Under Sail 9

Under Sail 9

For a minute or two there was a rapid exchange of blows without thought

of guard or parry. To get in as many and as strong a lot of blows as

possible was the simple system.

 

Jimmy cried out "time," but no account of time or rounds was

contemplated in the scheme of things. Fight was the business, and to a

finish.

 

"Biff!" They slammed against the side of the deck house; a splotch of

blood, dimly visible in the night, smeared the white paint. Once again

they swung back, when the ship gave a sudden roll, as a blow from Joe's

right landed on Scouse's nose, toppling him backward against the fife

rail. An iron pin, the one used to belay the chain sheets of the lower

tops'l, caught Scouse behind the ear and, with a grunt, he was "out."

 

Fortunately, nothing but rumors of the fight got aft. Scouse was well

beaten, and came to in his bunk, after Australia and Brenden had doused

him with salt water. Joe was badly battered up, and both men carried

"shiners." As Jimmy Marshall said, "Honors is even, but it was a wery

wery ragged fight."

 

The mate next morning greeted the watch with a broad grin, and the

story of the mill, told to the starboard watch by their lookout Tommy,

lost nothing in the telling. As for the port watch, we were glad it

was over and once again the atmosphere below returned to normal. A few

nights later Joe and Scouse chummed together, and from that day to the

night in Honolulu, when Joe deserted and went out on the barkentine

_Irmgard_ to Frisco, he and Scouse were inseparable.

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER V

 

NEPTUNE COMES ON BOARD

 

 

We were then in about five degrees of North Latitude, the trades had

failed us, and the doldrums claimed their share of bracing and hauling,

giving us little time for any other work. Every ripple on the brazen

sea called for a different angle of the yards, and in dead calm we lay

with our head yards braced sharp up and the after yards square, the

courses guyed out from the masts by slap lines and bowlines. During the

day a vertical sun beat down on our bare deck in unmerciful fashion,

lifting the scorching pitch from the seams and all but addling our

senses with the heat. The mates became more and more exacting, every

job palled, and the stuffy, unpalatable food of the fo'c'sle stuck in

our throats. The vessel was a chip of hell floating on the unforgiving

ocean; riveted for days, that stretched to weeks, amid the patches of

rusty sea weed, a thousand feet across, that tangled about the rudder

post, great sun-scorched fragments of the dead Sargasso Sea.

 

And all of this time we knew that the Southern branch of the Equatorial

Current was sending us back to the W. N. W. at the rate of several

miles a day!

 

In watch below, choking with the heat, we lay tossing sleeplessly in

our bunks while the sickly smell of the bilges came up from the fore

peak through the wind sails let down to ventilate the hold. Cockroaches

throve in added millions, and we were treated to our first rations

of weevily tack. The little white worms seemed to be everywhere. The

cracker hash was riddled with them as Chow selected the rottenest bread

for this purpose. Most of us developed boils, and the dark brown taste,

left by the vile food, resulted in a general loss of appetite. The heat

even forced the rats from the hold and on a dark night we could hear

them scampering about under the fo'c'sle head. The healthy sea tan of

the temperate zone left our faces, and we became peevish and morose.

 

Some of us tried to forget our misery by reading the books sent aboard

by the Seamen's Friend Society, others whiled away the hot watches

below, when sleep was impossible, by making wonderful models of ships

in bottles, almost a lost art nowadays, and revived on board the

_Fuller_ by Frenchy. Most of these works of art found resting places

behind the bars of waterfront saloons in Honolulu.

 

One blessing that came to us in this hell afloat was the fact that the

mates winked at the snatching of a few hours' sleep during the night

watches on deck, otherwise there is no telling how some of us would

have survived.

 

Our fo'c'sle scuttle butt soured, and Old Smith of the starboard watch

emptied it one Sunday morning and charred the inside with a bundle of

rope yarns to which he set fire. He told us how water gets bad in the

tropics, and then how its own impurities destroy themselves. "The bugs

scoff each other and die," and, went on Smithy, "they drops to the

bottom of the butt, like white skeletons, and the water is as clean and

good as ever."

 

About this time considerable activity went on forward among the old

sailors in both watches. One dog watch, men from both sides of the

fo'c'sle went aft and interviewed the captain.

 

"We are near the line," said Frenchy to me shortly afterward. "Don't

make any fuss about what goes on, and you'll get off easy," he

cautioned.

 

There were quite a few of us who had never crossed the equator, and

the preparations in the dog watches augured ill for those who chose to

resist the just tribute demanded by Father Neptune of all green sailors

who, in those days, ventured across the magic bounds.

 

A fair slant of wind had helped us along for a few days, when the Old

Man called Jimmy aft and imparted important information.

 

At eight bells in the afternoon watch, as all hands were mustering in

the waist, a hoarse hail from forward greeted us.

 

"_Ship Ahoy! Ship Ahoy!_" came the deep bass summons from a point

beneath the bow.

 

"Forward, there! Who hails us?" answered the captain, who stood out on

the poop, replying to the voice from forward.

 

"Father Neptune hails us, Captain," answered Hitchen, returning from

the bow. "He asks if there are any of his children on board who would

receive his blessing on their heads."

 

"Aye, bring him on board," ordered the skipper, a broad grin lighting

his features, and the two mates reflected the feeling aft by joining in

the smiles.

 

A noise of trudging along the deck followed, the King of the Sea, his

own whiskers hidden behind a broad beard of rope yarns, a bright red

harpoon in his right hand serving as a trident, and a large razor, made

of hoop iron, stuck in his belt, walked aft. He was draped in the folds

of an old boat sail, and for all of his regal trimmings we recognized

the famous Jimmy. A retinue followed, rigged out in true deepwater

style, and carrying a tub between them, which was deposited on deck

just aft of the mainmast.

 

"Captain," said Neptune, "I am told as 'ow you 'ave green 'ands on

board who 'ave to be shaved."

 

"Yes, Your Majesty, we have some with the hayseed still in their

whiskers," answered the skipper.

 

"Bring 'em forth!" thundered the King, unlimbering his razor and

passing the trident to the safe keeping of his wife, Amphitrite, in the

person of Axel, who towered two feet above the head of the King.

 

However, what Jimmy lacked in stature he made up in efficiency, and in

the imperious glance of scorn with which he greeted eight of us who

were lined up for his inspection.

 

Old Smith grabbed me by the neck; I was seated on the bottom of an

upturned bucket at the feet of the King.

 

"Your name?" demanded His Majesty, and as I was about to answer a

filthy swab of soapsuds and grease was thrust in my mouth and smeared

over my face and the shaving began, ending by a back somersault into

the tub of water behind.

 

"Next!" called Neptune in true barber shop style, and so, in turn, each

of the green hands went through the ordeal; the least willing getting

the most attention. Scouse and Joe were among the lubbers, and were

accorded special rites to the vast amusement of all hands. Australia

wound up the entertainment by handing Scouse and Joe pieces of gunny

sack, smeared with black paint, with which to wipe their faces.

 

"All right now!" called the mate, after the skipper had left the deck.

"Turn to and clean up," and we were back again to the rigid discipline

of the sea, relaxed for a brief hour to let King Neptune hold his sway.

 

After crossing the line we picked up the first whisperings of the S.

E. trades, that soon began to blow steadily and ushered in another

busy stage of the voyage. The refreshing wind and falling temperature

brought renewed vigor to our jaded crew. Although we had commenced to

feel the lack of fresh provisions, scurvy did not bother us, possibly

owing to the regular issue of lime juice, but the constant repetition

of salt pork and salt beef, the weevily hard tack, and the abominable

slumgullion, a stew made from canned mutton, made us crave for

something decent to eat.

 

Frenchy often drove us to the verge of distraction with his stories of

the cooks at home in Dunkirk, until we finally had to put the ban on

that sort of discourse. Again, we landed several bonitas teeming with

energy, and, after the silver coin test, all hands fell to with a will,

myself included. We also hooked a shark and hauled him on board by a

"handy billy" snatched to the fore rigging.

 

The regular routine of setting up shrouds and stays preparatory to

entering the heavy weather off the Horn, now began in earnest. We

had left New York with a full set of new hemp lanyards in our lower

rigging. The lanyard knots were turned in in a slovenly manner, with a

lubberly disregard for appearances, that proved an eyesore to Captain

Nichols. We cast new knots in these, and set up all standing rigging

anew; a long, interesting job that initiated us into the mysteries of

"rackings" and the "Spanish windlass," and the practical workings of

the various "purchases" and "burtons"; the "luff tackles," and the "gun

tackles."

 

The mate was the leading spirit in these proceedings, staying on deck

practically all day to supervise the work. As we would set up one pair

of shrouds to port and another to starboard, bringing them to a "full

due," the mate was always there to say when to clap on the racking and

"come up" on the rigging luffs.

 

How the mate stood it often amazed me, for he was very lively at night,

but toward the end of this work the second mate would stand his last

dog watch for him, giving our first officer a six hour spell of sleep

every other day. What this means on a watch and watch racket, sailors who have traveled the long voyage route will know.