Episode Nineteen
NIPPED IN THE BUD
Well, we were on the boat all right, but it was going to be a long, long way to San Francisco. If we harbored any illusions of this being some kind of pleasure cruise, within the first twenty minutes, the harsh breath of reality nipped them in the bud! The gangplank came in, the anchor came up, the tie ropes came off, and for about fifteen minutes we were the conquering heroes. The crowd on the docks cheered, flags waved, and we preened and strutted like peacocks in full rut! The ancient vessel turned hard to starboard, that impressive expanse of canvas popped and swelled, the rigging groaned, and all the sails caught wind. The crew took stations, shouted orders filled the air, the crowded docks shrank behind us, and we sailed down the Delaware, bound for the open sea.
By the time Lidge and I had caught our breath, the true gravity of our situation had begun to sink in, gently at first, and then with a vengeance! The captain, who’d behaved like a surrogate parent as we signed on earlier in the week, lit up his meerschaum and disappeared below. When we met next, he brushed us off and barely knew our names. A grizzled old salt we nicknamed Griz bid us grab our gear, and then he led us to the galley where he pointed a gnarled finger and said, “Dig in!” There on the floor was a pile of potatoes the size of a yearling mule! Ol’ Griz grunts and says, “Skin this pile, pilgrims, and I’ll bring ya another.”
Well, Lidge and I went to bellyaching to beat the band. Ol’ Griz just turned around real slow like, put his finger to his lip by way of saying hush, then he says real stern like but soft as you please, “I’m gonna tell you boys this one time. Now you listen up. I’ve got way more important things to do than to take a lot of lip off o’ you two galley rats. Unless you’re prepared to swim for home from here, here’s what you’ll do. You’ll speak when you’re spoken to and not before. When you do speak, you’ll say these three words, aye, aye Sir! I don’t want to hear no more and no less. Now,” he says, “Let’s hear you try.”
Well, Lidge and I may not be the sharpest tacks in the box, but we know now where our bread’s buttered! We jumped to our feet smart like, “Aye aye Sir!” We chimed in together. It was mighty satisfying to see ol’ Grizzly smile! “Oh!” he says “You are good hands, you are. You’ll go far. Now, if the captain should happen to speak to ya, which is highly unlikely, but just in the off chance that he might, here’s what you’ll do. You break into that same little curtsy like ya done then, but ya throw in a real sharp salute. Can ya do that for me?” “Aye, aye Sir!” We answered up real pretty, as we smartly snapped to attention. “Oh my,” he says, “What I couldn’t do with a whole crew of boys like you. Peel them taters now, boys,” he says, “mind the knife, and don’t draw too much blood.” Ol’ Grizzly disappeared up through the hold, and Lidge and I just turned real slow like and stared at each other dumb as mud for a minute, then finally I says, “What in the world have we done?” Well, it was a Jim-dandy fix all right, and there’d be plenty of time to regret it, but it’s way too late to run to mamma now.
It was midafternoon when we finished the last of that nasty pile o’ taters. Several other men had shown up down below, and we’d taken a moment to sample a bite of smoked fish. There were pots banging, lids flying, and some mighty colorful language! Ol’ Griz came and got us and said it was time for a break. Two decks down, in the stern of the ship, was a dingy, cramped little space, about as big as a good-sized wagon bed. It was sparsely furnished with a camelback trunk, two hammocks, one creaky ol’ stool, and a pedestal table that leaned pretty badly to port.
There were several well-worn wool blankets, a candle for emergency use only, and a graniteware chamber pot that must have come over on the arc! The compartment did have a porthole about the size of a serving plate, and it came in mighty handy when Lidge started losing his lunch. Ol’ Griz says, “Private quarters boys, the best on the boat. It ain’t but you boy’s and the Cap’m, that has a whole room to yourselves.” Lidge was pretty busy chumming the fish with his lunch, but I smiled our compliance, and Griz chuckled and said he’d be back. Poor Lidge spent the next fifteen minutes perfecting his technique at the porthole, and then he strung up his hammock and settled in for some serious groaning, and moaning, and rubbing his cramping gut! I was pretty amused by the whole performance until my own bowels began rolling, and I took my own turn, choking, and gagging, and feeding the hungry fish.
After about forty-five minutes, ol’ Griz came back to check on our progress. We were both doing some better by then. Lidge was getting a feel for that graniteware pot, and I was having a dickens of a time trying to find a comfortable position in that scratchy, cantankerous rope hammock. Griz was a rough ol’ codger, but you had to admire his sagacity! He knew just exactly what we’d been through, and though it’s hard to believe it, he’d probably been through it himself. He was downright giddy as he swaggered back into our cabin. “Well, you boys have settled in real nice!” He says, “I’m mighty glad to see it. I was worried you boys might jump ship and swim for home! I brought you boys a snack.” He says, laying a bundle out on the table. We each got an apple and a piece of that same smoked fish! “You boys just take it easy for a while longer,” he says, “About another hour or so, and I’ll have two or three barrels of dirty dishes for you boys to shine up.”
He smiled again as he left, but we figured that was probably no exaggeration at all. We tore into those apples like we hadn’t eaten in weeks, but we decided to draw the line at that smoked fish. We’d been bit before! We figured we’d just cut out the middleman this time, and deliver this delicacy directly to the fish!
Just as promised, before long Griz was back. “Roll up your sleeves boys.” He says, “Them dishes I promised are really piling up.” Back in the galley, piling up didn’t begin to tell the tale! I’m not certain how many men were onboard; I know there wasn’t a single woman. Anyway, counting passengers and crew, I’d guesstimate about one hundred folks. How one hundred folks dirtied all them dishes, I can’t even begin to imagine. They did it though, and as we’d soon find out, them rascals done it each and every meal.
It was just about dusk when the cleanup was done. Ol’ Griz checked in on us pretty often, and when the whole galley was spic & span, he praised us heartily for a job well done. It’s amazing to me how the lowest, grimiest, drudgery, can warm your heart if it draws one single, solitary word of praise. So ol’ Griz gave us a good pat on the back and says, “You boys come here, I’ve got someone I want ya to meet.” Running the kitchen this whole time has been this ominous looking ol jasper that the other guys just called Sir. Griz takes us down to the business end of the galley, down where the cooking’s done, and says, “Jedediah, meet Obie and Lidge.”
Sometime later we realized that just being introduced to Jedediah was an honor that most of the crew never received. Jedediah gave us each a handshake that would have made any old sea dog set his teeth and grunt, and then he busted out in a toothy grin and offered us each a seat. Griz suggested we call it a day, have a visit with Jedediah, and then turn in.” We hadn’t heard ol’ Jedediah say a dozen words all day, but he started in now, and that ol’ rascal talked up a storm. He served us sea biscuits with hot tea and molasses, and then he spun his yarn. It seems that Jed was once a whaler down on Nantucket. He’d retired to Philadelphia some years back, and had lived a pretty solitary life up in the hills, until the talk of gold had brought him out of seclusion.
The ol’ sea cook was older than dirt. I’d guess he was forty-five if he was a day. He had snow-white beard and hair, thick as brush on a creek bank, and he sheared it all off even, right about flush with the tattoos on his chest. The ring finger and pinky were both missing from his left hand, and he told how he lost them till my gills was shades of green. Around his neck he wore a chord made from the dried sinew of a Right Whale. Hanging from the chord was a piece of whalebone intricately carved into the shape of a crucifix. On the crucifix in the most delicate scrimshaw I’d ever seen, were several verses of scripture from the book of Jonah. I’m sure you know the very ones I mean. Anyway, old Jed told stories about the early days of whaling till our jaws ached from the tension and suspense, then he fed us a dinner that put mothers home cooking to shame. And I don’t say that lightly, and I wouldn’t say it at all, except its true.
It was going on midnight by the time we managed to excuse ourselves and work loose. Lidge and I went up topside to catch our breath and get a little air. The night was calm, the water still as glass, and the old ship drifted lazily along with the gentle current. Two men were at the tiller and half a dozen more were at their watch. The night was clear as crystal, and the stars were thick as fireflies after a rain! The old schooner drifted along about mid channel with the moonlight on our stern and the riverbanks silhouetted on either shore. We soaked it up in silence till we both began to yawn, and then retired to our closet for the night.
It had been a long, hard, mighty eventful day. I lie there in my hammock, lulled by the gentle rolling of the ship, and recalled the emotions of a day filled with new beginnings and heart wrenching farewells. My home lay miles behind me where I’d left the ones I love, and ahead lay the wild Atlantic, with its mountainous waves and perils yet unknown.
OBIE
Episode Twenty
THE NORTH ATLANTIC
Early, and I mean mighty early the following morning, I was awakened when the cabin door flew open and in steps Griz. “Jar the decks!” He hollered in a boomin’ voice, “Rise and shine you lubbers. Jedediah needs some help!” It must have been about five a.m. and still pitch black. It took a full minute for me to gather my wits and try and figure where in tarnation I was even at! Lidge wasted no time in wit gathering. He discharged from his hammock as though he’d been fired from a catapult, landing on the edge of our chamber pot and baptizing the better part of our apartment with its contents! By the time Lidge and I had got our bearings, Griz had already moved on to his next duty. Lidge and I looked at each other drowsily in the little skiff of moonlight spilling in through our open porthole, retrieved our soggy brogans from the carnage, and headed for the galley, stove up and extravagantly gamy!
Arriving at the ships scullery we found Jedediah lighting the stoves and grinding coffee. Our pile of potatoes, bigger even than the day before, greeted us as we entered. “Mornin’ boys,” Jed hollered, “Just dig right in and make yourselves at home.”
Following meal preparation, we enjoyed a pretty nice breakfast of brown bread and boiled potatoes, and then we did dishes till the sun was straight overhead. After dining on the crew’s leftovers for lunch, we scrubbed more pots and pans, and then spit shined the galley till midafternoon. Following a thirty-minute break around 2:00, we peeled more vegetables and helped in the galley until the evening meal. The conclusion of the evening meal provided additional dirty dishes, and then we wrapped things up by swamping out the galley till ol’ Jed called it good. Thus, little by little and day by day, we fell into our new routine.
During our breaks we’d find refreshments in the galley and rest and fresh air on the deck at the bow of the ship. Most of the passengers had little use for insignificant seaman, and most of the seamen had little use for landlubbers such as us, who were useless in the rigging and wet behind the ears. Thus, unmolested by the vast majority of everyone else onboard, we did as we were told and enjoyed our times of rest.
The old schooner made good time sailing down the mighty Delaware, and by the evening of the second day we sailed from the mouth of the Delaware into the bay. We continued, flags flying and unmolested past the fort at South Island; a good stiff wind filled the sails, the rigging groaned, and we steered for the open sea. Ahead of us lay several thousand miles of uninterrupted Atlantic. Unless you’re a better man than I, you can’t even imagine in your wildest dreams, the gravity of what that meant. Days turned into weeks, weeks into months, and we rarely ever saw another ship. Talk about life growing tedious, why tedious times twenty doesn’t nearly cover it. All that changed day in, and day out was our blisters and the dismal weather, and those became more disagreeable day by day.
Early on in this first leg of our voyage, ol’ Jedediah rustled up some mighty fine grub. Later on, as the days turned into weeks, he had to become more and more imaginative in order to create something edible from the sorry pittance of unspoiled groceries that remained. On several memorable occasions he pieced together some mighty fine pies! Those pies kind of spoiled Lidge and me for eating fruit raw. “If the good Lord had meant for us to eat raw fruit,” Lidge would say, “He’d never have created pies!” I had to agree with my ol’ pard. If something ain’t worth wrappin’ in crust, it probably ain’t worth eatin’.
Our poor old hides took a terrible beating during these months, especially our hands and fingers. The sun and wind had burned and chapped our faces, till our own ma’s couldn’t have picked us from a crowd. And between peeling vegetables and washing dishes, our hands were beet raw and nicked all to pieces. Down in the hold were several barrels of axel grease, and we’d rub some in our hands when they got too bad.
Old Jedediah became more and more lenient with us as we got better and better acquainted, and it got to where Lidge and I were spending more and more time lounging around and exploring the ship. Some evenings we’d climb up in the rigging to enjoy the view and watch the sun go down. There was a spot out on one of the yardarms where you could peer through a little window into the captain’s cabin. The old skipper was pretty fond of rum, and though we never actually saw the ol’ man loopy, we often didn’t see him at all for days. Jedediah said the captain believed in spending at least an hour a day in what he liked to call prayer and medication. I’d always heard it called prayer and meditation myself. I guess it’s just a matter of interpretation.
Sometimes, late at night, we’d take a notion to peer into that cabin, just in the chance we might spy some sign of life. Sometimes we’d be gazing into the pitch black of that room, not seeing anything, and all at once you’d see the bowl of that old meerschaum glowing red, as the captain took a big drag on his pipe. That would just about make your skin crawl, and we’d grab the rigging and scramble for higher ground.
On other occasions, from our precarious perch high in the windblown rigging, hanging on for dear life, when the sun was just right and the ocean clear and calm, we’d see mysterious forms, big as buildings, glide through the murky depths beneath the ship. Lord only knows what lives in the vast, uncharted fathoms below. We sure didn’t know, and we figured this was one case where ignorance was probably the biggest blessing we had.
On several instances on a stifling hot day, without a breath of breeze, all at once there’d be the unmistakable fragrance of flowers, and we’d peel our eyes and scan the horizon for some heavenly tropical shore, but all we’d find was that vast expanse of unrelenting sea.
Copyright
To be continued
Shannon Thomas Casebeer
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