Sailor Mouth Saturday: Pick/Pike

I was inspired to pick today’s words by U.S. Navy pikes. Trust me, that insane sentence will make sense by the end of this post.

In sailor-speak, pick means the usual things it does on land. Even at sea you can pick your nose and you can pick your friends but I’m not going to finish that old canard. Canard, as an aside, means duck in French; while ducks have beaks and friends, they have no noses. It is only at sea, however, that a ship can pick up the wind. This is a term for a sailing ship going from one trade or other reliable wind to another while avoiding calms as much as possible. This was a favorite tactic of clipper ships in their heyday as they ran from New York to San Francisco then on to China and around to New York again.

Pickets are pointed staffs thrust into the ground to demark military terrain, or even just tie a horse to. Pickets may also be markers for pointing a mortar towards its target, even if same is not visible from the weapon. Piquet is a group put on watch at a distance from the main body of military to sound the first alarm in case of approach by the enemy.

A picard was a type of barge or boat once used for shipping materials and livestock on the Severn river in England. The word’s origin may or may not be related to the French word for a native of Picardy. A picaroon was a small vessel used for piracy in the New World whose name probably originated with the Old World term for petty theft. Piccary was petty thievery on the High Seas and in England pickerie was the theft of small items – a loaf of bread or an apple – that was usually considered the act of women and/or children. The long-standing sentence for pickerie was the far-worse-than-it-sounds punishment of ducking or swimming. Usually carried out in either very cold and/or filthy bodies of water, this form of torture could lead to death outright or infection that essentially amounted to a death sentence.

Pickling for sea voyages was done not only to food but also to wood. Pickling of timber in order to make it more durable was often accomplished with Sir William Burnett’s fluid, a solution of chloride and zinc. Because of this method, pickling was sometimes called Burnettizing.

A picul (or, more properly, pekul) was a commercial weight in China equivalent to approximately 130 pounds. Pictarnie is a Scottish word for the seagoing bird known as a tern.

A pike-turn or a turn-pike is what was known to the French as a chevaux de frise. This was the habit of topping military pikes with iron and standing them upright through beams, much like a fence, to discourage the enemy. In fact, the French term – which literally translates curly hair – is used to this day to denote a certain type of wrought iron fencing.

Finally, a pike is best described by Admiral Smyth:

A long, slender, round staff, armed at the end with iron (as in a boarding-pike). Formerly in general use but which gave way to the bayonet.

And so here is the picture, from the U.S Navy’s Twitter feed, that got me thinking about pikes while picking today’s words. I told you it would all make sense. Eventually.

Header: Engraving of a ducking or water ordeal from the late Medieval period via The Medievalist

Tools Of The Trade: Seldom So Bloody

We have discussed the perilous decision to board an enemy at sea on more than one occasion. Just the act of jumping from one ship to another could be deadly – even before you got to the angry mob on the other deck – as French privateer Rene Duguay-Trouin discusses here. But the final culmination of boarding, the hand-to-hand combat beloved by so many movies, was a rare and decidedly horrific experience. In all fairness, such a thing would probably need to be seen to be believed.

In the early days of seafaring war, boarding was far more common than in the great age of sail. Greek and Roman ships had very little else in the way of tactics aside, of course, from ramming the enemy with the purposefully exaggerated bows of their biremes and triremes. Once the ramming had taken place the ships were hopelessly entangled on most occasions and boarding was as much a necessity as a tactic. Julius Caesar commented on the “closeness” of these battles, marveling at the sailors’ abilities to do horrendous damage to each other in such a claustrophobic space. Very little about that particular aspect of boarding has changed.

Once the Byzantines started hosing down enemy ships with Greek Fire, the boarding craze slowed down. Even after the memory of such terror tactics faded, Medieval and Renaissance naval battles were more likely punctuated with rains of arrows than jumping from your ship to the other guys’. Siege mentality was high in these eras and that included fighting on the ocean.

The development of cannon increased the risk of getting alongside an enemy. Boarding continued to occur but its focus shifted. As the heyday of the buccaneers dawned, it became the outlaws that used boarding as a tactic. Since very few merchants shipped workable guns, and many small pirate ships carried few if any as well, boarding was a sensible way to secure a prize and her people. That is not to say that firearms did not come into play. Merchants might retreat to closed quarters and this meant that deadly force was necessary.

Jean Baptiste Labat, the Catholic priest who made several voyages in the 17th century Caribbean and recorded the stories of the buccaneers he came in contact with, tells of a particularly gruesome boarding involving a botched attempt at closed quarters. According to Captain Pinel of the privateering corvette Volante, his ship met a merchant off Barbados whose crew proceeded to retreat below decks. The merchant’s men did such a poor (perhaps triggered by haste) job setting up their ship that they left hatches unlocked and even a fully loaded cannon on deck. Pinel’s men had a field day with these mistakes and the merchant’s crew was broken, bloodied and burned by cannon fire and grenades, made of both metal and glass, thrown into the hold.

With the dawn of the Age of Revolution, boarding returned to the naval canon. Men like John Paul Jones and Horatio Nelson boldly went where commanders before them had feared to tread. The results, however, were still a gory mess. Frederick Marryat, who served in Nelson’s navy and later wrote of his experiences in books that foreshadowed Forrester and O’Brian, described boarding this way:

In most instances of boarding, but more especially in boarding small vessels, there is not much opportunity for what is termed hand to hand fighting. It is a rush for the deck: breast to breast, thigh to thigh, foot to foot, man wedged against man, so pressed on by those behind that there is little possibility of using your cutlass, except by driving your antagonist’s teeth down his throat with the hilt.

The picture drawn is immediate and unsettling at best. The sounds and smells that don’t get mentioned are still easily imagined. And all this while great guns and innumerable pistols blazed away and Marines picked off the enemy from the tops.

The horror was not reserved for men-of-war either. Count de Forbin, commanding a frigate of 120 souls and transporting soldiers in the 17th century, met a Dutch privateer of similar crew and arms. To French consternation, the Dutchman chose to fight to the extent that the Dutch Captain locked his ship down so that his men could not retreat below and would therefore fight, as Forbin puts it, to “the last extremity”. A horrific battle ensues, with blood saturating the Dutchman’s deck and the French growing more and more enraged at the enemy’s refusal to surrender. Forbin states that it was only through his physical intervention that some of the Dutch crew’s lives were spared. In the end, dead bodies littered the Dutch ship, her Captain and officers being among them, and Forbin writes grimly that he has “but seldom seen so bloody a boarding.”

While “Never mind maneuvers, go at them” has a nice ring to it, boarding could be a decidedly deadly business. Better to think twice and know your strengths before that fateful decision is made. Extreme cases not withstanding, a simple ruse seems far more advisable whenever a prize is sighted.

Tools Of The Trade: Closed Quarters

In the movie Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, the Surprises board their French prey, Acheron, and are brought up short. Apparently, everyone is dead. Struck down by the great guns of Surprise during initial broadsides. Master Allen buys the ruse, and is shot in the head for his gullibility.

Of course, in the case of an able and seasoned captain like Jack Aubrey this would never happen. Killing everyone aboard with a broadside or two is as unlikely as sinking a man-of-war with one shot. Even if he didn't see a man on deck Aubrey would know where his enemy was: they had retreated to closed quarters.

Never seen in movies and rarely spoken of in fiction, closed quarters was a surprisingly common tactic in a boarding situation particularly among poorly armed merchantmen. If there was time to prepare the ship (as in the occurrence of a long chase) and the quartering was done correctly to the last detail, it could save lives, cargo and the ship itself. If botched, however, it could be almost as bad as hand to hand fighting on deck.

Everyone aboard ship would retreat below when the enemy came along side. Hatches had to be reinforced and locked or lashed down so that the boarders could not enter. Prior to the actual retreat what was known as loopholes would be drilled in the deck to allow defenders to shoot small arms and sometimes cannon through them at the attackers. The French, in their usual sarcastic if poetic way, called the loopholes meutrieres: murderesses.

If possible, cannon were positioned to clear the decks of boarders. If they could not be positioned correctly, they were spiked or even thrown overboard so that the enemy could not avail themselves of their prey's weapons. Individuals tossed grenados and stink pots from their hiding places. If time permitted powder chests were set up prior to the boarding. These were kegs or wooden boxes filled with black powder and anything heavy and/or sharp that could do damage to human flesh and bone. Fuses would be run below decks so that the chests could be set off once the boarders were on deck, the explosion burning and cutting them up if not killing them outright.

Robert Everard, a Frenchman who wrote of his forced service aboard a merchant in the Indian Ocean in 1686, recalls his ship being threatened by pirates. Everard's captain prepares to take up closed quarters shouting the challenge "Win her and have her," to the pirates. The freebooter boards and spends hours destroying yards, deck and rigging. The merchant trains her minimal arsenal on the pirate and, as Everard tells it:

... yet we beat his gunnel in and made him put off and lie upon the careen. As soon as she was gone we came out of our close quarters and found one of his men almost dead upon our poop...

Of course, if the quartering was not done correctly, grenades could be pitched into the hold, burning those hiding there at the very least. And then no quarter would be given by the raiding pirates for the prey had not acted "prudently" and would not be forgiven for their injury to the freebooters.

As with so many things in life, closed quarters had to be well thought out and well executed or the damage might be more than anyone cared to suffer.

Tools Of The Trade: The Perils of Boarding

Rene Duguay-Trouin, the French privateer from Saint-Malo who was certainly the successor to the greatness of Jean Bart, got a taste of how awful boarding a prize could be early in his career. As described in his Memoires written in 1741, he had "not yet found [his] sea legs" when the privateer he was aboard grappled an enemy and prepared for the bloody melee of hand-to-hand fighting on deck. When it was the young man's turn to make the leap, a mate next to him slipped, fell between the two ships and had his head crushed. Duguay-Trouin is graphic about the man's brains splattering him and honest about his own hesitation at the thought that he might be dealt a similar fate. In the end, the French took their prize - a Dutch merchantman - but only after three attempts to board her.

The final, usually messy, act of boarding was not the rope-swinging, teeth-clutching-knife, "Who wants some of this!" action-adventure that Hollywood would have us believe. Boarding was a last resort in almost all cases for privateers and pirates. Unless the merchant in question could be easily surprised, was at her most disorganized and, with the luck, very much undermanned, it was far better to get an across the water surrender. The boarding of a warship or - Lord help you - a man-of-war was right out of the question.

When it did come down to grappling your enemy, finesse and seamanship frequently had more to do with success than brute force. Knowing which way the wind was blowing was the first and often most critical factor. The prize should, if at all possible, be downwind or on your lee. This would give the attacker the weather gage and make any movement by the prey more difficult. Attempting to board in a heavy tide was ill advised. The prey could throw out her anchor at the last minute and wave at you as you drifted by. Tide and strong wind could also tug at the ropes of your grapnels, even breaking them and sending men tumbling into the sea or stranding them aboard the enemy. Boarding in dirty weather was a bad idea and only the truly insane attempted to board in a gale.

Three positions were favorable to the attacker with regard to their ship versus the prey's. Having a good leadsman and master, with stout men at the wheel, would be critical for getting you quickly to the right place at the right time. Remember, by the point of a decision to board your prize is doubtless on the run and preparing for attack. First was boarding amidships. Here the corsair placed his bow alongside the middle, or waist, of the prey. The second tack was to board at the bow, with the forecastles of the two ships as close together as possible. Finally, failing these options, boarding alongside would do. In this case both ships were literally lined up next to each other.

But wind and tide are unpredictable even for experts, and a freebooter might find herself across the enemy's bow or stern. Both of these situations were next to impossible for boarding, particularly if the prey was a larger ship. Her forecastle and quarterdeck would be taller than your waist. If she had swivels or other small arms, firing down on you would be like shooting fish in a barrel. Better to veer off and try again, or live to fight another day.

Of course, a thousand subtle combinations of the above ship-to-ship positions are possible on any given day. Knowledge and experience, along with a good deal of discipline and courage, would usually win the day. What happened after the grapples were set and the small arms were in hand is a subject for another post, but the seemingly simple act of maneuvering next to the prey could be half the battle in itself.

Mind the weather gage, Brethren, and watch your footing. A successful boarding could mean the difference between a fine share of prize money and a sadly empty stomach.