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Updated: May 15, 2025
Sometimes they threw a solid shot at us, but mostly they fired shells. They were in plain sight, and we could see every movement connected with the firing of the guns. After a piece was fired, the first thing done was to "swab" it. Two men would rush to the muzzle with the swabber, give it a few quick turns in the bore, then throw down the swabber and grab up the rammer.
The swabber looked up quickly. He found himself gazing straight into the eyes of the speaker. Her lips were parted, her head was bent slightly forward, her eyes expressed utter incredulity and bewilderment. Her companion, an elderly lady, and a bespectacled young woman who carried an arm-load of steamer-rugs, stared not at him but at the girl who had delivered this startling announcement.
I cited the lady in the song, who says: A tarry sailor I'll ne'er disdain, But always I will treat the same, as proof that such exclusiveness was far from being the universal rule at home, and encouraged him to rival the "swabber, the boatswain and mate" for "Moll, Mag, Marion, and Margery."
They were the ship's scavengers, and had much uncleanly business to see to. Linschoten, describing a Portuguese ship's company, dismisses them with three contemptuous words, "the swabers pump"; but alas, that was but the first duty of your true swabber. Boteler, writing in the reign of James I., gives him more than half-a-page, as follows:
There was no order among us he that was captain to-day, was swabber to-morrow; and as for plunder they say old Avery, and one or two close hunks, made money; but in my time, all went as it came; and reason good, for if a fellow had saved five dollars, his throat would have been cut in his hammock. And then it was a cruel, bloody work. Pah, we'll say no more about it.
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