Читать книгу There She Blows! Or, The Log of the Arethusa - William Hussey Macy - Страница 5

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FROM THE BAR ROUND GREAT POINT.

When the ship was righted, and all was made snug for the night, we proceeded to arrange the chaotic mass of sea-chests, bedding, kegs of oil soap, and miscellaneous sea-stores, and to perform the apparently impossible task of condensing sixteen men, with all their real and personal estate, into a little triangular space, called (by courtesy) the forecastle, so as to leave standing and dancing room at the foot of the ladder. This problem, however knotty it might seem to the uninitiated, was successfully solved, under the superintendence of the four "salts" who had been to sea before, two of whom were Portuguese from the Azores, one a gigantic negro who had been three voyages in the same employ, and the fourth a white American of some little intelligence—one of those sea-lawyers or "clock-setters," who are to be found in all sorts of ships, and who make more mischief then can well be imagined by people not conversant with matters of this sort. The stowage being completed, each one fitted up his own "bunk," the four veterans having, of course, appropriated the choice ones by marking them with their own hieroglyphics before the ship left the wharf. Supper was then passed down, and a smart show of new tin-ware brought into requisition. Old Jeff swore at the tea, called it "frightened water" (it did certainly appear to have been mixed on homœopathy principles), and avowed his determination to have his brother African, the cook, over the windlass end before he had been a week in blue water, unless a decided improvement should be observed in this respect. In which threat he was ably seconded by Burley, the sea-lawyer, and the two Ghees, we green hands merely eating with eyes wide open, not yet daring to advance our opinions.

The remains of the banquet cleared away, most of us lighted our "half-Spanish" outfit cigars, but Old Jeff, disdaining such flummeries, produced his approved narcotic solace, in the shape of a well-worn and blackened "chunk," which being duly loaded and set on fire, he settled himself in a sort of Sir Oracle attitude, and prepared to give the attentive novices the benefit of his long experience.

"Now, boys," said Jeff, between the puffs, "you'll find you've got to toe the mark here. Our old man's a hard one, I can tell ye, for I've sailed with him afore. I can get along well enough with him, 'cause I know him, and he knows me, too, like a book. I haven't sailed ten years with him for nothing. Why, bless your souls, he wouldn't know how to get under way without me." This was one of Jeff's delusions—that he considered himself a necessary fixture or part of the ship. "He's a hard one," he continued, "and you lads will have to stand round when he gets among ye. He wont trouble me, you know,'cause I know my duty, chock to the handle; but he's down on any man that don't know his duty."

"But, surely," I ventured to say, "he cannot be so unreasonable as to expect a green hand to know a seaman's duty by intuition. We don't profess to know anything; we come our first voyage to learn, and if we show ourselves willing to learn, we do all that can be reasonably expected of us."

"I don't know nothing about your inter-ition," returned Old Jeff, showing the whites of his eyes to a frightful extent. "That's further into the booktionary that ever I overhauled. But I know this old man, and it's no use for a lad like you to argy about things that you don't understand. If you and me was going to talk in 'long-shore company, now, I s'pose I'd have to strike my flag, 'cause you could launch some three-deckers, like that one just now; but here, you know, I'm to home. You just hold on a bit; he'll let you know who's who, when he gets you off soundin's!"

"I aint afraid he'll do me anything," said the sea-lawyer, Burley, his voice coming with a sepulchral sound from the depths of the bunk, where he was already stretched at full length. "I don't allow any live man to do me anything. I've been in all sorts of ships, men-of-war, merchantmen, and—well, I wont say what else. But I always stood up for my rights."

"That's all well enough, you know," replied the negro, speaking with less assumption of superiority now that he was addressing a man of experience. "That's all well enough to stand up, if all hands would hang together standin' up"—(quite unconscious of the bull, of course). "But they wont, 'cause they don't know their duty. Now, you see, you and me's got to do 'bout all the duty here—"

"What you talk about?" said one of the two Ghees, a swarthy, big-whiskered fellow, with that restless eye so common among his countrymen. "What you talk about—do all dutee? I no want you do my work. S'pose you do your own work, me all e' same."

"Ah, well! I don't mean nothin' 'bout you and Antone, of course!" said Jeff, turning nearly white at the interruptions. "I s'pose you two can do your duty well enough. What I mean to say is," thus ingeniously shifting his ground, "there'll be only two of us in each watch to do all the duty. 'The doctor' he don't count nobody, 'cause he don't stand watch, and he's got enough to do to look after his galley. Now, when I first went a whaling, they used to have some men aboard of a ship; but now-a days they send them out filled with a lot of children. I expect if I go two or three voyages more, I'll see 'em bring their mothers out with 'em. I don't know, for my part, what they ship such spindle-legged boys for!"

"I do!" shouted the clock-setter, from the recesses of the bunk. "Because they can do just what they like with 'em, and they don't know their rights. If they were to ship a whole crew of old hands that knew their rights and stood up for them, they'd get brought up with a round-turn."

"R-r-r-ights!" muttered Manoel the Portuguese. "What that you talk 'bout r-r-rights? What for you begin gr-r-owl now, no got ship out sea yet? Time enough gr-r-owl, s'pose old man no do r-r-right by-'m-by."

"But it's always well enough to have these things understood in the beginning," insisted Burley. "I want a man to use me like a man, and I mean he shall, too. I don't know what you Dagos mean to do, but I'll have my rights."

"R-r-rights!" echoed Manoel, with infinite contempt. "All 'e time r-r-rights!"

"I tink s'pose have row 'board dis ship—you no do more's 'nother mans," said the little Portuguese, Antone, with that quick perception of character, which, in many of his class, seems to supply the place of both theoretical knowledge and worldly experience.

"Well, you'll see," returned the sea-lawyer. "Time will show. I sha'n't ask any Dago to tell me what to do."

"Dago no tell you, s'pose you ask," answered the quiet little Portuguese, sarcastically.

He had already conceived a disgust for one, at least, of his shipmates. Though having no desire, at present, to quarrel with him, he took in good part the epithet of "Dago," which Burley had always at his tongue's end.

"Well," said I, "I shall not believe that the captain—"

"Who's the captain?" interrupted Old Jeff.

"Why, Captain Upton."

"O! the old man you mean. If you was talking about the skipper of another ship, it might do to say the cap'n, but ours is always the old man—mind that."

"Very well—the old man, then," I resumed. "I shall not believe that he will misuse or ill-use a man for not knowing what he can't be expected to know without some practice and experience. It's an old saying that the devil is not so black as he is painted; and the only way for us new hands is to go to work cheerfully, and try to learn our duty. I'm sure I am willing to learn, and would be obliged to any one who would teach or help me."

This view of the matter, and my expression of it, at once found an echo from all the other youngsters, while, at the same time, it secured for me the better opinion of Old Jeff himself; who, though a notorious growler, was not a bad-hearted man in the main. In deed, this negro was a specimen of a class which every seaman will recognize at once, who growl rather from confirmed habit than from any evil motive; and nothing could be further from his mind than to be the intentional cause of trouble on board any ship in which he served. Not so with Burley, whom I set down at once as a man to be instinctively avoided and distrusted. Growling, with Old Jeff, was a weakness, and, from long indulgence in the practice had become, as it were, an essential part of his existence; but the sea-lawyer was a deliberate mischief-maker. In one respect, as I afterwards discovered, they were much on a par, being both arrant cowards when put to the test.

The cook now made his appearance down the ladder—a merry, simple-hearted African, of a shining bottlegreen complexion, between whom and Old Jeff a harmless sort of skirmishing feud existed, they having sailed together on the previous voyage with Captain Upton, and contracted a habit of cracking coarse jokes upon each other to such an extent that a stranger might have supposed them to be in a towering rage at times, when they were in reality fast friends.

"Halloo, Jeff, aint you turned in yet?" said the cook, showing his ivory from ear to ear. "Here you be, boys; all de bunks taken up, and I's left like dey say de Son o' Man in de Scriptur', nowhere to lay my head. De old man says he's going to have an extra bunk put up for me in de steerage. S'pose he wont do it till after we get out to sea."

"Take your black mug out of this!" thundered Old Jeff, who was stripping off preparatory to retiring for the night. "You make the fo'castle so dark a man can't see to turn in. You'll put the lights out if you stay here five minutes."

"Now don't trouble yourself to get in a puncheon when a hogshead's big enough to hold ye," retorted the "doctor" in a tantalizing way. "Some people might think you's dangerous, if dey didn't know ye as well as I do. You can't frighten Kentucky Sam, you know. Lord sakes! You might run loose till kingdom come, 'thout any muzzle; you wouldn't bite nobody. Might bark some, though."

"I'll bark your crooked shins for you, if you don't shut up. I'm goin' to turn in; we shall have two lighters alongside to-morrow morning and Uncle Brock will be turning us to, as soon as he can see daylight through a ladder."

"Well, now, don't be flyin' off de handle, altogedder," said the cook with provoking coolness, "'cos I's goin' to turn in myself, soon's I fix up a bed on dese two donkeys." (Sea chests.)

"I'll settle your hash for you to-morrow," roared Jeff, extending his herculean fist from the bunk, and shaking it apparently in a state of great excitement.

"All right. Call at my office any time before dinner. Sha'n't have no hash to settle tho'. 'Taint hash day to-morrow, anyhow."

By this time the sable functionary was stretched at his ease on his temporary shake down, and the sparring ended for the night. Some of the boys were already snoring off the fatigues of the day, and the rest were making a movement bedward; so I had leisure to reflect a little upon the sudden change in my situation and the new and strange society into which I was thrown. Yet though my meditations kept me wakeful for some time, they were by no means of a despondent cast. I was on board a first-rate ship, new and stanch, and as I had every reason to believe, well appointed for a successful voyage; and though I had already found out that the chances were in favor of three years' absence instead of one (the statements of the polite Mr. Ramsay to the contrary notwithstanding), even this did not deter me from following my bent. I should see much of the Pacific side of the world in that length of time, would so conduct myself as to ensure promotion, and my calculations as well as my observation at Nantucket, had satisfied me that the business must prove quite lucrative to captains and officers who could command high lays. As for my shipmates they were probably an average of rough men, and I could soon adapt myself to their humors.

I fell asleep, dreamed of piles of gold doubloons, all besmeared with whale oil, but shining the brighter for it, and was roused at the first peep of dawn by the stentorian voice of Uncle Brock exhorting us to "muster up and get the lighter alongside." Old Jeff brought his immense flat feet from his bunk to the deck with a bound, calling to us youngsters to "show a leg!" and also administering a smart kick to his ebony friend the cook, by way of a gentle hint to "bear a hand and get the grub under way." Burley, to support consistently his character as an old man-of-wars man, asserted his "rights" by standing three or four calls.

The first sound that greeted my ears, as I emerged from the scuttle, was an invocation from the leathern lungs of the skipper of the lighter. "Arethusa aho-o-oy! Rouse and bitt, you youngsters! I know you've got strong constitutions. You can stand more sleep than a polar bear in winter time! Get your lines ready. I'm coming alongsi-i-de!" and the gruff response of old Captain Brock mounted on the rail. "What the devil ails you, Uncle Dan? You've turned out wrong end foremost! That polar bear of yours has got a sore head by the way he growls! You talk about sleeping! Why, anybody knows that you can sleep twenty-two hours out of twenty-four, and then d—n the dogwatch."

But the war of words between these old salts was quite as harmless as that of the two black shipmates; and the sloop being soon lashed alongside, the noisy old skipper came on board the ship to breakfast. The hands were then turned to again, and the work of taking in stores and provisions, and filling salt-water ballast in the ground tier went briskly on. I was selected, with one other green hand, to work in the hold under the direction of another old whaleman, who filled the second mate's place pro tempore, and the boatsteerers, two of whom were promising young men, natives of the island, and the third, or captain's boatsteerer, was a mulatto, who was ex-officio, third mate, and had the handle to his name, being addressed as Mr. Johnson. These worthies all messed in the cabin, as well as the cooper, who had not yet come on board. There were no bunks in the steerage; the Arethusa being, in this respect, an exception to the generality of ships at that time. But it was a favorite expression with Captain Upton, "that he had but two ends to his ship, and wanted every man to keep in his own end." I succeeded so well in satisfying the petty officers, that, before we had finished loading the ship, they were all agreed that it was expedient to retain me as one of the regular "hold gang," provided no objection should be raised by those higher in authority.

The quantity of stores put on board a whaleship, for a long voyage, would astonish any one not acquainted with the business. A ship is literally crammed full when she sails, and one is tempted to ask, "Where is the oil to be put when we get it?" Every cranny and crevice is filled with wood or lumber of some sort, and to add to the puzzle, the ship carries from a thousand to fifteen hundred barrels or casks in the form of shooks, or packed bundles of staves, which, in the event of a successful voyage, are all, of course, to be set up, filled with oil and stowed away. But, as the gradual consumption of provisions and stores keeps pace with the gradual accumulation of oil, and as some space is gained in restowing, each time, it is managed, somehow, and a whaleship is always full, or nearly so, all the voyage. Still it seems, in some sort, a mystery, even to old whalemen themselves.

In about ten days the stowage was completed, the topgallant-masts and yards sent aloft, in which process we boys found opportunity to display our agility in fetching and carrying, as well as to acquire some knowledge of seamanship, and to unravel other puzzling questions as to "how those long poles were to be put up so high?" and "what kept them there when up?", the spare sails, boats, etc., received on board, and the ship reported ready for a start. Mr. Richards, the out-door agent of Messrs. Brooks & Co., had never relaxed his fatherly vigilance, visiting his protégés every day, praising and encouraging us, and prophesying a short voyage and "greasy luck" to the Arethusa.

The day of departure arrived, with a fair wind and plenty of it; the last boats came alongside at three o'clock in the morning, bringing the captain and officers, with their luggage, and the agent of the ship, with several other friends, who had come to "see us off" and return in the pilot-boat; and who, of course, burst into enthusiastic praises of the new ship, and the arrangement of all on board, protesting that it almost made them wish they were going themselves. The windlass was soon after manned; the topsails loosed (not exactly in man-of-war style, with a simultaneous fall), green hands were hurried here and there, ropes pointed out to them and put into their hands; the anchors slowly but steadily rose to the bows; and, by sunrise, the gallant Arethusa, feeling the impulse of the fresh breeze, was fairly underway, and her course shaped to clear Great Point.

I had anticipated another course of martyrdom from sea-sickness; but I soon found that the gallant Lydia Ann had broken me in completely, and I was destined to suffer no more from that intolerable malady. It was a great relief to feel that my stomach had gained the victory in the conflict with old Neptune's medicine chest. There was something exhilarating in the sensation of feeling the lively ship springing under my feet, and driving onward under the impulse of her distended wings; in looking back at the low, receding island, the cradle whence had issued so many stout hearts and strong arms to vex every sea with their fisheries, and feeling that I, too, was now embarking in this adventurous and romantic business; and in observing how Captain Upton, with his mate and the owner, grouped together on the quarterdeck, watched the behavior and movements of the new vessel, from time to time commenting, as they found occasion for so doing, and comparing her qualities and merits with those of other time-worn and well-tried ships. I myself began to feel a little of that pride in my floating home springing up within me, which every seaman feels for his vessel. Then, as I looked again astern, at the dim outline of Nantucket, fast sinking towards the horizon, my thoughts reverted to my pleasant country home, to my parents and my much loved sister left there, and a prayer went up—yes, a prayer; a silent one, but none the less sincere. A glance of the captain's eye aloft; a word, "Port!" to Old Jeff at the wheel; another word in an under tone to the mate; and then the loud order, "Square in the yards!" chased away these gentle thoughts, and recalled my mind to the voyage before me.

As we had rounded Great Point, the ship was kept away with the wind nearly aft, and standing more stiffly up to her work, went booming off at a rate which promised to leave home far out of sight before nightfall. Old Jeff, when relieved by Manoel, came forward in ecstacies. He had quite forgotten his growling propensity, in the excitement of the moment, and vowed she was the most perfect beauty that ever swam under his flat feet; that she steered like a pilot-boat; and, as for sailing! why she'd go round and round the old Colossus (his last ship), and not half try herself.

"Now," said the negro, "I only want to see her work on a wind, and go in stays once or twice. But I know—confound it—I know she'll tack in a pint of water. I can tell by the way she feels under me. If we don't get a load of oil this time, it wont be the ship's fault. Hurrah! twenty-five months—twenty-five hundred barrels! that's all we want to give her a bellyful! that's all! twenty-five;"—and went off into a shuffle step of cadence.