THE MATE'S WORK (IN A SAILING SHIP)--_continued_.
Finding that this log-book business takes me farther than I
anticipated, I judged it best to break off the last chapter somewhat
abruptly, since I find that the average reader is not partial to long
chapters, and I have rigidly limited mine to eight pages of manuscript.
A log-book is popularly supposed to be (and certainly should be) an
absolutely truthful record of day-to-day happenings, of the ship's
progress, and of the weather conditions. And while there is no room
for literary ability, there is no doubt that ideal log-book keeping
is a fine art. In the small space at disposal, to state succinctly
what has occurred, rigidly excluding the irrelevant, but carefully
noting everything that is of importance for owners, underwriters, or
lawyers to know--this is an accomplishment by no means general, and
one that might be more carefully cultivated than it is. For it is only
stating the baldest fact to declare that no day passes at sea wherein
there is nothing worthy of record. The loss to literature and science,
through the lamentable habit of scamping log-book remarks, has been
incalculable, while the loss to the individuals themselves is equally
incapable of assessment. Remembering how splendid a training it is for
any one to record, as he roams about the world, all that he possibly
can that he sees of interest, one must be filled with regret that this
practice is so seldom carried on. If it were, the mate's log-book would
be a mine wherein might be found much fine gold--there is no room for
dross. And the habit, growing by what it fed upon, would soon compel an
ardent observer to keep a private log-book, where he could enter those
things for which the ship's log-book afforded no room, and the result
would be educational and refining in the highest degree.
I have seen log-books like this. One I remember even now, with the
keenest delight, kept by the third mate of a large ship in which I
made a voyage before the mast from London to China and back. This
gentleman, besides writing a very neat hand, was an artist, and
wherever it was possible he decorated his book with little sketches.
Landscapes especially attracted him, of course; but passing ships,
birds, porpoises, fish, deck scenes, fronds of fucus or gulf-weed,
were all utilized, and the result was a book beyond price. As he did a
little every day, there was no sense of labour attached to it; yet the
finished work gave the impression of a stupendous amount of work having
been spent upon the result. I do not know what became of that young
man, but I am prepared to hear that, if he lived, he rose to the top of
his profession in a very short time. For, as might have been expected,
he was no less keen about his duties than he was in his observations
and in his efforts to record them. He loved the sea and all that
belonged to it, and, in return for that love, the sea was to him an
untiring teacher as well as a faithful friend.
Another gentleman I know always carried a camera with him, and
ornamented his log-book with well-developed snapshot photographs, in
this way interpreting his keen remarks upon things in a wonderful way,
although his book lacked the artistic grace and finish of the other.
Perhaps it may be said that, looking at this matter from a literary
point of view, as well as from that of the sailor who has forsaken the
sea, I am laying too much stress upon it, and that, after all, it is
the sailor-man that is wanted in a mate, and not a bookworm. Such a
way of putting the matter is, I maintain, manifestly unfair. I admit
that a man may be super-excellent in all that pertains to the working
of his ship, and yet be unable to keep a log as it should be kept;
but, on the other hand, I am sure that it will be seldom found that a
mate who keeps a good log is a bad sailor-man. The efficient officer
will not be less but more efficient, if to his capacity for work he
brings the seeing eye and the imaginative brain. And, like all other
mental or physical faculties, this faculty of observation will improve
continually by being exercised, and add to the stature of the inner
man, making him more complete. Besides, how immensely it will add to
his enjoyment of life. His ideas will be enlarged, his capacity for
enjoyment will widen; and instead of being, as so many otherwise good
seamen are, discontented with his lot, and looking forward anxiously to
the time when he shall look his last upon the solemn wideness of the
sea, he will find his days all too short for the full appreciation of
the pleasures that will crowd into them.
There is, of course, another side to the question, and it applies
almost exclusively to the fine seamen that are reared in America and
the British North American colonies. Strangely enough, these splendid
men do not profit as they might be expected to do by the facilities for
education provided in their go-ahead country. It would seem as if they
thought that it was necessary for a man of action to coarsen himself;
to become--I say it without any intention of giving offence--more
or less of a ruffian. The quiet, firm authority which marks the
native-born gentleman does not appeal to them. The ideal Yankee or
"Blue-nose" mate is a splendid seaman, with a voice of brass and a
fist of iron. When work is afoot he may be heard all over the ship,
and it is impossible to conceive of him being a silent, reserved, and
thoughtful man. In the practice of seamanship this plan seems to work
well. I shall never forget while lying in Hong Kong harbour a fine
American ship, the _Colorado_, coming in one evening. We had done work
for the day, and were smoking the after-supper pipe on the forecastle
head. Therefore we were keenly observant of the doings of the newcomer,
and with that minute admiration of smartness possessed by all seamen,
even the laziest, we watched her. She came grandly up to her moorings
close to us, amidst a very hurricane of roaring orders, and presently
was securely moored. Then, instead of furling sails and coiling up
ropes, as would have been the case with an English ship, the crew
began to strip the yards of the sails and stop up the running-gear.
The mate was ubiquitous. His tremendous tones reverberated over the
quiet harbour incessantly, weighted by the weird profanity affected
by American seamen. The men flew from spar to spar, sails descended
magically, were seized, stopped up, and stowed away immediately.
Before it was quite dark the ship was in as complete harbour trim as
if she had been anchored a week, and even the few sea-marks upon her
outside had been carefully removed. Then, and not till then, were
the hard-driven crew permitted to seek the forecastle and rest from
their labours. And although every one of our crew were loud in their
condemnation of the "infernal nigger-drivin'," as they called it, they
did not withhold their admiration of the consummate smartness of the
whole business, and added in chorus: "Yes, but y' sh'd see th' grub
them fellows hev got ter go below ter. When a man gits 'nough t' eat
'ee don' mind workin'." It is conceivable that the splendid officer
who thus made things fly could hardly write his own name, since it is
the good sailor-man an American skipper looks for, not a gentleman.
More than that, I'm afraid the more "bucko" he is the better, from the
skipper's point of view. To be quiet and reserved is decidedly against
him. I was once in an American ship where the skipper was old--too
old to go to sea really, although he had no doubt been a smart man in
his day. He shipped a mate in London who was an Englishman, and had
commanded some first-rate English ships. As far as I can remember, he
was a good seaman, although a little rusty from having been long in
command. But he certainly was a gentleman, and he had not been on board
a week before the "old man" hated him with an intensity of fervour that
was almost comical to see, simply because he could not roar, neither
could he kick. I heard the "old man" say to him one day, "See here,
Mr. Small, I hain't no use fer a man as mate of my ship that creeps
aroun' 's if he wuz dum 'n paralytic. For God's sake, try an' hustle
them squarheds some, 'r we shain't get t' Melbun this fall." Yet the
ship was well handled; no thanks, I am bound to say, to the mate's
quietness, but to the traditions of the American Merchant Service,
which have been followed and improved upon by the Blue-nose, and may be
summed up in the following words of the Yankee mate to his crew: "W'en
I say 'walk,' I want ye t' run; w'en I say 'run,' I want ye t' fly."
And also the typical words of the mate of the lumber-carrying ship to
his crew: "Here, knock off work and carry deals." To their prayer for
a little rest he says, in tones of bitterest scorn, "Rest! Rest when
you're dead."
But enough, perhaps, of this ruthless side of smart men's characters.
Let us return to the mate's duties again. He is responsible for the
due shipment and delivery of the cargo. In a vessel where his whole
time may be given up to the duty of tallying (counting) it in, this is
all very well; but when, as often happens, he has many other duties
to attend to simultaneously, and must therefore trust to others, he
often finds himself in difficulties. I speak feelingly, having once
loaded government stores in London for Zanzibar, and, being unable
to watch both hatches at once, I was obliged to delegate the tallying
forward to some one else. When I came to sign the bill of lading, I
found a serious discrepancy. My assistant reported having taken in six
dozen ash oars, but I found that the bill of lading specified eight
dozen. Now, these oars had all been stowed away as they were shipped,
so that to get at them again meant much work. The officials stuck to
their bill, of course, and I wasn't sure. So I signed the bill "in
dispute," and bore about with me all the passage out the dread of
being called upon to pay for two dozen oars at about eight shillings
apiece, or about two months' wages. As soon as I arrived at Zanzibar, I
went to the ship's steward of H.M.S. _London_, to whom the goods were
consigned, and asked him to tell me how many oars he wanted from me. He
replied, "Six dozen," and I was happy. Yet those bills of lading had
been signed and countersigned at Deptford by at least six different
officials, each of whom had left it to "the other fellow."
Yes, the care of cargo, often of vast value, is doubtless one of the
most responsible of all the duties of a mate. At the same time, it
is one which he performs with wonderful accuracy and satisfaction to
all concerned, on the whole, especially when it is considered under
what varied conditions the work must be done: in open roadsteads, on
storm-beaten shores, in foreign harbours, pestered by all the motley
crew who, in mysterious ways, make a living out of ships, and must
of necessity come to the mate first; in ports where, in addition to
keeping an overseeing eye upon the never-ceasing work of the ship, he
is worried by his crew continually dodging ashore, getting drunk, and
returning abusive. And the lower down the scale of ships his position
is, the harder his work must necessarily be, since he can get less
help, while his responsibility remains the same.
All the ship's stores are also under his charge, and it is his duty to
so husband them that they shall last the voyage, yet see that their
expenditure is conducted on such lines as to produce the best effects.
And if he succeeds in this onerous duty, he may have the supreme
satisfaction of hearing the ship's husband say, when he comes on board
upon the ship's arrival home, "Good day, Mr. Brown; your ship looks
very well," which naturally makes him feel that his labour has not been
all in vain, especially if, as has been my own experience, he himself
has not only contributed mind, but muscle, to the desired result.
He has many temptations. Interested touts will come aboard, veiling
their real intentions under a mask of _bonhomie_, and invite him to
dissipations ashore; will offer him money out of pure affection for
him, of course, but with a suggestion that he shall hold their axes to
the grindstone. And if he be strictly honest, he will often find that
his honesty must be not only its own reward, but in many cases it will
be a serious loss to him.
I have never been able to get over an experience I had in Rotterdam.
I came home mate of a barque from Mexico with a cargo of mahogany.
Unfortunately, I had joined the ship in Barbadoes, finding that the
skipper and the bo'sun (we carried no second mate) were on exceedingly
intimate terms. Anxious to please, and looking forward to passing for
master, I said nothing about this queer state of things, not even when
the skipper and bo'sun went off day after day shooting, leaving me to
get the cargo in, keep things going generally, and between whiles hunt
along the beaches for derelict logs, saw them up, and bring the pieces
on board for broken stowage. Owing to my placable disposition, and
partly, I suppose, to my cowardly fears of a "row," there was peace on
board throughout the voyage. We duly arrived in Rotterdam, and were
boarded by a gang of touts after "shakings," tailors' orders, etc. One
Jewish gentleman was specially attentive to me, knowing that we carried
an enormous number of pieces of mahogany, which were the perquisites
of the officers. He wanted to buy them, and while he did not wish to
bias me in any way, he was anxious to give me a five-pound note as a
proof of his regard. I refused it, from what I now feel to have been a
mistaken sense of duty. The cargo was discharged; my importunate Jewish
friend bought the broken stowage at his own price, and then came to me
exultant, saying, "You vas fery foolish mans. If you haf dake my vife
pounts you vas do nodings wrong. Now _I_ haf my vife pounts, unt you
haf nodings." He said more truly than he knew. For my skipper divided
the proceeds with the bo'sun, and gave me "nodings," although I had
toiled early and late to procure the wood. I have often tried since
to console myself with the thought that I did the right thing, but I
cannot help an uneasy feeling stealing over me that, after all, I was
somewhat of a fool.
Upon another occasion, when mate of a brig that had been fitted with
wire rigging in Santos, Brazil, shortly before I joined her, I was
much pestered in St. John, N.B., by junkmen coming on board wishing to
buy the old rope rigging. It was a mystery to me how they got to know
of its presence there, but they certainly came swarming around like
sea-birds to a dead whale. One man was especially persistent, and at
last, in a sort of desperation, said, "Look-a-heah, Mr. Mate, I'll give
a hundred dollars for that junk, an' ef ye k'n get the skipper t' take
that I'll give you another thutty fur y'rself." I refused with some
roughness, and ordered the fellow ashore. My feelings may be imagined
when the next day my gentleman appeared triumphantly flourishing an
order from the skipper to let him have the rigging, which he had
purchased for seventy-five dollars. Knowing my commander's unquenchable
thirst, he had laid his plans accordingly; and, after a carouse at the
groggery where the skipper was putting up, had induced him to sell the
stuff for what was certainly no more than half its value. And even that
poor yield never reached the owner's pocket, nor any part thereof.
But the great temptation is drink. It assails the mate in every
harbour; and by not yielding to it, while he is taking the only really
safe course, he cuts himself off effectually from any society at all.
Some fortunate mates find friends in port who can and do invite them
to spend their scanty leisure in the midst of pleasant family life
ashore. But they are few. The majority of mates must for a season learn
to rely upon themselves for society, to be happy although alone, and
to find companionship in books and self-culture. It will be remembered
that I am now speaking of sailing ships. In steamers the case is very
different. The mate can associate with the engineers, and does so, in
cargo ships; in passenger vessels he gets rather more company than he
wants or is good for him.
And now I must part company with the mate, reluctantly, and with many
a backward glance over the long line of fine fellows under whom it has
been my privilege to serve. Of all the different positions on board
ship that I know of, none is so favourable to the formation of fine
characters, none that a man can hold with greater dignity and benefit
to himself. He has a scope for his energies that is practically denied
to the master; and where he has the good fortune to serve under a man
who has not forgotten the days when he himself was mate, and treats his
immediate coadjutor as his _mate_, there is no reason why he should not
be perfectly happy. I know that it was the happiest time of my own sea
life.