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Updated: June 27, 2025
Service regulations require that men now be given a run ashore once in three months; and "beef boats" travel with all fleets. The everlasting holystoning of wooden decks and the dim lanterns hung at intervals from low-hanging beams they are gone. The only dim lanterns now are the "battle-lanterns" in use at night war practice; and they are swung to steel bulkheads by electric wires.
NO SHORE leave was granted the crew of the Halfmoon while the vessel lay off Honolulu, and deep and ominous were the grumblings of the men. Only First Officer Ward and the second mate went ashore. Skipper Simms kept the men busy painting and holystoning as a vent for their pent emotions. Billy Byrne noticed that the passenger had abandoned his daylight strolls on deck.
We shall be all snug; no sails to trim, no sails to set, and no holystoning the deck nothing to do but to keep myself warm under the weather bulwarks." "Ah, you idle scamp," said the first-lieutenant, smiling. "So, young man, you wish us to be on deck all night, that you may have nothing to do in the morning. The day will come when you will know what responsibility is," retorted Pearce.
He carries his letter of recommendation in his countenance; and with the honesty and the rupees, mind ye, which he inherits from his father, the deuce is in it if he can't make his way. What time's the breakfast? Eh, but it was a comfort this morning not to hear the holystoning on the deck. We ought to go into lodgings, and not fling our money out of the window of this hotel.
And 'twas worse toward the end, when he pretended to be feeling better, and could set in a steamer-chair on deck and grin and make sarcastic remarks under his breath to George and the other two when they was holystoning or scrubbing in the heat. "At Melbourne they hung around the wharf, waiting to lick him, till the lord had 'em took up for vagrants.
Archie Gordon, who, as first lieutenant, was paddling about with his trousers tucked up and his feet bare, superintending the process of holystoning and washing decks, inquired the appearance of the stranger, hoping that she might prove to be the Empress. "She looks as if she had met with bad weather, sir; her foremast and two topmasts are gone.
Now, while the condition of life on board was totally different to what it had been, as regards comfort and peace, discipline and order were maintained at the same high level as always, though by a different method in fact, I believe that a great deal more work was actually done, certainly much more that was useful and productive; for Captain Count hated, as much as any foremast hand among us, the constant, remorseless grind of iron-work polishing, paint-work scrubbing, and holystoning, all of which, though necessary in a certain degree, when kept up continually for the sole purpose of making work a sort of elaborated tread-mill, in fact becomes the refinement of cruelty to underfed, unpaid, and hopeless men.
From four to six in the early morning, it is almost impossible watch below to snatch a little sleep, as immediately over their heads are men scrubbing, or holystoning the upper deck. I fail to see that "cleanliness is next to godliness" under such circumstances. Saturday is essentially a cleaning day, and nothing is overlooked.
On board the schooner Captain Chubb appeared to be setting an example to the Spaniards, for those of his crew who were not helping the carpenters at the brig were kept busy holystoning, polishing, and coiling down ropes into accurate concentric rings, till the Maid of Salcombe was as smart as any yacht.
Becker, on his way to the lazarette in the stern for a bucket of sand to assist in the holystoning, had reached the head of the poop steps when this occurred; and turning at the sound of his superior's fall, had bounded to the main-deck without touching the steps, reaching for his pistol as he landed, only to pinion his fingers in a large hole in the pocket.
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