White-Jacket
.pdf
WHITE-JACKET
observable, however, that he faithfully discharged whatever special duties devolved upon him; and was so fortunate as never to render himself liable to a reprimand. Doubtless, he took the same view of the thing that another of the crew did; and had early resolved, so to conduct himself as never to run the risk of the scourge. And this it must have been – added to whatever incommunicable grief which might have been his – that made this Nord such a wandering recluse, even among our man-of-war mob. Nor could he have long swung his hammock on board, ere he must have found that, to insure his exemption from that thing which alone affrighted him, he must be content for the most part to turn a man-hater, and socially expatriate himself from many things, which might have rendered his situation more tolerable. Still more, several events that took place must have horrified him, at times, with the thought that, however he might isolate and entomb himself, yet for all this, the improbability of his being overtaken by what he most dreaded never advanced to the infallibility of the impossible.
In my intercourse with Nord, he never made allusion to his past career – a subject upon which most high-bred castaways in a man- of-war are very diffuse; relating their adventures at the gaming-ta- ble; the recklessness with which they have run through the amplest fortunes in a single season; their alms-givings, and gratuities to porters and poor relations; and above all, their youthful indiscretions, and the broken-hearted ladies they have left behind. No such tales had Nord to tell. Concerning the past, he was barred and locked up like the specie vaults of the Bank of England. For anything that dropped from him, none of us could be sure that he had ever existed till now. Altogether, he was a remarkable man.
My other friend, Williams, was a thorough-going Yankee from Maine, who had been both a peddler and a pedagogue in his day. He had all manner of stories to tell about nice little country frolics,
71
HERMAN MELVILLE
and would run over an endless list of his sweethearts. He was honest, acute, witty, full of mirth and good humour – a laughing philosopher. He was invaluable as a pill against the spleen; and, with the view of extending the advantages of his society to the saturnine Nord, I introduced them to each other; but Nord cut him dead the very same evening, when we sallied out from between the guns for a walk on the main-deck.
CHAPTER XIV
A DRAUGHT
IN A MAN-OF-WAR
We were not many days out of port, when a rumour was set afloat that dreadfully alarmed many tars. It was this: that, owing to some unprecedented oversight in the Purser, or some equally unprecedented remissness in the Naval-storekeeper at Callao, the frigate’s supply of that delectable beverage, called “grog,” was well-nigh expended.
In the American Navy, the law allows one gill of spirits per day to every seaman. In two portions, it is served out just previous to breakfast and dinner. At the roll of the drum, the sailors assemble round a large tub, or cask, filled with liquid; and, as their names are called off by a midshipman, they step up and regale themselves from a little tin measure called a “tot.” No high-liver helping himself to Tokay off a well-polished sideboard, smacks his lips with more mighty satisfaction than the sailor does over this tot. To many of them, indeed, the thought of their daily tots forms a perpetual perspective of ravishing landscapes, indefinitely receding in the distance. It is their great “prospect in life.” Take away their grog, and life possesses no further charms for them. It is hardly to be doubted, that the controlling inducement which keeps many men in the Navy, is the unbounded confidence they have in the ability of the United States government to supply them, regularly and unfailingly, with their daily allowance of this beverage. I have known several forlorn individuals, shipping as landsmen, who have con-
73
HERMAN MELVILLE
fessed to me, that having contracted a love for ardent spirits, which they could not renounce, and having by their foolish courses been brought into the most abject poverty – insomuch that they could no longer gratify their thirst ashore – they incontinently entered the Navy; regarding it as the asylum for all drunkards, who might there prolong their lives by regular hours and exercise, and twice every day quench their thirst by moderate and undeviating doses.
When I once remonstrated with an old toper of a top-man about this daily dram-drinking; when I told him it was ruining him, and advised him to stop his grogand receive the money for it, in addition to his wages as provided by law, he turned about on me, with an irresistibly waggish look, and said, “Give up my grog? And why? Because it is ruining me? No, no; I am a good Christian, White-Jacket, and love my enemy too much to drop his acquaintance.”
It may be readily imagined, therefore, what consternation and dismay pervaded the gun-deck at the first announcement of the tidings that the grog was expended.
“The grog gone!” roared an old Sheet-anchor-man.
“Oh! Lord! what a pain in my stomach!” cried a Main-top-man. “It’s worse than the cholera!” cried a man of the After-guard. “I’d sooner the water-casks would give out!” said a Captain of
the Hold.
“Are we ganders and geese, that we can live without grog?” asked a Corporal of Marines.
“Ay, we must now drink with the ducks!” cried a Quarter-master. “Not a tot left?” groaned a Waister.
“Not a toothful!” sighed a Holder, from the bottom of his boots. Yes, the fatal intelligence proved true. The drum was no longer heard rolling the men to the tub, and deep gloom and dejection fell like a cloud. The ship was like a great city, when some terrible calamity has overtaken it. The men stood apart, in groups, discussing their
74
WHITE-JACKET
woes, and mutually condoling. No longer, of still moonlight nights, was the song heard from the giddy tops; and few and far between were the stories that were told. It was during this interval, so dismal to many, that to the amazement of all hands, ten men were reported by the master-at-arms to be intoxicated. They were brought up to the mast, and at their appearance the doubts of the most skeptical were dissipated; but whence they had obtained their liquor no one could tell. It was observed, however at the time, that the tarry knaves all smelled of lavender, like so many dandies.
After their examination they were ordered into the “brig,” a jail-house between two guns on the main-deck, where prisoners are kept. Here they laid for some time, stretched out stark and stiff, with their arms folded over their breasts, like so many effigies of the Black Prince on his monument in Canterbury Cathedral.
Their first slumbers over, the marine sentry who stood guard over them had as much as he could do to keep off the crowd, who were all eagerness to find out how, in such a time of want, the prisoners had managed to drink themselves into oblivion. In due time they were liberated, and the secret simultaneously leaked out.
It seemed that an enterprising man of their number, who had suffered severely from the common deprivation, had all at once been struck by a brilliant idea. It had come to his knowledge that the purser’s steward was supplied with a large quantity of Eau-de- Cologne, clandestinely brought out in the ship, for the purpose of selling it on his own account, to the people of the coast; but the supply proving larger than the demand, and having no customers on board the frigate but Lieutenant Selvagee, he was now carrying home more than a third of his original stock. To make a short story of it, this functionary, being called upon in secret, was readily prevailed upon to part with a dozen bottles, with whose contents the intoxicated party had regaled themselves.
75
HERMAN MELVILLE
The news spread far and wide among the men, being only kept secret from the officers and underlings, and that night the long, crane-necked Cologne bottles jingled in out-of-the-way corners and by-places, and, being emptied, were sent flying out of the ports. With brown sugar, taken from the mess-chests, and hot water begged from the galley-cooks, the men made all manner of punches, toddies, and cocktails, letting fall therein a small drop of tar, like a bit of brown toast, by way of imparting a flavour. Of course, the thing was managed with the utmost secrecy; and as a whole dark night elapsed after their orgies, the revellers were, in a good measure, secure from detection; and those who indulged too freely had twelve long hours to get sober before daylight obtruded.
Next day, fore and aft, the whole frigate smelled like a lady’s toilet; the very tar-buckets were fragrant; and from the mouth of many a grim, grizzled old quarter-gunner came the most fragrant of breaths. The amazed Lieutenants went about snuffing up the gale; and, for once. Selvagee had no further need to flourish his perfumed hand-kerchief. It was as if we were sailing by some odoriferous shore, in the vernal season of violets. Sabaean odours!
“For many a league,
Cheered with grateful smell, old Ocean smiled.”
But, alas! all this perfume could not be wasted for nothing; and the masters-at-arms and ship’s corporals, putting this and that together, very soon burrowed into the secret. The purser’s steward was called to account, and no more lavender punches and Cologne toddies were drank on board the Neversink.
CHAPTER XV
A SALT-JUNK CLUB
IN A MAN-OF-WAR, WITH
A NOTICE TO QUIT
It was about the period of the Cologne-water excitement that my self-conceit was not a little wounded, and my sense of delicacy altogether shocked, by a polite hint received from the cook of the mess to which I happened to belong. To understand the matter, it is needful to enter into preliminaries.
The common seamen in a large frigate are divided into some thirty or forty messes, put down on the purser’s books as Mess No 1, Mess No. 2, Mess No. 3, etc. The members of each mess club, their rations of provisions, and breakfast, dine, and sup together in allotted intervals between the guns on the main-deck. In undeviating rotation, the members of each mess (excepting the pettyofficers) take their turn in performing the functions of cook and steward. And for the time being, all the affairs of the club are subject to their inspection and control.
It is the cook’s business, also, to have an eye to the general interests of his mess; to see that, when the aggregated allowances of beef, bread, etc., are served out by one of the master’s mates, the mess over which he presides receives its full share, without stint or subtraction. Upon the berth-deck he has a chest, in which to keep his pots, pans, spoons, and small stores of sugar, molasses, tea, and flour.
77
HERMAN MELVILLE
But though entitled a cook, strictly speaking, the head of the mess is no cook at all; for the cooking for the crew is all done by a high and mighty functionary, officially called the “ship’s cook,” assisted by several deputies. In our frigate, this personage was a dignified coloured gentleman, whom the men dubbed “Old Coffee;” and his assistants, negroes also, went by the poetical appellations of “Sunshine,” “Rose-water,” and “May-day.”
Now the ship’s cooking required very little science, though old Coffee often assured us that he had graduated at the New York Astor House, under the immediate eye of the celebrated Coleman and Stetson. All he had to do was, in the first place, to keep bright and clean the three huge coppers, or caldrons, in which many hundred pounds of beef were daily boiled. To this end, Rose-water, Sunshine, and May-day every morning sprang into their respective apartments, stripped to the waist, and well provided with bits of soapstone and sand. By exercising these in a very vigorous manner, they threw themselves into a violent perspiration, and put a fine polish upon the interior of the coppers.
Sunshine was the bard of the trio; and while all three would be busily employed clattering their soap-stones against the metal, he would exhilarate them with some remarkable St. Domingo melodies; one of which was the following:
“Oh! I los’ my shoe in an old canoe, Johnio! come Winum so!
Oh! I los’ my boot in a pilot-boat, Johnio! come Winum so!
Den rub-a-dub de copper, oh! Oh! copper rub-a-dub-a-oh!”
When I listened to these jolly Africans, thus making gleeful their toil by their cheering songs, I could not help murmuring against that immemorial rule of men-of-war, which forbids the sail-
78
WHITE-JACKET
ors to sing out, as in merchant-vessels, when pulling ropes, or occupied at any other ship’s duty. Your only music, at such times, is the shrill pipe of the boatswain’s mate, which is almost worse than no music at all. And if the boatswain’s mate is not by, you must pull the ropes, like convicts, in profound silence; or else endeavour to impart unity to the exertions of all hands, by singing out mechanically, one, two, three, and then pulling all together.
Now, when Sunshine, Rose-water, and May-day have so polished the ship’s coppers, that a white kid glove might be drawn along the inside and show no stain, they leap out of their holes, and the water is poured in for the coffee. And the coffee being boiled, and decanted off in bucketfuls, the cooks of the messes march up with their salt beef for dinner, strung upon strings and tallied with labels; all of which are plunged together into the self-same coppers, and there boiled. When, upon the beef being fished out with a huge pitch-fork, the water for the evening’s tea is poured in; which, consequently possesses a flavour not unlike that of shank-soup.
From this it will be seen, that, so far as cooking is concerned, a “cook of the mess” has very little to do; merely carrying his provisions to and from the grand democratic cookery. Still, in some things, his office involves many annoyances. Twice a week butter and cheese are served out – so much to each man – and the messcook has the sole charge of these delicacies. The great difficulty consists in so catering for the mess, touching these luxuries, as to satisfy all. Some guzzlers are for devouring the butter at a meal, and finishing off with the cheese the same day; others contend for saving it up against Banyan Day, when there is nothing but beef and bread; and others, again, are for taking a very small bit of butter and cheese, by way of dessert, to each and every meal through the week. All this gives rise to endless disputes, debates, and altercations.
79
HERMAN MELVILLE
Sometimes, with his mess-cloth – a square of painted canvas – set out on deck between the guns, garnished with pots, and pans, and kids, you see the mess-cook seated on a matchtub at its head, his trowser legs rolled up and arms bared, presiding over the convivial party.
“Now, men, you can’t have any butter to-day. I’m saving it up for to-morrow. You don’t know the value of butter, men. You, Jim, take your hoof off the cloth! Devil take me, if some of you chaps haven’t no more manners than so many swines! Quick, men, quick; bear a hand, and ‘scoff’ (eat) away. – I’ve got my to-morrow’s duff to make yet, and some of you fellows keep scoffi ng as if I had nothing to do but sit still here on this here tub here, and look on. There, there, men, you’ve all had enough: so sail away out of this, and let me clear up the wreck.”
In this strain would one of the periodical cooks of mess No. 15 talk to us. He was a tall, resolute fellow, who had once been a brakeman on a railroad, and he kept us all pretty straight; from his fiat there was no appeal.
But it was not thus when the turn came to others among us. Then it was look out for squalls. The business of dining became a bore, and digestion was seriously impaired by the unamiable discourse we had over our salt horse.
I sometimes thought that the junks of lean pork – which were boiled in their own bristles, and looked gaunt and grim, like pickled chins of half-famished, unwashed Cossacks – had something to do with creating the bristling bitterness at times prevailing in our mess. The men tore off the tough hide from their pork, as if they were Indians scalping Christians.
Some cursed the cook for a rogue, who kept from us our butter and cheese, in order to make away with it himself in an underhand manner; selling it at a premium to other messes, and thus accumulating a princely fortune at our expense. Others anthematised him
80