The Sandman: His Ship Stories  by Willliam J. Hopkins

The Chanty Story

NCE upon a time there was a wide river that ran into the ocean, and beside it was a little city. And in that city was a wharf where great ships came from far countries. And a narrow road led down a very steep hill to that wharf, and anybody that wanted to go to the wharf had to go down the steep hill on the narrow road, for there wasn't any other way. And because ships had come there for a great many years, and all the sailors and all the captains and all the men who had business with the ships had to go on that narrow road, the flagstones that made the sidewalks were much worn. That was a great many years ago.

The river and the ocean are there yet, as they always have been and always will be; and the city is there, but it is a different kind of a city from what it used to be. And the wharf is slowly falling down, for it is not used now; and the narrow road down the steep hill is all grown up with weeds and grass.

Once, in the long ago, the brig Industry  had sailed from that wharf and had sailed away over the great ocean for many days, around the end of the country where the monkeys live, and had come to the far country. And the sailors had taken out the things she had brought to that country to sell and they had loaded her with all the pretty things that she would carry home again. And they had put aboard all the things that they would eat on the way home and the water that they would drink, and she was all ready to start.

And, pretty soon, the mate saw Captain Solomon coming out to them in his boat. Then he told the sailors to pull in on the anchor chains; for the Industry  was anchored out in the middle of a river. The water near the shore wasn't deep enough for a ship as big as the Industry  to go in, and the Industry  wasn't a very big ship, either.

"Heave her short, now!" said the mate. "Rouse her up, boys!" And that meant to pull in the anchor chains until they were almost straight up and down. A ship at anchor lies with the anchor chains pretty well out, for that makes the anchors take a better hold of the mud and dirt at the bottom.

"Aye, aye, sir!" cried the sailors. And some of them went to the capstan, and they went running. And each sailor, as he got to the capstan, took a capstan bar out of the rack where the bars were, and he put the end of it into a hole in the top of the capstan where it was meant to go. The capstan is shaped something like a person's body, with a big top, where the bars go in, and a smaller part, a sort of a waist, where the chain goes around like a belt, and the bottom part next to the deck is big around again, as though the body didn't have any legs. And when they aren't using the capstan they keep the bars on a rack near it.

Before you could have said "Jack Robinson" all the capstan bars were in the holes that were meant for them, in the capstan head, and behind each bar was a sailor, to push. And another sailor was all ready to take in the slack of the chain and pile it nicely in a heap. The chain was very heavy, and it really needed two sailors to take it in and pile it. They didn't coil it, as they would have done with a rope.

And when the sailors were all ready, the second mate said, "Now, chanty her up, boys!" A chanty is a queer kind of a song, and it is a great help in pulling on the ropes; just the same kind of help that the music of a band is to men that are marching. Chanty is called shanty.

As soon as the second mate had said that, one of the sailors began to sing. The same one always began to sing, whatever the sailors were pulling on; and so he was called the chanty-man. And he began to roar out the song, but the sound was sweet enough, too.

And, before he had quite finished his line, all the sailors began to roar out the chorus.

Then, before the sailors had quite finished their line, the chanty-man began again:

And the sailors didn't wait until he had finished, but sang again:

As soon as the song was begun, the sailors began to push on the capstan bars. They went slowly at first, for they had to move the ship as they pulled in the chain; but as the ship began to move, they went faster and faster, until they were running around the capstan. And every sailor had to step over the anchor chain twice every time he went around, once where it went out to the anchor and again where the sailor was taking up the slack and piling it. And they stamped their feet in time to the chanty, and they roared out the song; and the anchor chain kept coming in, and it clanked merrily as it came.

And all the men in boats on that river stopped whatever they were doing when they heard the noise of that chanty and the sound of the chain; for it was as merry a noise as you would be likely to hear. And all the men on shore, as far as the sound reached, stopped their work, too; so that, while the Industry  was being pulled up to her anchor, there was no work done within reach of the noise of the chanty. And Captain Solomon heard it, while he was being rowed out to the ship, and he smiled. And the sailors that were rowing him heard it, and they only rowed the harder.

There were several stanzas, or verses, to that chanty, and the sailors began at the beginning again when they had finished it once. But they hadn't time to finish it twice before the second mate said that the anchor was hove short, and he told them to stop. And they stopped, and each sailor took out his bar and put it in the rack again. And the sailors felt so lively because they had sung that chanty, that they ran, and one of them turned a handspring. But the second mate told that sailor that he had better save his strength for the halliards and the braces. And the sailor didn't say anything, for it isn't a good plan for a sailor to answer the second mate or the first mate or the captain, unless he says, "Yes, sir!" or "Aye, aye, sir!"

Then Captain Solomon came aboard and his boat was hoisted up to its place. But while this was being done, the sailors were all busy in getting up the fore- topsail. On the Industry, this sail was all in one piece, although, later, they made the topsails of ships in two pieces, the upper topsails and the lower topsails. For single topsails were very heavy and hard to manage. To get them up, they had to hoist the great yard, with the sail that was fastened to it, and it was very hard work to do this.

But the sailors took hold of the halliards, and when they were all ready, they gave two or three pulls, and then the chanty-man began:

And then the sailors sang a chorus, without waiting for the chanty-man to finish.

The sailors stamped their feet and pulled on the halliards when they sang this. And the chanty-man began again before the sailors had quite finished.

And the sailors sang again:

Then the chanty-man,

And the sailors,

Then the chanty-man,

And the sailors,

And the chanty-man and the sailors kept singing this song, and the yard kept bumping up, until, at last, it was up as far as it would go, and then the sailors stopped singing. For this chanty was the kind that they could stop at one place as well as another.

Then the sailors finished getting up the anchor, and it came out of the mud very hard, for it had been there for three weeks. So they had to go slowly around the capstan, and push as hard as they could, while they sang:

But the anchor came out at last with a jump, so that the sailors almost fell down. And some of them took their bars out of the capstan quickly, and put them in the rack, and jumped for the jib halliards, to hoist the jib. For the wind was blowing down the river, and they had to turn around. And two men finished heaving up the anchor while the ship was turning.

At last the Industry  was turned around and heading down the river, and the sailors hoisted some more sails. And some of them they helped go up with the same chanty they had sung before,

But when they were tired of singing this one, they sang a new one. The tune to it was a sad kind of a tune.

The chanty-man began it.

And then the sailors sang the chorus:

And the chanty-man sang again:

Then the sailors sang:

It was a slow, wavering kind of a tune, and Captain Solomon didn't like it.

"Avast there!" he cried. "That's a pretty chanty to be singing when we're just bound for home. Can't you sing something more cheerful?"

And the men grinned, and they cheered when he said they were just bound home; and they finished hoisting that sail to a new tune.

The chanty-man sang:

And the sailors sang the chorus:

200 THE SANDMAN: HIS SHIP STORIES

Then the chanty-man sang again:

And the sailors roared out:

That made Captain Solomon laugh, for it was a merry tune. "That's the sort!" he said. And the sailors laughed, too, for it made them feel frisky. But, by this time, they were beginning to be tired with all their pulling on ropes and hoisting sails, so that they didn't caper very much.

And by and by the Industry  had got out of that river and she was sailing on a great ocean. And she had to change her course, and, to make the wind take her sails right, they had to swing the yards around as far as they would go. And the mate had all the sailors take hold of the braces, which are the right ropes to swing the yards around; and they wanted to swing the main-yard and the fore-yard at the same time. These are the heaviest yards and the biggest that there are on the ship.

So the mate had all the men take hold of these ropes, and strain them tightly.

"Now, chanty up, there," he cried, "and run away with them."

And when he said that, the sailors all burst out singing with a roar, and they began to walk away with the ropes; but they went faster and faster. And this was the song they sang:

And they stamped their feet in time to the "Way, hay," and by the time they had finished this much of the song, they were running; and the great yards were spinning around, and altogether there was a great noise and excitement. But there was another stanza, and they had time to sing it before the yards were where they wanted them to be.

And the great yards came around with a crash, and the sailors made the ropes fast to big pins that were stuck in the rail.

Then there were other ropes to be hauled, to make the sails take the wind better. Those ropes were called bowlines. And the sailors all took hold of the bowlines, and the chanty-man began singing:

And then the sailors sang:

And the sailors pulled on the ropes in time to the chanty, and with the last word of it all, they fell back on the rope and gave a great pull. And the bowlines were made fast to other pins.

And so they did with every rope that they had to pull and haul on, and there was a chanty for every kind of a rope. The sailors always sang, or roared, whenever they had to pull on any kind of a rope, but it is not told about in the other ship stories, because it would make them too long.

And that's all.