From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life

In truth, the fifteen minutes attending the change of a watch were a period not only of inconvenience, but of real danger too rarely appreciated. I remember one of the smartest seamen and officers of the old navy speaking feelingly to me of the anxiety those instants often caused him. The lieutenant of an expiring watch too frequently would postpone some necessary step, either from personal indolence or from a good-natured indisposition to disturb the men, who when not needed to work slept about the decks—except, of course, the lookouts and wheel. The other watch will soon be coming up, he would argue; let them do it, before they settle down to sleep. There were times, such as a slowly increasing gale, which might justify delay; especially if the watch had had an unusual amount of work. But tropical squalls, which gather quickly and sweep down with hurricane force, are another matter; and it was of these the officer quoted spoke, suggesting that possibly such an experience had caused the loss of one of our large, tall-sparred sloops-of-war, the Albany, which in 1854 disappeared in the West Indies. The men who have been four hours on deck are thinking only of their hammocks; their reliefs are not half awake, and do not feel they are on duty until the watch is mustered. All are mingled together; the very numbers of a ship of war under such circumstances impede themselves and their officers. I remember an acquaintance of mine telling me that once on taking the trumpet, the outward and visible sign of "the deck being relieved," his predecessor, after "turning over the night orders," said, casually, "It looks like a pretty big squall coming up there to windward," and incontinently dived below. "I jumped on the horse-block," said the narrator, "and there it was, sure enough, coming down hand over fist. I had no time to shorten sail, but only to put the helm up and get her before it;" an instance in point of what an old gray-haired instructor of ours used to say, with correct accentuation, "Always the hellum first."

But, when you were awake, what a mighty stimulus there was in the salt roaring wind and the pelting rain! how infectious the shout of the officer of the deck! the answering cry of the topmen aloft—the "Haul out to windward! Together! All!" that reached your ear from the yards as the men struggled with the wet, swollen, thrashing canvas, mastering it with mighty pull, and "lighting to windward" the reef-band which was to be the new head of the sail, ready to the hand of the man at the post of honor, the weather caring! How eager and absorbing the gaze through the darkness, from deck, to see how they were getting on; whether the yard was so braced that the sail lay with the wind out of it, really slack for handling, though still bellying and lifting as the ship rolled, or headed up or off; whether this rope or that which controlled the wilful canvas needed another pull. But if the yard itself had not been laid right, it was too late to mend it. To start a brace with the men on the spar might cause a jerk that would spill from it some one whose both hands were in the work, contrary to the sound tradition, "One hand for yourself and one for the owners." I believe the old English phrase ran, "One for yourself and one for the king." Then, when all was over and snug once more, the men down from aloft, the rigging coiled up again on its pins, there succeeded the delightful relaxation from work well done and finished, the easy acceptance of the quieting yet stimulating effect of the strong air, enjoyed in indolence; for nothing was more unoccupied than the seaman when the last reef was in the topsails and the ship lying-to.

Talking of such sensations, and the idle abandon of a whole gale of wind after the ship is secured, I wonder how many of my readers will have seen the following ancient song. I guard myself from implying the full acquiescence of seamen in what is, of course, a caricature; few seamen, few who have tried, really enjoy bad weather. Yet there are exceptions. That there is no accounting for tastes is extraordinarily true. I once met a man, journeying, who told me he liked living in a sleeping-car; than which to me a dozen gales, with their abounding fresh air, would be preferable. Yet this ditty does grotesquely reproduce the lazy satisfaction and security of the old-timers under the conditions:

"One night came on a hurricane,The sea was mountains rolling,When Barney Buntline turned his quidAnd said to Billy Bowline,'A strong nor'wester's blowing, Bill:Hark! don't you hear it roar now?Lord help them! how I pities allUnlucky folks on shore now."'Foolhardy chaps, that live in towns,What dangers they are all in!And now lie shaking in their beds,For fear the roof should fall in!Poor creatures, how they envies us,And wishes, I've a notion,For our good luck, in such a storm,To be upon the ocean."'And often, Bill, I have been toldHow folks are killed, and undone,By overturns of carriages,By fogs and fires in London.We know what risks all landsmen run,From noblemen to tailors:Then, Bill, let us thank ProvidenceThat you and I are sailors.'"

Tastes differ as to which of the three night watches is preferable. Perhaps some one who has tried will reply they are all alike detestable, and, if he be Irish, will add that the only decent watch on deck is the watch below—an "all night in." But I also have tried; and while prepared to admit that perhaps the pleasantest moment of any particular watch is that in which your successor touches his cap and says, "I'll relieve you," I still maintain there are abundant and large compensations. Particularly for a midshipman, for he had no responsibilities. The lieutenant of the watch had always before him the possibilities of a mischance; and one very good officer said to me he did not believe any lieutenant in the navy felt perfectly comfortable in charge of the deck in a heavy gale. Freedom from anxiety, however, is a matter of temperament; not by any means necessarily of courage, although it adds to courage the invaluable quality of not wasting nerve force on difficulties of the imagination. A weather-brace may go unexpectedly; a topsail-sheet part; an awkward wave come on board. Very true; but what is the use of worrying, unless you are constitutionally disposed to worry. If you are constitutionally so disposed, I admit there is not much use in talking. Illustrative of this, the following story has come down of two British admirals, both men of proved merit and gallantry. "When Howe was in command of the Channel Fleet, after a dark and boisterous night, in which the ships had been in some danger of running foul of each other, Lord Gardner, then the third in command, the next day went on board the Queen Charlotte and inquired of Lord Howe how he had slept, for that he himself had not been able to get any rest from anxiety of mind. Lord Howe said he had slept perfectly well, for, as he had taken every possible precaution he could before dark, he laid himself down with a conscious feeling that everything had been done which it was in his power to do for the safety of the ships and of the lives intrusted to his care, and this conviction set his mind at ease." The apprehensiveness with which Gardner was afflicted "is further exemplified by an anecdote told by Admiral Sir James Whitshed, who commanded the Alligator, next him in the line. Such was his anxiety, even in ordinary weather, that, though each ship carried three poop lanterns, he always kept one burning in his cabin, and when he thought the Alligator was approaching too near, he used to run out into the stern gallery with the lantern in his hand, waving it so as to be noticed." My friend above quoted had only recently quitted a brig-of-war, on board which he had passed several night watches with a man standing by the lee topsail-sheet, axe in hand, to cut if she went over too far, lest she might not come back; and the circumstance had left an impression. I do not think he was much troubled in this way on board our frigate; yet the Savannah, but little smaller than the Congress, had been laid nearly on her beam-ends by a sudden squall, and had to cut, when entering Rio two years before.

Being even at nineteen of a meditative turn, fond of building castles in the air, or recalling old acquaintance and auld lang syne,—the retrospect of youth, though short, seems longer than that of age,—I preferred in ordinary weather the mid-watch, from midnight to four. There was then less doing; more time and scope to enjoy. The canvas had long before been arranged for the night. If the wind shifted, or necessity for tacking arose, of course it was done; but otherwise a considerate officer would let the men sleep, only rousing them for imperative reasons. The hum of the ship, the loitering "idlers,"—men who do not keep watch,—last well on to ten, or after, in the preceding watch; and the officers of the deck in sailing-ships had not the reserve—or preserve—which the isolation of the modern bridge affords its occupants. Although the weather side of the quarter-deck was kept clear for him and the captain, there was continued going and coming, and talking near by. He was on the edge of things, if not in the midst; while the midshipman of the forecastle had scarce a foot he could call his very own. But when the mid-watch had been mustered, the lookouts stationed, and the rest of them had settled themselves down for sleep between the guns, out of the way of passing feet, the forecastle of the Congress offered a very decent promenade, magnificent compared to that proverbial of the poops of small vessels—"two steps and overboard." Then began the steady pace to and fro, which to me was natural and inherited, easily maintained and consistent with thought—indeed, productive of it. Not every officer has this habit, but most acquire it. I have been told that, however weakly otherwise, the calf muscles of watch-officers were generally well developed. There were exceptions. A lieutenant who was something of a wag on one occasion handed the midshipman of his watch a small instrument, in which the latter did not recognize a pedometer. "Will you kindly keep this in your trousers-pocket for me till the watch is over?" At eight bells he asked for it, and, after examining, said, quizzically, "Mr. –, I see you have walked just half a mile in the last four hours." Of course, walking is not imperative, one may watch standing; but movement tends to wakefulness—you can drowse upon your feet—while to sit down, besides being forbidden by unwritten law, is a treacherous snare to young eyelids.

How much a watch afforded to an eye that loved nature! I have been bored so often by descriptions of scenery, that I am warned to put here a sharp check on my memory, lest it run away with me, and my readers seek escape by jumping off. I will forbear, therefore, any attempt at portraiture, and merely mention the superb aurora borealis which illuminated several nights of the autumn of 1859, perceptibly affecting the brightness of the atmosphere, while we lay becalmed a little north of the tropics. But other things I shall have some excuse for telling; because what my eyes used to see then few mortal eyes will see again. Travel will not reach it; for though here and there a rare sailing-ship is kept in a navy, for occasional instruction, otherwise they have passed away forever; and the exceptions are but curiosities—reality has disappeared. They no longer have life, and are now but the specimens of the museum. The beauties of a brilliant night at sea, whether starlit or moonlit, the solemn, awe-inspiring gloom and silence of a clouded, threatening sky, as the steamer with dull thud moves at midnight over the waste of waters, these I need not describe; many there are that see them in these rambling days. These eternities of the heavens and the deep abide as before, are common to the steamer as to the sailing-ship; but what weary strain of words can restore to imagination the beautiful living creature which leaped under our feet and spread her wings above us? For a sailing-ship was more inspiring from within than from without, especially a ship of war, which, as usually ordered, permitted no slovenliness; abounded in the perpetual seemliness that enhances beauty yet takes naught from grace. Viewed from without, undeniably a ship under sail possesses attraction; but it is from within that you feel the "very pulse of the machine." No canvas looks so lofty, speaks so eloquently, as that seen from its own deck, and this chiefly has invested the sailing-vessel with its poetry. This the steamer, with its vulgar appeal to physical comfort, cannot give. Does any one know any verse of real poetry, any strong, thrilling idea, suitably voiced, concerning a steamer? I do—one—by Clough, depicting the wrench from home, the stern inspiration following the wail of him who goeth away to return no more:

"Come back! come back!Back flies the foam; the hoisted flag streams back;The long smoke wavers on the homeward track.Back fly with winds things which the winds obey,The strong ship follows its appointed way."

Oddly enough, two of the most striking sea scenes that I remember, very different in character, associate themselves with my favorite mid-watch. The first was the night on which we struck the northeast trade-winds, outward bound. We had been becalmed for nearly, if not quite, two weeks in the "horse latitudes;" which take their name, tradition asserts, from the days when the West India sugar islands depended for live-stock, and much besides, on the British continental colonies. If too long becalmed, and water gave out, the unhappy creatures had to be thrown overboard to save human lives. On the other side of the northeast trades, between them and the southeast, towards the equator, lies another zone of calms, the doldrums, from which also the Congress this time suffered. We were sixty seven or eight days from the Capes of the Delaware to Bahia, a distance, direct, of little more than four thousand miles. Of course, there was some beating against head wind, but we could not have averaged a hundred miles to the twenty-four hours. During much of this passage the allowance of fresh water was reduced to two quarts per man, except sick, for all purposes of consumption—drinking and cooking. Under such conditions, washing had to be done with salt water.

We had worried our weary way through the horse latitudes, embracing every flaw of wind, often accompanied by rain, to get a mile ahead here, half a dozen miles there; and, as these spurts come from every quarter, this involves a lot of bracing—changing the position of the yards; continuous work, very different from the placid restfulness of a "whole gale" of wind, with everything snug aloft and no chance of let-up during the watch. Between these occasional puffs would come long pauses of dead calm, in which the midshipman of the watch would enter in the log: "1 a.m., 0 knots; 2 a.m., 6 fathoms (¾ knot); 3 a.m., 0 knots; 4 a.m., 1 knot, 2 fathoms;" the last representing usually a guess of the officer of the deck as to what would make the aggregate for the four hours nearly right. It did not matter, for we were hundreds of miles from land and the sky always clear for observations. Few of the watch got much sleep, because of the perpetual bracing; and all the while the ship rolling and sending, in the long, glassy ocean swell, unsteadied by the empty sails, which swung out with one lurch as though full, and then slapped back all together against the masts, with a swing and a jerk and a thud that made every spar tremble, and the vessel herself quiver in unison. Nor were we alone. Frequently two or three American clippers would be hull-up at the same moment within our horizon, bound the same way; and it was singular how, despite the apparently unbroken calm, we got away from one another and disappeared. Ships lying with their heads "all around the compass" flapped themselves along in the direction of their bows, the line of least resistance.

I do not know at what hour under such circumstances we had struck the trades, but when I came on deck at midnight we had got them steady and strong. As there was still a good-deal of casting to make, the ship had been brought close to the wind on the port tack; the bowlines steadied out, but not dragged, every sail a good rap full, "fast asleep," without the tremor of an eyelid, if I may so style a weather leach, or of any inch of the canvas, from the royals down to the courses. Every condition was as if arranged for a special occasion, or to recompense us for the tedium of the horse latitudes. The moon was big, and there was a clear sky, save for the narrow band of tiny clouds, massed like a flock of sheep, which ever fringes the horizon of the trades; always on the horizon, as you progress, yet never visible above when the horizon of this hour has become the zenith of the next. After the watch was mustered and the lookouts stationed, there came perfect silence, save for the slight, but not ominous, singing of the wind through the rigging, and the dash of the water against the bows, audible forward though not aft. The seamen, not romantically inclined, for the most part heeded neither moon nor sky nor canvas. The vivid, delicate tracery of the shrouds and ruining gear, the broader image of the sails, shadowed on the moonlit deck, appealed not to them. Recognizing only that we had a steady wind, no more bracing to-night, and that the most that could happen would be to furl the royals should it freshen, they hastened to stow themselves away for a full due between the cannon, out of the way of passing feet, sure that this watch on deck would be little less good than one below. Perhaps there were also visions of "beans to-morrow." I trust so.

The lieutenant of the watch, Smith, and I had it all to ourselves; unbroken, save for the half-hourly call of the lookouts: "Starboard cathead!" "Port cathead!" "Starboard gangway!" "Port gangway!" "Life buoy!" He came forward from time to time to take it all in, and to see how the light spars were standing, for the ship was heeling eight or ten degrees, and racing along, however quietly; but the strain was steady, no whipping about from uneasy movement of the vessel, and we carried on to the end. Each hour I hove the log and reported: one o'clock, eleven knots; two o'clock, eleven; three o'clock, eleven—famous going for an old sailing-ship close-hauled. Splendid! we rubbed our hands; what a record! But, alas! at four o'clock, ten! Commonly, ten used to be a kind of standard of excellence; Nelson once wrote, as expressive of an utmost of hopefulness, "If we all went ten knots, I should not think it fast enough;" but, puffed up as we had been, it was now a sad come-down. Smith looked at me. "Are you sure, Mr. Mahan?" With the old hand-log, its line running out while the sand sped its way through the fourteen-seconds glass, the log-beaver might sometimes, by judicious "feeding"—hurrying the line under the plea of not dragging the log-chip—squeeze a little more record out of the log-line than the facts warranted; and Smith seemed to feel I might have done a little better for the watch and for the ship. But in truth, when a cord is rushing through your hand at the rate of ten miles an hour—fifteen feet a second—you cannot get hold enough to hasten the pace. He passed through a struggle of conscience. "Well, I suppose I must; log her ten-four." A poor tail to our beautiful kite. Ten-four meant ten and a half; for in those primitive days knots were divided into eight fathoms. Now they are reckoned by tenths; a small triumph of the decimal system, which may also carry cheer to the constant hearts of the spelling reformers.

A year later, at like dead of night, I witnessed quite another scene. We were then off the mouth of the river La Plata, perhaps two hundred miles from shore. We had been a fortnight at sea, cruising; and I have always thought that the captain, who was interested in meteorology and knew the region, kept us out till we should catch a pampero. We caught it, and quite up to sample. I had been on deck at 9 p.m., and the scene then, save for the force of the wind, was nearly the same as that I have just described. The same sail, the same cloudless sky and large moon; but we were going only five knots, with a quiet, rippling sea, on which the moonbeams danced. Such a scene as Byron doubtless had in memory:

"The midnight moon is weavingHer bright chain o'er the deep;Whose breast is gently heavingLike an infant's asleep."

Having to turn out at twelve, I soon started below; but before swinging into my hammock I heard the order to furl the royals and send the yards on deck. This startled me, for I had not been watching the barometer, as the captain had; and I remember, by the same token, that I was then enlarging on the beauties of the outlook above, accompanied by some disparaging remarks about what steamers could show, whereupon one of our senior officers, over-hearing, called me in, and told me quite affably, and in delicate terms, not to make a fool of myself.

But "Linden saw another sight," when I returned to the deck at midnight; sharp, I am sure, for I held to the somewhat priggish saying, first devised, I imagine, by some wag tired of waiting for his successor, "A prompt relief is the pride of a young officer." The quartermaster, who called me and left the lantern dimly burning, had conveyed the comforting assurance that it looked very bad on deck, and the second reef was just taking in the topsails. When I got to my station, the former watch was still aloft, tying their last reef-points, from which they soon straggled down, morosely conscious that they had lost ten minutes of their one watch below, and would have to be on deck again at four. The moon was still up, but, as it were, only to emphasize the darkness of the huge cloud masses which scudded across the sky, with a rapid but steady gait, showing that the wind meant business. The new watch was given no more time than to wake up and shake themselves. They were soon on the yards, taking the third and fourth-last—reefs in the fore and main topsails, furling the mizzen, and seeing that the lower sails and topgallant-sails were securely rolled up against the burst that was to be expected. Before 1.30 a.m. all things were as ready as care could make them, and not too soon. The moon was sinking, or had sunk; the sky darkened steadily, though not beyond that natural to a starless night. In the southwest faint glimmerings of lightning gave warning of what might be looked for; but we had used light well while we had it, and could now bear what was to come. At 2 p.m. it came with a roar and a rush, "butt-end foremost," as the saying is, preceded by a few huge drops of scurrying rain.

"When the rain before the wind,Topsail sheets and halyards mind;"

but that was for other conditions than ours.

A pampero at its ordinary level is no joke; but this was the charge of a wild elephant, which would exhaust itself soon, but for the nonce was terrific. Pitch darkness settled down upon the ship. Except in the frequent flashes of lightning, literally blue, I could not see the forecastle boatswain's mate of the watch, who stood close by my elbow, ready pipe in hand. The rain came down in buckets, and in the midst of all the wind suddenly shifted, taking the sails flat aback. The shrillness of the boatswain's pipes is then their great merit. They pierce through the roar of the tempest, by sheer difference of pitch, an effect one sometimes hears in an opera; and the officer of the deck, our second lieutenant, who bore the name of Andrew Jackson, and was said to have received his appointment from him—which shows how far back he went—had a voice of somewhat the same quality. I had often heard it assert itself, winding in and out through the uproar of an ordinary gale, but on this occasion it went clean away—whistled down the wind. "I always think bad of it," said Boatswain Chucks, "when the elements won't allow my whistle to be heard; and I consider it hardly fair play." Such advantage the elements took of us on this occasion, but the captain came to the rescue. He had the throat of a bull of Bashan, which went the elements one better on their own hand. Under his stentorian shouts the weather head-braces were led along (probably already had been, as part of the preparation, but that was quarter-deck work, outside my knowledge) and manned. All other gear being coiled out of the way, on the pins, there was nothing to confuse or entangle; the fore topsail was swung round on the opposite tack from the main, a-box, to pay the ship's head off and leave her side to the wind, steadied by the close-reefed fore and main topsails, which would then be filled. She was now, of course, going astern fast; but this mattered nothing, for the sea had not yet got up. The evolution, common enough itself, an almost invariable accompaniment of getting under way, was now exciting even to grandeur, for we could see only when the benevolent lightning kindled in the sky a momentary glare of noonday. "Now that's a clever old man," said the boatswain's mate next day to me, approvingly, of the captain; "boxing her off that way, with all that wind and blackness, was handsomely done." After this we settled down to a two days' pampero, with a huge but regular sea.