Under Sail 5

Under Sail 5

"You seem to stand the wheel a lot," the Skipper remarked one night,

having noted me by the dim light of the binnacle, for I also had done a

trick in the first dog watch when he happened to change the course.

 

The Old Man grinned, "Well, I suppose you like to be aft. Keep at it,

boy, and you'll get there. But it's a lonesome life; dammit, I would

rather be a farmer any day."

 

Captain Nichols thought this a great joke, the idea of being a farmer

pleased him so he had a good laugh as he surveyed the great spread of

canvas bowling along under his command. I felt sure he was joking.

Since then, I have often pondered over his remark and am now of the

opinion that he was in dead earnest.

 

Standing lookout on the fo'c'sle head was a favorite duty that no one

delegated. Finally, however, when we were well clear of the coast,

the mates began to pull down the lookout whenever there was any work

to be done. There always was considerable, for the mates would start

something as soon as they felt the least bit sleepy and would horse

their watches about even though it was absolutely unnecessary to start

a single rope.

 

Our fare on the _Fuller_ was of the regular deep water variety, made

palatable by the fact that we were living the open air life of a lot of

human gorillas. Our labors were torture, to me at least, until at last

the outraged muscles adjusted themselves to the unaccustomed work. Poor

Peter, he was a hundred times harder hit than I, and the four hours

below were barely enough to keep him alive. One night, a few days after

leaving port, when we mustered at midnight, Peter was not to be found.

"Was he called?" thundered the mate, as Old Smith reported him "not

present," doing so in a hesitating sort of way. "Was that ---- ----

called?" again thundered the mate. "By ---- I'll call him!" he shouted,

and strode forward, the second mate following. Peter lay half out of

his bunk, one leg over the edge. He had fallen back exhausted as soon

as he got his trousers on; he was dead to the cruel, hard world.

 

Mr. Zerk grabbed him by the leg, and, swinging him like a bag of meal,

he yanked Peter clear through the fo'c'sle door, landing him on the

deck with a thud, amid a shower of curses and the startled cry of the

victim.

 

This type of brutality was calculated to "put the fear of God into

us," as they say, and to strengthen discipline, and add snap and

vigor to our movements. It certainly had the effect of showing us how

important it was to be in the waist when the watch was mustered.

 

At the morning washdown the black slops that went by the name of coffee

tasted like the very nectar of the gods. We dipped in with our hook

pots, drinking it with relish, and the fact that it possessed mild

cathartic properties, may have had something to do with the excellent

state of our health. Cockroaches were not mentioned in the old scale

of provisions[5] adopted by a kind Congress for the nourishment of

the simple sailor-man. This was no doubt an oversight on the part of

some bucolic "sailor's friend," for they might have specified that "one

ounce of cockroaches may be substituted for an ounce of tea."

 

[5] The following is the Scale of Provisions allowed and served out to

the Crew during the voyage in addition to the daily issue of lime and

lemon juice and sugar, or other antiscorbutics in any case required by

law.

 

---------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+------+---+------+-----+-----

|Bread|Beef |Pork |Flour|Peas |Rice |Barley|Tea|Coffee|Sugar|Water

| lb. | lb. | lb. | lb. | pt. | pt. | pt. |oz.| oz. | oz. | qt.

---------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+------+---+------+-----+-----

Sunday | 1 |1-1/2| ... | 1/2 | ... | ... | ... |1/8| 1/2 | 2 | 3

Monday | 1 | ... |1-1/4| ... |1-1/8| ... | ... |1/8| 1/2 | 2 | 3

Tuesday | 1 |1-1/2| ... | 1/2 | ... | ... | ... |1/8| 1/2 | 2 | 3

Wednesday| 1 | ... |1-1/4| ... |1-1/8| ... | ... |1/8| 1/2 | 2 | 3

Thursday | 1 |1-1/2| ... | 1/2 | ... | ... | ... |1/8| 1/2 | 2 | 3

Friday | 1 | ... |1-1/4| ... |1-1/8| ... | ... |1/8| 1/2 | 2 | 3

Saturday | 1 |1-1/2| ... | ... | ... | ... | ... |1/8| 1/2 | 2 | 3

---------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+------+---+------+-----+-----

 

SUBSTITUTES

 

One ounce of coffee or cocoa or chocolate may be substituted for one

quarter ounce of tea; molasses for sugar, the quantity to be one

half more; one pound of potatoes or yams; one half pound of flour or

rice; one third pint of peas or one quarter pint of barley may be

substituted for each other.

 

When fresh meat is issued, the proportion to be two pounds per man,

per day, in lieu of salt meat.

 

Flour, rice, and peas, beef and pork, may be substituted for each

other, and for potatoes onions may be substituted.

 

NOTE BY AUTHOR.--The above is from the fo'c'sle card of the ship

_A. J. Fuller_, taken when I left her. This scale of provisions was

greatly amplified a few years later. It was found that a shipmaster

sticking close to the law in the matter of provisioning could easily

starve a crew, as there was no control over quality. On the _Fuller_,

the owners were liberal in provisioning. Such trouble as we had was

due to the conditions of deep water voyages.

 

Our tea was never without these disgusting vermin and none of us was

ever able to tell what gave it the peculiar flavor that we came to

relish--the twigs and leaves floating about in the brown liquor, or the

roaches lying drowned in the bottom of the can.

 

"They's no worse nor shrimps," philosophized Jimmy Marshall, and we

tried to believe him.

 

The cook, an ancient Celestial named Chow, hailing from Hong Kong, had

evidently put all of his gods behind him. His pigtail was gone, and

with it all sense of decency, so far as preparing food for sailor-men

was concerned. Those human precepts that all cooks are supposed to act

upon, the ethics, if you will, of the noble profession, that Marryat

tells us entitled the practitioner to wear a sword, in those good old

days when the Admiralty recognized the cook, were lacking in the breast

of Chow. He was a typical deepwater cook. What went aft was right, so

far as looks count anyway, but the kids that left for the fo'c'sle

often contained the most unsavory messes that ill-fortune can concoct.

Some of the men had words with Chow about this but the result was

increased carelessness and decreased portions.

 

"It don't do no good to scrap with the cook," was Jimmy Marshall's sage

advice. "If the dirty bum wants to be dirty he can fix us all up. I

knowed a cook once wot ---- in the soup an' bully on a English bark.

The skipper, he caught him at it, an' puts him in irons. The cook had

to be let out though because he was the only one wot could do the work,

an' they was mighty careful aft not to rile him after they knowed wot

he was. You got to leave them cooks alone."

 

We left Chow severely alone, and some of the crowd, Joe and Tommy

especially, constituted themselves his volunteer assistants, and almost

every first dog watch, one of them would be around the galley helping

out. Chow rewarded them by allowing the use of the oven to make "dandy

funk," a mess of broken hard tack and molasses, baked to a crisp.

 

When ten days had elapsed, after the final rations of fresh provisions

had been issued, a tot of lime juice, that reeked suspiciously

of vinegar, was served each day--by Act of Congress--to keep the

sailor-man from getting scurvey. At the same time the "harness casks,"

beef to starboard, and pork to port, did their duty nobly and each week

or so we would lift the forehatch and rouse up a slimy, wooden hooped

barrel, and roll it aft to the galley door, alternating to the port and

starboard harness casks.

 

After a month of chumming it with Frenchy, talking steadily from

three to four hours a night, we were both pretty well cleaned out

of experiences and ideas. Other groups had long before reached that

deplorable state, and new combinations were formed in the night walks

on deck. One night as we came on deck in the midwatch, Frenchy and

I noticed Jimmy Marshall and Martin standing at the lee of the main

hatch, in silence, after the watch had been mustered. The absence of

their usual animated discussions of everything temporal and mundane

attracted our attention. Soon we found ourselves at the lee of the

hatch; Martin and Jimmy warmed up to us and presently Jimmy and myself

were walking just aft of the forward house, and Martin and Frenchy

began to pace the deck to windward.

 

Jimmy was a new sort of chum and the poorest listener I have ever met,

which may have accounted for the peculiar one sided lay of his mind.

The hard knocks of experience were alone accountable for his knowledge,

varied and picturesque in the telling. He was chockful of religion and

was constantly repenting the bad deeds of his youth, telling them at

great length, and with such relish, that it seemed they had come to be

his one unfailing source of enjoyment. A terrible drunk in his day, he

had also indulged in robbery, having looted a house in Australia while

tramping overland to Sydney from Port Hunter, where he had "jumped" a

schooner, leaving everything behind, because of a row with the mate, in

which he felled him with a handspike.

 

"Walked away with a piece o' change an' a whole kit o' dunnage," was

the way he put it.

 

And also, according to his story, Jimmy had been a lightweight fighter

in his youth, many, many years before. He was the best chantey-man in

the crew; to hear him "sing" a rope was an inspiration to tired arms

and backs.

 

[Illustration: Jimmie Marshall]

 

While memory lasts, the picture of our first chantey, a few days after

leaving port, will remain with me as one of the great thrills that

have come my way. A heavy squall in the forenoon watch sent all of our

tops'l yards to the caps, everything coming down by the run, to hang

slatting in the gear. Sky sails, royals, flying jib, t'gans'ls, jib

tops'l, jib, fore topmast stays'l, and then the upper tops'ls were

lowered, the latter thrashing and straining against the downhauls as

the ship heeled to it almost on her beam ends, gaining headway with

a rush, and righting herself as we spilled the wind from the bulging

canvas.

 

Passing as quickly as it came, the squall left us wallowing under lower

tops'ls, the courses hanging in their gear.

 

All hands were called to make sail, and as we manned the main tops'l

halyards Jimmy Marshall jumped to the pin rail, and with one leg over

the top of the bulwark, he faced the line of men tailing along the deck.

 

"A chantey, boys!" shouted Mr. Stoddard as he took his place

"beforehand" on the rope. "Come now, run her up, lads. _Up! Up!_" and

the heavy yard commenced to creep along the mast to the sound of the

creaking parral, the complaining of the blocks, and the haunting deep

sea tune of "Blow the Man Down," greatest of all the two haul chanteys.

 

Jimmy--"Now rouse her right up boys for Liverpool town,"

Sailors--"Go way--way--blow the man down."

Jimmy--"We'll blow the man up and blow the man down,"

Sailors--"Oh, give us some time to blow the man down."

Jimmy--"We lay off the Island of Mader_de_gascar."

Sailors--"Hi! Ho! Blow the man down."

Jimmy--"We lowered three anchors to make her hold faster,"

Sailors--"Oh, give us some time to blow the man down."