"Middle watch" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... when off Cape Horn bound to Valparaiso in a barque belonging to a South Wales port. The vessel had been tossed about for days with nothing set but close reefed topsails, amid the angry storming and churning of liquid mountains. One midnight, when eight bells had been struck to call the middle watch, there suddenly appeared on the poop the commander, who was known to be a man of God. He gave the order to hard up the helm and make sail. When she came before the wind the crew were puzzled to know the cause of this strange proceeding, and their captain ...
— Windjammers and Sea Tramps • Walter Runciman
... intention of driving him into the river. On his rising up they halted, and when he advanced they made way for his passage down to the tents. He had his gun in his hand but forbore to fire lest there should be Esquimaux in the neighbourhood. During Mr. Wentzel's middle watch the wolves appeared repeatedly on the summit of the hill, and at one time they succeeded in driving a deer over the precipice. The animal was stunned by the fall but, recovering itself, swam across the stream and escaped up the river. I may remark here that at midnight it was ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin
... Boston; and then you could see ships handled and run the way they want to be. But that's all past and gone, and nowadays the only thing that flies in an American ship is a belaying-pin. You don't know, you haven't a guess. How would you like to go on deck for your middle watch, fourteen months on end, with all your duty to do, and every one's life depending on you, and expect to get a knife ripped into you as you come out of your state-room, or be sand-bagged as you pass the boat, or get tripped into ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... be the case. It was a flat calm, it is true; but the widow felt oppressed with responsibility and the novelty of her situation. Time and again had she said, and even imagined, she should be delighted to fill the very station she then occupied, or to be in charge of a deck, in a "middle watch." In this instance, however, as in so many others, reality did not equal anticipation. She wished to be doing everything, but did not know how to do anything. As for Biddy, she was even worse off than her mistress. A month's experience, or for that matter a twelvemonth's, could not unravel ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... be seen, not even a hog wallowing in the kennel nor a buzzard about the butcher-stalls. Yet there were no traces of fire and sword, the houses had suffered no violence, and stood there barred and shuttered as though it were still the middle watch of ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... (feeling key) him with the three wards and the little 'un: good again! Now if I could only find a mate in this rotten country 'amlick: one to be eyes to me; I can steer, but I can't conn myself, worse luck! If I could only find a mate. And to-night about three bells in the middle watch, old Pew will take a little cruise, and lay aboard his ancient friend the Admiral; or, barring that, the Admiral's old sea-chest—the chest he kept the shiners in aboard the brig. Where is it, I ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XV • Robert Louis Stevenson
... set at noon, and the starboard and larboard watch told off, as customary on the first day a vessel goes to sea. Salve had the middle watch; and by that time the sea was running high, and they were plunging through the darkness under a double-reefed mainsail, the moon every now and then clearing an open space in the storm—clouds that were driving like smoke before it, so that he could fitfully distinguish objects ...
— The Pilot and his Wife • Jonas Lie
... won't have any fighting here, either between boys or men, and when I say a thing I mean a thing; so, to show I allow no relaxation of discipline on board so long as I'm captain, Master Graham, you'll be good enough to remain on deck to-night instead of going to bed, and will keep the middle watch from ...
— Afloat at Last - A Sailor Boy's Log of his Life at Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... of the watch, and was therefore on the bridge when it happened, the time being shortly after six bells in the middle watch, or say about a quarter past three o'clock in the morning. The weather was fine, with so moderate a westerly wind blowing that the speed of the ship just balanced it, the smoke and sparks from the ...
— The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn • Harry Collingwood
... tauld me at Radley's what ailed his engines, but my own ear would ha' told me twa mile awa', by the beat o' them. Round we came, plungin' an' squatterin' in her wake, an' the wind cut wi' good promise o' more to come. By six it blew hard but clear, an' before the middle watch it was a ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling
... The middle watch was about to relieve the morning watch. The mess decks were a seething mass of humanity. In spite of the apparent confusion everyone was in high good humour, for another few hours (D.V.) would find H.M.S. Tremendous at Pompey—as Portsmouth has ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... middle watch," said Wilder, smiling at he observed that Gertrude started at the strange sounds, and sat listening, like a timid doe that catches the note of the hunter's horn. "We seamen are not always musical, as you may judge by the strains of the spokesman on this occasion. There are, ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... the only waking soul. On a sudden eight bells rings out sharply from the forecastle head, and you spring back from your world of fancy as hurriedly as Cinderella returned to her rags when long-shore midnight chimed. The officer of the middle watch and a hand for the wheel come aft to relieve their companions, the illusion has passed, and you go below to turn in, feeling uncomfortably sure that your pretty thoughts will appear foolish ...
— Morocco • S.L. Bensusan |
