This was a new world to me, and the first time in my life that I had seen real sunshine. Steadily the mercury rose as it grew hotter and hotter, until the pitch boiled up out ot the seams in the deck, to stick to and blister our still tender feet. It brought other things also; not exactly out of the deck, but from below deck, in the shape of rats and cockroaches. Where they all came from goodness knows. We used to kill rats with belaying pins, and later even became expert in stamping on them with our bare feet! At night in our bunks, the little beasts would come and eat our toe-nails, and the hard flesh off the soles of our feet, and this without awakening us. We knew nothing about it until we got on deck and put our feet into some salt water. Then we knew!
Cockroaches near two inches long. These must have come aboard when she was loading somewhere out East. They had the same happy habit of browsing on our feet, although not quite to the same extent. For their benefit we kept a tin of very strong caustic soda and a small brush with a handle two feet long, and when they started to make themselves objectionable a dab with the brush settled their hash.
We were soon out of the Forties and into the Trades and it was here we were to see our first flying fish rising in shoals out of the water and flying anything up to a quarter of a mile. Some have a spread of 14-16 inches from tip to tip, and to watch them bank and skim the surface of the water makes it hard to believe they are fish at all. In fact, one can sympathise with the old lady whose son, returning from his first voyage, was telling her yarns, true and stretched, and eventually told her about flying fish. She replied, "John, there may be mountains of sugar, and rivers of rum, but you can't tell me that fish fly!"
My life, in common with other first voyagers, was made a misery until I knew, not only every sail, but every rope used in furling, setting or trimming, and they average a round dozen per sail, in all well over five hundred. Even on pitch dark nights and in blinding rain, you must be able to put your hand on any individual rope, and the consequence of letting go the wrong one may be pretty disastrous to both the ship and the culprit.
The Third Mate is usually the boys' mentor, and hikes them away from their sky-larking in the second dog-watch, to learn the ropes — whence no doubt the saying originated. A second and third voyager, to say nothing of the salt-horse A.B. knows his ropes, and that almost by the feel. These are the men to rely upon when it comes to shortening down in bad weather.
With fine weather sails bent, and decks like snow we drew down the Line and into the region of Bonito, Dolphin, and Albacore. Always a keen fisherman, I was sure of a call if there were fish under the bows, watch on deck mustn't think of anything so frivolous, but someone always managed to sneak into the half-deck and give me a shout in hopes of fish for tea; a mighty welcome addition to the Liverpool pantiles and salt junk, if there should be any left over from dinner. Beautiful ships, but badly found.
With us boys, sneaking grub was no crime, it was a religion, and heaven help the chap that let a chance go by. This led some of us into queer scrapes, for cooks, and particularly stewards were all out to catch the hungry hound and haul him before the Captain. On one occasion we located some biscuits in a spare cabin, and I was told off for foraging. I got into the cabin and got the biscuits all right, but when I came to open the door which I had closed so that it couldn't slam with the roll of the ship, I found I had landed into a trap. The handle turned, but not the catch; that was the catch so to speak! I got the port open in hopes of scrambling out on to the cro' jack braces (ropes that were used to trim that yard) but when I did eventually get my head and one arm out, I found that not only could I get no further out but I could not get back, and I had horrible visions of them having to cut away part of my anatomy, or part of the ship. Anyhow there was nothing for it but to ignominiously call for help. I did get my head back, finally with the loss of a bit of scalp, — and though I succeeded in convincing the Second Mate, who rescued me, that I had walked in my sleep, it wouldn't go down with the Skipper. Six solid weeks of the night watch on sentry go, capstan bar on shoulder, and a six foot elm bar at that!
Another time we discovered a loose plank in the bulkhead of the lazarette, and, after some nights of hard work, gained through. The chap told off for the work, Austin, nicknamed Beaky on account of his nose, was a bit deaf. What he had to do was to get the grub (in this case onions, to put in our Cracker Hash) and climb up over the cargo until he came to No. 4 Booby Hatch, the doors of which opened right facing the half-deck door, inside which we were waiting. He came up all right, but just as he started to shy the onions across the intervening four feet of space between hatch and half deck, the Mate must come along, and, be it known, they were Cabin onions. We sang out cave! when we heard the Mate coming, but Beaky heard neither us nor the Mate, and continued to shy the onions. The Mate was bound through the four foot passage, and, as he turned the corner of the hatch, he stopped one! Stepping back, he viewed the procedure, no doubt inwardly amused at our frantic efforts to put Beaky wise. Beaky smiled serenely, and continued to shy the onions, all of which had to be duly returned, and, in their place we, once again, took what was coming to us.
However that was all in the day's work, and we would, and frequently did, risk our necks crawling along cro' jack braces to pinch a bit of pie or what not from the steward's pantry. Few boys that go to sea are born to be drowned.
CHAPTER TWO
65 DEGREES SOUTH
We crossed the Line, with the usual formalities, into the S.E. Trades, and a long leg down to the Horn. Here a westerly gale drove us South and further South; colder and colder it grew until we fetched in amongst the Antarctic ice. I've seen plenty of it since, both down there and up on the Banks, but one's first sight is always the most impressive. That long ghostly outline of white, in places blue, and, of every conceivable shape and size.
By this time we had bogies going — when the sea did not put them out.
Despite all our efforts we were steadily driven down south until we eventually fetched the sixty-fifth parallel. The month was June, in other words, mid-winter. The conditions men had to endure almost beggar description. Ropes and blocks frozen up, and solid with ice. Sails iron hard with frozen rain and spray, often ice an inch thick, requiring belaying pins to break it. I have seen all hands on the topsail yard for hours on end of a bitter night, blowing a living gale, fighting with canvas like cast-iron, finger nails turned back and knuckles raw, battling to get it gathered in and a gasket round. It is difficult to realise how any human being could survive the days and weeks with never a dry stitch. Don't think this applied merely to the clothes we wore; it included both blankets and bedding.
Long before one reaches the latitude of the Horn all maindeck doors are as near hermetically sealed as is possible. Usually with the close application of a sheath knife and quantities of rag and paper. One gains access to the different living quarters, to galley and so forth, by means of a a skylight; watching one's chance, opening the skylight, dropping down and closing it again. A breath of the atmosphere in these close quarters becomes almost as good as a meal. Huge seas, scores of tons in weight, come thundering on board over the bulwarks, sweeping anything movable before them. It is often a case of days without a hot meal.
Added to all this, there is always the intense anxiety as to whether one is going to happen across an iceberg during the night. The only means of detecting them, when there is no moon, is from the white foam at the base of the berg. If there is a moon one can sometimes get a glint or glimpse of what is called "ice blink." Ice down in these latitudes becomes more in the nature of ice-fields, and may extend for miles, and become a veritable island. There is one well-known case of a sailing ship running into a huge bay with a fair wind, and, finding herself unable to beat out. Back and forth she thrashed, trying to work her way clear, till finally she missed stays and crashed on the ice, to be battered to pieces and all hands lost. Boats are of little or no use in these conditions, for men can hardly survive on board ship, let alone in an open boat.