Under Sail 14

Under Sail 14

I was delighted to pick up a vast amount of interesting and useful

knowledge about the different knots and hitches used at sea. How many

sailors today can properly cast a _carrick bend_, turn in a _mariner's

splice_, or a _Flemish eye_, or work a _cringle_ into a _Bolt rope_?

Hitchen, of the starboard watch, taught us how to make the _English bag

knot_, an intricate and beautiful formation cast in the bight of a line.

 

Our work under the fo'c'sle head got all hands started, and during many

a dismal wet dog watch we practiced the forming of every knot from the

_bowline_ down; Peter, the boy, and myself trying to outdo each other

in the variety of our achievements. Frenchy taught us a new way to

form that "king of knots," the _bowline_, in which the loop is passed

through the gooseneck twice, forming a double loop, a most useful knot

employed in the French Navy. When a man is to be lowered over side, he

sits in one of the loops and the other is passed under his arm pits,

the gooseneck coming against his chest. His weight tautens the part

under the arms, and it is impossible for a man to drop out of this

bowline, even though he becomes unconscious.

 

In this manner much of the unrecorded lore of the sea was passed on to

us in the _Fuller_ as the same things have been handed down through

the ages since the Phoenicians, the Norsemen, and the more ancient

sailors of Cathay first rigged their barks, fashioning their bends and

hitches in the same manner as the sailors of today. Where the marvelous

knots originated, no one can tell. Who invented them, no one knows;

but we do know that the rope craft of the sea is standard and defies

improvement. It takes time to learn the knots, bends, hitches, and

splices; how much longer it must have taken to discover them can only

be imagined.

 

In time, much of this will be entirely superseded by wire and steel, as

indeed all lower standing rigging is already of wire. But turnbuckles

and riveted plates are part of the metal ships, unyielding and stiff,

that buckle the hollow steel masts, or sheer the channel plates clean

from the hull, when wrenched by the resistless power of the sea.

 

In the days of wood, of tough live oak, and tarred hemp lanyards, with

their "give" and "spring," the old style rigging knots and splices

endured for thousands of years. Can steel and steam resist the hands of

time as well?

 

On the _Fuller_ we were taught that everything had to be done just so

to be "shipshape and Bristol fashion," as the old sea phrase has it.

It was always:

 

Worm and parcel with the lay,

Then turn and serve the other way.

 

And the humblest tools have had their form decreed since the art

of seamanship began. The _serving board_ and the _serving mallet_

used by Noah; the _fid_, the _marling spike_, the sewing _palm_,

and the _caulking iron_, are the ultimate tools of the most ancient

handicraft; the art of building and rigging ships. We used all of these

implements with industry as the blustery weather sent us up from the

Horn to Honolulu. We saw how able sailors fit a cringle to the tough

four-stranded hempen bolt ropes on the storm canvas; we learned the

proper way to _strop_ a block, with the splice _where it belongs_, as

every sailor knows, and the throat seizing _frapped_ and _hitched_ in

sailor fashion.

 

The hours spent under the fo'c'sle head during those days of the voyage

were not so tedious. The Horn was behind us and the prospect of fine

weather ahead. Yarning was always going on, and often we spent the dog

watches in making fancy plaitings and knottings for sea chest covers

and the like. I realized that such men as Marshall, Old Smith, Hitchen,

Axel, Brenden, and Frenchy were of a dwindling breed, soon to be as

rare as the makers of stone axes, or the seamen of the Roman galleys.

 

One other sailor of the ship's company asked odds of no one in the

range of his knowledge of the sea. Whatever else we may have thought

of him, we were forced to acknowledge Mr. Zerk a seaman of the most

accomplished sort. Versed in the art of wire splicing and up to every

dodge in sailmaking and rigging, he combined the ability of the marling

spike man with the gift of the larger seamanship involved in the

handling of a vessel under all conditions. If his eye ever lights on

this, and I hope it will, I herewith accord to him the full measure

of my admiration, for the combination of these two types of sailor is

rare; as rare as the few remaining ships of the school that brought him

forth.

 

The _Fuller_ was a wooden vessel, Bath built, and coppered, not with

the beautiful "red copper" we read about in Clark Russell, but with a

composition resembling brass, tough, yellow, and antifouling; a less

expensive sheathing than the pure copper, and, to my mind, every bit

as good a color, the bright yellow, between the deep blue sea and the

black hull, striking a pleasing line that glints like gold when the

sun just hits it at the proper angle.

 

Our ship was a full-bodied model, really a medium clipper, surprisingly

sharp, and with a clean run aft that gave her a handy pair of heels

in any kind of a favorable wind. Like most ships "of a certain age,"

the old girl was troubled with her timbers and joints. These had an

uncomfortable way of sliding over each other and complaining in a truly

agonizing manner.

 

"She has lots of 'give' to her," one of the men remarked on our running

into the first sea after leaving port.

 

The working of the vessel's timbers kept her bilge "sweet" by admitting

a liberal quantity of nice cool sea water seeping in all the way from

the garboard strake to the channels, a circumstance that necessitated

constant pumping, back breaking labor that in heavy weather continued

during the whole of the twenty-four hours, with two hands bending over

the lee bilge pump. The wheel, the lookout at night, and the bilge

pump, were taken in rotation by all hands. For back breaking, soul

destroying labor, nominate the bilge pump. I had a standing offer in

the fo'c'sle to stand two wheels for one bilge pump, Scouse and Fred

and Martin being my best customers until I was dated up so far in

advance on the steering that I had to take this on as well as the

pumping, which came along oftener as it called for two men.

 

In the matter of small trading we did a thriving business in the

fo'c'sle, some of us even branching out into foreign trade with the

starboard watch. I was the one to introduce this practice on board the

_Fuller_, a relic of my schoolship days, when pools were formed in the

different messes and five and ten rations of cold corned beef traded

off for potatoes, or potatoes and butter paid out as rental for the use

of the precious frying pans of which there were a few on board. When

I worked out a system of credits for different kinds of grub on the

_Fuller_ it was found to be a source of diversion and made possible

some adjustment along the lines of personal taste, in the matter of

our meals. We had stock fish every once in a while, no doubt as a

concession to the Scandinavian contingent, to be found in every ship

that sails the seas. I invariably passed off my share of this delicacy

to Fred or Martin and would be credited with their rations of apple

jack, a stew of musty dried apples; or I would contract for half of

their whack of lime juice and vinegar.

 

Mr. Zerk, with whom I always was a favorite, that is until we got to

Honolulu, occasionally gave me a jar of preserves, of which he had a

large store. These were home-made pickles and jams, and when brought

into the fo'c'sle caused quite a commotion.

 

"Rats with 'im and 'is rotten marmerlade," declared Jimmy in great

dudgeon when I brought forward the first fruits of my "stand in."

 

"Eat it yerself but don't ast no self-respectin' man to touch it," was

the sarcastic way in which the haughty Marshall voiced his sentiments.

"Wot do you say?" he demanded, glaring about the fo'c'sle to see if

anyone dared dispute him.

 

"Righto," piped up Joe. "That rotten skunk aft has poisoned the stuff,

I'll bet."

 

"No, it's good," I declared, dipping in with the tip of my sheath

knife. It was a jar of very red cherry jam. It also had a very pleasant

aroma as well as a pleasing taste. I purposely took a second very large

helping and could see that the temptation to fall was great.

 

"Here, Frenchy, don't eat any, now. Just _taste_ it, perhaps it does

taste a little funny." Frenchy tasted. "I don't know. It does taste

funny," he said.

 

"Here, gimme a piece o' tack," and Joe was sampling the jam very

liberally.

 

In a moment all hands, including Jimmy, were tasting it, and all

declared it tasted funny. As a matter of fact it did taste very funny

if we accepted apple jack as a standard.

 

As the last smear of jam was cleaned from the jar the hypercritical

Jimmy had the nerve to remark, "That was the rottenest marmerlade I

ever tasted."

 

However, after that no questions were raised when I brought a donation

forward, though to tell the truth these treats were scarce, as the

mate's private stock ran out long before we got to Honolulu.

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER X

 

CABIN AND FO'C'SLE

 

 

Captain Nichols was a good deal of a mystery to us forward. He seldom

came on deck except for a few moments of a fine morning, when he would

bob up, "take a sight" and stump deliberately down the companion to

the chronometer, counting the seconds out loud on his way. At noon he

"took the sun" alone in solitary scientific grandeur; only once do I

remember seeing the mate take an observation. One noon, I was at the

wheel at the time, our first officer came aft shortly before eight

bells, carrying an ancient "hog yoke." His sleeves were rolled up,

and a greasy shine on the arc of his instrument told of efforts at

polishing. Somehow he could not get the sun to behave, for the curious

relic seemed sadly in need of adjustment. He retired in disgust when

the captain "made eight bells," and stumped forward without answering,

when the skipper asked him what he had for altitude.

 

Tipping me the shadow of a wink, the captain went below to work up the

position.

 

The captain on the other hand was quite regular in his methods of

navigation. He watched the course closely, having a particularly fine

tell-tale compass swung beneath the skylight in his private cabin, as

every one of us had evidence by the uncanny way in which he would pop

up out of the companion at the most unheard of hours of the night and

walk quickly to the binnacle, and seldom except when the helmsman was

off his course.

 

I met the captain a number of years afterward in Philadelphia. He was

then in command of a fine steamer and I was second mate of another

vessel of the same line. In the course of a pleasant visit talking

over old times on the _Fuller_, I asked him how he managed to keep

such close watch on the navigation of his ship without any particular assistance from his officers.