Читать книгу There She Blows! Or, The Log of the Arethusa - William Hussey Macy - Страница 6

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FAIRLY AT SEA.—THE FIRST LOOKOUT.—INTRODUCTIONS.

By noon the ship had run the land nearly down to the horizon line, and having sufficient offing, with the open sea before her, and all being well satisfied with her performance, she was brought to the wind with the maintopsail thrown aback for the pilot-boat; and after the most affectionate leave-takings and handshakings, the owner and the rest of our shore friends left us; many of them with, literally, very turbulent feelings. Mr. Richards was not so indisposed but that he was able to take the hand of each of his young friends in turn, and bid us godspeed, at the same time leaving in our hands copies of our outfit bills (receipted in full by order on the owners), as a parting token of his esteem. Three cheers were given as they shoved off from the ship—or rather attempted, with but indifferent success, and somewhat more feeble returned by the stay-at-homes; and in a few minutes we again filled away on our course to the eastward. The anchors were stowed and well secured, the chain cables run down into the lockers, and the breeze freshening in the afternoon, the ship was brought down to double-reefed topsails; an operation requiring considerable time for its performance, with new sails and running gear, and a green crew; and one adapted to develop not only our agility, but the power of grip in our hands; while the rigging was embraced so affectionately that I had no reason to wonder at the complaint of the second mate that we had robbed all the tar from it, and transferred it to our clothes. Jeff had his fill of growling at the "children," as if they were to blame that they had not been born able seamen, or trained as "reefers" in the district school; while Manoel was kind enough to undo all my part of the work and do it over again, instructing me at the same time how not to tie a "gr-r-r-annee-knot," enunciating the r with a noise like that made in tearing a strong rag.

At sundown, all hands were called aft, and requested to "spread" ourselves in full view of the officers, and the process of choosing watches was gone through with, the mate and second mate selecting a man alternately, till all were disposed of except the "idlers," such as the cook, steward, cooper, etc. As we were chosen, we were formed in two divisions, one each side of the deck, according as we were billeted in the starboard or larboard watch. Next came the choice of oarsmen for the respective boats, a still more important matter in a whaler; and here there was much competition among the officers, and evidently some anxiety, with a little ill-concealed jealousy of feeling. I found myself a member of the larboard watch, and also assigned to the bow oar of the larboard, or chief mate's boat.

When we all understood our places, Captain Upton introduced his officers in form, as Mr. Grafton, his mate, Mr. Dunham his second mate, and Johnson, his third mate.

"These are my officers," said he, "and I look for you all to respect and obey them as you do myself; and remember that when either of them is on deck in charge of the ship, he represents me, and his orders are mine."

He told us he should allow no fighting among ourselves, he wanted to see no sogering, and, above all, to hear no "back answers." He wound up with a peroration after the most approved and stereotyped form, which has been handed down from ancient sea-captains; indeed, it is supposed to date back to the patriarchal system of government, and to have originated with Noah when he first closed the doors of the ark:

"All you've got to do is, go when you are sent, and come when you are called; and if you don't have enough to eat, come aft and let me know. Set the watch, Mr. Grafton."

The starboard watch had eight hours on deck, following the established seaman's rule that the captain must take the ship out, and the mate take her home. When our watch was summoned at eleven o'clock, the ship was still under double reefs, but the wind had hauled round to the northward-and-east-ward, causing an ugly cross sea, and she was braced sharp on the port tack, and plunging into it smartly. The weather was quite chilly, and as our end of the deck was "all afloat," we naturally made our way aft to explore for drier quarters. Mr. Grafton was on hand to meet and count us at the mainmast. Being satisfied the quota was full:

"Now, boys," said he, "you will remember this. In your watch on deck, you are expected to stay on deck; and so that you are all ready for a call when I want you, you may pass the time about as you please, and make yourselves as comfortable as you can—except one man at the wheel and one looking out ahead. I shall want one of you always on the lookout at night, and you must arrange the tricks among yourselves so that I may always find one there. I want him mounted up somewhere where he can see all around on both bows, and where I can see him if I come forward. If I find him asleep, I'll—never mind—I'll fix him so that he will keep his eyes open next time. Now go forward, one of you; and mind, all the rest of you keep above deck. You understand the wheel and lookout are to be relieved every two hours, and whoever has the next trick, I expect him to be travelling along at once when the bell rings; if he don't—he'll hear from me."

I volunteered to take the first lookout, and my offer was accepted with enthusiasm. I struggled forward, clutching at the weather-rail, and finding some difficulty in keeping my equilibrium on the wet, slippery deck, as the buoyant ship rose and fell, rolling at times heavily, and righting with a sudden recoil. I looked at the station between the knight-heads; but just at that moment she made a heavy pitch forward, and meeting a head sea in full career, sent it flying high over the bows, and rushing down the heel of the bowsprit, inboard; giving ocular evidence that I should be more than half drowned as the reward of my temerity, if I ventured up there. The foretopsail sheet bitts presented the next eligible place, and here I "mounted guard." Planting myself in a Colossus-of-Rhodes attitude, with my back against the foremast, and one arm round each chain sheet for a firm hold, I stared intently into the black void ahead of the ship, regardless of the drenching sprays which every now and then flew over the weather bow upon my head, rattling down my sou'wester, and penetrating my new monkey jacket, which, so far from being water-proof, might have been aptly classified with Mr. Weller's hat, as "wentilatin' gossamer." I was the possessor of an oil-cloth suit, but it was below in the forecastle; and so profoundly was I impressed with a sense of the responsibility resting upon me, that I would not for an instant have stirred from my post until relieved, for anything short of an earthquake; a contingency not likely to occur so far out in the Atlantic Ocean, in this latitude. No one came near me during the two hours, but I had been reconnoitred from time to time by Mr. Johnson, who was skilled in working traverses round the tryworks, and saw a great deal without being seen himself. At one o'clock the relief bell struck, and soon after a voice issued from the darkness:

"Hallo! Blacksmith, where you?"

"Here!" I answered, turning half round.

"Come down! I 'lieve you!" hailed Antone, from the fore-hatches.

"Leave me? what for? I've been left here two hours now."

"No, I 'lieve you! I take you place!" shouted the Portuguese. "You wet, no?"

Just at the moment a gush of water came flying in over the galley, and I jumped down on deck, gasping for breath, and streaming from every thread. The Portuguese roared with laughter.

"What for you stop up dere? You no sabe stand lookout. By'mby you see me no all e' same," continued Antone, who was favoring himself under the lee of the foremast, and all ready for a rapid retreat, if necessary.

But this was my first lookout. I proved myself, in time, an apt scholar, and learned to "favor myself" in many particulars; and while I obeyed orders, and gave satisfaction to my superiors, to leave responsibility, like a true Jack, to those who were better paid for it, and to cultivate close acquaintances with the softest planks about the decks on all convenient occasions.

Those who predicted a good voyage for the Arethusa did not, in this instance, as in many others, do so without reason; and they did no more than justice to Captain Upton and his officers when they pronounced her well appointed. The captain himself was a man of great energy and undaunted courage, still in the prime of life, who always headed his own boat, and took the initiative himself in whaling. He was rather taciturn, saying little more than was really necessary on any occasion, but possessed great firmness and an iron will. There was nothing of the Tartar about him, and very little to justify Old Jeff's bugbear statement as to his being "a hard one." He had his peculiarities, however, not to say failings. No man could study more closely the interest of his owners; and as he was now identified with them, being a part owner himself in the new ship, we felt the effects of it in the commissariat department. Moreover, he was very proud of his vessel; so much so as to be old-maidish in regard to the neatness of her appearance, and devoted more time and labor to this end than was at all agreeable either to his crew or officers. On the whole, however, he was justly regarded as a most efficient man for his station, and ranked A. 1. on the list of crack whaling captains.

His chief-executive and prime minister, Mr. Grafton, was a tall, massive-looking man, of fine personal appearance, something older than his superior. He had made three voyages in the same capacity, being one of those choice mates, who, by some chance, never get command of a ship, perhaps in virtue of a saying much in vogue among shipowners, and in many instances acted upon, "that it is a pity to spoil a good mate by making him master." A man of rather thoughtful cast of mind, of much intelligence, and possessed of an extensive stock of information upon many subjects, with a habit of generalizing and a clearness, of expression which rendered him an agreeable companion to all with whom he came in contact. Though a good whaleman, Grafton was not what is known to the connoisseur as a "fishy man;" he had no lungs to blow his own trumpet, and sometimes distrusted his own powers, though generally found equal to any emergency after it arose. This want of confidence sometimes led him to hesitate, where a more impulsive or less thoughtful man would act at once. In the course of his career he had seen many "fishy" young men lifted over his head; but as he was very highly esteemed in his station, and received nearly a captain's pay, he was well contented as he was. He was devotedly attached to his family at home, personated the gentleman in all he said and did, and well sustained the character.

Dunham, the second officer, was a smart young fellow of two-and-twenty, active, strong, and "fishy to the backbone." His chief fault, as an officer, lay in his being an inveterate sleeper; he could never, upon any consideration, keep awake a whole four-hour watch.

The mulatto Johnson had steered a boat with Captain Upton before in the Colossus, and was well known in Nantucket as "a long-dart man." He was somewhat of the Shanghai build—tall and long-shanked, with great strength of limb, and could plug a whale better if four fathoms distant than he could "wood and blackskin." He had an eye like a hawk, and could see a spout as far with his natural optics as most men could through a telescope. He was ignorant of everything out of his own immediate line, and sometimes rather overbearing. He was not disliked, in the main, by the crew, if we except Jeff and the cook, who being old shipmates of his, and themselves of the pure blood, were averse to tolerating anything of a mongrel description, or "milk-and-molasses color," as they termed it. "No compromise" was their platform, on this particular issue.

The cooper of the Arethusa was an important personage, as, indeed, the cooper always is in a whaler. The duties of this functionary are of a peculiar character, and about as independent of all the rest as those of a surgeon in a man-of-war. He is neither officer nor man, strictly speaking, his lay or pay being nearly equal to that of a second mate. He lives aft with the officers, but makes himself at home in all parts of the ship, occupying a sort of neutral ground—a kind of connecting link between republicanism and oligarchy, neither too high nor too low to consort or joke with anybody and everybody. As a general rule, he stands no watch, but does his day's work and sleeps all night, and in many ways evinces consciousness of his own value, and of the indispensable character of his services. For a whaler may, and, in fact, often does, go to sea without a blacksmith or without a carpenter; but the cooper is an essential part of her equipage. An officer or a boatsteerer may, in case of emergency, be created at sea, by promotion; but the cooper is not so easily replaced.

The cooper in question was a stout, grave-looking man of forty or thereabouts, with a shaggy mass of grey hair, and a patriarchally long beard. His mechanical work was of excellent quality, what little he accomplished; for he always worked on the principle of the tortoise in the race—"slow and sure." He scraped indifferently well on the violin, but delighted especially in drawing a longer bow. In virtue of this latter accomplishment, he might have claimed near relationship with a certain gentleman known in classic lore as Thomas Pepper, without having his title questioned for a moment. He always told his yarns as gospel truth, and would back them with any oath, if required.

The two young boatsteerers, Bunker and Fisher, with the Portuguese steward, completed the "afterguard." In the forecastle there was, in addition to the personages already mentioned, the usual variety of character and disposition to be found among a dozen young men, recruited at random in this manner. Now that we were getting initiated to a sea life, we were beginning to have opinions, and to express them, no longer leaving the whole field to Jeff and the sea-lawyer. As for the Nantucket boys, Kelly and Hoeg (or Obed B., as I still persisted in calling him), they made rapid progress in knowledge and confidence. As I have before intimated, these young "natives to the manor born" seemed to look upon this life with the eye of fatalists. It was foreordained that they should be sailors, and nothing in their new way of life seemed to surprise or disturb them for a moment. Everything took place as a matter of course with them. They never seemed to think they could, by any possibility, have followed any other business for a livelihood; and each new event or circumstance of the voyage was merely another link in the chain of their inevitable destiny. They were born to go whaling and a station on the quarterdeck was the goal of their ambition.

They had not been more than a week at sea before they had taken some of the starch out of the sea-lawyer, who had attempted to assert his "rights" by hazing them about, and calling upon them to perform various menial services for him, which he said it was a "boy's place to do."

One morning he ordered Kelly, in a very arbitrary way, to go on deck and bring him down some water, which Kelly flatly refused to do. The sea-lawyer declared he would "make him do it;" and upon Kelly's expressing a doubt as to his ability to perform that feat, he proceeded to enforce his command, vi et armis. But he was met by the boy with a spirit that he had not looked for, and before he could get a good hold upon the youngster, so as to chastise him, as he expected easily to do, he was attacked in the rear by Obed B., who arrived on the field just in time to reinforce his chum and schoolmate. This gave Kelly a chance to rally and assume the offensive; and Burley, who was a most arrant coward, finding himself roughly handled between the two, was fain to call for an armistice. A parley ensued, and the boys gave him to understand that they did not come to sea to be boys, but to make themselves men, and that they would not submit to be bullied by him. And the upshot of the matter was, that the champion of "rights" made rather an ignominious retreat from the field, as compared with the vigor of his first attack. All this was nuts, of course, to the rest of us youngsters, who desired nothing more earnestly than to see the bully humbled a little; while the emotion of Manoel was too powerful to find utterance—in intelligible English. He patted the two boys on the shoulder, in the exuberance of his spirits, while his tongue rattled until I thought all his teeth were loose in the jaws; but to save my life, I could not have told what he was trying to say.

There was plenty of work for all hands on the passage out, as every one will understand who has ever performed a voyage in a new ship. We found our duties very fatiguing, as we were kept at work all day, and had a watch to stand at night. There was all the new rigging to be stretched and set up over and again, in addition to the thousand and one other matters to be attended to, to put everything in trim for whaling against the opening of the campaign. The old salts growled night and day in the forecastle about having no "watch below;" but as we verdant ones had but a vague idea of what they meant by it, we had but little to say about this grievance.