THE THIRD MATE.
We have now exhausted, as far as the present work goes, the three
official titles used in the Merchant Service; that is to say, with
regard to the certificates issued. Master, mate, and second mate are
alone recognized as responsible officers by the Board of Trade. Yet,
with the growth of the steamship, it has become inevitable that more
officers should be employed, and so, as I have pointed out before, in
some big ships you may have eight or more officers, of whom only two
have officially recognized titles. Notwithstanding this, they will all
be certificated men, and some of them, perhaps all, will have passed
through all the grades before beginning at the bottom of the ladder
in the great company whose service has attracted them. Thus, in many
cases it will be found that the third mate of a fine steamship holds a
certificate as master extra, and is as good a seaman and navigator as
can be found anywhere. His duties are responsible and important, for
he keeps a watch, taking charge of the great ship alone. From what has
preceded this, it will be seen that he must be eminently fitted for
such a responsible position, and not only he, but the fourth or fifth
mate likewise, with neither of whom, however, do I propose to deal
here. Their position being, as I have said, unofficial and abnormal,
and their duties varying with the ship and her peculiar service, it
would be impossible for me to deal with them extensively. But let no
one imagine, therefore, that they are to be ignored. True, their pay
is small, but their prospects are good. They are in the direct line
of succession to the hierarchy of the sea, and in due time, failing
accident, they will command one of those splendid leviathans that are
the pride and glory of ocean traffic.
Of these unofficially-recognized officers the third is the _doyen_.
At any moment he may be called up higher and become one of the great
three. And no one connected with the great liners thinks lightly of
him. He holds an honourable post and leads a not at all unpleasant
life, always cheered by the prospect of immediate promotion. He is very
seldom called the third mate, but the third "officer," in the endeavour
to add, if possible, a more dignified air to his rather commonplace
title. It almost seems a pity that these great steamship lines do not
have a system analogous to that of the Navy, where, once a lieutenant
has passed his examinations, he is then eligible for the highest posts,
his promotion being only a matter of time. And once he takes his place
as a lieutenant he is on perfect equality as regards rank with all the
other lieutenants on board, with the sole exception of Number 1, the
first lieutenant. None is afore or greater than another. So I should
think it might be in a great liner, where all the officers will likely
hold the same certificate. Below the second, or navigating officer,
they might all rank alike as watch officers, or some such title, and
their pay should be on the same level, as with the naval lieutenants,
where the only difference is in small increases for special duties.
When we step down from the liner into the tramp there is a woeful
collapse. Of course only the very best type of tramp and the largest
will carry a third mate at all, and he has no position worth talking
about. From what I have said in the foregoing pages about the life of a
second mate on board a tramp some idea will be gathered of what sort of
a post a _third_ mate would hold in such a ship, where one is carried.
It is an even chance that he would not receive the poor compliment of
a handle to his name. Thus it comes about that he is usually in evil
case, without respect from the crew, and generally looked upon as a
loblolly-boy to the mate, or a call-boy to the skipper when going in
or out of harbour, standing by to work the engine-room telegraph when
required. Yet he does get some practice on the bridge at sea, where
the mate will use him for a relief at times, and as he gets experience
allows him to take a watch in the day while he (the mate) is busy
elsewhere.
Nor is his position greatly different in a sailing ship. Of course
only the largest sailing ships will pretend to carry a third mate,
who is almost always the senior apprentice in the last year of his
time, or making another voyage after his time is up, on an able
seaman's wages but with quarters aft. It may be stated at once that
he has no settled duties. He is always attached to the mate's watch,
and may be of considerable use to that hard-worked officer, or a
source of much annoyance to him. Where (and I have personally known
such cases) he is a blockhead, but has sufficient owners' interest
to keep him in a post where he is of no use, he will make the mate
so angry that he will implore him to do whatever he likes as long as
he doesn't get in the mate's way. And he will probably then divide
his energies to killing time, lounging in the boys' house, yarning,
and generally exhibiting that sad spectacle--a young man wasting his
life, squandering opportunities that many a friendless youngster would
give all he possessed to obtain. The men make a butt of him except in
harbour, where, as he is usually well supplied with money by his fond
parents, they are full of compliments to him in exchange for sundry
drinks or the price of them. He is to be seen in all his glory, with
a well-fitting uniform on and his gilt-badged cap stuck right on the
back of his head, dawdling about the bars in Melbourne or Sydney, or
parading the streets with questionable lady friends, who, when his back
is turned, allude to him as the "poop ornament."
Now, I would not have it supposed for a moment that I intend this to be
a picture of the average third mate. By no means. But this particular
type of third mate is very well known to most officers of fine sailing
ships and as cordially detested. He is bred of careless skippers,
influential friends, and parents who dote on him and supply him with
far too much money. There is, happily, a far more general type of
third mate, who is thoroughly anxious to make himself fit for the
position he hopes presently to occupy. He is not noticeable for being
extra well dressed when at sea, for he is too fond of having his fist
in the tar-pot or manipulating a marline-spike to admit of his wearing
much finery. And in bad weather it is his pride to be first aloft at
shortening sail; and if he can only beat the smartest man forward in
getting out to the weather earing, at reefing top-sails or a course, he
is delighted beyond measure. Such a young mate, if he has the master he
deserves, will often find, on the passage home, the mate's watch handed
over to him entirely at night, the mate remaining on deck all day and
devoting all his energies to getting the ship as spick-and-span as
possible for going into dock. In this way he gains just the experience
he needs for taking up his position as second mate when the opportunity
arises, and he becomes an officer who can not only tell a man to do a
thing, but can show him how to do it if he doesn't know.
In a fine ship which I will not name there was a third mate of the
dandy type I have endeavoured to portray on the preceding page. The
master was a gentleman who tried to have man-o'-war conditions on board
as far as possible, and consequently never interfered with the work
of the ship beyond consulting with the mate. And the mate, a splendid
seaman of the old school, was so disgusted with the third mate that he
allowed him to loaf away his time just as he chose. He never reported
him to the master for inefficiency, but just ignored him. Upon the
vessel's arrival in Adelaide the second mate received an offer to
go mate of another ship, and the master allowed him to go. Now, had
Mr. Third Mate been any good he would of course have stepped into the
second mate's berth, but, as the mate said, "He's about as much fit to
be second mate of this ship as I am to be Prime Minister of England."
I joined the ship in Adelaide as second mate, being two years younger
than he was. But I was strongly recommended by my old skipper, whose
ship was laid up for sale, and I obtained the post with ease. This so
exasperated the third mate that he actually dared to sulk in his cabin,
and refused to even pretend to work on the passage home. I cannot
tell how it was he was allowed to do this, but it was even as I say,
until, when we put into Cape Town to land some passengers, the skipper
discharged him. He went ashore a disgraced man, who stood no possible
chance of getting a ship again as an officer, and probably went to the
dogs entirely, all the money that had been spent upon him entirely
wasted.
In many of the large American and Blue-nose ships a third mate is
carried, but he is of a different type altogether. As these ships do
not carry apprentices, they usually breed their officers up from lads
who are _protégés_ of the master or mate. They come on board young,
and while they have an exceedingly good time, they are rigorously
trained both in seamanship and navigation. They are taught that the
cardinal virtues are smartness and cleanliness. So well is this
training pursued, that I verily believe no smarter young men are to
be found anywhere, and while they are still mere boys they are made
third mates with full authority and a handle to their name that no man
dare refuse to give them. They are expected to lead the way whenever
anything of importance is being done aloft, and are encouraged to lift
up their voices with no uncertain sound in giving orders. What splendid
men they do make, to be sure. There are, it is true, many foreigners
in Yankee ships who have by sheer merit risen to be officers, having
first perforce become citizens of the Great Republic; but for the
_beau-ideal_ of a smart sailing-ship officer commend me to the pure
American lad caught young and trained in a big ship. One I have in my
mind's eye now, who was second mate of the _Pharos_, of Boston: tall
and lithe, with a clean-shaven, boyish face (he was just twenty),
close black curling hair, sparkling eyes, and a springy step. We had
a hard bitten crew, shipped in London, and I heard one of the hardest
of them, an Englishman who boasted that he had been in gaol over forty
times, say, as he caught sight of the second mate for the first time,
"What a ---- baby. Boys, we're in for a soft thing here." But he was
quite mistaken. Ten minutes afterwards there was a melodious thundering
voice reverberating along the decks, "Lay aft, here, an' rush this
hawser forrard. Lively now." And the astonished crowd skipped aft, the
gaol-bird at their head, to find the clean-limbed "baby" looking quite
unlikely to bear trifling with. They recognized the able man at once,
and thenceforward there was never any trouble. I never saw men work
harder than his watch did for him, or speak more highly of a man than
they did of this bright-faced youth, who not only knew his own work
thoroughly, but knew how to get the last ounce out of the men under
his command. The only thing that puzzled me about him was the almost
abject reverence he had for the skipper, who was an old man, but by no
means one whom I should have thought capable of commanding respect. But
that grand young second mate always spoke to him with bated breath,
esteeming his lightest word as a dread law, nor did he ever, even in
jest, speak of him but as one should speak of their sovereign.
The third mate of an American ship is, however, often a man of mature
age, who takes the place that would be taken in an English ship by the
boatswain. He is no mate's loblolly-boy. So far from that being the
case, he often is the "bucko" of the ship, the man who may be depended
upon to leap, striking with hands and feet, like an enraged tiger
into the midst of a mutinous crew. He has often a lurid history, and
can show you a network of scars, each one a palpable reminder of some
furious struggle in such lawless ports as Callao or San Francisco. In
fact, he is the fighting man of the ship, and, as such, is treated with
due respect. But he has not seldom the defects of his qualities; and
though he may be depended upon to drive his men till they drop, working
harder than any of them, and cursing them all at the finish for a set
of weaklings, he sometimes gets out of hand himself. Had it not been
for the drink, he would long ago have been master; but he cannot resist
its temptations, and when in port (never at sea, for American ships are
strictly teetotal) he gets a drop too much, he is far too apt to start
a fight for the pure frolic of the thing, and his fighting is usually
of the nature that ends in manslaughter. On the whole, I am very glad
that we do not carry this kind of third mate in British ships, although
there have been times when I could have wished for his aid for an hour.
But his habit of kicking or striking with little or no provocation, his
utter disregard for human life--either his own or anybody's else--and
his incessant blasphemy, are hardly compensated for by his tremendous
courage, his magnificent seamanship, or his power of command. One feels
that he is out of place on board a peaceful merchantman--he should
command a pirate or a privateer.
With this brief sketch of the third mate we must leave the
"afterguard," as the officers who live aft are called on board ship,
and come to the "idlers," or petty officers. It is hard they should be
labelled "idlers," since they are usually the hardest working men on
board; but Jack only means that they do not keep a watch at night.