Dog-watches at sea

Front matter

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KING

Chap. Copyright No.

Preface

I HAVE written what this book contains from memory, not having kept a diary, and in most cases I have given the real names of ships and individuals.

Conscious of my inability to undertake the preparation of a book, and fearing that I had nothing adequate to offer the public, I hesitated for a long time to attempt it, but the encouragement of my friend the Rev. Frederick B. Allen has led me to set down some of my experiences at sea. The book is in so large a measure the outcome of his friendly interest that the heartiest acknowledgments are due him. I am glad of the opportunity to make them, and also to thank my friend Lieutenant-Colonel Allan C. Kelton, U. S. M. C, for many kindnesses shown me during our cruise on the U. S. S. Alliance and since.

STANTON H. KING.

Sailors' Haven, Mission for Seamen, Charlestown, Mass.

Contents

CHAP. PAGE

I. Outward Bound ...... 1

n. My First Gale ...,,. 7

Chapter II

As I drew near the wharf on the morning of my departure, I was surrounded by colored boatmen, some shouting, " Here 's de Great Admiral," " Take my boat, sah, she is de Young America," " Dis way, sah, for de Undaunted," for the Barbadian boatmen, in doing their best to make a living, keep the water front in a state of constant uproar. It is their habit to tie their boats at the government landing ; and as soon as a white man makes his appearance on the wharf, they gather round him like bees around a hive, shouting at the top of their voices, "Want a boat, sah?" "Here 's de Nancy Lee," "Der 's de Morning Star," each man having some such name for his boat. They will pull at his coat and tire and provoke him with their vociferous yells. If he is not strong and determined in pushing them away, they will carry him bodily to a boat. I was saved from such a fate, for at this time Captain Dunscombe made his appearance, and taking me under his care, he ordered his boatmen to haul up to the landing-steps. We shoved off, and were rowed by two black Barbadians to the Meteor.

As the captain gained the deck, he gave word to the mate to man the windlass and heave short. While the sailors were heaving on the windlass brakes, getting in the slack chain, I was rummaging every part of the deck. On both sides of our vessel were a lot of small boats, some of them mere " dugouts," filled with naked negro boys. They were manifesting their accomplishments in diving. Occasionally the sailors would toss a copper over the side. As soon as it reached the water, the boys would jump from their boats and find the copper. At times the money would be thrown some distance from the ship, where it would seem almost impossible for it to be found. Yet the naked boys would swim to the spot where the money had sunk, and, diving, — remaining under water, going, yes, four and five fathoms down, — would bring the copper to the surface. With a broad grin showing their snow-white teeth, they would yell, " Heabe anodder, " "I'll dibe, sab."

Knowing tbe captain was below, I ventured into his cabin. It was a small space, wbere, unprotected from the sight of any one, were two bunks, one over the other, against the sides of the ship. In the forward bulkhead was a door leading into a very small room, which was the captain's. Fastened to the after bulkhead of the cabin was a table large enough to seat two persons. I was told by the captain that there was no bunk for me. The two bunks in the cabin were used by the mate and steward, and as there was only one bunk in his room, I would have to sleep in the sail locker on a spare mainsail which was stowed there. It made no difference to me. I was bent on being a sailor, and was willing to put up with anything.

The odor and steam emanating from the cargo of molasses began to take effect on my head. Feeling weak and dizzy, I made for the companionway and hastened none too quickly on deck. The mate came aft and shouted to the captain, " She 's hove short, sir," to which he responded as he came on deck, " Set the mainsail and foresail." The sails set, a few more heaves on the windlass brakes, and the Meteor was sailing past the vessels at anchor in the bay.

It being about an hour before sunset, I was afforded daylight enough to watch every detail of work necessary in getting a vessel under way. I watched with keen interest the setting of the sails, and the catting and fishing of the anchor. It was about six o'clock when supper was served. I wanted no supper, and I knew I should be sick if I went below in that stuffy hole ; so I remained on deck. The captain and mate were the only white men on board ; the steward, who performed the duties of both cook and steward, and the four sailors " f orrard " were black Bermudians. No one seemed interested in me.

While the daylight lasted I continued my inspection of the deck. Close abaft the main hatch was a box about five feet square, lashed securely to four ringbolts in the deck. This was the galley, with sliding doors on both sides of it. In it were a stove and a box for coal. The box when covered was used as a seat for the cook while preparing the meals.

Forward, right abaft the windlass, was a small companionway leading down to the forecastle. I descended as far as the bottom, step. What a sight ! A three-cornered flatiron-shaped hole with four bunks in it, an oil lamp giving more smoke than Hght. Three black men, made blacker by the darkness of the place, were seated on a bench eating something from a pan which was at their feet on the floor. There I encountered that same vfle odor of bflge water and steam from the molasses.

Quickly getting on deck, I went aft, and, steadying myself on the top of the cabin, watched the fading shores of my native land. Fully two hours I sat there and thought of my loving mother, my home, and the associations I had left ; then sauntered below to the sail locker, where I cuddled up and feU fast asleep.

It must have been about four o'clock the next morning when I awoke. I cannot find words to describe my feelings. There was a strong northeast trade wind blowing, which created a fair-sized swell. The schooner bobbed up and down. So did I. How wretchedly uncomfortable I felt ! All the misery of seasickness was upon me. You who have experienced seasickness wiU agree with me when I say, at such a time there is but little choice between life and death. I managed to get on deck. I heaved as though my heart would leave me ; then, stretching myself on the deck by the lee side of the wheel, longed to be home again. Could I have put my feet on shore at that time, it would have taken more than a Spanish windlass to get me to sea again.

When a person is seasick, his one desire is to lie down and go to sleep. This may do well enough for a short passage on a passenger steamer, but to be cured of seasickness, one must keep moving about in misery until he masters it. Cold, weak, dizzy, and miserable, I remained in that semi-conscious state until seven bells (half past seven), at which time the captain came on deck. Seeing me coiled down on the wet deck, he took hold of my coat collar and, lifting me on my feet, exclaimed in a gruff, sarcastic voice, " Yaw want to be a sailor, do ya ? " "0 captain, I am going to die!" "How yaw muff!" which is a Bermudian way of saying, " Close your mouth."

I do not wish to tire my readers by relating tlie many ways this well-meaning friend kept me moving about. He tried to teach me to steer by the compass, and did everything possible to keep me on my feet.

Soon after eight bells, at noon, a trade wind squall struck our little vessel. There was a heavy gust of wind and a downpour of rain for about twenty minutes. The gaff topsail was hauled down and clewed up. The captain shouted to me, " Git up thar and put a turn round that sail." It was a foreign language to me. I was making ready to coil myself on deck again. Lifting me clear of the rail, he stood me in the rigging, shouting, " Git, git, git ! I '11 make a sailor of ye." I felt sure I should fall. As I write, the horror of that moment is present with me. Holding tightly to the shrouds, step after step over those tarry ratlines, I at last reached the main crosstrees. Yet when holding on to the topmast rigging, my feet firmly planted on the outriggers, the gaff topsail slapping and banging around my head, I actually enjoyed the sight beneath and around me.

Below me the schooner, keeled well over by the force of the squall, was cutting her way through the Caribbean Sea. It was the first time I had been out of sight of land. The vast expanse of water and the grandeur of the immense blue circle, joined to the drooping blue canopy above, made our small craft seem an insignificant object. The squall was over, the gaff topsail set again, and in the course of an hour I reached the deck wet through to the skin. Going below to the cabin, I devoured the remnants of the dinner-table. My seasickness was leaving me ; I retained the food. I became accustomed to the pitching of the ship, and by night I was, with the exception of a bad headache, a seasoned sailor.

This good friend of my mother's, in trying to carry out her wishes and make me sick of the sea, made me master it. Had he allowed me to sleep and lie around the decks, I would have continued in that miserable state, and most likely would have given up all desire of being a sailor. There have been times during the first day at sea, after a long stay in port and days of dissipation on shore, that I have felt a nauseating sensation, but I have always been able to get about and do my work.

Of all the men that I have been shipmates

■with during my six years in the merchant marine service, there is only one man whose name I can remember. I remember them only by their given names, or the nicknames by which they were called. Also of my shipmates for six years in the United States Navy, I can call to mind but a very few names. The names of the officers are fresh in my mind, as I was compelled to address them by their surnames, affixing the '* Mister." So in writing of my shipmates, I can only name them as I did in days gone by, — the common, familiar Jack, Bill, and Tom.

My duties on board the Meteor were very easy. No longer seasick, I assisted the cook in washing the dishes, keeping the cabin clean, and also took an occasional spell at the wheel, to be perfect in my steering, — " All day on and all night in." At the close of the fourteenth day out we were close to Bermuda. It began to darken in the northwest, and at eight bells that evening our schooner was hove to under a close-reefed mainsail and fore staysail. About ten o'clock the man on the lookout shouted, " Light, ! " Sure enough, under our lee quarter was the revolving light of Gibbs Hill lighthouse.

This was my first gale. I do not know much about the hardships of the crew that night. Snugly coiled down in my cubby-hole, I could hear the voices of the men as they would wear ship, trying to keep off that dangerous coast of rocks and shoals. At two o'clock, in the middle watch, I heard the order given to wear ship. I could feel her rise to an even keel and, as though she had received some awful blow, stagger and tremble Hke a drunken man. In coming round, she had pooped a sea.

I thought we were sinking. The water came pouring down through the small opening in the sail locker. I made a rush for the deck, to find a stillness of death, which lasted but a moment. A small house over the rudder head, which was used as a boatswain's locker, was torn from its lashings. Jammed in the companionway of the cabin, and trying to climb over it to get out of the flooded cabin, was the old colored cook.

It took but a few moments for the captain, who was a splendid sailor, to regain control of his ship. He got hold of me and pushed me down into the cabin, daring me to move from there. I climbed into the mate's bunk, clear of tlie wash, of water, and listened to the tramping of the men overhead getting the ship secured again. I had all faith in the captain, and a strong feeling that with him on deck, all would be well with us. It must have been about an hour when the cook returned from the deck, where he had been lending a hand, to begin the work of drying the cabin. I gained courage when he made his appearance. With buckets, rags, and mops we bailed out what water there was which had not found its way to the cargo.

At daylight the coast of Bermuda was clear to our view. A whaleboat, manned by six sturdy colored men, rowed out to us, and rounding under our lee quarter, they put a pilot on board. It is necessary for one to be nearing a dangerous coast on a lee shore to appreciate the sense of relief that comes over the ship when the pilot comes on board. At that time there is an ineffable satisfaction in one's security.

The pilot and his boat's crew were acquainted with our crew. They called one another by name and inquired of their friends on shore. That evening, shortly after sunset, we tied up alongside the wharf in the smooth waters of Hamilton harbor. Every man on board, as soon as he could get ready, left the ship. Not knowing my way to Captain Hill's house, I made for the pantry. There I got hold of some hard biscuits, which I smothered with butter and sugar, and retired to my bed in the sail locker, to eat my fill and pass the night on a water-soaked mainsail.

Chapter III

In Barbados it is considered degrading for a white man to do manual labor. Occasionally you will find a white man working at a trade, or serving on the police force, or making a living by catching flying fish, but they are socially ostracized. They must associate with the negroes, who are expected to do all the laborious work on the island. A white man's work is to manage a sugar plantation, to be a clerk in an of&ce or store, or to follow the profession of a minister, doctor, or lawyer. So also with the women, with the exception of a few who serve behind the counters of the largest clothing stores. They live lives of idleness, with negro servants at every beck and caU.

As a boy I was impressed with the idea that sailors were the only white men who were allowed to labor aboard their ships, and were still thought respectable. Perhaps my brothers being sailors created the impression. Howbeit, the next morning after landing in Bermuda, when I started with a letter in my pocket from my mother to find Captain Hill's house, the strangest thing to me was to see the familiarity that existed between the white and black Bermudians. Colored men meeting white men on the street would address them by their first names, without prefixing the Barbados title of " Massah." Along the road I could look over the stone walls, and there see the whites and blacks working side by side in the onion and potato fields. To cap it all, after finding Captain Hill and receiving from him the welcome of his big, fond heart, I was introduced to the negro boys in that part of Port Royal Parish as only Harry King. I soon became acquainted with them, and for five weeks I worked cheerfully with them, weeding onions in Captain Hill's gardens.

One morning, when not yet six weeks in Bermuda, I went with Captain Hill to the town of Hamilton. Before we started for home, I had visited the Bermudian brigantine Excelsior, and had made arrangements with Captain Mayor, her master, to sail with him to New York as cabin boy. When I told Captain Hill of my intended trip, I could see that it distressed this good old friend to have me leave him, but his knowing the captain of the Excelsior helped to make him yield, though he did so reluctantly.

The following day I was on the sea again, bound to New York city. There is not much to relate in a passage of this kind. It was spring and the weather was fine, with the exception of a stiff blow in the Gulf Stream for twenty-four hours. We reached New York on the seventh day out from Bermuda, when a towboat brought us safely to Pier 24, North River. Then it fully dawned upon me what activity meant in this world, and that it was honorable for a white man to work for his living.

We remained eight days in New York, and in that short time I was afforded the opportunity of visiting a sister in Brooklyn, and of seeing a few of the sights of a large city. It was the first time I had seen a steam locomotive. So that I could have the satisfaction of saying I had ridden on the railroad, I walked to the Battery, and, ascending to the platform station of the Elevated Road, I traveled as far as my five cents would carry me. I suppose I must have been to Harlem. Anyhow, the conductor told me this was the end of the line ; and passing out of the station, I turned, and paying another five cents, rode back to the Battery.

We sailed away for Bermuda, and in two months' time we made two more such voyages to New York with onions and potatoes, on each return trip taking back to Bermuda a cargo of breadstuff. At the end of the third voyage from New York the Excelsior was hauled into the middle of Hamilton harbor, and there moored till the following year. I remained at Captain Hill's house for eight months, not only welcomed by him and his good wife, but treated as though I were their own son. I had no desire to go to school, so I passed the time working in the field, running errands, and trying to make myself of some service to my dear, kind friends.

Bermuda is rightly termed " The Refuge." Many vessels, leaking or dismasted or in distress of some kind, have found a refuge in the harbors of this cluster of numerous small islands in mid- Atlantic. In the harbor of Hamilton as well as St. George, there werie old hulks along the shore, washed by every tide and wave. These hulks were once fine sailing ships, but in old age, no longer able to battle with storm and gale, they are shoved heartlessly aside. There is no picture more sad to me than to see what was once a thing of life, mastering the storms and gales of ocean and sea, reduced to a skeleton, forsaken by friends, its body left in some out-of-theway place, to be mercilessly and slowly torn to pieces by the waves on a foreign shore.

On my way to Hamilton one morning in the following March, I was surprised to see that the Excelsior had been moved from her mooring in the stream and was lying alongside of the wharf. Knowing it was too early for the onion season, I hastened on board. Finding Captain Mayor there, I inquired the reason of this change. He told me that his brig had been chartered to take grain from a Russian ship at anchor in a place called Murray's Anchorage, on the coast of Bermuda.

This Russian ship, bound from New York to some port in France with grain, had sprung a leak, and had put in for repairs. Being so large a ship, the greater part of her cargo must be hghtened before she could cross the harbor bar of St. George.

He wanted a cook and four sailors. I had been his cabin boy for three trips to New York, and with a feeling of confidence in my knowledge of cooking, I asked him to take me as cook. I can see the broad grin on his face and hear his merry laugh as he chokingly said, " You be blowed. You could n't keep water from burning." After coaxingly remonstrating with him, he half jokingly said, " Yes, I '11 take you to help the cook." I ventured to say, " What 's my pay, captain ? " " Pay, is it ? We 'U talk that over when I see what you can do."

Of all the open roadsteads in which I have dropped anchor during my twelve years at sea, I have never found any to equal Murray's Anchorage for exposure and danger. There is a verse known to sailors, —

" If Bermuda let you pass, Then look out for Cape Hatteras."

On a clear, calm morning in the month of March, a towboat came alongside, took the end of our hawser, and that afternoon we were made fast alongside the Russian monster. All the gear had been made ready for hoisting the grain from one ship to the other, and the work of unloading and loading began. At sunset, when work was stopped for the day, we had taken four hundred bags of grain aboard.

It was a calm, peaceful evening. The crews of both ships had turned into their bunks for the night save one man on each ship, who was keeping the anchor watch. It was close to midnight when I felt our brig moving, and her tossing and pitching awakened me. I heard the deafening noise and uproar of timbers crashing. Hastily getting on deck, I found our ship grinding herself against the side of the Russian, and every man doing his best to save both vessels from drifting upon the rocks. A heavy gale had sprung up, a hateful "nor wester" from Hatteras. With it had come a sea from the open Atlantic which seemed to take dehght in crushing the ships together.

The Russian let go his second anchor, paid out all his chain, then cast our hues adrift. We quickly began to drop astern, but in so doing we smashed a part of our bui-warks and carried with us, as we scraj)ed and thumped along his side, the bumkin for his port main brace, and the boat hanging at his after davits. It was well the yards of both vessels were braced in opposite directions. Had they been otherwise, so that we could have entangled each other's rigging, there is no telhng what the result might have been.

We kept going astern for about three hundred yards, when both our anchors were let go and all the chain in the lockers paid out. As the sternway was checked by the strain of the mooring chains, our brig began to show her antics. Up and down she bobbed and curtsied. Her bow was buried in the sea at one moment, and in another was lifted high, as though she were resting on her stern. The old-fashioned windlass began to show signs of weakness, as though it was being torn from the deck by the incessant jerking of the anchor chains.

A new coil of rope was hauled up from the lazaret, and with blocks from the boatswain's locker we rove off two long tackles. Wrapping strong straps on each anchor chain for-

WE SMASHED A PART OF OUR BULWARKS

ON A LEE SHORE 2T

ward of the windlass just inside the hawse pipes, under the small topgallant forecastle, we hooked on the falls, overhauling- them till the after blocks could reach the straps placed around the lower part of the mainmast. As she buried her nose we got a strain on the tackles which relieved the windlass from the severe jerking of the chains.

I was as busy as any one in this work on deck. Though a mere lad, not fourteen, I could hold a turn, pass this and the other thing, and help in many ways. We were on deck the rest of the night, clearing up the wreck and expecting every moment to see the chain tackles eased by the parting of the cables, and our ship dashed to pieces on the rocks of the shore. Fortunately we had some grain in our vessel, or surely she would have rolled over that night.

At dayhght, after a night of dreadful anxiety and suspense, we made fast the English ensign under the jib boom, tying a piece of iron at the lower part to keep it hanging up and down, so that the man in the signal station on shore could see that we were calling for a tug to come to our assistance. It was blowing too hard, and too heavy a sea was running, however, for a tug to dare to come out ; so that day and all the next night we had to endure the strain until the gale moderated.

The following afternoon the wind shifted to the east and died out to a peaceful calm. We worked hard and got our vessel straightened out again, hove in one of our anchors, and passed a quiet night. Next morning a rope was passed to the stern of the Russian, our anchor weighed, and we hauled alongside the full rigger and loaded our brig to the hatches with hags of grain. The towboat got hold of us and safely docked us at the wharf in the harbor of St. George. Here the cook, through some trouble at home, had to leave the ship, and I was made cook for the rest of the time.

We made four trips to the Russian, removing cargo enough to enable her to cross the bar in safety. We were then towed back to Hamilton, and made ready for taking on a cargo of onions for New York. If ever a boy felt rich in this world's goods, it was I when Captain Mayor gave me four English sovereigns, all my own, for services during the time we were unloading the grain from the

Eussian ship. Better still, I felt as though I was of some importance, when he told me I did very well.

We made a trip to New York and back again, and then loaded onions for a second trip. In saying good-by to Captain Hill this time, I told him that I should leave the Excelsior in New York this trip and find something to do there, as she was expected to lay up in Hamilton for another year on her return. I shall always remember the farewell words of this uncommon friend as he shook my hand. He said, " Boy, I like you. Come back whenever you want to. My home is yours." He made an impression on me that has been ever helpful in making me kindly toward young men who are friendless.

We arrived in due time at New York. I had six English sovereigns, which I changed for American money ; and saying good-by to Captain Mayor, his mate, Mr. Harvey White, the colored cook and colored sailors of the Excelsior, I started, with my clothes chest, on an express wagon, and made my way to my sister's in Brooklyn.

The very next day, in my wanderings around the outskirts of this beautiful city,

I called at the office on the grrounds of the Unexcelled Fireworks Factory, and asked the owner to give me work. Seeming satisfied with the answers I gave to his questions, he engaged me to charge Roman candles, for three dollars and fifty cents a week, which was fair pay for a green boy. It being some two miles from where my sister lived, I made an agreement with the proprietress of a German boarding-house to lodge and feed me and wash my clothes, for three dollars and twenty-five cents a week. Living at home with his parents, a boy earning three dollars and a half a week can, with his parents' help, make his way. For five months I worked merely for my board. Nearly all of my earnings were used for living expenses. I had even at this early stage of my life acquired the tobacco habit. So, with an occasional smoke, a new overcoat, and other necessary clothes, my exchequer reached a low ebb.