Word: boatswains
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Hopeful Signs. When lookouts spotted a tern and a boatswain bird zipping overhead, hope of sighting land ran high. "These birds," Columbus noted in his log on the seventh day out, "never go more than 25 leagues [about 100 miles] from land." But the nearest islands at that point were the Azores, 600 miles to the north. A few days later the Santa Maria, Niña and Pinta ran into an oceanful of good omen. Soft breezes, another boatswain bird and a sea of floating weed with a live crab still enmeshed in it pleased everyone, and "the best...
...minutes the Amethyst's captain was mortally wounded; the ship's doctor and pharmacist's mate were dead. Another hit demolished a rear turret. The Amethyst ran up two white flags in clear token of surrender. But the shelling continued. The stricken captain ordered Chief Boatswain's Mate David Heath and 59 others, including the wounded, to abandon ship. Some reached the south bank in the Amethyst's whaler, others swam. Once on the south shore, they crawled into Nationalist territory. Said Heath: "The Reds machine-gunned and shelled us. We lost a couple...
...Manhattan's Grand Central Palace last week there was the feel of the sea. As yachtsmen crowded into the 1948 National Motor Boat Show, they were "piped aboard" by the cheery notes of a boatswain's whistle. There was another cheery note: in the cheaper price class there were more boats than ever. Some prices were down from last year's, though most were...
...officer of the Berengaria, Illingworth's morning duty was to see that everything was shipshape. His special aversion was "Irish pennants"-ends of rope hanging where no end of rope should hang. "Bosun, what's that rope end dangling there for?" Illingworth would say. "Sorry, sir," the boatswain would answer, sending Seaman Brown to cut the end off. One morning, from a porthole, Illingworth spied two members of the crew, arms loaded with rope ends, tying them here & there to prepare a sort of treasure hunt for him. When he appeared for inspection, he spotted the first...
Specific: Jungle Juice. He reacted by trying to be an officer and a gentleman and to enforce naval regulations all by himself-an effort both preposterous and doomed. The crew began to lay for him. It took a little while before a boatswain's mate, backed by eleven years' experience in the Navy and a specific known as "jungle juice," could get Mr. Keith squared away and settled into the routine of a naval auxiliary craft...