I had not. There is a certain system in the proper manipulation of a garment in a washtub which to me is incomprehensible. An old sailor is usually a good washer. It’s part of his trade. Those on the Wizard would reprove the boys for their slipshod work. “Such a slovenly washed shirt as that,” said Conner, an old man-of-war’s man, “hung in the rigging is a disgrace to the ship.” He alluded to one of mine. The failure was not from any lack of labor put on it. The trouble lay in that I didn’t know where to put the labor on. It was easier to tie a shirt to a line, fling it overboard and let it tow. This will wash clothes—wash all the warp out of them in time. The practice was at last forbidden the boys on the Wizard, It’s a lazy boy’s wash. The adage “It’s never too late to mend” is not applicable on shipboard. It should there-read “It’s never too early to mend.” Of course a boy of sixteen, whose mother has always stitched for him, will allow his clothes to go until they fall off his body before using his needle. As I did. And I sewed myself up only to rip asunder immediately. I went about decks a thing of flaps, rips, rags, and abortive patches, until they called me the ship’s scarecrow. And so would many another spruce young man under similar discipline. It’s good once in one’s life to be brought thus low.
It was particularly disagreeable at midnight as we assembled at the bell ropes to give her the last “shake-up,” and more asleep than awake pulled wearily with monotonous clank. Sometimes at that hour, when our labors were half through, the valves would get out of order. It was then necessary to call the carpenter and have them repaired. This would keep us on deck half an hour or more, for by mutual compact each watch was obliged to “suck its own pumps.” Such delays made the men very angry. They stopped singing at their work—always a bad sign—and became silent, morose, and sullen. For the first six weeks all the “shanti songs” known on the sea had been sung. Regularly at each pumping exercise we had “Santy Anna,” “Bully in the Alley,” “Miranda Lee,” “Storm Along, John,” and other operatic maritime gems, some of which might have a place in our modern operas of The Pinafore school. There’s a good deal of rough melody when these airs are rolled out by twenty or thirty strong lungs to the accompaniment of a windlass’ clank and the wild, shrill sweep of the winds in the rigging above. But the men would no longer sing. The fact was reported to the Captain. He put on his spectacles, walked out on the quarter-deck and gazed at them mournfully and reprovingly. The mates tried to incite them to renewed melody. But the shipping articles did not compel them to sing unless they felt like it. The pumps clanked gloomily without any enlivening chorus. The Captain went sadly back to his cabin and renewed his novel.
One night the pumps broke down five-minutes before 12 o’clock. Our watch was at work on them. The carpenter was called as usual, and after the usual bungling and fishing in the well for the broken valves, they were put in order again. It was then nearly 1 A.M. Meanwhile all the able seamen in our watch had at eight bells walked below. The watch newly come on deck refused to pump the ship clear, alleging it was the business of the others. The watch below were bidden to come on deck and perform their neglected duty. They refused. This was mutiny. The four mates got their pistols, entered the forecastle and stormed, ordered, and threatened. It was of no avail. The fifteen able seamen who refused constituted the main strength and effectiveness of that watch. They were threatened with being put in irons. They preferred irons to pumping out of their turn. They were put in irons, fifteen stout men, by the four mates, who then returned and reported proceedings to the Captain. The men remained shackled until the next morning. It was then discovered that it was impossible to work the ship without their aid. Of course they couldn’t handle the vessel in irons. In reality double the number of able men were needed in both watches. The Wizard rated over 3,000 tons, and many a frigate of her size would have been deemed poorly off with less than one hundred men for handling the ship alone. We rarely secured the lower sails properly in heavy weather, from the mere lack of physical strength to handle them. So Captain S—— pored sadly at his breakfast through his gold-bowed spectacles, and when the meal was over issued orders for the release of the fifteen men in irons. In this little affair the boys and ordinary seamen belonging to the mutinous watch took no part. They were strictly neutral and waited to see which side would win. I felt rather unpleasant and alarmed. Though not a full-fledged mutiny and a conversion of a peaceful merchantman into a pirate, it did look at one time as if the initiatory steps to such end were being taken.
One of the great aims of existence at sea is that of keeping the decks clean. The scrubbing, swishing, and swashing is performed by each watch on alternate mornings, and commences at daylight. It was the one ordeal which I regarded with horror and contempt. You are called up at four in the morning, when the sleep of a growing youth is soundest. The maniacal wretch of the other watch, who does the calling, does it with the glee and screech of a fiend. He will not stop his “All Ha-a-a-nds!” until he hears some responsive echo from the sleepers. He is noisy and joyous because it is so near the time he can turn in. And these four hours of sleep at sea are such luxuries as may rarely be realized on shore. But the mate’s watch is calling us, screeching, howling, thumping on the forecastle door, and making himself extremely pleasant. The old sailors being called gradually rise to sitting postures in their berths with yawns, oaths, and grumblings. If the hideous caller is seen, a boot or other missile may be shied in that direction. Otherwise the prejudice and disgust for his clamor on the part of those called expresses itself in irritable sarcasms such as, “Oh, why don’t you make a little more noise?” “Think yourself smart, don’t you?” “Say, don’t you s’pose we can hear?” To-morrow morning at 12 or 4 these personalities and conditions of mind will be reversed. The awakened irritable grumbler will be the joyous caller, and the joyous caller of this early morn will be searching about his bunk for some offensive implement to hurl at the biped who thus performs the matutinal office of the early village cock.
We are called and on deck, and stumbling about, maybe with one boot half on, and more asleep than awake and more dead than alive. We are in the warm, enervating latitude of the tropics, with every sinew relaxed from the steaming heat. Perhaps there is a light wind aft. We are carrying studding-sails. Studding sails are beautiful to look at from a distance. But when once you have sailed in a ship carrying them from the royals down and know something of the labor of rigging them out all on one side, fore, main, and mizzen-masts, and then, if the breeze alters a couple of points, taking the starboard sails all down and rigging out the larboard, or perhaps on both sides—and this on a Sunday afternoon, when there are no jobs and you’ve been expecting plenty of leisure to eat your duff and molasses; or if you have ever helped carry those heavy yards about the deck when the ship was rolling violently in a heavy ground swell, and every time she brought up, sails, blocks, and everything movable was bringing up also with a series of pistol-like reports; or if you have ever laid out on a royal yard trying to pass a heavy rope through the “jewel block,” at the extreme end thereof, while the mast and yard were oscillating to and fro with you through the air in a rapidly recurring series of gigantic arcs caused by the lazy swell, in the trough of which your ship is rolling—and at the end of each roll you find yourself holding on for dear life, lest at the termination of each oscillation you be shot like an arrow into the sea from your insecure perch—why in all these cases the beauty and picturesqueness of a ship under studding-sails will be tempered by some sober realities.
It is 5:30 or 6 o’clock. The morning light has come. The cry of “Turn to!” is heard. That is, “turn to” to wash down decks, an operation which will tax the already exhausted resources of an empty stomach until breakfast time at 8 o’clock. The mates have their fragrant “cabin coffee” and biscuit served them on the brass capstan aft; we can smell its aroma, but nothing warm can get into our stomachs for over two long hours of work. The basic idea in this regular washing down decks at sea seems to be that of keeping men busy for the sake of keeping them busy. The top of every deck plank must be scrubbed with a care and scrutiny befitting the labors of a diamond polisher on his gems, while the under side may be dripping with foulness, as it sometimes is. I had the post of honor in scrubbing the quarter-deck. That was the drawing of water in a canvas bucket from the mizzen chains to wash over that deck. The remaining five boys would push wearily about with their brooms, hand-brushes, squabs, and squilgees, superintended by our extraordinary fourth mate (always to me an object of interest, from the fact of the secret
