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 bestroutes 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. Buthermaster 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 asuperficial 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 greatthings 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 theéliteof the profession.
CHAPTER V.
THE MASTER (SAILING SHIPS)—continued.
HithertoI 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 masteris 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.Iwant 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 perpetualkief, 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 theEastingdown (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 inmany 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 ofthe 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 Chinaclipper 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 theSovereign of the Seasor theDreadnoughtbefore 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 physicalprowess, 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 freefrom 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 tocommandstands 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, yetin 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, andwithout 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 courtmaybe 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, amenableto 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 sohotly 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 menshouldbe 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 ofblood moneyto 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 courseJack 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 aschartering, 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.
Aspointed 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.
Every school child that has reached the third standard knows that the globe is represented as criss-crossed by a large number of lines running from pole to pole, that is from north to south, and others right round the globe in the opposite direction, or from east to west. These lines cross each other at right angles. The up and down ones, from pole to pole, are meridians of longitude; the East-West ones are parallels of latitude. Now, since these are all numbered as degrees, the space between them being 1°, the latitudes from the Equator to the poles on either side of it as 1° to 90°, and the meridiansfrom Greenwich to its opposite point on the other side of the world 1° to 180°, it follows that if a seafarer can ascertain at the same time what particular degree of both latitude and longitude he is in, a glance at his chart or sea-map shows him the position of his ship. This operation (finding the latitude and longitude) is performed in a variety of ways, but the simplest, and consequently the most universally used at sea, is by measuring the sun's height above the horizon at noon for the latitude, and about three hours before or after noon for the longitude. This is done by means of a pretty instrument called a sextant with the greatest ease and speed. At noon, the moment the sun reaches his highest point for the day, it is twelve o'clock, and a calculation, made in one minute, shows exactly how far the ship is north or south of the Equator. The observations for longitude take a little longer. From the sun's height, at the moment of observation, is calculated the exact time at the ship. And as a chronometer, which every ship carries, shows the exact time at Greenwich, the difference between the two expresses in hours and minutes (easily convertible into degrees and miles) the distance east or west of Greenwich, the first meridian of longitude; for every degree (60 miles) is equal to four minutes of time. Having found the latitude and longitude, the master makes a little dot upon the chart at the exact point where the lines of latitude and longitude which he is on cross one another, and sees as plainly as if he were standing at a well-known street-crossing where he is.
From the position thus obtained he shapes hiscourse in the direction best calculated to reach his destination; that is, if the way in which the wind is blowing will allow him to do so (in a sailing ship). This is done by bringing the desired point of the compass in a line with a mark drawn upon the side of the round box in which the compass swings, which mark really represents the ship's head. And if, as is popularly supposed, the compass needle always pointed true to the north, navigation would be very simple. But, alas! this instrument is full of vagaries. Apart altogether from such harassing complications as the attraction of the iron in the ship produces, there is the variation of the compass itself from the north, which changes continually as the vessel goes on her way. Then there is bad steering, and, worse still, the effect of unknown currents, which sweep the ship away in some direction which cannot be calculated until after it has occurred. The speed of the ship is known by the use of a beautiful instrument, called a patent log, which, towed behind the ship, registers her rate of progress with an accuracy unobtainable by any cyclometer. Where, for economical reasons, the patent log is not used, the mariner must rely upon a primitive instrument, called a "logship," which, being used once every hour or two hours, cannot, however good it may be, give such true results as the patent log, which records every foot of the distance travelled.
When, however, the heavenly bodies, which are always faithful and reliable, are obscured by bad weather, and the master has to depend upon a position obtained by a calculation of the course made by compass and thedistance run by log, he may well be uneasy if he be in difficult waters near land. For the compass can only be corrected by the aid of the sun, moon, or stars when at sea, and iftheyare invisible it may be a very unsafe guide, although an indispensable one.
Roughly, these are the principles upon which a ship is navigated, modifications and extensions of which go to make up the perfect navigator. And no matter how perfect a navigator a master may be, he will always, if he be wise, see that the officers work out the ship's position independently, so that a comparison may be made between the various workings, and any errors detected.
This business of navigating the ship in deep waters is, however, always looked upon by masters as the lightest part of all their duties, although I have been shipmate with masters who had grown too lazy to attend even to that, leaving it to the mate. When the ship comes to the tortuous passages of, say, the East Indian Archipelago, or threads the mazy ways of the West Indian islands, the master has an opportunity to show what metal he is made of. Or, reaching the vicinity of our own dangerous coasts in the long stormy or foggy nights of winter, his anxieties become great. Steamship masters have here a tremendous advantage over their brethren in sailing ships, whose best intentions are often frustrated, their best seamanship rendered of none effect, by the perverseness of the wind. This is especially the case near home, where the sea traffic is great and the appalling danger of collision is added to the perils of rocks, quicksands, and derelicts.
These are but few and feeble words wherein to outline the responsibilities of a shipmaster for the safe conduct of his vessel, responsibilities which weigh so heavily upon some men that for several days and nights together they are unable to take the rest their bodies imperiously demand, but they may serve to indicate them to the sympathetic reader. And when the exceedingly small percentage of casualties is taken into consideration, all will surely admit that the standard of ability among this splendid body of men is satisfactorily high.
The shipmaster's duty as a trustee of an enormous amount of valuable property and, in a passenger ship, of valuable lives, is a most important one. While he must see to it that there is no delay in their conveyance to their destination, he must remember that safety is the first consideration. Recklessness is really unpardonable, and must sooner or later end in his ruin. He represents not only his owners, but the owners of his cargo and the underwriters who insure that cargo. He should be thoroughly well up in those sections of maritime law—and they are many—which affect the traffic; know how to deal with grasping brokers in foreign ports into which he may be driven by distress; be able to make good bargains and keep accurate accounts, since none but the finest passenger steamers carry pursers and clerks to take these onerous duties off his hands. In passenger ships he must see that his charges are made comfortable, bear with their often unreasonable complaints, be courteous and genial, and generally exert himself to make his ship, andconsequently the line to which she belongs, popular, since popularity spells dividends.
In cargo ships he must be something of a doctor, for on a long passage there will certainly be many ailments among his crew, and probably some fractures. Ignorance of how to deal with these means a terrible amount of misery to the hapless sufferer lying groaning for assistance which is not forthcoming. The present generation of shipmasters are greatly in advance of what smattering of leech-craft was possessed by their predecessors, but even now there is a plentiful lack of this most humane and necessary knowledge. One would hardly now expect to find a shipmaster so ignorant as he of whom the story runs that finding a dose out of No. 7 bottle prescribed for a supposed ailment, he made up the draught out of Nos. 4 and 3, upon finding that No. 7 was empty! Or such a rough customer as the skipper of whom it is told in ships' forecastles that when it was reported to him that a man had broken his leg, replied, "Oh, give him a bucket of salts." But in one vessel where I was a foremast hand, several of us caught severe colds upon coming into a lonely New Zealand port, where no doctor was to be obtained. The skipper diagnosed our complaint as bronchitis, and exhibited tartar emetic with peculiar and painful results.
Still, it cannot be denied that among the old school there were some wonderfully skilful, if rough, surgeons—men of iron who, if need arose, could and did practise the art upon their own bodies under circumstances of suffering that might well have reduced the stoutestframe to piteous helplessness. Such a case, for instance, as that of Captain Samuels of theDreadnoughtAmerican packet-ship. I have not his book by me, so must quote from memory; but the picture he drew was so vivid that I do not think any one could forget its essential details. He relates how, in one of his passages from New York to England, he was midway across the Atlantic when during a heavy gale a sea was shipped which dashed him against the bulwarks with such force that one of his legs was broken above the knee. It was a compound fracture; and although such attention as was possible under his direction was given him at once, in a few days he recognized the necessity for having the leg cut off. Mortification had set in. His mate was absolutely unable to attempt the job from sheer physical incapacity, although in other respects a most able, strenuous man. So the sufferer, in superhuman fashion, rose to the occasion and performed the operation upon himself. Successfully, too, for when a few days after the vessel arrived at the Azores, there was nothing left for a surgeon to do.
Another anecdote, this time from the log of a whaleship, theUnionof Nantucket, Captain (?) Gardiner. While pursuing his calling off the West Coast of South America, the sperm whale he was fighting with flung its jaw upwards and across the boat, catching him by the head and shoulders. The blow did not sweep him overboard, but laid his scalp back from his skull; broke his right jaw, tearing out five teeth; broke his left arm and shoulder-blade, and crushed the hand on the same side between the whale's jaw and the gunwale of theboat. In this deplorable state he was carried on board his ship. His young officers, naturally bewildered by the appearance of his broken body, did not know what to do for him. They may well have been excused for considering his case hopeless. His brave spirit, however, did not recognize defeat. He gave directions, mostly by signs, for the preparation of bandages and splints, and instructed his willing but ignorant helpers in the way of using them. When all had been done that he wished or could think of, he ordered the vessel to be taken into port, and, although apparently at the point of death, he lay on deck in a commanding position and piloted his ship in. A Spanish surgeon was brought on board, who, as soon as he saw the sufferer, advised sending for a priest, as the case was hopeless. This advice was lost upon the valiant Yankee, who sent a messenger a distance of thirty miles for another doctor—a German. This gentleman hastened down to the ship, dressed the skipper's wounds, and had him transported on an improvised ambulance slung between two mules up to the healthy highlands of the interior. In six months' time he was fit to resume command of his ship, which meanwhile had made a most successful cruise under the mate. His left hand, unhappily, had been so badly mangled that it was hardly more than a stump, the first two fingers being so twisted in the palm that he was afterwards always obliged to wear a thick mitten to keep them from being entangled in a lance-warp while he was lancing a whale. This good man was for a quarter of a century master of a whaler, and lived to be nearly ninety years old.
So prolific is the source whence these anecdotes are drawn, that I am embarrassed where to choose. However, I cannot help thinking that for a fitting close to this subject, it would hardly be possible to select a story more thrilling than the following. During a whale hunt the line kinked and dragged a man entangled by one arm and one leg deep under the sea. He was released by the imprisoned members giving way under the frightful strain. Rising to the surface, and floating there unconscious, he was picked up and taken on board the ship. There it was found that a portion of the hand, including four fingers, had been torn away, while a foot was twisted off at the ankle, leaving only the lacerated stump with its tangle of sinews hanging loosely. From the knee downward the muscles had been dragged away by the line, leaving the almost bare bone with just a veil of tendons and leaking blood-vessels; so that it appeared as if the poor wretch had only been saved from drowning to die more cruelly, unless some one should have the nerve to perform so radical an operation. No surgical instruments were on board. But Captain James Huntling was not the man to allow any one to perish without a great effort on his part to save them. He had a carving-knife, a hand-saw, and a fish-hook. The injury was so great, and the poor fellow's cries so heartrending, that several of the crew fainted while attempting to help the skipper, while others became sick. So, unaided, the skipper lashed his patient to the carpenter's bench, cut off what remained of the leg, and dressed the mangled hand; then, making for the Sandwich Islands, he put theman in hospital, where he recovered, and returning to America, passed the rest of his days in comfort as a small shop-keeper.
There is one more reason why it is so necessary for the master of a ship to have some medical knowledge, and this has a humorous side in many cases. It is that he may be able to detect that curse of a ship's company, the "malingerer." Often he is by no means easy to "bowl out," being, like most lazy people, of considerable inventive genius. And although a humane man would much rather be imposed upon a dozen times than send a suffering man to work while unfit once, it is intensely galling to find that a scalawag, with absolutely nothing the matter with him but a constitutional aversion to work, has been indulging himself at the expense of his already hard-pressed shipmates for a week or two. A little practical knowledge of medicine will in most cases obviate this and enable the shipmaster to give the loafer a dose that, while it will do him no harm, will make him so uncomfortable that work will be a relief. But I find that the recapitulation of the master's duties demands another chapter.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE MASTER'S DUTIES—continued.
Whilewe have thus lightly run over such duties of the master of a merchant ship as are imperatively demanded of him by his position, it must not be lost sight of that there are many things that he should be and know that, while not compulsory, are most necessary, and no master who is really attached to his profession will neglect them. For instance, the Board of Trade has a voluntary examination in "steam," which is based upon some of the most elementary facts connected with running marine engines. A master may pass in steam or he may not, as he pleases, and it is doubtful whether many owners are influenced in their choice of a master to command one of their ships by the fact that his certificate is endorsed "passed in steam." Yet it should be obvious to all that for a master of a steamship, however small, to be ignorant of at least the broad principles of marine engineering must be a terrible defect. He should certainly be able, in the event of his engineers dying or becoming incapacitated, of taking charge of the obedient monsters below, and running his ship, if not to her destination,to some port where the need could be supplied; and, in any case, he should know well under what conditions those engines do their work, that he may be the better able to appreciate his engineers' reports, and for other reasons which need not be stated. Any lack of this knowledge on the part of a steamship master is the more to be deprecated because he has such splendid opportunities and such ample time for learning.
Another subject which is not compulsory, but which it is very necessary that the shipmaster should have more than a nodding acquaintance with, is ship construction. Studied in books, it looks formidable enough to any one but a student of the subject and an excellent mathematician; but a few visits to a shipbuilding yard intelligently made, and the things seen there carefully noted, would be of inestimable service. Allied to this is the vast subject of magnetism, which so intimately concerns every shipmaster in these days of steel, when the compass, poor thing, is hard put to it to remember the location of the magnetic pole at all, so sorely is it beset by diverting influences above, below, and around. But for a fair list of the things that all shipmastersshouldknow and might, from their abundance of leisure, in sailing ships especially, so pleasantly and easily acquire, reference should be made to a book which I remember as a bantling, but which has now grown to most portly proportions, "Wrinkles," by Squire T. S. Lecky. Within the boards of this splendid book Mr. Lecky has gathered a stupendous amount of information, which he imparts in the most delightful manner. For many years he commanded one of Messrs. Holt'ssteamships running between Liverpool and South America, so that his practical knowledge is as extensive as need be, while his theoretical learning is not only great, but sound. This book has been the hobby of his life; and it may truly be said that any shipmaster who will read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest it will be perfectly equipped for one of the most onerous of all professions if he only has the power of putting his learning to practical use. I have never seen, spoken to, or had a letter from Mr. Lecky in my life, so that what I say is perfectly unbiassed by any personal consideration. Mr. Lecky is a magnificent example of what the merchant shipmaster may make of his opportunities for study, if he be so inclined.
There are also branches of study, such as the most fascinating one of marine natural history, which can be pursued nowhere else so well as at sea in a sailing ship. With a little aptitude for drawing, a camera and a microscope, the shipmaster might not only pass his plenteous spare time most pleasantly, but accumulate a store of the most valuable material, whereon the savants ashore might exercise their stock of wisdom. And the study of languages, too; how necessary for a man who, if he speak but his own tongue, must of necessity be often severely handicapped in the race with foreigners, who usually speak two or three—to say nothing of the ease with which a man may be imposed upon in a foreign port who is obliged to transact his business by the aid of an interpreter. But the time is probably fast approaching when the knowledge of one other language at least besides his own willbe made compulsory for the British shipmaster, so that I will say no more about the matter here, except that, unless greater efforts are put forward by sea-going youths in this most valuable direction, they will find it harder than ever to compete with the constantly increasing numbers of foreigners who are pressing into the afterguards of our Mercantile Marine.
And now for the least pleasant portion of this section of my subject, the question of drunkenness. For the reasons already quoted, this vice is one to which the shipmaster is continually being tempted. Being, when at sea, a law unto himself, he may, if he will, become a steady tippler, gradually sinking lower and lower into the helpless drunkard. If he have any tendency that way there is only one thing for him to do—that is, become a total abstainer from intoxicants. Sad it is to say, on the testimony of many such men, that such a virtuous resolve should be often detrimental to a man's chances of doing his business in foreign ports, where that business is only carried on over drink. I know that by some good people ashore this statement will be pooh-poohed; but it is nevertheless true, and the hindrance it puts in the way of the teetotaller doing justice to himself and his employer very real. Many a smart skipper has been thus ruined, having laid the foundation of drunken habits in ports where the first questions and the last to be put to him were—
"Well, cap'n, what are you going to have?" or, "What are you goin' to stand?"
Again we may take comfort in the thought that sobriety is the rule among shipmasters of to-day, andnot the exception, as it once was. I speak feelingly, having suffered many things at the hands of drunken skippers. Vividly do I remember, on my last voyage as mate on the first night in the Channel outward bound, my skipper saying to me confidentially, "I always live on brandy while we're in the Channel," and the sick feeling that I experienced at his remark. Let me hasten to add that he was wrongly accusing himself, being at the time half-seas-over, and exaggerating, as was his wont at such a time. He certainly did drink, and very much more than was good for him, but his tippling never gave or made any trouble. What made his remark so terrible to me was that two voyages before I had been mate of a brig with a man who, from the day that I joined her until the day, nearly four months afterwards, when I refused to stay on board any longer, never drew a sober breath. I may, perhaps, be excused for dwelling a little upon the plain facts of this short sea-experience of mine, which, in the words of Mr. Justice Day, who heard some of it recapitulated and proved in the Court of Queen's Bench, "surpassed the wildest flights of imagination." Sordid, certainly, yet not without a certain romantic outcome.
The vessel, whose name I suppress, was the property of a hard-working man in one of our northern sea-ports, who had toiled and saved until he became her owner. At the time when I joined her as mate she had been absent from her first port of departure in England for nearly two years. During that period she had visited many ports, in each of which the master had abandoned himself to drunkenness, spending recklessly every pennyupon which he could lay his hands, and ignoring all the owner's complaining letters. Five different mates had been engaged, had sickened of their position and had left. At last my turn came, and, all unknowing what awaited me, I went on board. I found the poor old vessel most shamefully neglected, the crew looking woe-begone and disheartened, and the only officer, the second mate, firmly determined to work no more. I took charge, and did what I could, going ashore persistently for such instructions as I needed, but ever finding my commander in a state of maudlin drunkenness. After a few days the vessel was loaded, and made as ready for sea as her condition rendered possible. I duly informed the master—who had never even seen the vessel since I joined—of our readiness to proceed, but he was of opinion that there was no hurry. So day after day slipped by for three weeks, until the consignee of the cargo wired from New Brunswick, protesting so vigorously, that the shipper took steps to expedite our departure. He told the fuddled skipper that unless he went to sea forthwith I should be ordered to leave without him, the shipper taking all responsibility. This ultimatum aroused him sufficiently to get him on board, and to sea we went. But he immediately sought his berth, and continued his spirituous exercises, varied by attacks ofdelirium tremens, while alone and unaided except by the weary crew, I endeavoured to navigate the clumsy vessel down the Nova Scotian coast in mid-winter. To add to my troubles, the chronometer was hopelessly out of order, having been, I believe, tampered with by the mutinous second mate.
How many hairbreadth escapes from destruction we had in that stormy passage of three weeks I have no space to tell in detail; but at last we obtained a pilot, who brought us safely into the harbour of St. John, New Brunswick, in a night of inky blackness and drenching rain, and there left us entangled amidst a motley crowd of coasters. Next day we were extricated and laid by a wharf, when, to my astonishment, my worthy commander appeared and went ashore, his first public appearance since coming on board in Cape Breton. That night, when the vessel had settled down upon the mud, by reason of the great fall of the tide, so that her tops were nearly level with the wharf-edge, the skipper returned and, avoiding the lighted gangway carefully placed for him, walked over the unprotected side of the wharf and fell fifty feet. He passed between the vessel's side and the piles of the wharf without touching, and entered the mud feet first with a force that buried him to his arm-pits. His cries aroused us, and we rescued him, actually unhurt, but nearly sober. Again he disappeared from our midst, having now a good excuse—shock to the system! Having discharged the cargo, and taken in ballast according to instructions from the consignee, I again danced attendance upon him at his hotel until he at last decided to make a move, and came on board attended by a most finished rascal of a longshoreman, who had apparently been his drinking crony all the time he had been ashore, and who was now, save the mark, coming with us to our next port to stow the cargo of lumber we were to take home.
We towed across the Bay of Fundy to Parrsboro'in charge of a pilot, the skipper and his friend both shut in the skipper's state-room below, drinking. When we arrived, I was in serious difficulty as to a berth, because the master was so drunk I could get no instructions. But after a while I succeeded in finding a berth, where we lay quietly all night. In the morning early my skipper sent for a sleigh and again departed to an hotel, where he remained until the vessel was loaded. I frequently saw him in bed, and protested with all my power against the shameful way in which the quondam stevedore was stowing the cargo; but all my remonstrances were unheeded. At last the cargo was complete, including a deck-load six feet high, and the vessel was so unstable ("crank," as we call it) that she would hardly stand up at the wharf.
Then I sought the skipper for a final interview, telling him that, having regard to the condition of the ship, his own continued drunkenness, and to the fact that I was the only officer on board (the second mate having obtained his discharge in St. John), I wanted to leave the ship. I felt that it would only be tempting fate to undertake a North Atlantic passage in mid-winter in such a vessel under such circumstances. Moreover, I warned him that in my estimation he did not intend that the vessel should reach home, hoping by shipwreck to wipe out the effects of his two years' drunkenness and dishonesty. Of course he laughed at me and bade me go to hell. I then took the only course open to me there—I left the ship, writing a letter to the owner, in which I detailed matters. Two days afterwards a tug-boat was engaged, and the brig wastowed back to St. John, where I heard that another fortnight's spree was consummated. Another mate was engaged, and she sailed for home. Four days after, in a gale, with frost, fog, and snow, she was run ashore on the coast of Maine, becoming a total wreck, and destroying four of her crew, not, of course, including the skipper.
Yet this man had the effrontery to sue the owner upon his return to England for his wages for the whole voyage. Not only so, but he would certainly have won his case but that the owner succeeded in discovering me. My evidence was final, supported as it was by the entries in the log-book, which was, unfortunately for the skipper, saved from the wreck.
Before closing my remarks upon the master, which, lengthy as they are, only skirt the subject, I would like to pay a well-deserved tribute to that splendid body of master-mariners commanding the great Mercantile Marine of our North-American colonies. Many, nay, most of them, have risen to command their ships in the teeth of great disabilities and drawbacks. They have little polish, but a great deal of capacity, for the "Blue-nose," as the British North-American seaman is called by all other English-speaking mariners, is a born seaman as well as a born shipbuilder. In only one other part of the world, viz. Scandinavia, is it possible to find men who are capable of building a ship, farming and timber-felling between whiles, then, when the hull is finished, rigging her and loading her with their own produce, and sailing her to any part of the world. These qualities seem indigenous to the soil of the coastof British North America and the north-eastern shores of the United States. But it is to be noted that the final extinction of this splendid industry is near at hand. Iron and steel and steam have compelled those sturdy seamen of the north to give up their beloved and stately wooden ships, all but a few that are holding on almost despairingly against the steadily-rising tide.
Yet, when all has been said for the "Blue-nose" master that ought to be said, it must not be forgotten that his reputation for humane dealing with his crews is far worse than that of the Yankee. He has learned the American lesson of how to enforce discipline without law—in defiance of law, in fact—and learned it so well that any old sailor will tell you that a "Blue-nose" is the hardest of all ships to sail in. Perhaps this is hardly to be wondered at when the motley character of the crews they are obliged to carry is remembered, their own spare population only sufficing to supply them with officers. That their high courage and stern resolution to be master in fact as well as name often leads them into deplorable excesses of cruelty cannot be denied truthfully. And yet it may be doubted whether a good seaman would not rather sail in a ship under stern discipline, even if it were enforced by an occasional broken head, than be one of a crew who were permitted to act and speak as their fancy listed, to the misery of all on board, as is undoubtedly the case in so many of our British ships.
CHAPTER IX.
THE MATE.
Naturally, perhaps, seeing that most of my own sea-service as an officer was spent in this capacity, I come to the consideration of the mate's position with very cordial feelings; a little shamefacedly, too, for I remember an admirable little book which used to have (and may have now, for what I know) a good sale among Mercantile Marine officers in embryo. It was called "The Mate and his Duties," and was written entirely for the use of the profession, so that it would not be appreciated by shore people at all. To us it was of great use, although few young officers reading it for the first time could help a feeling of despair stealing over them as they studied those counsels of perfection. It did not seem possible that any one man should be sufficient for all these things. So we tried to forget the whole duties of a mate, and concentrated our ideas upon the present duty to be performed, trusting that we might rise to each occasion as it presented itself.
But to begin at the beginning, let us take the title, "The Mate." It is a word of simple origin, easy of derivation, ancient enough to make it honourable, and therefore it is a matter for congratulation that theBoard of Trade has seen fit to retain its use instead of the more modern and finical "first officer." It is used almost always on board ship, without any prefix, as needing no distinctive mark like the other mates,i.e.second mate, bo'sun's mate, cook's mate, etc. The mate is the chief executive officer, the companion of the master, who should, except when all hands are on deck, issue all his orders through the mate as a matter of etiquette. Upon him devolves the working of the ship and her command upon the death or incapacity of the master, to whom he comes next in importance on board. Perhaps in this latter respect I ought to except steamers, where the chief engineer is a man of great weight, and is apparently bound to be of greater weight in the near future. Yet, although the chief engineer's pay be so much larger than that of the mate, and his importance so great, there is one aspect of their relative positions which cannot, to my mind, be ignored in considering this vexed question of precedence. It is that at all times the engineer, who is below, must obey the orders of the officer, who is above, immediately, unquestioningly, under severest penalties, as is only fitting, seeing that any slackness, not to say disobedience, might result in a terrible calamity, such as running down another ship.
Let us, however, pass this matter by for the present, since it must be dealt with when speaking of the engineer later on. Again it must be noted, as in the case of the master, that there is a vast range of difference among mates—from him who manages a monster like theOceanic, down to the mate of a footylittle brigantine going foreign. Yet in the eyes of the Board of Trade they are both equal; the same certificate is required of both. As a matter of detail, however, it will be found that not onlythemate, but the long list of junior officers in such a ship as theOceanic, will have passed the examination for master at least, most of them for "master extra," and many of them, as hinted at in a previous chapter, will have commanded magnificent sailing ships. But it is almost ludicrous to see how, in a sailor's eyes, the fact that a man is in command—of no matter what—will weigh, as far as his importance goes, against the man who is not. There cannot be much doubt as to which occupies the more important position—the mate of an ocean liner like theCampania, or the master of a sailing vessel of, say, some five hundred tons, creeping wearily about the world wherever it may be found possible to secure a bit of cargo. But—and it is a mighty big but—one is, in nautical phrase,CaptainBrown, and the other is onlyMr.Jones—and there is an end of discussion.
Apart, however, from sentimental consideration, there are many reasons why the grade of mates should be held so different. For instance, the master of one ship, however small, if only he be gentlemanly and accustomed to command, will find little or no difficulty in springing suddenly to the command of another ship, no matter how large. Because the minor details are attended to by his subordinates, who are usually competent men, and he, being at the head of the position, can calmly observe matters without letting any one see that he is strange to such a giddy height. Not so themate. If it were possible to transfer, say, a mate of a schooner into the position of mate of a three-thousand-ton sailing ship without much previous training, he would be lost. His new duties would overwhelm him. As well expect a small tradesman, who has been grubbing away in a little suburban shop on a turnover of £4 a week, to suddenly assume charge of one of the largest departments at Whiteley's, or the Army and Navy Stores. For the mate does not merely command the ship during the master's absence, or act as the master's mouthpiece: it is his to see that orders given are carried out, and to hold the proper person responsible for neglect.
But perhaps we are getting along too fast. To return, then, for a moment to a consideration of how the mate attains his position, that last rung but one on the ladder of promotion, which, alas! is separated by so wide a gulf from the next one above. It is hardly necessary to go over again the various steps which have been already mentioned in the case of the master, except in the most cursory manner: First, usually, but not compulsorily, the serving of a term of apprenticeship fixed at four years by law, the last year of which is counted as the service of able seaman. Or, as the rules merely specify that the candidate for a second mate's certificate shall have been four years at sea, one year of which he was an able seaman, he may have simply entered as boy and gone on to ordinary seaman, and then to A.B. This course is the one adopted in American and Canadian ships, where apprenticeships are unknown; but there the candidateis usually in far better case than any apprentice in a British ship, because he is sure to be put on board by some one whom the master is anxious to please, or, more probably, he is a friend or relative of one of the officers themselves; in which case, although his designation may be humble enough, he will live in the cabin, and have his profession thoroughly burnt into him—a process which he will in nowise be able to escape.
Our mate, however, having served his allotted time, and received the essential recommendation from his last commander, makes his way to a navigation school, not that he, unless he be a hopeless idiot, has waited until now to be taught navigation, but in order that his knowledge may be suitably arranged for production at the right time and in the accepted fashion. Some young would-be officers are foolish enough to imagine that the master of a navigation school can also help them in their seamanship, but with lamentable results. For the navigation is in cut-and-dried exercises which any ordinarily capable scholar may learn with little difficulty, since all of them may be satisfactorily done without the slightest knowledge of the higher mathematics. There are thousands of Mercantile Marine officers holding certificates, good men too, who could not work a problem in trigonometry without the tables to save their lives, and to whom Euclid is a sealed book; for clever men have long been at work simplifying navigation problems, until their execution is just a matter of simple arithmetic and acquaintance with a set of nautical tables. This state of things gives riseto much controversy among those who are interested in Mercantile Marine officers. Some say that every officer should make a point of knowing not merely how to work his problems, but why certain tables are used; in other words, that he should not merely work by rule of thumb, but be a competent mathematician. Then, these gentlemen add, he would be able to command not only higher wages, but more consideration from his employers, besides being better able to compete with the carefully-educated foreigner. Others contend that the business already laid upon Merchant officers is fully as great as they ought to bear, and that, supposing they had learned the mathematical theory of navigation, they would still in practice use the rule of thumb method. Not feeling at all capable of deciding between these two contestants, I merely present their views, contenting myself with the passing remark that, supposing a man to be a good seaman, it cannot be to his detriment to make himself as proficient in the mathematical theory of navigation as his capacity will enable him. But with regard to seamanship, matters are totally different. Here there can be no difference of opinion. Seamanship, that is the handling of a ship under all circumstances of weather, the fitting and keeping in repair of her masts, rigging, sails, etc., and the stowage of her cargo, cannot be learned from books. The unhappy neophyte who has scrambled through his apprenticeship without attempting to learn the business, and comes at the last moment to his crammer for assistance, is in evil case when standing before the keen-eyed old shipmaster who is to examine him. Hetries to recall book answers to questions that are not in the books.