He that will learn to pray, let him go to sea.
--GEORGE HERBERT.
Books sometimes make surprising connections with life. Fifteen-year-old
Tommy Jonkers, shipping as O.S. (ordinary seaman) on the S.S.
_Fernfield_ in Glasgow in 1911, could hardly have suspected that the
second engineer would write a novel and put him in it; or that that same
novel would one day lift him out of focsle and galley and set him
working for a publishing house on far-away Long Island. Is it not one
more proof of the surprising power of the written word?
For Tommy is not one of those who expect to find their names in print.
The mere sight of his name on a newspaper page, in an article I wrote
about him, brought (so he naïvely told me) tears to his eyes. Excellent,
simple-hearted Tommy! How little did you think, when you signed on to
help the _Fernfield_ carry coal from Glasgow to Alexandria, that the
long arm of the Miehle press was already waiting for you; that thousands
of good people reading a certain novel would be familiar with your
"round rosy face and clear sea-blue eyes."
"Tommy" (whose real name is Drevis) was born in Amsterdam in 1896. His
father was a fireman at sea, and contributed next to nothing to the
support of Tommy and his pretty little sister Greta. They lived with
their grandmother, near the quays in Amsterdam, where the masts of ships
and the smell of tar interfered with their lessons. Bread and treacle
for breakfast, black beans for lunch, a fine thick stew and plenty more
bread for supper--that and the Dutch school where he stood near the top
of his class are what Tommy remembers best of his boyhood. His
grandmother took in washing, and had a hard time keeping the little
family going. She was a fine, brusque old lady and as Tommy went off to
school in the mornings she used to frown at him from the upstairs window
because his hands were in his pockets. For as everybody knows, only
slouchy good-for-nothings walk to school with pocketed hands.
Tommy did so well in his lessons that he was one of the star pupils
given the privilege of learning an extra language in the evenings. He
chose English because most of the sailors he met talked English, and his
great ambition was to be a seaman. His uncle was a quartermaster in the
Dutch navy, and his father was at sea; and Tommy's chance soon came.
After school hours he used to sell postcards, cologne, soap, chocolates,
and other knicknacks to the sailors, to earn a little cash to help his
grandmother. One afternoon in the spring of 1909 he was down on the
docks with his little packet of wares, when a school friend came running
to him.
"Drevis, Drevis!" he shouted, "they want a mess-room boy on the _Queen
Eleanor_!"
It didn't take Drevis long to get aboard the _Queen Eleanor_, a British
tramp out of Glasgow, bound for Hamburg and Vladivostok. He accosted the
chief engineer, his blue eyes shining eagerly.
"Yes," says the chief, "I need a mess-room steward right away--we sail
at four o'clock."
"Try me!" pipes Drevis. (Bless us, the boy was barely thirteen!)
The chief roars with laughter.
"Too small!" he says.
Drevis insisted that he was just the boy for mess-room steward.
"Well," says the chief, "go home and put on a pair of long pants and
come back again. Then we'll see how you look!"
Tommy ran home rejoicing. His Uncle Hendrick was a small man, and Tommy
grabbed a pair of his trousers. Thus fortified, he hastened back to the
_Queen Eleanor_. The chief cackled, but he took him on at two pounds
five a month.
Tommy didn't last long as mess-room boy. He broke so many cups the
engineers had to drink out of dippers, and they degraded him to cabin
boy at a pound a month. Even as cabin boy he was no instant success. He
used to forget to empty the chief's slop-pail, and the water would
overflow the cabin. He felt the force of a stout sea boot not a few
times in learning the golden rubric of the tramp steamer's cabin boy.
"Drevis" was a strange name to the English seamen, and they christened
him "Tommy," and that handle turns him still.
Tommy's blue eyes and honest Netherland grin and easy temper kept him
friendly with all the world. The winds of chance sent him scudding about
the globe, a true casual of the seas. His first voyage as A.B. was on
the _Fernfield_ in 1911, and there he met a certain Scotch engineer.
This engineer had a habit of being interested in human problems, and
Tommy's guileless phiz attracted him. Under his tutelage Tommy acquired
a thirst for promotion, and soon climbed to the rank of quartermaster.
One thing that always struck Tommy was the number of books the engineer
had in his cabin. A volume of Nat Gould, Ouida or "The Duchess" would be
the largest library Tommy would have found in the other bunks; but here,
before his wondering gaze, were Macaulay, Gibbon, Gorki, Conrad,
Dickens, Zola, Shakespeare, Montaigne, Chaucer, Shaw, and what not. And
what would Master Tommy have said had he known that his friend, even
then, was working on a novel in which he, Tommy, would play an important
rôle!
The years went by. On sailing ships, on steam tramps, on private yachts,
as seaman, as quartermaster, as cook's helper, Tommy drifted about the
world. One day when he was twenty years old he was rambling about New
York just before sailing for Liverpool on the steam yacht _Alvina._ He
was one of a strictly neutral crew (the United States was still neutral
in those days) signed on to take a millionaire's pet plaything across
the wintry ocean. She had been sold to the Russian Government (there
still was one then!)
Tommy was passing through the arcade of the Pennsylvania Station when
his eye fell upon the book shop there. He was startled to see in the
window a picture of the Scotch engineer--his best friend, the only man
in the world who had ever been like a father to him. He knew that the
engineer was far away in the Mediterranean, working on an English
transport. He scanned the poster with amazement.
Apparently his friend had written a book. Tommy, like a practical
seaman, went to the heart of the matter. He went into the shop and
bought the book. He fell into talk with the bookseller, who had read the
book. He told the bookseller that he had known the author, and that for
years they had served together on the same vessels at sea. He told how
the writer, who was the former second engineer of the _Fernfield_, had
done many things for the little Dutch lad whose own father had died at
sea. Then came another surprise.
"I believe you're one of the characters in the story," said the
bookseller.
It was so. The book was "Casuals of the Sea," the author, William McFee,
who had been a steamship engineer for a dozen years; and Drevis Jonkers
found himself described in full in the novel as "Drevis Noordhof," and
playing a leading part in the story. Can you imagine the simple sailor's
surprise and delight? Pleased beyond measure, in his soft Dutch accent
liberally flavoured with cockney he told the bookseller how Mr. McFee
had befriended him, had urged him to go on studying navigation so that
he might become an officer; and that though they had not met for
several years he still receives letters from his friend, full of good
advice about saving his money, where to get cheap lodgings in Brooklyn,
and not to fall into the common error of sailors in thinking that
Hoboken and Passyunk Avenue are all America. And Tommy went back to his
yacht chuckling with delight, with a copy of "Casuals of the Sea" under
his arm.
Here my share in the adventure begins. The bookseller, knowing my
interest in the book, hastened to tell me the next time I saw him that
one of the characters in the story was in New York. I wrote to Tommy
asking him to come to see me. He wrote that the _Alvina_ was to sail the
next day, and he could not get away. I supposed the incident was closed.
Then I saw in the papers that the _Alvina_ had been halted in the
Narrows by a United States destroyer, the Government having suspected
that her errand was not wholly neutral. Rumour had it that she was on
her way to the Azores, there to take on armament for the house of
Romanoff. She was halted at the Quarantine Station at Staten Island,
pending an investigation.
Then enters the elbow of coincidence. Looking over some books in the
very same bookshop where Tommy had bought his friend's novel, I
overheard another member of the _Alvina's_ crew asking about "Casuals
of the Sea." His chum Tommy had told him about his adventure, and he,
too, was there to buy one. (Not every day does one meet one's friends
walking in a 500-page novel!) By the never-to-be-sufficiently-admired
hand of chance I was standing at Joe Hogan's very elbow when he began
explaining to the book clerk that he was a friend of the Dutch sailor
who had been there a few days before.
So a few days later, behold me on the Staten Island ferry, on my way to
see Tommy and the _Alvina_.
I'm afraid I would always desert the office if there's a plausible
excuse to bum about the waterfront. Is there any passion in the breast
of mankind more absorbing than the love of ships? A tall Cunarder
putting out to sea gives me a keener thrill than anything the Polo
Grounds or the Metropolitan Opera can show. Of what avail a meeting of
the Authors' League when one can know the sights, sounds, and smells of
West or South Street? I used to lug volumes of Joseph Conrad down to the
West-Street piers to give them to captains and first mates of liners,
and get them to talk about the ways of the sea. That was how I met
Captain Claret of the _Minnehaha_, that prince of seamen; and Mr. Pape
of the _Orduña_, Mr. Jones of the _Lusitania_ and many another. They
knew all about Conrad, too. There were five volumes of Conrad in the
officers' cabins on the _Lusitania_ when she went down, God rest her. I
know, because I put them there.
* * * * *
And the Staten Island ferry is a voyage on the Seven Seas for the
landlubber, After months of office work, how one's heart leaps to greet
our old mother the sea! How drab, flat, and humdrum seem the ways of
earth in comparison to the hardy and austere life of ships! There on
every hand go the gallant shapes of vessels--the _James L. Morgan_, dour
little tug, shoving two barges; _Themistocles_, at anchor, with the blue
and white Greek colours painted on her rusty flank; the _Comanche_
outward bound for Galveston (I think); the _Ascalon_, full-rigged ship,
with blue-jerseyed sailormen out on her bowsprit snugging the canvas.
And who is so true a lover of the sea as one who can suffer the ultimate
indignities--and love her still! I am queasy as soon as I sight Sandy
Hook....
At the quarantine station I had a surprise. The _Alvina_ was not there.
One old roustabout told me he thought she had gone to sea. I was duly
taken aback. Had I made the two-hour trip for nothing? Then another came
to my aid. "There she is, up in the bight," he said. I followed his
gesture, and saw her--a long, slim white hull, a cream-coloured funnel
with a graceful rake; the Stars and Stripes fresh painted in two places
on her shining side. I hailed a motor boat to take me out. The boatman
wanted three dollars, and I offered one. He protested that the yacht was
interned and he had no right to take visitors out anyway. He'd get into
trouble with "39"--"39" being a United States destroyer lying in the
Narrows a few hundred yards away. After some bickering we compromised on
a dollar and a quarter.
That was a startling adventure for the humble publisher's reader!
Wallowing in an ice-glazed motor boat, in the lumpy water of a
"bight"--surrounded by ships and the men who sail them--I might almost
have been a hardy newspaper man! But Long Island commuters are nurtured
to a tough and perilous his, and I clambered the _Alvina's _side without
dropping hat, stick, or any of my pocketful of manuscripts.
Joe Hogan, the steward, was there in his white jacket. He introduced me
to the cook, the bosun, the "chief," the wireless, and the "second." The
first officer was too heavy with liquor to notice the arrival of a
stranger. Messrs. Haig and Haig, those _Dioscuri_ of seamen, had been at
work. The skipper was ashore. He owns a saloon.
The _Alvina_ is a lovely little vessel, 215 feet long, they told me,
and about 525 tons. She is fitted with mahogany throughout; the
staterooms all have brass double beds and private bathrooms attached;
she has her own wireless telegraph and telephone, refrigerating
apparatus, and everything to make the owner and his guests comfortable.
But her beautiful furnishings were tumbled this way and that in
preparation for the sterner duties that lay before her. The lower deck
was cumbered with sacks of coal lashed down. A transatlantic voyage in
January is likely to be a lively one for a yacht of 500 tons.
I found Tommy below in his bunk, cleaning up. He is a typical Dutch
lad--round, open face, fair hair, and guileless blue eyes. He showed me
all his treasures--his certificates of good conduct from all the ships
(both sail and steam) on which he has served; a picture of his mother,
who died when he was six; and of his sister Greta--a very pretty
girl--who is also mentioned in _Casuals of the Sea._ The drunken fireman
in the story who dies after a debauch was Tommy's father who died in the
same way. And with these other treasures Tommy showed me a packet of
letters from Mr. McFee.
I do not want to offend Mr. McFee by describing his letters to this
Dutch sailor-boy as "sensible," but that is just what they were. Tommy
is one of his own "casuals"--
--those frail craft upon the restless Sea
Of Human Life, who strike the rocks uncharted,
Who loom, sad phantoms, near us, drearily,
Storm-driven, rudderless, with timbers started--
and these sailormen who drift from port to port on the winds of chance
are most in need of sound Ben Franklin advice. Save your money; put it
in the bank; read books; go to see the museums, libraries, and art
galleries; get to know something about this great America if you intend
to settle down there--that is the kind of word Tommy gets from his
friend.
Gradually, as I talked with him, I began to see into the laboratory of
life where "Casuals of the Sea" originated. This book is valuable
because it is a triumphant expression of the haphazard, strangely woven
chances that govern the lives of the humble. In Tommy's honest, gentle
face, and in the talk of his shipmates when we sat down to dinner
together, I saw a microcosm of the strange barren life of the sea where
men float about for years like driftwood. And out of all this ebbing
tide of aimless, happy-go-lucky humanity McFee had chanced upon this boy
from Amsterdam and had tried to pound into him some good sound common
sense.
When I left her that afternoon, the _Alvina_ was getting up steam, and
she sailed within a few hours. I had eaten and talked with her crew, and
for a short space had a glimpse of the lives and thoughts of the simple,
childlike men who live on ships. I realized for the first time the truth
of that background of aimless hazard that makes "Casuals of the Sea" a
book of more than passing merit.
As for Tommy, the printed word had him in thrall though he knew it not.
When he got back from Liverpool, two months later, I found him a job in
the engine room of a big printing press. He was set to work oiling the
dynamos, and at ten dollars a week he had a fine chance to work his way
up. Indeed, he enrolled in a Scranton correspondence course on steam
engineering and enchanted his Hempstead landlady by his simple ways.
That lasted just two weeks. The level ground made Tommy's feet uneasy.
The last I heard he was on a steam yacht on Long Island Sound.
But wherever steam and tide may carry him, Tommy cherishes in his heart
his own private badge of honour: his friend the engineer has put him in
a book! And there, in one of the noblest and most honest novels of our
day, you will find him--a casual of the sea!