measured, except perhaps for the new mainyard, and I shall measure that with my tape before dinner. Should you like to hear some dimensions, sir?’
‘I should like it of all things.’
‘Well, sir, the Sophie’s keel is fifty-nine feet long; her gun-deck seventy-eight foot three inches; and she is ten foot ten inches deep. Her bowsprit is thirty-four foot, and I have told you all the other masts except for the main, which is fifty-six. Her maintopsail yard – the one just above us, sir
– is thirty-one foot six inches; the maintopgallant, the one above that, twenty-three foot six; and the royal, up at the top, fifteen foot nine. And the stuns’l booms – but I ought to explain the yards first, sir, ought I not?’
‘Perhaps you ought.’
‘They are very simple, indeed.’
‘I am happy to learn it.’
‘On the bowsprit, now, there’s a yard across, with the spritsail furled upon it. That’s the spritsail yard, naturally. Then, coming to the foremast, the bottom one is the foreyard and the big square sail set upon it is the fore course; the foretopsail yard crosses above it; then the foretopgallant and the little royal with its sail furled. It is the same with the
mainmast, only the mainyard just below us has no sail bent -if it had it would be called the square mainsail, because with this rig you have two mainsails, the square course set on the yard and the boom mainsail there behind us, a fore-and-aft sail set on a gaff above and a boom below. The boom is forty-two feet nine inches long, sir, and ten and a half inches through.’
‘Ten and a half inches, indeed?’ How absurd it had been to affect not to know James Dillon – and a very childish reaction – the most usual and dangerous of them all.
‘Now to finish with the square sails, there are the stuns’ls, sir. We only set them when the wind is well abaft the beam, and they stand outside the leeches – the edges of the square sails – stretched by booms that run out along the yard through boom-irons. You can see them as clear as can be-‘
‘What is that?’
‘The bosun piping hands to make sail. They will be setting the royals. Come over here, sir, if you please, or the topmen will trample you down.’
Stephen was scarcely out of the way before a swarm of young men and boys darted over the edge of the top and
raced on grunting up the topmast shrouds.
‘Now, sir, when the order comes you will see them let the sail fall, and then the men on deck will haul home
the lee sheet first, because the wind blows it over that way and it comes home easy. Then the weather sheet: and as soon as the men are off the yard they will hoist away at the halliards and up shell go. Here are the sheets, leading through by the block with a patch of white on it: and these are the halliards.’
A few moments later the royals were drawing, the Sophie heeled another strake and the hum of the breeze hi her rigging rose by half a tone: the men came down less hurriedly than they had mounted; and the Sophie’s bell sounded five times.
‘Tell me,’ said Stephen, preparing to follow them, ‘what is a brig?’
‘This is a brig, sir; though we call her a sloop.’
‘Thank you. And what is a – there is that howling again.’
”Tis only the bosun, sir: the square mainsail must be ready, and he desires the men to bend it to the yard. –
O’er the ship the gallant bosun flies
Like a hoarse mastiff through the storm he cries.
Prompt to direct th’unskilfuI still appears,
The expert he praises, and the timid cheers.’
‘He seems very free with that cane: I wonder they don’t knock him down. So you are a poet, sir?’ asked Stephen, smiling: he was beginning to feel that he could cope with the situation.
Mowett laughed cheerfully, and said, ‘It would be easier this side, sir, with her heeling so. I will just get round a little below you. They say it is a wonderful plan not to look down, sir.
Easy now. Easy does it. Handsomely wins the day. There you are, sir, all a-tanto.’
‘By God,’ said Stephen, dusting his hands. ‘I am glad to be down.’ He looked up at the top, and down again. ‘I should not have thought myself so timid,’ he reflected inwardly; and aloud he said, ‘Now shall we look downstairs?’
‘Perhaps we may find a cook among this new draft,’ said Jack. ‘That reminds me – I hope I may have the pleasure of your company to dinner?’
‘I should be very happy, sir,’ said James Dillon with a bow. They were sitting at the cabin table with the clerk at their side and the Sophie’s muster-book, complete-book, description-book and various dockets spread out before them.
‘Take care of that pot, Mr Richards,’ said Jack, as the Sophie gave a skittish lee-lurch in the freshening breeze. ‘You had better cork it up and hold the ink-horn in your hand. Mr Ricketts, let us see these men.’
They were a lacklustre band, compared with the regular Sophies. But then the Sophies were at home; the Sophies were all dressed in the elder Mr Ricketts’ slops, which gave them a tolerably uniform appearance; and they had been tolerably well fed for the last few years – their food had at least been adequate in bulk. The newcomers, with three exceptions, were quota-men from the inland counties, mostly furnished by the beadle; there were seven ardent spirits from Westmeath who had been taken up in Liverpool for causing an affray, and so little did they know of the world (they had come over for the harvest, no more) that when they were offered the choice between the dampest cells of the common gaol and the Navy, they chose the latter, as the dryer place; and there was a bee-master with a huge lamentable face and a great spade beard whose bees had all died; an out-of-work thatcher; some unmarried fathers; two starving tailors; a quiet lunatic.
The most ragged had been given clothes by the receiving-ships, but the others were still in their own worn corduroy or ancient second-hand coats – one countryman still had his smock-frock on. The exceptions were three middle-aged seamen, one a Dane called Christian Pram, the second mate of a Levanter, and the two others Greek sponge fishers whose names were thought to be Apollo and Turbid, pressed in circumstances that remained obscure.
‘Capital, capital,’ said Jack, rubbing his hands. ‘I think we can rate Pram quartermaster right away – we are one quartermaster shy – and the brothers Sponge able as soon as they can understand a-little English. As for the rest, all landmen. Now, Mr Richards, as soon as you have finished those descriptions, go along to Mr Marshall and tell him I should like to see him.’
‘I think we shall watch almost exactly fifty men, sir, said James, looking up from his calculation.
‘Eight fo’c’sle men, eight foretop – Mr Marshall, come and sit down and let us have the benefit of your lights. We must work out this watch-bill and quarter the men before dinner: there’s not a minute to be lost.’
‘And this, sir, is where we live,’ said Mowett, advancing his lantern into the midshipmen’s berth. ‘Pray mind the beam.! must beg your indulgence for the smell: it is probably young Babbington here.’
‘Oh, it is not,’ cried Babbington, springing up from his book. ‘You are cruel, Mowett,’ he whispered, with seething indignation.
‘It is a pretty luxurious berth, sir, as these things go,’ said Mowett. ‘There is some light from the grating, as you see, and a little air gets down when the hatch-covers are off. I remember in the after-cockpit of the old Namur the candles used to go out for want of anything in that line, and we had nothing as odorous as young Babbington.’
‘I can well imagine it,’ said Stephen, sitting down and peering about him in the shadows.
‘How many of you live here?’
‘Only three now, sir: we are two midshipmen short. The youngsters sling their hammocks by the breadroom,
and they used to mess with the gunner until he took so poorly. Now they come here and eat our food and destroy our books with their great greasy thumbs.’
‘You are studying trigonometry, sir?’ said Stephen, whose eyes, accustomed to the darkness, could now distinguish an inky triangle.
‘Yes, sir, if you please,’ said Babbington. ‘And I believe I have nearly found out the answer.’ (And should have, if that great ox had not come barging in, he added, privately.)
‘In canvassed berth, profoundly deep in though:, His busy mind with sines and tangents fraught, A Mid reclines! In calculation lost, His efforts still by some intruder crost,’said Mowett.