In most sea-going ships where a fair ship’s company is carried, there are two cries or shouts from the poop or quarterdeck in the ordinary routine, one is “Heave the log” the other “Trim the binnacle light.” In this craft, however, in my watch I had to attend to the latter business myself, and when the light required attention I would take it down the cabin companion-way, and prick the wick up as required. One night shortly after rounding the Cape I was doing this when in spite of all I could do the light went out. I thought this was funny and got some matches, but as I struck them they went out also. Then I took the lamp and matches into the deck-house, where I slept, and had no difficulty in lighting up. It puzzled me considerably why lamp nor match would burn below, when suddenly the thought arose—where a light won’t burn a man can’t live, so I went below and with difficulty aroused the mate and then the skipper. They both took a deal of awakening before I got them on deck, and then we came to the conclusion that the gas generated by the decaying coffee in the hold had found a vent into the cabin, which had it not been discovered in time would in all probability have been fatal to life. The skipper slept in a hammock on deck between there and New York, and the mate took very good care that the skylight was kept open and a windsail run into his berth.
The pinch of hunger was by this time telling on us all—even the rats—and I have repeatedly woke up when sleeping with bare feet in warm weather and disturbed a rat that was making a light meal by nibbling the hard skin from the soles of my feet. It was some time ere I discovered how it was that at times my feet became so tender. The failure of bread at sea is a disaster hard to overcome.
On this passage the chief point of interest to me was on the evening I went to the skipper to announce the fact that I was “out of my time.” I then discovered for certain what I had long suspected to be the case, that the old man must be a Methodist with leanings towards the pulpit, for the sermon he gave me was long enough and dull enough to have run into “fourteenthly and lastly.” He wound up by advising me not to forget the night I was out of my time, and I have carried out that instruction religiously.
We called off Bahia and received orders to go to New York to discharge our cargo. We arrived there without any further adventure, and as the crew were entitled to be paid off at the port of discharge the able seamen all left, only the mate and the cook remaining.
What a sight did the hold present when the hatches were removed! Not a sound bag of coffee remained. The greater part of it was dug out with shovels, and altogether it was one of the most deplorable losses that I have come across at sea.
New York in those days had a lawless atmosphere, and revolver shots could be heard on the river pretty frequently throughout the hours of darkness, for thieves were daring in the pursuit of plunder, and a night watchman if he did his duty on board a ship (ours did) had need be a very determined and plucky man to hold his own. We were not molested, however, and after our cargo was discharged we proceeded to load resin and timber of sorts, for the run home to London.
Let me mention here as a matter of interest that during this visit to New York we saw the celebrated sailing-ship Great Republic. She was then laid up, but I well remember that her decks were temporarily covered with loose planks, in order to preserve them from the weather. She was an enormous vessel, and carried a crew of 100 men. She must then have been near the end of her career, for she was built early in the ’fifties and a life of fifteen years was a long one for a soft-wood ship.
At this time, too, steam had not entirely driven the sailing passenger ship from the Atlantic trade. Whether I ever saw the celebrated Dreadnought I cannot quite remember, but she was then in her prime and had made passages across more than once in ten or twelve days. It was generally a very rough life on the Atlantic, and whether in steam or sail, canvas was carried to its extreme limit. There were in existence a class of mates who were prime seamen and fighting men in addition. The crew were a very hard-bitten lot too, but a reputation once earned in that trade was not easily forgotten, and when a man shipped in a western ocean packet, he was generally pretty well cognisant of the treatment he was likely to receive on board. That particular trade had its customs, and its laws, though unwritten, were none the less binding. It had its own rough code of honour too. I shall deal later on with a few of the methods that were put in practice in order to ascertain just exactly how far a crew would be allowed to take liberties, but I want to get home again in this chapter.
We filled up with the necessary number of “packet rats” as they were called, for the run home, and I saw these men come on board with great curiosity. They were a queer-looking lot, but fine big fellows, not extravagantly burdened with clothes, and with faces that carried plainly the marks of many a scrapping-match. But here the rough code of honour came in. These men found themselves in a little quiet peaceable ship, and they consequently did not consider it compatible with their ideas to make trouble where they could have had it all their own way. They behaved as decently as any men I have been shipmates with.
We had also on board some new stores for the trip, and it was possible to eat the biscuits, seasoned only with the remembrance of the weevils of the last lot. Still bad food will eventually tell upon the best constitution, and it took some considerable time for me to shake off all the ill-effects; in point of fact when I landed in London I had a hole in my leg that one could have put a small egg inside.