Quarterdeck

“ Nothing can well be more ludicrous than these groups of sturdy men, with figures that seem half as broad as they are long, stepping the quarterdeck under the lee of some shed that allows them about a couple of strides either way. ”

“ I've never seen a night I should less like to spend in an open boat."
I hadn't been there five minutes, when the quartermaster came clattering down from the quarterdeck in his dripping oilskins and sea boots. "We can see some flashes ashore, sir. I think our boats are firing as well, sir."
Both of us ran on deck. Several dull "booms" gave us the direction in which to look, and every now and again we could see the twinkle of a gun flash a very long way off, generally a single one, then perhaps two or three quickly, one after the other. ”

“ We have learned to put a true value on the services of the watch-dog who bays the moon, but does not bite the thief!
The men who are so busy holy-stoning the quarterdeck, while all hands are wanted to keep the ship afloat, can no doubt show spots upon it that would be very unsightly in fair weather. ”

“ Ships of the first and second rates are furnished with three whole decks, reaching from the stem to the stern, besides a forecastle and a quarterdeck, which extends from the stern to the main-mast, between which and the fore-castle, a vacancy is left in the middle, opening to the upper-deck, and forming what is called the waist. There is yet another deck above the hinder or aftmost part of the quarter-deck, called the poop, which also serves as a roof for the captain’s cabin or couch. ”

“ However, in ordinary weather he managed to run along the deck pretty easily, his jibboom, as the sailors called his neck, held straight out in front of him, and helping himself along with his wings.
Sometimes on the quarterdeck it would suddenly occur to the ’Ral that a step or two of a Highland schottische would help to make time pass more quickly and pleasantly. ”

“ Not desiring to take it home with me, I sold it to a local musician for seventeen shillings, with which I bought a reefer jacket to wear home. At last the happy day came. The captain, with his officers grouped on the quarterdeck, and the paymaster with his staff, began the work of payment. On the seaman's name being called, he stepped toward the pay-table and gave his number on the ship's book ”

“ Thus ends the day's routine on the training ship. Very often, however, there is a departure from it, which takes place at noon, the occasion being the punishment of a boy or boys. All the crew assemble on the quarterdeck, the offender midships. The Commander reads the charge, which concludes usually:—"I hereby judge him to receive twelve strokes with the cane." The poor boy is lashed arms and legs to a wooden horse, the master-at-arms counting the strokes as the ship's corporal lays them on. ”

“ Strange man indeed would he be who, on such a ship as the 'Emerald,' never stood as a defaulter on the quarterdeck. Yes, I once received seven days IOA, which being interpreted means—That the bluejacket's rum is, stopped; that he is not allowed to smoke; that he only gets thirty minutes to dinner, and has to eat it with other IOA men off a piece of canvas spread out on the upper deck, and the other half of the dinner hour he has to whitewash spare cells: moreover, that he has to rise at 4 a.m. ”

“ At once every soul on the vessel except the sick and, if at sea, half a dozen others who cannot be spared from the wheel and engine room repairs aft to the quarterdeck, where the members of the crew range themselves in long ranks on the port side of the deck, facing the officers, who stand in a line on the starboard side, where they are placed according to rank, with the senior officer aft. ”

“ The etiquette of the quarter-deck will be strictly observed. Officers on coming up the quarter-deck ladders will make the salute. No running, skylarking, boisterous conduct, or loud talking will be permitted on the quarter-deck or poop. The midshipmen will never appear on the gun deck or quarter-deck without their caps, jackets, and cravats. They will, in ascending and descending the ladders, avoid the heavy step upon them which is made by shore people; when absent in boats they will yield implicit and prompt obedience to their captains, or those placed in charge. ”

“ For a man is but a man, whether he hoists his flag at the main-truck, or his slacks on the main deck.”
This speech of Ralph’s calls for a little explanation, for he expressed himself in terms which an ordinary landsman would not understand. The quarter-deck is the part of the ship reserved for officers, and the fore-yard arm is a horizontal spar-21- with a sail attached to it, and which crosses the front mast of a ship, and sailors are said to “lay out” on it when they get on to it for the purpose of increasing or reducing sail. ”

“ The slow-reasoning, hesitating type of being was useless in a Q-ship; equally out of place would have been the wild, hare-brained, dashing individual whose excess of gallantry would simply mean the loss of ship and lives. In the ideal Q-ship captain was found something of the virtues of the cleverest angler, the most patient stalker, the most enterprising big-game hunter, together with the attributes of a cool, unperturbed seaman, the imagination of a sensational novelist, and the plain horse-sense of a hard business man. ”

“ Had to spit on my quarter-deck, did you!"
Rumble from the mate.
"No, by God, you won't call up any of the crew. You'll get a swab and do it yourself. You'll get a hand swab and get down on your knees, damn you! I'll teach you to be lazy!"
The mate said something again.
"It don't matter if we ain't under way. That has nothing to do with it. The quarter-deck is clean, if the waist ain't, and nobody but a damn misbegotten son-of-a-sea-lawyer would spit on deck anyhow!" From this Captain Selover went on into a good old-fashioned deep-sea "cussing out," to the great joy of the stevedores. ”

“ He made the sounds by twos, as is the custom on board ship, so that the number may be easily counted.
"The captain has appointed Dory Dornwood and Corny Minkfield quartermasters," said Captain Gildrock. "In the navy, it is the duty of these officers to con the wheel."
"Con the wheel!" exclaimed a student.
"Not a familiar expression on shore, I grant; but that is the word on a naval vessel. It means to watch the wheel, or to oversee the steering," the principal explained. "The sailor who has the trick at the wheel may be careless, and the quartermaster is responsible for the steering. ”

“ The next day, which was nearly all taken up with shifting our quarters into the new frigate, so honourably and easily acquired, was a very pleasant one, as everyone who has gone up in the world and moved into a larger house will readily understand. At last I had grim, black guns all along each side, instead of a rotten brass carronade: at last I had a square-rigged ship, with real yards, and a proper quarter-deck. In fact, now that I had soared as high as could be hoped in a single voyage, it seemed about time to go home and cut a dash and show off a bit. ”

“ She was very low, too, in her rigging, having tremendous square yards; enabling the canvass to act more immediately upon the hull, instead of operating as a lever aloft, and keeping the ship constantly off an even keel. Though low in the waist, yet her ends rose gracefully in a curve towards the terminations fore and aft, making her very dry on either the quarter-deck or forecastle. She might have numbered fifty men for her crew, and if you had looked in board over her bulwarks you would have seen that her complement was made up of men. ”

“ The quarter-deck was as white as wheaten straw, the binnacle was an ornament, that would have looked excellently well in the best of drawing-rooms. The brass and hard-wood work were as bright as silver, every rope's end was coiled on deck, as if the barque had been an old-fashioned man-o'-war, and the men were all suitably dressed and tidy. The bo's'n was a most particular man, and, although some men chewed tobacco, to have expectorated anywhere on deck, would have been an offence for which a rope's-ending would be well merited. ”

“ A ball was being held on the quarter-deck, or rather, as there was in truth no quarter-deck to the Goldfinder, on that clean, large, luxurious expanse devoted to the aristocracy in the after-part of the vessel. From among the second-class passengers, two fiddlers and a flute player had been procured, who formed the band. At sea you have always to look for your musicians among the second-class passengers. And now under the awning young and old were standing up, and making themselves happy beneath the starlight and the glimmer of the dozen ship-lamps which had been hung around. ”

“ On gaining the deck of an old 74 the visitor would have found himself upon the spar-deck, just abaft the main-mast, fronting the great timber bitts, with their coils of running rigging. Close beside him was the quarter-deck ladder, leading up to the quarter-deck. [1] Above this again was the poop, a second raised platform or deck, reached by short, small ladders from [Pg 17] the quarter-deck. Right at the stern of the ship, inclining outboard over the sea, was a flagstaff on which flew an ensign as large as a mizzen-topgallant-sail. ”

“ This broad platform that we are sitting on, with the colors hoisted in the center, is the ‘quarter-deck’ where only senior officers are allowed, with the exception of Sea Scouts on watch and of any seaman whose duty brings him here. That door over there, by which we came in, stands for the vessel’s bow, because it is just opposite the quarter-deck; but this is only so in a general way to indicate the direction of bow and stern, or ‘fore and aft,’ because it is also used as the gangway by which every one passes over the ship’s side either to come aboard or leave the vessel. ”

“ By February, 1917, this auxiliary topsail schooner was ready for sea as a disguised man-of-war, with a couple of 12-pounders cleverly concealed on her deck. She had changed her name from First Prize to Prize, alias Q 21, and in command of her went Lieutenant W. E. Sanders, R.N.R., whom we saw behaving with distinction when serving in the Q-sailing-ship Helgoland. No better man could have been found than this plucky New Zealander, and he had already shown that he had a genius for this extra special type of Q-ship work. ”

“ Quite apart from the bad weather, the uncomfortable quarters on board, the constant trimming of sheets and alteration of course off an unlit coast, there was always the possibility that some U-boat’s crew would, after sinking the schooner, cut the throats of these British seamen. The Q-ship crews knew this, and on certain occasions when U-boat prisoners were taken by our ships the Germans did not conceal this fact. Life in these sailing craft was something quite different from that in a battleship with its wardroom, its cheery society, and a comfortable cabin to turn into. ”

“ Quarter-master. "She ain't no more good, anyway. That's one less to reckon with, sir." Evidently something serious had occurred, for the boat swung round in her course, and we could see the men rushing in confusion hither and thither on her decks, while a dense cloud of steam still arose from her funnels.
But the other boat was rapidly gaining.
Leaving Taylor in charge of the bridge, I rushed along aft to the quarter deck. "Are you ready to fire?" I shouted to the captain of the gun. ”

“ The handling of a ship in bad weather, or in crowded channels, or a strong tideway, or in going alongside a quay or other ship—all this practice makes a sailor of the man, makes him do the one and only right thing at the right second. But it needed ‘something plus’ in the Q-ship service. For six months, for a year, she might have wandered up and down the Atlantic, all over the submarine zone, with never a sight of the enemy, and then, all of a sudden, a torpedo is seen rushing straight for the ship. ”

“ The Quarters is the name given to the lake-like creek that is sheltered between the mainland and Mersea Island—which is an island only during certain hours of the day. Crowds of small yachts have their home in the Quarters, and the regatta is democratic, a concourse or medley of craft ranging from sailing dinghies up through five-tonners to fishing-smacks, trading-barges converted into barge-yachts, real barge-yachts like ourselves, and an elegant schooner of a hundred tons or so, fully “dressed,” and carrying ladies in bright-colored jerseys, to preside over all. ”

“ Whenever the deck-light, which burns under the housing happens to go out, they scale the steep snow banking and rush round the deck like wolves. "Why, bless you, Sir, the wery moment that there light goes out, and the quartermaster turns his back, they makes a regular sortee, and in they all comes." "But where do they come in, Harvey?" "Where, Sir? why everywheres; they makes no more to do, but in they comes, clean over all." Not long ago old Harvey was chief quartermaster in a line-of-battle ship, and a regular magnet to all the younger midshipmen. ”

“ It's a fine country," said the quartermaster.
"But he will want to see his relations," said the little girl. "Maybe he's got a wife and children. He will be dreadfully lonesome away down here."
"Maybe you had better take him back with you on the Kammerboy," said Russ thoughtfully, to the quartermaster.
But the officer could not do that. There had been some objection made already to the big sea-eagle caged on deck. Besides, the bird's wing was better, and if he was kept much longer confined, the quartermaster said, he might forget how to fly! ”