Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 2, 2025
As the enemy were to windward this was not easily to be done, and we had to wait patiently in the hope that the enemy would choose to renew the fight, while in the meantime our top-men were knotting and splicing rigging, and the carpenter's crew were strengthening the wounded yards and stopping shot-holes.
The breeze freshened, and having all sail set, we heeled over till the lee guns dipped into the water. "We shall be whipping the masts out of her, if we don't take care," I heard Mudge observe. The captain seemed to think the same. "Hand royals and topgallant sails," he sang out; "be smart, my lads." The top-men hurried aloft to obey the order, for every one knew there was no time to be lost.
On one occasion, during a game, both the midshipmen and the ship's boys were thus amusing themselves. Several of the top-men were on the main-top-mast yard. A sudden splash was heard. "A man overboard!" was the cry. Quick as lightning a ship's boy was seen gliding down a backstay. As he touched the hammock-nettings, instead of jumping down on deck, he plunged overboard.
"Damn you! off those booms!" roared a boatswain's mate to a crowd of top-men, who had elevated themselves to gain a better view of the scene. "We commit this body to the deep!" At the word, Shenly's mess-mates tilted the board, and the dead sailor sank in the sea. "Look aloft," whispered Jack Chase. "See that bird! it is the spirit of Shenly."
The yards were on the caps, the bellying canvas was fluttering far to leeward, and twenty or thirty human forms on each spar, showed that the nimble-fingered top-men were gathering in and knotting the sails down to a close reef. "Give way, men, for your lives!" cried the excited Ludlow. A single dash of the oars was heard, and the yawl was already twenty feet from the mysterious image.
This saved the main-mast; for the yard was now clewed down with comparative ease, and the top-men laid out to stow the shattered canvas. Soon, the two remaining top-sails were also clewed down and close reefed.
It was not long ere the tops of the ships of the line became visible, and then living beings were for the first time seen in the moving masses. "I suppose we offer just such a sight to the top-men of the ships, as they offer to us," observed the stranger. "They must see this head-land and flag-staff, Mr. Wychecombe; and there can be no danger of their standing in too far!"
The reason of the mirthfulness of these top-men was, that they always looked out upon the blue, boundless, dimpled, laughing, sunny sea. Nor do I hold, that it militates against this theory, that of a stormy day, when the face of the ocean was black, and overcast, that some of them would grow moody, and chose to sit apart. On the contrary, it only proves the thing which I maintain.
Now the fore, main, and mizen-top-men of each watch Starboard and Larboard are at sea respectively subdivided into Quarter Watches; which regularly relieve each other in the tops to which they may belong; while, collectively, they relieve the whole Larboard Watch of top-men.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking