The Ship’s Company. By Lieutenant J. D. Jerrold Kelley, U. S. Navy
Has Steam Ruined the Genuine Sailors of Story and Song?—Hauling a Liner out of the Liverpool Docks—The Traits of Master-mariners—Education of Junior Officers—A Fire Drill—Stowing the Cargo—Down the Channel in a Fog—The Routine Life at Sea—The Trials of Keeping Watch—A Bo’s’n’s Right to Bluster—Steering by Steam—Scrubbing the Decks in the Middle Watches—Formalities of Inspection—The Magic Domain of the Engine-room—Picturesqueness of the Stoke-hole—Messes of the Crew—The Noon Observation—Life among the Cabin Passengers—Boat Drill—Pleasures toward the End of the Voyage—The Concert—Scenes in the Smoking-room—Wagers on the Pilot-boat Number—Fire Island Light, and the End of the Voyage.
When the breeze is piping free and the tide is running strong none but a master-seaman may be trusted to haul out of the Liverpool docks a great Atlantic liner. Should it be a leeward ebb, with the Mersey spinning under a flurry of squalls and snarling in angry eddies, a quick eye must mate a clear wit to make the trick a deft one. The manœuvre is always a delight to the mariner, let bo’s’ns, hopelessly spliced to such traditions as topsails reefed in stays bawl what they may about the dead days of seamanship. For here are unfolded the mysteries of the art, and here are exercised all the higher qualities of the sailor, and just as much, believe me, as in the old times when the gray piers and oozy quays were crowded to cheer our famous clippers warping in and out to the music of barbaric “chanties.”
Beach-combers, shore-huggers—mere Abraham’s men—will tell you the poetry is gone out of it all, and will, with much damning of their eyes, and shifting of their quids, and hitching of their tarry trousers, try to persuade you that steam has ruined the genuine sailors of story and of song. But this is mere transpontine nonsense, for above and beyond everything he who commands a ship, smoker or sailer, as it may chance, must first of all be a seaman. The demands of modern sea life have increased the responsibilities of the mariner, and in like measure the professional attainments required are deeper, broader, and higher than ever before.
What the task of hauling out is, you may best judge by noting the bulk to be moved, for you can never measure properly the enormous dimensions of these great steamers until you see them looming in their true proportions above the walls, and undwarfed, as they are in the open, by the frame of sea and sky. The bulwarks tower like the walls of a fortress; the enormous decks sweep with a sheer knowing no broken curve; the wheel-house lifts its windows above the life-boats, swarming sternward like a school of pilot-fish; still higher the bridges, often double-tiered, span and grip the sturdy stanchions; and dominating all, the elliptical funnels rake jauntily, and the yardless spars taper till they fine away at their shining trucks into graceful coach-whips.
Shipshape and Bristol fashion, point-device in paint and polish, the massive hull glides over the quiet waters of the basin; you catch the sheen of gleaming brasses, of glistening air-ports, of glazed white, and lacquered black. Obedient as a broken colt to the touch of the helm, quick in response as a high-bred dog in a leash to the guiding hawsers, she moves calmly—fit exemplar of strength rightly tempered by even will—toward the sharp turn where the gateway opens to the river. Winches chatter noisily; windlasses clink, clink musically; capstans rattle with slacking cables; jets of steam dart viciously; ripples stream sternward to the bubbles of the foamless wake; the tremulous minor, more a wail than a song, of the docking gangs working the warps, answer the cheery “Yo heave-ohs” of the people on shipboard; and the quick, sharp orders from the bridge are echoed by high-pitched answers from the mates, watching with wary eyes everywhere. One screw turns clumsily ahead, the other circles astern, and then the ship swings easily, rounding the jagged corner in the hedge of stone with a gentleness leaving feet to spare. The bow and stern enter fairly, straight as a mason’s level, the open gateway; a strain is taken on the line leading from the quarter to the pier end; a moment of rest, of expectation, succeeded by one of doubt, follows, and then the hail rings out blithely from the after-whaleback, “All clear, sir.”
The handle of the annunciator connected with the engine-room is jammed to “hard astern;” “ding! ding!” rings the signal from below; the water gushes in a turbulent torrent from the outboard deliveries, the engines throb fiercely, backing with all their strength, and as the lines are rendered, slacked, eased, let go, the steamer clears the pier-end with a rush, shoots far into midstream, and thus begins, wrong end foremost, her voyage westward. In the optimism of the moment the chief officer and the bo’s’n grow garrulous upon the recondite subject of anchor gear; the junior officers feel they quite deserve the good luck which makes them the hustling, bustling mates of a crack racer; and maritime Jack, still a little groggy and very much unwashed, blesses the stars that have let begin another “v’yage with an ’arf crown left of his hadvance,” and the prospects of “some bloomin’ American tobaccy” as soon as he’s clear of the tideway.
“Not a bad job, sir,” said the pilot, as the anchor takes the bottom and the ship straightens astern from her cable; “seemed ticklish a bit for a minute when they ’eld onto the spring so long, sir; but ’ere we are, bung up and bilge free, and with the looks of a good run, barrin’ the fog per’aps, for the morrer.”
The captain answers smilingly, for these two are old friends, and, what is more, the hauling out has been a joint enterprise, though the senior gets the credit, as he should. After a careful survey of the anchorage and a word with the chief officer, the captain enters his cabin and buckles down to the routine work, and there is always plenty of that awaiting him. He glows pleasurably over the handy, seamanlike way they have left the dock, for nautical critics are plenty and keen, and if he had not taken up his berth in the river so cleverly, the ill news would have grown apace, till, with unfair variations, it reached the ears of their high nobilities—the directors.
Clear-headed, brainy, driving men, are these master-mariners, and bearing patiently a responsibility that needs an iron will and a courage faltering at nothing. There is no royal road to their station, nor can willing hands make them what they must be. They cannot crawl through cabin windows, nor, for that matter, come flying in a pier-head jump through the gangway with one leg forward and the other aft. They have to fight their way over the bows, and struggle out of the ruck and smother in the fo’ks’le, by sturdy buffeting and hard knocks, by the persistent edging of stout shoulders backed by strong hearts and steady brains. If it is in them they will make their way in the end surely, and may set the course and stump to windward as they please, while others haul the weather-ear-rings, and drink their grog protestingly. No; master-mariners are made, not born, and, unlike many of their brothers in the government service, have to rise by energy, pluck, merit—why enumerate them?—by a hundred qualities the world is better for owning.
Old Pepys knew how this sea-kissing goes, and tells us of his favors in this wise: “That,” he writes, “which puts me in a good humor both at noon and night, is the fancy that I am this day (March 13, 1669) made a captain of one of the King’s ships, Mr. Wren having sent me the Duke of York’s commission to be captain of the Jerzy, … which doth give me the occasion of much mirth and may be of some use to me.” Think of that, you venturesome die-hards, who linger all your lives at the lower sheerpole, a post-captain by the scratch of a pen, and above all men given to a lubberly scrivener and an Admiralty clerk at that.
All these elder merchant-masters are sailor-men, some so deep and dyed in it that if you scratch them they ooze tar, and this briny saturation has been invariably acquired under sail. After they have had their ships and made many a voyage, deep water and home, round both Capes, east and west, wherever winds may blow and freight, the mother of wages, may linger, they shift into steam, but always in a subordinate place. Should they stick by one employ they are sent from ship to ship, working their way upward until they become chief officers of the choicest vessels in the line. Here they must wait for dead men’s shoes, or resignation, or forced retirement; but when the chance comes they are given the command of the smaller and less important steamers upon some subsidiary route. Then they enter a new line of promotion, and weary are the years of waiting, and bitter sometimes the disappointment, before they reach the high-water mark of their service. And, with this hardly earned promotion, do not come, as in other professions, ease, comfort, and proper recompense for duty well done, but heavier responsibilities, harder work, and greater self-sacrifice; what is worse, and this to the shame of the great steamship corporations, these gallant men, even at their prime, receive the most inadequate pecuniary recognition for the burden imposed, for the mental and physical qualities exercised, for the experience brought to bear; indeed, in no other trade or profession is equal ability so badly paid.
The junior officers belong to all sorts and conditions of men. Most of them have had to fight their way, though some have parents who could well afford to pay a handsome premium for their sea education in the training-ships stationed off the principal ports. Here they are given a strict man-of-war tuition, though the routine of studies and drills is, of course, modified to suit the results expected. After their apprenticeship is served they go to sea, usually in sailing ships; and when later they choose steam, they join as fourth or fifth officers, and enter upon a career where their future is a hard but an assured one. In the large employs they are encouraged to enter the Naval Reserve, and are given time for their drills and opportunities to qualify for the higher certificates of the merchant service; and so much are these privileges esteemed that you often find on the best steamers of the transatlantic liners one-half of the officers holding masters’ certificates and junior commissions in the auxiliary government service. Under the new regulations some of these officers have, besides the guard-ship drill, taken a regular tour of duty as lieutenants and sub-lieutenants on board sea-going men-of-war, and so far this has proved a capital plan for both services. The nationality of the officers is British, naturally, though English and Irish predominate, the Scotch, somehow, taking more kindly to the engineering part of the business, and the Welshmen staying at home.
There is a well-founded belief that the deck people are not sailor-men; nor, indeed, are they in the majority of ships, that is, not sailors in the true meaning of the word; but, on the other hand, neither are they the mere swabbers of decks, scrubbers of paint-work, handlers of the forward and after ends of trunks, or reefers of hat-boxes and travelling-rugs their critics would have us believe. They belong to a special class, not a very high one from the maritime point of view, and are reasonably well fitted for the work expected. This you may see at fire quarters, for example, a drill which, in these times, is always held before the passengers come on board. As the alarm is sounded by the rapid ringing of the ship’s bell, and the commands are hoarsely shouted along the decks, you may notice, as the men rush to their stations, the absence of the alertness, neatness, forehandedness which characterize the man-of-war’s men; but they are sturdy and strong and willing, and the echoes of the orders, “Fire forward! Main deck. Quick’s your play,” have scarcely ceased, before a dozen hose are coupled and run out, bucket and fire-extinguisher lines are formed, axemen and smotherers are gathered, and hand and steam pumps started with an energy promising a world of water. Grimy greasers and stokers rush from below; stewards hop about as none but a steward can; and butchers, bakers, and electric-light-makers rally in their appointed places, eager for work, but in the motley of Falstaff’s draft. The captain, watch in hand, receives the reports that all the departments have assembled and that abundant streams have been in operation (overboard, of course, but in the neighborhood of the fire) in blank minutes—let us say three, as a fair average—from the time the alarm was first given. Do you wonder if he smiles and says to his chief officer, “Very creditable, sir; very well done. You may secure, sir?” Very well done it is, and when you remember this is the first drill and many of the hands are new, you may feel reasonably assured, should any ordinary fire break out, that it is all Lombard Street to a Tahiti orange it will be subdued most promptly.
The pumps stop, the hose are uncoupled, under-run, and reeled, and, everything being secured, the ship returns to its normal condition. But not to rest, for there is no rest fore and aft when a voyage is begun. Cargo and stores have to be hoisted out of the lighters, holds have to be stowed, gear secured. All day long the cargo winches rattle, and the tackles rise and fall complainingly. Alongside a double bank of lighters cling, and through cargo-ports and over the rails the freight pours ceaselessly. The twilight deepens with stars; ashore the roar and traffic of the busy town are hushed; the river banks are deserted. But under the dazzling arc-lights on shipboard, and far into the night, toiling men and swaying bales and boxes cast fantastic shadows on the breezy water, and about the decks, and in the cavernous holds gaping unsatisfied for the fruits of trade and barter.
The next day the passengers come on board, and the company’s servants in the tenders and lighters gleefully escape, after banging about and muddling the baggage so mercilessly that state-room trunks yawn bruisedly in the holds, and huge chests, bursting with useless trophies of travel, lumber up your narrow quarters below—this, to the despair and tears of forlorn women who pursue the hapless purser with unrelenting fury when they learn that nothing can be unearthed until after the ship has left Queenstown, and that until then they must hopelessly shift for themselves. Steam is spluttering and flickering in little curls at the escape-pipes, the officers—every button of their best coats on duty—are at their stations, the pilot is looking wiser than ever pilot could be, and on the bridge with the impatient captain lingers a representative of the company. By and by, after the final instructions are given, this person departs, and as he goes over the side the captain waves his hand in salute and then gives a quiet order to the chief officer.
The wheel is shifted, the capstan reels noisily, and link by link the chain comes home. At last, after a vicious tug or two on the cable, the ground is broken, and, smothered and sputtering with cleansing water from the hose, the anchor, ring and stock, appears above the foam-streams rippling at the bow. When the cat-fall is hooked the ship’s head swings around with graceful sheer, the engines slightly increase their speed, the wake straightens its curves, the ensign dips in answer to salutes, and a long blast from the whistle sonorously claims the right of channel. Slowly, carefully, the gallant ship threads her way among the fleet of inward and outward bound shipping; the shores darken with moist shadows and gleam in broad bands of fading sundrift; the lights of Birkenhead and Liverpool glisten, blaze, twinkle, fade; the breeze blows with spice of salt and briny coolness; the stars blink from silvery steel into points of golden fire; and in the west, where the splendor and warmth deepen seaward, the rolling mists, as yet resplendent in borrowed radiance, close, broodingly, as a pall. Sails burn in the heart of the sunset, and long trails of smoke show where other ships have sunk below the verge. Finally the bar is crossed, the lanterns on board the Northwest Light-ship flame in the star-gemmed dusk, and with a swinging grip of the wheel the ship is headed, at half speed, just as night is falling, to clear the lights of Holyhead.
Upon the bridge the pilot and the officer of the watch peer “ahead and astern, look to windward and to lee;” the ship slips and slides, now to port and now to starboard, dodging the fleet inter-shooting this marvellous waterway with a wealth of craft no other waters know; and the lookouts glue their eyes to their quadrants of observation, reporting lights and sails till the confusion would be inextricable, save to these steady nerves finding the pathway safely. Down the coast the vessel runs in the darkness, fearing naught while the stars shine and the horizon circles clean cut above the foam-capped waters. But as the night grows the air loses its briskness, a light haze shrouds the sea, and the Channel fog rolls, ghostlike, landward. Soon only the upper stars glimmer, the moisture drips from the rigging, the iron rails and deck-houses are damp and clammy, and the lights are aureoled with a dull cloud of gray and yellowish mist.
The captain takes his place upon the bridge, the engines are eased until, to the worried landsman’s ears, their labored throbbing seems a devil’s tattoo answering the grumbling and rumbling of the fog-whistle. Below, brawny, silent men stand at the levers, ready at an instant to stop and back, or go ahead, just as the emergency may direct. Outside the pilot-house the quarter-master strains his ears and peers nervously into the gloom, yet alert to pass any command given to the junior officer and to his messmate at the wheel. Signals from fog-whistles drift into them from other groping ships, and, at times, spectral hulls and ghostly sails loom close aboard, creeping out of the curtained night or slipping landward or seaward in search of hidden port or roadway. At regular intervals the lead is cast and the depth of water read from the scale by the unhooded glare of a lantern, and on the chart the positions given by the soundings are pricked, to guard against the tricks of treacherous currents.
And so the cheerless night drifts sadly into a wan morning, and the ship creeps warily down Channel, the weary vigil taxing the brains and bodies of those who must seek no rest because of the lives entrusted to their care.
After the pilot has been discharged and the mails received at Queenstown, and the ship has taken her departure from the Roche Point Light-ship everybody settles into the routine of life at sea. From the beginning watches have been kept rigorously, and the interior discipline and rules are so well-jointed that the ship seems to run herself. You hear no jarring of the cogs, feel on rough edges in the mosaic, though the government is, as it must always be, the hand of steel in the glove of velvet. The care of the ship is unremitting, even in details which if set down here would seem trivial and finicky, and every hour of the day has duties which are performed heartily and thoroughly to the foot of the letter by the officers. The number of these may vary on each line, even in different ships of the same employ, but in the largest steamers there are, besides the captain, three seniors and two juniors. The three seniors keep the watches, and each during his tour of duty has, as the captain’s representative, the direct charge of the ship. The two juniors stand watch and watch, that is, four hours on duty and four hours off, with a swing at the dog-watches, and carry on, under the direction of the senior officers, the routine of the ship. Normally the officer of the watch takes his station on the forward bridge, and the junior officer sticks by the wheel-house, where, after collecting the data he writes the log-slate hourly, and sees that the quartermaster steers the given course to a nicety. The first night at sea the starboard watch (the captain’s in marine law) has the eight hours out, that is, from 8 P.M. to midnight and from 4 to 8 A.M.; and on the home voyage the mate’s watch (the port) enjoys the same sweet privilege, thus sanctifying the ancient saw, which insists, under penalties dire, that the captain must take her out and the mate must take her home again.
The officers vary in their methods of keeping watch, new ships having new rules, as Simple Simon is supposed to have said when he was hustled aft to stow the jib. But to my mind, those favored in the larger steamers of the White Star Company are the best. Here the chief officer stands the watches from six to eight and from twelve to two o’clock, night and day respectively; the second officer keeps the watches from eight to ten and two to four o’clock; and the third officer those from ten to twelve and from four to six o’clock. This watch-keeping seems easy enough, even interesting and exciting, at least so I have heard not only from the casual gentleman who worries about critically in fine weather, but from that uneasy-minded shuttler who skips across the Western Ocean half a dozen times a year for no reason any sane man has yet discovered. But, dearly beloved idlers, do not deceive yourselves, getting out of bed and walking on a roof is anything but gay, even in fine weather. In stormy seasons it is such wretched work that then be mine rather to woo my bucolics, my farms and gardens, my forest glades.
Leaving out of question the responsibility, try and measure the physical misery when gales are howling, and spray is flying, and icy seas are shooting over the weather bulwarks, and the ship is slamming along, wallowing in the hollows or wriggling on zenith-seeking billows. It may be at night, when you cannot see a ship’s length ahead, and around you, threatening disaster and death, are a dozen vessels; it may be when the ice is moving and the towering bergs lie in your pathway. Then those dreadful middle watches, when, after a hard tour of duty, you are roused out of a comfortable bed, and jumped, half awakened, into the chill and misery of the gale-blown night with every nerve and muscle strained to the breaking-point. No, it is, believe me, the hardest kind of hard work, and it so saps the body, and warps the temper, and makes the best old before their day, that no self-respecting mother will let her daughter marry a man who knows an oar from a fence-rail, if he has learned their differences—watch-keeping.
The fourth and fifth officers, being young and hardy, and presumably with much to learn and suffer—for suffering somehow is considered an essential in sea-training—are not supposed to need adequate rest or sleep, and if that is not wearing on shipboard, go find me a ballad-monger to weave a rhyme for their comfort. The crew stand watch and watch; but as they can always steal a comforting nap, and have no responsibility, they know little of the mental wear and tear. The bo’s’n and his mate look out for the pulling and hauling, and for the dreary singing which the “chanty” man weds to them. Their tempers are always on edge, and it is their part to buffet and bluster. These are the gentlemen you usually hear, in season and out, bellowing about decks a highly garnished sea argot which no one attempts to translate or deems of serious meaning. Occasionally, too, you may detect them to leeward of the houses, skylarking gloomily, in moments of forced gayety, with skulkers and sea-lawyers, “fetching them,” as they describe the pastime, “a belt under the jaw,” or airily promising to “knock” their “blooming ’eds off.” These, of course, are the vagaries of delegated authority, and should not lessen your regard for them, as they are generally good sailor-men after the heavy insular fashion. You must remember, also, they enjoy a prescriptive privilege of being most noisy, of wearing tremendous boots and very shabby clothes, and of trilling, like sea-larks, upon little silvery whistles, which are known indiscriminately as “pipes” or “calls.”
In each watch there are three quartermasters, generally fine specimens of the British tar, a joy to the eye and a comfort to the soul, notably in bad weather, when they cheer you with a smile that soothes as the words they may not utter; for by a maritime fiction they are always supposed to be at the wheel, and you must not, under fear of keelhauling, talk to them. How patronizing and sympathetic they look, what a lot they seem to know, what beautiful guernseys they wear, and with what ease they guide the mighty vessel! Before the introduction of steam steering-gear two men were always required at the wheel, and in bad weather there were four, and sometimes six, with frequent reliefs; and yet, with all this beef, many a poor fellow has been maimed for life by being tossed over the wheel-barrel or jammed by the spokes when the ship swung off with sudden lurch or broached to before the fury of the gale. To-day it requires hardly the strength of a boy to “restrain the rudder’s ardent thrill,” even in the heaviest blows, for the wheel in evidence is merely the purchasing end of a mechanical system that opens and shuts the valve governing the steam admitted to the steering cylinders. But be it lever or not, the sailor grasps it still with the old familiar pose, swaying it, “for the good ship’s woe and the good ship’s weal,” with curved arm and gripping fingers as he pores over his compass and keeps its lubber’s point, in fair weather or in foul, plumb on a course marked to a degree of the circle. He stands a two-hours’ trick and then changes places with his relief, whose station has been outside the wheel-house door. The third quartermaster keeps his watch under the after-whaleback, ready to throw into action the hand steering-wheel when the signal is given, and as this happens seldom, his watch is apt to be a dreary one. The pump-wells are sounded regularly by a carpenter, so that possible leaks are sure of rapid detection; and hourly every light and every corner of the ship is inspected by one of the two masters-at-arms, who constitute the police force of the ship. They have under their special care the steerages, and a part of their duty is—as their phrase goes—“to chase” the steerage female passengers off the upper deck at dusk, and to see that they remain in their own apartments until sunrise.
First-class ships muster from twelve to fifteen men in each watch, and all of these are shipped as seamen. Of course the majority are such only in name, though there is always a definite number of sailors among them. Indeed, to fly the blue flag at least ten of the crew, in addition to the captain, must be enrolled in the Naval Reserve, and to be an A B there, one must hand, reef, and steer deftly. These are the people who in port stand by the ship; that is, those who take, as required by law, their discharges in Liverpool on the return voyage and continue to work on board at fixed wages per day while the ship refits and loads. All hands, from the skipper to the scullion’s mate, must ship at the beginning of each run—must “sign articles” as it is called—before a Board of Trade shipping-master. As the law has always regarded Jack as “particularly in need of its protection, because he is particularly exposed to the wiles of sharpers,” great stress is laid in these articles upon his treatment, and therefore they exhibit in detail the character of the voyage, the wages, the quantity and quality of the food, and a dozen other particulars which evidence the safeguards thrown about these “wards of the Admiralty” by a quasi-paternal government. Jack knows all this, and be sure he stands up most boldly and assertively, at times with a great deal of unnecessary swagger and bounce, for all the articles—“his articles”—allow him.
The boatswain selects the ship’s company, and the sea-birds flutter on board usually a few hours before the vessel hauls into the stream. They fly light, these Western Ocean sailors, and their kits are such as beggars would laugh at even in Ratcliffe Highway. Generally they are in debt to the Sailor’s Home—they pay seventeen bob a week for their grub and lodging—and many of them just touch their advance money, as a guarantee of receipt, and then see most of it disappear, for goods fairly furnished, into the superintendent’s monk-bag. But they are philosophers in their sad way, and are apt, if they find themselves safely on board with a couple of shillings in their ’baccy pouches, with a pan, an extra shirt, a pannikin, a box of matches, and a bar of soap, to feel that the anchor cannot be tripped too soon, as they are equipped for an adventure anywhere, even to the “Hinjies, heast or west,” as their doleful ditty announces.
Under way or at anchor they do not have many idle moments. In the middle watches the decks are scrubbed with sand and brooms and brushes, for the old, heroic days of holy-stones are over, and a hundred pounds of effort are no longer expended for an ounce of result.
It might interest the passengers—especially those who look upon a sailor as so much unthinking brawn—to hear the archaic vocabulary and the emphatic dialects in which many of them are sworn at by these same mariners. Indeed, passengers are a careless, slovenly, and untidy lot, and there is scarcely a sin in the maritime decalogue of cleanliness they do not commit unthinkingly. The particularly offensive ones are soon singled out and labelled with briny, offensive names; and though they know it not, the forecastle is at times lurid with the blood-curdling anathemas launched upon them. In the morning watch the paint-work is scrubbed, and a deft cleaner is Jackie; and finally, when the weather permits, the brass work—bane of every true sailor—is polished till it blinks like the rising sun in the tropics. This scrubbing and burnishing and cleansing runs in appointed grooves through every department, and in no perfunctory way, for each day the ship is inspected thoroughly, and upon the result depend the reputation and the advancement of the subordinates.
Very formal indeed is the inspection, when, at eleven o’clock in the forenoon, the captain, accompanied by the doctor, begins his royal progress. At the borders of each province he is received by its governor, who conducts him through its highways and its byways, through its lanes and shaded groves. The purser and the chief steward are answerable for all concerning the passengers, and scrupulous and minute is the examination given to the saloons, store-rooms, pantries, kitchens, bakeries, closets, bath-rooms, and to such cabins and state-rooms as may be visited. Then follow the steerages and the “glory hole”—this last a den sacred to the discomfort of the perennially nimble, of the tip-extracting, uncannily cheerful, and sorely tried stewards. The chief officer is responsible for the boatswain’s locker, the forecastles, the upper decks, the boats, the whalebacks; in short, above and below, wherever dirt might breed disease, no nook nor corner is omitted, not even that seething cauldron where the lungs of the ship breathe steam and her ponderous muscles drive the mighty screws.
The engine-rooms and stoke-holes of a great steamer are forbidden ground, are lands taboo, save to those specially asked to visit them. Here no interruptions may enter, for speed is the price of ceaseless vigilance, and horse-power spells fame and dividends. When you come to measure the region fairly, it broadens into a wonder-land; it shapes itself into a twilight island of mysteries, into a laboratory where grimy alchemists practise black magic and white. At first all seems confusion, but when the brain has co-ordinated certain factors, harmony is wooed from discord and order emerges from chaos. It is in the beginning all noise and tangled motion, and shining steel and oily smells; then succeeds a vague sense of bars moving up and down, and down and up, with pitiless regularity; of jiggering levers, keeping time rhythmically to any stray patter you may fit to their chanting; and, at last, the interdependence of rod grasping rod, of shooting straight lines seizing curved arms, of links limping backward and wriggling forward upon queer pivots, dawns upon you; and in the end you marvel at the nicety with which lever, weight, and fulcrum work, opening and closing hidden mechanisms, and functioning with an exactness that dignifies the fraction of a second into an appreciable quantity. Cranks whirl and whirl and whirl incessantly, holding in moveless grip the long shafting turning the churning screws; pumps pulsate and throb with muffled beat; gauge-arms vibrate jerkingly about narrow arcs, setting their standards of performance; and everywhere, if your ear be trained to this mechanical music, to this symphony in steam and steel, you see the officers and greasers conducting harmoniously the smoothly moving parts, as soothed with oil and caressed with waste they work without jar or friction, and despite the gales tossing the ship like a jolly-boat, on the angry ocean. It is a magic domain, and one may well wonder at the genius which, piling precedent upon precedent, chains these forces and makes them labor, even on an unstable platform, as their masters will.
In the stoke-hole, however, one leaves behind the formal and mathematical, and sees the picturesque with all its dirt unvarnished, with all its din and clangor unsubdued. Under the splintering silver of the electric lamps cones of light illuminate great spaces garishly and leave others in unbroken masses of shadow. Through bulkhead doors the red and gold of the furnaces chequer the reeking floor, and the tremulous roar of the caged fires dominates the sibilant splutter of the stream. Figures nearly naked, gritty and black with coal, and pasty with ashes, and soaked with sweat, come and go in the blazing light and in the half gloom, and seem like nightmares from fantastic tales of demonology.
When the furnace-doors are opened, thirsty tongues of fire gush out, blue spirals of gas spin and reel over the bubbling mass of fuel, and great sheets of flame suck half-burnt carbon over the quivering fire-wall into the flues. With averted heads and smoking bodies the stokers shoot their slice-bars through the melting hillocks, and twist and turn them until they undulate like serpents. The iron tools blister their hands, the roaring furnaces sear their bodies; their chests heave like those of spent swimmers, their eyes tingle in parched sockets—but work they must, there is no escape, no holiday in this maddening limbo. Steam must be kept up, or perhaps a cruel record must be lowered. Facing the furnaces, the hollow up-scooping of the stoker’s shovel echoes stridently on the iron floor, and these speed-makers pile coal on coal until the fire fairly riots, and, half blinded, they stagger backward for a cooling respite. But it is only a moment at the best, for their taskmasters watch and drive them, and the tale of furnaces must do its stint. The noise and uproar are deafening; coal-trimmers trundle their barrows unceasingly from bunker to stoke-hole, or, if the ship’s motion be too great for the wheels, carry it in baskets, and during the four long hours there is no rest for those who labor here.
In the largest ships the engineer force numbers one hundred and seventy men, and in vessels with double engines these are divided into two crews with a double allowance of officers for duty. One engineer keeps a watch in each fire-room, and two are stationed on each engine-room platform. Watches depend upon the weather, but, as a rule, the force, officers and men, serves four out of every twelve hours. Should, however, the weather be foggy or the navigation hazardous, the service may be more onerous; for then officers stand at the throttles with peremptory orders to do no other work. In relieving each other great care is taken; those going on the platforms feeling the warmth of the bearings, examining the condition of the pins and shafting, testing the valves, locating the position of the throttles, counting the revolutions, and by every technical trial satisfying themselves before assuming charge that all is right. In the stoke-hole the same precautions are taken, the sufficiency and saturation of the water, the temperature of the feed, injection, and discharge, and the steam-pressure being verified independently by both officers.
The pay of the chief engineer is said to be about £30 per month, in addition to a commission upon the saving made in a fixed allowance of coal for a given horse-power and an assumed speed. As some ships are economical, this reaches at times a handsome bonus. And it is well this pay should be large, for many of these officers have given their best days to one employ and deserve much of it in every way. It is said that some of the old chiefs are the greatest travellers in the world, so far as miles covered may count. Here, for example, is one who has made in one line 132 round trips, or traversed 841,000 shore miles—a distance four times that between the earth and the moon; and still higher is the record of another, who completed before his retirement 154 round trips, or made in distance over one million of statute miles.
The messes of the crew are divided into three classes: First, that of the seamen, quartermaster, carpenter, etc.; secondly, that of lamp-trimmers and servants and miscellaneous people; and thirdly, that of the stokers, greasers, and trimmers. The seamen sleep and mess in the forecastle, the stewards in the glory hole, and the engineer force in the port forecastle, or, on board the new ships, in an apartment just forward of the stoke-hole. In all these quarters the mess-tables trice up to the under side of the upper deck, and the bunks are two or three tiers deep. As a rule the men provide their own bedding and table-gear, the company agreeing to give good food in plenty, but nothing more. This seems shabby, even if in these degenerate days we need not hope to find a ship’s husband like Sir Francis Drake, who not only “procured a complete set of silver for the table, and furnished the cook-room with many vessels of the same metal, but engaged several musicians to accompany them.” I am afraid the only music you will hear in these dreary quarters is the shout when the “snipes,” as my lieges the stokers call the coal-trimmers, rush in at eight in the evening with the high feast known as the black pan. This olla podrida consists of the remains of the saloon dinner, and is always saved for the watch by the cooks and bakers in payment for the coal hoisted for the kitchens and galleys. It is a grewsome feast, as one may well imagine, but it is the supreme luxury in the sea life of the stoker and his pals, and is enjoyed point, blade, and hilt.
Thrown together as the people are for a run only, you find little of the messmate kinship which is so strong in longer voyages among seafaring men. Should any one of them become unfit for work through sickness (and very ill he must be when the doctor excuses him from duty), his mates, the one he should have relieved and the other who would have relieved him, each stand two hours of his watch. But as the attendant abuse is great, and the curses are loud and deep and bitterly personal, no one, save a very hard case, will leave his work as long as he can stand up to it. As for kindness and usefulness, or any other saving grace, they are unknown; are, in the grim pessimism of this iron trade, never expected. It is a hard, hard life, measured by decent standards, and messieurs, when you stray below, and, as tradition demands, they “chalk you”—ring you about with the mystic circle which means drink-money—be sure the ransom is not niggard, be certain that with it you lend them from your brighter world the sunshine of a cheery greeting, the tonic of a friendly smile.
For, God help them, they need it always.
The inspection is finished a little after seven bells, and one by one the officers straggle on deck with their sextants. Should it be a fine day, with moderate weather, the noon observation for latitude is a simple one and is always sought; though, in the open, these people running in regular lanes can place great dependence on their engine revolutions, their well-tried compasses, and, if the speed is not excessive, upon their taffrail logs. When the sun crosses the meridian twelve o’clock is reported, and “eight bells are made” by the captain, for no lesser personage dare trifle with the astronomical proprieties hedging about this occult ceremony. The ship’s time, however, remains unaltered, until the clocks are corrected at midnight from calculations based upon the chronometer ticking stolidly in the chart-room. In the sweep of modern progress the sacred rite of heaving the log is no longer celebrated. The speed is now too great for that rough-and-ready hit-and-miss at distance run: and with its disuse, worse luck, a fund of old-time pleasant raillery has been eclipsed. “How fast are you going, my man?” was an invariable question of the inevitable, curious passenger to the Jackie walking away with the dripping log-line. “Fourteen and a Dutchman, sir,” would be his answer, or, if again pressed, “Thirteen and a marine,” he would reply, gravely, to the joy of his grinning shipmates and to the mystification of the questioner. But now no longer does the reel turn swift, no longer does the sand run dry, no more the chip dances on the waves or tugging line strain brawny muscles. To-day the speed is read off from a little cylinder which twists its dials on the weather rail.
The observations are worked out independently by the chief and second officers, and the former submits his results to the captain. Of course these calculations cannot have the exactness of astronomical work ashore, and luckily on the high sea this is not needed. On the contrary, over-precision often multiplies the error, and it is good navigation if you can say with assurance that the ship is anywhere within an enclosing circle five miles in diameter. Of course it is widely different when a vessel is running in for the land or coasting, for then the soundings, the cross-bearings of well-known marks, and the contour lines, enable the position to be marked with very great accuracy.
The noon position of the ship is—next to dinner—the great event of the day, and many are the pools and bets made on the figures of the run; not only as to the distance, but as to the probable time of arrival. For if the voyage be now half over, the novelty of sea life is at low ebb, and the passengers, save a few irrepressible spirits, have lapsed into a gentle melancholy induced by the monotony of water, water, water everywhere. They are tired of the sea, of the ship, of the cooking, of each other, in short, of everything, and are anxious only to arrive. They have divided and subdivided, and differentiated into cliques, and have nursed dislikes, usually founded on feminine fancies, until these have become mortal antipathies. In a perfunctory way they follow a routine which finally drags a lengthening chain. They get up and pitchfork on their clothes, and eat, lounge about, doze, muffled to the eyes, in lashed steamer chairs, read languidly, gossip spitefully, and eat, and eat, and eat, and then, wearied to bitter boredom, go to bed again. The men drink more than is good for them, indeed some of them have an eager and a nipping air all day long; and as for smoking, why, those who can are blowing moist and soggy weeds and fondling explosive pipes from morn till dewy eve. The noisy ones—and what nuisances they are with their aggressively robust health and unfailing cheerfulness—play all manner of stupid sea-games, horse-billiards, quoits, and shuffle-board, and sometimes venture upon such silly practical joking that you wish a sea would wash them overboard.
No one sees much of the ship’s officers except perhaps the ubiquitous purser and the amiable doctor, and how these two, harried and beset as they are by a hundred cares, by the little miseries of other people, can present an unfailing front of courtesy, can go smilingly and cheerily about their duties, is one of the sea mysteries yet unsolved. Blow high or low, and in fair weather or foul, they are ever the same, bright, beaming, optimistic, encouraging—“fresh as a garden rose, soothing as an upland wind”—and knowing the strain put upon you by silly men and fretful women, gentlemen, I salute you, chapeau bas.
In the beginning there was a struggle for seats at the captain’s table, and heartburnings are not unknown to those who sit a little lower at the feast. But these are not the wise or wary ones, not the tough and devilish sly travellers who know their bread will be best buttered by rallying around the purser or forming in hollow squares about the shrine where the doctor sits enthroned. The captain’s duties permit him to go below rarely save at dinner-time, and as for the other officers, they live and mess alone and are as cloistered, so far as the passengers count, as the preaching friars of Saint Dominic.
Once in every voyage boat drill is held, and sadly insufficient for the people on board is this same boat equipment. But the drill is usually a passably fair one, and, given time, adequate perhaps for any demands made upon the ship by outside distress. And let it be added that never yet, when the word has been given, have those gallant men who walk their watches so quietly and so uncomplainingly, been known to fail if succor were needed by helpless mariners. It may be that death stares them in the face, that their mission may be another tragedy, but they never question. Honor to them and to all the unrecorded heroes, the uncrowned martyrs of that western passage. Who may number them? who tell their gallant deeds? True descendants are they of those “who first went out across the unknown seas, fighting, discovering, colonizing, and graving out channels through which the commerce and enterprise of England have flowed out over all the world.”
You may count, as a rule, upon disagreeable weather in the Western Ocean, and this tries the temper of people who might be saints ashore; and, say what you will, even under the most promising environments, women are out of place on shipboard. However, if the days are reasonably pleasant as the voyage shortens, the monotony becomes so much a habit as to be no longer a burden. The little animosities which seemed eternal disappear, and friendships are made, and toward the end all but the hardened cases, the mental dyspeptics, or those to whom sea-sickness is a serious matter, really enjoy the voyage.
The tonic of the sea-air courses like an elixir in the blood: young women begin to take notice, and you hear rippling laughter, and see, in place of gloom, the sunshine of happy smiles. This is usually the season when the concert is given, and the uneasy spirits of the ship exploit the talent they have discovered. Usually there are a dozen mild rows over this performance, and invariably a great dispute as to the distribution of the money. This is apt to divide the ship temporarily into two warring camps, but in the end the ship’s officers have their way, and the American dollars jingle musically in English contribution boxes. More or less jollity is always afloat in the smoking-room, for here eddy the flotsam and jetsam of the ship. Here, too, the speculative gentlemen, their friends and lambs, usually play cards from early forenoon till the lights are turned out. There is not much growling among these industrious workmen, though at times when jack-pots go one way, and the kitty or widow is large enough to make the losers boisterously assertive, you may hear sharp words over the reckoning. As for those who enjoy a quiet rubber, they must find another retreat; the smoking-room is ruled by the gods of clamor.
And so the last days are apt to rush along pleasantly enough; the solitude cheered by passing vessels and the lazy routine of the ship enlivened by congenial companionships newly found. The edge of the Grand Banks is skirted happily without injury to the daring fishermen; the Georges are rounded, and then, oh, happy hour for many homesick hearts! the cry “Sail ho” rings out with newer meaning, and a graceful pilot-boat wings toward them like the fabled sea-bird. How they greet the bluff pilot, coming as he does to their seeming helplessness out of the known and the enduring. The speculative passengers find an especial interest in the incident, for no pools are more favored than those made on the number of the boat, no bets more frequent than whether the figures are odd or even. After the assurance that the “pilot is really on board” over-sanguine and inexperienced females madly rush below and pack their trunks and get ready for an immediate shore-flitting, afraid, perhaps, they will be late; but there is many and many a tossing mile yet to steam ere the services of the adventurous pilot will be needed.
Still, a new delight possesses everybody, and it grows as the hours fly, until at last, it may be at night, perhaps, some one bursts breathlessly into the crowded smoking-room or bar, and cries exultingly: “There she is, Fire Island Light, right over the starboard bow.” Joyous faces gather near the crowded bulwarks, and eager eyes hail with gladness the shining petals of that rose of flame which blossoms unfailingly above the shoaling waters; for the voyage is nearly over, and the morrow means to some the marvels of an unknown land, to others, luckiest and happiest of all, home and dear ones.