Master Rockafellar's Voyage

by William Clark Russell

“Is this a bedroom?” said I.

He expelled several mouthfuls of smoke before answering, and then exclaimed, “Yeth.”

“Am I to sleep here, do you know?” said I.

“Can’t thay,” said he, lazily. “If you’re a midthipman, you do; if you aint, you’ll be kicked out.” Saying which, he closed his eyes, and refused to answer other questions, though, by his continuing to smoke, I knew he had not fallen asleep.

I entered the cabin, and after peering a bit into the bunks, saw my bedding in one of the two sleeping-places which ran athwartships. At this point my memory grows misty again. I have some dim recollection of attempting to make my bed, of hunting about for the sheets—not then knowing that sailors do not use sheets at sea—of moodily getting into the bunk, and wishing that I was at home again; of stretching myself, after a little, and falling asleep; of being awakened by a hubbub of voices, and discovering that the berth was full of midshipmen—nine “young gentlemen” in all, including myself—who were sitting round the table, using the edge of their bunks for chairs, and drinking tea out of pannikins, and hacking at a lump of cold roast meat.

This, I say, I recollect; also that I was invited by the third mate, who sat on a cask at the head of the table, to arise and join the others, and drink tea with them, which I did; that the handsome young fellow whom my father had spoken to on the poop began with a grave face to ask me questions intended to raise a laugh at my expense, and that he was abruptly silenced by the third mate (whose name was Cock), who said to him, “See here, my lad: this is your second voyage, and you are giving yourself airs on the strength of it. Now, what are your talents as a sailor? Could you put a ship about? Could you send a yard down? Could you take a star? D’ye know anything about stowing a hold? See here, my heart of oak!—until you’ve got some knowledge of your calling, don’t you go and try and make a fool of a lad who comes fresh to it. Everybody’s got to begin, and so I tell you; and if before six months of shipboard this young Master Rockafellar hasn’t more seamanship in any one of his fingers than you’ve got in all your body, though this is your second year at sea, then you shall call me a Chinaman, without risk of earning a kick for the compliment.”

The lad blushed to the roots of his hair, and looked subdued. He was a great powerful man was this third mate, and I seemed to feel with the instincts of a boy that no sort of bullying or mean sneaking tyranny was likely to be attempted so long as he made one of our company.

The tea was very strong, and the bottom of my pannikin was full of black leaves. The liquor had a flavour of old twigs and stale molasses; the beef was so hard that I could scarcely make my teeth meet in it, yet it was fresh, and it was not long before the salt food upon which we had to live made me think yearningly of it as a delicacy—as something for even a bite of which I would have gladly “swapped” a shirt.

All this while the ship was being towed down the river. I was still in the midshipman’s cabin when there was a great noise on deck—voices of men shouting, sounds of feet running hastily—and on looking through one of the portholes I saw the houses of a town just abreast, and noticed that they moved slowly, and yet more slowly, until they came to a dead halt. We had come to a mooring-buoy, for the night, off Gravesend; but one of the midshipmen told me that we should be underway again long before this side of the world was awake; by which he meant that the tug would take us in tow at daybreak.