The Wreck of the Grosvenor (Vol. 1-3). William Clark Russell
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to sea I slept in a 'thwartship bunk. The ship was taken aback one night when I was asleep, and they came and roared, "All hands shorten sail!" down the booby hatch. I heard the cry and tried to get out of my bed, but my head was jammed to leeward by the weight of my body, and I could not move. Had the ship foundered, I should have gone to the bottom, in bed, helpless. Always after that I slept in a hammock.
The watch on deck had orders to call the captain if a change of wind came; also I knew that the pilot would be up, sniffing about, off and on, through the night: so I turned in properly and slept soundly until two; when, waking up, I drew on my small clothes and went on deck, where I found Duckling mousing about in the moonshine in a pair of yellow flannel drawers, he having, like myself, come up to see if any wind was stirring. He looked like a new kind of monkey in his tight white rig and immense head of hair. "No wind, no wind," he muttered, in a sleepy grumble, and then went below with a run, nearly tumbling, in fact, head over heels down the companion-ladder.
I took a turn forward to see if the riding lights burned well and the man on the look-out was awake. The decks were wet with dew, and the moon was now hanging over the South Foreland. The sky was still cloudless, and not a breath of air to be felt. This being the case, I went back to my cot.
When I next awoke I found my cot violently swinging. I thought for the moment that we were under way and in a heavy sea; but on looking over I saw Mr. Duckling, who exclaimed, "Out with you, Mr. Royle! There's a good breeze from the east'ards. Look alive and call the boatswain to pipe all hands."
Hearing this, I was wide awake at once, and in a few minutes was making my way to the boatswain's cabin, a deck-house on the port side against the forecastle. He and the carpenter were fast asleep in bunks placed one over the other. I laid hold of the boatswain's leg, which hung over the bunk—both he and the carpenter had turned in "all standing," as they say at sea—and shook it. His great brown hairy face came out of the bolster in which it was buried; he then threw over his other leg and sat upright.
"All hands, sir?"
"Yes; look sharp, bo'sun."
He was about to speak, but stopped short and said, "Ay, ay, sir;" whereupon I hurried aft.
It was twenty minutes past five by the clock in the cuddy. The sun had been risen half an hour, and was already warming the decks. But there was a fine breeze—not from the eastward, as Duckling had said, but well to the northward of east—which brought ripe, fresh morning smells from the land with it, and made the water run in little leaps of foam against the ship's side.
Captain Coxon and the pilot were both on the poop, and as I came up the former called out—
"Is the boatswain awake yet?"
"Yes, sir," I answered, and dived into my cabin to finish dressing. I heard the boatswain's pipe sound, followed by the roar of his voice summoning the hands to weigh anchor. My station was on the forecastle, and thither I went. But none of the hands had emerged as yet, the only man seen being the fellow on the look-out. All about us the outward-bound vessels were taking advantage of the wind: some of them were already standing away, others were sheeting home their canvas; the clanking of the windlasses was incessant, and several Deal boats were driving under their lugs among the shipping.
"Mr. Royle," cried out the captain, "jump below, will you, and see what those fellows are about."
I went to the fore-scuttle and peered into it, bawling, "Below there!"
"There's no use singing out," said a voice; "we don't mean to get the ship under way until you give us something fit to eat."
"Who was that who spoke?" I called. "Show yourself, my man."
A fellow came and stood under the fore-scuttle, and looking up, said in a bold, defiant way—
"I spoke—'Bill Marling, able seaman.'"
"Am I to tell the captain that you refuse to turn to?"
"Ay, and tell him we'd rather have six months of chokee than one mouthful of his damned provisions," he answered; and immediately a lot of voices took up the theme, and as I left the forecastle to deliver the message, I heard the men cursing and abusing us all violently, the foreigners particularly—that is, the Portuguese and a Frenchman, who was half a negro—swearing in the worst English words and worst English pronunciation, shrilly and fiercely.
Coxon pretty well knew what was coming. He and Duckling stood together on the poop, and I delivered the men's message from the quarter-deck.
Coxon was in a great rage and quite pale with it. The expression in his face was really devilish. His lips became bloodless, and when he glanced his eyes around and saw the other ships taking advantage of the fine breeze and sailing away, he seemed deprived of speech. He had sense enough, however, with all his fury, to know that in this case no good could come from passion. He seized the brass rail with both hands, and made a gesture with his head to signify that I should draw nearer.
"Who was the man who gave you that message, sir?"
"A fellow who called himself Bill Marling."
"Do they refuse to leave the forecastle?"
"They refuse to get the ship under way."
"Is the boatswain disaffected?"
"No, sir; but I fancy he knows the men's minds."
He turned to Mr. Duckling.
"If the boatswain is sound, we four ought to be able to make the scoundrels turn to."
This was like suggesting a hand to hand fight—four against twelve, and Duckling had the sense to hold his tongue. The boatswain was standing near the long-boat, looking aft, and Coxon suddenly called to him, "Lead the men aft."
I now thought proper to get upon the poop; and in a short time the men came aft in twos and threes. They were thirteen in all, including the carpenter, four ordinary seamen, the cook, and the cook's mate. The boatswain kept forward.
There was a capstan just abaft the mainmast, and here the men assembled. There was not much in the situation to move one's gravity, and yet I could scarcely forbear smiling when I looked down upon their faces fraught with expressions so various in kind, though all denoting the same feelings. Some were regular old stagers, fellows who had been to sea all their lives, with great bare arms tattooed with crucifixes, bracelets, and other such devices, in canvas or blanket breeches and flannel shirts, with the invariable belt and knife around their middle. Some, to judge from their clothes, had evidently signed articles in an almost destitute condition, their clothes being complete suits of patches, and their faces pale and thin. The foreigners were, of course, excessively dirty; and the "Portugee's" wonderfully ugly countenance was hardly improved by the stout silver earrings with which his long ears were ornamented.
The first movement of mirth in me, however, was but transient. Pity came uppermost in a few moments. I do think there is something touching in the simplicity of sailors, in the childlike way in which they go about to explain a grievance and get it redressed. They have few words and little experience outside the monotonous life they follow; they express themselves ill, are subdued by a harsh discipline on board, or by acts of cruelty which could not be tolerated in any kind of service ashore; the very negroes and savages of distant countries have more interest taken in them by the people of England than sailors, for whom scarcely a charity exists; the laws which deal with their insubordination are unnecessarily severe; and of the persons who are appointed to inquire into the causes of insubordination, scarce five in the hundred are qualified by experience, sympathy, or disinterestedness to do sailors justice.
Some such thoughts as these were in my mind as I stood watching the men on the quarter-deck.
Coxon, with his hands still clutching the rail, said, "The boatswain has piped you out to get the ship under way. Do you refuse?"
The man named Bill Marling made a step forward. The men had evidently constituted him spokesman.
"We don't mean to work this here ship," said he, "until better food is put aboard. The biscuits are not fit for dogs; and I say that the pork stinks, and that the molasses is