A SUPERNATURAL INCIDENT
» REMIN3CENCES OF THE MERCHANT SERVICE TWENTY YEARS AGO. Exactly twenty years ago I was an apprentice on board an Indiamau belonging to a well-known Glasgow firm. She was a new ship of 1400 tons, just being finished at one of the shipbuilding yards on the Clyde. Wc were booked for Calcutta, aud being before steam had taken the position in commerce it holds now, there was a good deal of running between the dillerent skippers trading to the East Indies as to who should make the quickest passage of the season. The voyage of which I am writing occupied six months and twenty days from losing sight of England till we again sighted the Start light on our
homeward passage up the English Channel. If you will deduct from this five weeks lying in Calcutta discharging cargo and loading up, you will have an idea of how ships were driven then. After loading in Glasgow with a general cargo, we were towed ts the tail of the bank to have the compasses adjusted. Next day the watches were drawn, we weighed anchor and proceeded down channel before a spanking breeze, soon cleared the Li:v"i.rd, passed the Western Islands, and picked up the Trades. Our Captain was a devil at it, and already the
men began to show signs of discon tent at the way they were beinj. driven. However, as grumbling is a sailor's privilege, very little notice was taken, as Jack would growl il you substituted roast beef for sail junk, and forgot the mustard. Near ing the equator we began to experience the usual variable winds and calms, and got into what in Marine parlance is called the Doldrums dur ing the 10 days or fortnight, till wc got across the line and intc the Trades. I don't believe either watch had an hour's sleep at a stretch. With the infernal Bee main brace or weather main brace, or the boatswain's call to all hands to pull the yards round, till every man and boy Jack aboard was wild enough for anything. My object in writing this is not to produce anything at all sensational, but a plain narrative of ftvjls as they occurred, and of one particular incident that happened to rne personally, and for which I cannot account till this day, and which certainly proves, to my mind beyond a doubt, " that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy." Apprentices on board merchantmen in those days had a very hard time of it, as they had all the rough work, and if there was a light sail to furl or shake out they had to do it, and where you had a skipper who was always driving his ship for a quick passage, he was at it all the time, with " clew the missen royal up," or " shake the royals out" till the heart was pumped out of you, when the wind was at all variable. As the three or four boys who were on the watch on deck were supposed to race one another, and by the time they got to the royal yard in a lofty ship in a hurry there was not much breath left. However, this has not much to do with tny story. We got through the Doldrums and into the Trades, and had been running with the. wind on the quarter without any variation, till we might almost have stopped the running gear with rope yarn, the breeze held so steadily from the same point. You maybe sure the Captain had every available stitch of canvas spread, we had skysails, royal and topgallant stunsails, ringtails, and bull drivers, in fucfc, every available inch where you could put i sail the size of a pockethandkerit was there, we had been ibout a week running down the Trades, when one very moonlight night, in the middle watch, viz., from \ii to i, the breeze suddenly tVeshcned, and the skipper thought it advisable to take in some of the light sails, we had stowed over skyscrapes, etc., when I heard the order " haul down the fore-topgallant stun;ail, and jump aloft you Cunningham and (the writer) and stow it." I may explain that this sail, after the lalliards are slacked away, is ighted along the upper topsail yard, nto the crosstrees, and stowed up md down the standing rigging close to the mast. When the hands on leek started to lower the sail, I was standing on the foot-rope on the topsail yard close out to the yard-arm, ivhile Cunningham was in at the dings, close to the mast, the sail had been lowered, and I had gathered it )n to the yard, my mate was coming nit to help mo, when he sang out, 'My God ! who is that on the loom end." No one could get out m the end of the (top galant stunsail boom, without falling iverboard. I looked, and sure inough, right out on the end of the loom sat a man with oilskin sea soots and a sou'wester, with the laps turnod over his ears. This sort of costume is not at all suitable ! or the Tropics. The moon was Dehiud him, aud his face in the shade. He sat there with his irms folded, his legs astride the loom, holding on by nothing. Both of us looked at him horrified aid spellbound for at least two ninutcs. I was almost losing my jold with fright, when the second nato sang out from below, "What ihe h— are you chaps doing ? Are you. saying your prayers ?" which, perhaps, saved mc from falling, as [ looked towards the deck for a moment, and when I looked up igain the apparition had vanished. So had my companion, who had slid down one of the back stays. I Eollowed as fast as I could, and reached the deck breathless with ierror. Cunningham was endeavouring to explain, and the second mate was cursing us, and ordering lis to go up and stow the sail, and " none of our d— yarns," but he jould not get either of us to face it igaiu that night, and a couple of hands had to be sent to gather up ;he stun'sail, which was now flying ibout in the fast freshning breeze. The mate thought it worth his n-hilo to tell tho captain, and when ;ho watch below turned up at 4 urn. and the ship's roll was called iver, aud all were present. Ido not iresume to say but that many to ivhom I have told this story have iccounted for the occurrence in
various ways, bub to me lit will always appear supernatural, but before I relate the result of the story which I of course did not know till after arrival in Calcutta, I should like to state a few more incidents of the voyage, in order to show the hardsips sailors had to suffer 20 years ago. After rounding the Cape of Good Hope and getting on to the equator again, the men still grumbling, and the old man still driving them an instance occured which serves to show that in those days merchant captains had very little consciences when they wanted
to make quickJpassages. We were in the Doldrums again, and experiencing the same variable and light winds before we could get across the line and get the Monsoon and the crew were kept on deck when it should have been their watch below till one night tho watch turned in and refused to keep pulling tho yards about for what they supposed no purpose. The first mate, who was a fussy little individual went to the forecastle door and ordered them on deck, he was met by a shower of beef, kits, boots, hook-pots, etc., till he had to make a precipitate retreat, cursing and swearing, that he would bo revenged on them next day, which was Sunday. He carried out his threat by not allowing them below at all, only allowing them half an hour for breakfast and the same for dinner, and keeping them unbending sails and bending fresh ones, a job not required s<o near the end of our voyage, and especially on Sunday. In the afternoon, they struck and refused duty, the skipper got them all aft on the quarter deck, with a revolver in each hand, he asked those who refused duty to stand to leeward, every mother's son with exception of the mates, Ist, 2nd, and 3rd, seven apprentices, the boatswain, carpenter, cook, and steward, did so. They were bundled clown the sail locker by the terror of the revolvers, and the hatch battened down, and here we were eight men and seven boys to work a big ship with every stitch on in a dangerous latitude. Of course, the first thing done was to get the light sails in and get the vessel under sail that could best be worked with such short hands, we got the north-cast monsoon next day, and with this wind, it is necessary to beat up the Bay of Bengal, you make a long board and a short one, we got the ship round the first time all right, but the second tack she missed stays and we had to wear. I could see the captain was getting very anxious as the wind had now risen to almost a gale, and when it came to bout
ship next time he went and told the men if they turned too again there would be no more about it when we arrived at Calcutta. They were glad to do so on those conditions, having been down in the locker four days on bread and water, but notwithstanding the promise made the first thing the captain did on arriving at Garden Reach was to signal for the police boal, and give seven of the men, whom ho considered the leaders, in charge for mutiny, and they got six months, if I remember right. However, the remarkable part of my story is, immediately on my arrival a letter was handed to mo that had come overland, stating that my father, who was a retired captain, had died the same date, allowing for difference in time, as my mate and I had seen the figure seated on the boom end, and that an hour before he died he had kept calling me at intervals till the moment the spirit had passed. I was the only child he had, and he was very fond of me. I had accompanied him on his voyages for several years before he retired through ill health, and his strongest wish at the moment of his death must have been to see me, and the probability is the wish was granted. Who knows ?
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Waikato Times, Volume XXXI, Issue 2570, 29 December 1888, Page 1 (Supplement)
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1,804A SUPERNATURAL INCIDENT Waikato Times, Volume XXXI, Issue 2570, 29 December 1888, Page 1 (Supplement)
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