to be lost. It was with no thought of beauty that the builders labored;
no conscious thought; they were masters or slaves in the bitter wars of
commerce, and they never saw as a whole what they were making; no one of
them did. But each one had had his dream. And the baffled dreams and the
broken visions and the ruined hopes and the secret desires of each one
labored with him as he labored; the things that were lost and beaten and
trampled down went into the stone and steel and gave it soul; the
aspiration denied and the hope abandoned and the vision defeated were
the things that lived, and not the apparent purpose for which each one
of all the millions sweat and toiled or cheated; the hidden things, the
silent things, the winged things, so weak they are easily killed, the
unacknowledged things, the rejected beauty, the strangled appreciation,
the inchoate art, the submerged spirit--these groped and found each
other and gathered themselves together and worked themselves into the
tiles and mortar of the edifice and made a town that is a worthy fellow
of the sunrise and the sea winds.
Humanity triumphs over its details.
The individual aspiration is always defeated of its perfect fruition and
expression, but it is never lost; it passes into the conglomerate being
of the race.
The way to encourage yourself about the human race is to look at it
first from a distance; look at the lights on the high spots. Coming
closer, you will be profoundly discouraged at the number of low spots,
not to say two-spots. Coming still closer, you will become discouraged
once more by the reflection that the same stuff that is in the high
spots is also in the two-spots.
"THE MAN-O'-WAR'S 'ER 'USBAND"
_By_ DAVID W. BONE
Those who understand something of a sailor's feeling for his ship
will appreciate the restraint with which Captain Bone describes the
loss of the _Cameronia_, his command, torpedoed in the
Mediterranean during the War. You will notice (forgive us for
pointing out these things) how quietly the quoted title pays
tribute to the gallantry of the destroyers that stood by the
sinking ship; and the heroism of the chief officer's death is not
less moving because told in two sentences. This superb picture of a
sea tragedy is taken from _Merchantmen-at-Arms_, a history of the
British Merchants' Service during the War; a book of enthralling
power and truth, illustrated by the author's brother, Muirhead
Bone, one of the greatest of living etchers.
David William Bone was born in Partick (near Glasgow) in 1873; his
father was a well-known Glasgow journalist; his great-grandfather
was a boyhood companion of Robert Burns. Bone went to sea as an
apprentice in the _City of Florence_, an old-time square-rigger, at
the age of fifteen; he has been at sea ever since. He is now master
of S.S. _Columbia_ of the Anchor Line, a well-known ship in New
York Harbor, as she has carried passengers between the Clyde and
the Hudson for more than twenty years. Captain Bone's fine sea
tale, The _Brass-bounder_, published in 1910, has become a classic
of the square-sail era; his _Broken Stowage_ (1915) is a collection
of shorter sea sketches. In the long roll of great writers who have
reflected the simplicity and severity of sea life, Captain Bone
will take a permanent and honorable place.
A sense of security is difficult of definition. Largely, it is founded
upon habit and association. It is induced and maintained by familiar
surroundings. On board ship, in a small world of our own, we seem to be
contained by the boundaries of the bulwarks, to be sailing beyond the
influences of the land and of other ships. The sea is the same we have
known for so long. Every item of our ship fitment--the trim arrangement
of the decks, the set and rake of mast and funnel, even the furnishings
of our cabins--has the power of impressing a stable feeling of custom,
normal ship life, safety. It requires an effort of thought to recall
that in their homely presence we are endangered. Relating his
experiences after having been mined and his ship sunk, a master confided
that the point that impressed him most deeply was when he went to his
room for the confidential papers and saw the cabin exactly in everyday
aspect--his longshore clothes suspended from the hooks, his umbrella
standing in a corner as he had placed it on coming aboard.
Soldiers on service are denied this aid to assurance. Unlike us, they
cannot carry their home with them to the battlefields. All their scenes
and surroundings are novel; they may only draw a reliance and comfort
from the familiar presence of their comrades. At sea in a ship there is
a yet greater incitement to their disquiet. The movement, the limitless
sea, the distance from the land, cannot be ignored. The atmosphere that
is so familiar and comforting to us, is to many of them an environment
of dread possibilities.
It is with some small measure of this sense of security--tempered by our
knowledge of enemy activity in these waters--we pace the bridge. Anxiety
is not wholly absent. Some hours past, we saw small flotsam that may
have come from the decks of a French mail steamer, torpedoed three days
ago. The passing of the derelict fittings aroused some disquiet, but the
steady routine of our progress and the constant friendly presence of
familiar surroundings has effect in allaying immediate fears. The rounds
of the bridge go on--the writing of the log, the tapping of the glass,
the small measures that mark the passing of our sea-hours. Two days out
from Marseilles--and all well! In another two days we should be
approaching the Canal, and then--to be clear of 'submarine waters' for a
term. Fine weather! A light wind and sea accompany us for the present,
but the filmy glare of the sun, now low, and a backward movement of the
glass foretells a break ere long. We are steaming at high speed to make
the most of the smooth sea. Ahead, on each bow, our two escorting
destroyers conform to the angles of our zigzag--spurring out and
swerving with the peculiar "thrown-around" movement of their class.
Look-out is alert and in numbers. Added to the watch of the ship's crew,
military signalers are posted; the boats swung outboard have each a
party of troops on guard.
An alarmed cry from aloft--a half-uttered order to the steersman--an
explosion, low down in the bowels of the ship, that sets her reeling in
her stride!
The upthrow comes swiftly on the moment of impact. Hatches, coal, a huge
column of solid water go skyward in a hurtling mass to fall in torrent
on the bridge. Part of a human body strikes the awning spars and
hangs--watch-keepers are borne to the deck by the weight of water--the
steersman falls limply over the wheel with blood pouring from a gash on
his forehead.... Then silence for a stunned half-minute, with only the
thrust of the engines marking the heartbeats of the stricken ship.
Uproar! Most of our men are young recruits: they have been but two days
on the sea. The torpedo has gone hard home at the very weakest hour of
our calculated drill. The troops are at their evening meal when the blow
comes, the explosion killing many outright. We had counted on a
proportion of the troops being on the deck, a steadying number to
balance the sudden rush from below that we foresaw in emergency.
Hurrying from the mess-decks as enjoined, the quick movement gathers way
and intensity: the decks become jammed by the pressure, the gangways and
passages are blocked in the struggle. There is the making of a
panic--tuned by their outcry, _"God! O God! O Christ!"_ The swelling
murmur is neither excited nor agonized--rather the dull, hopeless
expression of despair.
The officer commanding troops has come on the bridge at the first
alarm. His juniors have opportunity to take their stations before the
struggling mass reaches to the boats. The impossibility of getting among
the men on the lower decks makes the military officers' efforts to
restore confidence difficult. They are aided from an unexpected quarter.
The bridge-boy makes unofficial use of our megaphone. "Hey! Steady up
you men doon therr," he shouts. "Ye'll no' dae ony guid fur yersels
croodin' th' ledders!"
We could not have done it as well. The lad is plainly in sight to the
crowd on the decks. A small boy, undersized. "Steady up doon therr!" The
effect is instant. Noise there still is, but the movement is arrested.
The engines are stopped--we are now beyond range of a second
torpedo--and steam thunders in exhaust, making our efforts to control
movements by voice impossible. At the moment of the impact the
destroyers have swung round and are casting here and there like hounds
on the scent: the dull explosion of a depth-charge--then another, rouses
a fierce hope that we are not unavenged. The force of the explosion has
broken connections to the wireless room, but the aerial still holds and,
when a measure of order on the boatdeck allows, we send a message of our
peril broadcast. There is no doubt in our minds of the outcome. Our
bows, drooping visibly, tell that we shall not float long. We have
nearly three thousand on board. There are boats for sixteen
hundred--then rafts. Boats--rafts--and the glass is falling at a rate
that shows bad weather over the western horizon!
Our drill, that provided for lowering the boats with only
half-complements in them, will not serve. We pass orders to lower away
in any condition, however overcrowded. The way is off the ship, and it
is with some apprehension we watch the packed boats that drop away from
the davit heads. The shrill ring of the block-sheaves indicates a
tension that is not far from breaking-point. Many of the life-boats
reach the water safely with their heavy burdens, but the strain on the
tackles--far beyond their working load--is too great for all to stand to
it. Two boats go down by the run. The men in them are thrown violently
to the water, where they float in the wash and shattered planking. A
third dangles from the after fall, having shot her manning out at
parting of the forward tackle. Lowered by the stern, she rights,
disengages, and drifts aft with the men clinging to the life-lines. We
can make no attempt to reach the men in the water. Their life-belts are
sufficient to keep them afloat: the ship is going down rapidly by the
head, and there remains the second line of boats to be hoisted and swung
over. The chief officer, pausing in his quick work, looks to the bridge
inquiringly, as though to ask, "How long?" The fingers of two hands
suffice to mark our estimate.
The decks are now angled to the deepening pitch of the bows. Pumps are
utterly inadequate to make impression on the swift inflow. The chief
engineer comes to the bridge with a hopeless report. It is only a
question of time. How long? Already the water is lapping at a level of
the foredeck. Troops massed there and on the forecastle-head are
apprehensive: it is indeed a wonder that their officers have held them
for so long. The commanding officer sets example by a cool nonchalance
that we envy. Posted with us on the bridge, his quick eyes note the
flood surging in the pent 'tween-decks below, from which his men have
removed the few wounded. The dead are left to the sea.
Help comes as we had expected it would. Leaving _Nemesis_ to steam fast
circles round the sinking ship, _Rifleman_ swings in and brings up
alongside at the forward end. Even in our fear and anxiety and distress,
we cannot but admire the precision of the destroyer captain's
manœuver--the skilful avoidance of our crowded life-boats and the men
in the water--the sudden stoppage of her way and the cant that brings
her to a standstill at the lip of our brimming decks. The troops who
have stood so well to orders have their reward in an easy leap to
safety. Quickly the foredeck is cleared. _Rifleman_ spurts ahead in a
rush that sets the surrounding life-boats to eddy in her wash. She takes
up the circling high-speed patrol and allows her sister ship to swing in
and embark a number of our men.
It is when the most of the life-boats are gone we realize fully the
gallant service of the destroyers. There remain the rafts, but many of
these have been launched over to aid the struggling men in the water.
Half an hour has passed since we were struck--thirty minutes of frantic
endeavor to debark our men--yet still the decks are thronged by a packed
mass that seems but little reduced. The coming of the destroyers alters
the outlook. _Rifleman's_ action has taken over six hundred. A sensible
clearance! _Nemesis_ swings in with the precision of an express, and the
thud and clatter of the troops jumping to her deck sets up a continuous
drumming note of deliverance. Alert and confident, the naval men accept
the great risks of their position. The ship's bows are entered to the
water at a steep incline. Every minute the balance is weighing, casting
her stern high in the air. The bulkheads are by now taking place of keel
and bearing the huge weight of her on the water. At any moment she may
go without a warning, to crash into the light hull of the destroyer and
bear her down. For all the circling watch of her sister ship, the
submarine--if still he lives--may get in a shot at the standing target.
It is with a deep relief we signal the captain to bear off. Her decks
are jammed to the limit. She can carry no more. _Nemesis_ lists heavily
under her burdened decks as she goes ahead and clears.
Forty minutes! The zigzag clock in the wheelhouse goes on ringing the
angles of time and course as though we were yet under helm and speed.
For a short term we have noted that the ship appears to have reached a
point of arrest in her foundering droop. She remains upright as she has
been since righting herself after the first inrush of water. Like the
lady she always was, she has added no fearsome list to the sum of our
distress. The familiar bridge, on which so many of our safe sea-days
have been spent, is canted at an angle that makes foothold uneasy. She
cannot remain for long afloat. The end will come swiftly, without
warning--a sudden rupture of the bulkhead that is sustaining her weight.
We are not now many left on board. Striving and wrenching to man-handle
the only remaining boat--rendered idle for want of the tackles that have
parted on service of its twin--we succeed in pointing her outboard, and
await a further deepening of the bows ere launching her. Of the
military, the officer commanding, some few of his juniors, a group of
other ranks, stand by. The senior officers of the ship, a muster of
seamen, a few stewards, are banded with us at the last. We expect no
further service of the destroyers. The position of the ship is
over-menacing to any approach. They have all they can carry. Steaming at
a short distance they have the appearance of being heavily overloaded;
each has a staggering list and lies low in the water under their deck
encumbrance. We have only the hazard of a quick out-throw of the
remaining boat and the chances of a grip on floating wreckage to count
upon.
On a sudden swift sheer, _Rifleman_ takes the risk. Unheeding our
warning hail, she steams across the bows and backs at a high speed: her
rounded stern jars on our hull plates, a whaler and the davits catch on
a projection and give with the ring of buckling steel--she turns on the
throw of the propellers and closes aboard with a resounding impact that
sets her living deck-load to stagger.
We lose no time. Scrambling down the life-ropes, our small company
endeavors to get foothold on her decks. The destroyer widens off at the
rebound, but by clutch of friendly hands the men are dragged aboard. One
fails to reach safety. A soldier loses grip and goes to the water. The
chief officer follows him. Tired and unstrung as he must be by the
devoted labors of the last half-hour, he is in no condition to effect a
rescue. A sudden deep rumble from within the sinking ship warns the
destroyer captain to go ahead. We are given no chance to aid our
shipmates: the propellers tear the water in a furious race that sweeps
them away, and we draw off swiftly from the side of the ship.
We are little more than clear of the settling fore-end when the last
buoyant breath of _Cameronia_ is overcome. Nobly she has held afloat to
the debarking of the last man. There is no further life in her. Evenly,
steadily, as we had seen her leave the launching ways at Meadowside, she
goes down.
THE MARKET
_By_ WILLIAM MCFEE
William McFee's name is associated with the sea, but in his writing
he treats the life of ships and sailors more as a background than
as the essential substance of his tale. I have chosen this brief
and colorful little sketch to represent his talent because it is
different from the work with which most of his readers are
familiar, and because it represents a mood very characteristic of
him--an imaginative and observant treatment of the workings of
commerce. His interest in fruit is intimate, as he has been for
some years an engineer in the sea service of the United Fruit
Company, with a Mediterranean interim--reflected in much of his
recent writing--during the War.
The publication of McFee's _Casuals of the Sea_ in 1916 was
something of an event in the world of books, and introduced to the
reading world a new writer of unquestionable strength and subtlety.
His earlier books, _An Ocean Tramp_ and _Aliens_ (both republished
since), had gone almost unnoticed--which, it is safe to say, will
not happen again to anything he cares to publish. His later books
are _Captain Macedoine's Daughter_, _Harbours of Memory_, and _An
Engineer's Notebook_. He was born at sea in 1881, the son of a
sea-captain; grew up in a northern suburb of London, served his
apprenticeship in a big engineering shop, and has been in ships
most of the time since 1905.
There is a sharp, imperative rap on my outer door; a rap having within
its insistent urgency a shadow of delicate diffidence, as though the
person responsible were a trifle scared of the performance and on tiptoe
to run away. I roll over and regard the clock. Four-forty. One of the
dubious by-products of continuous service as a senior assistant at sea
is the habit of waking automatically about 4 A. M. This gives one
several hours, when ashore, to meditate upon one's sins, frailties, and
(more rarely) triumphs and virtues. For a man who gets up at say
four-thirty is regarded with aversion ashore. His family express
themselves with superfluous vigor. He must lie still and meditate, or
suffer the ignominy of being asked when he is going away again.
But this morning, in these old Chambers in an ancient Inn buried in the
heart of London City, I have agreed to get up and go out. The reason for
this momentous departure from a life of temporary but deliberate
indolence is a lady. "Cherchez la femme," as the French say with the dry
animosity of a logical race. Well, she is not far to seek, being on the
outside of my heavy oak door, tapping, as already hinted, with a sharp
insistent delicacy. To this romantic summons I reply with an articulate
growl of acquiescence, and proceed to get ready. To relieve the anxiety
of any reader who imagines an impending elopement it may be stated in
succinct truthfulness that we are bound on no such desperate venture. We
are going round the corner a few blocks up the Strand, to Covent Garden
Market, to see the arrival of the metropolitan supply of produce.
Having accomplished a hasty toilet, almost as primitive as that favored
by gentlemen aroused to go on watch, and placating an occasional
repetition of the tapping by brief protests and reports of progress, I
take hat and cane, and drawing the huge antique bolts of my door,
discover a young woman standing by the window looking out upon the
quadrangle of the old Inn. She is a very decided young woman, who is
continually thinking out what she calls "stunts" for articles in the
press. That is her profession, or one of her professions--writing
articles for the press. The other profession is selling manuscripts,
which constitutes the tender bond between us. For the usual agent's
commission she is selling one of my manuscripts. Being an unattached
and, as it were, unprotected male, she plans little excursions about
London to keep me instructed and entertained. Here she is attired in the
flamboyant finery of a London flowergirl. She is about to get the
necessary copy for a special article in a morning paper. With the
exception of a certain expectant flash of her bright black Irish eyes,
she is entirely businesslike. Commenting on the beauty of an early
summer morning in town, we descend, and passing out under the ponderous
ancient archway, we make our leisurely progress westward down the
Strand.
London is always beautiful to those who love and understand that
extraordinary microcosm; but at five of a summer morning there is about
her an exquisite quality of youthful fragrance and debonair freshness
which goes to the heart. The newly-hosed streets are shining in the
sunlight as though paved with "patines of bright gold." Early 'buses
rumble by from neighboring barns where they have spent the night. And,
as we near the new Gaiety Theatre, thrusting forward into the great
rivers of traffic soon to pour round its base like some bold Byzantine
promontory, we see Waterloo Bridge thronged with wagons, piled high.
From all quarters they are coming, past Charing Cross the great wains
are arriving from Paddington Terminal, from the market-garden section of
Middlesex and Surrey. Down Wellington Street come carts laden with
vegetables from Brentwood and Coggeshall, and neat vans packed with
crates of watercress which grows in the lush lowlands of Suffolk and
Cambridgeshire, and behind us are thundering huge four-horse vehicles
from the docks, vehicles with peaches from South Africa, potatoes from
the Canary Islands, onions from France, apples from California, oranges
from the West Indies, pineapples from Central America, grapes from Spain
and bananas from Colombia.
We turn in under an archway behind a theatre and adjacent to the
stage-door of the Opera House. The booths are rapidly filling with
produce. Gentlemen in long alpaca coats and carrying formidable marbled
note-books walk about with an important air. A mountain range of
pumpkins rises behind a hill of cabbages. Festoons of onions are being
suspended from rails. The heads of barrels are being knocked in,
disclosing purple grapes buried in corkdust. Pears and figs, grown under
glass for wealthy patrons, repose in soft tissue-lined boxes. A broken
crate of tangerine oranges has spilled its contents in a splash of ruddy
gold on the plank runway. A wagon is driven in, a heavy load of beets,
and the broad wheels crush through the soft fruit so that the air is
heavy with the acrid sweetness.
We pick our way among the booths and stalls until we find the flowers.
Here is a crowd of ladies, young, so-so and some quite matronly, and all
dressed in this same flamboyant finery of which I have spoken. They are
grouped about an almost overpowering mass of blooms. Roses just now
predominate. There is a satisfying solidity about the bunches, a
glorious abundance which, in a commodity so easily enjoyed without
ownership, is scarcely credible. I feel no desire to own these huge
aggregations of odorous beauty. It would be like owning a harem, one
imagines. Violets, solid patches of vivid blue in round baskets,
eglantine in dainty boxes, provide a foil to the majestic blazonry of
the roses and the dew-spangled forest of maiden-hair fern near by.