"Foller me, you blahsted fool," said the skipper, and putting up his helm he left us. It must have been the sight of that little schooner running so confidently that shamed him, for he squared away and made sail at once. The cook had killed the pig the day before, so we were to have fresh meat, that is, baked pork and plum duff, with sauce, for our Christmas dinner. Although I could not eat much of anything, I looked forward with great anticipations to the fresh meat which I was anxious to taste. When the watch was called at half-past eleven, she was running dead before, and rolling both rails under; for iron ships are proverbially wet. Some call them "diving bells." Three men went to the galley: one for the duff, one for the pork, and the other for the duff sauce.
They got their grub and started forward. Just as they got nicely clear of the deck-house, where there was nothing to protect them, she gave a heavy roll to port, scooping up several tons of water over the rail; then she rolled as far to starboard, doing the same trick again. And now the decks being full of water level with both rails, a big sea raised her stern high in air. The fellow who had the pork yelled for somebody to open the door, and somebody did, with the result that as her stern went up the three men with the grub and a tidal wave of salt water all came into the forecastle together.
Oh, what a merry Christmas that was! The whole watch were sitting on their chests waiting for their dinner, or perhaps some were not entirely dressed when that green sea came in. It washed all the men and chests up into the eyes of her, and drowned out all the lower bunks. The pork and duff went somewhere. The sauce, of course, disappeared entirely. Every man was soaked, and so was every rag of clothing belonging to the whole watch, except the bedding in the upper bunks, and that was pretty well wet from the splashing. Fortunately, I had the upper bunk next the door, so that it all went by me, and I expected the splashing caused by the sudden stoppage of the water by the bows. After the flood had subsided, there came a jawing match.
"Who hollered to open that door?" "No." "But what bloody fool opened it?"
So and so.
"You're a liar!"
I thought there would be a general row, but they were too wet and too cold and disheartened to fight about anything. They pulled their chests out from under each other, satisfied themselves that they didn't own a dry stitch for a change, and then, fishing out the pork and duff from under the bunks, threw the latter overboard, and made a sorry Christmas dinner on semi-saturated fresh pork and hardtack.
Herbert Elliott Hamblen in On Many Seas
Christmas in Jail
