A SAILOR'S YARN

(first published in My Watch Below or Yarns Spun When Off Duty
Sampson Low, Marston & Company, London, 1882)

by W. Clark Russell
(1844-1911)

  

"OH, yes, I'm willing to tell you the story. I dunno what sort o' job I shall make of it, for it's different talking to a gent like yourself from what it is sitting in a fo'ksle say, or anyweers else where sailor men meet, and yarning to men as understands your lingo, and who'll turn to an' help ye with questions or chuck the rope's-end of an idee to you when your memory goes adrift with ye. As to my name, if I calls myself Bill I'll be speaking the truth. That's what my father used to sing out when he wanted me, and I've stuck to it ever since, though what my other name might ha' been in those days, when I tell ye, sir, that I've signed articles twenty times with twenty different names, ye'll believe me if I say I don't rightly remember. And, 'twixt you and me, I dunno that a sailor man needs to have a second name. They say a second name saves confusion. What would ye think of being shipmates with four Smiths, as I was once? What could ye make o' four Smiths? But supposin' they'd been four Bills? It 'ud be strange if they didn't all hail from different ports; so one 'ud be Liverpool Bill, say, an' another he'd be Poplar Bill, and t'other 'ud be Bristol Bill, and the fourth 'ud be Wapping Bill. A second name's only in the road: it gives a man more to write down. But there's no use goin' against custom; it's a mark o' conceit, I think; so whenever I signs articles I gives the first name that comes into my head, and it lasts me the woyage. Here's your health, sir, an' as I see there's no objection to smoking, I think I'll have a draw or two myself.    "Well, I was goin' to tell ye about the Globe, that were the name o' the barque, an iron wessel, summat under seven hundred and fifty ton, owned by some Liverpool gents. For my part, I never took to iron kindly. I don't want any man to tell me that it can be made to swim; but I know this, that when an iron wessel founders she goes down with a swiftness as proves what her instincts is. Now, ye can't say that of wood. Wood's in favour o' floating, as you'd be the first to own, sir, had you passed as many wooden wrecks as I have in my time. I'll allow that sailors is thought to be full o' prejudice, but it's more common-sense than the other thing. They're a class that's so imposed on that they object to new idees, for fear they should be meant to lower wages or make ship's companies smaller. All along I reckoned some imposition lay astern o' them double torps'ls yards. Whenever I see them spars when they first come in I used to say, 'Bullies, there's some bloomin' roose here, mates.' And wasn't I right? All that that inwention has done for sailors is to give owners an excuse to send their wessels to sea short-handed by feigning that double torps'l yards don't need the hands that the ol' torps'ls did. Aren't I right? You stop the first sailor man you meet and ask him. Well to come back to the Globe. We filled up with pretty nigh 1100 ton o' coal for a woyage to Walparaiso in South Ameriky. That means doublin' Cape Horn, master — beatin' round it against the westerly gales; and whenever a man thinks o' Cape Horn he'll find his eye settlin' on his wessel's loadline, and his mind goin' to work to reckon up her freeboard. D'ye know what freeboard is? Well, I'll tell ye — it's the side a vessel shows above the water. That's freeboard. The Yankees strives to hum-bug calkilations by hurricane-decks, an' I have known tall t'galln't bulwarks to make a deep ship look like a hisland. But if ye want to reckon a ship's side right, never ye go by the thickness of a hair above the coverin' board. That's law, though they should try to swamp your eyes with bulwarks as lofty as the maintop. Thank ye, sir, I don't mind trying another drop. Uncommon good liquor this is, to be sure.    "Well, sir, though I never measured it I'll allow that the Globe showed a side of about four feet. When you looked down her main hatch the wessel seemed chokeful o' coal; that was 'cause her 'tween decks wasn't fully covered, and the coal was brought up to the hatches. She was a taut looking craft. I believe she'd been a ship at one time o' her life, but they afterwards made a barque of her, with an iron mizzenmast. We got away from the River Tyne all right on the 19th o' March, and was humbugged with head winds all away round into the English Channel. Them winds brought out one quality we none of us much relished; I mean it showed that the wessel was uncommonly tender, which was not to be accounted for in a ship loaded as was the Globe. She'd lay over like a yacht, which 'ud ha' been all werry well if she'd ha' sailed as fast as she'd looked to be goin'. But I can't say this happened. She'd splutter a good deal in a breeze o' wind, and throw off foam enough for two such wessels, but this was owing to the dead weight in her, which made her strike every sea that took her a lumping blow, an' many a time I'd stand forrards on my look-out o' night and watch the water she'd whiten ahead of her so that ye'd fancy you was aboard a sleigh running across an ocean o' snow, until the foam 'ud come pouring past and leave the water ahead black, when she'd dip her nose into it again and send it boilin' along the darkness.    "Ye needn't smile at that, sir. I know that people ashore never believe that sailors look at the nat'ral beauties around them at sea. Landsmen hear of sailors beguilin' away their time in public-houses and rum sort o' lodgin' kens, along with a still rummier sort o' companions, and they say, 'Ho, how could uneddicated men like them, who never read nor write, and who do nothen' but smoke an' drink ashore, be expected to take notice o' the fine sights of the ocean? Poor, benighted creatures! they haven't the minds to bring to such things. All they think of at sea is beef and pork and what days duff is served out on, and when it'll be eight bells.' There never was a greater mistake. I s'pose there's no landsman as'll pretend to know sailors better nor me, and I'll say this, that I've been shipmates with men as have been as much affected by the beauties o' the ocean as any fine lady fresh from readin' poetry about the sea could ha' been, and p'raps a trifle more. Rough fellows, ay, so rough you'd think they was only fit to sheath a knife in your ribs if ye gave 'em an order they didn't relish; such men I've seen standin' as quiet as stone images, looking at the light of the moon upon the water, or at the sails silently drawin' over head, wi' the stars glimmering among the riggin', or at the white froth breaking away from the wessel's stem like the arms of a swimmin' girl. Think what ye will, sir, and believe the lies they tell of Jack, if ye must; but I say that the Lord is as much in the heart o' the poor sailor as in that of any of his feller-bein's ashore; and many's the grimy, hard-faced man I've seen standing lost in thought, looking over the ship's side, and takin' in the beauty o' the picture before him, as a child takes in the beauty o' flowers, with a look o' happy wonder that'll leave him gentle and pleasant for the rest o' his watch.    "Well, nothen' particular happened for some weeks. I dunno if a gent like you can understand what a sailin' ship bound on a long woyage signifies. Ye see there's so much steam now that the general idee is when you're on the water you're always goin' ahead and steerin' a proper course. But what's the truth? One day ye're hove-to in a gale of wind, driftin' away to leeward at two or three mile an hour, and obligin' the skipper to calkilate his reckonin's back'ards, like a man as counts to twenty and then works backs through nineteen an' heighteen and seventeen to one again. Another day ye're heavin' about on the shinin' swell of a dead calm, with the t'pgall'nt masts bucklin' to every jump, and the reef-points rattlin' on the sails as if a hundred auctioneers was up aloft, working away with their little hammers, and the water washin' up in small hills as high as the channels as the wessel dips, and keeping the scupper-holes sobbing and gurgling as though there was men overboard under 'em a drownin'. Woyaging after this here pattern don't give a man much to talk about, onless growlin' be talking. So I'll skip some weeks, and come down to May the 26th, by which time ye may take it that we was well abreast o' the south coast of the Brazils — about three hundred miles to the east'ards of it. I've already told ye, sir, that the Globe had shown herself werry tender pretty nigh ever since we got away from the river Tyne. Well, afore we were up with the Line we'd all of us noticed that she'd a strong fancy to a port list. I mean by that that she didn't want much encouragement to lay over more on one side than t'other, the one side being to port. Whether it was because her cargo wasn't stowed correctly, or because she were too heavily sparred, or because, being built of unnat'ral iron, she never could come to a right understanin' with the water, I don't know: an' as I can't reck'lek troublin' myself to think when I was aboard of her in danger, I don't see why I need worrit myself with speculatin' now, seein' that I'm out o' danger, and enjoyin' as good a drop o' spirits as I've put to my lips this many a day. Well, ye're werry good, sir, I don't mind if I do. Here's luck, sir; and the blessin' o' fortune to them as desarves it.    "It were on the 26th o' May, the barque bein' in the sitivation I've described, when a breeze o' wind came up from the south'ard and west'ard, That was a wind to head us off our course a bit. We went squatterin' through the water braced up sharp on the starboard tack, frothin' up the heavy swell that came rolling up along the course o' the wind, and lying down to the breeze until ye could ha' washed your face in the water by leaning over the port bulwark rail, in consequence of the wessel's list that way. The sky had all the appearance of a gale o' wind in it, grey clouds stretching in ribs, like the marks o' breakers upon the sand, with a smothered-looking sun strivin' to ooze out o' the thickness overhead. Besides, there was a moanin' noise in the air that was a sure sign, not belongin' to the wind that was bowing, but soundin' like the hecho of a tremindious row going on away behind th' 'orizon. Well, it came on to blow quick, every puff breezin' down with more weight in it. All hands were on deck, and kept hard at work shortening sail. By four o'clock she was snugged right away down to a single torps'l. It was then blowin' a strong gale, though it came on harder arterwards. Being hove-to on the starboard tack made us feel the wessel's tenderness. Talk o' comfort! I might tell ye her deck was like the roof of a house, if I didn't reckon that the roof of a house would be twenty times easier walkin' because of its steadiness. Think of the roof of a house jumpin' about like a helectrified frog, with tons a' water tumbling on board, floodin' the lee-scuppers until they was fit to drown the man as fetched away into them. Of course a sailor would notice only the inconvenience of a gale o' wind of this kind in a wessel not nicely adapted to keep him dry. But a landsman would ha' found more to think over. First, the sea was mighty heavy; ye might fairly call it a Pacific sea, and there's nothing on this airth that runs like the waves o' that enormous ocean. Then the howlin' of the gale aloft was made a good deal worse than there was any need for by the way in which the Globe brought her spars to wind'ard, for I noticed that she acted like a creature not onwilling to commit suicide, but, on the whole, rayther afeard o' death, heelin' her port bulwarks into the ragin' water as if she said to herself, 'I'll do it this time,' and then thinking better of it and jumping back in a kind o' fright, making the gale roar out as she swept her spars agin' it. It was my watch on deck from eight o'clock till midnight. In an ordinary gale o' wind and in an ordinary ship I should ha' made nothen' of stowing myself away somewheers handy, and taking a snooze ready for the first call. But this gale, though a wooden ship might ha' found it nothen' but ordinary, was made hextraordinary by the Globe, and even had the water that flew aboard been willing to let me take a nap somewheers out o' the wind, I doubt if I could ha' slept on top of such movements as the barque was hexecuting. Her anxiety to topple over to port was extremely worriting. It was worse to feel in the darkness than when the daylight was abroad to let ye see her games. Not that it was stone-dark either; there were too much white water for blindness. But the foam only let ye see the seas that were coming; the deck was dark; ye could perceive nothen' aloft, and you could only have swore the spars were there by hearing the raging and roaring in the rigging. It would have been all the better, p'raps, had the water been as black as the air, for, though it's not easy to alarm what ashore ye call a mariner wi' the sight of waves, as they're termed, yet it might ha' disturbed the mind of a fish that's got nothen' to fear from the water to watch some o' those seas coiling out of the darkness and tumbling along, white as wool, like masses o' rock rooshin' down a Jamaica mountain that's got an earthquake in its inside, and wait for them to strike the barque and heel her over to leeward with that list in her which, in a dead calm, made her stand as though there was a breeze o' wind in her sails. At eight bells, twelve o'clock in the middle o' the night, it was blowing fit to leave a man bald. But we'd had some hours o' this galliwanting and was gettin' used to it and as the wessel was always in the hact of beam-ending herself and always changing her mind and swingin' to wind'ard again, we took no more notice of her tomfoolin', and when eight bells were struck I and the others o' my watch went into the fo'ksle to lay down. I had a smoke before getting into my hammock, and that might ha' occupied me ten minutes. I then pulled off my boots and coat, seeing no need to shift my other clothes, wet as they was, as all hands might be called at any minute, and, if I wanted a dry shift when the fine weather came agin' my chest was none too plentifully lined to allow me to wet two suits of clothes in one night.    "I fell asleep, but I might ha' been sleeping five minutes or five hours for all I could have told you, when I was woke up by a loud and fearful shout. I tried to get out of my hammock, but it was hard up agin' the deck, jammed like, but I tumbled out at last, and the moment I felt my feet, away I sprawled to leeward, like shootin' a bucket o' water over the side. I took it that the decks was up an' down — ay, indeed, for a spell I dunno as I could have told ye which part o' the wessel was uppermost. The confusion was awful, sir; the seas roarin' over the barque and bustin' agin her sides with concussions as might ha' made ye reckon the airth were splitting up, the gale yellin' in the rigging like forty thousand mad women, the skipper and chief mate bawling at the top o' their voices, and the wessel right away over on her beam ends. That was the matter with her. She'd made up her mind at last, and there she lay with her port bulwarks under water, scarcely risin' to the seas which tumbled about an' over her as if she was a rock. Ye'll please remember it was pitch dark, wanting about half hour o' daybreak. I scrambled out of the fo'ksle, I dunno how, clawing at the deck like a parrot working along a perch, and heard the skipper roaring out orders for the wessel to be wore. It was easy enough to sing out, but the men couldn't see to work: they dursn't let go wi' their hands for fear of fetching away overboard; and though we slided about somehow, and obeyed horders as best we could, it were all no go, sir; the barque wouldn't wear, but hung in the trough o' the sea, shivering like a dying animal with every blow that struck her, and the foam blowing the clouds o' steam over the decks, and tons of black water falling out o' the white haze.    "Well, the skipper, I s'pose, thought the barque 'ud wear if he cut away his mizzenmast; some of us scrambled aft, and hacked at the stannin' rigging until the shrouds and backstays swung in; but the mast was of iron, and stood as firm as a lighthouse. So the skipper he sings out to us to cut away the main rigging, and, when that was done, the mast went carrying the mizzentopmast along with it, and there was such a hullaballoo o' splintering and crashing wood as were fearsome enough to set all hands praying. Daylight was not long now a-coming. There never was such a picter of a wreck as the Globe made when the sun rose. Her port bulwarks was under water, and against them was the raffle of spars and rigging thrashing her side and pounding at her as if half-a-dozen nautical giants had laid a vager which 'ud knock a hole in her bottom fust. There was a fearful cross sea on, too, and the sky looked like a big sheet o' guttapercha stretched over our heads. There are plenty o' bad dangers to be met at sea, I know; but I doubt, unless ye take fire, whether ye'll name one that'll match the sitivation us ship's company was in. Being on her beam-ends, the sensation all the time was that the wessel was going down: and nary sea struck her that didn't leave us starin' at one another, and wonderin' to find that we weren't yet drowning. Clearing away the wreckage alongside was a nasty job; no words 'ud make you understand it; ye'd need to see it in a drawin'. When at last the raffle went clear we were sent below to see if we could trim the ship. Seeing what our cargo was, and how it lay, and how the wessel rolled it to leeward with every heave, I thought that was a poor job to put wore-out men to, and I dessay some of us cussed a bit as we tumbled into the wet coal.    "Well, as ye may s'pose, we did no good, and knocked off to man the pumps, for the carpenter had sounded and found twelve inches o' water in the hold. But when we came to try, we found only one pump fit to use, and that we kept going, but it was like taking a pint out of a galley copper every time a quart's put in; ye know which'll beat. I wouldn't pass such another day, sir for a thousand pound a year and the command of the biggest ship out o' Liverpool. That sounds tall, but it's true as that this ear that I'm pulling is on my head. The galley fire was washed out; there was nothen' but biscuit to eat. It was up to your neck to leeward, and the water came aboard over the weather-bow like a small Niagara Falls. There was no standin' on the deck without holding on tight, and when we stood to windward and looked down at the water boiling as high as the lee coamings of the hatches and nothen' wisible of the bulwarks but just the top o' the rail glancin' amid the snow like a great sarpint glidin' along, and then up at the bare iron mizzenmast and at the foremast and the yards there standin' lonely like the spars of a wessel whose hull is sunk in the sands — I say when we saw them sights and felt the sickening heaves of the barque under our feet, and thought as it might be that every heave would be her last, and that next time we should be struggling with black faces in the water wi' the salt scorching our throats, we felt as hopeless as ever sailor men have felt since human beings first took to the sea for a livin'. Nothen' hove in sight that day, and how we managed to scrape through it and the night as follered I dunno. It was pump, pump, all the time wi' that one bloomin' useless bit of a hand-pump, the wessel diving, the sea storming, the gale bellowing, and all hands waitin' for death. When next morning came there was eighteen inches o' water in the hold, but the weather had moderated a bit, and when the light had come strong, the first thing we see to wind'ard was a full-rigged ship steering north, and about four mile distant. A mob of us, not waitin' for horders, scrambled aft, and, there being no signal halliards, they seized the ensign, Jack down, in the leemizzen riggin'.    "Seein' this — though our plight spoke loud enough to need no woice from flags — the ship shifted her helm and ran down to us, and hove-to within ear-shot. Our skipper roared out his story, and t'other skipper said his wessel was the Niphon o' Liverpool, and after a bit a boat was lowered, and one o' the mates boarded us, the sea having sunk considerable, for, as I have said, the gale broke in the night. Well, one o' the mates came aboard, and we was so pleased to see him that we could ha' taken him in our arms and kissed him as if we was Frenchmen. He seemed to hold back when he came over the side at the sight of our decks, and the stoutest man might well ha' been scared to see, for the first time, the sea thrashing as high as the main hatch, and the port bulwarks under water. He said his skipper told him to say he'd be glad to give us a small boat — ours was gone — if we had a mind to continue our woyage. Our capt'n looked as if he'd consent, perceiving which we shouted in one breath that we'd not stop, that we'd go aboard the other ship. Would ye believe it possible, sir, that any capt'n 'ud expect men to pursue their woyage in a wessel without a mainmast or mizzentopmast with her port side under water, her bottom leaky, and only one pump fit to use? That such an idee should be in a skipper's mind 'll give ye some notion, sir, of what's expected from sailors, as if their lives, when once they've signed articles, are as much the skipper's property as his hat or his boots, which he chucks overboard when he's done with them. No, no; we'd had enough o' the Globe; and, guessing persuasions wasn't likely to be of much sarvice, the skipper ordered us in the boat, he coming along too, and so we got aboard the Niphon. As the ship filled and drew away from the Globe, I stood looking at the barque, wonderin' in my heart o' hearts however we'd been able to hold ourselves aboard of her, for she lay over to port so heavily that it was amazing her keel remained out o' sight, and she looked so broken an' drowning an object that my head felt giddy and my legs shook as I watched her. So there ye have the story you wanted, sir; just a plain yarn, ye see, and like scores that's happening every day, though only a few o' them ever get heerd of.    "Well, only a thimble-full, sir, thank ye. I've had my dose but there's a bit of a smoke still left in these 'ere ashes, and certainly the liquor is most uncommonly good."    W. CLARK RUSSELL.