Under Sail 6

Under Sail 6

All hands--"Then we'll blow the man up,

And we'll blow the man down,

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

We'll blow him right over to Liverpool town,

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

Ho! Stand by your braces,

And stand by your falls;

Hi! Ho! Blow the man down,

We'll blow him clean over to Liverpool town,

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

 

Old Marshall faced to windward, his mustache lifting in the breeze, the

grey weather worn fringe of hair bending up over his battered nose. He

always sang with a full quid in his cheek, and the absence of several

front teeth helped to give a peculiar deep-sea quality to his voice.

 

"We have a man-o-war crew aboard, Mr. Zerk!" shouted the Captain from

the top of the cabin, where he had come out to see the fun.

 

"Aye, aye, sir! Some crew!" returned the Mate, looking over us with a

grim smile.

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER III

 

CHRISTMAS DAY ON THE HIGH SEAS

 

 

Life was not always so pleasant on board the _Fuller_. Hard words were

the common run of things and the most frightful and artistic profanity

often punctuated the working of the ship. Given a ship's company barely

strong enough to handle a two thousand five hundred ton three-skysail

yarder, even had they all been seasoned able seamen, our officers had

to contend with a crew over half of which rated below that of the

"ordinary" classification of seamanship, thick skinned clodhoppers,

all thumbs on a dark night, and for many weeks after leaving port,

as useless as so much living ballast. The kicking and moulding into

form of this conglomerate mass of deep sea flotsam, gathered for the

ship by the boarding masters, and duly signed on the ship's articles

as A.B., called for all but superhuman efforts. The curse is far more

potent than the gentle plea, especially when hard fists and hobnailed

sea boots are backed by all of the age old authority of the sea. To

work a ship of the proportions of the _Fuller_, with seventeen hands

forward, called for man driving without thought of anything but the

work required.

 

The latter days of the sailing ship as a carrier, before invoking the

aid of steam auxiliary apparatus, in the hoisting and hauling, brought

forth the brute sea officer aft, and the hardened fo'c'sle crowd, half

sailor and half drudge, forward. The "bucko mate" walked her decks,

and the jack tar, stripped of his pigtail, his bell mouthed canvas

trousers, his varnished sailor hat, and his grog, remained in plain

dungaree and cotton shirt to work the biggest sailing craft in the

history of the world on the last hard stages of their storm tossed

voyages.

 

Mixed with our real sailors were the worthless (so far as sea lore

went) scrapings of the waterfront. Shipped by the boarding masters for

the benefit of their three months' "advance," and furnished for sea

with rotten kits of dunnage, as unreliable and unfitted for the work

as the poor unfortunate dubs who were forced by an unkind fate to wear

them.

 

On the other hand, the real sailor-men of the crew were valued

accordingly, and I can hardly remember an instance where either one

of the mates singled out for abuse those men who had shipped as A.B.

and were so in fact. My schoolship training (_St. Mary's_ '97) stood

by me, and though barely turned eighteen, I was saved from most of the

drudgery meted out to the farmers of the watch.

 

After washing through the heavy seas we encountered for the first few

weeks of the voyage, while beating off the coast on the long reach

eastward to the Azores, the long hard pine sweep of the main deck

became slippery with a deposit of white salt-water slime. The sheen

of this scum, in the moonlight, under a film of running water, gave

the decks a ghastly "Flying Dutchman" like appearance, and the footing

became so precarious that something had to be done.

 

"They have the 'bear' out," Scouse announced, as he trudged into the

fo'c'sle carrying a "kid" of cracker hash, ditto of burgoo, a can of

coffee, and a bag of hard tack, this cargo of sustenance being our

regulation breakfast menu.

 

"The bear?" I asked, as we gathered about this appetizing spread.

 

"Yes, the bear," volunteered Brenden, grinning with the rest of the

sailors. "The bear for Scouse, and Joe, and Martin, and Fred."

 

At eight bells, as we mustered aft, a subdued banter went on among

the men. The starboard watch were all grinning, and as they went below

four sheepish looking fellows of the other side turned the "bear" over

to the farmers of our watch. "Keep that jackass baby carriage moving

now. D'ye hear me? Keep it moving!" bellowed the mate, for there was

some reluctance in taking hold, and as Scouse and Martin tailed on,

opposed to Joe and Fred, the doleful scrape of the bear mingled with

the general laughter at the mate's sally.

 

The bear consisted of a heavy box, a thick thrum mat lashed on the

bottom of it, and the inside loaded with broken holy stones and charged

with wet sand. Four stout rope lanyards were rigged to the corners and

served to haul the thing back and forth while the sand filtered down

through the mat, providing the necessary scouring agent. A day or two

with the bear in constant service, both day and night, cleaned up the

decks and provided us with considerable amusement, that is, those of us

who were lucky enough to be kept at more dignified jobs.

 

Ships leaving the Atlantic Coast in the winter months bend their best

suit of sails. The severe weather usually encountered in working clear

of the land, and the chance of having to ratch off from a lee shore,

make this precaution one of great importance. The fact that green crews

are bound to be more or less slow in taking in sail during squalls may

also account for the "storm suit" under which we sailed from port.

 

[Illustration: Fred]

 

On our first night out, shortly before one bell in the mid watch,

our crowd having just gone below, the fore topmast stays'l blew from

the bolt ropes with the report of a cannon. We had already clambered

into our bunks, dog tired, when this occurred, and muttered oaths,

anticipating a call of "all hands," came from untold depths of

weariness within the fo'c'sle. On deck there was the hurried tramping

of feet, and the shouting of the second mate. We could hear the long

wail of the men at brace and downhaul, the "Ah-hee-Oh-hee-ah-Ho!" with

all of its variation as the slaves of the ropes launched their age-old

complaint on the whipping winds. I lapsed into slumber with the dim

consciousness that the second mate was handling the situation alone,

and a heartfelt thanks for the warmth of the blankets in my narrow

bunk; a foot above me the cold rain pattered against the roof of the

fo'c'sle house, its music mingling with the swish of the water under

the fore channels.

 

After three weeks of beating to the eastward, having fetched almost as

far across as the Azores, and being in the region of the northern limit

of the N. E. trades, the captain hauled his wind and squared away for

the run through the trade wind belt to the doldrums and the line. Fine

weather became the order of the day and life on board settled down to a

more regular routine.

 

On a Saturday morning, the day having broken remarkably fine, a

brilliant red sunset followed by a cold grey dawn, assuring us of the

settled weather that the steady "glass" made more certain, all the

world seemed ready to rejoice, for it was Christmas Day. Word was

passed into the fo'c'sle by the other watch, as we turned out for our

breakfast, "We shift sail today."

 

"All hands on deck for us, me boys!" piped Australia. "An' the first

watch on deck tonight," chipped in Jimmy Marshall, "an' a hell of a

Christmas Day!"

 

Jimmy lit his pipe for a morning puff; climbing into his bunk, he

dangled his short legs over the frowsy head of big Scouse who sat with

his dejected poll bent under the upper bunk board, a fair sample of the

despondent crowd of farmers who faced a Christmas Day of labor.

 

"A hell of a Christmas Day, boys,

A hell of a Christmas Day,

For we are bound for the bloody Horn

Ten thousand miles away."

 

Jimmy rendered this little ditty of cheerfulness as Fred picked up the

breakfast kids and started for the galley, while we turned out on the

sun-splashed planks as the last of eight bells vibrated over the ship.

She lay still in a near calm like a scene by Turner, all of her canvas

hanging in picturesque festoons from the jackstays, where the starboard

watch had cast off the courses and tops'ls, leaving them depending in

their gear. The decks had not been washed down, in order to keep them

dry, and the mate himself had turned out at four bells to start the

ball rolling.

 

Long bundles of the fine weather canvas were stretched on the decks

ready for swaying aloft. Working like demons in the forenoon, and with

all hands on deck after dinner, which was dispatched in haste, we had

the courses, and in turn the tops'ls and light sails, lowered to the

deck, and the gantlines rigged to hoist the summer canvas; this we

sent aloft in record time. These old sails, soft and mellow, veterans

of a dozen voyages, patched and repatched, with whole new cloths of

a lighter grade here and there streaking the dull white-weathered

surface, were as smooth and pliable as a baby's bonnet.

 

On some of them, the fore upper tops'l especially, we found records of

the many crews who had handled them before. "James Brine, Liverpool. On

his last voyage," was one inscription. I hope Brine achieved his end

and stayed ashore. A date under this was hardly decipherable but may

have been Jan., June, or July, the day the eighth, and the year 1893.

 

Bending a sail calls for the nicest knowledge; the passing of the head

earing must be done in a certain manner, so the head of the sail will

hold well up on the yard arm; the gear, consisting of tacks, sheets,

clew garnets, and buntlines, in the case of a "course," not to mention

the leechlines, and bowlines, must all be rove and rigged just so. The

"robands" or pieces of rope yarn, are all looped through the "head

holes" ready for bending the sail to the iron jackstay on the yard, and

when a sailor does the job, all goes as smooth as a wedding when the parson knows his job.