The group broke up after this.  Some who were not actually on lookout duty went into the hot fire room, and after taking off their outer clothing, tried to snatch a few winks of sleep.  The “watch on deck” was not allowed to go below at night, so the only shelter allowed us was the fire room and the main companion-way.  The latter could hold but a few men, and the only alternative was the fire or “drum” room, into which the heat and gas from the furnaces ascended from the bowels of the ship, making it impossible for a man to breathe the atmosphere there for more than half an hour at a time.  The after wheel-house was sometimes taken advantage of by the more venturesome of the boys, but the risk was great, for “Cutlets” was continually prowling around, and the man found taking shelter there would receive tongue lashings hard to bear, with abuse entirely out of proportion to the offence.

A little before twelve o’clock we heard the boatswain’s pipe, and the long drawn shout, “On deck all the starboard watch,” and “All the starboard watch to muster.”  So we knew that we would soon be relieved, and would be able to take the much-needed four hours’ sleep in our “sleeping bags,” as “Hay” called them.  The starboard men came slowly up, rubbing their eyes, buttoning their oilskins, and tying their sou’westers on by a string under their chins as they walked.

“Hurry up there, will you?” calls out a port watch man, as the men of the other watch sleepily climb the ladder.  “Get a move on and give us a chance to get out of this beastly wet.”  A sharp retort is given, and the men move on in the same leisurely way.  The men of both watches are hardly in the best of humors.  It is not pleasant to be waked up at midnight to stand a four hours’ watch in the rain and fog, nor is it the most enjoyable thing in life to be delayed, after standing a four hours’ watch in the rain, realizing all the time that each minute of waiting takes that precious time from the scant four hours’ sleep.

But finally “all the watch” is piped, and we go below and flop into our hammocks, to sleep as soundly and dreamlessly as babies.  A sailor will sleep like a dead man through all kinds of noises and calls, but the minute his own watch is called he is wide awake in an instant, from sheer force of habit.

So when the boatswain’s mate went around with his pipe, singing out as he dodged in and out among the swinging hammocks, “On deck all the port watch,” each of us jumped out of his swaying bed and began to climb into his damp clothes and stiff “oilers.”  We then made our way through the darkness, often bumping our heads on the bottom of hammocks, and earning sleepy but strongly worded rebukes from the occupants; colliding with stanchions, and stubbing our toes on ring bolts and hatch covers.  All arrived at length, formed an unsteady line on the forecastle deck, and answered to our names as they were called by the boatswain’s mate.  So began another day’s work on one of Uncle Sam’s ships.