, white in the sun, the black top

of the bulwarks outlining the plan of the ship against the deep blue

waters; my eye followed the easy curves of the squared canvas on the

main, the great breadth of the yards extending to port and starboard,

and I wondered that so small a ship could support such an avalanche of

sail as bowled along under my feet. Aft, a foamy wake stretched for a

mile or two, for we were sailing at a fairish speed with the wind from

the north, a point on the port quarter.

 

I saw the men flaking down the fore tops'l halyards, clear for running,

on the top of the forward house, and I saw the mate watching me from

the weather fore pinrail, his head thrown back as he gazed aloft;

something told me to get busy, and I looked far ahead to the south.