CHAPTER XXII.
WASH-DAY AND HOUSE-CLEANING IN A MAN-OF-WAR.
Besides the other tribulations connected with your hammock, you mustkeep it snow-white and clean; who has not observed the long rows ofspotless hammocks exposed in a frigate's nettings, where, through theday, their outsides, at least, are kept airing?
Hence it comes that there are regular mornings appointed for thescrubbing of hammocks; and such mornings are called_scrub-hammock-mornings;_ and desperate is the scrubbing that ensues.
Before daylight the operation begins. All hands are called, and at itthey go. Every deck is spread with hammocks, fore and aft; and luckyare you if you can get sufficient superfices to spread your own hammockin. Down on their knees are five hundred men, scrubbing away withbrushes and brooms; jostling, and crowding, and quarrelling about usingeach other's suds; when all their Purser's soap goes to create oneindiscriminate yeast.
Sometimes you discover that, in the dark, you have been all the whilescrubbing your next neighbour's hammock instead of your own. But it istoo late to begin over again; for now the word is passed for every manto advance with his hammock, that it may be tied to a net-likeframe-work of clothes-lines, and hoisted aloft to dry.
That done, without delay you get together your frocks and trowsers, andon the already flooded deck embark in the laundry business. You have nospecial bucket or basin to yourself--the ship being one vast wash-tub,where all hands wash and rinse out, and rinse out and wash, till atlast the word is passed again, to make fast your clothes, that they,also, may be elevated to dry.
Then on all three decks the operation of holy-stoning begins, so calledfrom the queer name bestowed upon the principal instruments employed.These are ponderous flat stones with long ropes at each end, by whichthe stones are slidden about, to and fro, over the wet and sandeddecks; a most wearisome, dog-like, galley-slave employment. For thebyways and corners about the masts and guns, smaller stones are used,called _prayer-books;_ inasmuch as the devout operator has to down withthem on his knees.
Finally, a grand flooding takes place, and the decks are remorselesslythrashed with dry swabs. After which an extraordinary implement--a sortof leathern hoe called a"_squilgee_"--is used to scrape and squeeze thelast dribblings of water from the planks. Concerning this "squilgee," Ithink something of drawing up a memoir, and reading it before theAcademy of Arts and Sciences. It is a most curious affair.
By the time all these operations are concluded it is _eight bell's_,and all hands are piped to breakfast upon the damp and every-waydisagreeable decks.
Now, against this invariable daily flooding of the three decks of afrigate, as a man-of-war's-man, White-Jacket most earnestly protests.In sunless weather it keeps the sailors' quarters perpetually damp; somuch so, that you can scarce sit down without running the risk ofgetting the lumbago. One rheumatic old sheet-anchor-man among us wasdriven to the extremity of sewing a piece of tarred canvas on the seatof his trowsers.
Let those neat and tidy officers who so love to see a ship kept spickand span clean; who institute vigorous search after the man who chancesto drop the crumb of a biscuit on deck, when the ship is rolling in asea-way; let all such swing their hammocks with the sailors; and theywould soon get sick of this daily damping of the decks.
Is a ship a wooden platter, that is to be scrubbed out every morningbefore breakfast, even if the thermometer be at zero, and every sailorgoes barefooted through the flood with the chilblains? And all thewhile the ship carries a doctor, well aware of Boerhaave's great maxim"_keep the feet dry_." He has plenty of pills to give you when you aredown with a fever, the consequence of these things; but enters noprotest at the outset--as it is his duty to do--against the cause thatinduces the fever.
During the pleasant night watches, the promenading officers, mounted ontheir high-heeled boots, pass dry-shod, like the Israelites, over thedecks; but by daybreak the roaring tide sets back, and the poor sailorsare almost overwhelmed in it, like the Egyptians in the Red Sea.
Oh! the chills, colds, and agues that are caught. No snug stove, grate,or fireplace to go to; no, your only way to keep warm is to keep in ablazing passion, and anathematise the custom that every morning makes awash-house of a man-of-war.
Look at it. Say you go on board a line-of-battle-ship: you seeeverything scrupulously neat; you see all the decks clear andunobstructed as the sidewalks of Wall Street of a Sunday morning; yousee no trace of a sailor's dormitory; you marvel by what magic all thisis brought about. And well you may. For consider, that in thisunobstructed fabric nearly one thousand mortal men have to sleep, eat,wash, dress, cook, and perform all the ordinary functions of humanity.The same number of men ashore would expand themselves into a township.Is it credible, then, that this extraordinary neatness, and especiallythis _unobstructedness_ of a man-of-war, can be brought about, exceptby the most rigorous edicts, and a very serious sacrifice, with respectto the sailors, of the domestic comforts of life? To be sure, sailorsthemselves do not often complain of these things; they are used tothem; but man can become used even to the hardest usage. And it isbecause he is used to it, that sometimes he does not complain of it.
Of all men-of-war, the American ships are the most excessively neat,and have the greatest reputation for it. And of all men-of-war thegeneral discipline of the American ships is the most arbitrary.
In the English navy, the men liberally mess on tables, which, betweenmeals, are triced up out of the way. The American sailors mess on deck,and pick up their broken biscuit, or _midshipman's nuts_, like fowls ina barn-yard.
But if this unobstructedness in an American fighting-ship be, at allhazards, so desirable, why not imitate the Turks? In the Turkish navythey have no mess-chests; the sailors roll their mess things up in arug, and thrust them under a gun. Nor do they have any hammocks; theysleep anywhere about the decks in their _gregoes_. Indeed, come to lookat it, what more does a man-of-war's-man absolutely require to live inthan his own skin? That's room enough; and room enough to turn in, ifhe but knew how to shift his spine, end for end, like a ramrod, withoutdisturbing his next neighbour.
Among all men-of-war's-men, it is a maxim that over-neat vessels areTartars to the crew: and perhaps it may be safely laid down that, whenyou see such a ship, some sort of tyranny is not very far off.
In the Neversink, as in other national ships, the business of_holy-stoning_ the decks was often prolonged, by way of punishment tothe men, particularly of a raw, cold morning. This is one of thepunishments which a lieutenant of the watch may easily inflict upon thecrew, without infringing the statute which places the power ofpunishment solely in the hands of the Captain.
The abhorrence which men-of-war's-men have for this protracted_holy-stoning_ in cold, comfortless weather--with their bare feetexposed to the splashing inundations--is shown in a strange story, rifeamong them, curiously tinctured with their proverbial superstitions.
The First Lieutenant of an English sloop of war, a severedisciplinarian, was uncommonly particular concerning the whiteness ofthe quarter-deck. One bitter winter morning at sea, when the crew hadwashed that part of the vessel, as usual, and put away theirholy-stones, this officer came on deck, and after inspecting it,ordered the _holy-stones_ and _prayer-books_ up again. Once moreslipping off the shoes from their frosted feet, and rolling up theirtrowsers, the crew kneeled down to their task; and in that suppliantposture, silently invoked a curse upon their tyrant; praying, as hewent below, that he might never more come out of the ward-room alive.The prayer seemed answered: for shortly after being visited with aparalytic stroke at his breakfast-table, the First Lieutenant nextmorning was carried out of the ward-room feet foremost, dead. As theydropped him over the side--so goes the story--the marine sentry at thegangway turned his back upon the corpse.
To the credit of the humane and sensible portion of the roll ofAmerican navy-captains, be it added, that _they_ are not so particularin keeping the decks spotless at all times, and in all weathers; nor dothey torment the men with scraping bright-wo
od and polishingring-bolts; but give all such gingerbread-work a hearty coat of blackpaint, which looks more warlike, is a better preservative, and exemptsthe sailors from a perpetual annoyance.