One of the oldest, truest, and most often quoted of all sea-sayings is that “God sends meat, but the devil sends cooks.” The first part of this saw is really a concession on the sailor’s part, for few of them truly believe that the Deity has much to do with the strange stuff usually served out as meat on board ship. The latter half of the proverb is taken for granted, and while admitting to the full the thanklessness of the task of endeavouring to dish up tasteful meals with such unpromising materials as are usually given to sea-cooks to work upon, it certainly does seem truer than the majority of such sayings are apt to be.

But in justice even to sea-cooks let it be said that they have but a hard life of it. Cooking is a hobby of my own, and I feel a positive delight in the preparation of an appetizing dinner, which culminates when those for whom it is dressed partake of it with manifest enjoyment. Between the calm, unhindered task of shore-cooking and the series of hair-breadth escapes from scalding, burning, or spoiling one’s produce that characterizes sea-cooking there is, however, a great gulf fixed, and with a full consciousness of the unromantic character of his trials, I must confess a deep sympathy with the sea-cook in his painful profession. Even in the well-ordered kitchens of a great liner, where every modern appliance known to the art is at hand, and where the chief cook is a highly paid professional, each recurring meal brings with it much anxiety, and, when the weather is bad, much painful work also. There is no allowance made. Whatever happens, passengers and crew must be fed, although the roasting joints may be playing “soccer” in the ovens, the stew-pans toboganning over the stove-tops, and the huge coppers leaping out of their glowing sockets. Let all who have ever gone down to the sea as passengers remember how faithfully the cooks have justified the confidence reposed in them, and how punctually the varied courses have appeared on the fiddle-hampered tables without even a hint as to the series of miracles that have produced them. Still, in large passenger steamers there is a fairly large staff of cooks, unto each of whom is given his allotted task, so that the labour, though severe, is not so complicated as it must necessarily be in vessels where one unfortunate man must needs be a host in himself. In sailing-ships on long voyages the cook’s berth is perhaps the worst on board, for he has to hear the continual growling of the men at the brutal monotony of the food (which he cannot help), and he must, if he would not be badgered to death, perform the difficult task of keeping on good terms with both ends and the middle of the ship. Under the blistering sun of the tropics, or amid the fearful buffeting of the Southern seas, he must perform his duties within a space about six feet square, of which his red-hot stove occupies nearly half. And, as a pleasant change, he is liable to have the weather door of his galley burst in by a tremendous sea, and himself in a devil’s dance of seething pots, and all the impedimenta of his business hurled out to leeward.

Necessarily such a service does not appeal strongly to many, and often in English vessels of small size prowling about the world begging for freight, some very queer fellows are met with filling the unenviable post of cook. In the course of a good many years of sea-service I have met with several cooks, each of whom deserves a whole chapter to deal comprehensively with his peculiarities, but chief among them all must be placed the exceedingly funny fellow designated at the beginning of this sketch. The Wanderer was a pretty brigantine of about 200 tons register, built and owned in Nova Scotia, and at the time of my joining her as an A.B. was lying in the Millwall Docks outward bound to Sydney, Cape Breton, in ballast. She had quite a happy family of a crew, while the skipper was as jolly a Canadian as it was ever my good fortune to meet with. We left the docks in tow of one of the little “jackal” tugs that scoot up and down the Thames like terriers after rats, but, owing to the vessel’s small size and wonderful handiness, we dispensed with our auxiliary just below Gravesend, and worked down the river with our own sails. As soon as the watches were set all hands went to supper, or tea, as it would be called ashore, and going to the snug little galley with my hook-pot for my modicum of hot tea, I made the acquaintance of the cook. He was a young fellow of about two and twenty, able-looking enough, but now evidently ill at ease. And when, with trembling hand, he baled my tea out of a grimy saucepan with another saucepan lid, I regarded him with some curiosity, fancying that he had the air of a man to whom his surroundings were the most unfamiliar possible. Supper consisted of some cold fresh meat and “hard tack,” so that any deficiency in the cookery was not manifest beyond a decidedly foreign flavour in the tea, making it unlike any beverage ever sampled by any of us before. But we were a good-natured crowd, willing to make every allowance for a first performance, and aware that the “Doctor,” as the cook is always called at sea, had only joined on the previous day. Nevertheless, we discussed him in some detail, arriving at the conclusion that by all appearances he would be found unable to boil salt water without burning it, which, according to the sea phrase, marks the nadir of culinary incompetence.

Next morning it was my “gravy-eye” wheel, the “trick” that is, from four to six a.m. The cook is always called at four a.m. in order to prepare some hot coffee by two bells, five a.m., and, as may be expected, the comforting, awakening drink is eagerly looked forward to, although it usually bears but a faint resemblance to the fragrant infusion known by the same name ashore. Two bells struck, and presently, to my astonishment, sounds of woe arose forward, mingled with many angry words. I listened eagerly for some explanation of this sudden breach of the peace, but could catch no connected sentence. Presently one of my watchmates came aft to relieve me, as the custom is, to get my coffee, and I eagerly questioned him as to the nature of the disturbance. With a sphinx-like air he took the spokes and muttered, “You’ll soon see.” I hastened forward, got my pannikin, and going to the galley held it out for my coffee. The cook had no light, but he silently poured me out my portion, and wondering at his strange air I returned to the fo’c’sle. I sugared my coffee, and put it to my lips, but with a feeling of nausea spat out the mouthful I had taken, saying, “What in thunder is this awful stuff?” Then the other fellows laughed mirthlessly and loud, saying, “You’d best go’n see ef you kin fine out. Be dam’ ’fenny ov us can tell.” I hastened back to the galley and said coaxingly, “Doctor, you ain’t tryin’ to poison me, are ye?” He looked at me appealingly, and I saw traces of recent tear-tracks adown his smoke-stained cheeks. “Mahn,” he said, “Ah’ve niver dune ony cookin’ afore, an’ ah must hev made some awfu’ mistake, but ah’ll sweer ony oo-ath ah dinna ken wut’s wrang wi’ the coaphy.” And he wept anew. “For Heaven’s sake, don’t cry, man,” I put in hastily; “you’ll make me sea-sick if you do. Let me have a look at it.” I stepped into his den, and striking a match explored the pot with a ladle. And I found that he had been stewing green unroasted coffee beans. The colour was brought somewhat near that of the usual product by reason of the remains of some burnt porridge at the bottom of the saucepan, but the taste was beyond description evil.

This was but a sorry beginning to our voyage, since so much of our comfort depended upon the cooking of our victuals, and it was well for the unfortunate cook that all hands, with the sole exception of the mate, were of that easy-going temper that submits to any discomfort rather than ill-use a fellow-creature. For Jemmie (the quondam cook) was not only ignorant of the most elementary acquaintance with cookery—he was also unclean and unhandy to the uttermost imaginable possibility of those bad qualities. Yet he did not suffer any grievous bodily harm until an excess of new-found zeal brought him one day into contact with the mate. As the only way in which we could hope to get anything beyond hard tack to eat, we had all taken turns to cook our own meals. Even the skipper, with many uncouth, unmeant threats, used to visit the galley and try his hand, while the trembling Jemmie stood behind him watching with eager eyes the mysterious operations going on. One morning the skipper fancied some flap-jacks, a sort of primitive pancake of plain flour and water fried in grease, and eaten with molasses. He had hardly finished a platter full and borne it aft, when Jemmie seized the bowl, and mixing some more flour, proceeded to try his hand. He managed after several failures to turn out half a dozen quite creditable-looking patches of fried batter, and intoxicated with his success rushed aft with them to where the mate and his watch were busy scrubbing the poop. Timidly approaching the energetic officer, Jemmy said, “Wou’d ye like a flap-jack, sir? they’re nice an’ hot.” For one fearful moment the mate glared at the offender, then as the full area of the enormity enveloped him he uttered a hyena-like howl and fell upon him. Snatching the flap-jacks from his nerveless grasp, the mate overthrew him, and frantically burnished his face with the smoking dough, holding him down on the deck by his hair the while. Then when the last fragments had been duly spread over Jemmie’s shining visage, the mate dragged him to the break of the poop, and with many kicks hurled him forward to make more flap-jacks should he feel moved so to do.

So his education proceeded, until one day he felt competent to essay the making of some soup for us forward. By the time his preparations were complete he was a gruesome object, and withal so weary that he sat down on the coal-locker and went fast asleep. He awoke just before the time the soup was due to be eaten to find it as he left it, the fire having gone out. In a terrible fright he rushed aft and smuggled a tin of preserved meat forward—a high crime and misdemeanour—since that was only kept in case of bad weather rendering cooking impossible. However, he succeeded in stealing it, but when he had got it he was little better off. For he didn’t know how to shell it, as it were, how to get the meat out of the tin. I happened to be passing by the galley-door at the time, and saw him with the tin lying on its side before him, while he was insanely chopping at it with a broad axe, all unheeding the spray of fat and gravy which flew around at each swashing blow. I gave him such assistance as I could, and took the opportunity thus afforded of asking him however he came to offer himself as a ship’s cook. I learned then that his previous sea experience had been limited to one trip to Iceland as a bedroom steward on board a passenger steamer from Leith—that having come to London to seek his fortune, he had foregathered with an old friend of his father’s, who had obtained for him this berth, and who, in answer to his timid demur as to his being able to do what should be required of him, stormed at him so vigorously for what he called his “dam’ cowardice” that he took the berth, and resigned himself to his fate, and ours. His fates were kind to him in that he fell among easy-going fellows, for I shudder to think what would have befallen him in the average “Blue-nose” or Yankee. A description of it would certainly have been unprintable.

Yet, like so many other people ashore and afloat, he was ungrateful for the many ways in which we, the sailors, helped and shielded him, and one day when I found him laboriously drawing water from our only wooden tank by the quarter pint for the purpose of washing potatoes, in answer to my remonstrance he was exceeding jocose and saucy, even going so far as to suggest that while my advice was doubtless well meant, it irked him to hear, and I had better attend to my own business. Now, to use fresh water where salt water will serve the same purpose is at sea the unpardonable sin; and where (as in our case) a few days’ difference in the length of the passage might see us all gasping for a drink, it merits a severe punishment. So I was indignant, but swallowed my resentment as I saw the mate coming down from aloft with his eyes fixed upon the criminal.

I must draw a veil over what followed, only adding that by the time the cook had recovered from his injuries we were in port, and, with the luck of the incompetent, no sooner had he been bundled ashore than he obtained a good berth in an hotel at about treble the salary he would ever earn. But we held a praise-meeting over our happy release.