Sea life in Nelson's time

by John Masefield

On gaining the deck of an old 74 the visitor would have found himself upon the spar-deck, just abaft the main-mast, fronting the great timber bitts, with their coils of running rigging. Close beside him was the quarter-deck ladder, leading up to the quarter-deck.[1] Above this again was the poop, a second raised platform or deck, reached by short, small ladders from the quarter-deck. Right at the stern of the ship, inclining outboard over the sea, was a flagstaff on which flew an ensign as large as a mizzen-topgallant-sail. If the visitor had clambered up the sloping deck to this point he would have been able to overlook the whole of the upper surface of the ship. Just beneath him, at his back, below the step of the flagstaff, he would have seen a heavy lantern, or stern light, with a ponderous and decorated case. To each side of the flagstaff were lifebuoys, by which a marine with a hatchet was always stationed when the ship was at sea. At the alarm of “man overboard” the marine hacked through the lanyard supporting one of the lifebuoys and let it drop into the water. At each side of the ship, along the poop and quarter-deck, were the after-guns, which, till 1779, when the carronade was adopted, were generally 9-pounders, in red wooden trucks or carriages, secured to the ship’s side in the usual way. These guns pointed through square port-holes which were cut, without lids, through the thick wooden bulwarks. Forward of the mizzen-mast, under the break of the poop,[2] or, in the later times, on the quarter-deck itself, was the great double steering wheel, placed in midships, abaft the binnacle which held the compass. The tiller ropes were made of raw-hide thongs, raw-hide being tougher than rope, and less dangerous to the crew when struck by a shot than chain would have been. Over the wheel hung the forward arm of the great lateen mizzen-yard,[3] a relic of Drake’s time, which was not abolished in favour of the spanker gaff and boom until the end of the eighteenth century. Along the sides of the quarter-deck, and along the ship’s bulwarks as far forward as the beakhead, were the hammock nettings, or hammock cloths, within which the hammocks of the ship’s company were stowed.

Forward of the quarter-deck, between that deck and the forecastle, was the waist, or, as a modern sailor would call it, the well. It was not decked over, nor were the wooden bulwarks of the quarter-deck continued along it, but to each side, in the place of bulwarks, were iron standards, supporting two thick canvas breastworks or stout nettings of rope about two feet apart, between which the hammocks of the crew were stowed. Directly within these breastworks were broad plank gangways, for the convenience of the sail-trimmers, small-arm parties, and marines. Between the main and fore masts, in midships, parallel with the decked-over gangways, were the booms, or spare spars, tightly lashed in position. On the top of these spars, or to each side of them, were the ship’s boats, long-boat, barge and cutter, with their oars and sails inside them. Farther forward was the forecastle, upon which were more carronades, or 9-pounder cannon, and one or two heavy bow-chasers, or guns made to fire forward. On the forecastle was the great ship’s bell, hanging from a heavy wooden or iron belfry, with a plaited lanyard on the clapper to help the timekeeper to strike it. In the centre of the forecastle was the galley-funnel, the chimney of the ship’s kitchen. At the forward end were ladders leading into the beakhead, from which the sailors reached the bowsprit when occasion sent them thither.

Under the poop was the captain’s cabin, extending from its forward limit to the gilded stern gallery. This part of the ship, extending outboard as it did, like a great gilt excrescence, was sometimes known as the coach or round house. Very frequently this cabin contained no guns. If it contained guns they were seldom or never fired. The ports of the cabin were glazed, and there was a couch or settee running under them for the ease of the captain. These settees were hollow, and formed convenient cupboards for the captain’s gear. As the floor or deck of the cabin was laid upon the beams of the main or upper gun-deck, it followed that the cabin was loftier and roomier than any other place in the ship. The poop, the deck above it, was raised some feet above the quarter-deck, as we have seen, so that the captain’s state apartment may have been some eight or nine feet high. A door from it opened into the stern walk, which opened by two little doors, one on each side, to the quarter galleries. The cabins were usually very bare. They were furnished with a large fixed table, a few heavy chairs, a fixed or swinging sleeping cot, and a wooden washhand stand containing a basin. It was shut off from the forward portion of the ship by a simple wooden bulkhead, made of elm, so fitted that it could be lifted from its place and shifted out of its way when the ship went into action. In early times, in the days of the Stuarts, this bulkhead and the interior of the cabin were made gay with carved work, or, as it was then called “gingerbread work.” Great ships of the first and second rates then carried joiners, to repair and keep beautiful these decorations. In the latter half of the eighteenth century the cabins were without decorations of any kind. The only breaks to the bareness of the wood were the captain’s foul-weather clothes, dangling from pegs, and his lamp swinging in its gimbals or hinges, his telescope in his bracket, and, perhaps, a trophy of swords and pistols, or a stand of the ship’s arms, such as muskets and cutlasses, in a rack about the mizzen-mast. There were, of course, captains like Captain Whiffle in the novel, or the scented Captain Mizen in the play, who lived in great splendour, in carpeted cabins hung with Italian pictures. These worthies kept perfumes burning in silver censers to destroy the odour of the bilge. Such captains were, however, the exception, not the rule. A captain with a case of books and a pair of curtains to his windows was regarded as a sybarite. Any decorations beyond these were looked upon as Persian and soul-destroying.

The forward bulkhead of the cabin was pierced with a door in midships, which opened on to the half-deck, the space covered by the quarter-deck. The half-deck was also known as the steerage, from the fact that the steering wheels and binnacle were placed there, under the roof or shelter of the quarter-deck planks. The sides of the half-deck were pierced for guns, generally carronades. It must be remembered that the half-deck was, as its name implies, decked over, so that one could walk from side to side of the ship on a floor of planks. The waist, or space between the fore and main-masts, on the same plane, was not so decked. The forecastle was decked across, and the sides of the forecastle were pierced for carronades. But there were no guns on the plank gangways along the sides of the waist, partly because the position was exposed, and partly because the space was needed in action by the sail-trimmers and small-arm parties. The raised forecastle and high poop and quarter-deck, were survivals from old time. In the old ships of war, of the reign of Elizabeth, these superstructures had been built of great strength and height, “the more for their majesty to astonish the enemy.” No ship could be carried by boarding until the men defending these castles had been overcome. No boarding party could enter such a ship without great danger, for the bulkheads of these castles were pierced for quick-firing guns, mounted so as to sweep the waist. Any troop of boarders clambering into the waist could be shot down by the gunners in the castles. The superstructures were excellent inventions for that time, when naval engagements were decided by hand-to-hand fighting, or by ramming. They were less useful when the improvements in ordnance made it possible to decide a sea-fight by the firing of guns at a distance. They lingered in our Navy until the third or fourth decade of the nineteenth century, when the raised or topgallant forecastle was abolished. Some twenty or thirty years before this happened the quarter-deck and poop were merged together, so that there was then but one deck above the spar-deck.

Passing forward from the steerage one came to the main hatchway in the open space of the waist, just forward of the main-mast. The ladders of this hatchway led from the waist to the deck below. This deck below the spar-deck was known in first and second rates as the main-deck. In third-rates, such as a 74-gun ship, it was called the second or upper deck. Right aft, on this deck, was the ward-room or officers’ mess, where the lieutenants had their meals. The room was large and well-lit, for the stern of the ship was pierced with five or six windows, which were all glazed, like the windows of the captain’s cabin. Part of the ward-room was used as an officer’s store-room, and this part seems to have been shut away from the rest by means of wooden bulkheads, made of elm, as being less liable to splinter if struck by a shot than any other sort of wood. There was no stern walk outside the after windows on this deck, but there were quarter galleries to each side. These were generally fitted up as lavatories for the lieutenants. Forward of the ward-room, on each side of the deck, were the state-rooms of the lieutenants—little fenced-off cupboards, walled with elm wood, each of them just large enough to hold a cot, a writing-desk, a chest of clothes, and a few instruments. In some ships—as in fifth and sixth rates—the lieutenants slung their hammocks in the ward-room, there being no space for private cabins. Beyond the ward-room bulkhead was the open deck, clear of obstruction save for the capstans and the openings of the hatchways, almost as far forward as the fore-mast.[4] Abaft the fore-mast, in midships, was the cook-room or galley, where the cook perspired over his coppers. The galley floor was paved with brick, to lessen the risk of fire. At each side of the deck, at their respective port-holes, were the lines of cannon. The general calibre for this deck, aboard a 74, was the 24-pounder. Of these there were usually some fifteen or sixteen at each side of the ship on this, the second or upper deck.

As a large portion of this deck was not decked over, but open to the sky, save for the boats and spare spars, the fighting space was comparatively light. In fine weather, and in moderately breezy weather, the gun ports on this tier could be kept open, at anyrate to leeward. In bad weather, when they were closed, when tarpaulins covered the hatchways and open spaces, the deck was lit by the bull’s-eyes—the round and oval plates of thick glass, which were let into the centre of the port-lids. At night the only lights allowed were cased in the battle-lanterns of thick horn. If the ship went into action at night the sailors fought their guns by the light these lanterns afforded, one lantern being placed beside each gun.

SECTION OF A FIRST RATE SHIP OF WAR, LATE 18TH CENTURY

Beneath the second or upper deck was the first or lower gun-deck, the principal deck of the ship. It was the broadest of the decks, and by far the strongest, and the most roomy. Here the heaviest cannon, the two long batteries of 32-pounder guns, were mounted; and here, in action, was the fiercest of the fighting. Right aft, on this deck, was the gun-room, in which the gunner and his mess lived. It was also the ship’s armoury, where the muskets, cutlasses and pistols were stored. The younger midshipmen sometimes slung their hammocks in the gun-room,[5] under the fatherly eye of the gunner. In some ships the gunner acted as caterer to the youngest of the midshipmen, and saw to it that their clothes were duly washed during the cruise. Forward of the gun-room bulkhead (or of the stand of arms mentioned below) there was the open deck, with the lines of guns in their blood-red carriages. The heavy rope cables stretched along this deck, in midships, nearly as far aft as the main-mast. Right forward, in midships, stretching across the bows, was the manger, a sort of pen, some four feet high, over which the cables passed to the hawse-holes. The manger was designed as a breakwater to keep the water which splashed through the hawse-holes from pouring aft along the deck. The hawse-holes were firmly plugged with oakum and wooden shutters when the ship was at sea, but no contrivance that could be devised would keep the water from coming in in heavy weather. The manger also served as a sheep-pen or pigsty or cattle byre, if the ship carried live stock. This lower-deck was the berth or sleeping deck, where the men slung their hammocks at night. It was also the mess-deck, where they ate their meals. The place was very dark and noisome in foul weather, for a very moderate sea made it necessary to close the port-lids, so that, at times, the crew messed in semi-darkness for days together. It was also very wet on that deck in bad weather, for no matter how tightly the ports were closed, and no matter how much oakum was driven all round the edges of their lids, a certain amount of water would leak through, and accumulate, and slop about as the ship rolled, to the discomfort of all hands. In hot climates the discomfort was aggravated by the opening of the seams of the deck above, so that any water coming on to that deck would drip down upon the deck below. Often in its passage it dripped into the sailors’ hammocks, and added yet another misery to their miserable lives. In midships on this deck, round the hatchway coamings,[6] were shot racks, containing 32-lb round shot for the heavy batteries. The pump-dale, or pipe for conveying the water pumped from the hold, ran across the deck to the ship’s side from “the well” by the main-mast. This was the sole obstruction to the run of the deck, from the gun-room to the manger, between the midship stanchions and the guns. There was a clear passage fore and aft, for the lieutenants in command of the batteries. In midships were the hatch-coamings, the capstans, the bitts and cables, and the stanchions supporting the beams. Between these obstructions and the breaches of the guns was a fairly spacious gangway, along which the officers could pass to control the fire.

Below the lower or first deck was a sort of “temporary deck,” not wholly planked over, called the orlop or overlap-deck. It was practically below the water-line when the ship’s guns and stores were aboard. It was therefore very dark and gloomy, being only lit by a few small scuttles, in the ship’s sides, and by lanterns and candles (or “purser’s glims”) in tin sconces. Right aft on this deck was the after cockpit, where the senior midshipmen, master’s mates, and surgeon’s mates, were berthed. This cockpit was of considerable size, for here, after an action, the wounded were brought, to suffer amputation and to have their wounds dressed. The mess table, at which the reefers and mates made merry, was fixed in the middle of the berth. After an action it was used as an operation table by the surgeons. Adjoining the after cockpit were cabins for the junior lieutenants; state-rooms for the surgeon, purser, and captain’s steward; the ship’s dispensary; a little cupboard for bottles and splints, and the purser’s store-room. In small ships of the fifth and sixth rates the marines berthed on this deck, abreast of the main-mast, hanging the beams with their pipeclayed belts and cartridge boxes. The spirit-room, about which the imaginative writer has written so imaginatively, was sometimes placed on this deck, near the after cockpit. More generally it was below, in the after hold.