THE STONE BEGINS TO ROLL
WHEN I reached home after leaving the “Bertie” in London, a hearty
welcome awaited me, every one exclaiming “my word, how you have grown.”
The boys that I had known at school would come up in the evening and
listen with eyes and ears wide open as I told them all about the
voyage. I, of course, went to see Captain Watson, and spent the best
part of one day with him, he was pleased at the way I had got on, and
on my leaving he said: “I suppose you are going back in her, George?
She is a good ship and has a good captain and officers.”
I hesitated, for somehow I wanted to go further afield, and already I
was tired of being on shore.
“I don’t know, sir,” I said at length.
“You’re not tired of the sea already, are you?”
“Oh, no, sir, only I should like to go to some other part of the world.”
“Of course you would,” he answered, “or you would not be a sailor,
but don’t leave your ship every time she comes into a home port, make
three or four voyages in her, it is not fair to those who have taught
you to leave them as soon as you know a bit of the work, don’t be a
rolling stone. When a chief mate looks at a man’s discharges and sees
each one has a different ship’s name on it, he never thinks much of him
because he feels he is only coming to suit his own convenience. No, I
say stick to your ship, if she is a good one.”
I made no answer to this and said good-bye, neither did I mention the
subject at home, as I wanted to be free in this matter.
I had now been at home a month. The “Bertie” had not come to Liverpool,
but had sailed from London, but I had decided not to make another
voyage in her. The roving, restless spirit was urging me towards the
sea again. Nearly the whole of the time I had been at home the weather
had been most trying, rain, sleet, snow or blowing a gale of wind. I
was getting tired of the sight of bricks and mortar, and the dirty
streets of Liverpool, I missed the regular life on board ship, the
sweet pure air of the ocean, the rolling restless ocean, I was tired of
the noise and bustle, and wanted to get away from it all. The longing
to see other lands, to cross other oceans grew stronger each day, life
to me at that time meant only one thing, to see all there was to be
seen, all that was worth seeing, to verify all that I had read about
India, China, Japan, Africa, Australia and numberless other places.
But Liverpool, I found, was at this time the centre of a great strike
of seamen and firemen, and it was very difficult to join a ship, even
if you got a chance, without getting your head broken by some of the
loafers who infest our seaports, and who neither go to sea themselves
nor let others go. A seamen’s strike at that time was rarely, if
ever, organized for the benefit of the seamen, but for, and by a lazy
disreputable gang of crimps and boarding-house keepers, and they were
the only ones who reaped any benefit from it. It was a sight to make
one’s blood boil; all around the shipping offices and along the line
of docks these scoundrels would parade on the watch to prevent any
poor sailor from going on board a ship and many a one, half starved
with cold and hunger, was beaten and half killed by these wretches for
trying to get on board a ship to get away from it all.
I had decided in my own mind to get a ship at once, and made my way
to the Salthouse Dock. There I saw a beautifully shaped barque. She
was, to look at, a perfect yacht, her tall tapering masts and long
jibboom with a cutwater like a wedge, shewed that she could exhibit a
clean pair of heels if driven. She was spotlessly clean, and her sails
were white as cotton. I took a fancy to her at once, a nice model
ship always appeals to a true seaman. Then I went to look at her bow
to see what she was called, and found it was the “Stormy Petrel,” of
Liverpool. Thinking how well her name would suit her when she was out
in the ocean with all sails set, I saw the mate on deck, and as there
were no crimps about, I went up to him, and asked him if he had engaged
his crew.
“No, my lad,” he said, “I wish I had. The confounded strike is keeping
the men away, and I want to get hold of some good men. Do you want a
ship?”
“Yes, sir, where is this one going?”
“To Callao, Peru,” he answered, “come down to-morrow morning at seven
a.m., and you can start work at once. As far as I can see there are
none but foreigners to be got in the port at present, if the captain
has to engage a crew of foreigners, I will let you live with the
carpenter, sailmaker, and cook in the half-deck.”
I thanked him, and promised to be on board at seven on the following
morning, and made up my mind that if a crimp, or anyone tried to stop
me from doing this, well, it would not be well for either of them.
Leaving the dock, I walked towards the Sailor’s Home where the strikers
were congregated, to see if I could pick up any news. Here I found
the real strikers were mostly foreigners, and many of them could not
speak a word of English. There were Scandinavians, Greeks, Turks,
Spaniards, Italians, French, and some Manilla men, the Scandinavians
predominating. What a parody! The papers described the dispute as
a strike of British seamen, the prime movers of the strike were
boarding-house keepers and crimps, for reasons best known to themselves.
Several shipmasters, to save time and trouble, had engaged these same
crimps to procure them a crew and bring them on board the morning of
sailing and they would get a shipping clerk to sign them on on board
the vessel. This was done by the captain of the “Stormy Petrel” and on
the following day the boarding master brought as truly a cosmopolitan
crowd of men on board, with their bags and baggage, as it has ever
been my lot to see. A clerk from the shipping office attended with
them to sign them on the ship’s articles, several of them could not
speak a word of English. Our crew, therefore, consisted of the captain,
the two mates and myself, British; carpenter, sailmaker, and cook,
Scandinavians; two Frenchmen, two Spaniards, two Italians, one Greek,
two negroes, three Turks, and one Manilla man. I signed on as an
ordinary seaman, at two pounds a month.
The “Stormy Petrel” was, as the chief mate told me, bound for
Callao, Peru. I had a particular desire to go to Peru at that time,
having a relative out there whom I was very anxious to see. He had
left Liverpool some fifteen years previously as engineer of the
s.s. “Bogota,” of the Pacific Navigation Company and had found very
profitable employment at Lima, and like many others, had forgotten the
claims of those he had left behind.
We sailed from Liverpool on the Saturday morning. It was a miserably
cold raw morning, and the sleet was falling fast. As the chief mate
said, it was a day to drive a man to drink, or suicide, enough to make
one leave the country in disgust, and seek one that had a climate, and
not a bundle of samples.
Our crew, being foreigners, were sober, and that was something to be
thankful for, although six of them could not speak one word of English,
but, unlike Englishmen, they are remarkably quick at picking up a
language. Under these conditions, Captain Glasson deemed it prudent to
tow down until abreast of Tusker, in the meantime getting everything
secure about the deck.
The river was teeming with life--there were barges and wherries,
dark-sailed colliers, swarming along under full sail, ships in tow like
ourselves, bound either up or down, huge metal ships gliding to their
homes in the docks after days of strenuous passage through the great
ocean or floating majestically past us to the far west or east.
Everything being now made snug and secure, the men were told to go
and have a smoke, and in a little while all hands were called aft on
the quarter deck to pick for watches. For the benefit of those who
do not know, I may say that it is the custom for the master to take
the ship out to her destination and the chief mate to bring her home,
and as the second mate keeps the captain’s watch, he always has first
pick. The men were ranged in line across the quarter deck, and the
second mate, Mr. Ross, called George the Greek first, and the first
mate, Mr. Menzies, called a big Frenchman, and so on alternately
until the watches were completed. I was again in the starboard watch,
the carpenter, cook and steward always slept in, unless in cases of
emergency when it was “all hands on deck.”
The two Frenchmen, Old George the Greek and the two negroes turned
out to be thorough good seamen, but the others turned out to be
duffers--and disagreeable duffers at that.
We then had the usual short speech from the captain. Now Captain
Glasson was a bluff, hard, hearty, red-faced man in the prime of
life, proud of himself, and of his ship, and always, as I found out
afterwards, said the same thing each voyage to the crew after the
watches had been picked. Walking the quarter deck, and dropping his
words out between puffs of smoke from his pipe:
“Now men, if we get along well and work together we shall have a
comfortable time, if not, there will be trouble, and you’ll be in the
thick of it. All you’ve got to do is to obey your orders, and do your
duty like men. If you don’t you’ll fare hard, I can tell you that
beforehand. You do your duty to me and the ship, and you will find
things all right, if not, then I’m as hard as nails. That’s all I’ve
got to say. Starboard watch go below.”
We had a stiff breeze and a choppy sea crossing the bar, which
increased as we drew down towards Point Lynas. When off Lynas the
pilot cutter came in sight, and we hauled our courses up, dropped our
Jacob’s ladder over the starboard side, one of the men standing on the
rail forrard of the main rigging ready to heave a line to the boat.
Presently a boat manned by four oarsmen and a coxswain got to windward,
the bow man stood up on the fore grating, and when the boat was abreast
of our starboard rigging, the man in our main chains whirled the right
hand coil round his head and hove it towards the boat with a mighty
heave. It fell across her bow, and with almost unerring precision,
the bow man caught it and made it fast to the thwart. The boat rose
and fell on the choppy sea, and nothing but the skill of her coxswain
saved her from being smashed to pieces against the side. At last came
a favourable chance, and the old sea-dog of a pilot caught the boat as
she hung for a brief moment on the top of a wave opposite the rung of
the ladder on which he was standing, and with the agility of a cat, he
stepped on to the after-thwart, sitting down in the stern sheets as she
swept into the trough of the sea, whilst the steward hove the pilot bag
after him. With a wave of his hand and a “God speed you all,” he left
us and went on his way, as they cast off our line.
By noon the following day we were off the Tusker Lighthouse, and the
wind being from the north-west, we set all square sail and cast off
the tug boat. All hands then laid hold of the tow rope and hauled it
in on the deck. It was then coiled up over the house to dry. The tug,
meanwhile, dropped on the weather quarter, and the usual present of
tobacco and brandy was passed on board along with the returns. Then she
gave three long blasts on her whistle, and three cheers for the crew,
and steamed back towards home.
During the next few days we were kept busy making and furling sails,
the weather being very unsettled and squally. Captain Glasson, we
found, never took a sail in, if the ship could carry it, so that
when the order came to furl sails, it had to be done quickly, if we
expected to get them in whole. The drilling with the sails brought out
the merits of both officers and men, and shewed up their defects and
tempers too.