One other sailor of the ship's company asked odds of no one in the range of his knowledge of the sea. Whatever else we may have thought of him, we were forced to acknowledge Mr. Zerk a seaman of the most accomplished sort. Versed in the art of wire splicing and up to every dodge in sailmaking and rigging, he combined the ability of the marling spike man with the gift of the larger seamanship involved in the handling of a vessel under all conditions. If his eye ever lights on this, and I hope it will, I herewith accord to him the full measure of my admiration, for the combination of these two types of sailor is rare; as rare as the few remaining ships of the school that brought him forth.
The _Fuller_ was a wooden vessel, Bath built, and coppered, not with the beautiful "red copper" we read about in Clark Russell, but with a composition resembling brass, tough, yellow, and antifouling; a less expensive sheathing than the pure copper, and, to my mind, every bit as good a color, the bright yellow, between the deep blue sea and the black hull, striking a pleasing line that glints like gold when the sun just hits it at the proper angle.
Our ship was a full-bodied model, really a medium clipper, surprisingly sharp, and with a clean run aft that gave her a handy pair of heels in any kind of a favorable wind. Like most ships "of a certain age," the old girl was troubled with her timbers and joints. These had an uncomfortable way of sliding over each other and complaining in a truly agonizing manner.
"She has lots of 'give' to her," one of the men remarked on our running into the first sea after leaving port.
The working of the vessel's timbers kept her bilge "sweet" by admitting a liberal quantity of nice cool sea water seeping in all the way from the garboard strake to the channels, a circumstance that necessitated constant pumping, back breaking labor that in heavy weather continued during the whole of the twenty-four hours, with two hands bending over the lee bilge pump. The wheel, the lookout at night, and the bilge pump, were taken in rotation by all hands. For back breaking, soul destroying labor, nominate the bilge pump. I had a standing offer in the fo'c'sle to stand two wheels for one bilge pump, Scouse and Fred and Martin being my best customers until I was dated up so far in advance on the steering that I had to take this on as well as the pumping, which came along oftener as it called for two men.
