As far as the A.B.'s workaday duties are concerned, the same rules that apply to other workmen ashore do not apply, for obvious reasons. If a carpenter, forinstance, were employed in the building of a house, and it were found that he could only boil glue, sweep up the shop, or turn a grindstone, he would be discharged on the instant. But you cannot discharge a sailor until his return home, unless he is willing to go, and, in a foreign country, unless the consul is also willing to allow him to be discharged. He may be absolutely worthless from the seaman's point of view, which, as I have shown, must be considered in relation to the ship, whether she is a steamer or a sailing ship, but unless he is unable to steer, it is almost impossible to reduce his wages. I well remember a case, years ago, tried before the late Mr. Raffles, where the master of a ship had reduced one of his A.B.'s wages for the voyage by £1 a month, that is to the level of an O.S. (ordinary seaman). There was no doubt whatever as to the kind of man the quondam A.B. was. He had never been to sea before that voyage, but some enterprising boarding-master had supplied him with another man's discharge, rigged him up like a seafarer, and got him shipped in a big southern-going sailing ship as an A.B., at £3 a month. But he had the wit to put his case into the hands of a smart lawyer, who bullied the master to the verge of desperation. Among other things, he said, "Did you have your ship's decks washed, Mr. Brown?" "Of course I did," replied the sorely-tried skipper. "Oh, you did. Was this man able to assist in washing decks?" "Oh, well, I suppose he could dothat." "I don't require any of your supposing, sir; could he do his duty in this respect, or could he not?" thundered the counsel. "Yes, he could." "Thank you"(ironically). "Now, did you carry any pigs?" "Yes," answered the bewildered commander; "there was——" "That is sufficient. Kindly answer my questions without comment. I suggest to you that those pigs required their sty to be cleaned occasionally." "Yes; and it——" said the skipper, getting redder in the face as the lawyer stopped him again. "Could this man clean out the pig-sty? Yes or no?" "Yes, he could; but——" "Answermy questions in a proper manner," roared the lawyer.
And so on, until, in triumphant tones, the legal gentleman exclaimed, "Then I submit that you have no right at all to deduct one penny from my client's miserable earnings. By your own admission he could perform all those duties, very necessary duties, about which I have questioned you. They had to be performed by some one, and surely you do not expect to get the work of your ship done for nothing," etc. In the result the man got his wages in full, and the skipper went away in the belief that the law was a dangerous thing to meddle with, even if you knew you were right. But every sailor worth his salt knows what it means to get a few of these yokels foisted upon a ship. They can be, and they are, put upon the dirty work, the unskilled labour, of which there is so much to be done; but, in addition to the fact that they cannot do even that work in sailor fashion, all the work which they cannot do at all falls upon their shipmates who can. This often means terrible overwork and suffering for everybody on first leaving home, before "useless articles" have been taught their work aloft. I know of no more difficultposition to be in than aloft on a top-gallant yard, for instance, in a snowstorm in the Channel, with three other men, for the purpose of furling the sail, and finding that two of them are not only useless, but helplessly in the way. Poor wretches, they are suffering, too, no doubt, clinging to the yard in an agony lest they shall fall, sick with fright; but the men whomustdo their work are the ones deserving of pity. They get neither pity nor pence for the extra work they do.
Of all the injustice from which the sailor suffers, I know of none that he feels more keenly than this. To be shipmates with half a dozen wasters who are getting the same pay and treatment as himself, to be overworked because they cannot do the first thing at sailorizing, and as likely as not obliged to keep very quiet in the fo'c'sle, because of them being in the majority, is a bitter pill to swallow. One very unpleasant recollection of my own is of a ship where I was an A.B. In my watch, besides myself, there was a Swede, a very good man; a little Frenchman from St. Nazaire, who was also a smart sailor-man; a Finn, who knew how to do his work, but was so slow and stupid that he was very little good; another Frenchman from the vicinity of Nice, who, strange to say, was useless, and, in addition, knew only about half a dozen words of English; a big, brutal bully of a fellow, who was a Briton, I grieve to confess, and one of the basest sort; also a negro ordinary seaman. With such a watch, those of us who could do what we were asked had a very hard time of it; and, to make matters worse, thebig Briton was, although as worthless an animal as ever stepped on a ship's deck, the "boss" of the forecastle. I was working hard for my certificate, and did not care to complain; until at last, in Hong Kong, while that great loafer was quietly sitting in the shade, toying with the task of chipping the iron rust off the cable, I was sent over with the negro to scrape the ship's side in the blazing sun. I went, feeling very hard done by; but presently the fine dry dust of coal tar which I scraped off the planks stuck to my sweating face and began to blister it, just as a mustard-plaster would have done.
Then I felt that, under these conditions, life was not worth living, so I left my job and sought the mate. I appealed to his sense of justice. "Here is a man," I said, "who has not been able to do a single job of sailor-work, except take his trick at the wheel (and he's a gorgeous helmsman), since we left Cardiff. I, on the other hand, have been continuously at work, splicing, serving, sailorizing in all its details, with never a complaint of my work. Yet because this man is a truculent beast, who growls blasphemously whenever he is put on a job, he is allowed to carry things so pleasantly that he might as well be on a perpetual picnic. Is it fair or just?" To the mate's credit I record it that the champion loafer was immediately sent overside to scrape, and I went below to poultice my blistered visage. But even there he scored, for he quietly shifted his stage under the counter, where he could not be seen, and there sat in the shade and smoked his pipe. Still, the business did not suit him,and two days after, to the delight of every one on board, he deserted. He had the assurance to come back for his kit; but he was not allowed to come on board, so I lowered it over the bows to him. He knew that the skipper was too glad to be rid of him to prosecute.
CHAPTER XXX.
THE A.B. (HIS POSITION).
Fromall of the foregoing it will doubtless be rightly assumed that the A.B. is in a most anomalous position at the present time. He may be a skilled mechanic, a man of energy, resource, and great abilities, or he may be just an unskilled labourer, with precisely the same pay and treatment as the best seaman afloat of the same grade. This is a bad state of things, but it is to be hoped that the system of continuous discharges now being introduced will make some alteration for the better. The maritime nations of Europe have long ago recognized the importance of having some definite record of a seaman's service, some means whereby it could be told at a glance whether he was a sailor or not. So that each French, or German, or Italian sailor has a little book wherein is entered what manner of man he is in appearance, and the date of every shipping and discharge he has experienced during his seafaring career. His behaviour also is there set down, andvisédby consul or shipping-officer, as the case may be. Without this book he can in nowise get a ship of his own country's flag, but he can, and does, ship in British vessels where the rules are lax; where adischarge may be bought from a brother seaman outward bound, and used with impunity; where a man may be a worthless loafer, and yet suffer no penalties for taking a job for which he has no qualifications whatever. Let us hope that the system of continuous discharges will be all to the good.
But the prime cause of the lowering of the A.B. and of the anomalies in his position is undoubtedly the advent of the steamship. Blink the fact how we may, it remains true that what is wanted in a steamer is only a burly labourer who is able to steer—that is, as long as all goes well; and the percentages of disaster year by year are so small that no steamship owners need fear to take the risk of sending their ships to sea without a sailor, properly so called, except the officers on board. As I have said, matters are very different in the sailing ship. There thesailormust be had, but the supply of British seamen dwindles so fast, that the foreigner from Scandinavia, from Germany, from Italy, comes in ever-increasing numbers for the sake of the higher pay and the easier life. And if the influx of foreign seamen was only confined to the sailing fleet the situation would not be so perilous. In one sense, of course, it will always be a danger, as long as sailing ships are considered, and rightly so, the only real training places for seamen. Because it means that we are not raising any more seamen to fill the places left vacant by death, and by men leaving the sea for shore-life. But, unfortunately, foreign seamen flow into the steamships as well, also in ever-increasing numbers. This is not at all easy to understand in the face of thefacts that so little technical ability is required of the A.B. in steamers, and the number of unemployed men there are about our streets.
It may be that what is frequently said by our critics at home and abroad is true: that Britons are getting more and more loth to work at all; that when they get a job their first care is not to see how they can best satisfy their employer, but how little they can do for their money. If this be so, it is a fatal mistake on their part. It would be bad enough for themselves personally, if they had the monopoly of the world's labour markets; but, confronted with the down-trodden millions of Europe, who will work till they sink from exhaustion, without a complaint, who learn our language easily, and swarm into every opening that presents itself, such behaviour on the part of our workers is surely suicidal. This is especially true of seamen, where no restrictions are placed upon the number of foreigners employed, and when they can always be obtained. If a shipmaster happens to have had much trouble with a crew of his own countrymen on a voyage, he is almost sure to look out that he has foreigners next time. They are fully qualified—it is the rarest possible thing to find a foreign sailor who cannot do his work—and they will obey orders without grumbling.
Personally, I feel absolutely sure that the British seaman, properly so called—I do not mean a ship-navvy, who couldn't make a short splice, or seize a ratline on properly to save his life—is the finest in the world. For endurance, for skill, for reliability in time of danger, for resource in time of difficulty, he hasno better. But, alas for the truth, he is departing; and I fear it will be no long time before his place in the Merchant Service will know him no more. What British seamen are capable of may be seen in the Navy, whose splendid handy-men are the envy of the world. Is it too much to hope that by some better method of training and treatment we might get just as fine a body of men in the Merchant Service? Perhaps it is, and yet—and yet there are those among us who do dream such a dream as this. We think that by means of a properly fostered and trained Naval Reserve we might build up a magnificent body of Merchant seamen with characters to lose; men who would take a pride in their position, and be a real bulwark to the country.
But such a Reserve would require the whole-hearted support of the Admiralty, not hardly-veiled enmity. Every seafaring man, with the best interest of his country at heart, knows full well how pitifully the grand opportunity afforded by the institution of the Royal Naval Reserve has been allowed to go to waste. Perhaps some day, before it is too late, the history of the Royal Naval Reserve will be written with inside knowledge of all the facts, and an amazing document it would make, though not more amazing than many similar documents dealing with the non-understandable ways of the great departments who spend the country's money.
Theoretically the Royal Naval Reserve should be a success. As far as the obtaining of officers is considered there is little doubt that itisa success, even though Merchant officers who seek to pass into the Navyviâthe Royal Naval Reserve are known by the invidious sobriquet of "the hungry half-hundred." Great shipping companies make it known that they wish their officers to belong to the Reserve, and straightway the thing is done. There is no compulsion, the suggestion is sufficient, and the retaining fee, being quite a nice little sum per annum, is also an inducement. But the numbers of the seamen in the Royal Naval Reserve do not increase. Why? There is a retaining fee of £6 per annum; there is also a guinea a week pay during drill, of which every member is supposed to put in six weeks a year. Seeing what sailors are, one would have thought that such a bait would have allured them in large numbers. And yet there is only about one-quarter of the number there should be. It is to be hoped most devoutly that, in the present agitation about the Navy and its various shortcomings, this will not be forgotten, and that it will be fully recognized that the only possible source of supply for the Navy in case of war is the Mercantile Marine.
To secure such a supply, it is imperative that the A.B. shall be looked after, made to feel that he is a man of some importance to the state, and that the good men shall not be handicapped by the wastrel; that a man shall earn the title of A.B. before he is permitted to take it, and that every man shipping as an A.B. who has no qualifications for that honourable post shall suffer for his misdeeds, his fraudulent burdening of his shipmates with work that he is unable to perform. Then I believe that we should get in the Merchant Service a good class of seamen, men who would notsay that the sea was a life fit only for dogs. Under proper conditions, such as may even now be found, that statement is a libel. Speaking for myself, I can say with perfect candour that I have been as happy in ships before the mast as any workman could hope to be ashore. Where there is a good crew of men who know their work and will do it, decent food of good quality, and experienced officers, a sailor before the mast may, and does, have a very good time—infinitely better than any journeyman ashore, with all the worries attendant upon loss of employment, rent, strikes, etc. Only get the sailor to see that his business is a business that requires a trained man to make any hand at it, that the door into it is closed against the dock-walloper and the loafer, and that the same consideration that is meted out to mechanics ashore is accorded to him, and I am sure there would be a steady increase in the number of British seamen in British Merchant ships: aided, of course, by the institution of such a feeder as the non-premium apprenticeship I have already spoken about would be.
I am quite sure that British seamen are to be got and kept, if the powers that be will only go the right way to work, remembering that what is wanted is not so much fresh legislation as a little more use of the legislation already existing. Ship-owners are not anxious to carry foreign seamen, except, perhaps, in eastern trades, where lascars and Chinese come in handy. And even in those ships there will usually be found a stiffening of most excellent white seamen, who are usually British. No; the only question for the averageship-owner is, "How, in the face of the fierce and unscrupulous competition against which I have to fight, can I get my ships efficiently manned?" He wants men to earn their pay, pay which is higher than that of any other country, except America and Australia, and he does not at all concern himself about the nationality of those men. He leaves them, very properly, to those who will have to command them; but if masters of ships are made to believe that, no matter how good the pay and provisions given, they can never rely upon getting, in the first place, sailor-men of their own race at all, and, in the second, men of their own nationality who will work cheerfully for their pay without a constant succession of worrying rows, it must not be wondered at if they prefer the foreigner, who comes already broken in, trained in seamanship, polite, and hard-working, no matter where he hails from.
In bidding farewell to the A.B., I again earnestly express my full sympathy for and with him, and trust that ere long I shall have the joy of seeing A.B.'s of my own race again increasing in the British Merchant Service.
CHAPTER XXXI.
THE O.S. (ORDINARY SEAMAN).
Inthe days when the A.B. was properly considered to be a man who had learned his trade, and would have been ashamed to ship as an A.B. unless he were fully capable of doing any job of sailorizing that was given him, the O.S. was quite an institution. He was a young seaman who had been through a time of considerable tribulation as a ship-boy; but, having grown bigger and stronger, able to take his trick at the wheel, and make himself felt in furling sails, he ventured to take a step up the ladder. There was no specified manner in which this was to be done. With that haphazard disregard of the seamen's best interests which has characterized our Mercantile Marine for many generations, it was left to chance. One would have thought that a recognized method would have been for a boy to present himself before certain properly constituted authorities for an examination into his qualifications, and that, having satisfied them that he was able to do all that an ordinary seaman should be capable of, they would grant him a certificate to that effect.
Nothing of the sort. Sometimes a boy would makefriends with an officer, who would report favourably upon him to the master at the end of a voyage, and then that master might, if he remembered it or felt so disposed, give to the boy an ordinary seaman's "discharge." Or if he were a big fellow, the boy might get a master to ship him as an O.S., even though he had nothing but a boy's discharge to show. The whole business was as slipshod as it could well be, for it depended entirely upon the caprice or kindliness of the master granting it. There was just this in its favour, that it recognized an A.B. as a seaman who had been through the regular routine of boy and O.S. before he became an A.B., so that the presumption was entirely in favour of his having learned his business. But, as I have shown, perhaps with what might be brutal clearness, in the preceding pages, that has all been changed. Under present conditions youmayoccasionally find an ordinary seaman on board of a ship, but be very sure that if you do he is having it drummed into him every watch that he is a fool. "Why," he will be asked, "should you ship as O.S. when there's plenty of A.B.'s going that don't know the knight heads from the main-brace, bumpkin? Don't be a fool. You might just as well have the other pound or thirty shillings a month as them fellows that ain't half as good as you are!" And presently he thinks so too, so that he makes up his mind that he'll never be an O.S. any more.
That determination is mightily strengthened if he happen to be on board of a ship where there are two or three modern A.B.'s, wastrels who would be dear if they came for nothing a month and found themselves;as, for instance, when I was an O.S. in a big ship going out to New Zealand. There was never a job of work came my way that I didn't do as if it was going before a Bench of Examiners. I was as nervous of blame and delighted at commendation as if I had been striving for a valuable prize. But we had among our A.B.'s four men (if I can call them so) who were not worth a penny a day, and one black night it was my hap to be on the main royal yard with one of them for the purpose of furling the sail. Had the weather been what it should at the furling of this, the loftiest sail in the ship, I should not have so much minded; but our redoubtable skipper was always loth to waste one breath of a fair wind, and so he had "hung on" until it looked as if the three huge masts would have been blown clean out of her. Then all hands were called in hot haste, royals, top-gallant-sails, and other top-sails were lowered all at once, and a pretty fine job it was with our crowd. However, as I have said, I found myself up there on that giddy height, with all those vast sails battering far below me, a gale of wind roaring against me, a sail before me that was straining madly to tear itself away from its confining gear, and a helpmate who was absolutely paralyzed with fear, an A.B. an't please you.
I did not know what was the matter with him. Being on the weather-side of the yard, I was doing my best to get the sail quiet; and although I wondered greatly what had become of Johnnie, I could not go round and see. At last, after a hard struggle, I succeeded in getting the sail snug, only to find that there were no "gaskets" on the yard (gaskets are small ropesused to wind round the sails and the yards to keep the sails fast when they are furled). All there was available for the securing of what I had gained was the "bunt-gasket," a little criss-crossed piece of plaited spun yarn, which is fitted to hold fast the centre or bunt of the sail when it is furled—a feeble thing at the best, but, such as it was, I made use of it to the best of my ability. Then, twisting my legs round the royal back stay, I slid down to the deck, rushed below into the bo'sun's locker, and cut off several fathoms of ratline stuff (small rope). I must here admit that she was a very slackly ruled ship. Such a piece of impudence by any seaman would never be allowed, because it would not be necessary, on board of a properly managed vessel.
Having secured my gaskets, I hurried aloft and made the sail fast. When the work was done, I discovered Johnnie, clinging like a bat to the extreme lee-end of the yard. I shouted to him till I was hoarse, but he made no sign, so I left him, for I did not care to run the risk of putting two men's weight upon the lift; and, moreover, I was something scornful at that A.B.'s behaviour. I went below and helped in the work that was being done until the time came for us to go below, and there was Johnnie, the A.B., talking as boldly as the rest, and ordering me to do this, that, and the other. Then a little explanation ensued, and from that night forward I took orders from him no more. But I had learned something, and when the time came I met the bo'sun, and put the question to him whether he did not think I was as well worthy ofan A.B.'s discharge as some of the fellows who had been unable to do the work that I had undertaken. In the result I got my coveted piece of paper, and never sailed as O.S. afterwards.
The precise definition of an ordinary seaman's duties has never been laid before me. But I fancy that those three qualifications which are often spoken of as the desiderata for an A.B. should more properly be applied to the O.S., viz. that he should be able to hand, reef, and steer. Once, and once only, was any question raised with me when I was an O.S. about my qualification, and that was by a man who was very sore indeed at having to pay £3 per month for my services. I joined the vessel in Sydney, where A.B.'s wages were, at the time, £5 a month for deep water, resisting all the skipper's efforts to get me for £2 10s.a month. This so annoyed him, that he tried in various ways to pick holes in my work, and at last declared that I could not steer (although I never missed a trick during the whole voyage), and also that I was not competent to "cross a royal yard," which was fantastically untrue. I should very much like to explain how this piece of work is done, but am almost afraid, because of the inevitable use of technical terms. Still, I feel that I have not worried my readers much, so far, with sea language, and that perhaps some would like to hear just a little bit of sailor-talk.
It must be understood that this piece of work is one of the smallest of rigging manœuvres that is performed on board ship. By "rigging manœuvres" I mean work aloft which is not always being done or undone, such asfurling or setting sails. In fact, the work aloft of a ship may be divided into three categories—the temporary, the sub-permanent, and the permanent. Under the heading of temporary work comes the setting and furling of sails. Sub-permanent work is the shifting of sails—heavy-weather canvas for that carried in the doldrums and trades, and the manipulation of studding-sail gear—although this latter, except in old ships, rarely troubles sailors much to-day.
But permanent work, by far the most important, and demanding the greatest amount of seamanship, includes all the care of the standing rigging, the sending up or down of masts and yards, and the thousand and one repairs that are necessary in order that the mazy fabric of a sailing ship's top-hamper may do its work of propulsion in association with the wind. Of all the heavier work of this kind,i.e.shifting the yards and masts, that of handling the royal and sky-sail yards is the most frequently indulged in; for many skippers commanding old ships dare not put too much strain upon the lighter masts in heavy weather, and they therefore make a rule of sending down the loftiest yards when they bend their heavy-weather sails. Now, a royal yardin situis a spar of, say, thirty-five feet in length (varying, of course, with the size of the ship), seven or eight inches in diameter in the slings (the centre), and tapering at both ends, or yard-arms, to four inches, or even less. By means of three (sometimes only one) encircling iron sling-bands in its centre, it is attached to an iron, leather-lined collar, which goes round the royal mast, and is called the "parral." Itis also suspended by a chain "tye," which leads through a sheave-hole at the masthead, and is connected on the after-side to a purchase for hoisting the yard, the whole tackle constituting the royal "haulyards," "halliards," or "halyards," the latter for choice.
From each yard-arm to the masthead run pieces of rope, which are tight when the yard is lowered. They are called "lifts," and are for the purpose of keeping the yard horizontal, and of sustaining the extra weight put upon it by men who go upon it for any purpose. Looped abaft the yard are the "foot-ropes," upon which the men stand when furling or bending the sail, and attached to each yard-arm are the "braces" for the purpose of slinging the yard from one side to the other. All this gear is for the yard alone. Then there is the sail, with a rope running through a block under both quarters of the yard, and down to the corners of the sail abaft all, the "clew-lines," while from a block at the masthead another rope runs down through a block or bull's-eye seized on to the tye close down to the yard, and so, being forked before-all to the foot of the sail, where it is seized, one leg on either side to the foot. This is the "bunt-line." The clew-lines, bunt-lines, halyards, and braces are worked from the deck, and constitute the "running-gear" of the sail.
From the foregoing perfunctory description of the gear attached tooneof the lightest yards in the ship, some slight idea may be gathered of the immense combination of cordage required to work about thirty sails, some with much more gear than a royal, of course. But my principal object in attempting to describe thegear of the royal yard was to show what used to be considered fair work for an ordinary seaman in "crossing" it. The running gear was, of course, already aloft; the standing gear and the sail were sent up with the yard, which was swayed aloft by a long rope running through the sheave-hole in the masthead, from which the halyards were temporarily unrove. The youngster charged with the duty of crossing the yard goes aloft as it is swayed up, guiding it clear of the rigging as it jerkily ascends. Of course it is so secured that it rises vertically, and the work of keeping it clear of the rigging when the ship tumbles about is by no means easy; and, of course, the higher it ascends the greater is the motion, until, when it is high enough, it often taxes the utmost strength and skill of the smartest youngster to deal with it. As the upper yard-arm reaches the top-gallant masthead he must put on the brace and lift for that side and cast off the "yard-arm stop," then, as speedily afterwards as possible, get the lower brace on, and the lift for that side also secure. As soon as that is done, he can, by casting loose the quarter stop, allow the yard to be lowered in its proper horizontal position. It will now be supported by the lifts, so that he can fix the parral to the mast, and those on deck having steadied the braces tight, the worst of his troubles are over.
He can now "come up" the yard rope by which the yard has been hoisted, and, letting it run down on deck, reeve the tye of the halyards in its place. Then he must secure all the gear to the sail properly, sheets, clew-lines, and bunt-lines, loose the sail, sing out "Sheet home the royal," "light up" the gear, and, when thesail is set, "stop" it loosely with one turn of roping-twine, so that it will not chafe the sail by being stretched tightly over it, and come down. If he can do all that smartly and well, in spite of the ship's uneasy motion, he is superior to two-thirds of the so-called able seamen of to-day.
In the absence of a boy, the ordinary seaman is also the lackey of the watch in an English ship. The law in this respect is unwritten, and I have seen a sturdy youngster successfully appeal against it. There is really no reason why an O.S. should be compelled to sweep up the fo'c'sle after every meal, keep the men's plates, knives, and forks clean, trim the lamp, make the cracker-hash, etc. But few indeed are the fo'c'sles where an O.S. would be able to claim exemption from such servitude. And if he did get off from dancing attendance upon the men in his watch below, he would almost certainly be made to do much of their legitimate work during the watch on deck. For that is one of the worst features of British ships—that, owing to the peculiar want of discipline which obtains, so much work that should be fairly distributed falls upon those who are either indisposed to grumble or are in a junior position.
For instance, in a sailing ship, let us say, which carries no boys or apprentices, but an O.S. in each watch, that young man during his watch on deck will certainly be expected to keep on thequi vive. If he have the good fortune to be commanded by a thoughtful officer, he will probably be allowed to take a regular trick at the wheel, in spite of the grumbling of the men, many of whom will be no better than he is, if as good. Butin the great majority of cases he must mount guard near the break of the poop during his watch on deck at night, solely in order that he may pass the word along to the sleeping men, or do himself any job that he can manage without disturbing them. When any work has been done that requires them all, he will do the lion's share of it—I have often seen the whole watch standing waiting for an O.S. to do something, because every one of them was too lazy to make a start, and the young officer did not care to risk a row by sending any particular man; and when the pulling and hauling is done, the last "belay" or "well" has been cried, the men all slouch off to their corners and pipes, or sleep again, leaving the O.S. to go the round of the ship and coil up all the ropes.
Of course I am not quoting this as a great hardship. I only mention it to show how peculiar are the notions held by foremast hands of the duties of boys and ordinary seamen. It was doubtless a very good training for the latter, this being made to do everything possible while the men looked on criticizingly, but it was often carried to cruel lengths. I have myself seen as well as experienced such treatment of an O.S. in a ship's fo'c'sle at the hands of men, who certainly did not deserve to wield any authority, as was sufficient to make a lad wish himself dead. Worse, remember, for the O.S. than the boy. What do you think of a fine young man being compelled to wait for his food till every one else in the fo'c'sle is served, to find then that of his poor allowance he had been robbed nearly half; made to feel at all times that the only object of his existenceduring his watch below was to be the body-servant of eight or ten men, to preserve before them a silent, respectful demeanour, and to consider himself honoured if any of them addressed him in any other than terms of opprobrium? Yet all this might be changed, has often been changed, in a moment. If one of the little kings in a burst of magnificent rage at some dereliction of duty on the part of his slave—fo'c'sle not swept clean, or plate not washed quickly—struck the O.S. a shameful blow, and the latter had the grit to return it with interest, following it up with a victory over his aggressor, thenceforward that fo'c'sle would not be a bad place for the hitherto-put-upon junior. But under the altered conditions of modern sea-service this fo'c'sle etiquette is being swept away, and soon will have as completely disappeared as the reluctance to sail on Friday has before the necessities of steam.
CHAPTER XXXII.
THE BOY.
Atlast we have arrived at the very bottom of the social scale of board-ship life. The "boy," as distinguished from the "cabin" boy, has long posed as a hero of romance in sea fiction. We all know that boy. His marvellous deeds have inspired generations of home-bred youths with an unquenchable thirst for the sailor's life, where, to quote one of the most charming of song-writers,
"We watch the waves that glide by our vessel's stately side,Or the wild sea-birds that follow through the air;Or we gather in a ring, and with cheerful voices sing;Oh, gaily goes the ship when the wind blows fair."
How many youngsters, lured by the mysterious air of adventure pervading all things connected with the sea, have run from comfortable homes, and, after hardships innumerable, have compassed the goal of their desire—have found a shipmaster willing to take them to sea with him as boy! And then—well, happily, the young seafarer soon develops a wonderful capacity for patient endurance of evils not to be avoided, and, if of the true grit, in time looks back upon his probationary period of suffering as a training which he was glad tohave endured. And the older he grows the more complacently does he recall the days when he learned to expect the blow first and the explanation afterwards, learned to eat what he could get with an appetite like an ostrich, could sleep in drenched clothing with a bare plank beneath him, and find all his consolation in the fact that soon he would be able to look down upon a newcomer with the lofty superiority of the full-blown mariner.
At the risk of being thought tedious, I must repeat that for the ship boy, as for boys everywhere else in our favoured land, a brighter day has dawned. Within the memory of middle-aged men a boy on board a ship was the butt, the vicarious sacrifice to all the accumulated ill-temper of the ship. To-day tales are told of the treatment of boys in "Geordie" colliers that are enough to make the flesh creep to hear. In those days it was the privilege of every man on board to ill-treat the boy; and if, as very often happened, the poor little wretch died under it—well, what of it?—it was only a boy. And the peculiar part of it all was that the brutes who did these evil deeds prided themselves that their actions were right and proper. There was only one way of training a boy—with a rope's-end if it were handy; if not, a fist or a boot would do, but he must be beaten. One man, whom I shall always remember, as smart a seaman as ever trod a ship's deck, beat me until there was not a square inch of my small body unbruised. Scarcely a watch passed that I did not receive some token of his interest in my welfare, and on two occasions he kicked me with such violence that,with all the will in the world to obey his orders, I was perfectly helpless. My only wonder is that he did not kill me.
Yet when I left the ship he bade me quite an affectionate farewell, bidding me remember how hard he had laboured for my benefit, that every blow he had given me was solely aimed at making me more useful, and fitting me for my duties. At the time I felt that he was lying, and that his treatment of me was dictated by that savage lust of cruelty to an unresisting victim that grows alarmingly with the yielding thereto, and that had I only possessed the strength and courage to retaliate, he would speedily have altered his mind. But now I do not know. I feel that perhaps hemayhave been sincere. Men were self-deceivers ever; and there are few self-deceptions more common among mankind than this—that cruelty is a splendid aid to education. But here let me say that cruelty to boys was far more common among the officers than the men. If a boy was willing and respectful and clean, it was very seldom that he got beaten in the fo'c'sle. There was almost always a certain amount of public spirit which made for justice where half a dozen of even the roughest men were gathered together. I have known one exception to this good rule—have experienced it in my own person—where out of a whole crew of eight there was not one man enough to protest against the daily practice of cruelty to me. More than that, they encouraged a big boy, who was getting the same pay as myself, but whose qualifications, except strength, were far inferior to mine, to pummel me too.Such a gang I have never met with before or since, and I am sure that the combination is uncommon.
The majority of the boys going to sea to-day unapprenticed are drawn from the training ships, those good schools for the boy who is said to be unmanageable ashore. Coming from the wild and precarious life of the streets into such a ship as theWarspite,Arethusa, orCornwall, is such a revelation to a boy, that for a little while he feels as if the bottom had fallen out of his world. For the anarchical condition, tempered by a salutary dread of the policeman, under which he has been living, there are substituted law and order, cleanliness and discipline; for regular short commons and dog-like snatching of sleep come good food regularly eaten, regular sleep at set times, regular play, and a sound prospect of benefits, very real indeed, for the patient worker in well-doing. Here the boy is taught all the essentials of seafaring except the actual going to sea, and in at least one instance that practical want is supplied, in that a small square-rigged vessel is kept, which, with selected boys for a crew, under the charge of experienced seamen, plies up and down the river under sail. And it may truly be said that a boy who has passed a couple of years under such treatment as this is as well prepared for becoming a good seaman as it is possible for a boy to be.
But, strangely enough, the training is of very little real service to the lads when they go to sea to earn their living. For at once they find themselves under such conditions as they never before dreamed of. In place of the perfect discipline and stringent rules towhich they have been accustomed, they find the greatest laxity prevailing. Rules are almost non-existent. In the training ship each of them had his work allotted to him. When the signal was given he knew just what to do, and how to do it; and when it was done, he was done too. In the merchant ship the rigging is different, the method is different, and instead of his having any set duties, he is at everybody's beck and call, given tasks to accomplish single-handed that he has been taught to do man-of-war fashion—that is, with so many hands that the work was done like magic, and in a few seconds a sail was furled or set, or a mast was sent up or down.
They cannot now keep themselves clean and smart-looking. For, in the first place, they have little time allowed, and, in the next, there is not much water (in sailing ships). No longer is it necessary that they should present themselves at stated hours for inspection; no longer is every movement of theirs regulated as if by clock-work. They may be as slovenly, as dirty as they list, there is no one to enforce upon them the keeping of the good rules they have so long been under; and that principally because those who bear rule over them know that such enforcement is impossible. So that the carefully instilled habits of order, regularity, and cleanliness are broken down at once, and in place of the smartly-clad, well-set-up youth who joined the ship, there is presently seen a slouchy, shifty-eyed gamin, who is a profound student of the art of "dodging Pompey," who gets the well-deserved character from his shipmates of being "a young sailor,but a d—— old soldier." There is a greater evil, if possible, than this impending. It is that all the careful training of the lad shall presently be of no avail whatever; because, mixing freely with the crew, he is sedulously taught that the sea as a profession or calling is played out. "Why, just look at it a minnit," says his mentor. "You've never got no time to call yer own" (which is a lie, in an English ship, at any rate), "yer everybody's dorg, yer fed wuss'n a pig, and what y' got t' look forrward ter? T' die in the wukkus. 'Sides, 'n Englishman don't like ter be mucked up all the time with a lot er foreigners in one of his country ships. Why, they looks down on us now 'sif we wus a—— lot of interlopers wot got no right to sail under owr own flag. 'N, after all, wot are yer? Never nothin' but a dirty sailor all yer days. Nobody 'shore knows nothin' about yer; 'n don' care neither. Y' ain't got no vote, y' ain't got no home, y'r jest a bit of wreckage. Quit it, me son, 'n git a job ashore, where, if you're a bloomin' scavenger, you've got yer pull on the vestrymin, because you've got a vote, an' if they don't look after your interests, w'y, out they goes; see!"
This is the kind of pernicious stuff (all the more dangerous because of its half-truth) that the boy is regaled with, along with a great deal more that cannot be reproduced, for reasons that need not be given; and again I say, without fear of being hauled over the coals for repetition, it is quite sufficient to account for the falling off in the numbers of young British seamen. But I feel certain that some such scheme as I havesketched out in the Apprentice chapters would be efficacious in preventing this wholesale waste of good material. From the lowest class of seamen up to the second mate (except in the first-class liners) the evil to be battled with is the lack of continuous employment. It does not admit of the sailor acquiring any interest in his ship. Moreover, there is ever dangling before his eyes the terror of being "outward bound"—those two fateful words that convey such a mountain of meaning to every seafaring man. To be outward bound means that he is ashore penniless, dependent upon the kindness of a boarding-master for a little food; to prowl about the docks, boarding ship after ship, in the remote chance of securing a berth, and to meet with black looks everywhere; to be told continually that he is a cumberer of the ground, a loafer, a fellow that might, if he would, get a ship, but prefers instead to hang around maritime liquor shops, keeping a keen look-out for homeward bounders who will treat him, instead of being, as he really is in nearly every case, feverishly anxious to get back to sea again: these are some of the greatest drawbacks to a deep-water sailor's career.
And they tell with tremendous force against the boy. Friendless and homeless in many cases, or with parents so poor that they can do nothing to help him, earning such small wages that he can hardly purchase necessary clothing, much less pay for board and lodging, and with all a boy's natural carelessness, he is sorely tempted to take the first job that comes in his way, and quit the sea altogether as a means of livelihood. If he does so, even though the new employment mayonly last for a few months, he will hardly go to sea again. And no one knowing the peculiar difficulties of his lot will be able to blame him.
I have often wished that it were possible to make lads who at school chatter so glibly about "running away to sea," understand how impossible it is to do any such thing nowadays, except, indeed, in such vessels as are the last resort of the unfortunate. Even after I had been at sea for a couple of years I found it difficult to get a ship, on account of the competition of the training-ship lads, who, with their well-replenished outfits and sturdy appearance—to say nothing of the persistence of the agent charged with the duty of getting them shipped—were readily accepted by skippers, to the exclusion of outsiders. The "unfortunate" vessels of which I speak are those small sailing craft which still drag out a precarious existence in competition with steam. They may be seen in all our smaller ports, often lying disconsolately upon mud-banks at ebb-tide, or, looking woefully out of place, at some wharf belonging to a seaside place like Margate or Ramsgate. Oh, so dirty, so miserable they look! They only carry such rough cargoes as it does not pay to put in steam, and, in consequence, their freight-earning capacity is very low. That, again, reacts upon the equipment. Worn-out gear, wretched food, and not enough men or boys to do the heavy work, they provide a hard school for the young seaman. In them may still be found lingering some of the bad traditions of half a century ago.
Yet among even these poor relations of the sea may be found varieties of grade. The great majority ofthem are coasters—that is to say, they do not leave the vicinity of our shores except for ports just across the Channel. In these, though the conditions of life are hard for a boy, who usually does the cooking (?) at an open stove on deck, the food, if coarse, is much better than it is on vessels of the same kind going "deep water." There no relief can be found for months, while in the home trade it is but a few days from port to port, so that the ill-used or aggrieved youngster has but to step ashore and be off. And under the peculiar slipshod method of engagement and discharge in these vessels there is little danger to the deserter.
In my day there used to be regular houses of call for men and boys shipping in such vessels in London. One public-house of the kind I knew well, having, when very young, spent many a weary hour in its dingy tap-room waiting for a chance of shipment. To it used to come burly skippers clad in pilot-cloth, with blue jerseys in lieu of vests, and fur caps. They sought first a stout, well-spoken man, who was always hanging about there from ten till six, and told him their requirements. He knew what men and boys were available, and where to find them—in the tap-room or just at the door. He introduced master to man, and the first preliminary was always to feel the applicants' hands. If they were horny enough to satisfy the skipper that their possessor had not been too long out of work, a few questions ensued relative to wages, destination, etc. There was seldom any difficulty raised by the sailors. Poor fellows, by the time they had got to waiting at the King's Head or Arms, they were inno mood for haggling, and in this way wages were often cut down very low for men, while I have seen boys going for five shillings a month. When the bargain was made, a handsel of a shilling was given to the sailor. Whether he gave the agent anything I never knew, for although I waited there a long time—some three months off and on—I never got a ship or a barge there. Of course the skipper paid something to the agent, who looked fat and prosperous; but beyond the shillings I never saw any money change hands. And that money was always spent forthwith in the same manner—it was like performing a mystic rite. Two pots of four ale and two half-ounces of shag were purchased at the bar, and all the waiting hands, without being invited, stepped up and partook. It looked so strange to me, I remember, for many of the poor fellows looked as if a meal would have done them so much more good.
There were never lacking participants, either. No matter if the tap-room was quite deserted by candidates when the bargain was concluded, the appearance of the beer and tobacco always found them present—drawn thither, I suppose, by some mysterious influence. Another peculiar thing about that place was that men with money did not frequent it—sailor men, that is to say. It had its own customers among the workers of Thames Street, but they never intruded upon the apartment sacred to the shipping interest.
It was all very sordid and pitiful, a side path of seafaring that must have lent itself to many abuses, through which many a poor misguided lad got away to sea, and found no place for repentance until toolate. I have only mentioned it here, because in speaking of the boy I am painfully reminded of the great number of miserable little sea-drudges who are still to be found in these vessels, leading the hardest of lives, and uncared for by any one. They are worthy of all sympathy, being so helpless, so unable to raise themselves. Their environment is as bad as it can well be, for, whether ashore or afloat, the company they are in is usually of a very bad kind. Now and then, of course, such a vessel will have a good, steady seaman, who has an interest in her, for a skipper. A man like that will often carry his wife, and will endeavour to keep a respectable crew with him voyage after voyage. And as likely as not he will take an interest in the boy, and try to make something of him.
Here, as far as the sailorpersonnelof merchant ships is concerned, my task ends. Several times during its performance I have felt that perhaps I should have done better to begin with the boy and end with the skipper, as being the more natural way. But I hope that what I have done, as well as the way in which it has been done, will be acceptable to shore-folks, for whom it is written. Sailors do not require any information of the kind.
And now for a few words on behalf of the men of iron who toil below.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
THE ENGINEER.
Theseconcluding chapters should be written by an engineer; for no sailor, whatever his position may have been, is fully competent to judge of the work performed by the handlers of marine engines. Much less is he able to appreciate the position of those toiling helots of civilization, the firemen and trimmers. The benefits of steam are vast and undeniable; but it is not good to forget that the service of steam to-day means a truly awful burden of labour and risk laid upon a large army of civilized men. I believe I shall carry with me the assent of every one who knows anything about the facts when I say that of all modern occupations there is not one so terribly exhausting, so full of peril, as that of the servants of the marine engine at work. The marvel of marvels to me is that men can be found to undertake the task so readily. And if this be true of the Merchant Service, as I hold it is, plain unvarnished truth, it is doubly true of the same work, or what answers to the same description of work, in the Royal Navy. For there the manifold complications of ship-propelling machinery are immensely more intricate, the conditions under which the men labour are far morearduous, and, in addition, there is always the fighting risk superadded.
But I must not stray into the fighting line of engineering—I have said, perhaps, more than enough on that subject recently. Nevertheless, I honestly believe that I have only been able to put in the tamest and most colourless way what I feel about these men. When I say that such a chapter as this should be written by an engineer, I mean that only an expert in the wonderful profession can fully appreciate the difficulties and dangers thereof. Outsiders may, as I do, admire and wonder, but we cannot fully enter into these things as an engineer can. The country badly needs a writer on engineering matters who knows his business thoroughly, and at the same time is able to tell the people who don't know, what marine engineering means. No amount of sympathy and admiration can make up for lack of expert knowledge, yet, as far as it is possible, I feel constrained to draw the attention of my countrymen to the work of the men who, far below the water-line, amid the clanging chorus of their gigantic slaves, bend watchful brows to their mighty task; who for the four hours of their watch on deck (see how the sailor crops up), no, their watch below at work, know not one moment's respite. Vigilance unremitting is theirs; the price of effective manipulation must be paid, for no eastern Afrit was ever more jealous of the power over him held by the enunciator of the master-word than is the high-pressure marine engine of the governance of the engineer.
The casual observer, glancing down into the engine-room of a sea-going steamer, is apt to imagine that the men who wait upon the engines have an easy time of it. He is inclined to think that once the engines are started—"full speed ahead" sounded—watch after watch need only sit and look at them doing their work. Nothing could well be more false, while nothing is more natural. For engineers, like the best workmen everywhere and of every sort, make no fuss about their work. Quietly, without ostentation, they tend their engines, their trained ears noting the faintest change of tone in the uproar which sounds so chaotic to the ear of the outsider. Every single part of those engines, the amount of strain that it is bearing, the need for nursing, lubricating, watching that it has, is in the mind of that quiet, nonchalant man who steps cat-like into the thick of the flying steel cranks, and accommodating his movements to the swing of the thrusting shafts, feels their temperature, the amount of lubricant they are carrying, and regains his perforated platform with an air of indifference as if he had merely looked over the side on deck, instead of having been on the most intimate terms with an unspeakable form of death.
Perhaps the most noticeable feature about the marine engineer in the Merchant Service is the high respect in which he is held by every one. The merchant seaman instinctively recognizes in him a man whose attainments are not merely theoretical, but eminently practical. Every merchant seaman realizes that with the engineer has arrived a new stamp of seafarer, whose stern stress of duty cuts him off fromthose enjoyments common to all seamen. For him there is no meditative contemplation of the glories of the tropical night, when in the midst of the mighty solitudes of the untainted ocean man draws near to the great heart of Nature, feels himself akin to the stars and the wind and the waves; no heart-uplifting view of the apocalyptic splendours of the dawn, when the grey shadow of night melts away before the palpitating glow of the approaching sun; no speechless delight in the indescribable panorama sweeping past when the swift ship skirts closely the wonders of many shores.
At such times the engineer and his crew, deep in the bowels of the ship, are shut in from all sights and sounds and perfumes save those of the engine-room and stokehold, which are akin to those of Tartarus. And when through the swart night the vessel plunges madly athwart the raging seas, remorselessly driven against the combined forces of wind and wave and current, the engineer works on, all depending upon him. Then do his anxieties enormously increase, as at one moment the whirling blades of the propeller are buried deep beneath the surface and their thrust vibrates through every fibre and rivet of the ship, and the next by a downward plunge of the vessel's head they are lifted into the air, spinning madly with a frightful acceleration of speed on their release from the element in which they have been toiling. Then, see the engineer erect upon his iron platform, facing his Titanic charges, throttle-valve in hand, and steady eye fixed upon index glasses; every sense on the alert, muscles tense to shut off the supply of force sooner than the"governor" can act, so that the engines shall not be torn from their foundations by the fearful strain imposed upon them by the sudden taking away of their work while the driving steam is still bursting in through the main feed and slide-valves.
No other engineering in the world can for one moment compare in vital importance with this. The conditions are so onerous, the complications are so many, the need for watchfulness is so great, that a new race of men has been bred to compete with them. The engineer ashore may, and does, have all his repairs done by other people; the engineer at sea must, in the very nature of things, be not only the prince of engine-drivers, whose care of his charge, under the most severe tests, not applied occasionally but continuously, is beyond all praise, but he must be ready at any moment by day or night to undertake the most radical repairs. With improvised adjuncts he must undertake on the instant to do such things with masses of steel that if they were described would sound impossible except to the large room and full equipment of a first-class factory ashore. Not only so, but the work must be done under conditions of heat, imperfect lighting, and cramped space that render the duty enormously more difficult.
Yes, itmustbe done, because if not——? Well, they have taken away the steamship's masts, so that the sailor, even with the best ability and good-will in the world, can hardly get steerage way on the vessel by means of sails, and then there is a great ship, perhaps with an immense perishable cargo and a large number of passengers, lying like a log uponthe ocean, at the mercy of currents that are most likely to be drifting her away out of the track of ships, away into the ocean solitudes that are to-day, owing to the method of following beaten tracks which is so universally pursued, more solitary than they have been for centuries.
The performance of duties like these calls for the highest qualities of mind and muscle ever possessed by men. The forces dealt with are so terrific, the dangers so great, that a weak man could not so much as face them, much less perform the wonderful pieces of work that are necessary in opposition to them. Occasionally a curt paragraph appears in the shipping papers, conveying to underwriters and owners the information that the steamshipSo-and-so, long overdue, has arrived, her broken-down machinery having been repaired by the engineer. Beneath that brief intimation lies a volume of tragic story—the dauntless conflict of man with fire, steam, and steel, and his final triumph over them. But these stories are never told as they ought to be. Some day, perhaps, an engineer-writer will step forth and unfold to an admiring world the Iliad of the engine-room. May I live to read it.
For the evolution of a marine engineer, it is first of all necessary that he serve his apprenticeship in a "shop" where marine engines are made. This is essential, and a moment's consideration will convince any one that it must be so. Then, having mastered all the details of engine construction, if the aspirant has a desire for the sea, he will, in some way, of which I do not pretend to understand the details, obtain asubordinate position in an engine-room of some sea-going steamship. Here will he become conversant with the duties expected of him as an engineer-in-charge, and will, moreover, devote all his spare time to scientific study, in order that he may be fit to pass his examination in theoretical engineering. And if he shows himself worthy of the position, there will be little doubt that, having passed the required examination before the Board of Trade officials appointed for that purpose, and received his second engineer's certificate, he will find little difficulty in getting a berth as junior engineer. His foot once upon the ladder, the ascent is easy. There is only one more examination to pass compulsorily, that of chief engineer, although there is, as in the seafaring branch, a voluntary examination which all self-respecting engineers will take, "Chief Engineer Extra." Now he may rise to be chief engineer of theOceanicor theLucania, with twenty or thirty engineers under him, and a whole host of firemen and trimmers.
It would ill become a mere sailor like myself to say anything about the polity of the engine-room, even if I had ever been in a position to study it. No doubt there are occasional hitches, instances of petty tyranny, of jealousies, of hindrances to getting on, since, with all their virtues, engineers are but human. But I do not know. I know that, except in the way of official routine, such as the control of the engines from the bridge, the officer of the watch has nothing to do with the engineer at all. The chief engineer is responsible to the master, and to him alone. Only the master can punish, and all cases of insubordination, etc., amongthe "black gang" must be reported to him. The master is in supreme command, and knows quite well what is due to the engineer. More, he seldom fails to grant him his full due. But I should be sorry to sail in any steamships where the officers took upon themselves to meddle with engineering matters. There would be much unpleasantness, from which the officers would suffer most. In brief, the engineer's importance is recognized.
They live, too, in a little world of their own. They have their mess-room, with a steward to wait upon them, and the best food the ship can supply. Their accommodation, too, is good, and their pay—well, it varies much with the class of ship, but, taken all round, it is much better than the officers'.And they are British to a man.I would not give much for the peace of a foreign engineer who by any chance found himself in a British ship's engine-room. The engineers in this respect enjoy peculiar advantages. Some people begrudge them their unique position in the seafaring world, and profess to see danger ahead because of it. I do not. I confess that my feeling with regard to the engineer is that, remembering the awful stress of his duties, the way in which he is not only cut off from home delights, like the sailor, but is also debarred from participation in the real joys of the sea, he deserves every advantage in pay, position, and prospects that he can obtain.
The unique position he holds among seafarers of which I speak is, that he is in close touch with powerful Trade Unions ashore. Since every engineer must learnhis business ashore before going to sea, he becomes a member of the hierarchy of mechanical workers. Let him go to sea for never so many years, he must remember the workshop where he received his training; he has numbers of associates and relatives who are still working ashore, and who, in safeguarding their own interests in parliamentary ways, are all unlikely to forget him. They are his proxies, can speak for him, can use their votes on his behalf. Presently we shall find this great organization having something to say about the prototype of the Mercantile Marine engineer in the Navy, the engine-room artificer. The Admiralty, in their wisdom, have chosen to train up the naval engineer officer themselves, so that he shall be free from the influence of the workshop, shall become a class apart from and above the mechanical engineer. But in the doing of this they have been compelled to build up another corps to do the work. They are known in the Navy as E.R.A.'s (Engine Room Artificers), and it may be said, without any fear of contradiction, that they are, as far as ability and experience go, always the equals, and often the superiors, of the merchant engineer. Indeed, their period of service and the knowledge required of them before they can become Chief E.R.A.'s in the Navy is much greater than the Board of Trade require for the granting of engineers' certificates for the Mercantile Marine.
Then comes the great anomaly—the immense gulf that divides the two classes of men. As I have said, the merchant-ship engineer knows no superior on board the ship except the master. He deserves thebest treatment, the best pay, and the greatest respect; and he gets them. His work cannot be made lighter, it must always be full of danger and toil, but all that can be done by way of mitigation of these onerous conditions is done. On the other hand, the E.R.A. in the Navy is a nobody. His pay is trivial compared with his congener in a merchant ship, he gets no respect from anybody, the youngest officer in the ship is his despot, whom to answer back means degradation and loss of pension, and he is berthed and fed much as a fireman is on board a merchant steamer; so that he continually smarts under a sense of injustice, and looks with longing and envious eyes upon his chums who, wiser than he, have gone into the Merchant Service. More than that, he knows full well that there are no reserves of E.R.A.'s, there are not nearly enough of them to man properly the ships that are now afloat; in case of an outbreak of war with a European Power, huge bribes would be offered to merchant-ship engineers to come and help in the Navy; knows, too, that not one of them would come without being rated as an officer, and receiving all the deference due to an officer in her Majesty's service. And so he may find himself, after years of the most arduous experience, ruled by a nephew who was a babe in arms when he served his time, who has all his life been engaged in one steady occupation on the same kind of engines, never hurried, never bullied, and probably with a sea experience of one-third of his uncle's, the E.R.A.
Therefore, because of these reflections and this knowledge, the E.R.A. is continually warning youngstersfrom the home shops not to enter the Navy by any means. The Merchant Service is the place for them if they want to be treated properly; the Navy is a place where they will never be anything else but a "dirty Tiffy," looked down upon by the youngest blue-jacket, and liable to be docked of many years' hard-earned pension for pointing out a mistake to an officer who, instead of accepting expert information gratefully, reports them for insolence.
I trust that these remarks about the E.R.A.'s may not be considered malapropos, remembering the great importance of the subject; remembering, too, that in the engineer of to-day we have not a mere mechanic, a man with no thought beyond his day's work and the receipt of his wages. I am afraid that the importance of the engineer, especially at sea, is insufficiently recognized by non-engineers. Every class of the community is benefited by the work of the engineer, and in modern sea-traffic he is, as Kipling has finely said, the kingpin of the ship. He cheerfully takes upon himself a burden of toil and danger such as the ancient world never knew—takes it, too, with the full consciousness of what he is doing; holds himself ready at any time to sacrifice his body for the safety of those whom he is serving,—and the least we who are thus served can do, is to recognize his value to the full.
For my part, I look upon the modern marine engineer as the true nineteenth-century hero. Some day I hope that a roll of honour will be drawn up, giving a list of heroic deeds performed by engineers out of sight, unostentatiously, just as a part of their duty. It wouldbe an inspiring record; and from no source would more details be drawn than from the engine-rooms in the Navy, where, as has been abundantly proved, the engineer is thought but little of; so little, indeed, that all his efforts to obtain some meed of official recognition are at present in vain. Good for us that this does not obtain in the Merchant Service. There the engineer is estimated by his shipmates at his proper worth.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
THE FIREMAN AND TRIMMER.
Itis a standing mystery to me however men can be found who are willing to become the firemen of marine boilers. Use dulls the edge of apprehension, of course, and in time the mind refuses to be impressed by the sense of imminent danger. Whether on the battle-field or in the stokehold this is so; but apart altogether from that, the nature of the work is such that I always wonder what the state of a man's mind can be who is willing to undertake it, or who, having undertaken it, remains in such a business. The engine-room of a large steamship is a terrible place, with its infinite suggestions of incalculable forces exerting themselves in orderly ways under the steady control and guidance of man; but there is a sense of exultation, of high satisfaction, in the realization of their own powers that goes a long way towards compensating the engineers for the dangers they confront, the discomforts they undergo; and where, as in the Mercantile Marine, their high abilities and undaunted courage are fully recognized, their treatment in pay and provisioning and accommodation as good as can be got, they have also something which atones for a great deal of physicalsuffering. Yes; I can understand a man choosing to become a marine engineer. But a fireman! The very thought of such a life is terrifying. The sailor in his watch on deck at night is seldom called upon to do anything but stand quietly at the helm or on the look-out. If he be a man of any observation, he may hold sweet communion with Nature, may meditate in the sweetest solitude in the world, gazing out upon the ever-beautiful face of the deep. In any case he may smoke, or doze undisturbed by any call to duty, except some shift of wind calling for trimming or setting sail. It is a pleasant mellow time for the sailor, the night watch at sea.
The fireman is called with the sailor at eight bells. Hastily putting on his shirt, trousers, and boots, he descends by many iron ladders past grim walls of iron that glow with fervent heat, and give out a vibrant hum, telling of the pent-up power within. Down, down he goes, until at last he stands upon an iron floor slightly raised above the very bottom of the vessel. Over his head there is a circular opening, down which comes a steady draught of cool air—that is, if the ship be in regions where the temperature will allow of the air being cool. At any rate, this air is fresh. It is conducted below by the intervention of those huge bell-mouthed ventilators, which are so prominent a feature of every steamship's deck equipment. In front of him towers the face of the boiler, that now claims him as its slave for four hours. It is ornamented by divers strange-looking taps and gauges and tubes, with the use of which he must be familiar. And it has a voice,an utterance that, while not loud, is so penetrating that soon it seems to a novice as if it were reverberating within his skull. It is the speech of imprisoned steam that finds no outlet by any channel except the one provided for it, the complaint of the awful giant who is rending at every square inch of his prison walls in the one supreme, never-ceasing effort to escape. It is utterly disregarded by the fireman: doubtful, indeed, whether he even hears it, or is in any way conscious of it, for it is more to be felt by the whole of the nerve centres than merely through the ears. His concern is with the three vast throats that occupy the lower third of the boiler. And there is no time to be lost. Seizing a shovel, he lifts with it the latch of one of the doors, and flings it wide open with a clang. The ship may be rolling furiously, tumbling to and fro with that peculiarly disconcerting motion that seems to a landsman the subversion of all principles of uprightness, but he must balance himself somehow. With legs spread wide apart, he stands upon that slippery iron floor, stoops, and peers within at the roaring cavern of almost white-hot coals. His trained eye can see just how they are burning; where clinkers are forming, whether perfect combustion is going on, or certain expert manipulation is necessary in order to make it do so. If all is satisfactory he shifts his position slightly sideways, so that he can swing his shovel on one side to the bunker door, at the sill of which a heap of coal is lying, fill it, and then, with a peculiar stroke, send its contents broadcast over the lambent surface of the furnace bed. The mere shovelling of coals into a firehas no relation to the careful, intelligent stoking of a steamship's furnaces, as engineers are never weary of saying. There is as much difference between a good fireman and an incompetent one—although the latter may work far harder than the former—as there is between a good and bad carpenter, or any other skilled worker.