Front matter
Reading edition
THE MEN
OF THE
MERCHANT SERVICE
BEING
THE POLITY OF THE MERCANTILE MARINE FOR 'LONGSHORE READERS
BY
FRANK T. BULLEN, F.R.G.S.
AUTHOR OF "THE CRUISE OF THE 'CACHALOT,'" "THE LOG OF A SEA-WAIF, "IDYLLS OF THE SEA," ETC.
LONDON
SMITH, ELDER & CO., 15, WATERLOO PLACE
1900
(All rights reserved)
PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BECCLES.
TO
RUDYARD KIPLING
IN GRATEFUL RECOGNITION OF BOTH HIS
WONDERFUL GENIUS
AND HIS GREAT KINDNESS
TO
THE AUTHOR
PREFACE.
It has been repeatedly represented to me by disinterested friends, that among the innumerable works of both fact and fiction dealing with the sea, there are none telling in a comprehensive way what are the conditions of life in the Merchant Service; in other words, that there is no work to which a parent, yielding to his son's importunity to be allowed to go to sea, and seeking to know something of the nature of things on board of a merchant ship in detail, can turn with the assurance that he may there find what he needs. Nor can the youth anxious to go to sea in the Merchant Service find any guidance which will at once be comprehensive and reliable compacted into one handy volume. And as these same friends have done me the honour to suggest that I have the qualifications necessary for producing such a work, I have, not at all unwillingly, acceded to their suggestions, and undertaken the task.
The recollection of many kindly criticisms on the preface to the "Log of a Sea-Waif," scolding me good-naturedly for what it has pleased them to term my exaggerated modesty, prevents me from sinning now in that direction. I will merely say that I have done my best to justify my friends' confidence in me, and that I earnestly hope the book will not fall too far short of their expectations.
The planning of such a work seems to be comparatively easy. The first thing that suggested itself was the setting forth, in a series of chapters, the duties, required qualifications, difficulties, privileges, etc., of the various members of a ship's company.
A doubt has naturally arisen in my mind as to how far it is justifiable to deal with sailing ships in these latter days. My own personal knowledge and predilections are on the side of the "wind-jammer," and consequently I feel the less inclined to deal with her perfunctorily. I cannot, however, conceal from myself the fact that the passing of the sailing ship is being greatly accelerated of late years, and that in all probability another twenty years will witness her final disappearance. On the other hand, I should not be at all surprised to see a sudden recrudescence of sailing ship building. Considering the sailing ship's economy, her vast carrying capacity, the fact that her very slowness as compared with the steamer is actually no mean advantage in a great number of instances, viz. to quote one, where goods are bought in a low market and are not required by the buyer for some months, so that their shipment by a sailer actually saves warehouse charges as well as freight—I cannot understand why the sailer should be suffered to disappear. Nevertheless, as engineering science advances, economies will doubtless be found possible in steamships which will so greatly lessen their expenses as to make the competition of sailers out of the question. The opening of a Panama Canal, too, which will certainly not be much longer delayed, will deal a tremendous blow at the vast sailing trade around Cape Horn. It seems, indeed, destined to be the final factor in the elimination of the sailing ship. Meanwhile the white-winged fleets come and go in far greater numbers than landsmen have any idea of; and as nearly all authorities are agreed that, in spite of the immense strides taken by steam navigation, the sailing ship is still the only school wherein to train a thorough seafarer, she will certainly receive her full need of attention here.
Care has been taken to avoid, as far as possible, all technical treatment of the subject. I have not assumed the possession of too much nautical knowledge on the part of my prospective readers; not nearly as much, for instance, as would be permissible in a work of fiction. Having before me, too, the hope that sons as well as parents will be able to read and enjoy, as well as thoroughly grasp the meaning of this book, I have aimed at making it entertaining, giving a plentiful supply of anecdotes as well to illustrate as to lighten what might easily become rather "stodgy."
Finally, I feel constrained to add that, even if my friends are wrong, and there are works with which they, as well as myself, are not acquainted, better calculated to serve the purpose for which this book is intended, I have the temerity to believe that no apology is necessary for its appearance. The overwhelming importance of our over-sea commerce to Great Britain cannot be too greatly emphasized, while the astounding ignorance of maritime matters manifested by British people generally makes one gasp in amazement. Any book, therefore, that does anything to popularize knowledge of Mercantile Marine details cannot be superfluous in this country; and should this present one succeed in bringing home to our inland dwellers with any clearness the conditions of life on board the vessels upon whose regular advent depend our supplies of daily food, I shall feel abundantly justified in issuing it to my countrymen.
Dulwich, July, 1900.
SYNOPSIS.
CHAPTER I.
THE RISE OF THE MASTER (IDEAL).
PAGE
Magnitude of the Merchant Service—Ignorance of its details ashore—Want of information upon the subject—Popularity of sea-fiction—And unreliability of its details—"Master" or "Captain"—Cadet ships—Their value—The way up (ideal) 1
CHAPTER II.
THE RISE OF THE MASTER (REAL).
Apprentice difficulties—Sketch of an officer's progress—Looking for a ship—Classification of masters—Range between Atlantic "liner" and foreign-going schooner—Enviable position of the master of a "liner"—Pilots' responsibility—Reliable officers—But the master is emperor—All responsibility centres in him 9
CHAPTER III.
THE MASTER (OF A TRAMP).
Tramp masters—Less pay, more work—Hardships of tramps—Economical owners—Anxious considerations—And all-round qualifications—The aristocracy of tramps—Shore berths for old skippers—Black sheep 18
CHAPTER IV.
THE MASTER (SAILING SHIPS).
Sailing ships—Their gradations—The beauty of seamanship in Sunda Straits—Ship handling and pluck—Devilish ships—Local knowledge v. "book larnin'"—The Horn—"Swansea men"—A glorious old skipper—Overdue ships—Mediocrities 26
CHAPTER V.
THE MASTER (SAILING SHIP)—continued.
The skipper's temptations—His power over young officers—Painting v. sailorizing—And the result—Various temperaments of skippers—The discipline of the "Yank"—And of the "Blue-nose"—Their seamanship—The "Down Easter"—The Yankee clipper—His passion for cleanliness—And brutality—Elementary methods 36
CHAPTER VI.
THE MASTER'S QUALITIES.
The personal equation—An ideal commander—Want of tact—They do these things better in "Yanks"—Good to have a hobby—High standard of excellence—Difficulties of the British shipmaster with respect to his crew—Unpalatable truths—The fear of God—Honesty of shipmasters—Incitements to dishonesty 45
CHAPTER VII.
THE MASTER'S DUTIES.
A glimpse of navigation—The unstable compass—Dead reckoning—Pilotage anxieties—The shipmaster as trustee—As lawyer—As doctor—Rough-and-ready surgery—A true hero—The "malingerer" 53
CHAPTER VIII.
THE MASTER'S DUTIES—continued.
Voluntary duties—Knowledge of engineering—Of ship construction—Of natural history—The danger of drink—A drunkard or two—A memorable voyage—The Blue-nose skipper—His all-round excellence 63
CHAPTER IX.
THE MATE.
The "mate and his duties"—An ancient and honourable title—His range of importance—A long step from mate to master—Both in position and pay—Education of British officers—Examinations 73
CHAPTER X.
THE MATE'S WORK.
A good mate precious above rubies—Some difficulties of the young mate—Sensitiveness—Manager of a large business—A great gulf between tramp and liner for the mate—Low wages—Difficult generalship—A scandalous miscarriage of justice—Again better in the "Yank"—Compensations 82
CHAPTER XI.
THE MATE'S WORK (IN A SAILING SHIP).
Peculiarities of status—The excellence of the sailing-ship mate—"Humouring" a ship—Care of her aloft—The mate's right-hand man—Keeping them at it—The joy of a good sailing ship—A happy mate—Keeping the log 91
CHAPTER XII.
THE MATE'S WORK (IN A SAILING SHIP)—continued.
Ideal log-book literature—Ruffianly mates—But splendid seamen—A "nigger-driver"—The mate as cargo clerk and warehouseman—His temptations—An exultant Hebrew—The drink question again—The mate's privileges 101
CHAPTER XIII.
THE SECOND MATE (IN STEAM).
"Hazing" a second mate—His importance—His assured excellence in a liner—Careful selection—Really first lieutenant in a liner—But in the tramp "a servant of servants shall he be"—An upper housemaid—An anomalous position—As stevedore—The Yankee second mate 112
CHAPTER XIV.
THE SECOND MATE (FIRST STEPS).
The passing of the "Board"—School-boy work—Theoretical navigation—Practical seamanship—Colour-blindness—Queer instruction—A kindly examiner—The astonishment of the schoolmaster—Only mate—And "bo'sun-second-mate" 121
CHAPTER XV.
THE SECOND MATE (OF A SAILING SHIP).
The difference between steam and sail—A kindly skipper for a beginner—The second mate's position as pupil—The seamy side—Everybody's dog—Again the difference between lime-juicer and Yank—The second mate of the East Lothian—Oh, what a surprise!—The value of muscle—The want of discipline in our ships 131
CHAPTER XVI.
THE THIRD MATE.
Of great importance or none at all—A suggestion from the Navy—No respect due to him—The owner's pet—The poop ornament—His bringing up—A lost opportunity—The bully third mate of an American ship—An error in judgment—Idlers 142
CHAPTER XVII.
THE BO'SUN.
A romantic figure—Rough but genuine—The naval bo'sun—The working foreman—Bo'sun and "lamps" combined—The old-time bo'sun—A thorough sailor—A queer bo'sun—A broken-down bo'sun—A brevet bo'sun 151
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE CARPENTER.
His general excellence—And unique position—A man of many qualifications—All carpenters in British North America—As in Finland—"Chips" and sailor too—An independent member—Always plenty of work—The whaleship carpenters—And boat-builder 161
CHAPTER XIX.
THE SAILMAKER.
An occupation that is passing—Its fascination for good sailors—The art and mystery of sailmaking—The Yankee sailmaker—His contempt for British sails—Like the carpenter, the sailmaker always has plenty to do—The beauty of sails 171
CHAPTER XX.
THE STEWARD (IN STEAM).
Wide range of status—But always a steward—Wonderful colspan="2" align="center"management—A small army to control—Work never done—The tramp steward—His duties and difficulties—The "providore" 180
CHAPTER XXI.
THE STEWARD (SAILING SHIPS).
The passenger sailing ship almost extinct—Consequently few chief stewards in sail—The responsible steward—The captain's pet—Funny little ways—A bitter experience—The Yankee steward—His onerous post—The stewardess—My friend's pathetic story 188
CHAPTER XXII.
THE COOK (IN STEAM).
The most interesting figure on board ship—A chef indeed—Where do they come from?—Difficulties of ship cookery—Under the best conditions—Careful, hard-working men—Australian cooks—Black Sam—Humpy Bill—His tribulations and triumphs—The cook of a tramp 195
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE COOK (SAILING SHIPS).
His materials—His usual qualifications—No room for a good cook—Good sailing ships—And bad—From the food point of view—Bad food wasteful as well as dear—The craving for vegetable—The cook's day's work—So different in Yankee ships—Blue-nose cookery—"Cracker hash"—"Duff" 205
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE COOK (SAILING SHIPS)—continued.
Salt junk—The never-satisfied sailor—Pork and peas—Dirty cooking—Abysmal ignorance—A lower depth—Bad weather 215
CHAPTER XXV.
THE APPRENTICE (SUGGESTIONS).
A serious matter—Want of knowledge—The system of apprenticeship—Need for revision—The influx of foreign officers—No want of aspirants here—An experience of my own—No-premium apprentices—Training ships—The housing of sea apprentices—A vexed question—To stop the waste of young seamen—An A.B. no mere labourer—A good example—A model ship for apprentices—Training ships in America 223
CHAPTER XXVI.
THE APPRENTICE (SOME FACTS CONCERNING HIS LIFE).
The average boy's helplessness—The need for lessons in homely things—An unhappy home—Waste of outfit—Need of personal supervision—And honest treatment—Apprentices substituted for sailors—Some instances—All depends upon the master—Wasted years—The embryo officer in the U.S. and Canada 234
CHAPTER XXVII.
THE APPRENTICE (SOME PRACTICAL INFORMATION).
How to get your boy to sea—Beware of the apprenticeship broker—A typical instance—Some hints as to outfit—A list of necessaries—The choice of a ship—Personal relations of parents with officers—Hints to apprentices themselves 244
CHAPTER XXVIII.
THE A.B. (GENERAL QUALIFICATIONS).
The "common sailor"—His one-sided view of things—His difficulties—The reading sailor—Argumentative qualities—His shyness ashore—The religious sailor—Misconceptions of his duties—Hardships of good men from the shipment of duffers—The skilled A.B., some of his duties—The "steamboat sailor"—One instance 253
CHAPTER XXIX.
THE A.B. (HIS ROUTINE).
Some details fixed—Others varying indefinitely according to the will of the master—The incidence of watches—Difference of work in steamships and sailing vessels—No easy times in American ships—Keeping them "at it"—Wheel and look-out case in point 263
CHAPTER XXX.
THE A.B. (HIS POSITION).
Putting a premium on incompetency—The steamship partly to blame—Are we getting lazy?—The need for a Naval Reserve? Why does the Reserve languish?—Not a bad life after all—Plenty of British seamen to be got—But they must have discipline 276
CHAPTER XXXI.
THE O.S. (ORDINARY SEAMAN).
His elimination—No system—Many better than A.B.'s in the same ship—A typical instance—An O.S.'s duties—A piece of technical detail, crossing a royal yard—His position in the fo'c'sle—"A servant of servants shall he be"—A rough-and-ready way out 283
CHAPTER XXXII.
THE BOY.
A romantic figure—Changed conditions—The bad old days—Better treatment forward than aft—The unfair change for a boy from the training ship to the trading ship—Cleanliness barred—Bad advice—What to do for him—Running away to sea—An old-time shipping office—Small ships, bad and good 294
CHAPTER XXXIII.
THE ENGINEER.
Need for literary engineers—A noble calling—Its perils and its pride—No sea-joys for the engineer—A nineteenth-century hero—A unique profession—Producing a high-grade man—The evolution of the marine engineer—No foreigners allowed—The E.R.A.—In case of war—No mere mechanic—The blindness of the Admiralty with regard to the engineer 305
CHAPTER XXXIV.
THE FIREMAN AND TRIMMER.
Why do men become firemen?—A terrible calling—Some of his duties—The voice of steam—Better drunk—Cleaning fires—The slavery of civilization—A lower deep—Are we nearing finality? 317
CHAPTER XXXV.
CONCLUSION.
Pertinent questions—The whole truth—Does magnanimity answer?—The peril of the alien—No Trade Union for sailors—The officer's chance—A valuable educational factor—Our national safeguard—Finis 328
THE MEN OF THE MERCHANT SERVICE.
CHAPTER I.
THE RISE OF THE MASTER (IDEAL).
Viewed from whatever standpoint we may choose, it is impossible to arrive at any other conclusion than that the British Mercantile Marine is not only the greatest British industry, but that, for its overwhelming importance and far-reaching effect upon mankind, it is the most stupendous monument of human energy and enterprise that the world has ever seen. Yet, with that peculiar absence of pride in our own institutions, that easy-going magnanimity which, in spite of what not only foreign writers, but many of our own authors assert, is really the most distinctive characteristic of the British race, we show but little appreciation of this marvel of commercial genius and concentrated effort. Dependent by our own action upon our ships for food, we evince no alarm at the possibility of disaster to these main arteries of our national life. Go where you will, up and down this country of ours, and, except among people directly engaged in shipping business, or a few earnest souls who think it is their duty to know something of the conditions under which their dear ones live, you will find scarcely any knowledge of the British Merchant Service at all. The vast majority of people know of but one form of seafaring, the Navy, as they call it, par excellence; and if a man tells them that he is a sailor, they are disinclined to believe him unless he wear the familiar loose blue clothing and gold-lettered cap of the man-o'-war's-man.
But this is a trivial matter compared with the ignorance of the great matters of life and death wrapped up in our Mercantile Marine. That lads eager to get out upon what has tacitly come to be regarded as our peculiar domain—the open sea—and there uphold the traditions of the race, should not know where to go for information concerning it that can be relied upon, seems strange to-day. Stranger still that, instead of all manner of facilities being given to our own youths who wish to become seamen, all manner of disheartening hindrances should be put in their way. And what shall we say in face of the almost universal manifestation of malevolence towards us by foreign powers in what they believe to be our hour of tribulation, of a British minister who from his high position declares he sees no cause for alarm in the prospect of our merchant ships being entirely manned by foreigners? It is only one more proof that the ignorance of our greatest industry is universal; that, from the highest class to the lowest, our people have grown to look upon this most important of our national assets, this indispensable bridging of the ocean for the supply of our daily food, as something no more needing our thoughtful attention than the recurrence of the seasons or the incidence of day and night.
And yet books about the sea are usually popular. In spite of the technicalities involved (usually wrong, owing to the want of a first-hand acquaintance with the subject), almost any sea-fiction will sell. So long as the story be good, the plot workmanlike, the great mass of the reading public will not criticize the nautical technique from lack of ability; they take it for granted, and learn nothing from it. Exceptions may be gratefully remembered, especially Kipling, whose nautical stories, like his engineering ones, have no flaws. They might have been written by a man who had spent his life upon the sea, and had served in all grades. In like manner did R.L. Stevenson grasp detail in the "Wrecker" and the "Ebb-tide;" while to read Morley Roberts' work in this direction is to sit again in the dim fo'c'sle, with the reek of the slush-lamp mingled with most pungent tobacco-smoke and a dozen other unholy odours making your nostrils tingle, while outside the sea-voices murmur their accompaniment to the long yarn being spun within. There are others, but of them only one can be here mentioned—that brilliant, wayward man of splendid abilities and attainments, J.F. Keene. He has gone, and left no one to fill his place. Intolerant of civilized life, he fled from it to the freedom of the tramp or the fo'c'sle scallywag, and drank deep of the cup of life as he loved it. But his books do not make light reading. They are compounded of blood and iron, and bitter as the brine that stained his manuscript.
But this preliminary digression is keeping us from consideration of the important character we have to become acquainted with—the shipmaster, or captain, as he is, by courtesy only, usually styled. No commander of a merchant vessel, no matter how magnificent she may be, is legally entitled to be called Captain. That honourable title belongs only to the Royal Navy. Mr. So-and-so, master of the ship "So-and-so," is all that the most experienced and highly placed merchant seaman may claim. And yet it may well be doubted whether even the proudest captain of a ship of war has more varied qualifications for his splendid post than the ideal shipmaster. Difficulties that never trouble the naval man meet his "opposite number" in the Merchant Service at every turn, not to be evaded, but met and justified by success, or else loss of appointment, and the pinch of poverty follows promptly.
The road to this eminent position is a plain and simple one. In its most favourable traversing the would-be master has parents who can afford to send him direct from school to such a nautical training college as H.M.S. Worcester or H.M.S. Conway—the former a splendid vessel of the old wooden-wall type, moored in the Thames off Greenhithe, and commanded by a most able merchant seaman, David Wilson-Barker, Esq., F.R.S.E., F.R.G.S., F.Z.S., etc., himself an alumnus of the Worcester; and the latter a kindred vessel moored in the Mersey. Here the aspirant is thoroughly taught the theory and practice of navigation in all its ramifications, while those branches of study which he was pursuing at school are carried on in a generous spirit. Seamanship, as far as it can be taught on board a stationary vessel, takes naturally a most prominent place in the training scheme, while naval architecture, languages, engineering, and nautical science all have their allotted place.
So useful are all the subjects taught to the average man, that one is tempted to believe that no college course in the country is more admirably calculated to fit him for the battle of life, whether he goes to sea or not. Dull indeed must the youngster be who does not emerge from the Worcester or the Conway, upon the completion of his three years, better calculated to make his way in the world than any lad of the same age is upon leaving a public school. The Board of Trade have frankly recognized this by allowing the course on board these training-ships to count as one year's sea-service in the required qualification for second mate. That is to say, while the ordinary candidate for a second mate's certificate must produce either completed apprentice indentures for four years or certificates of discharge for the same length of sea-service, one year of which must have been served as an able seaman, the old Worcester or Conway boy need only produce a record of three years' sea-service to entitle him to enter as a candidate. Now, assuming that the youngster has finished his training-ship course with credit, and been duly bound as an apprentice in a fine sailing-ship belonging to a good firm, his way is clear before him. Passing through his probationary period undaunted by the none too easy life he has led, he appears before the examiners of the Board of Trade, and if he has only kept up the most cursory acquaintance with the navigation he knew when he left the training-vessel, his "passing" is ridiculously easy. I do not propose to discuss here a much-vexed question, but will merely state that it has often been proposed, as a remedy for what has been considered the too low status of the shipmaster, that the standard set by the Board of Trade should be periodically raised until the amount of education required for successfully passing it would enable those paying for it to demand higher salaries and more honourable recognition of their position. No doubt it would greatly tend to lessen the numbers obtaining certificates of competency, but, alas! there seems also no doubt that, as things are at present, it would greatly increase the number of alien officers in command of British ships.
Well, our young friend has his second mate's certificate, but unless he be exceptionally fortunate he will have to make a voyage as third mate before he takes up the position to which it entitles him. As third mate in his old ship, or a similar one belonging to the same company, he may be gradually permitted to keep a watch, to stand on the quarter-deck in charge of a hundred thousand pounds' worth of property and thirty or forty lives. (Of course, throughout I am speaking of the sailing-ship, since she is as yet, in all but two or three instances, the recognized medium for the beginner.) Pursuing his career with care, he reaches home ready to take a ship as second mate, and if the firm he serves is what it ought to be, no long time will elapse before such a berth is ready for him. One twelvemonth's voyage as second mate, and he may again approach the examiners for his chief mate's certificate. Again he should find not the slightest difficulty in passing, the additional qualifications required from him being quite simple. Should he be very lucky, he will get a berth now as chief officer; but even if he be compelled to go another voyage as second, he will be permitted to pass the Board of Trade examination for master on his return, providing he can show that he has acted for two years as second mate. With his master's certificate in his possession, it is only a question of time until he stands in the proud position of monarch of his little realm, and that time may be greatly shortened in many cases if he happen to have a comfortable sum of money to invest in the ship.
Should he desire to equip himself with all the certificates which the Board of Trade can grant, he will proceed at once to undergo the examination for Master Extra; he will also "pass in steam"—an examination most necessary for those masters who propose to take command of steamships—and he will also take an examination in magnetism. Of all these extra examinations it may also be said that if our friend has kept up his cadet training, they will have no terror for him; they are only difficult to those who find mathematics irksome, and never practise more than they are compelled to. Then, of course, they get rusty, since the amount of mathematics really necessary to keep a ship's position accurately at sea is very small. By the continual invention of clever mathematicians, nautical astronomy has been reduced to mere expertness in handling tables, and the indolent man will avail himself of these aids to the fullest extent.
CHAPTER II.
THE RISE OF THE MASTER (REAL).
The Liner.
So far, I am afraid that in sketching out the possible rapid rise and progress from college to quarter-deck I have not been very amusing or enlightening. The non-professional reader will be bewildered by the swift passage of the young sailor through the various grades without any elucidation of the "how" of each process, while the professional seaman reading it will smile sardonically, and endeavour to recall any instances within his knowledge of such an upward flight. Feeling this, I hasten to explain that the foregoing is but an impressionist sketch of an ideal condition of things, and that such a smooth attainment of the object of a young sailor's ambition is of the very rarest occurrence. Moreover, it has to be remembered that only the favoured few can have the advantage such as is conferred by a Worcester or Conway training. The great majority of youths who take to a sea life go direct to their apprenticeship from school—go, too, in vessels whose owners have but few ships, and consequently small facilities for advancing their apprentices in the profession when once their indentures have expired. As I propose to deal with the apprentice in a chapter devoted to him entirely, I must be careful not to say too much now, so I will merely indicate the undoubted fact that an apprenticeship to any firm of ship-owners, no matter what the excellence of the individual apprentice may be, carries with it no guarantee of employment after the apprenticeship is over. In this, as in many other respects, the sea is unlike any other profession. In a large engineering firm, for instance, it would be considered a waste of good material to discharge apprentices when out of their time unless they had proved themselves hopelessly incompetent. But it is not possible for a firm owning, say, four ships and carrying six apprentices in each of them, to find employment for those apprentices when they are fit to assume the position of officers. The four masters are not at all likely to resign their berths frequently, masters of ships in an employ such as I am now speaking of usually retaining their commands for many years. They block the flow of promotion, never very rapid, so that it is no infrequent thing to see the same set of three officers, master, mate, and second mate, in one ship for several long voyages.
What, then, is the young newly passed officer to do when, with his creamy new certificate in his pocket, he finds nothing before him in his old firm but a voyage before the mast as an able seaman? Well, if his folks have any acquaintances among ship-owners—in other words, any influence in that direction—now is the time to use it. Or, if they have any money to invest, they will not find it difficult to purchase a certain amount of interest, which should, and generally does, result in their son getting an opening for employment. But if neither of these levers are available, the aspirant is almost certainly in for a bad time. Probably the best course for him will be to put his pride in his pocket, and take a berth before the mast, always keeping his eyes open when abroad for an opportunity of slipping into a vacant second mate's berth, where he will get the rough edges worn off his newness, and become accustomed to command. In the mean time he must keep carefully in touch with his old firm, so that should he be on hand when there is a vacancy, he may not miss it. His great object, of course, will be to get a footing in a good firm, owning many ships, where promotion is fairly rapid for the smart officer. Of course, he will hunger and thirst after a steamer; but, unless he makes up his mind to go in the lowest class of tramp, and plod painfully onward at very low wages for a long time, he had better stick to sailing-ships until he gets his master's certificate.
This for reasons which will appear later on. Into this stage of the officer's upward progress the element of chance or coincidence enters so largely that it is impossible to do more than generalize as to the probable time which will elapse before he reach the goal of his desire. But there is one feature in such a career as I am now attempting to sketch that has not its counterpart, as far as I know, in any other form of employment whatever. It is in the seeking for a berth. I know of no more depressing occupation than that of a capable seaman looking for a ship as officer. It does not greatly matter whether he wanders round the docks or goes to the owner's offices, he is made to feel like a mendicant; and on board most ships he is also made to feel like a supplanter when he asks for employment. To go aboard of a likely looking ship seeking a berth, say as mate, and to meet the present holder of the office, is the usual experience, and a most awkward one it is.
Here the pushful man will score heavily. Putting all diffidence in his pocket, he will broach his message, boldly disregarding the frowning face of the gentleman in charge, who naturally looks upon him as a foe. But the shy, reserved man (and both these qualities are very common among seamen) will stammer and beat about the bush, conceal the true nature of his errand, and retire awkwardly in considerable confusion. Having obtained a berth, however, it will generally rest with himself how far he will be able to raise himself by its means. True, there are many things—which will be treated fully under the different headings of the various officers—which by no fault of his own may hinder and dishearten him, but the unattached officer must not allow them to daunt him. He must persevere, keeping his weather eye lifting for every opportunity of advancement, and especially perfecting himself in all the complicated details of his profession, in anticipation of the day when, a full-blown shipmaster, he will be where his longings have led him.
It may be asked, "But what has all this to do with the master himself—his duties, his position, etc.?" The question is quite reasonable, and I feel the full force of it; but there is a strong temptation to anticipate the succeeding chapters, when one remembers the passage over the generally thorny way leading up to the chief position on board ship. However, I will do my best to avoid further digression, and proceed at once to give, to the best of my ability, a sketch of that much-envied individual's privileges and responsibilities. The first difficulty that presents itself is classification. For, although the Board of Trade certificate of master qualifies its possessor to take command of the most splendid liner, it is absolutely essential to the assumption of chief charge of a tiny schooner engaged in foreign trade. Yet it must be obvious that between these two positions there is a great gulf fixed—not in qualification, for there is really no reason why the holders thereof should not change places at any time. In many cases it is accident alone that determines whether a man shall be master of a liner or a clumsy little brig, lumbering painfully across to the West Indies. In spite of this fact, one cannot expect that the grand gentleman who commands such a magnificent ship as the Teutonic or Campania, for instance, should be able to refrain from looking down upon his brother master of the Susan, brigantine of two hundred tons register. To the liner master's credit be it said, he does not show nearly the same hauteur towards his less fortunate fellow that he might reasonably be expected to do. That sort of view of their respective positions is usually taken by people ashore, who know just enough of the conditions to enable them to make such a tactical mistake.
The master of a great liner is in a really enviable position—not, perhaps, as regards his earnings in solid cash, for it still remains to the discredit of British seafaring that its most highly placed officers are far worse paid than men greatly their inferiors engaged in business ashore. But in power, in importance in the eyes of his fellow-men, in comfort, he is far before them. His are the responsibilities, upon him rests the reputation of the ship among the people who pay the piper, the passengers, but beyond that his life is rightly looked upon by his less fortunate brethren as one long holiday. No laborious keeping of accounts for him, no worrying about freights or scanty passenger lists, no anxious study of weather charts or calculation of course to be pursued in reference to the time of year and consequently prevalent winds. At the appointed time for sailing he comes upon the bridge, and greets most cordially or nods most frigidly to the pilot according to his temperament. That individual, one of the elect of his fine calling, is paid by the company for his exclusive services, and it is his duty to see the monster ship safely through the intricacies of the river mouth out into free and open waters. The master's presence on the bridge is a matter of form—necessary, however, because by some queer twist of maritime law, although ships going foreign are compelled to take a pilot who is responsible for her safe conduct out to certain limits, the master's responsibility is always alive. Should the pilot lose the ship and the master not be on deck, the latter would be held equally to blame, although at what precise time his intervention would be permissible is left delightfully ambiguous.
The pilotage limit is reached, and the pilot gets into his own place on board of his own cutter; the voyage is begun. Now is the master lord indeed; but such a ship as this will have at least six officers, of whom most likely all will hold certificates as Master Extra. Each of these in their turn take charge of the ship under the master's orders, subject to certain regulations peculiar to the different companies, and the least tribute that can be paid to them is that every one of them is probably fully as competent to command the ship as is the master himself. It is etiquette, however, for him to remain on the bridge while the vessel is in waters that may by any stretch of nautical terms be called narrow, although he does not interfere in any way, if he be a gentleman, with the handling of the ship. The navigating officer (usually the second officer) works assiduously at nautical astronomy, calculating the position, the error of the compass, etc., continually, but his work is checked by the master and the other officers, who work the main details independently of him.
No ships afloat are navigated with more jealous care than these, no ships can show a more splendid record of actual correctness in working, and it needs a strong personality indeed on the part of the master to avoid laxity. Having so fine a set of subordinate officers, why should he trouble himself? The love of holding the reins, jealousy of the slightest encroachment upon his prerogatives, will usually keep him from this, but the temptations to enjoy the charmingly varied society in the midst of which he moves as king is certainly very great. All honour to these capable gentlemen that so few of them succumb to it. Whenever stress of weather demands their presence on the high and lofty bridge (Mount Misery, the wise it call), they will be found there, cheery and confident, with apparently no sense of weight of responsibility upon them, although they might well be excused if their brows were permanently furrowed with anxious thought. To know that upon you rests the charge of two thousand souls, to say nothing of from half to three-quarters of a million pounds' worth of property being hurled over the howling sea at the rate of twenty-five miles an hour, is surely enough to give even the most jovial heart pause. Yet these splendid men conceal with great ease any appearance of worry, and behave as though they had nothing more serious on their mind than the making of an Atlantic passage pleasant to their guests.
The master of a ship cannot enjoy that peculiar repose common to every other member of his crew. Deeply as they may feel the weight of their special responsibility while on watch, the moment they are relieved the relief is complete. No matter how black the outlook, it is the other fellow's business now. The relieved one goeth unto his bunk, and divesting himself of his clothing, passes into dreamland as free from care as if in some cosy bed ashore. Not one vestige of his late anxieties trouble him. They will come on again all too soon; meanwhile he will get as much sleep into the allotted hours as possible, and nothing short of a summons from his commanding officer shall disturb that calm. The poor skipper, on the other hand, has no such relief. He must cultivate confidence in his officers, or want of rest will soon make an old worn-out man of him; but in any case he must be always ready to assume full responsibility. I have often wondered how the masters of swift Atlantic liners can keep up their spirits as they do, knowing what a number of derelicts there are lurking about the Atlantic. I suppose they say to themselves that, remembering the wideness of the sea, there are an infinity of chances against their striking against any one of those awful shifting dangers, numerous though they be. And they must cultivate a habit of refusing to contemplate possible disasters that are by no means inevitable, else would they soon become unfit for their position.
It must not be forgotten that they are in the last resort also responsible for the performance of the tremendous giants below, the steam-engines that thrust the vast fabric through the seas at such headlong speed. But, unlike their brethren in the Navy, they do not think lightly of the engineer. They recognize to the full his wonderful ability and trustworthiness, and I think I am well within the mark in saying that no department of the ship's management gives them less anxiety than the most important of all, the engine and boiler-rooms. For it is impossible to conceive of even a second-rate engineer rising to be in command of a liner's engine-room. There is a process of weeding-out in action there that is very efficient, so that while it is conceivable that by a combination of favourable circumstances and highly placed influence a duffer might come to command a fine ship, the same thing could not happen in the engineering department.
CHAPTER III.
THE MASTER (OF A TRAMP).
From the liner to the tramp is by no means the great step that might be imagined. Indeed, so fine are the gradations in the quality and positions of steamships that it is impossible to draw a hard and fast line anywhere. For even among tramp steamers undoubtedly there are many shades of difference until we reach the very lowest class of all, run on principles despised by all ship-owners of repute. The hierarchy of merchant shipping, the great floating palaces belonging to such firms as the P. & O., the Cunard, the White Star, and the British India, to mention only a few, and without any invidious idea of selection, fall easily into a class by themselves, association with which in almost any capacity confers a sort of brevet rank upon a seaman. But once they are left, and the lines entered upon to whom cargo is the one thing needful and passengers are merely incidental, we get a new order of things entirely: first of all, a great reduction of speed, for the sake of economy in running; consequent upon this, a corresponding reduction of staff, both on deck and in the engine-room. Yet in the highest class of cargo carriers and the lowest class of ocean-going passenger ships the master's position is still a proud one. His vessel is often of immense size, carrying up to ten thousand tons of freight, and, especially if she be one of the hand-maidens of a great company owning swift passenger ships as well, his salary will be fairly good, though probably fifty per cent. below that of his more fortunate fellows in the liner pure and simple. Also his work will be increased. For there is no difference at sea in the old axiom that the less a man does the more money he gets for it. Still, where he is in a regular trade, as in the highest class of cargo ships he will be, his clerical work connected with the ship's earnings will be almost nil, although he may not carry a purser to do the interior accounts of the ship or such matters as wages bills, etc.
It may truly be said that the master of a first-class cargo steamer is in much better case than his brother in some small lines of passenger steamers that could be named. He is better paid, better housed, and has far less worry. Some of those small passenger steamers going (for steam vessels) long voyages are run so economically that the master has hard work to keep up any sort of appearance at all. I knew myself of one firm, which shall be nameless, whose advertisements for passengers were most persistent and alluring, who thought it not shameful to pay their masters £12 a month, at the same time insisting that they should invest at least £250 in the company. Cases like these are very disheartening to the striving seaman. For where the master's wages are kept so low, other economies are conducted in proportion. Such a vessel, say of 1500 tons register, would carry at most three mates and eight seamen. The latter would be mostly foreigners, the work for such a small complement being so hard that home-born men worth their salt fight shy of them. And the officers' wages, unfixed as the men's are, would also be cut down deplorably low. Still, even in such a ship as this the master's clerical work is very small. Agents of the company at each port await the vessel's regular arrival, and see to it that she departs on scheduled time, cargo or no cargo. So that the master has no carking care as to how the ship is paying, no responsibility beyond the navigation and management of the ship herself. He has, of course, to consider his passengers, with no buffer between him and their often querulous complaints and constant questionings, such as his exalted brethren in the big liners have in their purser. He is usually a man who has been passed over in the race, and while his ability is of the highest order, he feels naturally shelved upon a very much lower ledge of his profession than he once hoped to reach.
In command of these small passenger-carrying ocean-going steamers are to be found some of the very best of our merchant skippers, whose worth and merit are so great that their reward strikes one as most shockingly inadequate.
Beneath these comes the tramp proper. It has just dawned upon me in time that often as I have used the word, I have not yet given any definition of it for the benefit of those who I hope will read this book principally, shore people. A tramp steamer, then, is a vessel of large cargo-carrying capacity and low power of engines, built upon the most economical principles, and run likewise. She goes wherever freight is to be had, although usually built for certain trades, and this is in itself a sore point with underwriters, who complain bitterly that they are often led to insure a certain type of vessel on the understanding that she will be trading in such waters as the Mediterranean and the Baltic, but presently find her braving the tremendous seas of the Atlantic. The best type of tramp is built and owned in north-east English ports, where the highest shipbuilding science is brought to bear upon the construction of cargo-carriers that shall be at once cheap, roomy, economical, and seaworthy. And it must be said that many firms up there, by careful attention to tramp building and owning, have made tremendous strides in the direction of safety for the ships, and even comfort for the crews, although of the latter there can never be very much in a tramp. The lowest type of tramp, on the other hand, is one that is built to sell to the first bidder—built so as to pass Lloyd's surveyor, but without one single item in her equipment that can be dispensed with. Such vessels as these merit all the hard words that have been said of them. Very slow, very unhandy, with dens for the crew to live in and upper works of the commonest material, they are always coming to grief. They are mostly owned by single-ship companies, of which the shareholders are generally people knowing absolutely nothing of shipping matters, who have been induced by speciously worded circulars, issued by some deeply interested manager, to invest their scanty capital in these dubious enterprises.
The master of such a ship as this may well feel that his lot is hard. With wages cut down to a point that could only attract a man upon his last legs financially, the manager always endeavours to get some investment, however small, out of the unfortunate master, to give him an interest in the ship. The food and stores supplied are of such bad quality as to make the life very much harder than it need be (in any case it is hard enough), while the number of men carried in proportion to the vessel's tonnage is appallingly small. Yet the master's work is far more onerous than in better ships. In addition to the necessity he is under of nursing his ungainly, low-powered vessel in heavy weather, he is always being sent to fresh places, entailing upon him the acquisition of an immense amount of local knowledge. The purchase of coal in far-away ports, with all the vicissitudes of price to which that indispensable commodity is subject, makes his hair grey and his face wrinkled before he comes to middle age. If he carries a good supply of coal for fear of a rise in price, at his next port he may have to shut out cargo; if he neglects to do so, expecting to be able to buy well and be disappointed in his expectations, he is held responsible. Low freights make him unhappy, although he is powerless to alter economic conditions, for his first duty is to make his ship pay. Worst of all his troubles are repairs. Such vessels as these are peculiarly prone to damage, from their cheap construction, yet any expense incurred abroad for repairs is looked upon as almost a crime. Then there is the necessity laid upon him for the most careful watching of the freight-markets. Although he may secure a good freight on one passage, he may, upon reaching his port, find that freights there are either unpayably low or non-obtainable. And his spirits fall, because he knows how such an experience will lower his average earnings for the voyage.
The qualifications that such a master need have are, although nominally the same as in any other branch of his trade, immensely varied. And it may be taken for granted that a successful tramp skipper is always a good all-round man—something of a diplomat, of a lawyer, of an accountant, of a merchant: all these qualities superadded to his ability to handle his vessel at sea in all weathers, contend with crews of the smallest and of the lowest kind of men, who are as far removed from the popular idea of what a sailor is as day is from night. But such men are of inestimable value to the commerce of the country. They seldom forget that their first duty is to their employers, nor allow the thought of their hard, laborious position to tempt them into neglect of it. Poor fellows! the penalty for want of success is not easy to bear, even though they may be in no way to blame.
These, of course, are the lowest kinds of tramps. But there is an aristocracy among tramp steamers, owned by wealthy firms of high reputation, both for well and carefully built cargo-carriers and generous treatment of their faithful servants. Although these ships do also go wherever cargo is to be found on which a payable freight will be paid, yet the conditions under which the officers serve are very much better. They are not harassed, either, by the fear of making a loss upon the voyage, since such firms will have their correspondents in most ports, who make freight arrangements for the skippers. Between owners and masters in this class of vessel often subsist the most firm friendships, men growing grey in one employ, and feeling always that their faithful service is fully appreciated. Of course the pay is not high, but the tenure is good, and there is always the chance of picking up a tow, a fellow-tramp with broken shaft, or something of a like disabling nature. And this may mean a small fortune, often does so, since the skipper never fails to take a most substantial share of the total award. Besides, there is a prospect, too, that a well-known skipper may, before he is worn out with sea-service, get a comfortable berth as harbour-master, or dock-master, or ship's-husband, or any of the congenial employments for which experienced shipmasters are so eminently fitted. Pilotage, too, may come their way, although this can hardly be looked upon as comfortable retirement after a hard life at sea. But whatever they get as a sort of retiring berth, they may truly be said to have earned it. Unfortunately, many of them must leave the sea with advancing years, having nothing to support them but such scanty savings as they have been able to put by. And as the days when skippers were able to amass fortunes have long passed away, these hard-working seamen are often hardly bestead in their old age—far more hardly than any one knowing their long period of command, but ignorant of their pay, could possibly imagine.
In leaving the steamer-skipper for him of the wind-jammer, as sailing vessels are contemptuously termed by steamer-sailors, a few words may suffice for the ungracious task of dealing with the black sheep. As in all other professions, of course among steamship-masters there are drunken blackguards, who in some mysterious way manage to get and keep command. But the proportion is very small. There is hardly any room for them. The conditions of service are too onerous, the necessity for constant care and forethought is too great, to admit of many worthless men being in command. Especially is this the case in the north-east ports, where every man's goings-on are known and discussed, as villagers dissect one another's business in remote inland hamlets. No; taking them by and large, to use a time-honoured sea phrase, the tramp skippers need not fear comparison with any class of public servants in this country, while for the importance of the duties they fulfil they are certainly second to none.
CHAPTER IV.
THE MASTER (SAILING SHIPS).
So great is the difference in duties to be performed by masters of sailing ships from those of masters of steamers, that they are almost like members of another profession. The range, too, in status is exceedingly extensive. Between the man in command of, say, a small brigantine going foreign, and the commander of a four-masted steel clipper carrying 5000 tons of cargo to and from the Colonies, there is not only a great gulf of status, but a large number of gradations. Yet it will readily be admitted by all shipmasters that the position of master of even a fifth-rate steamship marks a step upward from the same position on board of the finest sailing ship afloat. And almost any shipmaster is glad to step down from the exalted pinnacle he may have occupied for years as master of a splendid "wind-jammer" and take a very subordinate position, say, as second, third, or even fourth officer in a liner, as a means of rising to the coveted post of commander of such a ship.
But perhaps we have had enough of steamers for a little while. For my part, I shall only be too glad to quit that part of my subject for the far more congenial one of the "wind-jammer," as she is contemptuously called by steamer-men. It is essential, in order to success as a master here, that a man should be a sailor. That is, in the original sense of handling ships, a fine art, demanding high skill and courage as well as constant practice. A good master nurses his ship under sail with never-ceasing care. If he be ably seconded by his officers, his labour is of course greatly lightened; but even then, if a smart passage is to be made, the master must never relax his vigilance. Never, that is, in the sense of allowing his officers to feel that the game is in their hands entirely. To explain this for the benefit of my shore readers, let me give a commonplace instance. I was an able seaman on board a fine ship homeward bound from Manila to London. We were commanded by an elderly, taciturn gentleman, whose appearance was as unlike that of the typical sailor as could well be imagined. Yet every man on board knew him to be a consummate ship-handler, and cool withal, so that when, on the outward passage, we were tacking under a heavy press of sail to get through the Sunda Straits, and in weathering a point of Thwart-the-way-Island actually touched it with our bilge, the seamed old face never blenched, never lost its sphinx-like mask of serene watchfulness.
We did not know, though, until we had reached the eastern entrance to Sunda Straits again, on the passage home, how excellent his seamanship really was. In company with a dozen other ships, most of which had gained upon us, we were becalmed in that dangerous vicinity when night fell. Darkness shut down upon us, such a darkness as makes it necessary for the sailor to know the running gear intuitively—to develop some other sense to serve him in lieu of sight. Amidst a guttural growling of thunder which was almost continuous, and a flickering glare of lightning that was bewildering, it began to rain—not steadily, but as if high overhead were passing a series of nimbus clouds that were letting fall their contents in intermittent lumps. And from all quarters successively came light puffs of wind, never steady for more than ten minutes at a time. We had all the lighter sails made fast in case of a sudden heavy squall and for greater facility of working the ship.
Then for the whole of that Egyptian night, making a bewildering tangle of courses that was enough to whiten a mathematician's hair to ravel out, we toiled at the braces under the master's direct orders. We had watch and watch, but he was on duty all night. Standing by the compass, watchful and alert in spite of his seventy years, he utilized every favourable cats-paw, manœuvred against the unfavourable ones, remembering the possibilities of the unknowable currents beneath, and keeping before his mental vision a picture of the contour of that rugged coast.
When morning dawned he had his reward; for we were almost through the Straits, with the first kiss of the south-east trade wind saluting us, and the broad bosom of the Indian Ocean lying invitingly before us under a canopy of stainless blue. And of our comrades of the previous day only one could be seen, just discerned so far astern that she was only a speck on the horizon. To grasp the significance of such a piece of seamanship, it is necessary to remember that in a square-rigged ship the swinging of the great yards is not a momentary affair, like the slipping over of a schooner's fore and aft sails. Time and much labour are required. Moreover, the closest attention is necessary in order to utilize intermittent wind-breaths, as these were; for a big ship with little motion obeys her helm but slowly, and soon loses, if she be caught aback, that is, gets the wind on the wrong side of her sails, what little "way" or forward motion she has—a loss that she is loth to make good.
Again, in a sailing ship native courage in the master counts immensely. No amount of experience will atone for a want of this quality. Some men are so prudent, in other words, so lacking in courage, that they will shorten sail at the first premonition of bad weather, instead of reducing canvas as the weight of wind makes it impossible for the ship to carry it with safety. Of course there are circumstances where such prudence is absolutely necessary, as in the case of ships who do not carry sufficient men, or whose crews are of such poor quality that they are hardly competent to handle the sails in fine weather; also when the equipment of a ship has been so shamefully starved that the carrying of sail in anything like a breeze is bound to end in wholesale loss. And this matter of prudence in carrying sail has its dangerous side also. Many a dreadful storm has been endured by a ship that she would have escaped altogether had she kept up her speed; many a ship has been overtaken by a following sea and left almost derelict by its onslaught that would have gallantly outraced it had she not been made helpless by the clipping of her broad wings.
Of course, when it is remembered how great is a ship's individuality, how immensely circumstances vary, even the least knowing of us will have small difficulty in understanding the impossibility of laying down hard and fast lines. Every master must needs work out his own salvation in these matters, learn by experience and keep on learning; happy if he can find a ship whose ways are ways of pleasantness, and who has not either been built with or acquired some devilish habit of sea-spite that makes her an abode of misery to her crew, and the command of her a martyrdom to her master. Such ships abound, possessed by every vice known to seafarers, yet presenting in dock, when newly "got up," an appearance of smartness and seaworthiness that is deceitful to the last degree. Such a ship it was my evil hap to light upon once in London, bound for New Zealand. Every one of my shipmates were ecstatic in their praises of her beauty; none doubted that she would be as comfortable as she was lovely. But oh, the awakening from our pleasant dream! Barely had we cleared the Channel, when, meeting the full vigour of the Atlantic swell, she began her antics. There was no dry place on board of her anywhere, except under the hatches among the cargo. For she had not all the vices of a ship; she was well and staunchly built, and did not leak. But in finest weather, almost in calm, she invited the sea on board; while in bad weather she was like a half-tide rock, continually awash.
There were five passengers, and I warrant that none of them could ever forget that passage of 117 days; because the after part of the ship was even worse than the fore part. A massive structure of timber, like the palisading of a block-house, was built across the front of the cabin for its protection. She, however, thought nothing of sweeping away the whole erection, and flooding the handsome state-rooms with a foaming torrent of salt water. Never shall I forget the sight of the podgy skipper, like some unlively porpoise, gambolling about the saloon, swimming and scrabbling in water up to his waist in chase of his sextant, which, secure in its box, was gleefully careering about at every roll of the ship. That skipper was both smart and plucky, but his command must have aged him at treble the ordinary speed. When he carried on sail until the masts bent like fishing-rods and the stitch-holes in the sails became elongated so that they looked like columns of shining oats placed horizontally, instead of keeping ahead of the sea, she took it over in appalling masses, both sides and astern at once. And when it became suicidal to run her any longer, and we hove her to—that is to say, we reduced sail to a mere speck, and turned her head as near to the wind and sea as it would go—she acted as viciously as any buck-jumping horse. No one on board ever found their sea-legs, as the saying is, for you needed inch-long spikes or huge sucking-discs on your feet to keep on your legs at all.
Then there is the needed acquaintance with the best routes at given times of the year—the ability to direct your course so that you shall find the minimum of calms with the maximum of favourable winds. This is a prime quality in a successful shipmaster, and it cannot be learned from weather-books or weather-charts. I came home once from Australia, second mate of a magnificent ship, whose sailing qualities were of the highest order, her crew ample in quantity, her equipment beyond criticism. The master was a learned man, but his experience of sailing ships was of the slightest. He had all the weather-charts obtainable; he studied them continually, and faithfully followed their guidance. In the result we made a four and a half months' passage home, while a smaller ship, not nearly so smart, sailing from the same port three weeks after our departure, arrived in London nearly four weeks ahead of us. But her master had been sailing ships between England and Australia for many years, all the while accumulating first-hand knowledge of the conditions obtaining over all those seas he traversed, learning by experience the weather-signs and all the grammar of the language that the ocean speaks in to its intimate friends. This knowledge it is that constitutes the fine flower of seamanship as it was (and is still in ships that depend upon sail only), but which will soon be looked upon as a lost art as the sailing ship is gradually pushed aside by that wonderful outcome of engineering science—the steamship.
How great a factor in the making of a successful passage under sail this personal acquaintance with the route pursued is, may be easily assessed from a superficial study of the ways of the Swansea copper-ore traders. These are, or rather, I ought to say, were, smart barquentines which sail, or sailed, from Swansea, bound round Cape Horn from east to west, for the purpose of bringing home ore to the world-renowned smelting-works of Wales. Their masters were not, in any sense of the word, fine gentlemen, their calling hardly admitted of the cultivation of the graces of life; but such was their knowledge of this, the most arduous piece of navigation in the whole world, that their passages were made with almost steamer-like regularity. Only seamen themselves could give to these perfect mariners all the praise that was their due. For all sailors know, either by experience or repute, how cruelly hard are the conditions attached to forcing a passage around that awful promontory that reaches down almost to the Antarctic Circle, deep into the chosen habitation of the fiercest and most persistent gales that rage around the planet. Here, for weeks on end, you shall feel the weight of an unfaltering westerly gale, with all its accompaniments of snow and sleet and darkness. One would say that the attempt to get round the Horn from east to west, in the teeth of such prevalent conditions, was madness, especially when the long record of disaster attendant upon these attempts is known. Many a case is on record where fine ships, after weeks of abortive struggle to get to the westward round Cape Horn, have at last given up the fight, put the helm hard-up, and fled before the inexorable westerly gale, right round the world, to reach such a port as San Francisco, for instance.
Yet these little Swansea men came and went, from year to year, with the utmost regularity; their skippers having learned by experience how to out-manœuvre even the terrible monarch of the southern sea. No doubt it was a hard life; but it was exultant, triumphant. These men knew how good their seamanship was, how exact their weather-lore, and they troubled meteorological charts not at all.
So, too, with the navigation of the Bay of Bengal. While not so severe in any sense as that of Cape Horn, it is difficult, teasing, and calling for constant watchfulness. Men who go that way only occasionally will make a good passage of, say, from eighty to a hundred days on one voyage, and then with the same ship, a year or two after, make a passage that causes the owner to gnash his teeth as he cons the portage bill. But to the men who used to sail there regularly how nearly an exact science did their navigation of that baffling bay become! One especially comes to my mind—Thomas Potts, of Messrs. Brocklebank's famous old East-India line. Dozens of that old worthy's log-books have passed through my hands, with their fair, unblotted entries of business-like procedure from day to day. And so regular seemed the rate of sailing that I once took the trouble to compile an average of his passages out and between Liverpool and Calcutta for six years, and I found it to be eighty-five days; a perfectly marvellous achievement in the eyes of a seaman.
Of course, such splendid work as this presupposes a speedy ship. While it is perfectly true that seamanship and diligence on the part of the master can do great things in the way of passage-making even with a sluggish vessel, yet it is heart-breaking work. And when, tired of the never-ending struggle against adverse circumstances, the master becomes listless and slack in his attentions, the result in such a vessel is that she becomes overdue, and underwriters gamble feverishly on the prospects of her non-arrival. Such vessels are still to be met with in goodly numbers, not all obsolete ships either. One, for instance, that I have in mind at the present moment, a huge steel ship not a dozen years old, whose last few passages have been the cause of immense sums changing hands among underwriters owing to her being continually overdue. Another smart-looking barque that I saw in Auckland, New Zealand, once, was actually eight months on the passage from Liverpool thither, having apparently been taken into regions of almost perpetual calm, whence it was a miracle that she ever emerged.
Between these two extremes of swiftness and slowness come all the host of mediocrities, making passages of average length, speedy enough to prevent owners grumbling, yet not sufficiently smart to call for any praise. As in all other professions, these are the vast majority; and the masters who thus quietly perform their duty without hope of honourable mention are none the less worthy because they do not, cannot, do anything that shall cause their names to be remembered among seamen as the élite of the profession.
CHAPTER V.
THE MASTER (SAILING SHIPS)—continued.
Hitherto I have endeavoured to pass lightly over the sailing ship master's work in making passages, only showing the superior side of these responsible men's characters. But if I were to go no farther in this direction, many masters would rightly feel much aggrieved. They would not feel satisfied that the public should imagine that they were all alike excellent, and that the training and experience necessary for the command of a ship always succeeded in turning out a man who was really fit for the post he is called upon to occupy. Besides, the picture would be a false one. Far too many masters, having once obtained command, instead of utilizing their extended opportunities of showing their fitness for such a post, just settle down on their lees and become indolent, careless, and consequently worthless. It must be granted that the temptation is great to a man not naturally energetic. Once freed from the oversight and control of his owners or their agents, and out upon the sea, he is in the position of an almost absolute monarch. His officers are anxious to gain his good word, since upon it depends their future.
This statement needs some explanation. By a rule of the Board of Trade, every officer coming up for examination in order to take a certificate of a higher grade must produce written testimonials from the master he has served with. Wanting these, he is not allowed to enter for the examination at all. Now, as by the common law no master is bound to give his servant a character, it follows that a shipmaster need only withhold that essential scrap of paper from an aspiring officer to put an effectual bar before his rising any higher. I do not profess to criticize the wisdom of this enactment, I merely state the facts as they are. And as an instance of how this power is regarded by shipmasters, I may mention that, recently writing upon the subject in the press, I received an indignant letter from a shipmaster, who said that if all shipmasters did their duty there would be far fewer officers obtain certificates than there are now. Also that no good officer need fear such treatment at the hands of any shipmaster—which was manifestly absurd, since among shipmasters, as amongst all other classes of men, there must be both bad and good, and the temptation to use arbitrary power like that is far too great to be resisted by a bad man.
But to return. Having, then, this potent lever in his grasp, this guarantee for the good behaviour of his officers, the indolent master may, if he will, leave everything to them, except just the obtaining of the ship's position each day. Even that it has been my lot to see neglected by a shipmaster. Of course he will occasionally potter about and find fault, if he be, as well as indolent, of a small, mean character. Such a master is a sore trial to both officers and crew. Asked for instructions as to what he wishes done, he will reply that he did not expect his officers would need to be shown their work, and that he would prefer to have men about him who did not want dry-nursing. Which being translated means that he wants his officers to do things on their own initiative, so that he can at any time, if in want of a little recreation, find it in quarrelling with them for doing that which they deemed to be right.
For instance, I was once mate of a barque. While lying in Noumea, failing any instructions from the master, I decided to set up all the rigging, which was so slack as to be dangerous supposing that we encountered any bad weather. The work was well under way when the master came on deck from his cabin, where he had been dozing all the morning, and, seeing what was going on, called out loudly: "Here, Mr. Bullen, just stop that, will you? That can be done any time. I want the ship painted outside." Far too well in hand to make any remark, and really rather glad to get a definite order, I had the gear unrove and put away; and soon we were in the thick of painting. We did not get another opportunity to tighten up that rigging before we left one of the northern ports of the island, deep loaded with copper ore. We were hardly outside the harbour, bound to Newcastle, N.S.W., when it came on to blow, the vessel rolled tremendously, the rigging worked slacker and slacker, and in the middle watch that night she rolled her three masts over the side. Then, of course, I was blamed for not having had the rigging set up.
Then there is the indolent skipper, who leaves everything to the mate, and never finds fault either. Amiable but lazy, he spends most of his time in sleep. He scarcely looks at a book, does not meditate, but leads a sort of fungus life, indulging in a perpetual kief, or cessation of all the nobler faculties. Naturally, young officers like that kind of skipper, since they have a perfectly free hand; but they despise him, and in their inmost heart they know that such a ship is very little good to them. And in times of emergency or danger, when naturally every one on board looks to the head for leadership, it is disconcerting, to say the least, to find him altogether wanting in initiative either in energy or resource. Of course, this is not saying that many masters will not be found who are fussy and meddlesome to the most irritating degree when the weather is fine and the ship is on the high seas, who, when danger looms near and the master's good qualities should shine brightest, are but broken reeds. One master whom I liked very much—a really good man, but without back-bone—was looked upon by all hands with good-natured toleration as a sort of benevolent old female, who, if he did keep himself in evidence pretty much all the time, did not interfere to any great extent. But there came a day when we were running the Easting down (bound to Calcutta) that we were overtaken by a really heavy gale. All our energies were needed to get sail off the deeply laden ship, for she was wallowing dangerously, and was not speedy enough to keep ahead of the sea. While we were thus striving with all our powers, under the smart mate's direction, the skipper, swathed in many clothes, clung desperately to the weather-mizzen rigging, a pitiful picture of fear, his legs bending under him all ways, and his grey beard beslavered with the foam of fright. A more abject specimen of a coward I never saw. All hands noted his behaviour, and from that day forward he was treated with utter contempt. His authority was a thing of naught, and the discipline of the ship (never very rigid in the Merchant Service) was entirely gone. At last the men refused to obey a most necessary order, simply because it necessitated work in their watch below. The offence was flagrant, involving as it did the possible loss of the ship and all hands. He summoned the recalcitrant watch aft and reasoned with them. They merely gibed at and taunted him with cowardice and uselessness in reply. When we arrived at Calcutta he had them up before the shipping-master for punishment, and that worthy fined them two days' pay—at which they laughed hugely.
Now, such a scene as that would be unthinkable on board of either an American ship or a "Blue-nose" (British North American vessel). There the traditions are all on the side of stern discipline, which is not based upon law, but upon force. The foremast hand, whoever he may be, that signs in an American ship realizes at once that it is dangerous to play any tricks with his superior officers. Because, although he does not reason it out, he feels that it would be useless to invoke the law to protect him against the certain consequences of shirking work, insolence, or laziness.
And this leads me naturally to a consideration of the American skipper; that is to say, the skipper of the sailing ship, the man who, by dint of seamanship alone, has risen from the lowliest position to command. No better sailors ever lived than the masters of American ships; and it should never be forgotten, when the statistics of our marvellous Mercantile Marine are studied, that not so many years ago the American merchant navy was more than equal to our own. Not only so, but the shore population was also so deeply tinged with the maritime spirit that nautical terms were a part of the common speech of those who had never even seen the sea. It is hardly fair to use the past tense, because this is largely the case now; so much so, that a book bristling with nautical phrases will be read in America by both sexes with perfect ease, from their familiarity with nautical terminology.
What sailor is there worth his salt who does not cherish proudly the remembrance of those magnificent "Down East" clipper ships and their wonderful passages to and from the Far East and San Francisco? Their doings have passed into proverbs, the runs they made from day to day, the mountainous press of canvas they carried and the smartness of their crews. Many of them were built by "rule of thumb," and were sailed also much in the same way, for their officers prided themselves far more upon their knowledge of sailorizing than mathematics, but they flew over the wide sea at a speed that our clumsier wooden vessels could not begin to compete with. In them the master was looked upon almost as a demigod. No man-o'-war's man to-day regards even an admiral with such awe as did the foremost hand of an American packet ship or China clipper the saturnine, deep-browed man who, in spotless raiment and with an Olympian air, strode up and down the weather side of his immaculate quarter-deck. And a man who had once made a voyage in such a flyer as the Sovereign of the Seas or the Dreadnought before the mast, was wont to brag of it loudly ever after. It conferred a sort of brevet rank upon an A.B. that he had successfully survived all the hardships of such a voyage.
The watchwords on board these ships were "Good food and hard work." No cook dare venture on board of them unless he could justify his title. And unless he were clean enough to satisfy those hawk-eyed officers he had better never have been born than have ventured under the Stars and Stripes as cook. I have myself seen a Yankee skipper go into the galley, and, taking up the first saucepan to hand from the rack, wipe it out with a snowy handkerchief brought clean from his drawer on purpose; and if it showed a smear upon inspection, there was at once a sound of revelry in that galley. Another one had a pleasant habit of going around the panelling of the saloon and state-rooms, poking his handkerchief into the mouldings with a piece of pointed stick, and examining it most carefully afterwards for any mark of dust. This, of course, was carrying the Yankee officers' passion for cleanliness to an absurd length, but it may safely be said that nowhere on the sea was freedom from dirt maintained at so high a level as it was on board the now almost extinct American clipper ships.
These masters fought their way up to command by sheer merit and force of character, allied to physical prowess, dauntless courage, and, it must be said in the majority of cases, ruthless cruelty. Laws for the protection of the common seaman undoubtedly existed, but it was an unheard-of thing for them to be enforced; and many dark stories are current of men being done to death by incessant brutality, whose murderers, whether officers or master, quietly slipped ashore in the pilot-cutter upon reaching the offing of their home port. Then, if such an unlikely thing happened as the dead man's shipmates taking the matter of his slaying before the authorities, it was hopeless to attempt the murderer's arrest.
But brutal and reckless as Yankee masters undoubtedly were, the fact remains that they were unapproachable for seamanship and speedy passages. They skimmed the cream off the Far Eastern trade, and, owing to the generosity with which they were treated by their owners, took no long time to amass comfortable fortunes. The knell of their supremacy was sounded, however, when Britain took to building iron ships. Even before that time, so well had the lessons taught by these dashing Yankee shipmasters and born shipbuilders been learned, that some of our firms had been able to build wooden ships that could hold their own in the swiftest ocean race. Then came the day of the composite (wooden planking with iron frame) ships—the famous tea-clippers of fo'c'sle story, built by such firms as Hall of Aberdeen and Steel of Greenock, against which no Yankee clipper had any chance whatever. And when the iron ship appeared in her turn, in spite of the immense difficulty of keeping the hull under water free from encumbrances of weeds and barnacles, she at once sprang into premier place.
This, however, is a part of my subject that belongs to another place in the book. It is necessary to mention it here in passing, because it is one of the prime reasons for the rapid decay and disappearance of a body of men whose seamanship was peerless—men who carried the Stars and Stripes triumphantly over all the seas of the world. It must not be supposed, either, that American skippers were uneducated men. Many of them were, of course, but the proportion was far less than existed in our own service. Navigation as taught in the sea-ports of the United States, on the lines of Bowditch, was no mere perfunctory business; and although there were no compulsory certificates of competency necessary in those days, there was a good deal of proper pride in mathematical attainment which those who employed officers of ships did their best to foster. And if there were a goodly sprinkling of men among them who did not care, so long as they could fudge their position out in the most rudimentary way by means of an old wooden quadrant or hog-yoke, a ten-cent almanac, and the barest acquaintance with a set of nautical tables, why, so there were, and so there are now, among our own people, even with compulsory certificates granted by a vigilant Board of Trade.
CHAPTER VI.
THE MASTER'S QUALITIES.
If, as is highly improbable, the average landsman ever thinks anything about the duties of a shipmaster, it would be most interesting to know what he imagines them to be. Most intelligent men and women know that the primary duty of a shipmaster is to take his vessel across the trackless ocean to her destined port and return again as speedily as possible. So far so good, but beyond this first reason for a shipmaster's existence there are a host of other duties, in all of which he is supposed to be more or less proficient. And there are certain qualities which he must also possess. Failing them, he may be perfect in science, full of energy, and faultless in seamanship, but as a commander he is naught. Of these, the ability to command stands unquestionably first. No doubt this quality is hard to define, but the possession or the want of it makes all the difference between a comfortable and a miserable ship. One man will seldom raise his voice during a whole voyage loud enough to be heard by any one except the individual to whom he is speaking; the calmness and placidity of his demeanour is amazing, yet in some mysterious way every one on board is made to feel that the master holds the reins of power with no slack or unready hand, that to disobey one of his orders would be a most dangerous experiment, and that he knows everything that is going on fore and aft.
Such a man fulfilling this perfect attribute of command I once had the pleasure to serve under—an elderly, prosaic-looking figure, who used to come on deck shortly after daybreak every morning, with a moth-eaten Bombay-made dressing-gown flung over his pyjamas, a mangy old fez upon his head, and his bare feet thrust into sloppy slippers. Thus attired, he would pace rapidly up and down the poop for the space of half an hour, taking his constitutional—a most mirth-provoking figure. Yet no one ever laughed, either behind his back, on deck, or in the privacy of the fo'c'sle. When he spoke it was in a velvet voice, but the man spoken to invariably took an attitude of profound respect on the instant. He was old and feeble, and our crew numbered among them some rowdies; but from England to China and back again that old gentleman's commanding personality kept the ship in a quiet state of discipline which was as perfect as it was rare.
On the other hand, I have seen a most stately figure of a man, with a voice like a thunder-peal, unable to obtain respect from his crew. Because in the Merchant Service, as I am never tired of reiterating, respect cannot be enforced; it must come spontaneously, a tribute to the personality of the officer to whom it is due, or it does not come at all; and then that ship is in a bad way.
Another quality, which is only second in importance to the one just mentioned, is self-control. Since the shipmaster has no one above him in his little realm, it is highly important to his whole well-being, as well as to the comfort of the ship, that he should command himself. However irritated he may feel at a mistake on the part of one of his officers, he should be able to conceal it before his crew. And here the Americans have shown British officers a good example. So long as an officer remains an officer on board of American vessels, so long is he upheld by all the authority of the master. There is no sneering comment upon his movements indulged in before the crew, no tacit information conveyed to those keen-witted fellows that the hapless mate, first, second, or third, as the case may be, has lost the confidence and respect of his commander, and that consequently there is little or no danger in them treating him disrespectfully. Perhaps this is one of the hardest lessons that a shipmaster has to learn, especially in a sailing ship. For three, or perhaps four, or even five, months sole monarch of his small kingdom, anxious to make a smart passage, and often sadly hampered by adverse winds and calms, it is no easy thing for a naturally hasty man to discipline himself in such wise as to win the maximum amount of obedience and deference from those around him. Happy man if he have a hobby of some kind—a thirst for learning, a taste for natural history, anything that will exercise the powers of his mind and keep him from the moral dry-rot that always sets in where men are at the top of things, amenable to no authority but their own, and without any definite object whereon they may work and feed that appetite for labour, whether mental or physical, possessed by every healthy human organism.
Patience, perseverance, and a sense of justice are also indicated, as they are, of course, in the leaders in every business or profession, yet to an even greater degree at sea than anywhere else; for where you can neither get rid of your men nor afford to lose their services by punishing them, only the highest expression of these qualities is of any avail. It may perhaps be thought impossible that, except in the rarest instances, such a combination of excellence should be found in any one man. But that impression is not a true one. I am not exaggerating in the least when I say that but for the possession of these qualities in an extraordinary degree by masters, our Mercantile Marine would never have risen to its present splendid height in spite of so many hampering disabilities unfelt by masters of ships under other flags. For, to take one aspect only, the disciplinary. I have slightly indicated the manner in which discipline is maintained in American ships, viz. by the employment of violence, which is forbidden by law, yet is invariably winked at. In the ships of every other nation but the English-speaking ones, the merchant seaman is not only a native of the country to which his ship belongs, but he is never free from the environment of naval law; the same law, that is, which obtains on board of a warship. For every seaman there is a man-o'-war's man, bound to put in so much actual service in a vessel of war, and, as such, under the articles of war; so that disobedience to orders, insolence, or malingering (shamming sickness) are exceedingly expensive practices for the sailor to indulge in, the penalties being not only heavy, but their infliction certain.
In a British ship, on the other hand, a master may unwittingly ship a crew of scoundrels, who have made up their minds to do as little as they can as badly as possible, to refuse the most ordinary forms of respect to their officers, and to either desert or go to gaol at the first port, not because their ship is a bad one, but just by way of a change. And if the master or officers, worried beyond endurance, take the law in their own hands, their punishment and subsequent ruin is almost certain to ensue promptly. The rascals who have made the ship a hell afloat, confident in the tenderness of British law, and its severity towards all forms of oppression, pursue their rejoicing way, and if brought to court may be fined a trifle of wages, which, as they set no value upon money, does not punish them in the least.
Some decent foremast hands may feel that I am here unduly severe upon the rank and file; that, having been an officer, and, besides, left the sea for good, I have, like so many others, turned against my old shipmates. But they would be utterly mistaken. It is the merest platitude to say that every decent man's interest lies in having his eyes wide open to the faults of the class he wishes to benefit. The most of my sea-service was spent in a ship's forecastle, and I can assure my readers that I have never since felt more shame and disgust at the behaviour of some of my watchmates than I did then. I cannot for my life see why the foremast hand should not be as self-respecting, amenable to reason, and competent, as any good workman ashore. Sea life is not brutalizing in itself; it is ennobling, and it is a strange return for the benefits that a life at sea confers upon those who live it that so many of them should gratuitously become brutish. Of course there is more excuse for the unfortunate slaves of steam, the firemen and trimmers. Yet even they can, and do in many instances, rise superior to their hard surroundings and show an example to men in positions where every comfort of life is enjoyed.
Another quality which shipmasters should possess, but whose necessity will be hotly debated by many, is that of being a God-fearing man. Some people will say that this embraces all the rest. That it should do so is undeniable; that it does do so is, unhappily, seldom the case. It is a great pity that in so many otherwise estimable men the spirit of godliness should be accompanied by a weakening of their power to command men. They become afraid lest their necessary acts for the preservation of discipline should be misconstrued into a violation of the principles which they profess. And this often results in their Christian virtues being taken advantage of by unscrupulous subordinates, so that the ship's condition becomes worse, not better, for the fact of a man being in command who is anxious to love his neighbour as himself. Needless to say, perhaps, that such a condition of things is altogether opposed to the true spirit of Christianity, which does not approve of allowing one's subordinates to break rules and defy rulers. This, however, is far too large a question to be more than glanced at here, especially as it is so hotly debated by many excellent seamen who hold that the practice of the Christian religion in the Merchant Service is an impossibility.
A master should be honest. Eyes will open wide at this, no doubt, since all men should be honest; but it must not be forgotten that all men are not so liable to temptations to be dishonest in a perfectly safe way (as far as the law goes) as a shipmaster is. The ports of the world are thronged with scoundrels who tempt shipmasters to betray their trust in a variety of ways. By bribery, the most common form of corruption, they are led into cheating the owner and the crew, into downright robbery. There is the temptation to rob the crew, a perfectly safe operation, and one that can be excused by its perpetrators on the ground that, as Jack will only squander his money upon the vilest forms of debauchery when he gets paid off, a good percentage of it will be much better in their pockets than his. It may be done in a variety of ways, from the ostensible payment of blood money to a San Francisco boarding master or crimp, which is deducted from the seaman's wages and shared by the skipper and his ally, to the commoner form of collusion with bumboatmen, tailors, etc., whereby the sailor is overcharged for everything he buys aboard, in order that a heavy percentage of his spendings may go into the master's pocket. Of course Jack is not compelled to spend anything; but it is unfair that he should be mulcted twenty-five per cent. on such innocent outlayings as for soft bread, eggs, fruit, or clothing. In these latter days the temptations to dishonesty in respect of such larger operations as chartering, towage, etc., are greatly lessened by the multiplication of appointed agencies of the owner's abroad, but they do still exist, and the sailing shipmaster especially is often tempted to be dishonest in out-of-the-way ports of the world, temptations which, for his own sake, he should sternly refuse to countenance.
CHAPTER VII.
THE MASTER'S DUTIES.
As pointed out at the beginning of the last chapter, the primary duty of a shipmaster is to get his ship from port to port in the speediest and safest manner possible. And it may not be amiss to indicate here, in the briefest and most popular way, the broad principles upon which this is done. I wish to disarm criticism by experts by disclaiming any intention of giving more than an idea of the process by which vessels are taken across the trackless ocean to those who do not know, and are daunted by a mathematical treatise.