Afloat at Last Part 17

After the first few days at sea, too, I came to the conclusion that if our work was like that of the sailors our food was not one whit the better; albeit, one of the stipulations in the contract when my father paid the premium demanded by the owners of the ship for me as a "first- cla.s.s apprentice," was that I should mess aft in the cabin.

I certainly did so, like Tom Jerrold and the two others; but all that either they or I had of cabin fare throughout the entire voyage was an occasional piece of "plum duff" and jam on Sundays--on which day, by the way, we had no work to do save attending to the sails and washing decks in the morning; while, in the afternoon, Captain Gillespie read prayers on the p.o.o.p, his congregation being mainly limited to ourselves and the watch on deck, the crew spending their holiday, on this holy day, in mending their clothes in the forecastle.

Yes, our rations were the same as those of the ordinary hands; namely, salt junk and "hard tack," varied by pea-soup and sea-pie occasionally for dinner, with rice and mola.s.ses as a treat on Sat.u.r.days. Our breakfast and tea consisted of a straw-coloured decoction known on board-ship as "water bewitched," accompanied by such modic.u.ms of our dinner allowance as we were able to save conscientiously with our appet.i.tes. This amounted to very little as a rule, for, being at sea makes one fearfully hungry at all hours, and, fortunately, seems to endow one, also, with the capacity for eating anything!

Really, if it had not been by currying favour with Ching w.a.n.g and bribing the steward, Pedro Carvalho, between whom there were continual rows occurring about the provisions, which it was the duty of the Portuguese to serve out, we must have starved ere reaching the Equator; for Captain Gillespie, in order to "turn an honest penny" and make his Dundee venture prove a success, persuaded the men forward and ourselves to give up a pound and a quarter of our meat ration for a pound tin of his marmalade, which he a.s.sured us would not only be more palatable with our biscuit, being such "a splendid subst.i.tute for b.u.t.ter," as the advertis.e.m.e.nts on the labels say, but would also act as an antis...o...b..tic to prevent the spread of scurvy amongst us--it being, as he declared, better than lime-juice for this purpose!

The hands consented to this arrangement at first as a welcome change; but, when they presently found themselves mulcted of their salt junk, they grumbled much at Old Jock for holding us all to the bargain, and he and his marmalade became a by-word in the ship. I did not wonder at all, after a bit, that Pedro the steward got into the habit of venting his wrath when vexed by kicking the empty tins about!

I cannot say, however, that I disliked my new life, in spite of these drawbacks in the way of insufficiency of food and constancy of appet.i.te, throughout which Ching w.a.n.g remained my staunch friend, bringing me many a savoury little delicacy for supper when it was my night watch on deck.

These t.i.t-bits in the "grub" line I conscientiously shared with Tom Jerrold, who received similar favours from the steward, with whom he was a firm favourite, the only one, indeed, to whom the Portuguese appeared to take kindly on board.

No, on the contrary, the charm of being a sailor grew more and more upon me each day as the marvels of the deep became unfolded to me, and the better I became acquainted with the ship and my companions.

All was endless variety--the sky, the sea, and our surroundings changing apparently every moment and ever revealing something fresh and novel.

It did not seem real but a dream.

Could that be the Madeira I had read about in the distance, and that the Bay of Funchal of which I had seen pictures in books; and that the little nautilus or "Portuguese man-of-war" floating by the side of the vessel, now almost becalmed, with its cigar-shaped sh.e.l.l boat and pink membraneous sail all glowing with prismatic colouring? Was it an actuality that I saw all these things with my own eyes; or, was I dreaming? Was it really I, Allan Graham, standing there on the deck of the good ship Silver Queen, or somebody else?

An order from the captain, who came up from his cabin just then and caught me mooning, to go forward and "make it eight bells," stopped my reflections at this interesting point; and the next moment I was more interested in a most appetising odour of lobscouse emanating from Ching w.a.n.g's galley than in poetical dreams of Atlantic isles and ocean wonders!

On pa.s.sing Madeira, we soon got out of the Horse Lat.i.tudes, a soft breeze springing up from the west again towards evening, which wafted us down to the Canaries within the next two days. Here we picked up the north-east trades south of Palma, just when we could barely discern the Peak of Teneriffe far-away off high up in the clouds, and then we went on grandly on our voyage once more with every sail set, logging over two hundred miles a day and going by the Cape de Verde Islands in fine style. We did not bring up again until we reached "the Doldrums," in about lat.i.tude 5 degrees north and 22 degrees west, where the fickle wind deserted us again and left us rolling and sweltering in the great region of equatorial calm. The north-east and south-east trades here fight each other for the possession of their eventful battle-ground, the Line, and old Neptune finds the contest so wearisome that he goes to sleep while it lasts, the tumid swelling of his mighty bosom only showing to all whom it may concern that he merely dozes and is not dead!

The temperature of the sea seemed to increase each day after we lost sight of the Peak of Teneriffe until it was now lukewarm, if one drew a bucket from over the side; although Captain Gillespie said it was "quite cold" for that time of year!

Talking about this, Mr Mackay told me that sea-water is composed of an awful lot of things such as I would not have supposed--oxygen and hydrogen, with muriate of soda, magnesia, iron, lime, copper, silica, potash, chlorine, iodine, bromide, ammonia and silver being amongst its ingredients, and the muriate of soda forming the largest of the solid substances detected in it. With such a mixture of things as this, it is not surprising that it should taste so nasty when swallowed--is it?

With the enforced leisure produced by the calm, I had plenty of opportunity for observing the various strange varieties of animal life which came about the ship--the flying-fish with beautiful silvery wings that sparkled in the sunlight coming inboard in shoals, pursued by their enemies the albacores, who drove them out of the sea to take refuge in the air; besides numbers of gramp.u.s.s.es and sharks swimming round us.

Adams, the sailmaker, killed one of these latter gentry with a harpoon, spearing him from the bowsprit as he came past the ship. He looked up with his evil eye, fancying perhaps that he would "catch one of us napping," but no one was unwary enough to get within reach of his voracious maw; and Mr Shark "caught a tartar" instead and got a taste of cold steel for his pains, much to our delight, though the captain was chagrined at the loss of the harpoon, the shark parting the line attached to it in his death struggles, and carrying it below with him when he sank. The brute, to end the story, was eaten up at once by his affectionate comrades, the sea being dyed red with his blood.

We had not all leisure, though, thus hanging about the Equator under the scorching sun, now at noon precisely perpendicular over our heads, the heat at night too being almost as stifling and the stars as bright as moons; for Captain Gillespie took advantage of our inaction to "set up"

the rigging, which had slackened considerably since we entered the tropics, the heat making the ropes stretch so that our masts got loose and the upper spars canted.

While doing this, of course, I had another practical lesson in seamanship, learning all about "double luffs" and "toggles," "salvagee strops" and "Burton tackles," and all the rest of such gear, whose name is legion.

But I must go on now to a more important incident.

One morning, about a week after the wind left us, with the exception of an occasional cat's-paw of air which came from every point of the compa.s.s in turn, we ultimately drifted to the Line; accomplishing this by the aid of the swell ever rolling southward and the eddy of the great south equatorial current, setting between the African continent and the Caribbean Sea. This meets the Guinea current running in the opposite direction in the middle of the Doldrums, and helps to promote the pleasant stagnation, of wind and water and of air alike, of this delightful region so dear to mariners!

I recollect the morning well; for the night was unusually oppressive, the heat between the middle watch and eight bells having been more intense than at any period, I thought, during the week.

So, after tossing about my bunk, unable to get to sleep I was only too glad when the time came to turn out for duty, the task of washing decks and paddling about in the cool water--for it was cool at the earlier hours of the morning if tepid at noon--being something to look forward to.

I forgot, however, all about the terrible rites of Neptune for those crossing the Line for the first time, and neither Tom Jerrold nor Weeks, naturally, enlightened me on the subject; so that I was completely taken by surprise when a loud voice hailed us from somewhere forward, just about "four bells," as if coming from out of the sea.

"What ship is that?"

"The Silver Queen," answered Mr Saunders, who was on the p.o.o.p and of course in the joke, answering the voice, which although portentously loud, had a familiar ring about it suspiciously like Tim Rooney's Irish brogue. "Bound from London to Shanghai."

"Have ye minny of me unshaved sons aboard?"

"Aye, two," shouted back Mr Saunders, "a stowaway and an apprentice."

"Ye spake true," returned the voice. "I knows 'em both, Misther Allan Gray-ham an' Joe Fergusson. I will come aboard an' shave 'em."

Then it all flashed upon me, and I tried to run below and hide; but two of Neptune's tritons seized me and pushed me forward to where the boatswain, capitally got up in an oak.u.m wig with an enormous tow beard, was seated on the windla.s.s, trident in hand. Joe Fergusson, who had been made prisoner before me, lay bound at his feet, close to an improvised swimming bath made out of a spare fore-topsail, rigged up across the deck on the lee-side and filled with water to the depth of four feet or more.

The ceremonies were just about to begin; and, I could readily imagine what was in store for both me and my companion in distress, the ex- bricklayer, who, like myself, having never been to sea before would have to go through the painful ordeal as well as being made fools of and laughed at by all our grinning shipmates around; so, seeing Tom Jerrold and Sam Weeks conspicuous right in front of me, and Mr Saunders looking on too with much gusto, I made another desperate attempt to free myself from those holding me, urging on Joe Fergusson to try and save himself and me too.

Our struggles were in vain; but, strange to say, help came for us from a most unexpected quarter.

As I have said before, the night had been extremely hot and the morning lowering; and now, all at once, a violent squall caught the ship in the midst of Neptune's carnival.

"Stand by your royal halliards!" roared out Captain Gillespie, who coming up quickly behind Mr Saunders on the p.o.o.p made him jump round in consternation at his neglect in not keeping a look-out overhead while watching the game going on in the bows amongst the crew.

Neptune darted down from his perch instanter in the most unG.o.dlike fashion; and, the rest of the men rushing to their stations, left Joe Fergusson and I rolling on the deck.

"Let go!" next cried the captain; adding a moment later, "Bosun, go forward and slack off the head sheets!"

And then the rain came down in a perfect deluge, as if it were being emptied out of a tub, and as it only can pour down in the tropics; and that is how we "crossed the Line!"

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

"ONE PIECEE c.o.c.k-FIGHTEE."

The ship had nearly all her canvas spread, so as to take advantage of the first puff of air which came to waft us beyond the Doldrums towards the region of the south-east trades, then beginning to blow just below the calm belt; consequently, it took all hands some time to clew up and furl all the light upper sails, and squall after squall burst over us ere we could reduce the ship to her proper fighting trim of reefed topsails and courses, our outer jib getting torn to shreds before it could be handed.

"Begorra, it's a buster an' no mishtake!" exclaimed Tim Rooney coming off the forecastle as soon as he had seen the other head sails attended to, and setting me free from the lashings with which his whilom tritons had bound my hands and legs. "Sp'ilin' all av our fun, too, Misther Gray-ham, jist whin I wor goin' to shave ye!"

I did not regret this, though, I'm sure. Still, I did not stop to answer him, being in too great a hurry to join Tom Jerrold and the others aft in taking in the mizzen-royal and topgallant--my fellow apprentices having had time already to get aloft while I was rolling on the deck forward like a trussed fowl!

"Take it aisy, me darlint," shouted Tim after me as I rushed up the p.o.o.p ladder and swung myself into the shrouds; but, I was half-way up the ratlines before he could get out the end of his exordium, "Aisy does it!"

I was too late to help hand the royal, my especial sail since I had got familiar with my footing aloft; but the mizzen-topgallant sheets, bowlines and halliards having been hardly a second let go, and the men on the p.o.o.p having only just begun to haul on the clewlines and buntlines, I was quite in time to get out on this yard. My aid, indeed, came in usefully in a.s.sisting to stow the sail; although, in my haste not to be eclipsed by Tom Jerrold, I nearly got knocked off my perch on the foot-rope through the canvas ballooning out, in the same way as it did when Joe Fergusson so narrowly escaped death only three weeks or so before!

The fright, as I clutched hold of a rope and saved myself, made my heart come in my mouth; and what with this, and the turmoil of the elements around me as I clung to the yard, with the deck of the ship so small and far-away below, and saw the immense area of the swelling sea as far as the eye could reach--now chopped up into short rolling waves, crowned with foam, almost in an instant, and the black cloud-covered dome of the heavens that was almost as dark as at midnight--I could not help thinking of the grandeur of the works of G.o.d, and the insignificance of man and his pigmy attempts to master the elements.

For, beyond the quick sharp puffs of wind that came with the squalls of rain from almost every point of the compa.s.s in succession, the downpour which descended from the overcast sky was accompanied with terrible ear- splitting peals of thunder. This seemed to rattle and roll almost immediately above our heads, as if the overhanging black vault was about to burst open every moment; while dazzling forked flashes of bluish lightning zigzagged across the horizon from the zenith, first blinding our eyes with its brilliancy for a second and then making the darkness all around the darker as the vivid glare vanished and the accompanying thunderbolt sank into the sea--providentially far off to leeward, where the full force of the tropical storm was spent, and not near our vessel.

The sight was an awful and magnificent one to me suspended there in mid- air, as it were; but I confess I was not sorry when, presently, the mizzen-topgallant was snugly stowed, with the gaskets put round it, and I was able to get down to the more substantial deck below, where I was not quite so close to the cloud war going on above!

When I reached the p.o.o.p, as the Silver Queen was now stripped of her superfluous canvas and ready for anything that might happen should the squalls last, Mr Mackay seeing that I was wet through told me that I might go down and change my clothes. This I gratefully did, feeling all the better on getting into a dry suit, over which I took the precaution before coming out of the deck-house again of rigging my waterproof and a tarpaulin hat; for the rain was still coming down in a regular deluge, "as if the sluice-valve of the water tank above had somehow or other jammed foul, so that the water couldn't be turned off for a while"--this being Tom Jerrold's explanation of it.

Feeling chilled from the damp after the great heat of the morning, as soon as I had doffed my wet things I went round to the galley to see if I could discover a drop of hot coffee knocking about, as it was getting on for tea-time, being now late in the afternoon; but when I got there, instead of finding Ching w.a.n.g, who was always punctuality itself in the matter of meal-times, busy with the coppers, there he was flat on his stomach on the floor of his caboose, with a hideous little bra.s.s image or idol, which might have been Buddha for all that I know to the contrary, set up in the corner--the Chinese cook being so actively engaged in salaaming in front of this image, by touching the deck with his forehead and burning bits of gilt paper before it, as incense I suppose, that he did not notice me.

"Hullo, Ching w.a.n.g," I said, "what are you about?"