"Come down to me berth this evening," he says, "an' we'll have a
_nip_." And I promise.
Perhaps it is the sensation of drinking whiskey with my Headmaster's
double, but I enjoy creeping down the companion-way to the Mate's
room. And I, being of the true line of descent, with my father held
in memory still, am welcome. I am taken into this old sea-dog's
confidence, and we talk. I have learnt, I think, the delicate art of
asking questions of the men who do the world's work. Perhaps because I
have dwelt so long with them, because I love them truly, they tell me
the deep things of their lives. And so you must picture me in the
Mate's room, seated on his settee, while he loads my knees with
photographs of his wife and children. This is Jack, son and heir, in
his Boys' Brigade uniform. He has a flute, too, which he "plays
beautiful, Mr. McAlnwick--beautiful!" Then there is Madge, a sweet
little English maid of fourteen, with a violin: "Her mother to the
life." "Dot" follows, with only her big six-year-old eyes looking out
of curls which are golden. And the Baby on his mother's knee--but I
cannot describe babies. To me they are not beautiful creatures. They
always seem to me, in photographs, to be stonily demanding why they
have been born; and I, wretched man that I am, cannot answer them, for
I do not know. Calypso, too, _not_ "eternally aground on the Goodwin
Sands of inconsolability," interests me, in that I also was mothered
of a sea-wife. A hard life, I imagine, a hard life. I find no delight
in the sea in these mariners. "A Life on the Ocean Wave" was not
written by one who earned his bread from port to port. My friend the
Mate (he has gone on watch now, so I may speak freely) lives for the
future. He holds a master's ticket, yes; but commands do not come to
all. He lives for the time when the insurance money falls in, when he
will sit down in the little house in Penarth where the sun warms the
creeper on the back-garden wall. He will keep chickens, and perhaps
there will be a cucumber frame between the peas and the vegetable
patch, and he will do a little gardening when the weather is fine, and
smoke, and read the shipping news. "And there shall be no more sea."
Not that I would give you to think that a Chief Officer's life is one
of toil. Indeed, on a steamship, while at sea, he has little to do.
His "watch" is a sinecure save in thick weather, and is usually
occupied by day with sundry odd jobs, by night with thoughts of home.
In port he is busy like everybody else; but at sea, in fine weather,
his greatest grievance is the short hours "off" and "on." Our steamer
carries but two deck officers, and these two keep alternate "watch and
watch" throughout the twenty-four hours. This means that his watch
below is all sleep. The Chief Officer comes off at eight p.m., say,
washes himself, smokes a pipe, and "turns in." At eleven-forty-five
the sailor coming on watch at the wheel calls him, and he "turns out."
Nothing can equal the ghastly expression on the faces of men who have
been torn from their sleep at an unnaturally premature hour. They move
along the iron decks like ghosts, peering into one's face like
disembodied spirits seeking their corporeal correlatives, and avoiding
stanchions, chains, and other pitfalls in an uncanny fashion. In the
meantime, the Second Officer drifts "aft" to his bunk for another
four-hour sleep. And so on, day after day, for weeks.