Afloat at Last Part 16

"Aye, aye, sorr," replied Tim, leading his charge down the p.o.o.p ladder again. "I'll say to that same, sorr."

"And, bosun--"

"Aye, aye, sorr."

"Just see if those pigs in the long-boat got damaged by that fellow tumbling on top of them. His weight ought to have been enough to have made pork of some, I should think!"

"Aye, aye, sorr," said Tim as he went off laughing; and I could hear his whispered aside to Adams, who was standing by the deck-house. "Begorra, I'd have betted the ould skipper wouldn't forgit thim blissid pigs av his. He wor thinkin' av thim all the toime that poor beggar wor fallin'

from aloft, I belave!"

Much to the captain's satisfaction, though, the grunting inhabitants of the long-boat were found to be all right, escaping as harmlessly as Joe Fergusson; and so, with his mind relieved Old Jock went below soon after "six bells," or two o'clock, leaving the charge of the deck to Mr Saunders--who, grumbling at the captain's rather insidious usurpation of his authority, had betaken himself to the lee-side of the taffrail, whence he watched the ship's wake and the foaming rollers that came tumbling after her, as she drove on before the stiff nor'-wester under reefed topsails and courses, the waves trying to p.o.o.p her every instant, though foiled by her speed.

So things went on till midnight, when the men at the wheel were relieved, as well as the look-out forward, and the port watch came on deck; while, the starbowlines going below, Mr Mackay took the place of the second mate as the officer on duty. Tom Jerrold, too, lugged out Sam Weeks and made him put in an appearance, much against his will; but nothing subsequently occurred to vary the monotony of the life on board or interfere with the vessel's progress, for, although it was blowing pretty nearly "half a gale," as sailors say, we "made a fair wind of it"--keeping steadily on our course, south-west by west, and getting more and more out into the Atlantic with each mile of the seething water the Silver Queen spurned with her forefoot and left eddying behind her.

The wind, somehow or other, seemed to get into my head, like a gla.s.s of champagne I had on Christmas-day when father and all of us went to Westham Hall and dined with the squire. I can't express how jolly it made me feel--the wind I mean, not the champagne; for it was as much as I could do to refrain from shouting out aloud in my exultation, as it blew in my face and tossed my hair about, pressing against my body with such force that I had to hold on by both hands to the weather bulwarks to keep my feet, as I gazed out over the side at the magnificent scene around me--the storm-tossed sea, one ma.s.s of foam; the grand blue vault of heaven above, now partially lit by the late rising moon and twinkling stars, that were occasionally obscured by sc.r.a.ps of drifting clouds and flying scud; and, all the while, the n.o.ble ship tearing along, a thing of beauty and of life, mastering the elements and glorying in the fight, with the hum of the gale in the sails and its shrieking whistle through the rigging, and the ever-murmuring voices of the waters, all filling the air around as they sang the dirge of the deep!

"You seem to like it, youngster," observed Mr Mackay, stopping his quarter-deck walk as he caught sight of my face in the moonlight and noticed it's joyous glow, reflecting the emotions of my mind. "You look a regular stormy petrel, and seem as if you wanted to spread your wings and fly."

"I only wish I could, sir," I cried, laughing at his likening me to a "Mother Carey's chicken," as the petrel is familiarly termed, a number of them then hovering about the ship astern. "I feel half a bird already, the wind makes me so jolly."

Mr Mackay quietly smiled and put his hand on my shoulder.

"Take care, my boy," said he good-humouredly, "you'll be jumping overboard in your enthusiasm. You seem to be a born sailor. Are you really so fond of the sea?"

"I love it! I love it!" I exclaimed enthusiastically. "Now, I can imagine, sir, the meaning of what I read in Xenophon with father, about the soldiers of Cyrus crying with joy when they once more beheld the sea after their toilsome march for months and months, wandering inland over a strange and unknown country without a sight of its familiar face to tell them of their home by the wave-girt sh.o.r.es of Greece!"

"You're quite a poet, Graham," observed Mr Mackay, laughing now, though not unkindly. There was, indeed, a tone of regret and of sadness, it seemed to me, in his voice. "Ah, well, you'll soon have all such romantic notions taken out of you, my boy, when you've seen some of the hardships of a sailor's life, like others who at one time were, perhaps, as full of ardour for their profession at the start as yourself."

"I hope not, sir," I replied seriously. "I should never like to believe differently of it to what I do now. I think it is really something to be proud of, being a sailor. It is glorious, it--it--it's--jolly, that's what it is, sir!"

"A jolly sight jollier being in bed on a cold night like this," muttered Weeks, who was shivering by the skylight, the tarpaulin cover of which he had dragged round his legs for warmth. "Don't you think so, sir?"

"That depends," replied Mr Mackay on Sammy putting this question to him rather impudently, as was his wont in speaking to his elders, his b.u.mp of veneration being of the most infinitesimal proportions. "I think, though, that a fellow who likes being on deck in a gale of wind will turn out a better sailor than a skulker who only cares about caulking in his bunk below; and you can put that in your pipe, Master Sam Weeks, and smoke it!"

This had the effect of stopping any further conversation on the part of my fellow apprentice, who retired to the lee-side of the deck in high dudgeon with this "flea in his ear;" and, it being just four o'clock in the morning now and the end of the middle watch, eight bells were struck and the starbowlines summoned on deck again to duty, we of the port watch getting some hot coffee all round at the galley and then turning in. For this I was not sorry, as I began now to feel sleepy.

"I'd rather be a dog with the mange than a sailor," yawned Tom Jerrold when Sam Weeks roused him out of his nice warm bunk to go on duty in the cold grey morning. "Heigh-ho, it's an awful life!"

So, it can be seen that all of us were not of one opinion in the matter.

But, in spite of sundry drawbacks and disagreeables which I subsequently encountered, and which perhaps took off a little of the halo of romance which at first encircled everything connected with the sea in my mind, I have never lost the love and admiration for it which I experienced that night in mid Atlantic when I kept the middle watch with Mr Mackay, nor regretted my choice; neither have I ever felt inclined, I may candidly state, to give an affirmative answer to Tim Rooney's stereotyped inquiry every morning-- "An' ain't ye sorry now, Misther Gray-ham, as how ye iver came to say?"

The next day, our third out from the Lizard, we spoke the barque Mary Webster from Valparaiso for London, sixty days at sea.

She signalled that she had broken her chronometer and had to trust only to her dead reckoning, so Captain Gillespie hove-to and gave them our lat.i.tude and longitude, 45 degrees 15 minutes North and 10 degrees 20 minutes West, displaying the figures chalked on a black-board over our quarter, in order that those on board the other vessel might read the inscription easily with a gla.s.s, as we bowed and dipped towards each other across the rolling waves, both with our main-topsails backed.

Before the following morning we had weathered Cape Finisterre, Mr Mackay told me, having got finally beyond the limits of the dread Bay of Biscay, with all its opposing tides and contrary influences of winds and currents which make it such a terror to navigators pa.s.sing both to and from the Equator; and, in another two days, we had reached as far south as the fortieth parallel of lat.i.tude, our longitude being now 13 degrees 10 minutes west, or about some five hundred miles to the eastward of the Azores, or Western Islands.

As we worked our way further westwards I noticed a curious thing which I could not make out until Mr Mackay enlightened me on the subject.

On my last birthday father had given me a very nice little gold watch, similar to one which he had presented to my brother Tom, much to my envy at the time, on his likewise obtaining his fifteenth year.

This watch was a very good timekeeper, being by one of the best London makers; and, hitherto, had maintained an irreproachable character in this respect, the cook at home, whenever the kitchen clock went wrong, always appealing to me to know what was the correct time, with the flattering compliment that "Master Allan's watch, at all events," was "sure to be right!"

But now, strange to say, although my watch kept exactly to railway time up to the day of my arrival in London and while we were on our way down the river, I found that, as we proceeded into the Channel and out to sea it began to gain, the difference being more and more marked as we got further to the westward; until, when the captain, after taking the sun on our fifth day out, told Tom Jerrold who was on the deck beside him to "make it eight bells," or strike the ship's bell to declare it was noon, I was very nearly an hour ahead of that time--my watch, which I was always careful about winding up every evening as father enjoined me when giving it to me, pointing actually to one o'clock!

I could not understand it all.

Mr Mackay, however, made it clear to me after a little explanation, showing me, too, how simple a matter it was with a good chronometer to find a ship's position at sea.

"For every degree of longitude we go westwards from the meridian of Greenwich, which is marked with a great round 0 here, you see, my boy, we gain four minutes," said he, pointing out the lines of longitude ruled straight up and down the chart as he spoke, for my information; "and thus, the fact of the hands of your watch telling, truly enough, that it is now about eight minutes to one o'clock in London, shows that we are thirteen degrees further to the west than at the place where your time is set--for we are going with the sun, do you see?"

"Yes, I see, sir," said I; "but suppose we were going to the east instead of the west?"

"Why then, my boy," he replied, "your watch, in lieu of gaining, would appear to lose the same number of minutes each day, according to our rate of sailing. A ship, consequently, which goes round the world from the east to the west will seem to have gained a clear day on circ.u.mnavigating the globe; while one that completes the same voyage sailing from the west continually towards the east, loses one."

"How funny!" cried I. "Is it really so?"

"Yes, really," said he; "and I've seen, on board a ship I was once in, the captain skip a day in the log, to make up for the one we lost on the voyage, pa.s.sing over Sat.u.r.day and writing down the day which followed Friday as 'Sunday'--otherwise we would have been all out of our reckoning with the almanac."

"How funny!" I repeated. "I never heard that before."

"Probably not, nor many other things you'll learn at sea, my boy, before you're much older," answered Mr Mackay, as he turned to the log slate on which Captain Gillespie had been putting down his calculation about the ship's position after taking the sun and working out his reckoning.

"Let us see, now, if your watch is a good chronometer for telling our longitude. Ha, by Jove, 13 degrees 10 minutes west, or, nearly what we made out just now. Not so bad, Graham, for a turnip!"

"Turnip, sir!" cried I indignantly. "Father told me it was one of Dent's best make, and to be careful of it."

"I'm sure I beg both your father's and Dent's pardon," said Mr Mackay, laughing at my firing up so quickly. "I was only joking; for your watch is a very good one, and nicely finished too. But I must not stop any more now. I hope you won't forget your first lesson in navigation and the knowledge you've gained of the difference between 'mean time' and what is called 'apparent time' on board a ship, and how this will tell her correct longitude--eh?"

"Oh, no, sir," I answered as he went off down the companion way below, to wind up the chronometers in the captain's cabin, a task which he always performed every day at the same hour, having these valuable instruments under his especial charge; "I won't forget what you've told me, sir."

Nor did I.

Shortly afterwards Mr Mackay showed me how to use the s.e.xtant and take the sun's alt.i.tude, on his learning that I was acquainted with trigonometry and rather a dab at mathematics, the only portion indeed of my studies, I'm sorry to confess, in which I ever took any interest at school. I was thus soon able under his instruction to work out the ship's reckoning and calculate her position, just like the captain, who sniffed and snorted a bit and crinkled his nose a good deal on seeing me engaged on the task; although he gave me some friendly commendation all the same, when he found that I had succeeded in actually arriving at a similar result to himself!

Wasn't I proud, that's all.

But, before advancing so far in my knowledge of navigation, I had to be initiated into my regular duties on board, and learn the more practical parts of seamanship; however, having willing tutors in Mr Mackay and the boatswain, and being only too anxious myself to know all they could teach me, it was not long before I was able to put it out of the power of either Tom Jerrold or Weeks to call me "Master Jimmy Green," as they at first christened me--just because they had the advantage of going to sea a voyage or two before me! I may add, too, that my progress towards proficiency in picking up the endless details of nautical lore was all the more accelerated by the desire of excelling my shipmates, so as to have the chance of turning their chaff back upon themselves.

Spurred on by this motive, I quickly learnt all the names of the ropes and their various uses from Mr Mackay; while Tim Rooney showed me how to make a "reef knot," a "clove hitch," a "running bowline," and a "sheep-shank," explaining the difference between these and their respective advantages over the common "granny's knot" of landsmen--my friend the boatswain judiciously discriminating between the typical peculiarities of the "cat's-paw" and the "sheet bend," albeit the one has nothing in connection with the feline tribe and the other no reference to one's bed-covering!

The wind moderated when we got below the Azores, while the sea also ceased its tumultuous whirl, so that we were able to make all plain sail and carry-on without rolling as before; so, now, at last, I was allowed to go aloft, my first essay being to a.s.sist Tom Jerrold in setting the mizzen-royal. Really, I quite astonished Tom by climbing up the futtock shrouds outside the top, instead of going through "the lubber's hole,"

showing myself, thanks to Tim Rooney's private instructions previously, much more nimble in casting off the gaskets and loosening the bunt of the sail than my brother mid expected; indeed, I got off the yard, after the job was done, and down to the deck a good half minute in advance of him.

On our sixth day out, we reached lat.i.tude 35 degrees north and 17 degrees west, drifting past Madeira a couple of days later, the temperature of the air gradually rising and the western winds growing correspondingly slack as we made more southing; until, although it was barely a week since we had been experiencing the bitter weather of our English February, we now seemed to be suddenly transported into the balminess of June. The change, however, took place so imperceptibly during our gradual progress onward to warmer lat.i.tudes, that, in looking back all at once, it seemed almost incredible.

I found the work which we apprentices had to do was really very similar to that of the hands forward, Tom Jerrold and I in the port watch, and Weeks and Matthews--who, although styled "third mate," had still to go aloft and do the same sort of duties as all the rest of us--in the starboard watch under the second mate, having to attend to everything connected with the setting and taking in of sail on the mizzen-mast, as well as having to keep the ship's time, one of us striking the bell every half-hour throughout our spell on deck.