Under Sail. Felix Riesenberg
80 to 90 seamen. As it was, we were hard put to it in an emergency and "all hands" was the rule on every occasion demanding quick work, in going about, or in making or taking in sail. When tacking it was "all hands, and the cook at the fore sheet." One watch could not hoist the main upper tops'l, except in the finest kind of weather, and then only by taking the halyards to the main deck capstan, and "inching" the great yard up in slow and painful fashion with much singing and "yo ho"ing.
Captain Nichols shaped a course well to the eastward, fetching almost to the Azores, before hauling his wind aft and squaring away for an easy run through the N. E. trades. Skysails and flying jib were up and down a score of times a day at this restless stage of the voyage, for every rag was kept drawing to the last moment. In squally weather, and we had plenty of it, the ship would race along, her lee scuppers boiling in white water as she heeled to the blast, hands standing by at the halyards, which were always flaked down clear for running, and every mother's son keyed to a high pitch, ready for quick work at braces, clewlines and buntlines.
To have a "wheel" or a "lookout" during the night watch was a rest, although the trick at the helm was a wideawake job, whether on a course, or "by the wind." I had a fondness for steering and often stood the wheel for Frenchy or Brenden, especially during the daytime when they were employed on sailor jobs that no one else of our watch was able to do. The mate winked at this practice, and as they often let me take their tricks at night, I was able to side step a lot of the skysail climbing that would ordinarily have fallen to me as the youngster of the watch.
My training on the old St. Mary's now stood me in good stead, and by remembering a lot of the advice given me by that prince of sailor-men, old Bos'un Dreilick of the schoolship,[4] I found myself rated with the best men in the ship, and far ahead of such fellows as Scouse, and Joe, and Martin, who were strong as bulls, but knew nothing. In between us ranged Australia and Fred, good ordinary sailors who knew the ropes, could hand, reef, and steer, but lacked that finished technique so essential to the proper able seaman. I must admit that in classing myself with men like Marshall, Frenchy, and Brenden, I am doing so at the tail end of this trio, and then only because of my skill at the helm, at heaving the "blue pigeon," and at sailing and handling boats, accomplishments that, except for steering, are rare among deep water sailors.
"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."
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,