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- 2026-01-30T20:48:36.270Z
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- 2264
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- ship’s duty. Your only music, at such times, is the shrill pipe of the
boatswain’s mate, which is almost worse than no music at all. And if
the boatswain’s mate is not by, you must pull the ropes, like convicts,
in profound silence; or else endeavour to impart unity to the exertions
of all hands, by singing out mechanically, _one_, _two_, _three_, and
then pulling all together.
Now, when Sunshine, Rose-water, and May-day have so polished the ship’s
coppers, that a white kid glove might be drawn along the inside and
show no stain, they leap out of their holes, and the water is poured in
for the coffee. And the coffee being boiled, and decanted off in
bucketfuls, the cooks of the messes march up with their salt beef for
dinner, strung upon strings and tallied with labels; all of which are
plunged together into the self-same coppers, and there boiled. When,
upon the beef being fished out with a huge pitch-fork, the water for
the evening’s tea is poured in; which, consequently possesses a flavour
not unlike that of shank-soup.
From this it will be seen, that, so far as cooking is concerned, a
“_cook of the mess_” has very little to do; merely carrying his
provisions to and from the grand democratic cookery. Still, in some
things, his office involves many annoyances. Twice a week butter and
cheese are served out—so much to each man—and the mess-cook has the
sole charge of these delicacies. The great difficulty consists in so
catering for the mess, touching these luxuries, as to satisfy all. Some
guzzlers are for devouring the butter at a meal, and finishing off with
the cheese the same day; others contend for saving it up against
_Banyan Day_, when there is nothing but beef and bread; and others,
again, are for taking a very small bit of butter and cheese, by way of
dessert, to each and every meal through the week. All this gives rise
to endless disputes, debates, and altercations.
Sometimes, with his mess-cloth—a square of painted canvas—set out on
deck between the guns, garnished with pots, and pans, and _kids_, you
see the mess-cook seated on a matchtub at its head, his trowser legs
rolled up and arms bared, presiding over the convivial party.
“Now, men, you can’t have any butter to-day. I’m saving it up for
to-morrow. You don’t know the value of butter, men. You, Jim, take your
hoof off the cloth! Devil take me, if some of you chaps haven’t no more
manners than so many swines! Quick, men, quick; bear a hand, and
‘_scoff_’ (eat) away.—I’ve got my to-morrow’s _duff_ to make yet, and
some of you fellows keep _scoffing_ as if I had nothing to do but sit
still here on this here tub here, and look on. There, there, men,
you’ve all had enough: so sail away out of this, and let me clear up
the wreck.”
In this strain would one of the periodical cooks of mess No. 15 talk to
us. He was a tall, resolute fellow, who had once been a brakeman on a
railroad, and he kept us all pretty straight; from his fiat there was
no appeal.
But it was not thus when the turn came to others among us. Then it was
_look out for squalls_. The business of dining became a bore, and
digestion was seriously impaired by the unamiable discourse we had over
our _salt horse_.
I sometimes thought that the junks of lean pork—which were boiled in
their own bristles, and looked gaunt and grim, like pickled chins of
half-famished, unwashed Cossacks—had something to do with creating the
bristling bitterness at times prevailing in our mess. The men tore off
the tough hide from their pork, as if they were Indians scalping
Christians.
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