Under Sail. Felix Riesenberg
left-overs, Martin, and Peter the boy, were divided by the call of Peter to the starboard watch, and Martin fell to the mate. Peter, an American, ex-reporter on a Worcester paper, one time foreman in a corset factory, and a bright, wideawake boy of something over twenty-one, had shipped for eight dollars a month and his health. The voyage netted him his payday many times over, for he was endowed with brains and, starting out a wreck, he came back a toughhanded deepwater man.
It was close to six bells by that time. Chips had set out the running lights and was getting the big pump ready, having sounded the well and reported a foot of water.
"Starboard watch below for tucker!" ordered the mate; and then turning to the men of his watch, he ordered, "Man the pump!"
It was dark as we bent to the cranks of the big pump, and with the hum of wind and the swish of water in our ears we realized that we were truly at sea, insignificant mortals riding on the low deck of a vast fabric of wood and canvas, venturing far from land on the mighty stretches of the Western Ocean.
That first night at the pump, forerunner of many, many other nights, our little band of watch mates toiled in silence, except for a few monosyllables. Four men to each crank, two on a side, facing each other, our tired arms and backs reciprocated to the action of rotation like so many toy figures actuated by some hidden clockwork; the new labor was almost a rest after the constant pulling and hauling of the day. Finally the low, raucous wheezing of the valves told us we were sucking air, and the mate, from the darkness of the poop, called out, "Belay pump!"
It is the custom of the sea, handed down from time immemorial, that "The captain takes her out and the mate brings her back." That is, the first regular watch at sea is taken by the captain's watch on the outward passage, and the same watch is taken by the port, or mate's watch, on the start for home. Of course the second mate stands the starboard watch, except in case of emergency.
Accordingly, at four bells, we went below, and after a hasty supper we sought our bunks for a brief rest before turning out for the watch from eight to midnight. We were tired—some of us, to the point of utter exhaustion—and a few of the older men claimed that we were being cheated out of our right to the first four-hour watch below, ours having merely been a dog watch of 2 hours from 6 to 8. Anyhow, whatever we thought about that, nothing was said above a mild growling in the fo'c'sle, and as we tumbled out at eight bells, and both watches lined up in the waist to muster, the chill wind cut through us, and a moment later we were greeted by an order from aft.
"Hands aloft to overhaul the t'gallant and royal buntlines!"
Up I went on the mizzen, never caring to lag behind on an order to lay aloft, a piece of twine in my pocket. The gear was overhauled and stopped just below the blocks, so the buntlines would not chafe the sails, and at the same time the stops of cotton twine were frail enough to be easily broken. When at times they were not, some unlucky wight would clamber aloft at the critical moment of taking in sail amid the slatting of canvas and the most profuse showers of artistic abuse.
Coming down from this task, I was in time to witness a burst of profanity on the part of the mate. "Keep moving, you beach-combing——————! Every lousy————————! I won't have no 'lime juice' sleeping on deck this voyage. D'ye hear that?" All heard, for there was a shuffle of weary feet about the main hatch, where several of the watch had perched comfortably in the dark, and, after a moment of indecision, sprinkled with derogatory mutterings, we paired off in little groups of twos, walking the swaying deck wherever we could find places free from the back draft of the sails.
Frenchy was my first chum on the Fuller, and though for periods we drifted apart, through sheer mutual exhaustion of our interchangeable ideas, yet we always came together again. Somehow, on the very start of the voyage, when the crimps and runners bade us that sad farewell from the port of New York, we were drawn together. The night that we paired off, on our first watch at sea, it seemed natural that Frenchy and I should elect to stump the deck in company. We preempted a path from the lee main pin rail to the after end of the forward house. "It's better here than anywhere," remarked Frenchy, and I soon found he was right, as we missed the draft from the mains'l and were partly sheltered by the house on the forward leg of our walk.
Frenchy was a heavy-whiskered, ruddy specimen, sporting the square-cut beard of the French sailor. He was an ex-naval man, and one time prison guard in the penal settlement of New Caledonia. Trained to the sea since boyhood, in the fishing fleet of Dunkirk, for many years a rigger in the naval yards at Brest, a sailor man on every type of craft from the Mediterranean ybeck to a ship. Victor Mathes was one of the finest types of the Gallic seaman.
His life was a vague and many folded nebula of romance. He was full of stories of the life in New Caledonia, of the discipline on the outlying islands, of punitive expeditions, and of the intrigues and jealousies among the checkered lives that wear themselves away in those distant places.
Night after night we paced the deck during the long, cold watches, and between the calls to man this rope or that, and the horsing and rustling about that was always indulged in, we swapped information of all kinds, related all sorts of experiences, truthful and otherwise, and each man explored his mental storehouse for the amusement and benefit of his chum. For hours at a time Frenchy would talk of good things to eat; this was a hobby, in fact a sort of passion, with him and often drove me to the verge of distraction. He would go into the minutest detail of how his sister Madeleine, back in Dunkirk, prepared some particular dish, telling not only of the delightful flavor and succulent qualities, but he would go into the subject of the way things smelled, roast fowl, with all sorts of fancy stuffing. My mouth would water at these cruel recitals and I know that Frenchy suffered as much as I did at the poignant recollections of gastronomic joys long past.
CHAPTER II
THE OUTWARD PASSAGE
When well clear of the coast we roused the bower anchors up on the fo'c'sle head and lashed them. "A sure sign, sonny, that you are off soundings," said Brenden; "these wind wagons don't take no chances till they get a safe offing." The cables were unshackled, and the ends stoppered abaft the wildcats. Canvas coats were put on to them, just over the chain pipes leading to the locker. "Jackasses" were then bowsed into the hawse holes for fair, taking the "tails" to the windlass. With the ground tackle secured, the "cat" and "fish" were unrove, and this gear stowed away in the fore peak. We had entered upon the real deepwater stage of the voyage, with lee shores, and soundings, many miles away.
The Fuller[3] carried a complement of sixteen hands forward, and a "boy," not counting the "idlers"—that is, the carpenter, cook and cabin steward—a small enough crew for a vessel displacing in the neighborhood of 2,500 tons, dead weight, a craft 229 feet between perpendiculars, 41½ feet beam and 23 feet depth of hold, ship rigged, with skysails, royals, single t'gans'ls, double tops'ls, and courses. Her main yard was 90 feet from tip to tip. A crojik was carried as well as a spanker. On her stays, she carried flying jib, jib tops'l, jib and fore topmast stays'l, main t'gallant stays'l, main topmast stays'l. Mizzen t'gallant stays'l and a main spencer completed her spread of canvas. When on a wind, in a whole-sail breeze, with crojik furled, and spanker set, the ship Fuller spread twenty-five kites to the wind.
Now think of the handsome way in which they manned their ships in the olden days of the tea clippers when a vessel half her size would carry forty men forward! And a vessel of equal