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.
[Illustration: Watching for the Sun on a Cloudy Day.]
[Illustration: Night Signalling.]
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_.
[Illustration: The Deck Steward.]
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.
[Illustration: Captain’s Breakfast.]
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.
[Illustration: The Night Signal of a Disabled Steamer.]
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.
SAFETY ON THE ATLANTIC.
BY WILLIAM H. RIDEING.
THE DANGERS OF THE SEA—PRECAUTIONS IN A FOG—ANXIETIES OF THE
CAPTAIN—CREEPING UP THE CHANNEL—“ASHORE AT SOUTH STACK”—NARROW
ESCAPE OF THE BALTIC—SOME NOTABLE SHIPWRECKS—STATISTICS SINCE
1838—THE REGION OF ICEBERGS—WHEN THEY ARE MOST FREQUENT—CALAMITIES
FROM ICE—SAFETY PROMOTED BY SPEED—MODERN PROTECTION FROM INCOMING
SEAS—BULKHEADS AND DOUBLE BOTTOMS—WATER TIGHT COMPARTMENTS—THE
SPECIAL ADVANTAGE OF THE LONGITUDINAL BULKHEAD—THE VALUE OF TWIN
SCREWS—DANGERS FROM A BROKEN SHAFT—IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MARINER’S
COMPASS, THE PATENT LOG, AND SOUNDING MACHINE—MANGANESE BRONZE FOR
PROPELLERS—LIGHTS, BUOYS, AND FOG SIGNALS—THE REMARKABLE RECORD OF
1890.
It is not when the seas come pounding over the bows that the captain’s
face lengthens. Even when it is necessary to keep the passengers
below, and the spray is carried as high as the foretop, his confidence
in his ship is unabated. His spirits do not fall with the barometer,
and though the clouds hang low, and the air is filled with stinging
moisture flying like sleet from the hissing sea—even when boats are
torn out of the davits, and iron bitts and ventilators are snapped from
their fastenings like pipe-stems, he has no misgiving as to the ability
of the ship to weather the gale, or the fiercest hurricane that can
blow.
Give him an open sea, without haze, or fog, or snow, and neither wind
nor wave can alarm him. He knows very well, as all who are experienced
in such matters do, that the modern steamers of the great Atlantic
lines are so carefully constructed, and of such strength, that the
foundering of one of them through stress of weather alone is well-nigh
inconceivable.
But when a fog descends, then it is that his face and manner change,
and he who has been the most sociable and gayest of men suddenly
becomes the most anxious and taciturn. His seat at the head of the
table is vacant; look for him and you will not find him, as in fair
weather, diverting groups of girls tucked up in steamer-chairs on
the promenade-deck, but pacing the bridge and puffing a cigar which
apparently has not been allowed to go out since it was lighted as the
big ship backed from her wharf into the North River.
Wherever and whenever it occurs, fog is a source of danger from which
neither prudence nor skill can guarantee immunity: and whether the
ship is slowed down or going at full speed, there is cause for fear
while this gray blindness baffles the eyes. With plenty of sea-room the
danger is least, and it increases near land, especially where the coast
is wild and broken, like that of Ireland and Wales, and where there are
many vessels as well as rocks to be passed.
Probably the captain dreads but one thing more than a fog which comes
down when he is making land. When he can see the familiar lights and
promontories, he can verify the position of the ship and check his
daily observations of the sun. Then it is plain sailing into port. But
when the strongest light is quenched and every well-known landmark
is hidden, and he has to feel his way with only the compass and
the sounding machine to guide him, the consciousness that a slight
divergence from the proper course may lead to disaster, keeps him
on the pins and needles of anxiety, and sears his brain to constant
wakefulness, as with a branding-iron.
[Illustration: Out of Reckoning.—A Narrow Escape.]
A startling experience may be recalled:
The ship had swept down from the “nor’ard” like an arrow following the
curve of its own bow, and it was promised that we should see land early
in the afternoon and reach Queenstown soon after sundown. The weather
could not have been better; it was clear and mild, and the air, the
water, and the sky were tinged with the silvery pinks and grays which
often appear, like mother-of-pearl, in the atmospheric effects of
that southern coast. Flocks of birds were resting on the surface of
the calm sea and wheeling around the ship, the gulls swinging within
arm’s length of the passengers leaning against the rail. We steamed
in among a fleet of fishing-boats with red sails—close enough to hear
the greetings of the men, and these voices made the assurance of land
doubly sure.
Then it was whispered that land could be seen, and the searchers
swept the eastern horizon with their glasses to find it. They made
many mistakes about it, and explored the clouds, deluding themselves
with the idea that forms of rosy vapor were the Kerry Mountains.
They insisted upon it, but presently the coast defined itself to a
certainty, coming out of the distance in bold masses of peak and
precipice, fringed with a line of surf.
The captain was in his gayest mood. The baggage of the passengers for
Queenstown was whipped out of the hold by the steam winch and piled
up on the main deck, and they themselves were smartly dressed to go
ashore. Already farewells were spoken and reunions planned. We could
see the black-fanged pyramids of the Blaskets, and the mountain-bound
sweep of Bantry Bay. Fastnet would soon be visible over the starboard
bow—perhaps the men in the foretop could already see it—and a little to
the northward of that lay Brow Head, whence in an hour or so our safe
arrival would be flashed in an instant under the capricious sea which
we had just crossed.
These were our anticipations, but they were not fulfilled. The strong,
piercing light of Fastnet did not reach us that night, nor any glimpse
of the splendid beacons which blaze, each in its own distinctive way,
for the guidance of the mariner along that Channel. We were not seen
from Brow Head, and the passengers for Queenstown did not go ashore.
The captain’s manner changed again from its wonted gayety to severe
silence. Before it was noticed on deck, those on the bridge discovered,
rolling down the Channel, a reddish-brown fog, like a cloud from a
battle-field, which swallowed everything in its path—fishing-boats and
all vessels in sight; mountains, cliffs, and surf: every light and
every landmark. In half an hour it had enveloped us and washed out with
its sepia all the pearly iridescence which had filmed the sea. Nothing
definite remained; all became vague, spectral, curtailed. The heart of
the ship seemed to cease beating, and then could be heard only in faint
throbs as the engine was slowed down.
[Illustration: Landing Stages at Liverpool.]
For the rest of the night everything was dubious. The passengers
gathered in knots on the wet decks, talking in undertones. You could
hear the swash of the becalmed sea along the sides of the ship in the
intervals of the blasts of the fog-horn, which pierced the ear like a
knife; it was only when that demon was raging that the other sounds
which had become familiar on board the ship were not more acute—the hum
of the forced draft, the asthma of escaping steam, the voices on the
bridge, and the whirr of the bell in the engine-room. The bell had been
silent since it rang out, “Turn ahead, full speed!” when the pilot was
picked up by the station boat of Sandy Hook, but now the hand which
recorded its messages was constantly going from side to side of the
clock-faced dial. At every stroke a fresh apprehension thrilled along
the deck and imaginary shapes loomed up in the fog, the rumors were
wild and contradictory, no sooner spoken than discredited. See that
blur of yellow ahead! That must be a light—Queenstown, perhaps, and the
tender coming alongside. Yes, the bell has rung “Stop her!” Half of the
passengers can see the blur of yellow, half are not quite certain—all
are mistaken: the light burns only in their imaginations. Then they see
the sails of a ship blotted on the fog; they hear bells and whistles;
they listen for confirmation from the bridge. Little wonder that they
are confused: the engine-room bell tells a different story every few
minutes—now “Ahead!” then “Astern!” now “Full speed!” then “Dead slow!”
Again the engine stops altogether; in a minute or two the churnings of
the screw, sweeping toward the bow instead of in the wake, show that
the ship is backing, and the fear of reefs, of collision, of running
ashore, deepens the silence of the anxious groups along the rail.
The escaping steam roars out of the copper-pipes riveted to the
funnel; louder and shriller the whistle drives its warning through the
obscurity which surrounds us. Then we move “Ahead!” once more, and at
midnight all hope of seeing Queenstown is abandoned. The passengers
retreat to their cabins, and the decks are left to the sailors and the
officers, who come in and out of the ghostly atmosphere—their oil-skins
dripping with moisture and shining momentarily in the lamp-light. Never
for an instant does the captain leave the bridge; his cigar feeds its
bluish wreaths to the fog; he watches the glowing face of the compass,
and listens to the cry of the men who are working the sounding machine.
So the great ship creeps up the Channel. Once in a while an answering
blast is borne over the water, a bell is heard tolling afar, but never
a thing is in sight. It is a weary night for the captain, but in the
morning all is clear; we are off Holyhead; the pulse of the engine has
recovered its regularity; the faces of the passengers are beaming, and
Snowdon is visible over the starboard bow, piled up in white vapor.
The navigation of the Channel in foggy weather can never be free from
danger, and more fine steamers of the great transatlantic lines have
been lost between Fastnet and Liverpool through fogs than through any
other cause. It was only last summer that the City of Rome ran in a
dense fog against Fastnet itself—that perilous, shore-less, horn-shaped
rock which stands in the direct pathway of all ingoing and outgoing
ships—and barely escaped destruction. A few years earlier, when the
Cunarder Aurania was approaching land in a fog, the passengers who were
smoking their after-dinner cigars suddenly saw looming above them, and
above the topmasts, the cliffs which were supposed to be many miles
away. The captain was far out of his reckoning, but was going so slowly
that he was able to back into the Channel with slight damage. A similar
accident to this happened to the White Star steamer Baltic when she was
proceeding up the Channel to Liverpool.
One of the most brilliant lights in the Channel is that of the South
Stack, which lies under the flank of the mountainous precipice of
Holyhead. The Stack is an egg of rock, much higher and much bolder than
Fastnet, which has become detached from the main-land, and its apex is
crowned with the white tower and crouching buildings of the lighthouse
keepers. The sea is eating it away, and has already scooped out a vast
cavern which they call the Parliament Hall. It is wider and loftier
than any chamber at Westminster, and there is more justification for
its name in the babble of the sea-birds flitting in and out of it than
in its dimensions. From the foot of it to the low, white wall which
encircles the light, it is a sheer precipice of dark, exfoliating rock,
forbidding and hopeless, without a resting-place for any living thing
less secure than the birds, which cluster like beads on a string upon
the edges of the shale. The sea frets itself around it and gurgles in
the cavern; ledges and reefs abut on it. All vessels aim to give it a
wide berth, and usually keep at such a distance that a glass has to be
used to discover its destructive points. To say “ashore at South Stack”
is as good as to say a “total wreck.” There is hardly one chance in a
hundred that the luckless ship which strikes here will live.
[Illustration: Eddystone Lighthouse, English Channel.
(Tower about one hundred feet high.)]