A Sack of Shakings

by Frank Thomas Bullen

COUNTRY LIFE ON BOARD SHIP

I

At first sight, any two things more difficult to bring into intimate relations than bucolic and nautical life would appear impossible to find. Those unfortunate people who, having followed the calm, well-ordered round of pastoral progress through the steadily-succeeding seasons of many years, suddenly find themselves, by some freakish twist of fortune’s wheel, transferred to the unstable bosom of the mutable deep, become terribly conscious of their helplessness in the face of conditions so utterly at variance with all their previous experience of settled, orderly life. The old order has changed with a vengeance, giving place to a bewildering seasonal disarrangement which seems to their shaken senses like a foretaste of some topsy-turvy world. Like sorrowful strangers in a strange land are they, wherein there is no sure foothold, and where, in place of the old familiar landmarks known and cherished so long, is a new element constant to nothing but change and—upon which they seem to be precariously poised—the centre of a marginless circle of invariable variability. This subversion of all precedent is of course no less disconcerting to the humbler denizens of the farmyard and meadow than it is to those who are ordinarily the august arbiters of their destinies. And a sudden change from the placid environment of the homestead, with all its large liberty and peaceful delights, to the cramped, comfortless quarters which, as a rule, are all that shipboard arrangements allow them, at once brings them to a state of disconsolate wretchedness wherein all their self-assertive individuality is reduced to a meek, voiceless protest against their hard and unmerited fate. Sea-sickness, too, that truly democratic leveller, does not spare animals, but inserts another set of totally new and unpleasant sensations into the already complicated disorganisation of their unfortunate position.

In spite of these admittedly difficult factors, I have the temerity to attempt the setting forth of certain phases of nautical life experienced by myself which have always appeared to me to bring into close contact two such widely differing spheres of existence as country life and sea life, principally in the management of farmyard animals at sea. Sailors are proverbially handy at most things, if their methods are unconventional, and I venture to hope that country readers will at least be amused by Jack’s antics when dealing with the familiar creatures of the countryside.

With that wonderful adaptability to circumstances which, while pre-eminently characteristic of mankind, is also a notable quality of domesticated animals, they soon recover from their stupor and malaise, arrange their locomotive powers to suit the mutations of their unsteady home, and learn (perhaps soonest of all) to distinguish the very number of strokes upon the ship’s bell which announces the arrival of feeding-time. No doubt the attentions of the sailors have much to do with the rapidity of acclimatisation (if the term may be so employed) manifested by most of the animals, since sailors have justly earned a high reputation for taming and educating creatures of even the most ferocious and intractable dispositions. Nevertheless, this result is attained by some of the queerest and most ludicrous means (to a countryman) imaginable. But what does that matter, since the conditions of their existence then become, for the seaworthy animals, not only pleasant but undoubtedly profitable to their owners. And where they are presently allowed the run of the ship much fun ensues, fun, moreover, that has no parallel in country life as ordinarily understood. Perhaps my experiences have been more favourably enlarged than falls to the lot of most seafarers, for I have been in several ships where the live-stock were allowed free warren; and although the system had many inconveniences and entailed a great deal of extra labour upon the crew, there were also many compensations. But, like all things pertaining to the sea, the practice of carrying live-stock has been replaced by more modern methods. The custom of carrying fresh meat in refrigerators is rapidly gaining ground, and, in consequence, latter-day seamen find fewer and fewer opportunities for educating in seafaring behaviour the usual farmyard animals that supply us with food. By few seamen will this be regarded as a misfortune, since they find their labour quite sufficiently onerous without the inevitable and disagreeable concomitants of carrying live-stock.

By far the largest portion of my experience of farmyard operations on board ship has been connected with pigs. These profitable animals have always been noted for their adaptability to sea life, and I fully believe, what I have often heard asserted, that no pork is so delicious as that which has been reared on board ship. Be that as it may, pigs of every nation under heaven where swine are to be found have been shipmates with me, and a complete study of all their varied characteristics and their behaviour under all sea circumstances would occupy a far greater number of pages than I am ever likely to be able or willing to give. Already I have endeavoured to set forth, in a former article, a sketch of the brilliant, if erratic, career of one piggy shipmate whose life was full of interest and his death a blaze of lurid glory. But he was in nowise the most important member of our large and assorted collection of grunters in that ship. Our Scotch skipper was an enthusiastic farmer during the brief periods he spent at Cellardyke between his voyages to the East Indies, and consequently it was not strange that he should devote a portion of his ample leisure to pig-breeding when at sea. For some reason, probably economical, we carried no fowls or other animals destined for our meat, with the exception of the pigs, two large retriever dogs and two cats making up the total of our animal passengers, unless a large and active colony of rats that inhabited the recesses of the hold be taken into account. The day before sailing from Liverpool a handsome young pair of porkers, boar and sow, were borne on board in one sack by the seller, making the welkin ring with their shrill protests. We already possessed a middle-aged black sow of Madras origin, whose temper was perfectly savage and unappeasable; in fact, she was the only animal I ever saw on board ship that could not be tamed. The first few days of our passage being stormy, the two young pigs suffered greatly from sea-sickness, and in their helpless, enfeebled state endured many things from the wrathful, long-snouted old Madrassee, who seemed to regard them both with peculiar aversion. She ate all their grub as well as her own, although, like the lean kine of Scripture, she was nothing benefited thereby. But the sailors, finding the youngsters amicably disposed, began to pet them, and in all possible ways to protect them from ill-usage not only by the savage Indian but by the black retriever Sailor, who had taken up his quarters in the fo’c’s’le and became furiously jealous of any attention shown to the pigs by his many masters. It should be noted that, contrary to the usual practice, those pigs had no settled abiding-place. At night they slept in some darksome corner beneath the top-gallant forecastle, wherever they could find a dry spot, but by day they roamed the deck whithersoever they listed, often getting as far aft as the sacred precincts of the quarter-deck, until Neptune, the brown retriever that guarded the after-end of the ship, espied them, and, leaping upon them, towed them forrard at full gallop by the ears, amid a hurly-burly of eldritch shrieks and rattling hoofs. I am not at all sure that the frolicsome young things did not enjoy these squally interludes in their otherwise peaceful lives. Certainly they often seemed to court rather than to avoid the dog’s onslaught, and would dodge him round the after-hatch for all the world like London Arabs guying a policeman. The only bitter drop in their brimming cup of delights came with distressing regularity each morning. As soon as the wash-deck tub was hauled forrard and the fore part of the ship was invaded by the barefooted scrubbers and water-slingers, two hands would grope beneath the fo’c’s’le, where, squeezed into the smallest imaginable space, Denis and Jenny were, or pretended to be, sleeping the dreamless slumbers of youthful innocence. Ruthlessly they were seized and hauled on deck, their frantic lamentations lacerating the bright air, and evoking fragments of the commination service from the disturbed watch below. While one man held each of them down, others scrubbed them vigorously, pouring a whole flood of sparkling brine over them meanwhile, until they were as rosy and sweet as any cherub of the nursery after its bath. This treatment, so mournfully and regularly resented by them, was doubtless one reason why they throve so amazingly, although the liberal rations of sea-biscuit and peasoup supplied to them probably suited them as well as any highly-advertised and costly provender would have done. Their tameness was wonderful and withal somewhat embarrassing, for it was no uncommon thing for them to slip into the men’s house unseen during the absence of the crew, and, climbing into a lower bunk, nestle cosily down into the unfortunate owner’s blankets and snore peacefully until forcibly ejected by the wrathful lessee.

Our passage was long, very long, so that the old black sow littered off the Cape of Good Hope, choosing, with her usual saturnine perversity, a night when a howling gale was blowing, and destroying all her hapless offspring but one in her furious resentment at the whole thing. Jenny, like the amiable creature she always was, delayed her offering until we were lying peaceably in Bombay Harbour. There she placidly produced thirteen chubby little sucklings and reared every one of them. They were a never-failing source of amusement to the men, who, in the dog-watches, would sit for hours with pipes aglow sedately enjoying the screamingly-funny antics of the merry band. There is much controversy as to which of all tame animals are the most genuinely frolicsome in their youth, kittens, lambs, calves, pups, and colts all having their adherents; but I unhesitatingly give my vote for piglings, especially when they are systematically petted and encouraged in all their antics as were that happy family of ours. Generally, the fat and lazy parents passed the time of these evening gambols in poking about among the men, begging for stray midshipmen’s nuts (broken biscuit), or asking in well-understood pig-talk to be scratched behind their ears or along their bristly spines, but occasionally, as if unable to restrain themselves any longer, they would suddenly join their gyrating family, their elephantine gambols among the frisky youngsters causing roars of laughter. Usually they wound up the revels by a grand galop furieux aft of the whole troop squealing and grunting fortissimo, and returning accompanied by the two dogs in a hideous uproar of barks, growls, and squeals.

Our stay on the coast was sufficiently prolonged to admit of another litter being produced in Bimlia-patam, twelve more piglets being added to our already sizeable herd of seventeen. So far, these farming matters had met with the unqualified approval of all hands except the unfortunate boys who had to do the scavenging, but upon quitting the Coromandel coast for the homeward passage, the exceeding cheapness of live-stock tempted our prudent skipper to invest in a large number of fowls and ducks. Besides these, he bought a couple of milch goats, with some wild idea of milking them, while various members of the crew had gotten monkeys, musk-deer, and parrots. It needed no special gift of prescience to foresee serious trouble presently, for there was not a single coop or house of any kind on board for any of the motley crowd. As each crate of cackling birds was lowered on deck it was turned out, and by the time the last of the new-comers were free, never did a ship’s decks look more like a “barton” than ours. Forty or fifty cockfights were proceeding in as many corners, aided and abetted, I grieve to say, by the sailors, who did all they could to encourage the pugnacity of the fowls, although they were already as quarrelsome a lot as you would easily get together. The goats were right at home at once; in fact goats are, I believe, the single exception to the general rule of the discomfort of animals when first they are brought on shipboard. The newcomers quietly browsed around, sampling everything they could get a purchase on with their teeth, and apparently finding all good alike. Especially did they favour the ends of the running gear. Now if there is one thing more than another that is sharply looked after at sea, it is the “whipping” or securing of ropes-ends to prevent them fraying out. But it was suddenly discovered that our ropes-ends needed continual attention, some of them being always found with disreputable tassels hanging to them. And when the mates realised that the goats apparently preferred a bit of tarry rope before anything else, their wrath was too great for words, and they meditated a terrible revenge. Another peculiarity of these strange-eyed animals was that they liked tobacco, and would eat a great deal of it, especially in the form of used-up quids. This peculiar taste in feeding had unexpected results. As before said, the raison d’être of the goats was milk, and after sundry ineffectual struggles the steward managed to extract a cupful from the unworthy pair. It was placed upon the cabin table with an air of triumph, and the eyes of the captain’s wife positively beamed when she saw it. Solemnly it was handed round, and poured into the coffee as if it had been a libation to a tutelary deity, but somebody soon raised a complaint that the coffee was not up to concert pitch by a considerable majority. A process of exhaustive reasoning led to the milk being tasted by the captain, who immediately spat it out with much violence, ejaculating, “Why, the dam’ stuff’s pwushioned!” The steward, all pale and agitated, looked on dumbly, until in answer to the old man’s furious questions he falteringly denied all knowledge of any felonious addition to the milk. The storm that was raised by the affair was a serious one, and for a while things looked really awkward for the steward. Fortunately the mate had the common-sense to suggest that the malignant goat should be tapped once more, and the immediate result tasted. This was done, and the poor steward triumphantly vindicated. Then it was unanimously admitted that tarry hemp, painted canvas, and plug tobacco were not calculated to produce milk of a flavour that would be fancied by ordinary people.

II

For the first time that voyage an attempt was made to confine a portion of our farm-stock within a pen, instead of allowing them to roam at their own sweet will about the decks. For the skipper still cherished the idea that milk for tea and coffee might be obtained from the two goats that would be palatable, if only their habit of promiscuous grazing could be stopped. So the carpenter rigged up a tiny corral beneath the fo’c’s’le deck, and there, in penitential gloom, the goats were confined and fed, like all the rest of the animals, on last voyage’s biscuit and weevily pease. Under these depressing conditions there was, of course, only one thing left for self-respecting goats to do—refuse to secrete any more milk. They promptly did so; so promptly, in fact, that on the second morning the utmost energies of the steward only sufficed to squeeze out from the sardonic pair about half-a-dozen teaspoonfuls of doubtful-looking fluid. This sealed their fate, for we had far too much stock on board to waste any portion of our provender upon non-producers, and the fiat went forth—the drones must die. Some suggestion was made by a member of the after guard as to the possibility of the crew not objecting to goat as a change of diet; but with all the skipper’s boldness, he did not venture to make the attempt. The goats were slain, their hides were saved for chafing gear, sheaths for knives, &c., but, with the exception of a portion that was boiled down with much disgust by the cook and given to the fowls, most of the flesh was flung overboard. Then general complaints arose that while musk was a pleasant perfume taken in moderation, a little of it went a very long way, and that two musk deer might be relied upon to provide as much scent in one day as would suffice all hands for a year. I do not know how it was done, but two days after the demise of the goats the deer also vanished. Still we could not be said to enjoy much room to move about on deck yet. We had 200 fowls and forty ducks roaming at large, and although many of the former idiotic birds tried their wings, with the result of finding the outside of the ship a brief and uncertain abiding-place, the state of the ship’s decks was still utterly abominable. A week of uninterrupted fine weather under the blazing sun of the Bay of Bengal had made every one but the skipper heartily sick of sea-farming, and consequently it was with many pleasurable anticipations that we noted the first increase in the wind that necessitated a reduction of sail. It made the fellows quite gay to think of the clearance that would presently take place. The breeze freshened steadily all night, and in the morning it was blowing a moderate gale, with an ugly cross sea, which, with the Belle’s well-known clumsiness, she was allowing to break aboard in all directions. By four bells there were many gaps in our company of fowls. Such a state of affairs robbed them of the tiny modicum of gumption they had ever possessed, and every little breaking sea that lolloped inboard drove some of them, with strident outcry, to seek refuge overboard. Presently came what we had been expecting all the morning—one huge mass of water extending from the break of the poop to the forecastle, which filled the decks rail high, fore and aft. Proceedings were exceedingly animated for a time. The ducks took very kindly to the new arrangement at first, sailing joyously about, and tasting the bitter brine as if they rather liked the flavour. But they were vastly puzzled by the incomprehensible motions of the whole mass of water under them; it was a phenomenon transcending all their previous aquatic experiences. The fowls gave the whole thing up, floating languidly about like worn-out feather brooms upon the seething flood of water, and hardly retaining enough energy to struggle when the men, splashing about like a crack team in a water-polo match, snatched at them and conveyed them in heaps to a place of security under the forecastle. That day’s breeze got rid of quite two-thirds of our feathered friends for us, what with the number that had flown or been washed overboard and those unfortunates who had died in wet heaps under the forecastle. The old man was much annoyed, and could by no means understand the unwonted cheerfulness of everybody else. But, economical to the last, he ordered the steward to slay as many of the survivors each day as would give every man one body apiece for dinner, in lieu of the usual rations of salt beef or pork. This royal command gave all hands great satisfaction, for it is a superstition on board ship that to feed upon chicken is the height of epicurean luxury. Dinner-time, therefore, was awaited with considerable impatience; in fact, a good deal of sleep was lost by the watch below over the prospect of such an unusual luxury. I went to the galley as usual, my mouth watering like the rest, but when I saw the dirty little Maltese cook harpooning the carcasses out of the coppers, my appetite began to fail me. He carefully counted into my kid one corpse to each man, and I silently bore them into the forecastle to the midst of the gaping crowd. Ah me! how was their joy turned into sorrow, their sorrow into rage, by the rapidest of transitions. She was a hungry ship at the best of times, but when things had been at their worst they had never quite reached the present sad level. It is hardly possible to imagine what that feast looked like. An East Indian jungle fowl is by no means a fleshy bird when at its best, but these poor wretches had been living upon what little flesh they wore when they came on board for about ten days, the scanty ration of paddy and broken biscuit having been insufficient to keep them alive. And then they had been scalded wholesale, the feathers roughly wiped off them, and plunged into a copper of furiously bubbling seawater, where they had remained until the wooden-headed Maltese judged it time to fish them out and send them to be eaten. They were just like ladies’ bustles covered with old parchment, and I have serious doubts whether more than half of them were drawn. I dare not attempt to reproduce the comments of my starving shipmates, unless I gave a row of dashes which would be suggestive but not enlightening. Old Nat the Yankee, who was the doyen of the forecastle, was the first to recover sufficiently from the shock to formulate a definite plan of action. “In my ’pinion,” he said, “thishyer’s ’bout reached th’ bottom notch. I kin stan’ bein’ starved; in these yer limejuicers a feller’s got ter stan’ that, but I be ’tarnally dod-gasted ef I kin see bein’ starved ’n’ insulted at the same time by the notion ov bein’ bloated with lugsury. I’m goin’ ter take thishyer kid full o’ bramley-kites aft an’ ask th’ ole man ef he don’t think it’s ’bout time somethin’ wuz said an’ done by th’ croo ov this hooker.” There was no dissentient voice heard, and solemnly as a funeral procession, Nat leading the way with the corpuses delicti, the whole watch tramped aft. I need not dwell upon the interview. Sufficient that there was a good deal of animated conversation, and much jeering on the skipper’s part at the well-known cussedness of sailors, who, as everybody knows (or think they know), will growl if fed on all the delicacies of the season served up on 18-carat plate. But we got no more poultry, thank Heaven. And I do not think the officers regretted the fact that before we got clear of the bay the last of that sad crowd of feathered bipeds had ceased to worry any of us, but had wisely given up the attempt to struggle against such a combination of trying circumstances.