THE MATE'S WORK.
Happy indeed is the master who finds a good mate, but happier still is
the mate who has the joy of serving under a master who, while never
neglecting his own duties, is not for ever fussing about finding
fault with the way in which work is being carried on--a master who
will treat his mate as his right-hand man, not only trusting him but
confiding in him. And even while finding out whether he be worthy of
trust, such a master will make his observations in an unostentatious
manner, most careful that no one may suspect that the mate is being
weighed in the balance of his mind. Whether a man make a success or a
failure as mate, and, consequently, as master--supposing that he ever
reach that coveted position--is more largely due to the treatment he
receives at the hands of his first master than is generally admitted.
Everywhere, unfortunately, are to be found men who, while indignantly
repudiating any description of themselves as persecutors, are yet
saturated with the idea that it is necessary to treat the beginner who
comes under their control with studied harshness; to comment upon his
slightest mistakes--not due to ignorance, but to a nervous anxiety to
do his best--as if they were indisputable proofs of his being a fool;
to find out his tender spots and probe them, so that the hot flush of
shame rises, and the tongue is almost bitten through in the endeavour
to restrain the furious reply that would be fatal;--more than all,
and worse than all, to comment upon a beginner's shortcomings openly
before the men and boys over whom that beginner is placed in authority,
thereby laying him open to the covert sneer, the insolent retort, and
the slackly-performed obedience. Such treatment is diabolical cruelty
to a highly-strung, sensitive man, no matter how expert, how clever he
may be. That upon first entering a new position he will make mistakes
is an axiom, for, as has often been said most truly, the man who
makes no mistakes makes nothing--especially when one realizes that
he then for the first time feels the burden of responsibility, feels
it with a keenness that use will presently dull the edge of, knows
that swiftness and decision, readiness in action, must be joined to
accuracy of knowledge and fertility of resource. To the man who is not
sensitive, yet not dull, these early experiences are not nearly so
full of painful experiences, but the majority of modern officers bear
about with them still the scars of their early memories, when their
ears caught the faintest whisper of disparagement, their eyes saw every
shade of expression that flitted across the skipper's face, and they
were continually torturing themselves with questions as to whether or
how they had failed to come up to the mark.
But to return to the actual duties of the mate. Undoubtedly his prime
duty is that of an overseer, the manager of the business wherein the
skipper occupies the position of chairman of the Board of Directors.
In the great liners, while the foregoing still holds true, it must
necessarily be modified somewhat. There are in these splendid vessels
many officials who, nominally responsible to the mate for all they
do, really report direct to heads ashore. Still, for all practical
purposes, the mate is the centre around which all the working interests
of the ship outside the engineer's province revolve. He it is who
sees that the routine of duty goes steadily forward, without any
slackness or neglect; who must know the condition of the ship--again as
distinguished from the engineer's department and the chief steward's
domain, and who must see that her condition is first-class and kept so.
Of course, in such a ship as the _Lucania_, for instance, the work of
the mate resolves itself more and more into generalship. He has such an
army of subordinates, each of whom is charged with some particular duty
and responsibility to the mate for its being carried out, that he does
not need to be for ever seeing for himself that the work is being done.
In such a ship the mate keeps no watch. He is on duty all day, and
sleeps in all night, although he would doubtless say that he was really
always on duty, and that the fact of his not keeping a particular watch
means only that he gets much less rest than if he did. But one thing
may be taken as undeniable, the mate of a liner occupies a position of
tremendous responsibility and honour. He is the real commander of the
ship, the master being, like the captain of a man-o'-war, a sort of
veiled prophet with whom the crew and junior officers seldom come in
contact except in extra bad weather or entering and leaving harbour.
Yet--and here comes the curious pinch--between the mate's salary and
the master's, how great a gulf is fixed! It seems such an anomaly that
a man who really bears the whole burden of the ship's working, who can
be, and who is, called to account by the master when anything goes
wrong, and who is generally well into middle age before he gets command
himself, should be so poorly paid as compared with the master. It works
out roughly like this: A friend of my own was second officer of a liner
for four years. He had in his pre-steamer days been master of a large
sailing ship, so that he was getting on in years. Then, as he began
to fear that he was fixed in that subordinate position, he suddenly
succeeded to the mate, who obtained a command elsewhere. For one year
only he was mate, then, on the master's retirement, he obtained the
command. We will not inquire what powerful influences were at work to
push him on so suddenly. The net result was that in one year his income
was nearly trebled, his salary as mate being only £3 per month more
than it was as second mate. It does not appear easy to explain why,
since the mate may at any moment be called upon to become master, it
should be considered necessary to have so serious a difference between
their salaries. But it explains the statement that is often truly
made, that unless a man has a private income he must not only be very
economical to live upon his pay while he is an officer in a swagger
line, he must forego all idea of getting married. That is, if he
wishes his wife and children to get enough to eat.
The next step down the scale of ships is a long one. From the mate of a
liner to the mate of a cargo steamer, or tramp, is indeed a fall. And
not only in status, but in decreased pay and increased work; for in the
liner, as I have before noted, there are not only numerous officers
below the position of mate to relieve him of onerous duties, such
as tallying of cargo, charge of stores, etc., but he is practically
relieved from any necessity of looking after these subordinates, as
they are controlled from the offices ashore. In the cargo steamer,
on the contrary, it is the mate who must look after the shipment of
cargo, examine bills of lading, and, indeed, do the tallying as well.
Moreover, since the number of mates in most cases is rigidly limited
to three, and often to two, he must take his watch on the bridge, must
work up the position of the ship, look after the compasses, with all
their heart-breaking divagations, attend personally to the care of the
ship in cleansing, etc., and last, but by no means least, keep in order
the motley crew. And for this his pay is sometimes, nay, frequently,
so small that mention of it excites disbelief among responsible
persons ashore who know nothing of shipping matters. I have myself
been offered five guineas a month to go mate of a steamer bound to the
Baltic for timber, a steamer of 2000 tons burden. I would have gone,
too, but that a German stepped down before me and agreed to have the
five shillings a month knocked off. Perhaps the tramp mate's lot is
harder than that of most other sea-officers, in that his work is never
done, his responsibilities are very heavy, and his pay is so small
that he _must_ forego the delights of wife and children if he has only
that pay to live upon. Yet these men form the marrow of our Merchant
Service, and should certainly not be treated shabbily. How their work
is done let owners and shippers declare, who know full well that while
the master gets all the credit that his position entitles him to, the
mate, working silently but strenuously in the background, must wait for
any recognition until he has at last emerged from his obscurity into
the coveted post of master. Not so, however, in the case of disaster
to his ship. No amount of theory as to the master bearing the whole
responsibility will avail to save the unhappy mate from the most
severe punishment that can fall upon a Merchant officer--suspension or
cancelling of his certificate--if any leather-headed court of inquiry
choose to bring him in to blame in any way. I do not mean to speak evil
of dignities, God knows; but the proceedings of some of these courts,
abroad especially, are sufficient to make angels weep. We all know the
rest of that wise quotation. In ships of this kind the mate's lot is
seldom a happy one; it may easily be made intolerable if the master be
not kindly disposed towards him, or so blind to his obvious duties as
to neglect or refuse to give him all the weight of his own authority in
the event of any trouble arising.
I said "in the event of any trouble arising." Well, to tell the truth,
trouble in a foreign port, especially where the ship lies alongside a
wharf, is the tramp mate's normal environment. Not only has he the
entire conduct of the ship's business on board, as distinguished from
that which the skipper performs on shore, but he must see to it that
the work goes on. Each one of his crew will probably be devoting all
his energy to the endeavour to do as little as possible, and to getting
drunk. The motley crowd that are working the cargo work only under
steady stress of compulsion. If receiving cargo, the second mate must
keep an eye on the stowage, so that he cannot assist his superior on
deck; and there are the innumerable horde of touts of one sort and
another to keep at bay. Every one else will be complaining of the heat
or something; the mate must bear all such personal inconveniences
without noticing them, and keep the ball rolling steadily as well. And
as if these things were not sufficient, he must compete with whatever
personal abuse or violence a drunken seaman chooses to offer him, his
only remedy to report the offender to the master, when he can get
hold of him. Should he defend his own life, take a deadly weapon and
use it, he is guilty of manslaughter, and sent to herd with criminals
for years. This is by no means vague generalization. The particular
instance that excites my whole-hearted indignation is the case of
the mate of the _Lanarkshire_. He was threatened all day by a negro
seaman who, instead of working, was oscillating between the ship and
a grog-shop, and filling up the intervals by using the foulest abuse
to his long-suffering officer. The most sanguinary threats were made
by this scoundrel against the mate, who, naturally alarmed, loaded
his revolver and carried it in his pocket. Then, when in the gloom of
the evening he suddenly realized that the fellow was making for him
with murderous knife uplifted, he fired and killed him. Surely if ever
there was a case of justifiable homicide, this was. Yet, to the lasting
injury of our Merchant Service, and the indelible shame of our laws,
this hapless gentleman was sentenced to two years' imprisonment, and as
I write he is undergoing this shameful sentence for doing what was his
obvious duty. To have failed to do it would not only have been to have
lost his own life, but to have put a premium upon murdering others.
Again I say that in the American Mercantile Marine such a thing would
be inconceivable. In the first place, the man would never have been
allowed to wander at his own sweet will backwards and forwards; and had
he made a threat to murder, there is no doubt whatever that he would at
once have been physically incapacitated from carrying it out. Had he,
without threatening, attempted murder, there is also no doubt that he
would have been instantly shot dead. And the officer acting in any of
the ways hinted at above would have been held to have done not one jot
more than his obvious duty. As to even bringing him to trial--the idea
would have been scouted as absurd.
Nevertheless, it is certain that such a training as the mate of a tramp
steamer gets is admirably calculated to bring out all a man's sterling
qualities: patient persistence in the face of difficulties, ability to
deal with refractory races by diplomacy rather than by force, orderly
marshalling of thought--absolutely necessary where so many things must
be kept going at one time; and, certainly, endurance of hardness. This
is no easy way of getting through the world. It makes a man thankful
for small mercies; as, for instance, when, after a harassing time,
with all the worries of harbour, the mate heaves a sigh of relief upon
mounting the bridge to keep watch through four hours of a dark, dirty
night. With keen eyes, smarting under the incessant pelting of driving
rain and spray, he peers over the edge of the weather-cloth into the
blackness ahead, heeding not at all the "bucking beam-sea roll" or the
thumpity-thump-thump of the untiring engines below him. Now he can send
his thoughts a-roaming. Such tender musings as of love and home and
rest may be admitted while the almost invisible blackness of the hull
beneath him is thrust into the hungry expanse of darkness ahead, the
only sure point being beneath the tiny circle of light in the binnacle.
Here we will leave him, steady, resourceful, and alert, not without an
affectionate remembrance of all his fellows at their posts on all the
seas at this present, worthy members of the worthiest of all commercial
enterprises, the Merchant Service.