CHAPTER XXXI
[FO'C'SLE DISCUSSIONS]
Frenchy, Brenden, Australia, and myself were told off as a special gang, in the port watch, to set up the topmast and topgallant shrouds, worked slack by the heavy weather we had just encountered. We were in the tops most of the watch, as the wind held fairly steady, and passed the time pleasantly, yarning as we worked; talking in sotto voce of course, and busy as monkeys in a jungle. The tops, as some landsmen may not know, are not exactly at the top of things, but they are the platforms about a fourth of the distance up the masts where the heel of the topmast rests on the trestle trees of the lower mast.
The top consists of a platform, semicircular in shape, the curved side forward. The topmast shrouds are led to the edges of the top, giving them a certain "spread." The historic "lubber's hole" is to be found in this piece of ship's furnishing, and one can hardly pick up an old-time volume of sea adventure without some reference to it, or I should say "them," for there are two lubber's holes in each top platform. The lower rigging runs up through the lubber's hole, passes around the lower mast head resting on the "bolsters," which in turn rest on the trestle trees, which in turn rest partly on the hounds and on the bibbs. The hounds are formed on the mast where it is squared at the point where the doubling begins. Just below this the bibbs are bolted on on each side,—now, I suppose we all know how it is done. It is certainly as clear as crystal to a sailor, who knows all about it already but merely likes to read over the familiar names, no doubt recalling many hours spent in the tops of old-time ships. The pull on the topmast shrouds is taken by the futtock shrouds, iron rods running down from the lower dead eyes of the topmast rigging, through the rim of the top, to an iron band around the lower mast fitted with eye bolts, some six feet below the top platform; this is the futtock band.
In an interesting book called "The Sailor," the hero, Henry Harper, "slides" down the futtock shrouds to the deck. As he is still going strong on page 450 and the "slide" occurs on page 48, we conclude that Henry was a pretty tough lad.
The futtock shrouds run up from the mast and out board to the rim of the top. A sailor going aloft must go out on the futtock ratlines hanging like a fly. This is easy enough and the quickest way up. The lubber's hole provides a safer way, but as its name implies, it is considered an unworthy method of going aloft. At least such was the opinion in those good old days.
Where these futtock shrouds pass down between the lower mast shrouds is a stout oaken or hickory batten seized to the lower rigging. This is the futtock staff.
The tops have been getting smaller as the art of rigging has progressed. At one time they were very large, affording room for a numerous company, the topmen, and in the old days they served as fighting platforms for the small-arm men. On the old schoolship St. Mary's, the tops were very commodious; a top chest was provided abaft the mast for the small gear and spikes, tar and slush pots, etc., that might be required aloft. I remember a tired boy going aloft in the fore top on his way to the fore tops'l lookout, and lying down behind the top chest for a nap. A half hour afterward, when he was missed on the yard, a general alarm failed to find him, and the ship was mustered and every crook and corner searched. Finally another hand was sent aloft, and spied the culprit. What happened to him the next morning when he was brought to the mast can be imagined.
In the top we were very comfortable, the shadow of the lower topsail, and the pleasant back draft of the canvas, making it ideal for work. We set up the topmast rigging, the burtons being led to the deck, where the men at work chipping iron deck fittings, or scraping the bright work, would tail onto the falls when we sang out, the mate telling them when to "come up," as we clapped on our rackings and seizings in shipshape style.