Zealand

39. Midshipman but Not

Seven bells of the morning watch awakened me on Tuesday, and I arose to the dim light of the deckhead prisms. As I pulled on my breeches, I shivered from the cold cloth against my skin, and even more when I donned my shirt.

"That's why we sleep all dressed. But beyond that, it's to be ever ready for the call of all hands."

I turned to see who spoke – an older boy I did not recognise. "What is all hands?"

"When the bell rings long, fast and hard, no pattern like with the watches, just steady ringing. That's when all hands rush to their duty stations."

"Oh! Rush to do what?"

"Could be for fire or flooding. Could be enemy sighted. Could be to repair rigging or to secure the ship for a storm. Many reasons. Could be only the captain wanting to talk to us all – but that never happens in the middle of the night."

"So, how do we know which it is – why it is rung?"

"There's always calls with it to explain. Then when you get to your station, your mate or leading hand will tell you where to go and what to do."

I looked up from buckling a shoe. "Mate? Leading hand? How do I know who they are?"

"That was all told to you yesterday when you came aboard – same time they told you where your station is."

"Oh! Captain is the only one who told me anything when I came aboard. But now, with all the new crew, are there others I need to ask?"

"Huh?" The boy looked at me with a strange expression. "Of course, there are. There's many between you and him."

A laugh came from forward of the gun, followed by a voice, "He's got none between, Hank. This here's Charles, the captain's cabin boy. Gets his orders straight from him."

This relieved me, and I turned to see Richard arriving as he continued, "So, when all hands is rung, he goes to the great cabin."

Others soon joined us, and they all talked about their duty stations, as if getting to know who was where and who did what. Of course, they would be. They are as new to each other as they are to Zealand.

As I listened to two of them talk about their stations up the masts, I thought of how exciting that must be. And I will be there – and everywhere else. Officers begin as midshipmen, learning every duty and position aboard by doing and –

My thoughts were interrupted by Hank's voice as he pointed forward, "But now, I must breakfast – I got the forenoon. Who else?"

"Me, I suppose. My duty is the whole day – from serving his breakfast until after his supper."

Others joined us, and as we walked forward past some still asleep and others rising or arisen, Hank asked, "What do you do between serving his meals?"

"Clean from after them. But also, wash the table and bed linens, and the towels and his clothes. Keep the decks swept and washed,[1] wax and polish the furniture and the wainscotting, keep his privy clean and –"

"He has a privy?" someone asked.

"Hah! Of course, he does," Hank replied. "That's why you never see the captain with his arse bared in the heads. The officers and mates too. They got their own squat holes in their gunrooms – least that's how it was in His Majesty's ship."

"That is the same as aboard here," I said. "I saw them when I was exploring the lower gunrooms."

"What were you doing down there? That's not for you to enter."

"Last week, Captain took me through everywhere aboard, telling me what was what, and he bade me make sketches and draw deck plans of the whole ship, writing names to everything."

Hank looked at me and nodded. "Aye, that's one of the first tasks of midshipmen. Often saw them wandering about the ship with slate and chalk, asking us the names of things." Then he pointed over his shoulder. "So, why're you in a hammock back there, not down in a gunroom?"

"Captain said I must start as a cabin boy, the same as he and Sir Francis Drake had begun." I shrugged. "Besides, he said I am still too young to be a midshipman."

"You may be too young, but you can write. Nobody ever learned me how." [2]

"If you wish, I can teach you the letters – how to write them and say them and then how to read."

"Can you teach me too?" someone asked.

Then, after several others had repeated the request, I said, "Yes, I can. All of you."

Notes:
[1] The word swab entered the language as a noun in the 1650s, meaning a mop for cleaning a ship's deck. However, its first use as a verb wasn't until 1719, so washed will have to do here.
[2] Literacy in 1660s England was very rare except among the nobility and the mercantile and professional classes. Reading and writing were among the criteria for becoming a midshipman to train to be an officer.