CHAPTER XXIX.
THE NIGHT-WATCHES.
Though leaving the Cape behind us, the severe cold still continued, andone of its worst consequences was the almost incurable drowsinessinduced thereby during the long night-watches. All along the decks,huddled between the guns, stretched out on the carronade slides, and inevery accessible nook and corner, you would see the sailors wrapped intheir monkey jackets, in a state of half-conscious torpidity, lyingstill and freezing alive, without the power to rise and shakethemselves.
"Up--up, you lazy dogs!" our good-natured Third Lieutenant, aVirginian, would cry, rapping them with his speaking trumpet. "Get up,and stir about."
But in vain. They would rise for an instant, and as soon as his backwas turned, down they would drop, as if shot through the heart.
Often I have lain thus when the fact, that if I laid much longer Iwould actually freeze to death, would come over me with suchoverpowering force as to break the icy spell, and starting to my feet,I would endeavour to go through the combined manual and pedal exerciseto restore the circulation. The first fling of my benumbed armgenerally struck me in the face, instead of smiting my chest, its truedestination. But in these cases one's muscles have their own way.
In exercising my other extremities, I was obliged to hold on tosomething, and leap with both feet; for my limbs seemed as destitute ofjoints as a pair of canvas pants spread to dry, and frozen stiff.
When an order was given to haul the braces--which required the strengthof the entire watch, some two hundred men--a spectator would havesupposed that all hands had received a stroke of the palsy. Roused fromtheir state of enchantment, they came halting and limping across thedecks, falling against each other, and, for a few moments, almostunable to handle the ropes. The slightest exertion seemed intolerable;and frequently a body of eighty or a hundred men summoned to brace themain-yard, would hang over the rope for several minutes, waiting forsome active fellow to pick it up and put it into their hands. Eventhen, it was some time before they were able to do anything. They madeall the motions usual in hauling a rope, but it was a long time beforethe yard budged an inch. It was to no purpose that the officers sworeat them, or sent the midshipmen among them to find out who those"_horse-marines_" and "_sogers_" were. The sailors were so enveloped inmonkey jackets, that in the dark night there was no telling one fromthe other.
"Here, _you_, sir!" cries little Mr. Pert eagerly catching hold of theskirts of an old sea-dog, and trying to turn him round, so as to peerunder his tarpaulin. "Who are _you_, sir? What's your name?"
"Find out, Milk-and-Water," was the impertinent rejoinder.
"Blast you! you old rascal; I'll have you licked for that! Tell me hisname, some of you!" turning round to the bystanders.
"Gammon!" cries a voice at a distance.
"Hang me, but I know _you_, sir! and here's at you!" and, so saying,Mr. Pert drops the impenetrable unknown, and makes into the crowd afterthe bodiless voice. But the attempt to find an owner for that voice isquite as idle as the effort to discover the contents of the monkeyjacket.
And here sorrowful mention must be made of something which, during thisstate of affairs, most sorely afflicted me. Most monkey jackets are ofa dark hue; mine, as I have fifty times repeated, and say again, waswhite. And thus, in those long, dark nights, when it was myquarter-watch on deck, and not in the top, and others went skulking and"sogering" about the decks, secure from detection--their identityundiscoverable--my own hapless jacket for ever proclaimed the name ofits wearer. It gave me many a hard job, which otherwise I should haveescaped. When an officer wanted a man for any particular duty--runningaloft, say, to communicate some slight order to the captains of thetops--how easy, in that mob of incognitoes, to individualise "_thatwhite jacket_," and dispatch him on the errand. Then, it would never dofor me to hang back when the ropes were being pulled.
Indeed, upon all these occasions, such alacrity and cheerfulness was Iobliged to display, that I was frequently held up as an illustriousexample of activity, which the rest were called upon to emulate."Pull--pull! you lazy lubbers! Look at White-Jacket, there; pull likehim!"
Oh! how I execrated my luckless garment; how often I scoured the deckwith it to give it a tawny hue; how often I supplicated the inexorableBrush, captain of the paint-room, for just one brushful of hisinvaluable pigment. Frequently, I meditated giving it a toss overboard;but I had not the resolution. Jacketless at sea! Jacketless so nearCape Horn! The thought was unendurable. And, at least, my garment was ajacket in name, if not in utility.
At length I essayed a "swap." "Here, Bob," said I, assuming allpossible suavity, and accosting a mess-mate with a sort of diplomaticassumption of superiority, "suppose I was ready to part with this'grego' of mine, and take yours in exchange--what would you give me toboot?"
"Give you to _boot?_" he exclaimed, with horror; "I wouldn't take yourinfernal jacket for a gift!"
How I hailed every snow-squall; for then--blessings on them!--many ofthe men became _white-jackets_ along with myself; and, powdered withthe flakes, we all looked like millers.
We had six lieutenants, all of whom, with the exception of the FirstLieutenant, by turns headed the watches. Three of these officers,including Mad Jack, were strict disciplinarians, and never permitted usto lay down on deck during the night. And, to tell the truth, though itcaused much growling, it was far better for our health to be thus kepton our feet. So promenading was all the vogue. For some of us, however,it was like pacing in a dungeon; for, as we had to keep at ourstations--some at the halyards, some at the braces, and elsewhere--andwere not allowed to stroll about indefinitely, and fairly take themeasure of the ship's entire keel, we were fain to confine ourselves tothe space of a very few feet. But the worse of this was soon over. Thesuddenness of the change in the temperature consequent on leaving CapeHorn, and steering to the northward with a ten-knot breeze, is anoteworthy thing. To-day, you are assailed by a blast that seems tohave edged itself on icebergs; but in a little more than a week, yourjacket may be superfluous.
One word more about Cape Horn, and we have done with it.
Years hence, when a ship-canal shall have penetrated the Isthmus ofDarien, and the traveller be taking his seat in the ears at Cape Codfor Astoria, it will be held a thing almost incredible that, for solong a period, vessels bound to the Nor'-west Coast from New Yorkshould, by going round Cape Horn, have lengthened their voyages somethousands of miles. "In those unenlightened days" (I quote, in advance,the language of some future philosopher), "entire years were frequentlyconsumed in making the voyage to and from the Spice Islands, thepresent fashionable watering-place of the beau-monde of Oregon." Suchmust be our national progress.
Why, sir, that boy of yours will, one of these days, be sending yourgrandson to the salubrious city of Jeddo to spend his summer vacations.