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Updated: May 24, 2025
To-morrow she will be dry and we will caulk the seams, and the next day we will paint her and then we can take foreigners to the Cape in her if we have a chance and the signori do not go out. Lend a hand, Bastianello; we must haul her up behind the boats." Bastianello said nothing and the two strong men almost carried the old tub to a convenient place for working at her.
To the building of a boat I made no objection, and away they went to work immediately; but as they went on, great difficulties occurred, such as the want of saws to cut our plank; nails, bolts, and spikes, to fasten the timbers; hemp, pitch, and tar, to caulk and pay her seams, and the like.
That was the first of eight or ten very pleasant days we spent together, it taking us all that time to complete our preparations; for after the sails were finished I had to rig the boat anew, caulk her decks, and make a proper cabin amidships for the two women. This would have taken me more than another week had it not been for a couple of native boatbuilders, whom old Kaibuka had sent to me.
"Yes, that will be capital," said the Skipper. "Right you are. Sailors allus helps a messmet. I helps you and you helps me, eh!" "Yes, of course," said Bob. "Well, I'm going to have a caulk till we gets to Portsmouth. Will you take the watch?" "The watch?" "Ay! you won't go to sleep?" "Oh, no!" said the Skipper; "I couldn't now." "I could," said the man, grinning; "look-ye here."
"It's always `All hands, or `Quarters, or the `Fire Bell, or something! I was just thinking of going into my cabin and having a fair lay off the land till noon, for there's nothing for me to do on deck; when here comes this hanged rattle of the drum, confound it, to upset my caulk. A fellow can't call his soul his own aboard ship a sailor's life's a dog's life, by jingo!"
You must have another to let out the steam." "But listen first," I said. "Can you hear any one on deck?" There was perfect silence for some minutes, and then came a deep "No." "What time should you think it is?" "'Bout four bells, I should say, sir. Sun's shining down so as the tarpaulin's made the hatch hot." "Then the lubbers are all having a caulk," growled Dumlow.
Some wrote letters, though the possibility of sending them or of receiving answers was very remote. Others gathered in little knots and read or sewed, and still others took advantage of the time to "caulk off" and make up some lost sleep. And so passed another Sunday. Though we might not have a religious service we were certainly cleanly, and, therefore, at the worst, not far from godly.
Her bulwarks were broken and splintered where she had ground against the other vessel in the sea, and Rinaldo soon reported that some of the seams had opened, and the water was coming in. "Set the carpenter and some of the hands to work, to caulk the seams as well as they can from the inside, and set a gang to work at the pumps at once. It is unfortunate that it is blowing so hard.
"There's lots o' difference, my lad. We can't go aboard without him. But where is he?" "Having a caulk somewhere," said Tully gruffly; "and I on'y wish I were doing of that same myself. If we stop here much longer we shall be cooked like herrings. It's as hot as hot." "I tell you he wouldn't desert us and go to sleep," said the gunner stubbornly.
“I think we might make a shift to cobble it up,” the mate said. “Some of the wood here is as hard as iron, and we might cut some pegs and fasten the planks into their place again. I don’t suppose we shall be able to make them watertight, but we might caulk them up with pitch or gum from some of the trees.
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