"Forecastle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... will comprise all those stationed in the tops, and those appointed to attend to the rigging, sails, steerage, and signals. The Master is to be stationed on the quarter-deck, and to be assisted by the Boatswain, whose station will be on the forecastle. The Boatswain will be charged with all his divisional duties in the event of his death or absence. (For ARMS, see Table ...
— Ordnance Instructions for the United States Navy. - 1866. Fourth edition. • Bureau of Ordnance, USN
... especially for the purpose. A little stable was put up on deck for Dicky and a bale of hay provided for him, but it was not long before the little fellow had become such a pet with the carpenter and his mates that he was taken into the forecastle to live with them and share their mess, eating his meals out of a tin plate. The men taught him many amusing tricks, and it got to be quite the thing for the cabin passengers to make trips down to the forecastle to see him ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez
... as to bend rather than break under their every stress, the Venetian ships were of the most massive construction, built wholly of the stoutest oak planking, and with timbers upwards of a foot in thickness. All were bolted together with iron pins "as thick as a man's thumb." Forecastle and poop were alike lofty, with a lower waist for the use of sweeps if needful. But this was only exceptional, sails being the usual motive power. And these were constructed chiefly with a view to strength. Instead of canvas, they were formed ...
— Early Britain—Roman Britain • Edward Conybeare
... on deck I found Bloody Bill at the helm, and as we were alone together I tried to draw him into conversation. After repeating to him the conversation in the forecastle about the ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... perished before the "Victory" returned a shot. At length orders were given to fire; and as it had been discovered that the French admiral, who hoisted no colours, was in the "Bucentaure," of eighty guns, Nelson's terrible sixty-eight pounder carronade from the "Victory's" forecastle was turned chiefly against that ship. In two minutes nearly four hundred men were killed or wounded in this ship; twenty of her guns were dismounted, and she was almost disabled. The next ship which the "Victory" encountered was the "Redoubtable," against which she ran foul, the anchor of the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... given Gunnar a good sword; Gunnar now drew it, and had not yet put on his helm. He leapt at once on the forecastle of Vandil's ship, and gave one man his death-blow. Karli ran his ship alongside the other side of Gunnar's ship, and hurled a spear athwart the deck, and aimed at him about the waist. Gunnar sees this, and turned him about so quickly that no eye could follow him, and caught the ...
— Njal's Saga • Unknown Icelanders
... the grossness of vice. Of vessels remembered for their pollution, the Friendship and Janus are distinguished: the keys of the prison were accessible during the night: the conspiracy reached from the cabin to forecastle: the officers were libertines themselves, or, even when their conduct was least equivocal, it was difficult to obstruct irregularities: not even bars and bolts resisted the ingress of forbidden guests. The wooden barriers, which covered the entrance, ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... climbed up over the roof of the forecastle, and, fearlessly catching hold of the end of the walking-beam when it inclined toward him with the next oscillation of the engine, swung himself lithely on top of the machinery. It was with some difficulty that he maintained his balance, but he ...
— Southern Stories - Retold from St. Nicholas • Various
... the night," were nevertheless bright and sparkling with diamond lustre. All was still, for though we eagerly watched, we rarely spoke; silence became eloquent on such an occasion. Now and then the deep, hoarse voice of the captain from the forecastle of the steamer floated aft: "Port your helm," "Starbord," "Steady." In this intricate navigation the captain leaves the bridge to the officer of the watch, and temporarily takes the post of the forward lookout. Now we run close in under some towering headland, now sheer ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... other for a while, was the handsomest ship I had ever set eyes on. A long low black schooner, with a narrow beading of white at deck level, and masts that tapered off into fishing-rods. She was pierced for six guns a-side, and a great tarpaulin cover on the forecastle and another astern hinted at something heavier there. Her lines and finish were so graceful that I felt sure she was French built, for English builders ever consider strength before beauty. A very fast boat, I judged, but how she would behave in dirty ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham
... won quickly through the inevitable series of mishaps that rubbed the greenhorn mark away; and he gleefully measured his progress by his ever-growing ability to outpull, outclimb, and outdare the polyglot denizens of the brigantine's forecastle. ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... sun-rising the sky looked very red in the east near the horizon; and there were many black clouds both to the south and north of it. About a quarter of an hour after the sun was up there was a squall to the windward of us; when on a sudden one of our men on the forecastle called out that he saw something astern, but could not tell what: I looked out for it and immediately saw a spout beginning to work within a quarter of a mile of us, exactly in the wind. We presently put right before it. It came very swiftly, whirling ...
— A Continuation of a Voyage to New Holland • William Dampier
... cotton over, while the captain, frightened and despairing, went into the cabin to drown his fears in drink. Seeing the state of things, and believing that shipwreck was imminent, I found two of my shipmates who were Christians, and who had prayed daily with me in the forecastle, and I asked them if they had any faith in God now, that he would hear our prayers and deliver us? They both said they had; and I told them to pray, then, that the Lord might rebuke the winds ...
— The Wonders of Prayer - A Record of Well Authenticated and Wonderful Answers to Prayer • Various
... was surly, his words were evidently well meant. Ere he had scarce finished his little speech he had turned and was limping off toward the forecastle with the very apparent intention of forestalling ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... I was glad that no great intimacy had sprung up between Favonius and the chickens which we carried in a coop on the forecastle head, for there is no telling what restrictions his tender-heartedness might have laid upon our larder. But perhaps a chicken would not have given such an opening for misplaced affection as a sheep. There is a great difference in animals in this ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke
... they thus separated from the others of the crew: for both man and boy had belonged to the forecastle of the Pandora? ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... he and his companions hastened up the plank. They were welcomed on board with the shaking of hands; place was made for them about the basin; a sticky demijohn of molasses was added to the feast in honour of company, and an accordion brought from the forecastle and significantly laid by ...
— The Ebb-Tide - A Trio And Quartette • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... about the ship now, and I lost no time in cultivating the acquaintance of the sailor with the green-haired lady on his arm. I found him in the forecastle—a sort of cellar in the front part of the vessel. He was an agreeable sailor, as I had expected, and we became the best of friends ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... wished to be; and so far from being degraded by being placed in the second cabin, that part of the ship became the scene of as much pleasure and refinement, during the voyage, as the cabin itself. The Hutchinson Family, celebrated vocalists—fellow-passengers—often came to my rude forecastle deck, and sung their sweetest songs, enlivening the place with eloquent music, as well as spirited conversation, during the voyage. In two days after leaving Boston, one part of the ship was about as free to me as another. My fellow-passengers not only visited me, but invited me to visit ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... struck, when the voice of the boatswain from the forecastle was heard shouting, "A vessel on the lee bow, sir! A dismasted ship! It can ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... with another, and introducing, are touches of breeding; it being altogether beyond his comprehension that both have especial uses, and are only to be resorted to on especial occasions. Still, the worthy master, who had begun life on the forecastle, without any previous knowledge of usages, and who had imbibed the notion that "manners make the man," taken in the narrow sense of the axiom, was a devotee of what he fancied to be good breeding, ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... banked the snow up against the sides; but it was now thrown higher, and its thickness at the bottom increased to about four feet. Besides this, a bed of snow, three feet deep, was subsequently laid on the deck over my cabin, and also on the forecastle over the sick-bay, to assist in retaining the warmth in those parts of the ship; an office which it seemed to perform very effectually. It was impossible, however, as the cold increased, to keep up a tolerably comfortable temperature in the cabin if the fire was suffered ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... Office? Where's the Secretary of the Navy? Where's the State Bank? Where's the Ambassadors and Diplomatists (them are the boys to wind off a snarl of ravellins as slick as if it were on a reel), and where's that Ship of State, fitted up all the way from the forecastle clean up to the starn-post, chock full of good snug berths, handsumly found and furnished, tier over tier, one above another, as thick as it can hold? That's a helm worth handlin', I tell you; I don't wonder that folks mutiny below, and fight on the ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... eighth day, in the morning, the wind increased, and we had all hands at work to strike our topmasts, and make everything snug and close, that the ship might ride as easy as possible. By noon the sea went very high indeed, and our ship rode forecastle in, shipped several seas, and we thought once or twice our anchor had come home; upon which our master ordered out the sheet-anchor, so that we rode with two anchors ahead, and the cables veered out ...
— Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... over to the forecastle hatch, and, hailing the gunner, ordered him to get up another ladder, so that the men could be run up on deck if the pirates should undertake to come aboard. At that moment the boatswain at the wheel called out that the ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... craft was the schooner Coral, a stanchly-built, sharp-bowed little vessel of forty tons burden, built for the Honolulu trade. She was about seven years old, very fast, and constructed as strongly as iron and wood could make her. The forecastle, cook's quarters and cabin were all under deck, so that in heavy weather there was no danger of being washed from one's bunk whenever a big sea ...
— Adrift on the Pacific • Edward S. Ellis
... the Fleet, leaning over the forecastle rails and smoking its evening pipe, did see, and was none ...
— A Tall Ship - On Other Naval Occasions • Sir Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... haunches, the "Starlight" gasped and shivered and began to settle by the head from the rush of water into the forecastle. ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg
... surf. Margaret would not go alone. With her husband and attendant (Celeste), she was just about to try the planks prepared by four seamen, and the steward had just taken little Nino in his arms, pledged to save him or die, 'when a sea struck the forecastle, and the foremast fell, carrying with it the deck and all upon it. The steward and Angelino were washed upon the beach, both dead, though warm, some twenty minutes after. Celeste and Ossoli were caught for a moment by the rigging, but the next ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 438 - Volume 17, New Series, May 22, 1852 • Various
... constructed by foreign artizans, principally by Italians, and was launched in 1515. She was said to be of a thousand tons portage—the largest ship in England. The vessel was four-masted, with two round tops on each mast, except the shortest mizen. She had a high forecastle and poop, from which the crew could shoot down upon the deck or waist of another vessel. The object was to have a sort of castle at each end of the ship. This style of shipbuilding was doubtless borrowed from the ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles
... say: 'Is this me that minds the golden women of the islands, and they with red flowers in their hair? Is this me that fought side by side with good shipmates in Callao? Am I listening to the chatter of these mild people, me that's heard grand stories in the forecastle of how this man was marooned in the Bahamas, and that man was married to a Maori queen, by God? Me, the hero that dowsed skysails, and they cracking like guns. Is this lousy room a place for me that's used to a ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne
... grandpapa was certainly dead? "Dead!" (says my uncle, looking, at the body) "ay, ay, I'll warrant him as dead as a herring. Odd's fish! now my dream is out for all the world. I thought I stood upon the forecastle, and saw a parcel of carrion crows foul of a dead shark: that floated alongside, and the devil perching upon our spritsail yard, in the likeness of a blue bear—who, d'ye see jumped overboard upon the carcass ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... their crews swimming and scrambling, as many as escaped the shot, to the shore; another broadside annihilated them. The enemy was not slack in returning this warm salute, for almost before the shot escaped from our guns, a man standing on the forecastle bits, hauling on the topsail buntlines, received a musket bullet in his left arm, which broke the bone, and commenced the labours in the cockpit. The action became general as soon as the ships had occupied their positions, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 377, June 27, 1829 • Various
... this is purposely effected to deaden her way by rounding in the weather-braces; and taken aback, when brought to by an unexpected change of wind, or by inattention in the helmsman.—All aback forward, the notice given from the forecastle, when the head-sails are pressed aback by a sudden change in the wind. (See WORK ABACK.)—Taken aback, a colloquialism for being suddenly surprised or ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... by Caesar's soldiers at his triumph. We know in what terms British sailors often speak of their favorite commanders. Affection, when it expresses itself most emphatically, borrows the language of its opposites. Who would dream of introducing into a serious life of Nelson catches chanted in the forecastle of the "Victory"? But which of the soldiers sang these verses? Does Suetonius mean that the army sang them in chorus as they marched in procession? The very notion is preposterous. It is proved that during Caesar's lifetime ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude
... Coke. Hozier ran to the forecastle. He found the carpenter there, standing by the ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... affecting in the extreme. Several of the oldest seamen—men who had gone through scenes of suffering with tearless eyes and unblanched cheeks—now retired to the spirit room to conceal their emotion. A few went into caucus in the forecastle, and returned with the request that the Amazonian queen should hereafter be known as the "Queen of the ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... order, for methinks that between the Needle rocks and the Alum cliffs yonder I can catch a glimpse of the topmasts of the galleys. Hewett, Cook, Johnson, Cunningham, your men are of the poop-guard. Thornbury, Walters, Hackett, Baddlesmere, you are with Sir Oliver on the forecastle. Simon, you bide with your lord's banner; but ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... substantial sea-chest, one of those that the sailors of that day uniformly used in merchant-vessels, a man-of-war compelling them to carry their clothes in bags, for the convenience of compact stowage. The chest of Daggett, however, was a regular inmate of the forecastle, and, from its appearance, had made almost as many voyages as its owner. The last, indeed, was heard to say that he had succeeded in saving it from no less than three shipwrecks. It was a reasonably heavy chest, though its contents, when opened, did not seem to ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... still dull sailing, and I was very sleepy and stupid in spite of the abuse with which Mr. Whippleton regaled me. He had brought his whiskey bottles back with him, and several times he imbibed from one of them. Peter went forward with his bottle, and stretched himself on the forecastle. ...
— Desk and Debit - or, The Catastrophes of a Clerk • Oliver Optic
... see me at first; but her air was exultant and satisfied. There was no face on board so elated and flushed. I kept out of her way as long as I could without consigning myself to the black hole of the cabin; but at last she caught sight of me, and came down to the forecastle to claim me as ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... captain to that old worthy, who was just poking his head up out of the forecastle,—"Trull, is that noise ...
— Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens
... of about two knots, under close-reefed topsails, storm trysails, and spanker. We could hear Captain Gordon's voice directing the working of the ship, and once I saw him on the quarterdeck, leaning over the rail to watch us. His head was bandaged as if from some accident. On the forecastle deck the mate and some men stood watching our approach, with ropes ready ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton
... splendid fettle. The alcohol had been worked out of my system, and from the moment the voyage began I had not known the desire for a drink. I doubt if I even thought once about a drink. Often, of course, the talk in the forecastle turned on drink, and the men told of their more exciting or humorous drunks, remembering such passages more keenly, with greater delight, than all the other passages of their ...
— John Barleycorn • Jack London
... the bow of the yacht, was the cook-room, with a scuttle opening into it from the forecastle. The stove, a miniature affair, with an oven large enough to roast an eight-pound rib of beef, and two holes on the top, was in the fore peak. It was placed in a shallow pan filled with sand, and the wood-work was covered with sheet tin, ...
— The Yacht Club - or The Young Boat-Builder • Oliver Optic
... of fact, scarcely more operative in the forecastle than in the cabin. But Bill in the intervals of slumber had visited the furnaces, and kept up a good head of steam; and in the chill of dawn he and the mate cast off warps and (with the pilot) worked the steamer out through the ship lock, practically unaided. The mate, when ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the crew of the Nancy Bell. Without much hesitation the poor Swede accepted both these offers, and as soon as he had recovered from the effects of his experience on the ice raft was provided with a bunk in the forecastle. ...
— Wakulla - A Story of Adventure in Florida • Kirk Munroe
... passing abreast, but a couple of hundred yards distant. The tug was shortening the line, and on the hulk's forecastle-head a couple of hands were busy at a cathead, preparing to let go anchor. She was ill-favored enough to look at, that hulk—weather-beaten, begrimed, stripped of all that makes a ship sightly. Nothing but the worn-out old hull was left. An eyesore, truly. Yet, any seaman could see with half ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... He thought he was born to command. People said old Captain Rheid acted as if he were always on shipboard. His wife said once in the bitterness of her spirit that he always marched the quarter-deck and kept his boys in the forecastle. ...
— Miss Prudence - A Story of Two Girls' Lives. • Jennie Maria (Drinkwater) Conklin
... matter of my general reputation, accepting it at its current face value, let me add that I have indeed lived life in a very rough school and have seen more than the average man's share of inhumanity and cruelty, from the forecastle and the prison, the slum and the desert, the execution-chamber and the lazar- house, to the battlefield and the military hospital. I have seen horrible deaths and mutilations. I have seen imbeciles hanged, because, being imbeciles, they did not possess the hire of lawyers. I have seen the hearts ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... them through the window; the doors were soon forced, and the Spanish brigadier fell while retreating to the quarter-deck. Nelson pushed on, and found Berry in possession of the poop, and the Spanish ensign hauling down. He passed on to the forecastle, where he met two or three Spanish officers, and received their swords. The English were now in full possession of every part of the ship, when a fire of pistols and musketry opened upon them from the admiral's stern-gallery ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... Island of Ascension, where we called, sticks also with its long swinging rollers breaking in white foam, its bare mountain peak capped with green, and the turtles in the ponds. Those poor turtles. We brought two of them home, and I used to look at them lying on their backs in the forecastle flapping their fins feebly. One of them died, and I got the butcher to save me the shell. Afterwards I gave it as a wedding present to Mr. and Mrs. Scroope, nicely polished and lined. I meant it for a ...
— Allan and the Holy Flower • H. Rider Haggard
... for the captain of the forecastle, who had been away in charge of the sportsmen, and, with astonishment, asked how he had contrived to fire away one pound of powder and four of small shot, without bringing home some loons? Hanging his head, and looking uncommonly bashful, ...
— Stray Leaves from an Arctic Journal; • Sherard Osborn
... was sinking fast when we shaped our course for the entrance to the harbour of Trincomalee. I was on the topgallant forecastle with Tom, and most delightful it was in that airy position. A fisherman in a curious little catamaran boat offered his services as pilot; and though they were not required we stopped, intending to ask him to come on board and have ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey
... voice. That voice is one he never shall hear. He only glared for a moment on the downcast face of Tom, and walked off. He took Tom's trunk, which contained a very neat and abundant wardrobe, to the forecastle, where it was soon surrounded by various hands of the boat. With much laughing, at the expense of niggers who tried to be gentlemen, the articles very readily were sold to one and another, and the empty ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... Act, 1894, and the amending Acts of the two following years, mitigate the old-fashioned severity of punishments for refusal of duty, assaults on the high seas, and other nautical offences. The forecastle and the accommodation thereof become subject to the fiat of the Government inspector, as are factories on shore. Regular payment of wages is stipulated for, overcrowding amongst passengers is forbidden. ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... place? How easy to find it on land! How apparently impossible at sea! There was the forecastle (full of men) at one end of the vessel. There was the sail room (full of sails) at the other. There was the ladies' cabin (used as the ladies' dressing-room; inaccessible, in that capacity, to every male human ...
— Miss or Mrs.? • Wilkie Collins
... from the tug I had missed, but for'ard of the amidship house I encountered a few laggards who had not yet gone into the forecastle. These were the worse for liquor, and a more wretched, miserable, disgusting group of men I had never seen in any slum. Their clothes were rags. Their faces were bloated, bloody, and dirty. I won't say they were villainous. They were merely filthy and ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... even dismantling his tenement, but he was easily placated by a compliment to the "dear old ship," or an effort made by some tenant to idealize his apartment. A photographer who had ingeniously utilized the forecastle for a gallery (accessible from the bows in the next street), paid no further tribute than a portrait of the pretty face of Rosey Nott. The superstitious reverence in which Abner Nott held his monstrous fancy was naturally ...
— By Shore and Sedge • Bret Harte
... specially designed to meet Mr. Pulitzer's peculiar requirements. She had a flush deck from the bows to the stern, broken only, for perhaps twenty feet, by a well between the forecastle head and the fore part ...
— An Adventure With A Genius • Alleyne Ireland
... Queenstown Harbour, where we lost considerable time in waiting for the mail. At length the mail, which was a heavy one, was safely on board, and off we went, head on to the Atlantic. During that night of the 23rd we experienced a heavy gale; big seas broke over the forecastle, and flooded the decks below, through the ventilators. The A.B.'s declined venturing on the forecastle to unship these great ventilators, and so the engines had to be slowed down, and the ship stopped; the ventilators were then unshipped, and we proceeded. The night was a bad one, and ...
— A start in life • C. F. Dowsett
... his eye caught a faint glimmer of light coming from the forecastle. He raised himself, and leaned over the side of the hammock to see what it was. Presently he saw two persons coming, each of whom was carrying a lighted candle. He bent still farther forward so as to see who they were. The hammocks were hung so close ...
— Jerusalem • Selma Lagerlof
... remittance of specie. The conveyance alluded to is the Indian, a vessel having the dimensions of a seventyfour gun ship, mounting twentyeight French thirtysix pounders on her main deck, and twelve twelves on her quarter deck and forecastle, sold by the Chevalier de Luxembourg to the State of South Carolina for the term of three years, loaded in part with articles of clothing, &c. on said State's account, nearly ready for sea, but reduced to the impossibility of sailing for ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. IX • Various
... something from those passengers who have never crossed the line. During the ceremony, the frigate doubled Cape Barbas, hastening to its destruction. Captain Lachaumareys very good humouredly presided at this species of baptism, whilst his dear Richefort promenaded the forecastle, and looked with indifference upon a shore bristling with dangers. However that may be, all passed on well; nay, it may be even said that the farce was well played off. But the route which we pursued soon made us forget the short-lived happiness we had experienced. ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard
... was stupid or sleepy) to me. 'Twas the way he had, too, of teaching me that which he would have me conceive him to be—of fashioning in my heart and mind the character he would there wear. A clumsy, forecastle method, and most pathetically engaging, to be sure! but in effect unapproached: for to this day, when I know him as he was, the man he would appear to be sticks in my heart and will not be supplanted. Nor would I willingly yield ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... sheltered by a strip of paneled wall between the two doorways. The staterooms on one side must come next, and after them the galley, with the forecastle beyond, and even beyond this, perhaps, ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... stern was cleared and her fastenings were cut, so that she fell out of the line of battle. Then they attacked Onund's ship, in the forepart of which he was standing and fighting manfully. The king's men said: "He bears himself well in the forecastle. Let us give him something to remind him of having been in the battle." Onund was stepping out with one foot on to the bulwark, and as he was striking they made a thrust at him with a spear; in parrying it he bent backwards, and at that moment a man on the forecastle of ...
— Grettir The Strong - Grettir's Saga • Unknown
... answered; "with the captain and the pilot on the bridge, and all the crew in the forecastle, it can only be a beautiful bit of steering. We shall ...
— The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton Volume II • Isabel Lady Burton & W. H. Wilkins
... and all of her to the mainmast was lost in ocean,—her stately spars seemingly rising out of blue water unsupported by any ship beneath;—it seemed an age to him, he said, before there was any forecastle to be seen rising from the brine. Also, how, caught off that same wild cape, they had to make sail in a reef-topsail-breeze to claw off its terrible rocks, seen but too plainly under their Ice. How, as he said, "about four in the afternoon ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... gone through by the author of this book. The experiences acquired in a field of operations, that includes all the seas and continents where commerce may move, live, and have its being, have enhanced in value and completed what came to him in his forecastle and quarter-deck times. He learned in his youth, from the lips of a race now extinct, what the nature and traditions of seamanship were before he and his contemporaries lived. He has seen that nature and ...
— Windjammers and Sea Tramps • Walter Runciman
... styled Blindi was a somewhat peculiar character. He was an Algerine by birth, but had served several years in the British navy, and had acquired a smattering of the English language—forecastle English, as a matter of course. In consequence of this, and of having lost an eye in the service, he had obtained a pension, and the appointment of interpreter to all his Britannic Majesty's ships visiting Algiers. He dwelt at the harbour, or Marina, ...
— The Pirate City - An Algerine Tale • R.M. Ballantyne
... tarpaulin! Sirrah, do you bring your forecastle jests upon your father? But I shall be even with you, I won't give you a groat. Mr Buckram, is the conveyance so worded that nothing can possibly descend to this scoundrel? I would not so much as have him have the prospect of an estate, though ...
— Love for Love • William Congreve
... and myself spend two hours in the forecastle instructing the sailors. Many of them seem perfectly willing, some of ...
— Forty Years in South China - The Life of Rev. John Van Nest Talmage, D.D. • Rev. John Gerardus Fagg
... humour her. Once she sat for a whole hour in a dark cellar that smelt of tallow where a couple of men were engaged in making those enormous candles that people in Ireland light on Christmas Day; and once Radway was forced to follow her into the forecastle of a Breton schooner reeking of garlic, where she practised the French that ...
— The Tragic Bride • Francis Brett Young
... drawers in the corner, reaching from deck to deck; the top one being taken out when the hammock was hung up, without which there was not length for it, so then the foot-clews took the place of the top drawer. For specimens he had a very small cabin under the forecastle." ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... hung in the cabin, and, besides, he could sing—both psalms and songs. Indeed, there were those who maintained that he composed the songs himself; but this was most probably a lie. And it was certainly a lie that they whispered in the forecastle: that the skipper had not quite got his sea-legs. Young men always tell such stories to cabin-boys, in order to appear manly. And, besides, there was a steersman on the brig, who could, on a pinch, easily ...
— Norse Tales and Sketches • Alexander Lange Kielland
... the morning—on a certain specified date; for until then there had been nothing out of the ordinary to distinguish the voyage from any other. But some five minutes after I had struck two bells, in accordance with the chief mate's instructions, and the lookout on the topgallant forecastle had responded with the usual cry of "All's well!" one of the forecastle hands came slouching along aft, and, ascending the poop ladder with a certain suggestion of haste and trepidation, ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood
... took his chance with the men. The icy gusts roared through the rigging; the cold spray smote him and froze on him; green seas came over and forced him to hold on wheresoever he might. Sometimes the clumsy old brig would drown everybody out of the forecastle, and the little sailor had to curl up in his oilskins on the streaming floor of the after-cabin. Sometimes the ship would have to "turn" every yard of the way from Thames to Tyne, or from Thames to Blyth. Then the cabin-boy had ...
— The Romance of the Coast • James Runciman
... the officers as ye like," was the constant saying on the forecastle, "but nary word ...
— Harper's Young People, April 6, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... the Biscay squadron, a very mighty and puissant ship, commanded by Brittandona. The San Philip carried three tier of ordnance on a side, and eleven pieces in each tier, besides eight pieces in her forecastle chase, and others from her stern-ports. After the Revenge was thus entangled by the huge San Philip, four others laid her on board, two to larboard and two to starboard. The fight thus began at three in the afternoon, and continued very terribly the whole of that evening. But the great ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... used more for effect, and had, we hope, only a superficial meaning. But be that as it may, it detracts from the dignity of an officer occupying, as he did, a distinguished position to use language and phrases such as are common in the forecastle or on the quarterdeck of a sailing merchantman in the early days before the introduction of steamers. Here are a few quite amusing outbursts which do not produce the impression of coming from a person known to fame as the Duke of Thunder:—On the 1st October, 1801, the preliminaries ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... board of three boats: the first was a keel boat fifty-five feet long, drawing three feet water, carrying one large squaresail and twenty-two oars, a deck of ten feet in the bow, and stern formed a forecastle and cabin, while the middle was covered by lockers, which might be raised so as to form a breast-work in case of attack. This was accompanied by two perioques or open boats, one of six and the other of seven oars. Two horses were at the same time to be led along the banks of the ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
... been idle; and now, without hesitation, he made along the jetty until the masts of the French sloop loomed beside it. He boarded the vessel by a plank and looked round him. There was no watch on deck, but a murmur of talk came from the forecastle and a melancholy voice piping a French song rose from the depths of the cabin. Colonel John bade Bale follow him—they were shivering from head to ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... 1776, p. 382, this hulk seems to be mentioned:—'The felons sentenced under the new convict-act began to work in clearing the bed of the Thames about two miles below Barking Creek. In the vessel wherein they work there is a room abaft in which they are to sleep, and in the forecastle a kind of cabin for the overseer.' Ib. p. 254, there is an admirable paper, very likely by Bentham, on the punishment of convicts, which Johnson might have read ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... shipmaster, in each generation, retiring from the quarter-deck to the homestead, while a boy of fourteen took the hereditary place before the mast, confronting the salt spray and the gale, which had blustered against his sire and grandsire. The boy, also, in due time, passed from the forecastle to the cabin, spent a tempestuous manhood, and returned from his world-wanderings, to grow old, and die, and mingle his dust with the natal earth. This long connection of a family with one spot, as its place of birth and burial, creates ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... imperceptible crevices; it forced itself through bulkheads and covers; it oozed here and there and everywhere in slender threads, in an invisible film, in an incomprehensible manner. It made its way into the cabin, into the forecastle; it poisoned the sheltered places on the deck, it could be sniffed as high as the main-yard. It was clear that if the smoke came out the air came in. This was disheartening. This combustion refused ...
— Youth • Joseph Conrad
... Junior. Both her enemies had their guns trained on her; she could use none of hers. At the same time, in the act of falling off, she approached the Essex; and her jib-boom, projecting far beyond her bows, swept over the forecastle of the latter. Porter, who had been watching the whole proceeding with great distrust, had summoned his boarders as soon as the Phoebe luffed. The Essex at the moment was in a state of as absolute preparation ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan
... paced the forecastle of the galleon Rose of May, and peered about for signs of land against the dawn. Not that he expected to meet his love in the morning, nor for many mornings, but he had been up in his off-watch and was getting drowsy, so ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... engines and brought the ship to a standstill, but the iceberg had floated away astern. The shock, though little felt by the enormous mass of the ship, was sufficient to dislodge a large quantity of ice from the berg: the forecastle deck was found to be covered with ...
— The Loss of the SS. Titanic • Lawrence Beesley
... which trailed now in the drifting water, but which soon and eagerly should spring to life. At the belt of every oarsman dangled a sword, for boarders' work was more than likely. Thirty spare rowers rested impatiently on the centre deck, ready to leap wherever needed. On the forecastle commanded the proreus, Ameinias's lieutenant, and with him the keleustes, the oar master who must give time on his sounding-board for the rowing, and never fail,—not though the ships around reeled down to watery grave. And finally on the poop by the ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... hear of no change. She looked white-like as she beheld the bursting of the sprays, the green seas that sometimes poured upon the forecastle, and the perpetual bounding and swooping of the boat among the billows; but she stood firmly by her father's orders. "My father, James More, will have arranged it so," was her first word and her last. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... There is nothing in literature more remarkable than the impression produced by Dana's portraiture of the homely inner life of a little brig's forecastle. ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... better than for a while we thought we had. At the beginning of the second dog-watch one evening, Charmian and I sat down on the forecastle-head for a rubber of cribbage. Chancing to glance ahead, I saw cloud-capped mountains rising from the sea. We were rejoiced at the sight of land, but I was in despair over our navigation. I thought we had learned something, yet our position ...
— The Cruise of the Snark • Jack London
... of dilapidation and littered with a jumble of odds and ends which looked like the ruins of a barroom. As he turned to ascend to the deck again, after possibly five minutes, intending to take a look at the forecastle next, he heard the sound of ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis
... understand, that you can run across all sorts of horrible sights on one of these same wrecks," continued Teddy. "Sailors get drowned, you know, down in the hold or in the forecastle. I hope we don't discover anything like that now. I never did fancy ...
— Boy Scouts on Hudson Bay - The Disappearing Fleet • G. Harvey Ralphson
... politics or religion. There are always a few who will take the trouble to walk down among the seaweeds and slippery stones, for the sake of showing their credulous fellow-citizens that skins filled with sand, and set upright at the forecastle, are ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... he had gone ashore day after day for a fortnight at Adelaide; and a wee woman five years older, and a cycle wiser, had invariably been waiting with new mysteries in her house.... Moreover, on the Truxton, he had nothing to do with the forecastle galley—there was a Chinese for that—and Captain Carreras, fancying him from the beginning, had quartered him aft, where, except on days like this, when Mother Earth's pneumatic cushion seemed limp and flattened, there was a breeze to hammock in, and plenty of candles for ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... recompense us for the delay, the breeze came in strong and steady. Our one hope now was to follow it up close, and to carry it within gunshot of the brig, for if she caught it before we were within range she would certainly escape. All hands were piped to quarters, and the long eighteen-pounder on the forecastle was loaded with a full service charge; on this piece we relied to cripple the chase. We were now rapidly raising her, and I was sent aloft on the fore topsail yard, with a good glass to watch her movements. Her hull was in sight and she ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... him, he turned round in the direction of the Eden; and, when within twenty yards of the ship, he all at once disappeared, and was not seen afterwards. On inquiry, it was found that the native prisoner who had been confined in irons on the forecastle, for his participation in the affray I have so lately described, had contrived to effect his escape. To accomplish this, he had put his hand down the scuttle over the coppers, and taken from thence the iron that turns the handles of the dischargers. With the point of this ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman
... Turkish carpets, and golden candelabra. Wealth, strength, ease and grace were evident in every part of the strange craft. No such vessel had ever before entered James River. The ship was well armed, and the crew thoroughly disciplined. There was a long brass cannon in the forecastle, with carronades above and below, for she was a double-decker with a row of guns above and below, and at that time such a formidable craft was able to destroy half of the English navy. The name of ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick
... a ship of this kind is a hollow space, of about five feet in depth, contained between the elevations of the quarter-deck and forecastle, and having the upper-deck ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... forecastle deck and made for me, half mad from the disease, but wholly mad from his mental state. There was no escape except out the head-gear, and I went that way, with him after me. Out the bowsprit, on to the jib foot-ropes, ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson
... the skipper, fiercely; and, walking to the forecastle, placed his hand on the scuttle and descended with studied slowness. As he reached the floor the perturbed face of Bill ...
— Sailor's Knots (Entire Collection) • W.W. Jacobs
... description of his delirious vision of the afternoon. Eight bells struck, and when Mr. Fulton, the junior officer, relieved me, I laid down and tried to quiet myself. I didn't have much luck. Just before I took the deck again at midnight I slipped down to the forecastle to see how Green was coming along. He was lying in his bunk, wide ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various
... the last bale of cargo was stowed, and the hatches put on. The landsmen who had been employed went on shore, and Frank went forward to the forecastle, with the ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty
... don't know which is the biggest fool of the two,' said Uncle Bat, very rudely.' As for him, if I had him on the forecastle of a man-of-war for a day or two, I'd soon teach him ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... schooner was snug in the lee of False Frenchman and down for the night. A wet time abroad: a black wind in the rigging, and the swish and patter of rain on the deck. But the forecastle bogey was roaring, and the forecastle lamp was bright; and the crew—at ease and dry—sprawled content ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan
... boys looked, they saw that the Antelope had become an object of singular attention and interest to those on board of the steamer. Men were on the forecastle, others on the main deck, the officers were on the quarter-deck, and all were earnestly scrutinizing the Antelope. One of them was looking at her through his glass. The Antelope, as she lay at anchor, was now turned with her ...
— Lost in the Fog • James De Mille
... impudence. At last, stepping on board the Pequod, we found everything in profound quiet, not a soul moving. The cabin entrance was locked within; the hatches were all on, and lumbered with coils of rigging. Going forward to the forecastle, we found the slide of the scuttle open. Seeing a light, we went down, and found only an old rigger there, wrapped in a tattered pea-jacket. He was thrown at whole length upon two chests, his face downwards and inclosed in his folded ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... obtain information of the outside world. Little enough this proved when, as often happened, the sole survivor of the shipwreck was some ignorant sailor, who had no news to communicate beyond the latest varieties of forecastle blasphemy. My hosts gratefully assured me that, as a person of some little education, they considered me a veritable godsend. No less a task was mine than to relate to them the history of the world for the past two centuries, and often ...
— To Whom This May Come - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... Hawkins and Frobisher were at daggers drawn with Drake; and Sir Martin—if contemporary, affidavits can be trusted—did not scruple to heap the most virulent abuse upon Sir Francis, calling him, in language better fitted for the forecastle than the quarter-deck, a thief and a coward, for appropriating the ransom for Don Pedro Valdez in which both Frobisher and Hawkins claimed at least an ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... romance in figure-heads. To me they seem a frigid, unintelligent device, not to say idolatrous. I have known a crew to set so much store by one that they kept a tinsel locket and pair of ear-rings in the forecastle and duly adorned their darling when in port. But this is materialism. The true personality of a ship resides in no prefiguring lump of wood with a sightless smile to which all seas come alike and all ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... everything else, and in a broiling sun we hurried down to the pier, and with a heap of Japanese, who filled two scows, were put on board a steamer not bigger than a large decked steam launch, where the natives were all packed into a covered hole, and I was conducted with much ceremony to the forecastle, a place at the bow 5 feet square, full of coils of rope, shut in, and left to solitude and dignity, and the stare of eight eyes, which perseveringly glowered through the windows! The steamer had been kept waiting for me on the other side for two days, to the infinite disgust of ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... ships the cross was seen in cabin and forecastle, on gun and halberd, murdered many Marquesans at Oomoa to glut their taste for blood. The standard of death the white flew then has never been lowered. Oomoa and Hanavave, the adjacent bay and village, were resorts for whalers, who brought a plague of ills that reduced ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... eight bells chimed sweetly over the silvery waters from the forecastle head, as Dan, with a cheery good evening, followed the first mate to the bridge. The second mate smiled genially, gave the course as south half east, and, with his dog-watch ended, went to bed. A gruff voice ...
— Dan Merrithew • Lawrence Perry
... the naughty shipwrights up, with the kettles in their hands, And bound them round the forecastle to wait the King's commands. But 'Since ye have made your beds,' said the King, 'ye needs must lie thereon. For the sake of your wives and little ones—felawes, ...
— Songs from Books • Rudyard Kipling
... just as the men were coming up from the forecastle, and they were soon at work swabbing the planks, squaring yards, shaking out the sails to dry, and getting the vessel in order just as if she were at sea, while the cook and steward attended to their work as coolly as if nothing ...
— Fire Island - Being the Adventures of Uncertain Naturalists in an Unknown Track • G. Manville Fenn
... to them, we spent upon three of them 150 great shot, and the morning after some fifty more. At night, we gave the admiral a salute from our four stern guns as a farewell; in return for which he fired one of his bow guns, a whole or demi-culverine, the shot from which came even with the top of our forecastle, went through our Davie, killed William Burrel, and carried off the arm of another of our men. The Hosiander[81] spent the whole of this day in firing against one of the ships that was aground, and received many shots from the enemy, one of which ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... the dark intervals of thirteen ports; a real gun frowning in each. Although the hammocks were not stowed, and the hammock-cloths had that empty and undressed look which is so common to a man-of-war in the night, it was apparent that the ship had an upper deck, with quarter-deck and forecastle batteries; or, in other words, that she was a frigate. As she had opened the town of Porto Ferrajo several minutes before she was herself seen from the Feu Follet, an ensign was hanging from the end of her gaff, though there was not sufficient ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... hurried across the rowers' thwarts amidships to the lofty forecastle where his crew slept. "Turn out," he called to them, "and take your oars and boat-hooks! The time is almost come when we shall be free. I hear the roar of open water. I hear the song of ...
— The Treasure • Selma Lagerlof
... renegade, and that as a diversion he even gave chase on the sea to the galleys from Malta. Enemies of his, gentlemen of the Order, swore to having seen him during a battle, dressed as a Turk, in the forecastle of a hostile ship. The only positive fact was that he lived in Tunis in a palace on the seashore with a Moorish woman of splendid beauty, a relative of his friend the Bey. Two letters in the archives testified to this incomprehensible liaison. When the Moslem woman died Don Priamo ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... habit of indulging too much in liquor. The captain had often threatened to punish him severely, but all to no purpose; and this morning he was so intoxicated that the sailors were obliged to lay him in a corner of the forecastle, where he might sleep himself sober. Suddenly, however, he leapt up, clambered on to the forepart of the ship, and threw himself into the sea. Luckily, it was almost a calm, the water was quite still, and we had hopes of saving him. He soon reappeared ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... to muster, ahoy!" screamed the new boatswain of the Young America, as he walked towards the forecastle of the ship, occasionally sounding a shrill blast upon ...
— Down the Rhine - Young America in Germany • Oliver Optic
... and away, in thunder and lightning went the ball, which, entering the cabin windows, shattered the two young friends: thence raging through the bulk-heads and steerage, it shivered three sailors on the main deck, and, after all, bursting through the forecastle into the sea, sunk with sullen joy to ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... with bunks and men—like a cattleship forecastle. One young man, fulfilling doubtless his English ritual of "dressing for dinner," was punctiliously shaving, although it was now practically dark; in another corner the devotee of some system of how to get strong and how to ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... elevated not only "little Theodore," but our "culinary artist" in the good opinion of the mess. Every Saturday night my African friend was allowed to share the cheer of the forecastle, while our captain presented him with a certificate of his meritorious deed, and made the paper more palatable by the promise of a liberal bounty in current coin at the ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... waiting to receive his friend, for he had seen him come up the side from his station on the forecastle. A hurried conversation took place, after our hero had dismissed his boat with the assistant-surgeon in it to dress the two wounded men. Jack then went on deck, talked with the officers, looked with pleasure at the Rebiera with the gun-boat in tow, keeping company with the frigate, ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat
... States battleships are for 21-inch torpedoes. The armor is to be 11 inch on belt and barbettes and on sides 8 inches, and each ship is to carry a complement of 1,115 officers and men. Two of the turrets will be set forward on the forecastle deck, which will have 28 feet, freeboard, the guns in the first turret being 34 feet above the water and those of the second about 40 feet. Aft of the second turret will be the conning tower, and then will come the fore fire-control tower or lattice mast, with searchlight towers ...
— Marvels of Modern Science • Paul Severing
... "W. L.," who furnished the copy of the song as published recently in THE BOOK REVIEW says, however, that he copied the verses from a manuscript written into a book which bears this title: "Tales of the Ocean and Essays for the Forecastle, Containing Matters and Incidents Humorous, Pathetic, Romantic, and Sentimental, by Hawser Martingale, Boston, Printed and Published by S. W. Dickinson, 52 Washington St., 1843." This book belonged to his grandfather, who died ...
— The Dead Men's Song - Being the Story of a Poem and a Reminiscent Sketch of its - Author Young Ewing Allison • Champion Ingraham Hitchcock
... can't take you all at once; I'll come back for the rest, one by one.'—Not that I believed it; but anything to stop the screaming; and I did hope to put some of them out of the reach of the sea, if I could get them forward. I knew the forecastle was dry, for the chief officer was firing there. ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... Repeaters and Rings have occasionally been found in the maws of these monsters. They bite readily at "Salt horse," and, when hooked with a rattan in throat, may be yanked on board with the bight of a hawser. An enormous specimen sometimes gets caught in a forecastle yarn. In this case, never interfere with the thread of the narrative by asking impertinent questions, however difficult it may ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 17, July 23, 1870 • Various
... the way towards the forecastle of the old ship, where the high bulwarks, I saw, would screen us well from observation; although the place, of course, was on the open deck, and visible from aloft, had anybody been there on the look-out, anxious to take a ...
— Young Tom Bowling - The Boys of the British Navy • J.C. Hutcheson
... Ogilvy and I," continued the captain, "have gone over the fogs'l" (meaning the forecastle) "together, and we find that, by the use of mops, buckets, water, and swabs, the place can be made clean. By the use of paper, paint, and whitewash, it can be made respectable; and, by the use of furniture, pictures, books, ...
— The Lighthouse • Robert Ballantyne
... were employed in getting the small cutter into the water, which they accomplished, and safely reached the shore. About noon, when we had all left the ship, she was a perfect wreck. The whole of the upper works, from the after part of the forecastle to the break of the poop deck, had separated from her bottom about the upper futtock-heads, and was driving in towards the reef. Most of the lighter cargo had floated out of her. Bales of company's cloth, cases of wine, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 403, December 5, 1829 • Various
... soon. Overhead, Grandmaison and his men were no longer singing. They were moving about. Something bumped against the side of the vessel, near the bow, obviously a boat, and voices came up from below the level of the deck. Then the lighter shuddered under a great blow upon the planks of the forecastle port. The cries in the hold redoubled. Panting, cursing, wailing men hurtled against Leroy, and almost crushed him for a moment under their weight as the vessel heaved to starboard. Came a succession of blows, not only on the port in the bow, but also on that astern. There was a cracking and rending ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... time a crowd of young officers and seamen had leaped upon the top-gallant forecastle, and into the weather rigging, to obtain a view of the little boat, which, like a waif on the ocean, was drifting down towards the coast of Norway. It contained only a single person, who was either a dwarf or a boy, for he was small in stature. He lay upon a seat ...
— Up The Baltic - Young America in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark • Oliver Optic
... work was finished; the Barang was the epitome of malodorous discomfort after her submersion, and even the crew preferred to coil up on deck rather than risk the dampness and possible intruding river life of the forecastle. Little looked at the departing canoe with humorous envy in his face, for he had not yet reached the point in sea-hardness where he preferred an uncomfortable bunk on board the ship ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... sighted by the President and overtaken within forty-eight hours. An unlucky accident then occurred. Instead of running alongside, the President began firing at a distance and was hulling the enemy's stern when a gun on the forecastle burst, and killed or wounded sixteen American sailors. Commodore Rodgers was picked up with a broken leg. Meanwhile the Belvidera cast overboard her boats and anchors, emptied the fresh water barrels to better her sailing trim, and, crowding on every stitch of canvas, ...
— The Fight for a Free Sea: A Chronicle of the War of 1812 - The Chronicles of America Series, Volume 17 • Ralph D. Paine
... closely linked. Schooners loaded dried cod as well as lumber for southern ports and carried back naval stores and other southern products. Well-to-do fishermen owned trading vessels and sent out their ventures, the sailors shifting from one forecastle to the other. With a taste for an easier life than the stormy, freezing Banks, the young Gloucester-man would sign on for a voyage to Pernambuco or Havana and so be fired with ambition to become a mate or master and take to deep water after a while. In this way was maintained a school ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various
... the fifes as the sailors danced round with the bars in the capstans, with a beating step to keep time to the lively music, were still heard on board the frigate, and then came from the forecastle, ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... roof and panels of the upper structure, but not one touched Coke. He coolly made fast each flag in its turn, and hauled away till the Union Jack had reached the truck; then, drawn forrard by a hoarse cheer that came from the forecastle, he turned his back on the enemy and swung himself down to ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... under the Hand and Glove's port quarter, she was able to heave a grapnel on board and throw twenty well-armed Johnnies into the old brig. The Englishmen— seven in all, and taken unprepared—were soon driven below and shut down—four in the cabin, two in the steerage, and one in the forecastle, this last being Abe Cummins. After a while the sentry over the hatchway called for him to come up and show where the leading ropes were, which he did at the point of a cutlass. And precious soon the Johnnies had altered the brig's course and stood away for the coast of ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... that he rolled to the forecastle with his trumpet in his hand, and got the ship under way, bawling out his instructions to his mate at the wheel, just as though he had been through the place all ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green
... as to the course they were to take, for they could not tell whether those of the crew off duty would retire to sleep in the little forecastle or would lie down on deck. Then, too, they were ignorant as to the number of men who had come on board with the captive. The overseer had mentioned the day before that he was going, and it was probable that three or four others would accompany him. Therefore they had to reckon upon ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty
... shoulders.... His red, rough hands which have done many a good day's work with the hammer and adze are half-covered by the delicate lace rues at the wrist." But he carried with him the manners of the forecastle, a man hasty and unlettered but superbly brave and honest. Even after he had become Governor he thrashed the captain of the Nonesuch frigate of the royal navy, and used his fists on the Collector of the Port after cursing ...
— The Old Merchant Marine - A Chronicle of American Ships and Sailors, Volume 36 in - the Chronicles Of America Series • Ralph D. Paine
... world-adventure. Truly, Skysail Jack, you were a tramp-royal, and your mate was the "wind that tramps the world." I take off my hat to you. You were "blowed-in-the-glass" all right. A week later I, too, got my ship, and on board the steamship Umatilla, in the forecastle, was working my way down the coast to San Francisco. Skysail Jack and Sailor Jack—gee! if we'd ever ...
— The Road • Jack London
... nothing within my reach to lay hold of. I swam round her twice, and the second time I espied a small piece of rope, which I wondered I did not see at first, hanging down by the fore-chains so low that, with great difficulty, I got hold of it, and by the help of that rope got up into the forecastle of the ship. Here I found that the ship was bulged, and had a great deal of water in her hold; but that she lay so on the side of a bank of hard sand, or rather earth, that her stern lay lifted up upon the bank, and her head low, almost to the ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... infectious. All night Tunis Latham, even while lying in his hammock in the forecastle, had been ruminating in anything but a cheerful mood. Determined as he was to carry his plan through, and confident as he was of its being a good one and eminently practical, he had been considering many chances which at first blush had ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... Blomsberry appeared, half-dressed, and rushing on to the forecastle-deck, whither all the officers had hurried, exclaimed, "With your permission, ...
— Jules Verne's Classic Books • Jules Verne
... time so little noise had been made that even the watch below, in the brig's forecastle, were snoozing away without a dream of danger; though, had one of them shown his nose above the fore-peak, he would have either been knocked down and murdered like the mate, or, with a gag in his jaws, been hurled overboard. When the leader ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... polished and shining. Then they would carefully collect the few drops of wine that the men had left in their tin cups. Finally, if there was no work to do, the "cats" would lie down like princes in the forecastle, their shirt-tails hanging out, their bellies toward the stars, their faces pleasantly tickled by the breeze, till they were rocked to sleep by the swaying of the vessel. There was tobacco a-plenty. Tio Borrasca was ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... now Anne ventured to push open the cabin door a little way. The sailors were in the forecastle, but Anne could see a dark figure in the stern of the schooner. She ventured out and softly closed the cabin door. Now, on her hands and knees, the little girl crept across the little space toward the side of the schooner. It looked like a black ...
— A Little Maid of Massachusetts Colony • Alice Turner Curtis
... for the mandarin, it chanced that these three sailors were about the greatest rascals on board; which is saying a good deal when one considers the ordinary moral standard that prevails in the forecastle of a sailing-ship. Nor was Wo-li himself an angel; in fact, he was a consummate villain, and seems to have been the actual originator of the plot which was presently devised ...
— John Thorndyke's Cases • R. Austin Freeman
... between the fore and main rigging of the Portsmouth. Captain Lumley immediately gave orders to lash the Frenchman's bowsprit to his mainmast, and this was accomplished by the first lieutenant, Alfred, and the seamen, without any serious loss, for the fog was still so thick, that the Frenchman on their forecastle could not perceive what was doing at their ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat
... into our hammock (or berth, as it may happen), and are fast asleep in a minute. But we have not been an hour in the Land of Nod, ere three heavy blows from a handspike are struck on the forecastle hatch, which is then slid back, and a hoarse voice bawls: 'All ha-ands a-ho-oy! tumble up to reef tops'ls!' Out we bundle, and grope for our clothes (the forecastle being as dark as a dog's mouth), get them on somehow, and hurry-scurry on deck. We ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 431 - Volume 17, New Series, April 3, 1852 • Various
... painting inside and out. The work was scarcely finished when the cargo began to come on board. As soon as this was the case, the second and third mates and the other two apprentices joined. Like Mr. Staines, Towel and Pasley, the second and third mates, had both made their way up from the forecastle; both were active young men and good sailors, who had laboriously mastered the very small amount of bookwork that was needed, in addition to practical seamanship, to pass their examinations, but who, like the majority of their class of that time, knew nothing of navigation beyond taking ...
— With Cochrane the Dauntless • George Alfred Henty
... fore-deck the tars stand in groups, mingled with marines, their eyes bent upon the retreating craft, making their comments in muttered tones, many of the men with brows o'ercast. For a fancy has sprung up around the forecastle, that the chased barque is no barque at all, but a phantom! This is gradually growing into a belief; firmer as they draw nearer, and with naked eye note her correspondence with the reports of the ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... big man in the forecastle before Dalston's day. But Smyth was eclipsed now, and I dare say did not like his rival. One day, near the quarter-deck, Smyth called Dalston an ugly name. Dalston's answer was a blow which sent the fellow reeling to leeward, where he ...
— Our Home in the Silver West - A Story of Struggle and Adventure • Gordon Stables
... to the winter quarters. Instruments were adjusted, the ice-house re-insulated and prepared to receive the 150 frozen sheep and ten bullocks which were presented to us by New Zealand farmers. Stables were erected under the forecastle and on the upper deck of the "Terra Nova," ready for the reception of our ponies, and a thousand and one alterations and improvements made. The ship was restowed, and all fancy gear, light sails and personal baggage ...
— South with Scott • Edward R. G. R. Evans
... the people had been lowered into the boat—not without great risk and many bruises—the widow, who, cowering with her father and child under the forecastle, had been overlooked, was led to the ...
— The Coxswain's Bride - also, Jack Frost and Sons; and, A Double Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... had not heard the general alarm gong, and to direct the attention of the convoy and other escorting vessels. Called to the forward guns' crews to see if at stations, but by this time realized that gallant forecastle was practically awash. The foremast had fallen, carrying away radio aerial. I called out to ...
— World's War Events, Vol. II • Various
... events no account of the many "lamentable shipwrecks on the Barbary coast" had ever fallen into his hands,—and he knew nothing of the terrible reputation of its people. Neither had Bill obtained any knowledge of it from books; but, for all that,—thanks to many a forecastle yarn,—the old sailor was well informed both about the character of the coast on which they had suffered shipwreck, and its inhabitants. Bill had the best of reasons for dreading the denizens of the ...
— The Boy Slaves • Mayne Reid
... been bandaged and placed in a sling, Marcy was quite willing to go into the forecastle and lie down in his bunk; and there he stayed until the schooner entered the Neuse River and a tug came alongside to tow her up to the city. This time there were plenty of cheers to welcome her, the first coming from the working parties who were building the fortifications, ...
— Marcy The Blockade Runner • Harry Castlemon
... boom of a cannon from the forecastle of the vessel was heard, and a ball whizzed over their heads; then shot after shot was fired, and soon a rattle of small arms broke out, and the water all round was cut up by bullets and balls. The rough seamen cared little for this demonstration. With ...
— Under Drake's Flag - A Tale of the Spanish Main • G. A. Henty |
