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diff --git a/1058-0.txt b/1058-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f9ef21b --- /dev/null +++ b/1058-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6343 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Mirror of the Sea, by Joseph Conrad + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: The Mirror of the Sea + Memories and Impressions + + +Author: Joseph Conrad + + + +Release Date: April 7, 2013 [eBook #1058] +[This file was first posted on October 10, 1997] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MIRROR OF THE SEA*** + + +Transcribed from the 1907 Methuen & Co. edition by David Price, email +ccx074@pglaf.org + + + + + + THE MIRROR OF THE SEA + MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS + + + BY + JOSEPH CONRAD + + * * * * * + + “ . . . for this miracle or this wonder + troubleth me right greatly.” + + BOETHIUS DE CON: PHIL: B. IV., PROSE VI. + + * * * * * + + THIRD EDITION + + * * * * * + + METHUEN & CO. + 36 ESSEX STREET W.C. + LONDON + + * * * * * + +_First published_ _October_ _1906_ +_Second Edition_ _December_ _1906_ +_Third Edition_ _January_ _1907_ + + * * * * * + + TO + KATHERINE SANDERSON + + WHOSE WARM WELCOME AND GRACIOUS HOSPITALITY + EXTENDED TO THE FRIEND OF HER SON + CHEERED THE FIRST DARK DAYS OF MY PARTING WITH THE SEA + THESE PAGES ARE AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED + + + + +TABLE OF CONTENTS + +THE MIRROR OF THE SEA:— PAGE + LANDFALLS AND DEPARTURES I. 1 + EMBLEMS OF HOPE IV. 17 + THE FINE ART VII. 33 + COBWEBS AND GOSSAMER X. 52 + THE WEIGHT OF THE BURDEN XIII. 69 + OVERDUE AND MISSING XVI. 86 + THE GRIP OF THE LAND XX. 102 + THE CHARACTER OF THE FOE XXII. 109 + RULES OF EAST AND WEST XXV. 123 + THE FAITHFUL RIVER XXX. 157 + IN CAPTIVITY XXXIII. 180 + INITIATION XXXV. 201 + THE NURSERY OF THE CRAFT XXXVII. 233 + THE _TREMOLINO_ XL. 244 + THE HEROIC AGE XLVI. 289 + + + +I. + + + “And shippes by the brinke comen and gon, + And in swich forme endure a day or two.” + + _The Frankeleyn’s Tale_. + +LANDFALL and Departure mark the rhythmical swing of a seaman’s life and +of a ship’s career. From land to land is the most concise definition of +a ship’s earthly fate. + +A “Departure” is not what a vain people of landsmen may think. The term +“Landfall” is more easily understood; you fall in with the land, and it +is a matter of a quick eye and of a clear atmosphere. The Departure is +not the ship’s going away from her port any more than the Landfall can be +looked upon as the synonym of arrival. But there is this difference in +the Departure: that the term does not imply so much a sea event as a +definite act entailing a process—the precise observation of certain +landmarks by means of the compass card. + +Your Landfall, be it a peculiarly-shaped mountain, a rocky headland, or a +stretch of sand-dunes, you meet at first with a single glance. Further +recognition will follow in due course; but essentially a Landfall, good +or bad, is made and done with at the first cry of “Land ho!” The +Departure is distinctly a ceremony of navigation. A ship may have left +her port some time before; she may have been at sea, in the fullest sense +of the phrase, for days; but, for all that, as long as the coast she was +about to leave remained in sight, a southern-going ship of yesterday had +not in the sailor’s sense begun the enterprise of a passage. + +The taking of Departure, if not the last sight of the land, is, perhaps, +the last professional recognition of the land on the part of a sailor. +It is the technical, as distinguished from the sentimental, “good-bye.” +Henceforth he has done with the coast astern of his ship. It is a matter +personal to the man. It is not the ship that takes her departure; the +seaman takes his Departure by means of cross-bearings which fix the place +of the first tiny pencil-cross on the white expanse of the track-chart, +where the ship’s position at noon shall be marked by just such another +tiny pencil cross for every day of her passage. And there may be sixty, +eighty, any number of these crosses on the ship’s track from land to +land. The greatest number in my experience was a hundred and thirty of +such crosses from the pilot station at the Sand Heads in the Bay of +Bengal to the Scilly’s light. A bad passage. . . + +A Departure, the last professional sight of land, is always good, or at +least good enough. For, even if the weather be thick, it does not matter +much to a ship having all the open sea before her bows. A Landfall may +be good or bad. You encompass the earth with one particular spot of it +in your eye. In all the devious tracings the course of a sailing-ship +leaves upon the white paper of a chart she is always aiming for that one +little spot—maybe a small island in the ocean, a single headland upon the +long coast of a continent, a lighthouse on a bluff, or simply the peaked +form of a mountain like an ant-heap afloat upon the waters. But if you +have sighted it on the expected bearing, then that Landfall is good. +Fogs, snowstorms, gales thick with clouds and rain—those are the enemies +of good Landfalls. + + + + +II. + + +Some commanders of ships take their Departure from the home coast sadly, +in a spirit of grief and discontent. They have a wife, children perhaps, +some affection at any rate, or perhaps only some pet vice, that must be +left behind for a year or more. I remember only one man who walked his +deck with a springy step, and gave the first course of the passage in an +elated voice. But he, as I learned afterwards, was leaving nothing +behind him, except a welter of debts and threats of legal proceedings. + +On the other hand, I have known many captains who, directly their ship +had left the narrow waters of the Channel, would disappear from the sight +of their ship’s company altogether for some three days or more. They +would take a long dive, as it were, into their state-room, only to emerge +a few days afterwards with a more or less serene brow. Those were the +men easy to get on with. Besides, such a complete retirement seemed to +imply a satisfactory amount of trust in their officers, and to be trusted +displeases no seaman worthy of the name. + +On my first voyage as chief mate with good Captain MacW— I remember that +I felt quite flattered, and went blithely about my duties, myself a +commander for all practical purposes. Still, whatever the greatness of +my illusion, the fact remained that the real commander was there, backing +up my self-confidence, though invisible to my eyes behind a maple-wood +veneered cabin-door with a white china handle. + +That is the time, after your Departure is taken, when the spirit of your +commander communes with you in a muffled voice, as if from the sanctum +sanctorum of a temple; because, call her a temple or a “hell afloat”—as +some ships have been called—the captain’s state-room is surely the august +place in every vessel. + +The good MacW— would not even come out to his meals, and fed solitarily +in his holy of holies from a tray covered with a white napkin. Our +steward used to bend an ironic glance at the perfectly empty plates he +was bringing out from there. This grief for his home, which overcomes so +many married seamen, did not deprive Captain MacW— of his legitimate +appetite. In fact, the steward would almost invariably come up to me, +sitting in the captain’s chair at the head of the table, to say in a +grave murmur, “The captain asks for one more slice of meat and two +potatoes.” We, his officers, could hear him moving about in his berth, +or lightly snoring, or fetching deep sighs, or splashing and blowing in +his bath-room; and we made our reports to him through the keyhole, as it +were. It was the crowning achievement of his amiable character that the +answers we got were given in a quite mild and friendly tone. Some +commanders in their periods of seclusion are constantly grumpy, and seem +to resent the mere sound of your voice as an injury and an insult. + +But a grumpy recluse cannot worry his subordinates: whereas the man in +whom the sense of duty is strong (or, perhaps, only the sense of +self-importance), and who persists in airing on deck his moroseness all +day—and perhaps half the night—becomes a grievous infliction. He walks +the poop darting gloomy glances, as though he wished to poison the sea, +and snaps your head off savagely whenever you happen to blunder within +earshot. And these vagaries are the harder to bear patiently, as becomes +a man and an officer, because no sailor is really good-tempered during +the first few days of a voyage. There are regrets, memories, the +instinctive longing for the departed idleness, the instinctive hate of +all work. Besides, things have a knack of going wrong at the start, +especially in the matter of irritating trifles. And there is the abiding +thought of a whole year of more or less hard life before one, because +there was hardly a southern-going voyage in the yesterday of the sea +which meant anything less than a twelvemonth. Yes; it needed a few days +after the taking of your departure for a ship’s company to shake down +into their places, and for the soothing deep-water ship routine to +establish its beneficent sway. + +It is a great doctor for sore hearts and sore heads, too, your ship’s +routine, which I have seen soothe—at least for a time—the most turbulent +of spirits. There is health in it, and peace, and satisfaction of the +accomplished round; for each day of the ship’s life seems to close a +circle within the wide ring of the sea horizon. It borrows a certain +dignity of sameness from the majestic monotony of the sea. He who loves +the sea loves also the ship’s routine. + +Nowhere else than upon the sea do the days, weeks and months fall away +quicker into the past. They seem to be left astern as easily as the +light air-bubbles in the swirls of the ship’s wake, and vanish into a +great silence in which your ship moves on with a sort of magical effect. +They pass away, the days, the weeks, the months. Nothing but a gale can +disturb the orderly life of the ship; and the spell of unshaken monotony +that seems to have fallen upon the very voices of her men is broken only +by the near prospect of a Landfall. + +Then is the spirit of the ship’s commander stirred strongly again. But +it is not moved to seek seclusion, and to remain, hidden and inert, shut +up in a small cabin with the solace of a good bodily appetite. When +about to make the land, the spirit of the ship’s commander is tormented +by an unconquerable restlessness. It seems unable to abide for many +seconds together in the holy of holies of the captain’s state-room; it +will out on deck and gaze ahead, through straining eyes, as the appointed +moment comes nearer. It is kept vigorously upon the stretch of excessive +vigilance. Meantime the body of the ship’s commander is being enfeebled +by want of appetite; at least, such is my experience, though “enfeebled” +is perhaps not exactly the word. I might say, rather, that it is +spiritualized by a disregard for food, sleep, and all the ordinary +comforts, such as they are, of sea life. In one or two cases I have +known that detachment from the grosser needs of existence remain +regrettably incomplete in the matter of drink. + +But these two cases were, properly speaking, pathological cases, and the +only two in all my sea experience. In one of these two instances of a +craving for stimulants, developed from sheer anxiety, I cannot assert +that the man’s seamanlike qualities were impaired in the least. It was a +very anxious case, too, the land being made suddenly, close-to, on a +wrong bearing, in thick weather, and during a fresh onshore gale. Going +below to speak to him soon after, I was unlucky enough to catch my +captain in the very act of hasty cork-drawing. The sight, I may say, +gave me an awful scare. I was well aware of the morbidly sensitive +nature of the man. Fortunately, I managed to draw back unseen, and, +taking care to stamp heavily with my sea-boots at the foot of the cabin +stairs, I made my second entry. But for this unexpected glimpse, no act +of his during the next twenty-four hours could have given me the +slightest suspicion that all was not well with his nerve. + + + + +III. + + +Quite another case, and having nothing to do with drink, was that of poor +Captain B—. He used to suffer from sick headaches, in his young days, +every time he was approaching a coast. Well over fifty years of age when +I knew him, short, stout, dignified, perhaps a little pompous, he was a +man of a singularly well-informed mind, the least sailor-like in outward +aspect, but certainly one of the best seamen whom it has been my good +luck to serve under. He was a Plymouth man, I think, the son of a +country doctor, and both his elder boys were studying medicine. He +commanded a big London ship, fairly well known in her day. I thought no +end of him, and that is why I remember with a peculiar satisfaction the +last words he spoke to me on board his ship after an eighteen months’ +voyage. It was in the dock in Dundee, where we had brought a full cargo +of jute from Calcutta. We had been paid off that morning, and I had come +on board to take my sea-chest away and to say good-bye. In his slightly +lofty but courteous way he inquired what were my plans. I replied that I +intended leaving for London by the afternoon train, and thought of going +up for examination to get my master’s certificate. I had just enough +service for that. He commended me for not wasting my time, with such an +evident interest in my case that I was quite surprised; then, rising from +his chair, he said: + +“Have you a ship in view after you have passed?” + +I answered that I had nothing whatever in view. + +He shook hands with me, and pronounced the memorable words: + +“If you happen to be in want of employment, remember that as long as I +have a ship you have a ship, too.” + +In the way of compliment there is nothing to beat this from a ship’s +captain to his second mate at the end of a voyage, when the work is over +and the subordinate is done with. And there is a pathos in that memory, +for the poor fellow never went to sea again after all. He was already +ailing when we passed St. Helena; was laid up for a time when we were off +the Western Islands, but got out of bed to make his Landfall. He managed +to keep up on deck as far as the Downs, where, giving his orders in an +exhausted voice, he anchored for a few hours to send a wire to his wife +and take aboard a North Sea pilot to help him sail the ship up the east +coast. He had not felt equal to the task by himself, for it is the sort +of thing that keeps a deep-water man on his feet pretty well night and +day. + +When we arrived in Dundee, Mrs. B— was already there, waiting to take him +home. We travelled up to London by the same train; but by the time I had +managed to get through with my examination the ship had sailed on her +next voyage without him, and, instead of joining her again, I went by +request to see my old commander in his home. This is the only one of my +captains I have ever visited in that way. He was out of bed by then, +“quite convalescent,” as he declared, making a few tottering steps to +meet me at the sitting-room door. Evidently he was reluctant to take his +final cross-bearings of this earth for a Departure on the only voyage to +an unknown destination a sailor ever undertakes. And it was all very +nice—the large, sunny room; his deep, easy-chair in a bow window, with +pillows and a footstool; the quiet, watchful care of the elderly, gentle +woman who had borne him five children, and had not, perhaps, lived with +him more than five full years out of the thirty or so of their married +life. There was also another woman there in a plain black dress, quite +gray-haired, sitting very erect on her chair with some sewing, from which +she snatched side-glances in his direction, and uttering not a single +word during all the time of my call. Even when, in due course, I carried +over to her a cup of tea, she only nodded at me silently, with the +faintest ghost of a smile on her tight-set lips. I imagine she must have +been a maiden sister of Mrs. B— come to help nurse her brother-in-law. +His youngest boy, a late-comer, a great cricketer it seemed, twelve years +old or thereabouts, chattered enthusiastically of the exploits of W. G. +Grace. And I remember his eldest son, too, a newly-fledged doctor, who +took me out to smoke in the garden, and, shaking his head with +professional gravity, but with genuine concern, muttered: “Yes, but he +doesn’t get back his appetite. I don’t like that—I don’t like that at +all.” The last sight of Captain B— I had was as he nodded his head to me +out of the bow window when I turned round to close the front gate. + +It was a distinct and complete impression, something that I don’t know +whether to call a Landfall or a Departure. Certainly he had gazed at +times very fixedly before him with the Landfall’s vigilant look, this +sea-captain seated incongruously in a deep-backed chair. He had not then +talked to me of employment, of ships, of being ready to take another +command; but he had discoursed of his early days, in the abundant but +thin flow of a wilful invalid’s talk. The women looked worried, but sat +still, and I learned more of him in that interview than in the whole +eighteen months we had sailed together. It appeared he had “served his +time” in the copper-ore trade, the famous copper-ore trade of old days +between Swansea and the Chilian coast, coal out and ore in, deep-loaded +both ways, as if in wanton defiance of the great Cape Horn seas—a work, +this, for staunch ships, and a great school of staunchness for +West-Country seamen. A whole fleet of copper-bottomed barques, as strong +in rib and planking, as well-found in gear, as ever was sent upon the +seas, manned by hardy crews and commanded by young masters, was engaged +in that now long defunct trade. “That was the school I was trained in,” +he said to me almost boastfully, lying back amongst his pillows with a +rug over his legs. And it was in that trade that he obtained his first +command at a very early age. It was then that he mentioned to me how, as +a young commander, he was always ill for a few days before making land +after a long passage. But this sort of sickness used to pass off with +the first sight of a familiar landmark. Afterwards, he added, as he grew +older, all that nervousness wore off completely; and I observed his weary +eyes gaze steadily ahead, as if there had been nothing between him and +the straight line of sea and sky, where whatever a seaman is looking for +is first bound to appear. But I have also seen his eyes rest fondly upon +the faces in the room, upon the pictures on the wall, upon all the +familiar objects of that home, whose abiding and clear image must have +flashed often on his memory in times of stress and anxiety at sea. Was +he looking out for a strange Landfall, or taking with an untroubled mind +the bearings for his last Departure? + +It is hard to say; for in that voyage from which no man returns Landfall +and Departure are instantaneous, merging together into one moment of +supreme and final attention. Certainly I do not remember observing any +sign of faltering in the set expression of his wasted face, no hint of +the nervous anxiety of a young commander about to make land on an +uncharted shore. He had had too much experience of Departures and +Landfalls! And had he not “served his time” in the famous copper-ore +trade out of the Bristol Channel, the work of the staunchest ships +afloat, and the school of staunch seamen? + + + + +IV. + + +BEFORE an anchor can ever be raised, it must be let go; and this +perfectly obvious truism brings me at once to the subject of the +degradation of the sea language in the daily press of this country. + +Your journalist, whether he takes charge of a ship or a fleet, almost +invariably “casts” his anchor. Now, an anchor is never cast, and to take +a liberty with technical language is a crime against the clearness, +precision, and beauty of perfected speech. + +An anchor is a forged piece of iron, admirably adapted to its end, and +technical language is an instrument wrought into perfection by ages of +experience, a flawless thing for its purpose. An anchor of yesterday +(because nowadays there are contrivances like mushrooms and things like +claws, of no particular expression or shape—just hooks)—an anchor of +yesterday is in its way a most efficient instrument. To its perfection +its size bears witness, for there is no other appliance so small for the +great work it has to do. Look at the anchors hanging from the cat-heads +of a big ship! How tiny they are in proportion to the great size of the +hull! Were they made of gold they would look like trinkets, like +ornamental toys, no bigger in proportion than a jewelled drop in a +woman’s ear. And yet upon them will depend, more than once, the very +life of the ship. + +An anchor is forged and fashioned for faithfulness; give it ground that +it can bite, and it will hold till the cable parts, and then, whatever +may afterwards befall its ship, that anchor is “lost.” The honest, rough +piece of iron, so simple in appearance, has more parts than the human +body has limbs: the ring, the stock, the crown, the flukes, the palms, +the shank. All this, according to the journalist, is “cast” when a ship +arriving at an anchorage is brought up. + +This insistence in using the odious word arises from the fact that a +particularly benighted landsman must imagine the act of anchoring as a +process of throwing something overboard, whereas the anchor ready for its +work is already overboard, and is not thrown over, but simply allowed to +fall. It hangs from the ship’s side at the end of a heavy, projecting +timber called the cat-head, in the bight of a short, thick chain whose +end link is suddenly released by a blow from a top-maul or the pull of a +lever when the order is given. And the order is not “Heave over!” as the +paragraphist seems to imagine, but “Let go!” + +As a matter of fact, nothing is ever cast in that sense on board ship but +the lead, of which a cast is taken to search the depth of water on which +she floats. A lashed boat, a spare spar, a cask or what not secured +about the decks, is “cast adrift” when it is untied. Also the ship +herself is “cast to port or starboard” when getting under way. She, +however, never “casts” her anchor. + +To speak with severe technicality, a ship or a fleet is “brought up”—the +complementary words unpronounced and unwritten being, of course, “to an +anchor.” Less technically, but not less correctly, the word “anchored,” +with its characteristic appearance and resolute sound, ought to be good +enough for the newspapers of the greatest maritime country in the world. +“The fleet anchored at Spithead”: can anyone want a better sentence for +brevity and seamanlike ring? But the “cast-anchor” trick, with its +affectation of being a sea-phrase—for why not write just as well “threw +anchor,” “flung anchor,” or “shied anchor”?—is intolerably odious to a +sailor’s ear. I remember a coasting pilot of my early acquaintance (he +used to read the papers assiduously) who, to define the utmost degree of +lubberliness in a landsman, used to say, “He’s one of them poor, +miserable ‘cast-anchor’ devils.” + + + + +V. + + +From first to last the seaman’s thoughts are very much concerned with his +anchors. It is not so much that the anchor is a symbol of hope as that +it is the heaviest object that he has to handle on board his ship at sea +in the usual routine of his duties. The beginning and the end of every +passage are marked distinctly by work about the ship’s anchors. A vessel +in the Channel has her anchors always ready, her cables shackled on, and +the land almost always in sight. The anchor and the land are +indissolubly connected in a sailor’s thoughts. But directly she is clear +of the narrow seas, heading out into the world with nothing solid to +speak of between her and the South Pole, the anchors are got in and the +cables disappear from the deck. But the anchors do not disappear. +Technically speaking, they are “secured in-board”; and, on the forecastle +head, lashed down to ring-bolts with ropes and chains, under the +straining sheets of the head-sails, they look very idle and as if asleep. +Thus bound, but carefully looked after, inert and powerful, those emblems +of hope make company for the look-out man in the night watches; and so +the days glide by, with a long rest for those characteristically shaped +pieces of iron, reposing forward, visible from almost every part of the +ship’s deck, waiting for their work on the other side of the world +somewhere, while the ship carries them on with a great rush and splutter +of foam underneath, and the sprays of the open sea rust their heavy +limbs. + +The first approach to the land, as yet invisible to the crew’s eyes, is +announced by the brisk order of the chief mate to the boatswain: “We will +get the anchors over this afternoon” or “first thing to-morrow morning,” +as the case may be. For the chief mate is the keeper of the ship’s +anchors and the guardian of her cable. There are good ships and bad +ships, comfortable ships and ships where, from first day to last of the +voyage, there is no rest for a chief mate’s body and soul. And ships are +what men make them: this is a pronouncement of sailor wisdom, and, no +doubt, in the main it is true. + +However, there are ships where, as an old grizzled mate once told me, +“nothing ever seems to go right!” And, looking from the poop where we +both stood (I had paid him a neighbourly call in dock), he added: “She’s +one of them.” He glanced up at my face, which expressed a proper +professional sympathy, and set me right in my natural surmise: “Oh no; +the old man’s right enough. He never interferes. Anything that’s done +in a seamanlike way is good enough for him. And yet, somehow, nothing +ever seems to go right in this ship. I tell you what: she is naturally +unhandy.” + +The “old man,” of course, was his captain, who just then came on deck in +a silk hat and brown overcoat, and, with a civil nod to us, went ashore. +He was certainly not more than thirty, and the elderly mate, with a +murmur to me of “That’s my old man,” proceeded to give instances of the +natural unhandiness of the ship in a sort of deprecatory tone, as if to +say, “You mustn’t think I bear a grudge against her for that.” + +The instances do not matter. The point is that there are ships where +things _do_ go wrong; but whatever the ship—good or bad, lucky or +unlucky—it is in the forepart of her that her chief mate feels most at +home. It is emphatically _his_ end of the ship, though, of course, he is +the executive supervisor of the whole. There are _his_ anchors, _his_ +headgear, his foremast, his station for manoeuvring when the captain is +in charge. And there, too, live the men, the ship’s hands, whom it is +his duty to keep employed, fair weather or foul, for the ship’s welfare. +It is the chief mate, the only figure of the ship’s afterguard, who comes +bustling forward at the cry of “All hands on deck!” He is the satrap of +that province in the autocratic realm of the ship, and more personally +responsible for anything that may happen there. + +There, too, on the approach to the land, assisted by the boatswain and +the carpenter, he “gets the anchors over” with the men of his own watch, +whom he knows better than the others. There he sees the cable ranged, +the windlass disconnected, the compressors opened; and there, after +giving his own last order, “Stand clear of the cable!” he waits +attentive, in a silent ship that forges slowly ahead towards her +picked-out berth, for the sharp shout from aft, “Let go!” Instantly +bending over, he sees the trusty iron fall with a heavy plunge under his +eyes, which watch and note whether it has gone clear. + +For the anchor “to go clear” means to go clear of its own chain. Your +anchor must drop from the bow of your ship with no turn of cable on any +of its limbs, else you would be riding to a foul anchor. Unless the pull +of the cable is fair on the ring, no anchor can be trusted even on the +best of holding ground. In time of stress it is bound to drag, for +implements and men must be treated fairly to give you the “virtue” which +is in them. The anchor is an emblem of hope, but a foul anchor is worse +than the most fallacious of false hopes that ever lured men or nations +into a sense of security. And the sense of security, even the most +warranted, is a bad councillor. It is the sense which, like that +exaggerated feeling of well-being ominous of the coming on of madness, +precedes the swift fall of disaster. A seaman labouring under an undue +sense of security becomes at once worth hardly half his salt. Therefore, +of all my chief officers, the one I trusted most was a man called B—. He +had a red moustache, a lean face, also red, and an uneasy eye. He was +worth all his salt. + +On examining now, after many years, the residue of the feeling which was +the outcome of the contact of our personalities, I discover, without much +surprise, a certain flavour of dislike. Upon the whole, I think he was +one of the most uncomfortable shipmates possible for a young commander. +If it is permissible to criticise the absent, I should say he had a +little too much of the sense of insecurity which is so invaluable in a +seaman. He had an extremely disturbing air of being everlastingly ready +(even when seated at table at my right hand before a plate of salt beef) +to grapple with some impending calamity. I must hasten to add that he +had also the other qualification necessary to make a trustworthy +seaman—that of an absolute confidence in himself. What was really wrong +with him was that he had these qualities in an unrestful degree. His +eternally watchful demeanour, his jerky, nervous talk, even his, as it +were, determined silences, seemed to imply—and, I believe, they did +imply—that to his mind the ship was never safe in my hands. Such was the +man who looked after the anchors of a less than five-hundred-ton barque, +my first command, now gone from the face of the earth, but sure of a +tenderly remembered existence as long as I live. No anchor could have +gone down foul under Mr. B—’s piercing eye. It was good for one to be +sure of that when, in an open roadstead, one heard in the cabin the wind +pipe up; but still, there were moments when I detested Mr. B— +exceedingly. From the way he used to glare sometimes, I fancy that more +than once he paid me back with interest. It so happened that we both +loved the little barque very much. And it was just the defect of Mr. +B—’s inestimable qualities that he would never persuade himself to +believe that the ship was safe in my hands. To begin with, he was more +than five years older than myself at a time of life when five years +really do count, I being twenty-nine and he thirty-four; then, on our +first leaving port (I don’t see why I should make a secret of the fact +that it was Bangkok), a bit of manoeuvring of mine amongst the islands of +the Gulf of Siam had given him an unforgettable scare. Ever since then +he had nursed in secret a bitter idea of my utter recklessness. But upon +the whole, and unless the grip of a man’s hand at parting means nothing +whatever, I conclude that we did like each other at the end of two years +and three months well enough. + +The bond between us was the ship; and therein a ship, though she has +female attributes and is loved very unreasonably, is different from a +woman. That I should have been tremendously smitten with my first +command is nothing to wonder at, but I suppose I must admit that Mr. B—’s +sentiment was of a higher order. Each of us, of course, was extremely +anxious about the good appearance of the beloved object; and, though I +was the one to glean compliments ashore, B— had the more intimate pride +of feeling, resembling that of a devoted handmaiden. And that sort of +faithful and proud devotion went so far as to make him go about flicking +the dust off the varnished teak-wood rail of the little craft with a silk +pocket-handkerchief—a present from Mrs. B—, I believe. + +That was the effect of his love for the barque. The effect of his +admirable lack of the sense of security once went so far as to make him +remark to me: “Well, sir, you _are_ a lucky man!” + +It was said in a tone full of significance, but not exactly offensive, +and it was, I suppose, my innate tact that prevented my asking, “What on +earth do you mean by that?” + +Later on his meaning was illustrated more fully on a dark night in a +tight corner during a dead on-shore gale. I had called him up on deck to +help me consider our extremely unpleasant situation. There was not much +time for deep thinking, and his summing-up was: “It looks pretty bad, +whichever we try; but, then, sir, you always do get out of a mess +somehow.” + + + + +VI. + + +It is difficult to disconnect the idea of ships’ anchors from the idea of +the ship’s chief mate—the man who sees them go down clear and come up +sometimes foul; because not even the most unremitting care can always +prevent a ship, swinging to winds and tide, from taking an awkward turn +of the cable round stock or fluke. Then the business of “getting the +anchor” and securing it afterwards is unduly prolonged, and made a +weariness to the chief mate. He is the man who watches the growth of the +cable—a sailor’s phrase which has all the force, precision, and imagery +of technical language that, created by simple men with keen eyes for the +real aspect of the things they see in their trade, achieves the just +expression seizing upon the essential, which is the ambition of the +artist in words. Therefore the sailor will never say, “cast anchor,” and +the ship-master aft will hail his chief mate on the forecastle in +impressionistic phrase: “How does the cable grow?” Because “grow” is the +right word for the long drift of a cable emerging aslant under the +strain, taut as a bow-string above the water. And it is the voice of the +keeper of the ship’s anchors that will answer: “Grows right ahead, sir,” +or “Broad on the bow,” or whatever concise and deferential shout will fit +the case. + +There is no order more noisily given or taken up with lustier shouts on +board a homeward-bound merchant ship than the command, “Man the +windlass!” The rush of expectant men out of the forecastle, the +snatching of hand-spikes, the tramp of feet, the clink of the pawls, make +a stirring accompaniment to a plaintive up-anchor song with a roaring +chorus; and this burst of noisy activity from a whole ship’s crew seems +like a voiceful awakening of the ship herself, till then, in the +picturesque phrase of Dutch seamen, “lying asleep upon her iron.” + +For a ship with her sails furled on her squared yards, and reflected from +truck to water-line in the smooth gleaming sheet of a landlocked harbour, +seems, indeed, to a seaman’s eye the most perfect picture of slumbering +repose. The getting of your anchor was a noisy operation on board a +merchant ship of yesterday—an inspiring, joyous noise, as if, with the +emblem of hope, the ship’s company expected to drag up out of the depths, +each man all his personal hopes into the reach of a securing hand—the +hope of home, the hope of rest, of liberty, of dissipation, of hard +pleasure, following the hard endurance of many days between sky and +water. And this noisiness, this exultation at the moment of the ship’s +departure, make a tremendous contrast to the silent moments of her +arrival in a foreign roadstead—the silent moments when, stripped of her +sails, she forges ahead to her chosen berth, the loose canvas fluttering +softly in the gear above the heads of the men standing still upon her +decks, the master gazing intently forward from the break of the poop. +Gradually she loses her way, hardly moving, with the three figures on her +forecastle waiting attentively about the cat-head for the last order of, +perhaps, full ninety days at sea: “Let go!” + +This is the final word of a ship’s ended journey, the closing word of her +toil and of her achievement. In a life whose worth is told out in +passages from port to port, the splash of the anchor’s fall and the +thunderous rumbling of the chain are like the closing of a distinct +period, of which she seems conscious with a slight deep shudder of all +her frame. By so much is she nearer to her appointed death, for neither +years nor voyages can go on for ever. It is to her like the striking of +a clock, and in the pause which follows she seems to take count of the +passing time. + +This is the last important order; the others are mere routine directions. +Once more the master is heard: “Give her forty-five fathom to the water’s +edge,” and then he, too, is done for a time. For days he leaves all the +harbour work to his chief mate, the keeper of the ship’s anchor and of +the ship’s routine. For days his voice will not be heard raised about +the decks, with that curt, austere accent of the man in charge, till, +again, when the hatches are on, and in a silent and expectant ship, he +shall speak up from aft in commanding tones: “Man the windlass!” + + + + +VII. + + +THE other year, looking through a newspaper of sound principles, but +whose staff _will_ persist in “casting” anchors and going to sea “on” a +ship (ough!), I came across an article upon the season’s yachting. And, +behold! it was a good article. To a man who had but little to do with +pleasure sailing (though all sailing is a pleasure), and certainly +nothing whatever with racing in open waters, the writer’s strictures upon +the handicapping of yachts were just intelligible and no more. And I do +not pretend to any interest in the enumeration of the great races of that +year. As to the 52-foot linear raters, praised so much by the writer, I +am warmed up by his approval of their performances; but, as far as any +clear conception goes, the descriptive phrase, so precise to the +comprehension of a yachtsman, evokes no definite image in my mind. + +The writer praises that class of pleasure vessels, and I am willing to +endorse his words, as any man who loves every craft afloat would be ready +to do. I am disposed to admire and respect the 52-foot linear raters on +the word of a man who regrets in such a sympathetic and understanding +spirit the threatened decay of yachting seamanship. + +Of course, yacht racing is an organized pastime, a function of social +idleness ministering to the vanity of certain wealthy inhabitants of +these isles nearly as much as to their inborn love of the sea. But the +writer of the article in question goes on to point out, with insight and +justice, that for a great number of people (20,000, I think he says) it +is a means of livelihood—that it is, in his own words, an industry. Now, +the moral side of an industry, productive or unproductive, the redeeming +and ideal aspect of this bread-winning, is the attainment and +preservation of the highest possible skill on the part of the craftsmen. +Such skill, the skill of technique, is more than honesty; it is something +wider, embracing honesty and grace and rule in an elevated and clear +sentiment, not altogether utilitarian, which may be called the honour of +labour. It is made up of accumulated tradition, kept alive by individual +pride, rendered exact by professional opinion, and, like the higher arts, +it spurred on and sustained by discriminating praise. + +This is why the attainment of proficiency, the pushing of your skill with +attention to the most delicate shades of excellence, is a matter of vital +concern. Efficiency of a practically flawless kind may be reached +naturally in the struggle for bread. But there is something beyond—a +higher point, a subtle and unmistakable touch of love and pride beyond +mere skill; almost an inspiration which gives to all work that finish +which is almost art—which _is_ art. + +As men of scrupulous honour set up a high standard of public conscience +above the dead-level of an honest community, so men of that skill which +passes into art by ceaseless striving raise the dead-level of correct +practice in the crafts of land and sea. The conditions fostering the +growth of that supreme, alive excellence, as well in work as in play, +ought to be preserved with a most careful regard lest the industry or the +game should perish of an insidious and inward decay. Therefore I have +read with profound regret, in that article upon the yachting season of a +certain year, that the seamanship on board racing yachts is not now what +it used to be only a few, very few, years ago. + +For that was the gist of that article, written evidently by a man who not +only knows but _understands_—a thing (let me remark in passing) much +rarer than one would expect, because the sort of understanding I mean is +inspired by love; and love, though in a sense it may be admitted to be +stronger than death, is by no means so universal and so sure. In fact, +love is rare—the love of men, of things, of ideas, the love of perfected +skill. For love is the enemy of haste; it takes count of passing days, +of men who pass away, of a fine art matured slowly in the course of years +and doomed in a short time to pass away too, and be no more. Love and +regret go hand in hand in this world of changes swifter than the shifting +of the clouds reflected in the mirror of the sea. + +To penalize a yacht in proportion to the fineness of her performance is +unfair to the craft and to her men. It is unfair to the perfection of +her form and to the skill of her servants. For we men are, in fact, the +servants of our creations. We remain in everlasting bondage to the +productions of our brain and to the work of our hands. A man is born to +serve his time on this earth, and there is something fine in the service +being given on other grounds than that of utility. The bondage of art is +very exacting. And, as the writer of the article which started this +train of thought says with lovable warmth, the sailing of yachts is a +fine art. + +His contention is that racing, without time allowances for anything else +but tonnage—that is, for size—has fostered the fine art of sailing to the +pitch of perfection. Every sort of demand is made upon the master of a +sailing-yacht, and to be penalized in proportion to your success may be +of advantage to the sport itself, but it has an obviously deteriorating +effect upon the seamanship. The fine art is being lost. + + + + +VIII. + + +The sailing and racing of yachts has developed a class of fore-and-aft +sailors, men born and bred to the sea, fishing in winter and yachting in +summer; men to whom the handling of that particular rig presents no +mystery. It is their striving for victory that has elevated the sailing +of pleasure craft to the dignity of a fine art in that special sense. As +I have said, I know nothing of racing and but little of fore-and-aft rig; +but the advantages of such a rig are obvious, especially for purposes of +pleasure, whether in cruising or racing. It requires less effort in +handling; the trimming of the sail-planes to the wind can be done with +speed and accuracy; the unbroken spread of the sail-area is of infinite +advantage; and the greatest possible amount of canvas can be displayed +upon the least possible quantity of spars. Lightness and concentrated +power are the great qualities of fore-and-aft rig. + +A fleet of fore-and-afters at anchor has its own slender graciousness. +The setting of their sails resembles more than anything else the +unfolding of a bird’s wings; the facility of their evolutions is a +pleasure to the eye. They are birds of the sea, whose swimming is like +flying, and resembles more a natural function than the handling of +man-invented appliances. The fore-and-aft rig in its simplicity and the +beauty of its aspect under every angle of vision is, I believe, +unapproachable. A schooner, yawl, or cutter in charge of a capable man +seems to handle herself as if endowed with the power of reasoning and the +gift of swift execution. One laughs with sheer pleasure at a smart piece +of manoeuvring, as at a manifestation of a living creature’s quick wit +and graceful precision. + +Of those three varieties of fore-and-aft rig, the cutter—the racing rig +_par excellence_—is of an appearance the most imposing, from the fact +that practically all her canvas is in one piece. The enormous mainsail +of a cutter, as she draws slowly past a point of land or the end of a +jetty under your admiring gaze, invests her with an air of lofty and +silent majesty. At anchor a schooner looks better; she has an aspect of +greater efficiency and a better balance to the eye, with her two masts +distributed over the hull with a swaggering rake aft. The yawl rig one +comes in time to love. It is, I should think, the easiest of all to +manage. + +For racing, a cutter; for a long pleasure voyage, a schooner; for +cruising in home waters, the yawl; and the handling of them all is indeed +a fine art. It requires not only the knowledge of the general principles +of sailing, but a particular acquaintance with the character of the +craft. All vessels are handled in the same way as far as theory goes, +just as you may deal with all men on broad and rigid principles. But if +you want that success in life which comes from the affection and +confidence of your fellows, then with no two men, however similar they +may appear in their nature, will you deal in the same way. There may be +a rule of conduct; there is no rule of human fellowship. To deal with +men is as fine an art as it is to deal with ships. Both men and ships +live in an unstable element, are subject to subtle and powerful +influences, and want to have their merits understood rather than their +faults found out. + +It is not what your ship will _not_ do that you want to know to get on +terms of successful partnership with her; it is, rather, that you ought +to have a precise knowledge of what she will do for you when called upon +to put forth what is in her by a sympathetic touch. At first sight the +difference does not seem great in either line of dealing with the +difficult problem of limitations. But the difference is great. The +difference lies in the spirit in which the problem is approached. After +all, the art of handling ships is finer, perhaps, than the art of +handling men. + +And, like all fine arts, it must be based upon a broad, solid sincerity, +which, like a law of Nature, rules an infinity of different phenomena. +Your endeavour must be single-minded. You would talk differently to a +coal-heaver and to a professor. But is this duplicity? I deny it. The +truth consists in the genuineness of the feeling, in the genuine +recognition of the two men, so similar and so different, as your two +partners in the hazard of life. Obviously, a humbug, thinking only of +winning his little race, would stand a chance of profiting by his +artifices. Men, professors or coal-heavers, are easily deceived; they +even have an extraordinary knack of lending themselves to deception, a +sort of curious and inexplicable propensity to allow themselves to be led +by the nose with their eyes open. But a ship is a creature which we have +brought into the world, as it were on purpose to keep us up to the mark. +In her handling a ship will not put up with a mere pretender, as, for +instance, the public will do with Mr. X, the popular statesman, Mr. Y, +the popular scientist, or Mr. Z, the popular—what shall we say?—anything +from a teacher of high morality to a bagman—who have won their little +race. But I would like (though not accustomed to betting) to wager a +large sum that not one of the few first-rate skippers of racing yachts +has ever been a humbug. It would have been too difficult. The +difficulty arises from the fact that one does not deal with ships in a +mob, but with a ship as an individual. So we may have to do with men. +But in each of us there lurks some particle of the mob spirit, of the mob +temperament. No matter how earnestly we strive against each other, we +remain brothers on the lowest side of our intellect and in the +instability of our feelings. With ships it is not so. Much as they are +to us, they are nothing to each other. Those sensitive creatures have no +ears for our blandishments. It takes something more than words to cajole +them to do our will, to cover us with glory. Luckily, too, or else there +would have been more shoddy reputations for first-rate seamanship. Ships +have no ears, I repeat, though, indeed, I think I have known ships who +really seemed to have had eyes, or else I cannot understand on what +ground a certain 1,000-ton barque of my acquaintance on one particular +occasion refused to answer her helm, thereby saving a frightful smash to +two ships and to a very good man’s reputation. I knew her intimately for +two years, and in no other instance either before or since have I known +her to do that thing. The man she had served so well (guessing, perhaps, +at the depths of his affection for her) I have known much longer, and in +bare justice to him I must say that this confidence-shattering experience +(though so fortunate) only augmented his trust in her. Yes, our ships +have no ears, and thus they cannot be deceived. I would illustrate my +idea of fidelity as between man and ship, between the master and his art, +by a statement which, though it might appear shockingly sophisticated, is +really very simple. I would say that a racing-yacht skipper who thought +of nothing else but the glory of winning the race would never attain to +any eminence of reputation. The genuine masters of their craft—I say +this confidently from my experience of ships—have thought of nothing but +of doing their very best by the vessel under their charge. To forget +one’s self, to surrender all personal feeling in the service of that fine +art, is the only way for a seaman to the faithful discharge of his trust. + +Such is the service of a fine art and of ships that sail the sea. And +therein I think I can lay my finger upon the difference between the +seamen of yesterday, who are still with us, and the seamen of to-morrow, +already entered upon the possession of their inheritance. History +repeats itself, but the special call of an art which has passed away is +never reproduced. It is as utterly gone out of the world as the song of +a destroyed wild bird. Nothing will awaken the same response of +pleasurable emotion or conscientious endeavour. And the sailing of any +vessel afloat is an art whose fine form seems already receding from us on +its way to the overshadowed Valley of Oblivion. The taking of a modern +steamship about the world (though one would not minimize its +responsibilities) has not the same quality of intimacy with nature, +which, after all, is an indispensable condition to the building up of an +art. It is less personal and a more exact calling; less arduous, but +also less gratifying in the lack of close communion between the artist +and the medium of his art. It is, in short, less a matter of love. Its +effects are measured exactly in time and space as no effect of an art can +be. It is an occupation which a man not desperately subject to +sea-sickness can be imagined to follow with content, without enthusiasm, +with industry, without affection. Punctuality is its watchword. The +incertitude which attends closely every artistic endeavour is absent from +its regulated enterprise. It has no great moments of self-confidence, or +moments not less great of doubt and heart-searching. It is an industry +which, like other industries, has its romance, its honour and its +rewards, its bitter anxieties and its hours of ease. But such sea-going +has not the artistic quality of a single-handed struggle with something +much greater than yourself; it is not the laborious absorbing practice of +an art whose ultimate result remains on the knees of the gods. It is not +an individual, temperamental achievement, but simply the skilled use of a +captured force, merely another step forward upon the way of universal +conquest. + + + + +IX. + + +Every passage of a ship of yesterday, whose yards were braced round +eagerly the very moment the pilot, with his pockets full of letters, had +got over the side, was like a race—a race against time, against an ideal +standard of achievement outstripping the expectations of common men. +Like all true art, the general conduct of a ship and her handling in +particular cases had a technique which could be discussed with delight +and pleasure by men who found in their work, not bread alone, but an +outlet for the peculiarities of their temperament. To get the best and +truest effect from the infinitely varying moods of sky and sea, not +pictorially, but in the spirit of their calling, was their vocation, one +and all; and they recognised this with as much sincerity, and drew as +much inspiration from this reality, as any man who ever put brush to +canvas. The diversity of temperaments was immense amongst those masters +of the fine art. + +Some of them were like Royal Academicians of a certain kind. They never +startled you by a touch of originality, by a fresh audacity of +inspiration. They were safe, very safe. They went about solemnly in the +assurance of their consecrated and empty reputation. Names are odious, +but I remember one of them who might have been their very president, the +P.R.A. of the sea-craft. His weather-beaten and handsome face, his +portly presence, his shirt-fronts and broad cuffs and gold links, his air +of bluff distinction, impressed the humble beholders (stevedores, tally +clerks, tide-waiters) as he walked ashore over the gangway of his ship +lying at the Circular Quay in Sydney. His voice was deep, hearty, and +authoritative—the voice of a very prince amongst sailors. He did +everything with an air which put your attention on the alert and raised +your expectations, but the result somehow was always on stereotyped +lines, unsuggestive, empty of any lesson that one could lay to heart. He +kept his ship in apple-pie order, which would have been seamanlike enough +but for a finicking touch in its details. His officers affected a +superiority over the rest of us, but the boredom of their souls appeared +in their manner of dreary submission to the fads of their commander. It +was only his apprenticed boys whose irrepressible spirits were not +affected by the solemn and respectable mediocrity of that artist. There +were four of these youngsters: one the son of a doctor, another of a +colonel, the third of a jeweller; the name of the fourth was Twentyman, +and this is all I remember of his parentage. But not one of them seemed +to possess the smallest spark of gratitude in his composition. Though +their commander was a kind man in his way, and had made a point of +introducing them to the best people in the town in order that they should +not fall into the bad company of boys belonging to other ships, I regret +to say that they made faces at him behind his back, and imitated the +dignified carriage of his head without any concealment whatever. + +This master of the fine art was a personage and nothing more; but, as I +have said, there was an infinite diversity of temperament amongst the +masters of the fine art I have known. Some were great impressionists. +They impressed upon you the fear of God and Immensity—or, in other words, +the fear of being drowned with every circumstance of terrific grandeur. +One may think that the locality of your passing away by means of +suffocation in water does not really matter very much. I am not so sure +of that. I am, perhaps, unduly sensitive, but I confess that the idea of +being suddenly spilt into an infuriated ocean in the midst of darkness +and uproar affected me always with a sensation of shrinking distaste. To +be drowned in a pond, though it might be called an ignominious fate by +the ignorant, is yet a bright and peaceful ending in comparison with some +other endings to one’s earthly career which I have mentally quaked at in +the intervals or even in the midst of violent exertions. + +But let that pass. Some of the masters whose influence left a trace upon +my character to this very day, combined a fierceness of conception with a +certitude of execution upon the basis of just appreciation of means and +ends which is the highest quality of the man of action. And an artist is +a man of action, whether he creates a personality, invents an expedient, +or finds the issue of a complicated situation. + +There were masters, too, I have known, whose very art consisted in +avoiding every conceivable situation. It is needless to say that they +never did great things in their craft; but they were not to be despised +for that. They were modest; they understood their limitations. Their +own masters had not handed the sacred fire into the keeping of their cold +and skilful hands. One of those last I remember specially, now gone to +his rest from that sea which his temperament must have made a scene of +little more than a peaceful pursuit. Once only did he attempt a stroke +of audacity, one early morning, with a steady breeze, entering a crowded +roadstead. But he was not genuine in this display which might have been +art. He was thinking of his own self; he hankered after the meretricious +glory of a showy performance. + +As, rounding a dark, wooded point, bathed in fresh air and sunshine, we +opened to view a crowd of shipping at anchor lying half a mile ahead of +us perhaps, he called me aft from my station on the forecastle head, and, +turning over and over his binoculars in his brown hands, said: “Do you +see that big, heavy ship with white lower masts? I am going to take up a +berth between her and the shore. Now do you see to it that the men jump +smartly at the first order.” + +I answered, “Ay, ay, sir,” and verily believed that this would be a fine +performance. We dashed on through the fleet in magnificent style. There +must have been many open mouths and following eyes on board those +ships—Dutch, English, with a sprinkling of Americans and a German or +two—who had all hoisted their flags at eight o’clock as if in honour of +our arrival. It would have been a fine performance if it had come off, +but it did not. Through a touch of self-seeking that modest artist of +solid merit became untrue to his temperament. It was not with him art +for art’s sake: it was art for his own sake; and a dismal failure was the +penalty he paid for that greatest of sins. It might have been even +heavier, but, as it happened, we did not run our ship ashore, nor did we +knock a large hole in the big ship whose lower masts were painted white. +But it is a wonder that we did not carry away the cables of both our +anchors, for, as may be imagined, I did not stand upon the order to “Let +go!” that came to me in a quavering, quite unknown voice from his +trembling lips. I let them both go with a celerity which to this day +astonishes my memory. No average merchantman’s anchors have ever been +let go with such miraculous smartness. And they both held. I could have +kissed their rough, cold iron palms in gratitude if they had not been +buried in slimy mud under ten fathoms of water. Ultimately they brought +us up with the jibboom of a Dutch brig poking through our spanker—nothing +worse. And a miss is as good as a mile. + +But not in art. Afterwards the master said to me in a shy mumble, “She +wouldn’t luff up in time, somehow. What’s the matter with her?” And I +made no answer. + +Yet the answer was clear. The ship had found out the momentary weakness +of her man. Of all the living creatures upon land and sea, it is ships +alone that cannot be taken in by barren pretences, that will not put up +with bad art from their masters. + + + + +X. + + +FROM the main truck of the average tall ship the horizon describes a +circle of many miles, in which you can see another ship right down to her +water-line; and these very eyes which follow this writing have counted in +their time over a hundred sail becalmed, as if within a magic ring, not +very far from the Azores—ships more or less tall. There were hardly two +of them heading exactly the same way, as if each had meditated breaking +out of the enchanted circle at a different point of the compass. But the +spell of the calm is a strong magic. The following day still saw them +scattered within sight of each other and heading different ways; but +when, at last, the breeze came with the darkling ripple that ran very +blue on a pale sea, they all went in the same direction together. For +this was the homeward-bound fleet from the far-off ends of the earth, and +a Falmouth fruit-schooner, the smallest of them all, was heading the +flight. One could have imagined her very fair, if not divinely tall, +leaving a scent of lemons and oranges in her wake. + +The next day there were very few ships in sight from our mast-heads—seven +at most, perhaps, with a few more distant specks, hull down, beyond the +magic ring of the horizon. The spell of the fair wind has a subtle power +to scatter a white-winged company of ships looking all the same way, each +with its white fillet of tumbling foam under the bow. It is the calm +that brings ships mysteriously together; it is your wind that is the +great separator. + +The taller the ship, the further she can be seen; and her white tallness +breathed upon by the wind first proclaims her size. The tall masts +holding aloft the white canvas, spread out like a snare for catching the +invisible power of the air, emerge gradually from the water, sail after +sail, yard after yard, growing big, till, under the towering structure of +her machinery, you perceive the insignificant, tiny speck of her hull. + +The tall masts are the pillars supporting the balanced planes that, +motionless and silent, catch from the air the ship’s motive-power, as it +were a gift from Heaven vouchsafed to the audacity of man; and it is the +ship’s tall spars, stripped and shorn of their white glory, that incline +themselves before the anger of the clouded heaven. + +When they yield to a squall in a gaunt and naked submission, their +tallness is brought best home even to the mind of a seaman. The man who +has looked upon his ship going over too far is made aware of the +preposterous tallness of a ship’s spars. It seems impossible but that +those gilt trucks which one had to tilt one’s head back to see, now +falling into the lower plane of vision, must perforce hit the very edge +of the horizon. Such an experience gives you a better impression of the +loftiness of your spars than any amount of running aloft could do. And +yet in my time the royal yards of an average profitable ship were a good +way up above her decks. + +No doubt a fair amount of climbing up iron ladders can be achieved by an +active man in a ship’s engine-room, but I remember moments when even to +my supple limbs and pride of nimbleness the sailing-ship’s machinery +seemed to reach up to the very stars. + +For machinery it is, doing its work in perfect silence and with a +motionless grace, that seems to hide a capricious and not always +governable power, taking nothing away from the material stores of the +earth. Not for it the unerring precision of steel moved by white steam +and living by red fire and fed with black coal. The other seems to draw +its strength from the very soul of the world, its formidable ally, held +to obedience by the frailest bonds, like a fierce ghost captured in a +snare of something even finer than spun silk. For what is the array of +the strongest ropes, the tallest spars and the stoutest canvas against +the mighty breath of the infinite, but thistle stalks, cobwebs and +gossamer? + + + + +XI. + + +Indeed, it is less than nothing, and I have seen, when the great soul of +the world turned over with a heavy sigh, a perfectly new, extra-stout +foresail vanish like a bit of some airy stuff much lighter than gossamer. +Then was the time for the tall spars to stand fast in the great uproar. +The machinery must do its work even if the soul of the world has gone +mad. + +The modern steamship advances upon a still and overshadowed sea with a +pulsating tremor of her frame, an occasional clang in her depths, as if +she had an iron heart in her iron body; with a thudding rhythm in her +progress and the regular beat of her propeller, heard afar in the night +with an august and plodding sound as of the march of an inevitable +future. But in a gale, the silent machinery of a sailing-ship would +catch not only the power, but the wild and exulting voice of the world’s +soul. Whether she ran with her tall spars swinging, or breasted it with +her tall spars lying over, there was always that wild song, deep like a +chant, for a bass to the shrill pipe of the wind played on the sea-tops, +with a punctuating crash, now and then, of a breaking wave. At times the +weird effects of that invisible orchestra would get upon a man’s nerves +till he wished himself deaf. + +And this recollection of a personal wish, experienced upon several +oceans, where the soul of the world has plenty of room to turn over with +a mighty sigh, brings me to the remark that in order to take a proper +care of a ship’s spars it is just as well for a seaman to have nothing +the matter with his ears. Such is the intimacy with which a seaman had +to live with his ship of yesterday that his senses were like her senses, +that the stress upon his body made him judge of the strain upon the +ship’s masts. + +I had been some time at sea before I became aware of the fact that +hearing plays a perceptible part in gauging the force of the wind. It +was at night. The ship was one of those iron wool-clippers that the +Clyde had floated out in swarms upon the world during the seventh decade +of the last century. It was a fine period in ship-building, and also, I +might say, a period of over-masting. The spars rigged up on the narrow +hulls were indeed tall then, and the ship of which I think, with her +coloured-glass skylight ends bearing the motto, “Let Glasgow Flourish,” +was certainly one of the most heavily-sparred specimens. She was built +for hard driving, and unquestionably she got all the driving she could +stand. Our captain was a man famous for the quick passages he had been +used to make in the old _Tweed_, a ship famous the world over for her +speed. The _Tweed_ had been a wooden vessel, and he brought the +tradition of quick passages with him into the iron clipper. I was the +junior in her, a third mate, keeping watch with the chief officer; and it +was just during one of the night watches in a strong, freshening breeze +that I overheard two men in a sheltered nook of the main deck exchanging +these informing remarks. Said one: + +“Should think ’twas time some of them light sails were coming off her.” + +And the other, an older man, uttered grumpily: “No fear! not while the +chief mate’s on deck. He’s that deaf he can’t tell how much wind there +is.” + +And, indeed, poor P—, quite young, and a smart seaman, was very hard of +hearing. At the same time, he had the name of being the very devil of a +fellow for carrying on sail on a ship. He was wonderfully clever at +concealing his deafness, and, as to carrying on heavily, though he was a +fearless man, I don’t think that he ever meant to take undue risks. I +can never forget his naïve sort of astonishment when remonstrated with +for what appeared a most dare-devil performance. The only person, of +course, that could remonstrate with telling effect was our captain, +himself a man of dare-devil tradition; and really, for me, who knew under +whom I was serving, those were impressive scenes. Captain S— had a great +name for sailor-like qualities—the sort of name that compelled my +youthful admiration. To this day I preserve his memory, for, indeed, it +was he in a sense who completed my training. It was often a stormy +process, but let that pass. I am sure he meant well, and I am certain +that never, not even at the time, could I bear him malice for his +extraordinary gift of incisive criticism. And to hear _him_ make a fuss +about too much sail on the ship seemed one of those incredible +experiences that take place only in one’s dreams. + +It generally happened in this way: Night, clouds racing overhead, wind +howling, royals set, and the ship rushing on in the dark, an immense +white sheet of foam level with the lee rail. Mr. P—, in charge of the +deck, hooked on to the windward mizzen rigging in a state of perfect +serenity; myself, the third mate, also hooked on somewhere to windward of +the slanting poop, in a state of the utmost preparedness to jump at the +very first hint of some sort of order, but otherwise in a perfectly +acquiescent state of mind. Suddenly, out of the companion would appear a +tall, dark figure, bareheaded, with a short white beard of a +perpendicular cut, very visible in the dark—Captain S—, disturbed in his +reading down below by the frightful bounding and lurching of the ship. +Leaning very much against the precipitous incline of the deck, he would +take a turn or two, perfectly silent, hang on by the compass for a while, +take another couple of turns, and suddenly burst out: + +“What are you trying to do with the ship?” + +And Mr. P—, who was not good at catching what was shouted in the wind, +would say interrogatively: + +“Yes, sir?” + +Then in the increasing gale of the sea there would be a little private +ship’s storm going on in which you could detect strong language, +pronounced in a tone of passion and exculpatory protestations uttered +with every possible inflection of injured innocence. + +“By Heavens, Mr. P-! I used to carry on sail in my time, but—” + +And the rest would be lost to me in a stormy gust of wind. + +Then, in a lull, P—’s protesting innocence would become audible: + +“She seems to stand it very well.” + +And then another burst of an indignant voice: + +“Any fool can carry sail on a ship—” + +And so on and so on, the ship meanwhile rushing on her way with a heavier +list, a noisier splutter, a more threatening hiss of the white, almost +blinding, sheet of foam to leeward. For the best of it was that Captain +S— seemed constitutionally incapable of giving his officers a definite +order to shorten sail; and so that extraordinarily vague row would go on +till at last it dawned upon them both, in some particularly alarming +gust, that it was time to do something. There is nothing like the +fearful inclination of your tall spars overloaded with canvas to bring a +deaf man and an angry one to their senses. + + + + +XII. + + +So sail did get shortened more or less in time even in that ship, and her +tall spars never went overboard while I served in her. However, all the +time I was with them, Captain S— and Mr. P— did not get on very well +together. If P— carried on “like the very devil” because he was too deaf +to know how much wind there was, Captain S— (who, as I have said, seemed +constitutionally incapable of ordering one of his officers to shorten +sail) resented the necessity forced upon him by Mr. P—’s desperate goings +on. It was in Captain S—’s tradition rather to reprove his officers for +not carrying on quite enough—in his phrase “for not taking every ounce of +advantage of a fair wind.” But there was also a psychological motive +that made him extremely difficult to deal with on board that iron +clipper. He had just come out of the marvellous _Tweed_, a ship, I have +heard, heavy to look at but of phenomenal speed. In the middle sixties +she had beaten by a day and a half the steam mail-boat from Hong Kong to +Singapore. There was something peculiarly lucky, perhaps, in the placing +of her masts—who knows? Officers of men-of-war used to come on board to +take the exact dimensions of her sail-plan. Perhaps there had been a +touch of genius or the finger of good fortune in the fashioning of her +lines at bow and stern. It is impossible to say. She was built in the +East Indies somewhere, of teak-wood throughout, except the deck. She had +a great sheer, high bows, and a clumsy stern. The men who had seen her +described her to me as “nothing much to look at.” But in the great +Indian famine of the seventies that ship, already old then, made some +wonderful dashes across the Gulf of Bengal with cargoes of rice from +Rangoon to Madras. + +She took the secret of her speed with her, and, unsightly as she was, her +image surely has its glorious place in the mirror of the old sea. + +The point, however, is that Captain S—, who used to say frequently, “She +never made a decent passage after I left her,” seemed to think that the +secret of her speed lay in her famous commander. No doubt the secret of +many a ship’s excellence does lie with the man on board, but it was +hopeless for Captain S— to try to make his new iron clipper equal the +feats which made the old _Tweed_ a name of praise upon the lips of +English-speaking seamen. There was something pathetic in it, as in the +endeavour of an artist in his old age to equal the masterpieces of his +youth—for the _Tweed’s_ famous passages were Captain S—’s masterpieces. +It was pathetic, and perhaps just the least bit dangerous. At any rate, +I am glad that, what between Captain S—’s yearning for old triumphs and +Mr. P—’s deafness, I have seen some memorable carrying on to make a +passage. And I have carried on myself upon the tall spars of that Clyde +shipbuilder’s masterpiece as I have never carried on in a ship before or +since. + +The second mate falling ill during the passage, I was promoted to officer +of the watch, alone in charge of the deck. Thus the immense leverage of +the ship’s tall masts became a matter very near my own heart. I suppose +it was something of a compliment for a young fellow to be trusted, +apparently without any supervision, by such a commander as Captain S—; +though, as far as I can remember, neither the tone, nor the manner, nor +yet the drift of Captain S—’s remarks addressed to myself did ever, by +the most strained interpretation, imply a favourable opinion of my +abilities. And he was, I must say, a most uncomfortable commander to get +your orders from at night. If I had the watch from eight till midnight, +he would leave the deck about nine with the words, “Don’t take any sail +off her.” Then, on the point of disappearing down the companion-way, he +would add curtly: “Don’t carry anything away.” I am glad to say that I +never did; one night, however, I was caught, not quite prepared, by a +sudden shift of wind. + +There was, of course, a good deal of noise—running about, the shouts of +the sailors, the thrashing of the sails—enough, in fact, to wake the +dead. But S— never came on deck. When I was relieved by the chief mate +an hour afterwards, he sent for me. I went into his state-room; he was +lying on his couch wrapped up in a rug, with a pillow under his head. + +“What was the matter with you up there just now?” he asked. + +“Wind flew round on the lee quarter, sir,” I said. + +“Couldn’t you see the shift coming?” + +“Yes, sir, I thought it wasn’t very far off.” + +“Why didn’t you have your courses hauled up at once, then?” he asked in a +tone that ought to have made my blood run cold. + +But this was my chance, and I did not let it slip. + +“Well, sir,” I said in an apologetic tone, “she was going eleven knots +very nicely, and I thought she would do for another half-hour or so.” + +He gazed at me darkly out of his head, lying very still on the white +pillow, for a time. + +“Ah, yes, another half-hour. That’s the way ships get dismasted.” + +And that was all I got in the way of a wigging. I waited a little while +and then went out, shutting carefully the door of the state-room after +me. + +Well, I have loved, lived with, and left the sea without ever seeing a +ship’s tall fabric of sticks, cobwebs and gossamer go by the board. +Sheer good luck, no doubt. But as to poor P—, I am sure that he would +not have got off scot-free like this but for the god of gales, who called +him away early from this earth, which is three parts ocean, and therefore +a fit abode for sailors. A few years afterwards I met in an Indian port +a man who had served in the ships of the same company. Names came up in +our talk, names of our colleagues in the same employ, and, naturally +enough, I asked after P—. Had he got a command yet? And the other man +answered carelessly: + +“No; but he’s provided for, anyhow. A heavy sea took him off the poop in +the run between New Zealand and the Horn.” + +Thus P— passed away from amongst the tall spars of ships that he had +tried to their utmost in many a spell of boisterous weather. He had +shown me what carrying on meant, but he was not a man to learn discretion +from. He could not help his deafness. One can only remember his cheery +temper, his admiration for the jokes in _Punch_, his little oddities—like +his strange passion for borrowing looking-glasses, for instance. Each of +our cabins had its own looking-glass screwed to the bulkhead, and what he +wanted with more of them we never could fathom. He asked for the loan in +confidential tones. Why? Mystery. We made various surmises. No one +will ever know now. At any rate, it was a harmless eccentricity, and may +the god of gales, who took him away so abruptly between New Zealand and +the Horn, let his soul rest in some Paradise of true seamen, where no +amount of carrying on will ever dismast a ship! + + + + +XIII. + + +THERE has been a time when a ship’s chief mate, pocket-book in hand and +pencil behind his ear, kept one eye aloft upon his riggers and the other +down the hatchway on the stevedores, and watched the disposition of his +ship’s cargo, knowing that even before she started he was already doing +his best to secure for her an easy and quick passage. + +The hurry of the times, the loading and discharging organization of the +docks, the use of hoisting machinery which works quickly and will not +wait, the cry for prompt despatch, the very size of his ship, stand +nowadays between the modern seaman and the thorough knowledge of his +craft. + +There are profitable ships and unprofitable ships. The profitable ship +will carry a large load through all the hazards of the weather, and, when +at rest, will stand up in dock and shift from berth to berth without +ballast. There is a point of perfection in a ship as a worker when she +is spoken of as being able to _sail_ without ballast. I have never met +that sort of paragon myself, but I have seen these paragons advertised +amongst ships for sale. Such excess of virtue and good-nature on the +part of a ship always provoked my mistrust. It is open to any man to say +that his ship will sail without ballast; and he will say it, too, with +every mark of profound conviction, especially if he is not going to sail +in her himself. The risk of advertising her as able to sail without +ballast is not great, since the statement does not imply a warranty of +her arriving anywhere. Moreover, it is strictly true that most ships +will sail without ballast for some little time before they turn turtle +upon the crew. + +A shipowner loves a profitable ship; the seaman is proud of her; a doubt +of her good looks seldom exists in his mind; but if he can boast of her +more useful qualities it is an added satisfaction for his self-love. + +The loading of ships was once a matter of skill, judgment, and knowledge. +Thick books have been written about it. “Stevens on Stowage” is a portly +volume with the renown and weight (in its own world) of Coke on +Littleton. Stevens is an agreeable writer, and, as is the case with men +of talent, his gifts adorn his sterling soundness. He gives you the +official teaching on the whole subject, is precise as to rules, mentions +illustrative events, quotes law cases where verdicts turned upon a point +of stowage. He is never pedantic, and, for all his close adherence to +broad principles, he is ready to admit that no two ships can be treated +exactly alike. + +Stevedoring, which had been a skilled labour, is fast becoming a labour +without the skill. The modern steamship with her many holds is not +loaded within the sailor-like meaning of the word. She is filled up. +Her cargo is not stowed in any sense; it is simply dumped into her +through six hatchways, more or less, by twelve winches or so, with +clatter and hurry and racket and heat, in a cloud of steam and a mess of +coal-dust. As long as you keep her propeller under water and take care, +say, not to fling down barrels of oil on top of bales of silk, or deposit +an iron bridge-girder of five ton or so upon a bed of coffee-bags, you +have done about all in the way of duty that the cry for prompt despatch +will allow you to do. + + + + +XIV. + + +The sailing-ship, when I knew her in her days of perfection, was a +sensible creature. When I say her days of perfection, I mean perfection +of build, gear, seaworthy qualities and ease of handling, not the +perfection of speed. That quality has departed with the change of +building material. No iron ship of yesterday ever attained the marvels +of speed which the seamanship of men famous in their time had obtained +from their wooden, copper-sheeted predecessors. Everything had been done +to make the iron ship perfect, but no wit of man had managed to devise an +efficient coating composition to keep her bottom clean with the smooth +cleanness of yellow metal sheeting. After a spell of a few weeks at sea, +an iron ship begins to lag as if she had grown tired too soon. It is +only her bottom that is getting foul. A very little affects the speed of +an iron ship which is not driven on by a merciless propeller. Often it +is impossible to tell what inconsiderate trifle puts her off her stride. +A certain mysteriousness hangs around the quality of speed as it was +displayed by the old sailing-ships commanded by a competent seaman. In +those days the speed depended upon the seaman; therefore, apart from the +laws, rules, and regulations for the good preservation of his cargo, he +was careful of his loading,—or what is technically called the trim of his +ship. Some ships sailed fast on an even keel, others had to be trimmed +quite one foot by the stern, and I have heard of a ship that gave her +best speed on a wind when so loaded as to float a couple of inches by the +head. + +I call to mind a winter landscape in Amsterdam—a flat foreground of waste +land, with here and there stacks of timber, like the huts of a camp of +some very miserable tribe; the long stretch of the Handelskade; cold, +stone-faced quays, with the snow-sprinkled ground and the hard, frozen +water of the canal, in which were set ships one behind another with their +frosty mooring-ropes hanging slack and their decks idle and deserted, +because, as the master stevedore (a gentle, pale person, with a few +golden hairs on his chin and a reddened nose) informed me, their cargoes +were frozen-in up-country on barges and schuyts. In the distance, beyond +the waste ground, and running parallel with the line of ships, a line of +brown, warm-toned houses seemed bowed under snow-laden roofs. From afar +at the end of Tsar Peter Straat, issued in the frosty air the tinkle of +bells of the horse tramcars, appearing and disappearing in the opening +between the buildings, like little toy carriages harnessed with toy +horses and played with by people that appeared no bigger than children. + +I was, as the French say, biting my fists with impatience for that cargo +frozen up-country; with rage at that canal set fast, at the wintry and +deserted aspect of all those ships that seemed to decay in grim +depression for want of the open water. I was chief mate, and very much +alone. Directly I had joined I received from my owners instructions to +send all the ship’s apprentices away on leave together, because in such +weather there was nothing for anybody to do, unless to keep up a fire in +the cabin stove. That was attended to by a snuffy and mop-headed, +inconceivably dirty, and weirdly toothless Dutch ship-keeper, who could +hardly speak three words of English, but who must have had some +considerable knowledge of the language, since he managed invariably to +interpret in the contrary sense everything that was said to him. + +Notwithstanding the little iron stove, the ink froze on the swing-table +in the cabin, and I found it more convenient to go ashore stumbling over +the arctic waste-land and shivering in glazed tramcars in order to write +my evening letter to my owners in a gorgeous café in the centre of the +town. It was an immense place, lofty and gilt, upholstered in red plush, +full of electric lights and so thoroughly warmed that even the marble +tables felt tepid to the touch. The waiter who brought me my cup of +coffee bore, by comparison with my utter isolation, the dear aspect of an +intimate friend. There, alone in a noisy crowd, I would write slowly a +letter addressed to Glasgow, of which the gist would be: There is no +cargo, and no prospect of any coming till late spring apparently. And +all the time I sat there the necessity of getting back to the ship bore +heavily on my already half-congealed spirits—the shivering in glazed +tramcars, the stumbling over the snow-sprinkled waste ground, the vision +of ships frozen in a row, appearing vaguely like corpses of black vessels +in a white world, so silent, so lifeless, so soulless they seemed to be. + +With precaution I would go up the side of my own particular corpse, and +would feel her as cold as ice itself and as slippery under my feet. My +cold berth would swallow up like a chilly burial niche my bodily shivers +and my mental excitement. It was a cruel winter. The very air seemed as +hard and trenchant as steel; but it would have taken much more than this +to extinguish my sacred fire for the exercise of my craft. No young man +of twenty-four appointed chief mate for the first time in his life would +have let that Dutch tenacious winter penetrate into his heart. I think +that in those days I never forgot the fact of my elevation for five +consecutive minutes. I fancy it kept me warm, even in my slumbers, +better than the high pile of blankets, which positively crackled with +frost as I threw them off in the morning. And I would get up early for +no reason whatever except that I was in sole charge. The new captain had +not been appointed yet. + +Almost each morning a letter from my owners would arrive, directing me to +go to the charterers and clamour for the ship’s cargo; to threaten them +with the heaviest penalties of demurrage; to demand that this assortment +of varied merchandise, set fast in a landscape of ice and windmills +somewhere up-country, should be put on rail instantly, and fed up to the +ship in regular quantities every day. After drinking some hot coffee, +like an Arctic explorer setting off on a sledge journey towards the North +Pole, I would go ashore and roll shivering in a tramcar into the very +heart of the town, past clean-faced houses, past thousands of brass +knockers upon a thousand painted doors glimmering behind rows of trees of +the pavement species, leafless, gaunt, seemingly dead for ever. + +That part of the expedition was easy enough, though the horses were +painfully glistening with icicles, and the aspect of the tram-conductors’ +faces presented a repulsive blending of crimson and purple. But as to +frightening or bullying, or even wheedling some sort of answer out of Mr. +Hudig, that was another matter altogether. He was a big, swarthy +Netherlander, with black moustaches and a bold glance. He always began +by shoving me into a chair before I had time to open my mouth, gave me +cordially a large cigar, and in excellent English would start to talk +everlastingly about the phenomenal severity of the weather. It was +impossible to threaten a man who, though he possessed the language +perfectly, seemed incapable of understanding any phrase pronounced in a +tone of remonstrance or discontent. As to quarrelling with him, it would +have been stupid. The weather was too bitter for that. His office was +so warm, his fire so bright, his sides shook so heartily with laughter, +that I experienced always a great difficulty in making up my mind to +reach for my hat. + +At last the cargo did come. At first it came dribbling in by rail in +trucks, till the thaw set in; and then fast, in a multitude of barges, +with a great rush of unbound waters. The gentle master stevedore had his +hands very full at last; and the chief mate became worried in his mind as +to the proper distribution of the weight of his first cargo in a ship he +did not personally know before. + +Ships do want humouring. They want humouring in handling; and if you +mean to handle them well, they must have been humoured in the +distribution of the weight which you ask them to carry through the good +and evil fortune of a passage. Your ship is a tender creature, whose +idiosyncrasies must be attended to if you mean her to come with credit to +herself and you through the rough-and-tumble of her life. + + + + +XV. + + +So seemed to think the new captain, who arrived the day after we had +finished loading, on the very eve of the day of sailing. I first beheld +him on the quay, a complete stranger to me, obviously not a Hollander, in +a black bowler and a short drab overcoat, ridiculously out of tone with +the winter aspect of the waste-lands, bordered by the brown fronts of +houses with their roofs dripping with melting snow. + +This stranger was walking up and down absorbed in the marked +contemplation of the ship’s fore and aft trim; but when I saw him squat +on his heels in the slush at the very edge of the quay to peer at the +draught of water under her counter, I said to myself, “This is the +captain.” And presently I descried his luggage coming along—a real +sailor’s chest, carried by means of rope-beckets between two men, with a +couple of leather portmanteaus and a roll of charts sheeted in canvas +piled upon the lid. The sudden, spontaneous agility with which he +bounded aboard right off the rail afforded me the first glimpse of his +real character. Without further preliminaries than a friendly nod, he +addressed me: “You have got her pretty well in her fore and aft trim. +Now, what about your weights?” + +I told him I had managed to keep the weight sufficiently well up, as I +thought, one-third of the whole being in the upper part “above the +beams,” as the technical expression has it. He whistled “Phew!” +scrutinizing me from head to foot. A sort of smiling vexation was +visible on his ruddy face. + +“Well, we shall have a lively time of it this passage, I bet,” he said. + +He knew. It turned out he had been chief mate of her for the two +preceding voyages; and I was already familiar with his handwriting in the +old log-books I had been perusing in my cabin with a natural curiosity, +looking up the records of my new ship’s luck, of her behaviour, of the +good times she had had, and of the troubles she had escaped. + +He was right in his prophecy. On our passage from Amsterdam to Samarang +with a general cargo, of which, alas! only one-third in weight was stowed +“above the beams,” we had a lively time of it. It was lively, but not +joyful. There was not even a single moment of comfort in it, because no +seaman can feel comfortable in body or mind when he has made his ship +uneasy. + +To travel along with a cranky ship for ninety days or so is no doubt a +nerve-trying experience; but in this case what was wrong with our craft +was this: that by my system of loading she had been made much too stable. + +Neither before nor since have I felt a ship roll so abruptly, so +violently, so heavily. Once she began, you felt that she would never +stop, and this hopeless sensation, characterizing the motion of ships +whose centre of gravity is brought down too low in loading, made everyone +on board weary of keeping on his feet. I remember once over-hearing one +of the hands say: “By Heavens, Jack! I feel as if I didn’t mind how soon +I let myself go, and let the blamed hooker knock my brains out if she +likes.” The captain used to remark frequently: “Ah, yes; I dare say +one-third weight above beams would have been quite enough for most ships. +But then, you see, there’s no two of them alike on the seas, and she’s an +uncommonly ticklish jade to load.” + +Down south, running before the gales of high latitudes, she made our life +a burden to us. There were days when nothing would keep even on the +swing-tables, when there was no position where you could fix yourself so +as not to feel a constant strain upon all the muscles of your body. She +rolled and rolled with an awful dislodging jerk and that dizzily fast +sweep of her masts on every swing. It was a wonder that the men sent +aloft were not flung off the yards, the yards not flung off the masts, +the masts not flung overboard. The captain in his armchair, holding on +grimly at the head of the table, with the soup-tureen rolling on one side +of the cabin and the steward sprawling on the other, would observe, +looking at me: “That’s your one-third above the beams. The only thing +that surprises me is that the sticks have stuck to her all this time.” + +Ultimately some of the minor spars did go—nothing important: +spanker-booms and such-like—because at times the frightful impetus of her +rolling would part a fourfold tackle of new three-inch Manilla line as if +it were weaker than pack-thread. + +It was only poetic justice that the chief mate who had made a +mistake—perhaps a half-excusable one—about the distribution of his ship’s +cargo should pay the penalty. A piece of one of the minor spars that did +carry away flew against the chief mate’s back, and sent him sliding on +his face for quite a considerable distance along the main deck. +Thereupon followed various and unpleasant consequences of a physical +order—“queer symptoms,” as the captain, who treated them, used to say; +inexplicable periods of powerlessness, sudden accesses of mysterious +pain; and the patient agreed fully with the regretful mutters of his very +attentive captain wishing that it had been a straightforward broken leg. +Even the Dutch doctor who took the case up in Samarang offered no +scientific explanation. All he said was: “Ah, friend, you are young yet; +it may be very serious for your whole life. You must leave your ship; +you must quite silent be for three months—quite silent.” + +Of course, he meant the chief mate to keep quiet—to lay up, as a matter +of fact. His manner was impressive enough, if his English was childishly +imperfect when compared with the fluency of Mr. Hudig, the figure at the +other end of that passage, and memorable enough in its way. In a great +airy ward of a Far Eastern hospital, lying on my back, I had plenty of +leisure to remember the dreadful cold and snow of Amsterdam, while +looking at the fronds of the palm-trees tossing and rustling at the +height of the window. I could remember the elated feeling and the +soul-gripping cold of those tramway journeys taken into town to put what +in diplomatic language is called pressure upon the good Hudig, with his +warm fire, his armchair, his big cigar, and the never-failing suggestion +in his good-natured voice: “I suppose in the end it is you they will +appoint captain before the ship sails?” It may have been his extreme +good-nature, the serious, unsmiling good-nature of a fat, swarthy man +with coal-black moustache and steady eyes; but he might have been a bit +of a diplomatist, too. His enticing suggestions I used to repel modestly +by the assurance that it was extremely unlikely, as I had not enough +experience. “You know very well how to go about business matters,” he +used to say, with a sort of affected moodiness clouding his serene round +face. I wonder whether he ever laughed to himself after I had left the +office. I dare say he never did, because I understand that diplomatists, +in and out of the career, take themselves and their tricks with an +exemplary seriousness. + +But he had nearly persuaded me that I was fit in every way to be trusted +with a command. There came three months of mental worry, hard rolling, +remorse, and physical pain to drive home the lesson of insufficient +experience. + +Yes, your ship wants to be humoured with knowledge. You must treat with +an understanding consideration the mysteries of her feminine nature, and +then she will stand by you faithfully in the unceasing struggle with +forces wherein defeat is no shame. It is a serious relation, that in +which a man stands to his ship. She has her rights as though she could +breathe and speak; and, indeed, there are ships that, for the right man, +will do anything but speak, as the saying goes. + +A ship is not a slave. You must make her easy in a seaway, you must +never forget that you owe her the fullest share of your thought, of your +skill, of your self-love. If you remember that obligation, naturally and +without effort, as if it were an instinctive feeling of your inner life, +she will sail, stay, run for you as long as she is able, or, like a +sea-bird going to rest upon the angry waves, she will lay out the +heaviest gale that ever made you doubt living long enough to see another +sunrise. + + + + +XVI. + + +Often I turn with melancholy eagerness to the space reserved in the +newspapers under the general heading of “Shipping Intelligence.” I meet +there the names of ships I have known. Every year some of these names +disappear—the names of old friends. “Tempi passati!” + +The different divisions of that kind of news are set down in their order, +which varies but slightly in its arrangement of concise headlines. And +first comes “Speakings”—reports of ships met and signalled at sea, name, +port, where from, where bound for, so many days out, ending frequently +with the words “All well.” Then come “Wrecks and Casualties”—a longish +array of paragraphs, unless the weather has been fair and clear, and +friendly to ships all over the world. + +On some days there appears the heading “Overdue”—an ominous threat of +loss and sorrow trembling yet in the balance of fate. There is something +sinister to a seaman in the very grouping of the letters which form this +word, clear in its meaning, and seldom threatening in vain. + +Only a very few days more—appallingly few to the hearts which had set +themselves bravely to hope against hope—three weeks, a month later, +perhaps, the name of ships under the blight of the “Overdue” heading +shall appear again in the column of “Shipping Intelligence,” but under +the final declaration of “Missing.” + +“The ship, or barque, or brig So-and-so, bound from such a port, with +such and such cargo, for such another port, having left at such and such +a date, last spoken at sea on such a day, and never having been heard of +since, was posted to-day as missing.” Such in its strictly official +eloquence is the form of funeral orations on ships that, perhaps wearied +with a long struggle, or in some unguarded moment that may come to the +readiest of us, had let themselves be overwhelmed by a sudden blow from +the enemy. + +Who can say? Perhaps the men she carried had asked her to do too much, +had stretched beyond breaking-point the enduring faithfulness which seems +wrought and hammered into that assemblage of iron ribs and plating, of +wood and steel and canvas and wire, which goes to the making of a ship—a +complete creation endowed with character, individuality, qualities and +defects, by men whose hands launch her upon the water, and that other men +shall learn to know with an intimacy surpassing the intimacy of man with +man, to love with a love nearly as great as that of man for woman, and +often as blind in its infatuated disregard of defects. + +There are ships which bear a bad name, but I have yet to meet one whose +crew for the time being failed to stand up angrily for her against every +criticism. One ship which I call to mind now had the reputation of +killing somebody every voyage she made. This was no calumny, and yet I +remember well, somewhere far back in the late seventies, that the crew of +that ship were, if anything, rather proud of her evil fame, as if they +had been an utterly corrupt lot of desperadoes glorying in their +association with an atrocious creature. We, belonging to other vessels +moored all about the Circular Quay in Sydney, used to shake our heads at +her with a great sense of the unblemished virtue of our own well-loved +ships. + +I shall not pronounce her name. She is “missing” now, after a sinister +but, from the point of view of her owners, a useful career extending over +many years, and, I should say, across every ocean of our globe. Having +killed a man for every voyage, and perhaps rendered more misanthropic by +the infirmities that come with years upon a ship, she had made up her +mind to kill all hands at once before leaving the scene of her exploits. +A fitting end, this, to a life of usefulness and crime—in a last outburst +of an evil passion supremely satisfied on some wild night, perhaps, to +the applauding clamour of wind and wave. + +How did she do it? In the word “missing” there is a horrible depth of +doubt and speculation. Did she go quickly from under the men’s feet, or +did she resist to the end, letting the sea batter her to pieces, start +her butts, wrench her frame, load her with an increasing weight of salt +water, and, dismasted, unmanageable, rolling heavily, her boats gone, her +decks swept, had she wearied her men half to death with the unceasing +labour at the pumps before she sank with them like a stone? + +However, such a case must be rare. I imagine a raft of some sort could +always be contrived; and, even if it saved no one, it would float on and +be picked up, perhaps conveying some hint of the vanished name. Then +that ship would not be, properly speaking, missing. She would be “lost +with all hands,” and in that distinction there is a subtle +difference—less horror and a less appalling darkness. + + + + +XVII. + + +The unholy fascination of dread dwells in the thought of the last moments +of a ship reported as “missing” in the columns of the _Shipping Gazette_. +Nothing of her ever comes to light—no grating, no lifebuoy, no piece of +boat or branded oar—to give a hint of the place and date of her sudden +end. The _Shipping Gazette_ does not even call her “lost with all +hands.” She remains simply “missing”; she has disappeared enigmatically +into a mystery of fate as big as the world, where your imagination of a +brother-sailor, of a fellow-servant and lover of ships, may range +unchecked. + +And yet sometimes one gets a hint of what the last scene may be like in +the life of a ship and her crew, which resembles a drama in its struggle +against a great force bearing it up, formless, ungraspable, chaotic and +mysterious, as fate. + +It was on a gray afternoon in the lull of a three days’ gale that had +left the Southern Ocean tumbling heavily upon our ship, under a sky hung +with rags of clouds that seemed to have been cut and hacked by the keen +edge of a sou’-west gale. + +Our craft, a Clyde-built barque of 1,000 tons, rolled so heavily that +something aloft had carried away. No matter what the damage was, but it +was serious enough to induce me to go aloft myself with a couple of hands +and the carpenter to see the temporary repairs properly done. + +Sometimes we had to drop everything and cling with both hands to the +swaying spars, holding our breath in fear of a terribly heavy roll. And, +wallowing as if she meant to turn over with us, the barque, her decks +full of water, her gear flying in bights, ran at some ten knots an hour. +We had been driven far south—much farther that way than we had meant to +go; and suddenly, up there in the slings of the foreyard, in the midst of +our work, I felt my shoulder gripped with such force in the carpenter’s +powerful paw that I positively yelled with unexpected pain. The man’s +eyes stared close in my face, and he shouted, “Look, sir! look! What’s +this?” pointing ahead with his other hand. + +At first I saw nothing. The sea was one empty wilderness of black and +white hills. Suddenly, half-concealed in the tumult of the foaming +rollers I made out awash, something enormous, rising and +falling—something spread out like a burst of foam, but with a more +bluish, more solid look. + +It was a piece of an ice-floe melted down to a fragment, but still big +enough to sink a ship, and floating lower than any raft, right in our +way, as if ambushed among the waves with murderous intent. There was no +time to get down on deck. I shouted from aloft till my head was ready to +split. I was heard aft, and we managed to clear the sunken floe which +had come all the way from the Southern ice-cap to have a try at our +unsuspecting lives. Had it been an hour later, nothing could have saved +the ship, for no eye could have made out in the dusk that pale piece of +ice swept over by the white-crested waves. + +And as we stood near the taffrail side by side, my captain and I, looking +at it, hardly discernible already, but still quite close-to on our +quarter, he remarked in a meditative tone: + +“But for the turn of that wheel just in time, there would have been +another case of a ‘missing’ ship.” + +Nobody ever comes back from a “missing” ship to tell how hard was the +death of the craft, and how sudden and overwhelming the last anguish of +her men. Nobody can say with what thoughts, with what regrets, with what +words on their lips they died. But there is something fine in the sudden +passing away of these hearts from the extremity of struggle and stress +and tremendous uproar—from the vast, unrestful rage of the surface to the +profound peace of the depths, sleeping untroubled since the beginning of +ages. + + + + +XVIII. + + +But if the word “missing” brings all hope to an end and settles the loss +of the underwriters, the word “overdue” confirms the fears already born +in many homes ashore, and opens the door of speculation in the market of +risks. + +Maritime risks, be it understood. There is a class of optimists ready to +reinsure an “overdue” ship at a heavy premium. But nothing can insure +the hearts on shore against the bitterness of waiting for the worst. + +For if a “missing” ship has never turned up within the memory of seamen +of my generation, the name of an “overdue” ship, trembling as it were on +the edge of the fatal heading, has been known to appear as “arrived.” + +It must blaze up, indeed, with a great brilliance the dull printer’s ink +expended on the assemblage of the few letters that form the ship’s name +to the anxious eyes scanning the page in fear and trembling. It is like +the message of reprieve from the sentence of sorrow suspended over many a +home, even if some of the men in her have been the most homeless mortals +that you may find among the wanderers of the sea. + +The reinsurer, the optimist of ill-luck and disaster, slaps his pocket +with satisfaction. The underwriter, who had been trying to minimize the +amount of impending loss, regrets his premature pessimism. The ship has +been stauncher, the skies more merciful, the seas less angry, or perhaps +the men on board of a finer temper than he has been willing to take for +granted. + +“The ship So-and-so, bound to such a port, and posted as ‘overdue,’ has +been reported yesterday as having arrived safely at her destination.” + +Thus run the official words of the reprieve addressed to the hearts +ashore lying under a heavy sentence. And they come swiftly from the +other side of the earth, over wires and cables, for your electric +telegraph is a great alleviator of anxiety. Details, of course, shall +follow. And they may unfold a tale of narrow escape, of steady ill-luck, +of high winds and heavy weather, of ice, of interminable calms or endless +head-gales; a tale of difficulties overcome, of adversity defied by a +small knot of men upon the great loneliness of the sea; a tale of +resource, of courage—of helplessness, perhaps. + +Of all ships disabled at sea, a steamer who has lost her propeller is the +most helpless. And if she drifts into an unpopulated part of the ocean +she may soon become overdue. The menace of the “overdue” and the +finality of “missing” come very quickly to steamers whose life, fed on +coals and breathing the black breath of smoke into the air, goes on in +disregard of wind and wave. Such a one, a big steamship, too, whose +working life had been a record of faithful keeping time from land to +land, in disregard of wind and sea, once lost her propeller down south, +on her passage out to New Zealand. + +It was the wintry, murky time of cold gales and heavy seas. With the +snapping of her tail-shaft her life seemed suddenly to depart from her +big body, and from a stubborn, arrogant existence she passed all at once +into the passive state of a drifting log. A ship sick with her own +weakness has not the pathos of a ship vanquished in a battle with the +elements, wherein consists the inner drama of her life. No seaman can +look without compassion upon a disabled ship, but to look at a +sailing-vessel with her lofty spars gone is to look upon a defeated but +indomitable warrior. There is defiance in the remaining stumps of her +masts, raised up like maimed limbs against the menacing scowl of a stormy +sky; there is high courage in the upward sweep of her lines towards the +bow; and as soon as, on a hastily-rigged spar, a strip of canvas is shown +to the wind to keep her head to sea, she faces the waves again with an +unsubdued courage. + + + + +XIX. + + +The efficiency of a steamship consists not so much in her courage as in +the power she carries within herself. It beats and throbs like a +pulsating heart within her iron ribs, and when it stops, the steamer, +whose life is not so much a contest as the disdainful ignoring of the +sea, sickens and dies upon the waves. The sailing-ship, with her +unthrobbing body, seemed to lead mysteriously a sort of unearthly +existence, bordering upon the magic of the invisible forces, sustained by +the inspiration of life-giving and death-dealing winds. + +So that big steamer, dying by a sudden stroke, drifted, an unwieldy +corpse, away from the track of other ships. And she would have been +posted really as “overdue,” or maybe as “missing,” had she not been +sighted in a snowstorm, vaguely, like a strange rolling island, by a +whaler going north from her Polar cruising ground. There was plenty of +food on board, and I don’t know whether the nerves of her passengers were +at all affected by anything else than the sense of interminable boredom +or the vague fear of that unusual situation. Does a passenger ever feel +the life of the ship in which he is being carried like a sort of honoured +bale of highly sensitive goods? For a man who has never been a passenger +it is impossible to say. But I know that there is no harder trial for a +seaman than to feel a dead ship under his feet. + +There is no mistaking that sensation, so dismal, so tormenting and so +subtle, so full of unhappiness and unrest. I could imagine no worse +eternal punishment for evil seamen who die unrepentant upon the earthly +sea than that their souls should be condemned to man the ghosts of +disabled ships, drifting for ever across a ghostly and tempestuous ocean. + +She must have looked ghostly enough, that broken-down steamer, rolling in +that snowstorm—a dark apparition in a world of white snowflakes to the +staring eyes of that whaler’s crew. Evidently they didn’t believe in +ghosts, for on arrival into port her captain unromantically reported +having sighted a disabled steamer in latitude somewhere about 50 degrees +S. and a longitude still more uncertain. Other steamers came out to look +for her, and ultimately towed her away from the cold edge of the world +into a harbour with docks and workshops, where, with many blows of +hammers, her pulsating heart of steel was set going again to go forth +presently in the renewed pride of its strength, fed on fire and water, +breathing black smoke into the air, pulsating, throbbing, shouldering its +arrogant way against the great rollers in blind disdain of winds and sea. + +The track she had made when drifting while her heart stood still within +her iron ribs looked like a tangled thread on the white paper of the +chart. It was shown to me by a friend, her second officer. In that +surprising tangle there were words in minute letters—“gales,” “thick +fog,” “ice”—written by him here and there as memoranda of the weather. +She had interminably turned upon her tracks, she had crossed and +recrossed her haphazard path till it resembled nothing so much as a +puzzling maze of pencilled lines without a meaning. But in that maze +there lurked all the romance of the “overdue” and a menacing hint of +“missing.” + +“We had three weeks of it,” said my friend, “just think of that!” + +“How did you feel about it?” I asked. + +He waved his hand as much as to say: It’s all in the day’s work. But +then, abruptly, as if making up his mind: + +“I’ll tell you. Towards the last I used to shut myself up in my berth +and cry.” + +“Cry?” + +“Shed tears,” he explained briefly, and rolled up the chart. + +I can answer for it, he was a good man—as good as ever stepped upon a +ship’s deck—but he could not bear the feeling of a dead ship under his +feet: the sickly, disheartening feeling which the men of some “overdue” +ships that come into harbour at last under a jury-rig must have felt, +combated, and overcome in the faithful discharge of their duty. + + + + +XX. + + +IT is difficult for a seaman to believe that his stranded ship does not +feel as unhappy at the unnatural predicament of having no water under her +keel as he is himself at feeling her stranded. + +Stranding is, indeed, the reverse of sinking. The sea does not close +upon the water-logged hull with a sunny ripple, or maybe with the angry +rush of a curling wave, erasing her name from the roll of living ships. +No. It is as if an invisible hand had been stealthily uplifted from the +bottom to catch hold of her keel as it glides through the water. + +More than any other event does stranding bring to the sailor a sense of +utter and dismal failure. There are strandings and strandings, but I am +safe to say that 90 per cent. of them are occasions in which a sailor, +without dishonour, may well wish himself dead; and I have no doubt that +of those who had the experience of their ship taking the ground, 90 per +cent. did actually for five seconds or so wish themselves dead. + +“Taking the ground” is the professional expression for a ship that is +stranded in gentle circumstances. But the feeling is more as if the +ground had taken hold of her. It is for those on her deck a surprising +sensation. It is as if your feet had been caught in an imponderable +snare; you feel the balance of your body threatened, and the steady poise +of your mind is destroyed at once. This sensation lasts only a second, +for even while you stagger something seems to turn over in your head, +bringing uppermost the mental exclamation, full of astonishment and +dismay, “By Jove! she’s on the ground!” + +And that is very terrible. After all, the only mission of a seaman’s +calling is to keep ships’ keels off the ground. Thus the moment of her +stranding takes away from him every excuse for his continued existence. +To keep ships afloat is his business; it is his trust; it is the +effective formula of the bottom of all these vague impulses, dreams, and +illusions that go to the making up of a boy’s vocation. The grip of the +land upon the keel of your ship, even if nothing worse comes of it than +the wear and tear of tackle and the loss of time, remains in a seaman’s +memory an indelibly fixed taste of disaster. + +“Stranded” within the meaning of this paper stands for a more or less +excusable mistake. A ship may be “driven ashore” by stress of weather. +It is a catastrophe, a defeat. To be “run ashore” has the littleness, +poignancy, and bitterness of human error. + + + + +XXI. + + +That is why your “strandings” are for the most part so unexpected. In +fact, they are all unexpected, except those heralded by some short +glimpse of the danger, full of agitation and excitement, like an +awakening from a dream of incredible folly. + +The land suddenly at night looms up right over your bows, or perhaps the +cry of “Broken water ahead!” is raised, and some long mistake, some +complicated edifice of self-delusion, over-confidence, and wrong +reasoning is brought down in a fatal shock, and the heart-searing +experience of your ship’s keel scraping and scrunching over, say, a coral +reef. It is a sound, for its size, far more terrific to your soul than +that of a world coming violently to an end. But out of that chaos your +belief in your own prudence and sagacity reasserts itself. You ask +yourself, Where on earth did I get to? How on earth did I get there? +with a conviction that it could not be your own act, that there has been +at work some mysterious conspiracy of accident; that the charts are all +wrong, and if the charts are not wrong, that land and sea have changed +their places; that your misfortune shall for ever remain inexplicable, +since you have lived always with the sense of your trust, the last thing +on closing your eyes, the first on opening them, as if your mind had kept +firm hold of your responsibility during the hours of sleep. + +You contemplate mentally your mischance, till little by little your mood +changes, cold doubt steals into the very marrow of your bones, you see +the inexplicable fact in another light. That is the time when you ask +yourself, How on earth could I have been fool enough to get there? And +you are ready to renounce all belief in your good sense, in your +knowledge, in your fidelity, in what you thought till then was the best +in you, giving you the daily bread of life and the moral support of other +men’s confidence. + +The ship is lost or not lost. Once stranded, you have to do your best by +her. She may be saved by your efforts, by your resource and fortitude +bearing up against the heavy weight of guilt and failure. And there are +justifiable strandings in fogs, on uncharted seas, on dangerous shores, +through treacherous tides. But, saved or not saved, there remains with +her commander a distinct sense of loss, a flavour in the mouth of the +real, abiding danger that lurks in all the forms of human existence. It +is an acquisition, too, that feeling. A man may be the better for it, +but he will not be the same. Damocles has seen the sword suspended by a +hair over his head, and though a good man need not be made less valuable +by such a knowledge, the feast shall not henceforth have the same +flavour. + +Years ago I was concerned as chief mate in a case of stranding which was +not fatal to the ship. We went to work for ten hours on end, laying out +anchors in readiness to heave off at high water. While I was still busy +about the decks forward I heard the steward at my elbow saying: “The +captain asks whether you mean to come in, sir, and have something to eat +to-day.” + +I went into the cuddy. My captain sat at the head of the table like a +statue. There was a strange motionlessness of everything in that pretty +little cabin. The swing-table which for seventy odd days had been always +on the move, if ever so little, hung quite still above the soup-tureen. +Nothing could have altered the rich colour of my commander’s complexion, +laid on generously by wind and sea; but between the two tufts of fair +hair above his ears, his skull, generally suffused with the hue of blood, +shone dead white, like a dome of ivory. And he looked strangely untidy. +I perceived he had not shaved himself that day; and yet the wildest +motion of the ship in the most stormy latitudes we had passed through, +never made him miss one single morning ever since we left the Channel. +The fact must be that a commander cannot possibly shave himself when his +ship is aground. I have commanded ships myself, but I don’t know; I have +never tried to shave in my life. + +He did not offer to help me or himself till I had coughed markedly +several times. I talked to him professionally in a cheery tone, and +ended with the confident assertion: + +“We shall get her off before midnight, sir.” + +He smiled faintly without looking up, and muttered as if to himself: + +“Yes, yes; the captain put the ship ashore and we got her off.” + +Then, raising his head, he attacked grumpily the steward, a lanky, +anxious youth with a long, pale face and two big front teeth. + +“What makes this soup so bitter? I am surprised the mate can swallow the +beastly stuff. I’m sure the cook’s ladled some salt water into it by +mistake.” + +The charge was so outrageous that the steward for all answer only dropped +his eyelids bashfully. + +There was nothing the matter with the soup. I had a second helping. My +heart was warm with hours of hard work at the head of a willing crew. I +was elated with having handled heavy anchors, cables, boats without the +slightest hitch; pleased with having laid out scientifically bower, +stream, and kedge exactly where I believed they would do most good. On +that occasion the bitter taste of a stranding was not for my mouth. That +experience came later, and it was only then that I understood the +loneliness of the man in charge. + +It’s the captain who puts the ship ashore; it’s we who get her off. + + + + +XXII. + + +IT seems to me that no man born and truthful to himself could declare +that he ever saw the sea looking young as the earth looks young in +spring. But some of us, regarding the ocean with understanding and +affection, have seen it looking old, as if the immemorial ages had been +stirred up from the undisturbed bottom of ooze. For it is a gale of wind +that makes the sea look old. + +From a distance of years, looking at the remembered aspects of the storms +lived through, it is that impression which disengages itself clearly from +the great body of impressions left by many years of intimate contact. + +If you would know the age of the earth, look upon the sea in a storm. +The grayness of the whole immense surface, the wind furrows upon the +faces of the waves, the great masses of foam, tossed about and waving, +like matted white locks, give to the sea in a gale an appearance of hoary +age, lustreless, dull, without gleams, as though it had been created +before light itself. + +Looking back after much love and much trouble, the instinct of primitive +man, who seeks to personify the forces of Nature for his affection and +for his fear, is awakened again in the breast of one civilized beyond +that stage even in his infancy. One seems to have known gales as +enemies, and even as enemies one embraces them in that affectionate +regret which clings to the past. + +Gales have their personalities, and, after all, perhaps it is not +strange; for, when all is said and done, they are adversaries whose wiles +you must defeat, whose violence you must resist, and yet with whom you +must live in the intimacies of nights and days. + +Here speaks the man of masts and sails, to whom the sea is not a +navigable element, but an intimate companion. The length of passages, +the growing sense of solitude, the close dependence upon the very forces +that, friendly to-day, without changing their nature, by the mere putting +forth of their might, become dangerous to-morrow, make for that sense of +fellowship which modern seamen, good men as they are, cannot hope to +know. And, besides, your modern ship which is a steamship makes her +passages on other principles than yielding to the weather and humouring +the sea. She receives smashing blows, but she advances; it is a slogging +fight, and not a scientific campaign. The machinery, the steel, the +fire, the steam, have stepped in between the man and the sea. A modern +fleet of ships does not so much make use of the sea as exploit a highway. +The modern ship is not the sport of the waves. Let us say that each of +her voyages is a triumphant progress; and yet it is a question whether it +is not a more subtle and more human triumph to be the sport of the waves +and yet survive, achieving your end. + +In his own time a man is always very modern. Whether the seamen of three +hundred years hence will have the faculty of sympathy it is impossible to +say. An incorrigible mankind hardens its heart in the progress of its +own perfectability. How will they feel on seeing the illustrations to +the sea novels of our day, or of our yesterday? It is impossible to +guess. But the seaman of the last generation, brought into sympathy with +the caravels of ancient time by his sailing-ship, their lineal +descendant, cannot look upon those lumbering forms navigating the naïve +seas of ancient woodcuts without a feeling of surprise, of affectionate +derision, envy, and admiration. For those things, whose +unmanageableness, even when represented on paper, makes one gasp with a +sort of amused horror, were manned by men who are his direct professional +ancestors. + +No; the seamen of three hundred years hence will probably be neither +touched nor moved to derision, affection, or admiration. They will +glance at the photogravures of our nearly defunct sailing-ships with a +cold, inquisitive and indifferent eye. Our ships of yesterday will stand +to their ships as no lineal ancestors, but as mere predecessors whose +course will have been run and the race extinct. Whatever craft he +handles with skill, the seaman of the future shall be, not our +descendant, but only our successor. + + + + +XXIII. + + +And so much depends upon the craft which, made by man, is one with man, +that the sea shall wear for him another aspect. I remember once seeing +the commander—officially the master, by courtesy the captain—of a fine +iron ship of the old wool fleet shaking his head at a very pretty +brigantine. She was bound the other way. She was a taut, trim, neat +little craft, extremely well kept; and on that serene evening when we +passed her close she looked the embodiment of coquettish comfort on the +sea. It was somewhere near the Cape—_The_ Cape being, of course, the +Cape of Good Hope, the Cape of Storms of its Portuguese discoverer. And +whether it is that the word “storm” should not be pronounced upon the sea +where the storms dwell thickly, or because men are shy of confessing +their good hopes, it has become the nameless cape—the Cape _tout court_. +The other great cape of the world, strangely enough, is seldom if ever +called a cape. We say, “a voyage round the Horn”; “we rounded the Horn”; +“we got a frightful battering off the Horn”; but rarely “Cape Horn,” and, +indeed, with some reason, for Cape Horn is as much an island as a cape. +The third stormy cape of the world, which is the Leeuwin, receives +generally its full name, as if to console its second-rate dignity. These +are the capes that look upon the gales. + +The little brigantine, then, had doubled the Cape. Perhaps she was +coming from Port Elizabeth, from East London—who knows? It was many +years ago, but I remember well the captain of the wool-clipper nodding at +her with the words, “Fancy having to go about the sea in a thing like +that!” + +He was a man brought up in big deep-water ships, and the size of the +craft under his feet was a part of his conception of the sea. His own +ship was certainly big as ships went then. He may have thought of the +size of his cabin, or—unconsciously, perhaps—have conjured up a vision of +a vessel so small tossing amongst the great seas. I didn’t inquire, and +to a young second mate the captain of the little pretty brigantine, +sitting astride a camp stool with his chin resting on his hands that were +crossed upon the rail, might have appeared a minor king amongst men. We +passed her within earshot, without a hail, reading each other’s names +with the naked eye. + +Some years later, the second mate, the recipient of that almost +involuntary mutter, could have told his captain that a man brought up in +big ships may yet take a peculiar delight in what we should both then +have called a small craft. Probably the captain of the big ship would +not have understood very well. His answer would have been a gruff, “Give +me size,” as I heard another man reply to a remark praising the handiness +of a small vessel. It was not a love of the grandiose or the prestige +attached to the command of great tonnage, for he continued, with an air +of disgust and contempt, “Why, you get flung out of your bunk as likely +as not in any sort of heavy weather.” + +I don’t know. I remember a few nights in my lifetime, and in a big ship, +too (as big as they made them then), when one did not get flung out of +one’s bed simply because one never even attempted to get in; one had been +made too weary, too hopeless, to try. The expedient of turning your +bedding out on to a damp floor and lying on it there was no earthly good, +since you could not keep your place or get a second’s rest in that or any +other position. But of the delight of seeing a small craft run bravely +amongst the great seas there can be no question to him whose soul does +not dwell ashore. Thus I well remember a three days’ run got out of a +little barque of 400 tons somewhere between the islands of St. Paul and +Amsterdam and Cape Otway on the Australian coast. It was a hard, long +gale, gray clouds and green sea, heavy weather undoubtedly, but still +what a sailor would call manageable. Under two lower topsails and a +reefed foresail the barque seemed to race with a long, steady sea that +did not becalm her in the troughs. The solemn thundering combers caught +her up from astern, passed her with a fierce boiling up of foam level +with the bulwarks, swept on ahead with a swish and a roar: and the little +vessel, dipping her jib-boom into the tumbling froth, would go on running +in a smooth, glassy hollow, a deep valley between two ridges of the sea, +hiding the horizon ahead and astern. There was such fascination in her +pluck, nimbleness, the continual exhibition of unfailing seaworthiness, +in the semblance of courage and endurance, that I could not give up the +delight of watching her run through the three unforgettable days of that +gale which my mate also delighted to extol as “a famous shove.” + +And this is one of those gales whose memory in after-years returns, +welcome in dignified austerity, as you would remember with pleasure the +noble features of a stranger with whom you crossed swords once in +knightly encounter and are never to see again. In this way gales have +their physiognomy. You remember them by your own feelings, and no two +gales stamp themselves in the same way upon your emotions. Some cling to +you in woebegone misery; others come back fiercely and weirdly, like +ghouls bent upon sucking your strength away; others, again, have a +catastrophic splendour; some are unvenerated recollections, as of +spiteful wild-cats clawing at your agonized vitals; others are severe, +like a visitation; and one or two rise up draped and mysterious, with an +aspect of ominous menace. In each of them there is a characteristic +point at which the whole feeling seems contained in one single moment. +Thus there is a certain four o’clock in the morning in the confused roar +of a black and white world when coming on deck to take charge of my watch +I received the instantaneous impression that the ship could not live for +another hour in such a raging sea. + +I wonder what became of the men who silently (you couldn’t hear yourself +speak) must have shared that conviction with me. To be left to write +about it is not, perhaps, the most enviable fate; but the point is that +this impression resumes in its intensity the whole recollection of days +and days of desperately dangerous weather. We were then, for reasons +which it is not worth while to specify, in the close neighbourhood of +Kerguelen Land; and now, when I open an atlas and look at the tiny dots +on the map of the Southern Ocean, I see as if engraved upon the paper the +enraged physiognomy of that gale. + +Another, strangely, recalls a silent man. And yet it was not din that +was wanting; in fact, it was terrific. That one was a gale that came +upon the ship swiftly, like a parnpero, which last is a very sudden wind +indeed. Before we knew very well what was coming all the sails we had +set had burst; the furled ones were blowing loose, ropes flying, sea +hissing—it hissed tremendously—wind howling, and the ship lying on her +side, so that half of the crew were swimming and the other half clawing +desperately at whatever came to hand, according to the side of the deck +each man had been caught on by the catastrophe, either to leeward or to +windward. The shouting I need not mention—it was the merest drop in an +ocean of noise—and yet the character of the gale seems contained in the +recollection of one small, not particularly impressive, sallow man +without a cap and with a very still face. Captain Jones—let us call him +Jones—had been caught unawares. Two orders he had given at the first +sign of an utterly unforeseen onset; after that the magnitude of his +mistake seemed to have overwhelmed him. We were doing what was needed +and feasible. The ship behaved well. Of course, it was some time before +we could pause in our fierce and laborious exertions; but all through the +work, the excitement, the uproar, and some dismay, we were aware of this +silent little man at the break of the poop, perfectly motionless, +soundless, and often hidden from us by the drift of sprays. + +When we officers clambered at last upon the poop, he seemed to come out +of that numbed composure, and shouted to us down wind: “Try the pumps.” +Afterwards he disappeared. As to the ship, I need not say that, although +she was presently swallowed up in one of the blackest nights I can +remember, she did not disappear. In truth, I don’t fancy that there had +ever been much danger of that, but certainly the experience was noisy and +particularly distracting—and yet it is the memory of a very quiet silence +that survives. + + + + +XXIV. + + +For, after all, a gale of wind, the thing of mighty sound, is +inarticulate. It is man who, in a chance phrase, interprets the +elemental passion of his enemy. Thus there is another gale in my memory, +a thing of endless, deep, humming roar, moonlight, and a spoken sentence. + +It was off that other cape which is always deprived of its title as the +Cape of Good Hope is robbed of its name. It was off the Horn. For a +true expression of dishevelled wildness there is nothing like a gale in +the bright moonlight of a high latitude. + +The ship, brought-to and bowing to enormous flashing seas, glistened wet +from deck to trucks; her one set sail stood out a coal-black shape upon +the gloomy blueness of the air. I was a youngster then, and suffering +from weariness, cold, and imperfect oilskins which let water in at every +seam. I craved human companionship, and, coming off the poop, took my +place by the side of the boatswain (a man whom I did not like) in a +comparatively dry spot where at worst we had water only up to our knees. +Above our heads the explosive booming gusts of wind passed continuously, +justifying the sailor’s saying “It blows great guns.” And just from that +need of human companionship, being very close to the man, I said, or +rather shouted: + +“Blows very hard, boatswain.” + +His answer was: + +“Ay, and if it blows only a little harder things will begin to go. I +don’t mind as long as everything holds, but when things begin to go it’s +bad.” + +The note of dread in the shouting voice, the practical truth of these +words, heard years ago from a man I did not like, have stamped its +peculiar character on that gale. + +A look in the eyes of a shipmate, a low murmur in the most sheltered spot +where the watch on duty are huddled together, a meaning moan from one to +the other with a glance at the windward sky, a sigh of weariness, a +gesture of disgust passing into the keeping of the great wind, become +part and parcel of the gale. The olive hue of hurricane clouds presents +an aspect peculiarly appalling. The inky ragged wrack, flying before a +nor’-west wind, makes you dizzy with its headlong speed that depicts the +rush of the invisible air. A hard sou’-wester startles you with its +close horizon and its low gray sky, as if the world were a dungeon +wherein there is no rest for body or soul. And there are black squalls, +white squalls, thunder squalls, and unexpected gusts that come without a +single sign in the sky; and of each kind no one of them resembles +another. + +There is infinite variety in the gales of wind at sea, and except for the +peculiar, terrible, and mysterious moaning that may be heard sometimes +passing through the roar of a hurricane—except for that unforgettable +sound, as if the soul of the universe had been goaded into a mournful +groan—it is, after all, the human voice that stamps the mark of human +consciousness upon the character of a gale. + + + + +XXV. + + +THERE is no part of the world of coasts, continents, oceans, seas, +straits, capes, and islands which is not under the sway of a reigning +wind, the sovereign of its typical weather. The wind rules the aspects +of the sky and the action of the sea. But no wind rules unchallenged his +realm of land and water. As with the kingdoms of the earth, there are +regions more turbulent than others. In the middle belt of the earth the +Trade Winds reign supreme, undisputed, like monarchs of long-settled +kingdoms, whose traditional power, checking all undue ambitions, is not +so much an exercise of personal might as the working of long-established +institutions. The intertropical kingdoms of the Trade Winds are +favourable to the ordinary life of a merchantman. The trumpet-call of +strife is seldom borne on their wings to the watchful ears of men on the +decks of ships. The regions ruled by the north-east and south-east Trade +Winds are serene. In a southern-going ship, bound out for a long voyage, +the passage through their dominions is characterized by a relaxation of +strain and vigilance on the part of the seamen. Those citizens of the +ocean feel sheltered under the ægis of an uncontested law, of an +undisputed dynasty. There, indeed, if anywhere on earth, the weather may +be trusted. + +Yet not too implicitly. Even in the constitutional realm of Trade Winds, +north and south of the equator, ships are overtaken by strange +disturbances. Still, the easterly winds, and, generally speaking, the +easterly weather all the world over, is characterized by regularity and +persistence. + +As a ruler, the East Wind has a remarkable stability; as an invader of +the high latitudes lying under the tumultuous sway of his great brother, +the Wind of the West, he is extremely difficult to dislodge, by the +reason of his cold craftiness and profound duplicity. + +The narrow seas around these isles, where British admirals keep watch and +ward upon the marches of the Atlantic Ocean, are subject to the turbulent +sway of the West Wind. Call it north-west or south-west, it is all one—a +different phase of the same character, a changed expression on the same +face. In the orientation of the winds that rule the seas, the north and +south directions are of no importance. There are no North and South +Winds of any account upon this earth. The North and South Winds are but +small princes in the dynasties that make peace and war upon the sea. +They never assert themselves upon a vast stage. They depend upon local +causes—the configuration of coasts, the shapes of straits, the accidents +of bold promontories round which they play their little part. In the +polity of winds, as amongst the tribes of the earth, the real struggle +lies between East and West. + + + + +XXVI. + + +The West Wind reigns over the seas surrounding the coasts of these +kingdoms; and from the gateways of the channels, from promontories as if +from watch-towers, from estuaries of rivers as if from postern gates, +from passage-ways, inlets, straits, firths, the garrison of the Isle and +the crews of the ships going and returning look to the westward to judge +by the varied splendours of his sunset mantle the mood of that arbitrary +ruler. The end of the day is the time to gaze at the kingly face of the +Westerly Weather, who is the arbiter of ships’ destinies. Benignant and +splendid, or splendid and sinister, the western sky reflects the hidden +purposes of the royal mind. Clothed in a mantle of dazzling gold or +draped in rags of black clouds like a beggar, the might of the Westerly +Wind sits enthroned upon the western horizon with the whole North +Atlantic as a footstool for his feet and the first twinkling stars making +a diadem for his brow. Then the seamen, attentive courtiers of the +weather, think of regulating the conduct of their ships by the mood of +the master. The West Wind is too great a king to be a dissembler: he is +no calculator plotting deep schemes in a sombre heart; he is too strong +for small artifices; there is passion in all his moods, even in the soft +mood of his serene days, in the grace of his blue sky whose immense and +unfathomable tenderness reflected in the mirror of the sea embraces, +possesses, lulls to sleep the ships with white sails. He is all things +to all oceans; he is like a poet seated upon a throne—magnificent, +simple, barbarous, pensive, generous, impulsive, changeable, +unfathomable—but when you understand him, always the same. Some of his +sunsets are like pageants devised for the delight of the multitude, when +all the gems of the royal treasure-house are displayed above the sea. +Others are like the opening of his royal confidence, tinged with thoughts +of sadness and compassion in a melancholy splendour meditating upon the +short-lived peace of the waters. And I have seen him put the pent-up +anger of his heart into the aspect of the inaccessible sun, and cause it +to glare fiercely like the eye of an implacable autocrat out of a pale +and frightened sky. + +He is the war-lord who sends his battalions of Atlantic rollers to the +assault of our seaboard. The compelling voice of the West Wind musters +up to his service all the might of the ocean. At the bidding of the West +Wind there arises a great commotion in the sky above these Islands, and a +great rush of waters falls upon our shores. The sky of the westerly +weather is full of flying clouds, of great big white clouds coming +thicker and thicker till they seem to stand welded into a solid canopy, +upon whose gray face the lower wrack of the gale, thin, black and +angry-looking, flies past with vertiginous speed. Denser and denser +grows this dome of vapours, descending lower and lower upon the sea, +narrowing the horizon around the ship. And the characteristic aspect of +westerly weather, the thick, gray, smoky and sinister tone sets in, +circumscribing the view of the men, drenching their bodies, oppressing +their souls, taking their breath away with booming gusts, deafening, +blinding, driving, rushing them onwards in a swaying ship towards our +coasts lost in mists and rain. + +The caprice of the winds, like the wilfulness of men, is fraught with the +disastrous consequences of self-indulgence. Long anger, the sense of his +uncontrolled power, spoils the frank and generous nature of the West +Wind. It is as if his heart were corrupted by a malevolent and brooding +rancour. He devastates his own kingdom in the wantonness of his force. +South-west is the quarter of the heavens where he presents his darkened +brow. He breathes his rage in terrific squalls, and overwhelms his realm +with an inexhaustible welter of clouds. He strews the seeds of anxiety +upon the decks of scudding ships, makes the foam-stripped ocean look old, +and sprinkles with gray hairs the heads of ship-masters in the +homeward-bound ships running for the Channel. The Westerly Wind +asserting his sway from the south-west quarter is often like a monarch +gone mad, driving forth with wild imprecations the most faithful of his +courtiers to shipwreck, disaster, and death. + +The south-westerly weather is the thick weather _par excellence_. It is +not the thickness of the fog; it is rather a contraction of the horizon, +a mysterious veiling of the shores with clouds that seem to make a +low-vaulted dungeon around the running ship. It is not blindness; it is +a shortening of the sight. The West Wind does not say to the seaman, +“You shall be blind”; it restricts merely the range of his vision and +raises the dread of land within his breast. It makes of him a man robbed +of half his force, of half his efficiency. Many times in my life, +standing in long sea-boots and streaming oilskins at the elbow of my +commander on the poop of a homeward-bound ship making for the Channel, +and gazing ahead into the gray and tormented waste, I have heard a weary +sigh shape itself into a studiously casual comment: + +“Can’t see very far in this weather.” + +And have made answer in the same low, perfunctory tone + +“No, sir.” + +It would be merely the instinctive voicing of an ever-present thought +associated closely with the consciousness of the land somewhere ahead and +of the great speed of the ship. Fair wind, fair wind! Who would dare to +grumble at a fair wind? It was a favour of the Western King, who rules +masterfully the North Atlantic from the latitude of the Azores to the +latitude of Cape Farewell. A famous shove this to end a good passage +with; and yet, somehow, one could not muster upon one’s lips the smile of +a courtier’s gratitude. This favour was dispensed to you from under an +overbearing scowl, which is the true expression of the great autocrat +when he has made up his mind to give a battering to some ships and to +hunt certain others home in one breath of cruelty and benevolence, +equally distracting. + +“No, sir. Can’t see very far.” + +Thus would the mate’s voice repeat the thought of the master, both gazing +ahead, while under their feet the ship rushes at some twelve knots in the +direction of the lee shore; and only a couple of miles in front of her +swinging and dripping jib-boom, carried naked with an upward slant like a +spear, a gray horizon closes the view with a multitude of waves surging +upwards violently as if to strike at the stooping clouds. + +Awful and threatening scowls darken the face of the West Wind in his +clouded, south-west mood; and from the King’s throne-hall in the western +board stronger gusts reach you, like the fierce shouts of raving fury to +which only the gloomy grandeur of the scene imparts a saving dignity. A +shower pelts the deck and the sails of the ship as if flung with a scream +by an angry hand; and when the night closes in, the night of a +south-westerly gale, it seems more hopeless than the shade of Hades. The +south-westerly mood of the great West Wind is a lightless mood, without +sun, moon, or stars, with no gleam of light but the phosphorescent +flashes of the great sheets of foam that, boiling up on each side of the +ship, fling bluish gleams upon her dark and narrow hull, rolling as she +runs, chased by enormous seas, distracted in the tumult. + +There are some bad nights in the kingdom of the West Wind for +homeward-bound ships making for the Channel; and the days of wrath dawn +upon them colourless and vague like the timid turning up of invisible +lights upon the scene of a tyrannical and passionate outbreak, awful in +the monotony of its method and the increasing strength of its violence. +It is the same wind, the same clouds, the same wildly racing seas, the +same thick horizon around the ship. Only the wind is stronger, the +clouds seem denser and more overwhelming, the waves appear to have grown +bigger and more threatening during the night. The hours, whose minutes +are marked by the crash of the breaking seas, slip by with the screaming, +pelting squalls overtaking the ship as she runs on and on with darkened +canvas, with streaming spars and dripping ropes. The down-pours thicken. +Preceding each shower a mysterious gloom, like the passage of a shadow +above the firmament of gray clouds, filters down upon the ship. Now and +then the rain pours upon your head in streams as if from spouts. It +seems as if your ship were going to be drowned before she sank, as if all +atmosphere had turned to water. You gasp, you splutter, you are blinded +and deafened, you are submerged, obliterated, dissolved, annihilated, +streaming all over as if your limbs, too, had turned to water. And every +nerve on the alert you watch for the clearing-up mood of the Western +King, that shall come with a shift of wind as likely as not to whip all +the three masts out of your ship in the twinkling of an eye. + + + + +XXVII. + + +Heralded by the increasing fierceness of the squalls, sometimes by a +faint flash of lightning like the signal of a lighted torch waved far +away behind the clouds, the shift of wind comes at last, the crucial +moment of the change from the brooding and veiled violence of the +south-west gale to the sparkling, flashing, cutting, clear-eyed anger of +the King’s north-westerly mood. You behold another phase of his passion, +a fury bejewelled with stars, mayhap bearing the crescent of the moon on +its brow, shaking the last vestiges of its torn cloud-mantle in +inky-black squalls, with hail and sleet descending like showers of +crystals and pearls, bounding off the spars, drumming on the sails, +pattering on the oilskin coats, whitening the decks of homeward-bound +ships. Faint, ruddy flashes of lightning flicker in the starlight upon +her mastheads. A chilly blast hums in the taut rigging, causing the ship +to tremble to her very keel, and the soaked men on her decks to shiver in +their wet clothes to the very marrow of their bones. Before one squall +has flown over to sink in the eastern board, the edge of another peeps up +already above the western horizon, racing up swift, shapeless, like a +black bag full of frozen water ready to burst over your devoted head. +The temper of the ruler of the ocean has changed. Each gust of the +clouded mood that seemed warmed by the heat of a heart flaming with anger +has its counterpart in the chilly blasts that seem blown from a breast +turned to ice with a sudden revulsion of feeling. Instead of blinding +your eyes and crushing your soul with a terrible apparatus of cloud and +mists and seas and rain, the King of the West turns his power to +contemptuous pelting of your back with icicles, to making your weary eyes +water as if in grief, and your worn-out carcass quake pitifully. But +each mood of the great autocrat has its own greatness, and each is hard +to bear. Only the north-west phase of that mighty display is not +demoralizing to the same extent, because between the hail and sleet +squalls of a north-westerly gale one can see a long way ahead. + +To see! to see!—this is the craving of the sailor, as of the rest of +blind humanity. To have his path made clear for him is the aspiration of +every human being in our beclouded and tempestuous existence. I have +heard a reserved, silent man, with no nerves to speak of, after three +days of hard running in thick south-westerly weather, burst out +passionately: “I wish to God we could get sight of something!” + +We had just gone down below for a moment to commune in a battened-down +cabin, with a large white chart lying limp and damp upon a cold and +clammy table under the light of a smoky lamp. Sprawling over that +seaman’s silent and trusted adviser, with one elbow upon the coast of +Africa and the other planted in the neighbourhood of Cape Hatteras (it +was a general track-chart of the North Atlantic), my skipper lifted his +rugged, hairy face, and glared at me in a half-exasperated, +half-appealing way. We have seen no sun, moon, or stars for something +like seven days. By the effect of the West Wind’s wrath the celestial +bodies had gone into hiding for a week or more, and the last three days +had seen the force of a south-west gale grow from fresh, through strong, +to heavy, as the entries in my log-book could testify. Then we +separated, he to go on deck again, in obedience to that mysterious call +that seems to sound for ever in a shipmaster’s ears, I to stagger into my +cabin with some vague notion of putting down the words “Very heavy +weather” in a log-book not quite written up-to-date. But I gave it up, +and crawled into my bunk instead, boots and hat on, all standing (it did +not matter; everything was soaking wet, a heavy sea having burst the poop +skylights the night before), to remain in a nightmarish state between +waking and sleeping for a couple of hours of so-called rest. + +The south-westerly mood of the West Wind is an enemy of sleep, and even +of a recumbent position, in the responsible officers of a ship. After +two hours of futile, light-headed, inconsequent thinking upon all things +under heaven in that dark, dank, wet and devastated cabin, I arose +suddenly and staggered up on deck. The autocrat of the North Atlantic +was still oppressing his kingdom and its outlying dependencies, even as +far as the Bay of Biscay, in the dismal secrecy of thick, very thick, +weather. The force of the wind, though we were running before it at the +rate of some ten knots an hour, was so great that it drove me with a +steady push to the front of the poop, where my commander was holding on. + +“What do you think of it?” he addressed me in an interrogative yell. + +What I really thought was that we both had had just about enough of it. +The manner in which the great West Wind chooses at times to administer +his possessions does not commend itself to a person of peaceful and +law-abiding disposition, inclined to draw distinctions between right and +wrong in the face of natural forces, whose standard, naturally, is that +of might alone. But, of course, I said nothing. For a man caught, as it +were, between his skipper and the great West Wind silence is the safest +sort of diplomacy. Moreover, I knew my skipper. He did not want to know +what I thought. Shipmasters hanging on a breath before the thrones of +the winds ruling the seas have their psychology, whose workings are as +important to the ship and those on board of her as the changing moods of +the weather. The man, as a matter of fact, under no circumstances, ever +cared a brass farthing for what I or anybody else in his ship thought. +He had had just about enough of it, I guessed, and what he was at really +was a process of fishing for a suggestion. It was the pride of his life +that he had never wasted a chance, no matter how boisterous, threatening, +and dangerous, of a fair wind. Like men racing blindfold for a gap in a +hedge, we were finishing a splendidly quick passage from the Antipodes, +with a tremendous rush for the Channel in as thick a weather as any I can +remember, but his psychology did not permit him to bring the ship to with +a fair wind blowing—at least not on his own initiative. And yet he felt +that very soon indeed something would have to be done. He wanted the +suggestion to come from me, so that later on, when the trouble was over, +he could argue this point with his own uncompromising spirit, laying the +blame upon my shoulders. I must render him the justice that this sort of +pride was his only weakness. + +But he got no suggestion from me. I understood his psychology. Besides, +I had my own stock of weaknesses at the time (it is a different one now), +and amongst them was the conceit of being remarkably well up in the +psychology of the Westerly weather. I believed—not to mince matters—that +I had a genius for reading the mind of the great ruler of high latitudes. +I fancied I could discern already the coming of a change in his royal +mood. And all I said was: + +“The weather’s bound to clear up with the shift of wind.” + +“Anybody knows that much!” he snapped at me, at the highest pitch of his +voice. + +“I mean before dark!” I cried. + +This was all the opening he ever got from me. The eagerness with which +he seized upon it gave me the measure of the anxiety he had been +labouring under. + +“Very well,” he shouted, with an affectation of impatience, as if giving +way to long entreaties. “All right. If we don’t get a shift by then +we’ll take that foresail off her and put her head under her wing for the +night.” + +I was struck by the picturesque character of the phrase as applied to a +ship brought-to in order to ride out a gale with wave after wave passing +under her breast. I could see her resting in the tumult of the elements +like a sea-bird sleeping in wild weather upon the raging waters with its +head tucked under its wing. In imaginative precision, in true feeling, +this is one of the most expressive sentences I have ever heard on human +lips. But as to taking the foresail off that ship before we put her head +under her wing, I had my grave doubts. They were justified. That long +enduring piece of canvas was confiscated by the arbitrary decree of the +West Wind, to whom belong the lives of men and the contrivances of their +hands within the limits of his kingdom. With the sound of a faint +explosion it vanished into the thick weather bodily, leaving behind of +its stout substance not so much as one solitary strip big enough to be +picked into a handful of lint for, say, a wounded elephant. Torn out of +its bolt-ropes, it faded like a whiff of smoke in the smoky drift of +clouds shattered and torn by the shift of wind. For the shift of wind +had come. The unveiled, low sun glared angrily from a chaotic sky upon a +confused and tremendous sea dashing itself upon a coast. We recognised +the headland, and looked at each other in the silence of dumb wonder. +Without knowing it in the least, we had run up alongside the Isle of +Wight, and that tower, tinged a faint evening red in the salt wind-haze, +was the lighthouse on St. Catherine’s Point. + +My skipper recovered first from his astonishment. His bulging eyes sank +back gradually into their orbits. His psychology, taking it all round, +was really very creditable for an average sailor. He had been spared the +humiliation of laying his ship to with a fair wind; and at once that man, +of an open and truthful nature, spoke up in perfect good faith, rubbing +together his brown, hairy hands—the hands of a master-craftsman upon the +sea: + +“Humph! that’s just about where I reckoned we had got to.” + +The transparency and ingenuousness, in a way, of that delusion, the airy +tone, the hint of already growing pride, were perfectly delicious. But, +in truth, this was one of the greatest surprises ever sprung by the +clearing up mood of the West Wind upon one of the most accomplished of +his courtiers. + + + + +XXVIII. + + +The winds of North and South are, as I have said, but small princes +amongst the powers of the sea. They have no territory of their own; they +are not reigning winds anywhere. Yet it is from their houses that the +reigning dynasties which have shared between them the waters of the earth +are sprung. All the weather of the world is based upon the contest of +the Polar and Equatorial strains of that tyrannous race. The West Wind +is the greatest king. The East rules between the Tropics. They have +shared each ocean between them. Each has his genius of supreme rule. +The King of the West never intrudes upon the recognised dominion of his +kingly brother. He is a barbarian, of a northern type. Violent without +craftiness, and furious without malice, one may imagine him seated +masterfully with a double-edged sword on his knees upon the painted and +gilt clouds of the sunset, bowing his shock head of golden locks, a +flaming beard over his breast, imposing, colossal, mighty-limbed, with a +thundering voice, distended cheeks and fierce blue eyes, urging the speed +of his gales. The other, the East king, the king of blood-red sunrises, +I represent to myself as a spare Southerner with clear-cut features, +black-browed and dark-eyed, gray-robed, upright in sunshine, resting a +smooth-shaven cheek in the palm of his hand, impenetrable, secret, full +of wiles, fine-drawn, keen—meditating aggressions. + +The West Wind keeps faith with his brother, the King of the Easterly +weather. “What we have divided we have divided,” he seems to say in his +gruff voice, this ruler without guile, who hurls as if in sport enormous +masses of cloud across the sky, and flings the great waves of the +Atlantic clear across from the shores of the New World upon the hoary +headlands of Old Europe, which harbours more kings and rulers upon its +seamed and furrowed body than all the oceans of the world together. +“What we have divided we have divided; and if no rest and peace in this +world have fallen to my share, leave me alone. Let me play at quoits +with cyclonic gales, flinging the discs of spinning cloud and whirling +air from one end of my dismal kingdom to the other: over the Great Banks +or along the edges of pack-ice—this one with true aim right into the +bight of the Bay of Biscay, that other upon the fiords of Norway, across +the North Sea where the fishermen of many nations look watchfully into my +angry eye. This is the time of kingly sport.” + +And the royal master of high latitudes sighs mightily, with the sinking +sun upon his breast and the double-edged sword upon his knees, as if +wearied by the innumerable centuries of a strenuous rule and saddened by +the unchangeable aspect of the ocean under his feet—by the endless vista +of future ages where the work of sowing the wind and reaping the +whirlwind shall go on and on till his realm of living waters becomes a +frozen and motionless ocean. But the other, crafty and unmoved, nursing +his shaven chin between the thumb and forefinger of his slim and +treacherous hand, thinks deep within his heart full of guile: “Aha! our +brother of the West has fallen into the mood of kingly melancholy. He is +tired of playing with circular gales, and blowing great guns, and +unrolling thick streamers of fog in wanton sport at the cost of his own +poor, miserable subjects. Their fate is most pitiful. Let us make a +foray upon the dominions of that noisy barbarian, a great raid from +Finisterre to Hatteras, catching his fishermen unawares, baffling the +fleets that trust to his power, and shooting sly arrows into the livers +of men who court his good graces. He is, indeed, a worthless fellow.” +And forthwith, while the West Wind meditates upon the vanity of his +irresistible might, the thing is done, and the Easterly weather sets in +upon the North Atlantic. + +The prevailing weather of the North Atlantic is typical of the way in +which the West Wind rules his realm on which the sun never sets. North +Atlantic is the heart of a great empire. It is the part of the West +Wind’s dominions most thickly populated with generations of fine ships +and hardy men. Heroic deeds and adventurous exploits have been performed +there, within the very stronghold of his sway. The best sailors in the +world have been born and bred under the shadow of his sceptre, learning +to manage their ships with skill and audacity before the steps of his +stormy throne. Reckless adventurers, toiling fishermen, admirals as wise +and brave as the world has ever known, have waited upon the signs of his +westerly sky. Fleets of victorious ships have hung upon his breath. He +has tossed in his hand squadrons of war-scarred three-deckers, and +shredded out in mere sport the bunting of flags hallowed in the +traditions of honour and glory. He is a good friend and a dangerous +enemy, without mercy to unseaworthy ships and faint-hearted seamen. In +his kingly way he has taken but little account of lives sacrificed to his +impulsive policy; he is a king with a double-edged sword bared in his +right hand. The East Wind, an interloper in the dominions of Westerly +weather, is an impassive-faced tyrant with a sharp poniard held behind +his back for a treacherous stab. + +In his forays into the North Atlantic the East Wind behaves like a subtle +and cruel adventurer without a notion of honour or fair play. Veiling +his clear-cut, lean face in a thin layer of a hard, high cloud, I have +seen him, like a wizened robber sheik of the sea, hold up large caravans +of ships to the number of three hundred or more at the very gates of the +English Channel. And the worst of it was that there was no ransom that +we could pay to satisfy his avidity; for whatever evil is wrought by the +raiding East Wind, it is done only to spite his kingly brother of the +West. We gazed helplessly at the systematic, cold, gray-eyed obstinacy +of the Easterly weather, while short rations became the order of the day, +and the pinch of hunger under the breast-bone grew familiar to every +sailor in that held-up fleet. Every day added to our numbers. In knots +and groups and straggling parties we flung to and fro before the closed +gate. And meantime the outward-bound ships passed, running through our +humiliated ranks under all the canvas they could show. It is my idea +that the Easterly Wind helps the ships away from home in the wicked hope +that they shall all come to an untimely end and be heard of no more. For +six weeks did the robber sheik hold the trade route of the earth, while +our liege lord, the West Wind, slept profoundly like a tired Titan, or +else remained lost in a mood of idle sadness known only to frank natures. +All was still to the westward; we looked in vain towards his stronghold: +the King slumbered on so deeply that he let his foraging brother steal +the very mantle of gold-lined purple clouds from his bowed shoulders. +What had become of the dazzling hoard of royal jewels exhibited at every +close of day? Gone, disappeared, extinguished, carried off without +leaving a single gold band or the flash of a single sunbeam in the +evening sky! Day after day through a cold streak of heavens as bare and +poor as the inside of a rifled safe a rayless and despoiled sun would +slink shamefacedly, without pomp or show, to hide in haste under the +waters. And still the King slept on, or mourned the vanity of his might +and his power, while the thin-lipped intruder put the impress of his cold +and implacable spirit upon the sky and sea. With every daybreak the +rising sun had to wade through a crimson stream, luminous and sinister, +like the spilt blood of celestial bodies murdered during the night. + +In this particular instance the mean interloper held the road for some +six weeks on end, establishing his particular administrative methods over +the best part of the North Atlantic. It looked as if the easterly +weather had come to stay for ever, or, at least, till we had all starved +to death in the held-up fleet—starved within sight, as it were, of +plenty, within touch, almost, of the bountiful heart of the Empire. +There we were, dotting with our white dry sails the hard blueness of the +deep sea. There we were, a growing company of ships, each with her +burden of grain, of timber, of wool, of hides, and even of oranges, for +we had one or two belated fruit schooners in company. There we were, in +that memorable spring of a certain year in the late seventies, dodging to +and fro, baffled on every tack, and with our stores running down to +sweepings of bread-lockers and scrapings of sugar-casks. It was just +like the East Wind’s nature to inflict starvation upon the bodies of +unoffending sailors, while he corrupted their simple souls by an +exasperation leading to outbursts of profanity as lurid as his blood-red +sunrises. They were followed by gray days under the cover of high, +motionless clouds that looked as if carved in a slab of ash-coloured +marble. And each mean starved sunset left us calling with imprecations +upon the West Wind even in its most veiled misty mood to wake up and give +us our liberty, if only to rush on and dash the heads of our ships +against the very walls of our unapproachable home. + + + + +XXIX. + + +In the atmosphere of the Easterly weather, as pellucid as a piece of +crystal and refracting like a prism, we could see the appalling numbers +of our helpless company, even to those who in more normal conditions +would have remained invisible, sails down under the horizon. It is the +malicious pleasure of the East Wind to augment the power of your +eyesight, in order, perhaps, that you should see better the perfect +humiliation, the hopeless character of your captivity. Easterly weather +is generally clear, and that is all that can be said for it—almost +supernaturally clear when it likes; but whatever its mood, there is +something uncanny in its nature. Its duplicity is such that it will +deceive a scientific instrument. No barometer will give warning of an +easterly gale, were it ever so wet. It would be an unjust and ungrateful +thing to say that a barometer is a stupid contrivance. It is simply that +the wiles of the East Wind are too much for its fundamental honesty. +After years and years of experience the most trusty instrument of the +sort that ever went to sea screwed on to a ship’s cabin bulkhead will, +almost invariably, be induced to rise by the diabolic ingenuity of the +Easterly weather, just at the moment when the Easterly weather, +discarding its methods of hard, dry, impassive cruelty, contemplates +drowning what is left of your spirit in torrents of a peculiarly cold and +horrid rain. The sleet-and-hail squalls following the lightning at the +end of a westerly gale are cold and benumbing and stinging and cruel +enough. But the dry, Easterly weather, when it turns to wet, seems to +rain poisoned showers upon your head. It is a sort of steady, +persistent, overwhelming, endlessly driving downpour, which makes your +heart sick, and opens it to dismal forebodings. And the stormy mood of +the Easterly weather looms black upon the sky with a peculiar and amazing +blackness. The West Wind hangs heavy gray curtains of mist and spray +before your gaze, but the Eastern interloper of the narrow seas, when he +has mustered his courage and cruelty to the point of a gale, puts your +eyes out, puts them out completely, makes you feel blind for life upon a +lee-shore. It is the wind, also, that brings snow. + +Out of his black and merciless heart he flings a white blinding sheet +upon the ships of the sea. He has more manners of villainy, and no more +conscience than an Italian prince of the seventeenth century. His weapon +is a dagger carried under a black cloak when he goes out on his unlawful +enterprises. The mere hint of his approach fills with dread every craft +that swims the sea, from fishing-smacks to four-masted ships that +recognise the sway of the West Wind. Even in his most accommodating mood +he inspires a dread of treachery. I have heard upwards of ten score of +windlasses spring like one into clanking life in the dead of night, +filling the Downs with a panic-struck sound of anchors being torn +hurriedly out of the ground at the first breath of his approach. +Fortunately, his heart often fails him: he does not always blow home upon +our exposed coast; he has not the fearless temper of his Westerly +brother. + +The natures of those two winds that share the dominions of the great +oceans are fundamentally different. It is strange that the winds which +men are prone to style capricious remain true to their character in all +the various regions of the earth. To us here, for instance, the East +Wind comes across a great continent, sweeping over the greatest body of +solid land upon this earth. For the Australian east coast the East Wind +is the wind of the ocean, coming across the greatest body of water upon +the globe; and yet here and there its characteristics remain the same +with a strange consistency in everything that is vile and base. The +members of the West Wind’s dynasty are modified in a way by the regions +they rule, as a Hohenzollern, without ceasing to be himself, becomes a +Roumanian by virtue of his throne, or a Saxe-Coburg learns to put the +dress of Bulgarian phrases upon his particular thoughts, whatever they +are. + +The autocratic sway of the West Wind, whether forty north or forty south +of the Equator, is characterized by an open, generous, frank, barbarous +recklessness. For he is a great autocrat, and to be a great autocrat you +must be a great barbarian. I have been too much moulded to his sway to +nurse now any idea of rebellion in my heart. Moreover, what is a +rebellion within the four walls of a room against the tempestuous rule of +the West Wind? I remain faithful to the memory of the mighty King with a +double-edged sword in one hand, and in the other holding out rewards of +great daily runs and famously quick passages to those of his courtiers +who knew how to wait watchfully for every sign of his secret mood. As we +deep-water men always reckoned, he made one year in three fairly lively +for anybody having business upon the Atlantic or down there along the +“forties” of the Southern Ocean. You had to take the bitter with the +sweet; and it cannot be denied he played carelessly with our lives and +fortunes. But, then, he was always a great king, fit to rule over the +great waters where, strictly speaking, a man would have no business +whatever but for his audacity. + +The audacious should not complain. A mere trader ought not to grumble at +the tolls levied by a mighty king. His mightiness was sometimes very +overwhelming; but even when you had to defy him openly, as on the banks +of the Agulhas homeward bound from the East Indies, or on the outward +passage round the Horn, he struck at you fairly his stinging blows (full +in the face, too), and it was your business not to get too much +staggered. And, after all, if you showed anything of a countenance, the +good-natured barbarian would let you fight your way past the very steps +of his throne. It was only now and then that the sword descended and a +head fell; but if you fell you were sure of impressive obsequies and of a +roomy, generous grave. + +Such is the king to whom Viking chieftains bowed their heads, and whom +the modern and palatial steamship defies with impunity seven times a +week. And yet it is but defiance, not victory. The magnificent +barbarian sits enthroned in a mantle of gold-lined clouds looking from on +high on great ships gliding like mechanical toys upon his sea and on men +who, armed with fire and iron, no longer need to watch anxiously for the +slightest sign of his royal mood. He is disregarded; but he has kept all +his strength, all his splendour, and a great part of his power. Time +itself, that shakes all the thrones, is on the side of that king. The +sword in his hand remains as sharp as ever upon both its edges; and he +may well go on playing his royal game of quoits with hurricanes, tossing +them over from the continent of republics to the continent of kingdoms, +in the assurance that both the new republics and the old kingdoms, the +heat of fire and the strength of iron, with the untold generations of +audacious men, shall crumble to dust at the steps of his throne, and pass +away, and be forgotten before his own rule comes to an end. + + + + +XXX. + + +THE estuaries of rivers appeal strongly to an adventurous imagination. +This appeal is not always a charm, for there are estuaries of a +particularly dispiriting ugliness: lowlands, mud-flats, or perhaps barren +sandhills without beauty of form or amenity of aspect, covered with a +shabby and scanty vegetation conveying the impression of poverty and +uselessness. Sometimes such an ugliness is merely a repulsive mask. A +river whose estuary resembles a breach in a sand rampart may flow through +a most fertile country. But all the estuaries of great rivers have their +fascination, the attractiveness of an open portal. Water is friendly to +man. The ocean, a part of Nature furthest removed in the +unchangeableness and majesty of its might from the spirit of mankind, has +ever been a friend to the enterprising nations of the earth. And of all +the elements this is the one to which men have always been prone to trust +themselves, as if its immensity held a reward as vast as itself. + +From the offing the open estuary promises every possible fruition to +adventurous hopes. That road open to enterprise and courage invites the +explorer of coasts to new efforts towards the fulfilment of great +expectations. The commander of the first Roman galley must have looked +with an intense absorption upon the estuary of the Thames as he turned +the beaked prow of his ship to the westward under the brow of the North +Foreland. The estuary of the Thames is not beautiful; it has no noble +features, no romantic grandeur of aspect, no smiling geniality; but it is +wide open, spacious, inviting, hospitable at the first glance, with a +strange air of mysteriousness which lingers about it to this very day. +The navigation of his craft must have engrossed all the Roman’s attention +in the calm of a summer’s day (he would choose his weather), when the +single row of long sweeps (the galley would be a light one, not a +trireme) could fall in easy cadence upon a sheet of water like +plate-glass, reflecting faithfully the classic form of his vessel and the +contour of the lonely shores close on his left hand. I assume he +followed the land and passed through what is at present known as Margate +Roads, groping his careful way along the hidden sandbanks, whose every +tail and spit has its beacon or buoy nowadays. He must have been +anxious, though no doubt he had collected beforehand on the shores of the +Gauls a store of information from the talk of traders, adventurers, +fishermen, slave-dealers, pirates—all sorts of unofficial men connected +with the sea in a more or less reputable way. He would have heard of +channels and sandbanks, of natural features of the land useful for +sea-marks, of villages and tribes and modes of barter and precautions to +take: with the instructive tales about native chiefs dyed more or less +blue, whose character for greediness, ferocity, or amiability must have +been expounded to him with that capacity for vivid language which seems +joined naturally to the shadiness of moral character and recklessness of +disposition. With that sort of spiced food provided for his anxious +thought, watchful for strange men, strange beasts, strange turns of the +tide, he would make the best of his way up, a military seaman with a +short sword on thigh and a bronze helmet on his head, the pioneer +post-captain of an imperial fleet. Was the tribe inhabiting the Isle of +Thanet of a ferocious disposition, I wonder, and ready to fall with +stone-studded clubs and wooden lances hardened in the fire, upon the +backs of unwary mariners? + +Amongst the great commercial streams of these islands, the Thames is the +only one, I think, open to romantic feeling, from the fact that the sight +of human labour and the sounds of human industry do not come down its +shores to the very sea, destroying the suggestion of mysterious vastness +caused by the configuration of the shore. The broad inlet of the shallow +North Sea passes gradually into the contracted shape of the river; but +for a long time the feeling of the open water remains with the ship +steering to the westward through one of the lighted and buoyed +passage-ways of the Thames, such as Queen’s Channel, Prince’s Channel, +Four-Fathom Channel; or else coming down the Swin from the north. The +rush of the yellow flood-tide hurries her up as if into the unknown +between the two fading lines of the coast. There are no features to this +land, no conspicuous, far-famed landmarks for the eye; there is nothing +so far down to tell you of the greatest agglomeration of mankind on earth +dwelling no more than five and twenty miles away, where the sun sets in a +blaze of colour flaming on a gold background, and the dark, low shores +trend towards each other. And in the great silence the deep, faint +booming of the big guns being tested at Shoeburyness hangs about the +Nore—a historical spot in the keeping of one of England’s appointed +guardians. + + + + +XXXI. + + +The Nore sand remains covered at low-water, and never seen by human eye; +but the Nore is a name to conjure with visions of historical events, of +battles, of fleets, of mutinies, of watch and ward kept upon the great +throbbing heart of the State. This ideal point of the estuary, this +centre of memories, is marked upon the steely gray expanse of the waters +by a lightship painted red that, from a couple of miles off, looks like a +cheap and bizarre little toy. I remember how, on coming up the river for +the first time, I was surprised at the smallness of that vivid object—a +tiny warm speck of crimson lost in an immensity of gray tones. I was +startled, as if of necessity the principal beacon in the water-way of the +greatest town on earth should have presented imposing proportions. And, +behold! the brown sprit-sail of a barge hid it entirely from my view. + +Coming in from the eastward, the bright colouring of the lightship +marking the part of the river committed to the charge of an Admiral (the +Commander-in-Chief at the Nore) accentuates the dreariness and the great +breadth of the Thames Estuary. But soon the course of the ship opens the +entrance of the Medway, with its men-of-war moored in line, and the long +wooden jetty of Port Victoria, with its few low buildings like the +beginning of a hasty settlement upon a wild and unexplored shore. The +famous Thames barges sit in brown clusters upon the water with an effect +of birds floating upon a pond. On the imposing expanse of the great +estuary the traffic of the port where so much of the world’s work and the +world’s thinking is being done becomes insignificant, scattered, +streaming away in thin lines of ships stringing themselves out into the +eastern quarter through the various navigable channels of which the Nore +lightship marks the divergence. The coasting traffic inclines to the +north; the deep-water ships steer east with a southern inclination, on +through the Downs, to the most remote ends of the world. In the widening +of the shores sinking low in the gray, smoky distances the greatness of +the sea receives the mercantile fleet of good ships that London sends out +upon the turn of every tide. They follow each other, going very close by +the Essex shore. Such as the beads of a rosary told by business-like +shipowners for the greater profit of the world they slip one by one into +the open: while in the offing the inward-bound ships come up singly and +in bunches from under the sea horizon closing the mouth of the river +between Orfordness and North Foreland. They all converge upon the Nore, +the warm speck of red upon the tones of drab and gray, with the distant +shores running together towards the west, low and flat, like the sides of +an enormous canal. The sea-reach of the Thames is straight, and, once +Sheerness is left behind, its banks seem very uninhabited, except for the +cluster of houses which is Southend, or here and there a lonely wooden +jetty where petroleum ships discharge their dangerous cargoes, and the +oil-storage tanks, low and round with slightly-domed roofs, peep over the +edge of the fore-shore, as it were a village of Central African huts +imitated in iron. Bordered by the black and shining mud-flats, the level +marsh extends for miles. Away in the far background the land rises, +closing the view with a continuous wooded slope, forming in the distance +an interminable rampart overgrown with bushes. + +Then, on the slight turn of the Lower Hope Reach, clusters of factory +chimneys come distinctly into view, tall and slender above the squat +ranges of cement works in Grays and Greenhithe. Smoking quietly at the +top against the great blaze of a magnificent sunset, they give an +industrial character to the scene, speak of work, manufactures, and +trade, as palm-groves on the coral strands of distant islands speak of +the luxuriant grace, beauty and vigour of tropical nature. The houses of +Gravesend crowd upon the shore with an effect of confusion as if they had +tumbled down haphazard from the top of the hill at the back. The +flatness of the Kentish shore ends there. A fleet of steam-tugs lies at +anchor in front of the various piers. A conspicuous church spire, the +first seen distinctly coming from the sea, has a thoughtful grace, the +serenity of a fine form above the chaotic disorder of men’s houses. But +on the other side, on the flat Essex side, a shapeless and desolate red +edifice, a vast pile of bricks with many windows and a slate roof more +inaccessible than an Alpine slope, towers over the bend in monstrous +ugliness, the tallest, heaviest building for miles around, a thing like +an hotel, like a mansion of flats (all to let), exiled into these fields +out of a street in West Kensington. Just round the corner, as it were, +on a pier defined with stone blocks and wooden piles, a white mast, +slender like a stalk of straw and crossed by a yard like a +knitting-needle, flying the signals of flag and balloon, watches over a +set of heavy dock-gates. Mast-heads and funnel-tops of ships peep above +the ranges of corrugated iron roofs. This is the entrance to Tilbury +Dock, the most recent of all London docks, the nearest to the sea. + +Between the crowded houses of Gravesend and the monstrous red-brick pile +on the Essex shore the ship is surrendered fairly to the grasp of the +river. That hint of loneliness, that soul of the sea which had +accompanied her as far as the Lower Hope Reach, abandons her at the turn +of the first bend above. The salt, acrid flavour is gone out of the air, +together with a sense of unlimited space opening free beyond the +threshold of sandbanks below the Nore. The waters of the sea rush on +past Gravesend, tumbling the big mooring buoys laid along the face of the +town; but the sea-freedom stops short there, surrendering the salt tide +to the needs, the artifices, the contrivances of toiling men. Wharves, +landing-places, dock-gates, waterside stairs, follow each other +continuously right up to London Bridge, and the hum of men’s work fills +the river with a menacing, muttering note as of a breathless, +ever-driving gale. The water-way, so fair above and wide below, flows +oppressed by bricks and mortar and stone, by blackened timber and grimed +glass and rusty iron, covered with black barges, whipped up by paddles +and screws, overburdened with craft, overhung with chains, overshadowed +by walls making a steep gorge for its bed, filled with a haze of smoke +and dust. + +This stretch of the Thames from London Bridge to the Albert Docks is to +other watersides of river ports what a virgin forest would be to a +garden. It is a thing grown up, not made. It recalls a jungle by the +confused, varied, and impenetrable aspect of the buildings that line the +shore, not according to a planned purpose, but as if sprung up by +accident from scattered seeds. Like the matted growth of bushes and +creepers veiling the silent depths of an unexplored wilderness, they hide +the depths of London’s infinitely varied, vigorous, seething life. In +other river ports it is not so. They lie open to their stream, with +quays like broad clearings, with streets like avenues cut through thick +timber for the convenience of trade. I am thinking now of river ports I +have seen—of Antwerp, for instance; of Nantes or Bordeaux, or even old +Rouen, where the night-watchmen of ships, elbows on rail, gaze at +shop-windows and brilliant cafés, and see the audience go in and come out +of the opera-house. But London, the oldest and greatest of river ports, +does not possess as much as a hundred yards of open quays upon its river +front. Dark and impenetrable at night, like the face of a forest, is the +London waterside. It is the waterside of watersides, where only one +aspect of the world’s life can be seen, and only one kind of men toils on +the edge of the stream. The lightless walls seem to spring from the very +mud upon which the stranded barges lie; and the narrow lanes coming down +to the foreshore resemble the paths of smashed bushes and crumbled earth +where big game comes to drink on the banks of tropical streams. + +Behind the growth of the London waterside the docks of London spread out +unsuspected, smooth, and placid, lost amongst the buildings like dark +lagoons hidden in a thick forest. They lie concealed in the intricate +growth of houses with a few stalks of mastheads here and there +overtopping the roof of some four-story warehouse. + +It is a strange conjunction this of roofs and mastheads, of walls and +yard-arms. I remember once having the incongruity of the relation +brought home to me in a practical way. I was the chief officer of a fine +ship, just docked with a cargo of wool from Sydney, after a ninety days’ +passage. In fact, we had not been in more than half an hour and I was +still busy making her fast to the stone posts of a very narrow quay in +front of a lofty warehouse. An old man with a gray whisker under the +chin and brass buttons on his pilot-cloth jacket, hurried up along the +quay hailing my ship by name. He was one of those officials called +berthing-masters—not the one who had berthed us, but another, who, +apparently, had been busy securing a steamer at the other end of the +dock. I could see from afar his hard blue eyes staring at us, as if +fascinated, with a queer sort of absorption. I wondered what that worthy +sea-dog had found to criticise in my ship’s rigging. And I, too, glanced +aloft anxiously. I could see nothing wrong there. But perhaps that +superannuated fellow-craftsman was simply admiring the ship’s perfect +order aloft, I thought, with some secret pride; for the chief officer is +responsible for his ship’s appearance, and as to her outward condition, +he is the man open to praise or blame. Meantime the old salt +(“ex-coasting skipper” was writ large all over his person) had hobbled up +alongside in his bumpy, shiny boots, and, waving an arm, short and thick +like the flipper of a seal, terminated by a paw red as an uncooked +beef-steak, addressed the poop in a muffled, faint, roaring voice, as if +a sample of every North-Sea fog of his life had been permanently lodged +in his throat: “Haul ’em round, Mr. Mate!” were his words. “If you don’t +look sharp, you’ll have your topgallant yards through the windows of that +’ere warehouse presently!” This was the only cause of his interest in +the ship’s beautiful spars. I own that for a time I was struck dumb by +the bizarre associations of yard-arms and window-panes. To break windows +is the last thing one would think of in connection with a ship’s +topgallant yard, unless, indeed, one were an experienced berthing-master +in one of the London docks. This old chap was doing his little share of +the world’s work with proper efficiency. His little blue eyes had made +out the danger many hundred yards off. His rheumaticky feet, tired with +balancing that squat body for many years upon the decks of small +coasters, and made sore by miles of tramping upon the flagstones of the +dock side, had hurried up in time to avert a ridiculous catastrophe. I +answered him pettishly, I fear, and as if I had known all about it +before. + +“All right, all right! can’t do everything at once.” + +He remained near by, muttering to himself till the yards had been hauled +round at my order, and then raised again his foggy, thick voice: + +“None too soon,” he observed, with a critical glance up at the towering +side of the warehouse. “That’s a half-sovereign in your pocket, Mr. +Mate. You should always look first how you are for them windows before +you begin to breast in your ship to the quay.” + +It was good advice. But one cannot think of everything or foresee +contacts of things apparently as remote as stars and hop-poles. + + + + +XXXII. + + +The view of ships lying moored in some of the older docks of London has +always suggested to my mind the image of a flock of swans kept in the +flooded backyard of grim tenement houses. The flatness of the walls +surrounding the dark pool on which they float brings out wonderfully the +flowing grace of the lines on which a ship’s hull is built. The +lightness of these forms, devised to meet the winds and the seas, makes, +by contrast with the great piles of bricks, the chains and cables of +their moorings appear very necessary, as if nothing less could prevent +them from soaring upwards and over the roofs. The least puff of wind +stealing round the corners of the dock buildings stirs these captives +fettered to rigid shores. It is as if the soul of a ship were impatient +of confinement. Those masted hulls, relieved of their cargo, become +restless at the slightest hint of the wind’s freedom. However tightly +moored, they range a little at their berths, swaying imperceptibly the +spire-like assemblages of cordage and spars. You can detect their +impatience by watching the sway of the mastheads against the motionless, +the soulless gravity of mortar and stones. As you pass alongside each +hopeless prisoner chained to the quay, the slight grinding noise of the +wooden fenders makes a sound of angry muttering. But, after all, it may +be good for ships to go through a period of restraint and repose, as the +restraint and self-communion of inactivity may be good for an unruly +soul—not, indeed, that I mean to say that ships are unruly; on the +contrary, they are faithful creatures, as so many men can testify. And +faithfulness is a great restraint, the strongest bond laid upon the +self-will of men and ships on this globe of land and sea. + +This interval of bondage in the docks rounds each period of a ship’s life +with the sense of accomplished duty, of an effectively played part in the +work of the world. The dock is the scene of what the world would think +the most serious part in the light, bounding, swaying life of a ship. +But there are docks and docks. The ugliness of some docks is appalling. +Wild horses would not drag from me the name of a certain river in the +north whose narrow estuary is inhospitable and dangerous, and whose docks +are like a nightmare of dreariness and misery. Their dismal shores are +studded thickly with scaffold-like, enormous timber structures, whose +lofty heads are veiled periodically by the infernal gritty night of a +cloud of coal-dust. The most important ingredient for getting the +world’s work along is distributed there under the circumstances of the +greatest cruelty meted out to helpless ships. Shut up in the desolate +circuit of these basins, you would think a free ship would droop and die +like a wild bird put into a dirty cage. But a ship, perhaps because of +her faithfulness to men, will endure an extraordinary lot of ill-usage. +Still, I have seen ships issue from certain docks like half-dead +prisoners from a dungeon, bedraggled, overcome, wholly disguised in dirt, +and with their men rolling white eyeballs in black and worried faces +raised to a heaven which, in its smoky and soiled aspect, seemed to +reflect the sordidness of the earth below. One thing, however, may be +said for the docks of the Port of London on both sides of the river: for +all the complaints of their insufficient equipment, of their obsolete +rules, of failure (they say) in the matter of quick despatch, no ship +need ever issue from their gates in a half-fainting condition. London is +a general cargo port, as is only proper for the greatest capital of the +world to be. General cargo ports belong to the aristocracy of the +earth’s trading places, and in that aristocracy London, as it is its way, +has a unique physiognomy. + +The absence of picturesqueness cannot be laid to the charge of the docks +opening into the Thames. For all my unkind comparisons to swans and +backyards, it cannot be denied that each dock or group of docks along the +north side of the river has its own individual attractiveness. Beginning +with the cosy little St. Katherine’s Dock, lying overshadowed and black +like a quiet pool amongst rocky crags, through the venerable and +sympathetic London Docks, with not a single line of rails in the whole of +their area and the aroma of spices lingering between its warehouses, with +their far-famed wine-cellars—down through the interesting group of West +India Docks, the fine docks at Blackwall, on past the Galleons Reach +entrance of the Victoria and Albert Docks, right down to the vast gloom +of the great basins in Tilbury, each of those places of restraint for +ships has its own peculiar physiognomy, its own expression. And what +makes them unique and attractive is their common trait of being romantic +in their usefulness. + +In their way they are as romantic as the river they serve is unlike all +the other commercial streams of the world. The cosiness of the St. +Katherine’s Dock, the old-world air of the London Docks, remain impressed +upon the memory. The docks down the river, abreast of Woolwich, are +imposing by their proportions and the vast scale of the ugliness that +forms their surroundings—ugliness so picturesque as to become a delight +to the eye. When one talks of the Thames docks, “beauty” is a vain word, +but romance has lived too long upon this river not to have thrown a +mantle of glamour upon its banks. + +The antiquity of the port appeals to the imagination by the long chain of +adventurous enterprises that had their inception in the town and floated +out into the world on the waters of the river. Even the newest of the +docks, the Tilbury Dock, shares in the glamour conferred by historical +associations. Queen Elizabeth has made one of her progresses down there, +not one of her journeys of pomp and ceremony, but an anxious business +progress at a crisis of national history. The menace of that time has +passed away, and now Tilbury is known by its docks. These are very +modern, but their remoteness and isolation upon the Essex marsh, the days +of failure attending their creation, invested them with a romantic air. +Nothing in those days could have been more striking than the vast, empty +basins, surrounded by miles of bare quays and the ranges of cargo-sheds, +where two or three ships seemed lost like bewitched children in a forest +of gaunt, hydraulic cranes. One received a wonderful impression of utter +abandonment, of wasted efficiency. From the first the Tilbury Docks were +very efficient and ready for their task, but they had come, perhaps, too +soon into the field. A great future lies before Tilbury Docks. They +shall never fill a long-felt want (in the sacramental phrase that is +applied to railways, tunnels, newspapers, and new editions of books). +They were too early in the field. The want shall never be felt because, +free of the trammels of the tide, easy of access, magnificent and +desolate, they are already there, prepared to take and keep the biggest +ships that float upon the sea. They are worthy of the oldest river port +in the world. + +And, truth to say, for all the criticisms flung upon the heads of the +dock companies, the other docks of the Thames are no disgrace to the town +with a population greater than that of some commonwealths. The growth of +London as a well-equipped port has been slow, while not unworthy of a +great capital, of a great centre of distribution. It must not be +forgotten that London has not the backing of great industrial districts +or great fields of natural exploitation. In this it differs from +Liverpool, from Cardiff, from Newcastle, from Glasgow; and therein the +Thames differs from the Mersey, from the Tyne, from the Clyde. It is an +historical river; it is a romantic stream flowing through the centre of +great affairs, and for all the criticism of the river’s administration, +my contention is that its development has been worthy of its dignity. +For a long time the stream itself could accommodate quite easily the +oversea and coasting traffic. That was in the days when, in the part +called the Pool, just below London Bridge, the vessels moored stem and +stern in the very strength of the tide formed one solid mass like an +island covered with a forest of gaunt, leafless trees; and when the trade +had grown too big for the river there came the St. Katherine’s Docks and +the London Docks, magnificent undertakings answering to the need of their +time. The same may be said of the other artificial lakes full of ships +that go in and out upon this high road to all parts of the world. The +labour of the imperial waterway goes on from generation to generation, +goes on day and night. Nothing ever arrests its sleepless industry but +the coming of a heavy fog, which clothes the teeming stream in a mantle +of impenetrable stillness. + +After the gradual cessation of all sound and movement on the faithful +river, only the ringing of ships’ bells is heard, mysterious and muffled +in the white vapour from London Bridge right down to the Nore, for miles +and miles in a decrescendo tinkling, to where the estuary broadens out +into the North Sea, and the anchored ships lie scattered thinly in the +shrouded channels between the sand-banks of the Thames’ mouth. Through +the long and glorious tale of years of the river’s strenuous service to +its people these are its only breathing times. + + + + +XXXIII. + + +A SHIP in dock, surrounded by quays and the walls of warehouses, has the +appearance of a prisoner meditating upon freedom in the sadness of a free +spirit put under restraint. Chain cables and stout ropes keep her bound +to stone posts at the edge of a paved shore, and a berthing-master, with +brass buttons on his coat, walks about like a weather-beaten and ruddy +gaoler, casting jealous, watchful glances upon the moorings that fetter a +ship lying passive and still and safe, as if lost in deep regrets of her +days of liberty and danger on the sea. + +The swarm of renegades—dock-masters, berthing-masters, gatemen, and such +like—appear to nurse an immense distrust of the captive ship’s +resignation. There never seem chains and ropes enough to satisfy their +minds concerned with the safe binding of free ships to the strong, muddy, +enslaved earth. “You had better put another bight of a hawser astern, +Mr. Mate,” is the usual phrase in their mouth. I brand them for +renegades, because most of them have been sailors in their time. As if +the infirmities of old age—the gray hair, the wrinkles at the corners of +the eyes, and the knotted veins of the hands—were the symptoms of moral +poison, they prowl about the quays with an underhand air of gloating over +the broken spirit of noble captives. They want more fenders, more +breasting-ropes; they want more springs, more shackles, more fetters; +they want to make ships with volatile souls as motionless as square +blocks of stone. They stand on the mud of pavements, these degraded +sea-dogs, with long lines of railway-trucks clanking their couplings +behind their backs, and run malevolent glances over your ship from +headgear to taffrail, only wishing to tyrannize over the poor creature +under the hypocritical cloak of benevolence and care. Here and there +cargo cranes looking like instruments of torture for ships swing cruel +hooks at the end of long chains. Gangs of dock-labourers swarm with +muddy feet over the gangways. It is a moving sight this, of so many men +of the earth, earthy, who never cared anything for a ship, trampling +unconcerned, brutal and hob-nailed upon her helpless body. + +Fortunately, nothing can deface the beauty of a ship. That sense of a +dungeon, that sense of a horrible and degrading misfortune overtaking a +creature fair to see and safe to trust, attaches only to ships moored in +the docks of great European ports. You feel that they are dishonestly +locked up, to be hunted about from wharf to wharf on a dark, greasy, +square pool of black water as a brutal reward at the end of a faithful +voyage. + +A ship anchored in an open roadstead, with cargo-lighters alongside and +her own tackle swinging the burden over the rail, is accomplishing in +freedom a function of her life. There is no restraint; there is space: +clear water around her, and a clear sky above her mastheads, with a +landscape of green hills and charming bays opening around her anchorage. +She is not abandoned by her own men to the tender mercies of shore +people. She still shelters, and is looked after by, her own little +devoted band, and you feel that presently she will glide between the +headlands and disappear. It is only at home, in dock, that she lies +abandoned, shut off from freedom by all the artifices of men that think +of quick despatch and profitable freights. It is only then that the +odious, rectangular shadows of walls and roofs fall upon her decks, with +showers of soot. + +To a man who has never seen the extraordinary nobility, strength, and +grace that the devoted generations of ship-builders have evolved from +some pure nooks of their simple souls, the sight that could be seen +five-and-twenty years ago of a large fleet of clippers moored along the +north side of the New South Dock was an inspiring spectacle. Then there +was a quarter of a mile of them, from the iron dockyard-gates guarded by +policemen, in a long, forest-like perspective of masts, moored two and +two to many stout wooden jetties. Their spars dwarfed with their +loftiness the corrugated-iron sheds, their jibbooms extended far over the +shore, their white-and-gold figure-heads, almost dazzling in their +purity, overhung the straight, long quay above the mud and dirt of the +wharfside, with the busy figures of groups and single men moving to and +fro, restless and grimy under their soaring immobility. + +At tide-time you would see one of the loaded ships with battened-down +hatches drop out of the ranks and float in the clear space of the dock, +held by lines dark and slender, like the first threads of a spider’s web, +extending from her bows and her quarters to the mooring-posts on shore. +There, graceful and still, like a bird ready to spread its wings, she +waited till, at the opening of the gates, a tug or two would hurry in +noisily, hovering round her with an air of fuss and solicitude, and take +her out into the river, tending, shepherding her through open bridges, +through dam-like gates between the flat pier-heads, with a bit of green +lawn surrounded by gravel and a white signal-mast with yard and gaff, +flying a couple of dingy blue, red, or white flags. + +This New South Dock (it was its official name), round which my earlier +professional memories are centred, belongs to the group of West India +Docks, together with two smaller and much older basins called Import and +Export respectively, both with the greatness of their trade departed from +them already. Picturesque and clean as docks go, these twin basins +spread side by side the dark lustre of their glassy water, sparely +peopled by a few ships laid up on buoys or tucked far away from each +other at the end of sheds in the corners of empty quays, where they +seemed to slumber quietly remote, untouched by the bustle of men’s +affairs—in retreat rather than in captivity. They were quaint and +sympathetic, those two homely basins, unfurnished and silent, with no +aggressive display of cranes, no apparatus of hurry and work on their +narrow shores. No railway-lines cumbered them. The knots of labourers +trooping in clumsily round the corners of cargo-sheds to eat their food +in peace out of red cotton handkerchiefs had the air of picnicking by the +side of a lonely mountain pool. They were restful (and I should say very +unprofitable), those basins, where the chief officer of one of the ships +involved in the harassing, strenuous, noisy activity of the New South +Dock only a few yards away could escape in the dinner-hour to stroll, +unhampered by men and affairs, meditating (if he chose) on the vanity of +all things human. At one time they must have been full of good old slow +West Indiamen of the square-stern type, that took their captivity, one +imagines, as stolidly as they had faced the buffeting of the waves with +their blunt, honest bows, and disgorged sugar, rum, molasses, coffee, or +logwood sedately with their own winch and tackle. But when I knew them, +of exports there was never a sign that one could detect; and all the +imports I have ever seen were some rare cargoes of tropical timber, +enormous baulks roughed out of iron trunks grown in the woods about the +Gulf of Mexico. They lay piled up in stacks of mighty boles, and it was +hard to believe that all this mass of dead and stripped trees had come +out of the flanks of a slender, innocent-looking little barque with, as +likely as not, a homely woman’s name—Ellen this or Annie that—upon her +fine bows. But this is generally the case with a discharged cargo. Once +spread at large over the quay, it looks the most impossible bulk to have +all come there out of that ship alongside. + +They were quiet, serene nooks in the busy world of docks, these basins +where it has never been my good luck to get a berth after some more or +less arduous passage. But one could see at a glance that men and ships +were never hustled there. They were so quiet that, remembering them +well, one comes to doubt that they ever existed—places of repose for +tired ships to dream in, places of meditation rather than work, where +wicked ships—the cranky, the lazy, the wet, the bad sea boats, the wild +steerers, the capricious, the pig-headed, the generally +ungovernable—would have full leisure to take count and repent of their +sins, sorrowful and naked, with their rent garments of sailcloth stripped +off them, and with the dust and ashes of the London atmosphere upon their +mastheads. For that the worst of ships would repent if she were ever +given time I make no doubt. I have known too many of them. No ship is +wholly bad; and now that their bodies that had braved so many tempests +have been blown off the face of the sea by a puff of steam, the evil and +the good together into the limbo of things that have served their time, +there can be no harm in affirming that in these vanished generations of +willing servants there never has been one utterly unredeemable soul. + +In the New South Dock there was certainly no time for remorse, +introspection, repentance, or any phenomena of inner life either for the +captive ships or for their officers. From six in the morning till six at +night the hard labour of the prison-house, which rewards the valiance of +ships that win the harbour went on steadily, great slings of general +cargo swinging over the rail, to drop plumb into the hatchways at the +sign of the gangway-tender’s hand. The New South Dock was especially a +loading dock for the Colonies in those great (and last) days of smart +wool-clippers, good to look at and—well—exciting to handle. Some of them +were more fair to see than the others; many were (to put it mildly) +somewhat over-masted; all were expected to make good passages; and of all +that line of ships, whose rigging made a thick, enormous network against +the sky, whose brasses flashed almost as far as the eye of the policeman +at the gates could reach, there was hardly one that knew of any other +port amongst all the ports on the wide earth but London and Sydney, or +London and Melbourne, or London and Adelaide, perhaps with Hobart Town +added for those of smaller tonnage. One could almost have believed, as +her gray-whiskered second mate used to say of the old _Duke of S—_, that +they knew the road to the Antipodes better than their own skippers, who, +year in, year out, took them from London—the place of captivity—to some +Australian port where, twenty-five years ago, though moored well and +tight enough to the wooden wharves, they felt themselves no captives, but +honoured guests. + + + + +XXXIV. + + +These towns of the Antipodes, not so great then as they are now, took an +interest in the shipping, the running links with “home,” whose numbers +confirmed the sense of their growing importance. They made it part and +parcel of their daily interests. This was especially the case in Sydney, +where, from the heart of the fair city, down the vista of important +streets, could be seen the wool-clippers lying at the Circular Quay—no +walled prison-house of a dock that, but the integral part of one of the +finest, most beautiful, vast, and safe bays the sun ever shone upon. Now +great steam-liners lie at these berths, always reserved for the sea +aristocracy—grand and imposing enough ships, but here to-day and gone +next week; whereas the general cargo, emigrant, and passenger clippers of +my time, rigged with heavy spars, and built on fine lines, used to remain +for months together waiting for their load of wool. Their names attained +the dignity of household words. On Sundays and holidays the citizens +trooped down, on visiting bent, and the lonely officer on duty solaced +himself by playing the cicerone—especially to the citizenesses with +engaging manners and a well-developed sense of the fun that may be got +out of the inspection of a ship’s cabins and state-rooms. The tinkle of +more or less untuned cottage pianos floated out of open stern-ports till +the gas-lamps began to twinkle in the streets, and the ship’s +night-watchman, coming sleepily on duty after his unsatisfactory day +slumbers, hauled down the flags and fastened a lighted lantern at the +break of the gangway. The night closed rapidly upon the silent ships +with their crews on shore. Up a short, steep ascent by the King’s Head +pub., patronized by the cooks and stewards of the fleet, the voice of a +man crying “Hot saveloys!” at the end of George Street, where the cheap +eating-houses (sixpence a meal) were kept by Chinamen (Sun-kum-on’s was +not bad), is heard at regular intervals. I have listened for hours to +this most pertinacious pedlar (I wonder whether he is dead or has made a +fortune), while sitting on the rail of the old _Duke of S—_ (she’s dead, +poor thing! a violent death on the coast of New Zealand), fascinated by +the monotony, the regularity, the abruptness of the recurring cry, and so +exasperated at the absurd spell, that I wished the fellow would choke +himself to death with a mouthful of his own infamous wares. + +A stupid job, and fit only for an old man, my comrades used to tell me, +to be the night-watchman of a captive (though honoured) ship. And +generally the oldest of the able seamen in a ship’s crew does get it. +But sometimes neither the oldest nor any other fairly steady seaman is +forthcoming. Ships’ crews had the trick of melting away swiftly in those +days. So, probably on account of my youth, innocence, and pensive habits +(which made me sometimes dilatory in my work about the rigging), I was +suddenly nominated, in our chief mate Mr. B—’s most sardonic tones, to +that enviable situation. I do not regret the experience. The night +humours of the town descended from the street to the waterside in the +still watches of the night: larrikins rushing down in bands to settle +some quarrel by a stand-up fight, away from the police, in an indistinct +ring half hidden by piles of cargo, with the sounds of blows, a groan now +and then, the stamping of feet, and the cry of “Time!” rising suddenly +above the sinister and excited murmurs; night-prowlers, pursued or +pursuing, with a stifled shriek followed by a profound silence, or +slinking stealthily alongside like ghosts, and addressing me from the +quay below in mysterious tones with incomprehensible propositions. The +cabmen, too, who twice a week, on the night when the A.S.N. Company’s +passenger-boat was due to arrive, used to range a battalion of blazing +lamps opposite the ship, were very amusing in their way. They got down +from their perches and told each other impolite stories in racy language, +every word of which reached me distinctly over the bulwarks as I sat +smoking on the main-hatch. On one occasion I had an hour or so of a most +intellectual conversation with a person whom I could not see distinctly, +a gentleman from England, he said, with a cultivated voice, I on deck and +he on the quay sitting on the case of a piano (landed out of our hold +that very afternoon), and smoking a cigar which smelt very good. We +touched, in our discourse, upon science, politics, natural history, and +operatic singers. Then, after remarking abruptly, “You seem to be rather +intelligent, my man,” he informed me pointedly that his name was Mr. +Senior, and walked off—to his hotel, I suppose. Shadows! Shadows! I +think I saw a white whisker as he turned under the lamp-post. It is a +shock to think that in the natural course of nature he must be dead by +now. There was nothing to object to in his intelligence but a little +dogmatism maybe. And his name was Senior! Mr. Senior! + +The position had its drawbacks, however. One wintry, blustering, dark +night in July, as I stood sleepily out of the rain under the break of the +poop something resembling an ostrich dashed up the gangway. I say +ostrich because the creature, though it ran on two legs, appeared to help +its progress by working a pair of short wings; it was a man, however, +only his coat, ripped up the back and flapping in two halves above his +shoulders, gave him that weird and fowl-like appearance. At least, I +suppose it was his coat, for it was impossible to make him out +distinctly. How he managed to come so straight upon me, at speed and +without a stumble over a strange deck, I cannot imagine. He must have +been able to see in the dark better than any cat. He overwhelmed me with +panting entreaties to let him take shelter till morning in our +forecastle. Following my strict orders, I refused his request, mildly at +first, in a sterner tone as he insisted with growing impudence. + +“For God’s sake let me, matey! Some of ’em are after me—and I’ve got +hold of a ticker here.” + +“You clear out of this!” I said. + +“Don’t be hard on a chap, old man!” he whined pitifully. + +“Now then, get ashore at once. Do you hear?” + +Silence. He appeared to cringe, mute, as if words had failed him through +grief; then—bang! came a concussion and a great flash of light in which +he vanished, leaving me prone on my back with the most abominable black +eye that anybody ever got in the faithful discharge of duty. Shadows! +Shadows! I hope he escaped the enemies he was fleeing from to live and +flourish to this day. But his fist was uncommonly hard and his aim +miraculously true in the dark. + +There were other experiences, less painful and more funny for the most +part, with one amongst them of a dramatic complexion; but the greatest +experience of them all was Mr. B—, our chief mate himself. + +He used to go ashore every night to foregather in some hotel’s parlour +with his crony, the mate of the barque _Cicero_, lying on the other side +of the Circular Quay. Late at night I would hear from afar their +stumbling footsteps and their voices raised in endless argument. The +mate of the _Cicero_ was seeing his friend on board. They would continue +their senseless and muddled discourse in tones of profound friendship for +half an hour or so at the shore end of our gangway, and then I would hear +Mr. B— insisting that he must see the other on board his ship. And away +they would go, their voices, still conversing with excessive amity, being +heard moving all round the harbour. It happened more than once that they +would thus perambulate three or four times the distance, each seeing the +other on board his ship out of pure and disinterested affection. Then, +through sheer weariness, or perhaps in a moment of forgetfulness, they +would manage to part from each other somehow, and by-and-by the planks of +our long gangway would bend and creak under the weight of Mr. B— coming +on board for good at last. + +On the rail his burly form would stop and stand swaying. + +“Watchman!” + +“Sir.” + +A pause. + +He waited for a moment of steadiness before negotiating the three steps +of the inside ladder from rail to deck; and the watchman, taught by +experience, would forbear offering help which would be received as an +insult at that particular stage of the mate’s return. But many times I +trembled for his neck. He was a heavy man. + +Then with a rush and a thump it would be done. He never had to pick +himself up; but it took him a minute or so to pull himself together after +the descent. + +“Watchman!” + +“Sir.” + +“Captain aboard?” + +“Yes, sir.” + +Pause. + +“Dog aboard?” + +“Yes, sir.” + +Pause. + +Our dog was a gaunt and unpleasant beast, more like a wolf in poor health +than a dog, and I never noticed Mr. B— at any other time show the +slightest interest in the doings of the animal. But that question never +failed. + +“Let’s have your arm to steady me along.” + +I was always prepared for that request. He leaned on me heavily till +near enough the cabin-door to catch hold of the handle. Then he would +let go my arm at once. + +“That’ll do. I can manage now.” + +And he could manage. He could manage to find his way into his berth, +light his lamp, get into his bed—ay, and get out of it when I called him +at half-past five, the first man on deck, lifting the cup of morning +coffee to his lips with a steady hand, ready for duty as though he had +virtuously slept ten solid hours—a better chief officer than many a man +who had never tasted grog in his life. He could manage all that, but +could never manage to get on in life. + +Only once he failed to seize the cabin-door handle at the first grab. He +waited a little, tried again, and again failed. His weight was growing +heavier on my arm. He sighed slowly. + +“D—n that handle!” + +Without letting go his hold of me he turned about, his face lit up bright +as day by the full moon. + +“I wish she were out at sea,” he growled savagely. + +“Yes, sir.” + +I felt the need to say something, because he hung on to me as if lost, +breathing heavily. + +“Ports are no good—ships rot, men go to the devil!” + +I kept still, and after a while he repeated with a sigh. + +“I wish she were at sea out of this.” + +“So do I, sir,” I ventured. + +Holding my shoulder, he turned upon me. + +“You! What’s that to you where she is? You don’t—drink.” + +And even on that night he “managed it” at last. He got hold of the +handle. But he did not manage to light his lamp (I don’t think he even +tried), though in the morning as usual he was the first on deck, +bull-necked, curly-headed, watching the hands turn-to with his sardonic +expression and unflinching gaze. + +I met him ten years afterwards, casually, unexpectedly, in the street, on +coming out of my consignee office. I was not likely to have forgotten +him with his “I can manage now.” He recognised me at once, remembered my +name, and in what ship I had served under his orders. He looked me over +from head to foot. + +“What are you doing here?” he asked. + +“I am commanding a little barque,” I said, “loading here for Mauritius.” +Then, thoughtlessly, I added: “And what are you doing, Mr. B-?” + +“I,” he said, looking at me unflinchingly, with his old sardonic grin—“I +am looking for something to do.” + +I felt I would rather have bitten out my tongue. His jet-black, curly +hair had turned iron-gray; he was scrupulously neat as ever, but +frightfully threadbare. His shiny boots were worn down at heel. But he +forgave me, and we drove off together in a hansom to dine on board my +ship. He went over her conscientiously, praised her heartily, +congratulated me on my command with absolute sincerity. At dinner, as I +offered him wine and beer he shook his head, and as I sat looking at him +interrogatively, muttered in an undertone: + +“I’ve given up all that.” + +After dinner we came again on deck. It seemed as though he could not +tear himself away from the ship. We were fitting some new lower rigging, +and he hung about, approving, suggesting, giving me advice in his old +manner. Twice he addressed me as “My boy,” and corrected himself quickly +to “Captain.” My mate was about to leave me (to get married), but I +concealed the fact from Mr. B—. I was afraid he would ask me to give him +the berth in some ghastly jocular hint that I could not refuse to take. +I was afraid. It would have been impossible. I could not have given +orders to Mr. B—, and I am sure he would not have taken them from me very +long. He could not have managed that, though he had managed to break +himself from drink—too late. + +He said good-bye at last. As I watched his burly, bull-necked figure +walk away up the street, I wondered with a sinking heart whether he had +much more than the price of a night’s lodging in his pocket. And I +understood that if that very minute I were to call out after him, he +would not even turn his head. He, too, is no more than a shadow, but I +seem to hear his words spoken on the moonlit deck of the old _Duke_ —: + +“Ports are no good—ships rot, men go to the devil!” + + + + +XXXV. + + +“Ships!” exclaimed an elderly seaman in clean shore togs. “Ships”—and +his keen glance, turning away from my face, ran along the vista of +magnificent figure-heads that in the late seventies used to overhang in a +serried rank the muddy pavement by the side of the New South Dock—“ships +are all right; it’s the men in ’em. . .” + +Fifty hulls, at least, moulded on lines of beauty and speed—hulls of +wood, of iron, expressing in their forms the highest achievement of +modern ship-building—lay moored all in a row, stem to quay, as if +assembled there for an exhibition, not of a great industry, but of a +great art. Their colours were gray, black, dark green, with a narrow +strip of yellow moulding defining their sheer, or with a row of painted +ports decking in warlike decoration their robust flanks of cargo-carriers +that would know no triumph but of speed in carrying a burden, no glory +other than of a long service, no victory but that of an endless, obscure +contest with the sea. The great empty hulls with swept holds, just out +of dry-dock, with their paint glistening freshly, sat high-sided with +ponderous dignity alongside the wooden jetties, looking more like +unmovable buildings than things meant to go afloat; others, half loaded, +far on the way to recover the true sea-physiognomy of a ship brought down +to her load-line, looked more accessible. Their less steeply slanting +gangways seemed to invite the strolling sailors in search of a berth to +walk on board and try “for a chance” with the chief mate, the guardian of +a ship’s efficiency. As if anxious to remain unperceived amongst their +overtopping sisters, two or three “finished” ships floated low, with an +air of straining at the leash of their level headfasts, exposing to view +their cleared decks and covered hatches, prepared to drop stern first out +of the labouring ranks, displaying the true comeliness of form which only +her proper sea-trim gives to a ship. And for a good quarter of a mile, +from the dockyard gate to the farthest corner, where the old housed-in +hulk, the _President_ (drill-ship, then, of the Naval Reserve), used to +lie with her frigate side rubbing against the stone of the quay, above +all these hulls, ready and unready, a hundred and fifty lofty masts, more +or less, held out the web of their rigging like an immense net, in whose +close mesh, black against the sky, the heavy yards seemed to be entangled +and suspended. + +It was a sight. The humblest craft that floats makes its appeal to a +seaman by the faithfulness of her life; and this was the place where one +beheld the aristocracy of ships. It was a noble gathering of the fairest +and the swiftest, each bearing at the bow the carved emblem of her name, +as in a gallery of plaster-casts, figures of women with mural crowns, +women with flowing robes, with gold fillets on their hair or blue scarves +round their waists, stretching out rounded arms as if to point the way; +heads of men helmeted or bare; full lengths of warriors, of kings, of +statesmen, of lords and princesses, all white from top to toe; with here +and there a dusky turbaned figure, bedizened in many colours, of some +Eastern sultan or hero, all inclined forward under the slant of mighty +bowsprits as if eager to begin another run of 11,000 miles in their +leaning attitudes. These were the fine figure-heads of the finest ships +afloat. But why, unless for the love of the life those effigies shared +with us in their wandering impassivity, should one try to reproduce in +words an impression of whose fidelity there can be no critic and no +judge, since such an exhibition of the art of shipbuilding and the art of +figure-head carving as was seen from year’s end to year’s end in the +open-air gallery of the New South Dock no man’s eye shall behold again? +All that patient, pale company of queens and princesses, of kings and +warriors, of allegorical women, of heroines and statesmen and heathen +gods, crowned, helmeted, bare-headed, has run for good off the sea +stretching to the last above the tumbling foam their fair, rounded arms; +holding out their spears, swords, shields, tridents in the same +unwearied, striving forward pose. And nothing remains but lingering +perhaps in the memory of a few men, the sound of their names, vanished a +long time ago from the first page of the great London dailies; from big +posters in railway-stations and the doors of shipping offices; from the +minds of sailors, dockmasters, pilots, and tugmen; from the hail of gruff +voices and the flutter of signal flags exchanged between ships closing +upon each other and drawing apart in the open immensity of the sea. + +The elderly, respectable seaman, withdrawing his gaze from that multitude +of spars, gave me a glance to make sure of our fellowship in the craft +and mystery of the sea. We had met casually, and had got into contact as +I had stopped near him, my attention being caught by the same peculiarity +he was looking at in the rigging of an obviously new ship, a ship with +her reputation all to make yet in the talk of the seamen who were to +share their life with her. Her name was already on their lips. I had +heard it uttered between two thick, red-necked fellows of the +semi-nautical type at the Fenchurch Street Railway-station, where, in +those days, the everyday male crowd was attired in jerseys and +pilot-cloth mostly, and had the air of being more conversant with the +times of high-water than with the times of the trains. I had noticed +that new ship’s name on the first page of my morning paper. I had stared +at the unfamiliar grouping of its letters, blue on white ground, on the +advertisement-boards, whenever the train came to a standstill alongside +one of the shabby, wooden, wharf-like platforms of the dock railway-line. +She had been named, with proper observances, on the day she came off the +stocks, no doubt, but she was very far yet from “having a name.” +Untried, ignorant of the ways of the sea, she had been thrust amongst +that renowned company of ships to load for her maiden voyage. There was +nothing to vouch for her soundness and the worth of her character, but +the reputation of the building-yard whence she was launched headlong into +the world of waters. She looked modest to me. I imagined her diffident, +lying very quiet, with her side nestling shyly against the wharf to which +she was made fast with very new lines, intimidated by the company of her +tried and experienced sisters already familiar with all the violences of +the ocean and the exacting love of men. They had had more long voyages +to make their names in than she had known weeks of carefully tended life, +for a new ship receives as much attention as if she were a young bride. +Even crabbed old dock-masters look at her with benevolent eyes. In her +shyness at the threshold of a laborious and uncertain life, where so much +is expected of a ship, she could not have been better heartened and +comforted, had she only been able to hear and understand, than by the +tone of deep conviction in which my elderly, respectable seaman repeated +the first part of his saying, “Ships are all right . . .” + +His civility prevented him from repeating the other, the bitter part. It +had occurred to him that it was perhaps indelicate to insist. He had +recognised in me a ship’s officer, very possibly looking for a berth like +himself, and so far a comrade, but still a man belonging to that +sparsely-peopled after-end of a ship, where a great part of her +reputation as a “good ship,” in seaman’s parlance, is made or marred. + +“Can you say that of all ships without exception?” I asked, being in an +idle mood, because, if an obvious ship’s officer, I was not, as a matter +of fact, down at the docks to “look for a berth,” an occupation as +engrossing as gambling, and as little favourable to the free exchange of +ideas, besides being destructive of the kindly temper needed for casual +intercourse with one’s fellow-creatures. + +“You can always put up with ’em,” opined the respectable seaman +judicially. + +He was not averse from talking, either. If he had come down to the dock +to look for a berth, he did not seem oppressed by anxiety as to his +chances. He had the serenity of a man whose estimable character is +fortunately expressed by his personal appearance in an unobtrusive, yet +convincing, manner which no chief officer in want of hands could resist. +And, true enough, I learned presently that the mate of the _Hyperion_ had +“taken down” his name for quarter-master. “We sign on Friday, and join +next day for the morning tide,” he remarked, in a deliberate, careless +tone, which contrasted strongly with his evident readiness to stand there +yarning for an hour or so with an utter stranger. + +“_Hyperion_,” I said. “I don’t remember ever seeing that ship anywhere. +What sort of a name has she got?” + +It appeared from his discursive answer that she had not much of a name +one way or another. She was not very fast. It took no fool, though, to +steer her straight, he believed. Some years ago he had seen her in +Calcutta, and he remembered being told by somebody then, that on her +passage up the river she had carried away both her hawse-pipes. But that +might have been the pilot’s fault. Just now, yarning with the +apprentices on board, he had heard that this very voyage, brought up in +the Downs, outward bound, she broke her sheer, struck adrift, and lost an +anchor and chain. But that might have occurred through want of careful +tending in a tideway. All the same, this looked as though she were +pretty hard on her ground-tackle. Didn’t it? She seemed a heavy ship to +handle, anyway. For the rest, as she had a new captain and a new mate +this voyage, he understood, one couldn’t say how she would turn out. . . . + +In such marine shore-talk as this is the name of a ship slowly +established, her fame made for her, the tale of her qualities and of her +defects kept, her idiosyncrasies commented upon with the zest of personal +gossip, her achievements made much of, her faults glossed over as things +that, being without remedy in our imperfect world, should not be dwelt +upon too much by men who, with the help of ships, wrest out a bitter +living from the rough grasp of the sea. All that talk makes up her +“name,” which is handed over from one crew to another without bitterness, +without animosity, with the indulgence of mutual dependence, and with the +feeling of close association in the exercise of her perfections and in +the danger of her defects. + +This feeling explains men’s pride in ships. “Ships are all right,” as my +middle-aged, respectable quartermaster said with much conviction and some +irony; but they are not exactly what men make them. They have their own +nature; they can of themselves minister to our self-esteem by the demand +their qualities make upon our skill and their shortcomings upon our +hardiness and endurance. Which is the more flattering exaction it is +hard to say; but there is the fact that in listening for upwards of +twenty years to the sea-talk that goes on afloat and ashore I have never +detected the true note of animosity. I won’t deny that at sea, +sometimes, the note of profanity was audible enough in those chiding +interpellations a wet, cold, weary seaman addresses to his ship, and in +moments of exasperation is disposed to extend to all ships that ever were +launched—to the whole everlastingly exacting brood that swims in deep +waters. And I have heard curses launched at the unstable element itself, +whose fascination, outlasting the accumulated experience of ages, had +captured him as it had captured the generations of his forebears. + +For all that has been said of the love that certain natures (on shore) +have professed to feel for it, for all the celebrations it had been the +object of in prose and song, the sea has never been friendly to man. At +most it has been the accomplice of human restlessness, and playing the +part of dangerous abettor of world-wide ambitions. Faithful to no race +after the manner of the kindly earth, receiving no impress from valour +and toil and self-sacrifice, recognising no finality of dominion, the sea +has never adopted the cause of its masters like those lands where the +victorious nations of mankind have taken root, rocking their cradles and +setting up their gravestones. He—man or people—who, putting his trust in +the friendship of the sea, neglects the strength and cunning of his right +hand, is a fool! As if it were too great, too mighty for common virtues, +the ocean has no compassion, no faith, no law, no memory. Its fickleness +is to be held true to men’s purposes only by an undaunted resolution and +by a sleepless, armed, jealous vigilance, in which, perhaps, there has +always been more hate than love. _Odi et amo_ may well be the confession +of those who consciously or blindly have surrendered their existence to +the fascination of the sea. All the tempestuous passions of mankind’s +young days, the love of loot and the love of glory, the love of adventure +and the love of danger, with the great love of the unknown and vast +dreams of dominion and power, have passed like images reflected from a +mirror, leaving no record upon the mysterious face of the sea. +Impenetrable and heartless, the sea has given nothing of itself to the +suitors for its precarious favours. Unlike the earth, it cannot be +subjugated at any cost of patience and toil. For all its fascination +that has lured so many to a violent death, its immensity has never been +loved as the mountains, the plains, the desert itself, have been loved. +Indeed, I suspect that, leaving aside the protestations and tributes of +writers who, one is safe in saying, care for little else in the world +than the rhythm of their lines and the cadence of their phrase, the love +of the sea, to which some men and nations confess so readily, is a +complex sentiment wherein pride enters for much, necessity for not a +little, and the love of ships—the untiring servants of our hopes and our +self-esteem—for the best and most genuine part. For the hundreds who +have reviled the sea, beginning with Shakespeare in the line— + + “More fell than hunger, anguish, or the sea,” + +down to the last obscure sea-dog of the “old model,” having but few words +and still fewer thoughts, there could not be found, I believe, one sailor +who has ever coupled a curse with the good or bad name of a ship. If +ever his profanity, provoked by the hardships of the sea, went so far as +to touch his ship, it would be lightly, as a hand may, without sin, be +laid in the way of kindness on a woman. + + + + +XXXVI. + + +The love that is given to ships is profoundly different from the love men +feel for every other work of their hands—the love they bear to their +houses, for instance—because it is untainted by the pride of possession. +The pride of skill, the pride of responsibility, the pride of endurance +there may be, but otherwise it is a disinterested sentiment. No seaman +ever cherished a ship, even if she belonged to him, merely because of the +profit she put in his pocket. No one, I think, ever did; for a +ship-owner, even of the best, has always been outside the pale of that +sentiment embracing in a feeling of intimate, equal fellowship the ship +and the man, backing each other against the implacable, if sometimes +dissembled, hostility of their world of waters. The sea—this truth must +be confessed—has no generosity. No display of manly qualities—courage, +hardihood, endurance, faithfulness—has ever been known to touch its +irresponsible consciousness of power. The ocean has the conscienceless +temper of a savage autocrat spoiled by much adulation. He cannot brook +the slightest appearance of defiance, and has remained the irreconcilable +enemy of ships and men ever since ships and men had the unheard of +audacity to go afloat together in the face of his frown. From that day +he has gone on swallowing up fleets and men without his resentment being +glutted by the number of victims—by so many wrecked ships and wrecked +lives. To-day, as ever, he is ready to beguile and betray, to smash and +to drown the incorrigible optimism of men who, backed by the fidelity of +ships, are trying to wrest from him the fortune of their house, the +dominion of their world, or only a dole of food for their hunger. If not +always in the hot mood to smash, he is always stealthily ready for a +drowning. The most amazing wonder of the deep is its unfathomable +cruelty. + +I felt its dread for the first time in mid-Atlantic one day, many years +ago, when we took off the crew of a Danish brig homeward bound from the +West Indies. A thin, silvery mist softened the calm and majestic +splendour of light without shadows—seemed to render the sky less remote +and the ocean less immense. It was one of the days, when the might of +the sea appears indeed lovable, like the nature of a strong man in +moments of quiet intimacy. At sunrise we had made out a black speck to +the westward, apparently suspended high up in the void behind a stirring, +shimmering veil of silvery blue gauze that seemed at times to stir and +float in the breeze which fanned us slowly along. The peace of that +enchanting forenoon was so profound, so untroubled, that it seemed that +every word pronounced loudly on our deck would penetrate to the very +heart of that infinite mystery born from the conjunction of water and +sky. We did not raise our voices. “A water-logged derelict, I think, +sir,” said the second officer quietly, coming down from aloft with the +binoculars in their case slung across his shoulders; and our captain, +without a word, signed to the helmsman to steer for the black speck. +Presently we made out a low, jagged stump sticking up forward—all that +remained of her departed masts. + +The captain was expatiating in a low conversational tone to the chief +mate upon the danger of these derelicts, and upon his dread of coming +upon them at night, when suddenly a man forward screamed out, “There’s +people on board of her, sir! I see them!” in a most extraordinary +voice—a voice never heard before in our ship; the amazing voice of a +stranger. It gave the signal for a sudden tumult of shouts. The watch +below ran up the forecastle head in a body, the cook dashed out of the +galley. Everybody saw the poor fellows now. They were there! And all +at once our ship, which had the well-earned name of being without a rival +for speed in light winds, seemed to us to have lost the power of motion, +as if the sea, becoming viscous, had clung to her sides. And yet she +moved. Immensity, the inseparable companion of a ship’s life, chose that +day to breathe upon her as gently as a sleeping child. The clamour of +our excitement had died out, and our living ship, famous for never losing +steerage way as long as there was air enough to float a feather, stole, +without a ripple, silent and white as a ghost, towards her mutilated and +wounded sister, come upon at the point of death in the sunlit haze of a +calm day at sea. + +With the binoculars glued to his eyes, the captain said in a quavering +tone: “They are waving to us with something aft there.” He put down the +glasses on the skylight brusquely, and began to walk about the poop. “A +shirt or a flag,” he ejaculated irritably. “Can’t make it out. . . Some +damn rag or other!” He took a few more turns on the poop, glancing down +over the rail now and then to see how fast we were moving. His nervous +footsteps rang sharply in the quiet of the ship, where the other men, all +looking the same way, had forgotten themselves in a staring immobility. +“This will never do!” he cried out suddenly. “Lower the boats at once! +Down with them!” + +Before I jumped into mine he took me aside, as being an inexperienced +junior, for a word of warning: + +“You look out as you come alongside that she doesn’t take you down with +her. You understand?” + +He murmured this confidentially, so that none of the men at the falls +should overhear, and I was shocked. “Heavens! as if in such an emergency +one stopped to think of danger!” I exclaimed to myself mentally, in scorn +of such cold-blooded caution. + +It takes many lessons to make a real seaman, and I got my rebuke at once. +My experienced commander seemed in one searching glance to read my +thoughts on my ingenuous face. + +“What you’re going for is to save life, not to drown your boat’s crew for +nothing,” he growled severely in my ear. But as we shoved off he leaned +over and cried out: “It all rests on the power of your arms, men. Give +way for life!” + +We made a race of it, and I would never have believed that a common +boat’s crew of a merchantman could keep up so much determined fierceness +in the regular swing of their stroke. What our captain had clearly +perceived before we left had become plain to all of us since. The issue +of our enterprise hung on a hair above that abyss of waters which will +not give up its dead till the Day of Judgment. It was a race of two +ship’s boats matched against Death for a prize of nine men’s lives, and +Death had a long start. We saw the crew of the brig from afar working at +the pumps—still pumping on that wreck, which already had settled so far +down that the gentle, low swell, over which our boats rose and fell +easily without a check to their speed, welling up almost level with her +head-rails, plucked at the ends of broken gear swinging desolately under +her naked bowsprit. + +We could not, in all conscience, have picked out a better day for our +regatta had we had the free choice of all the days that ever dawned upon +the lonely struggles and solitary agonies of ships since the Norse rovers +first steered to the westward against the run of Atlantic waves. It was +a very good race. At the finish there was not an oar’s length between +the first and second boat, with Death coming in a good third on the top +of the very next smooth swell, for all one knew to the contrary. The +scuppers of the brig gurgled softly all together when the water rising +against her sides subsided sleepily with a low wash, as if playing about +an immovable rock. Her bulwarks were gone fore and aft, and one saw her +bare deck low-lying like a raft and swept clean of boats, spars, +houses—of everything except the ringbolts and the heads of the pumps. I +had one dismal glimpse of it as I braced myself up to receive upon my +breast the last man to leave her, the captain, who literally let himself +fall into my arms. + +It had been a weirdly silent rescue—a rescue without a hail, without a +single uttered word, without a gesture or a sign, without a conscious +exchange of glances. Up to the very last moment those on board stuck to +their pumps, which spouted two clear streams of water upon their bare +feet. Their brown skin showed through the rents of their shirts; and the +two small bunches of half-naked, tattered men went on bowing from the +waist to each other in their back-breaking labour, up and down, absorbed, +with no time for a glance over the shoulder at the help that was coming +to them. As we dashed, unregarded, alongside a voice let out one, only +one hoarse howl of command, and then, just as they stood, without caps, +with the salt drying gray in the wrinkles and folds of their hairy, +haggard faces, blinking stupidly at us their red eyelids, they made a +bolt away from the handles, tottering and jostling against each other, +and positively flung themselves over upon our very heads. The clatter +they made tumbling into the boats had an extraordinarily destructive +effect upon the illusion of tragic dignity our self-esteem had thrown +over the contests of mankind with the sea. On that exquisite day of +gently breathing peace and veiled sunshine perished my romantic love to +what men’s imagination had proclaimed the most august aspect of Nature. +The cynical indifference of the sea to the merits of human suffering and +courage, laid bare in this ridiculous, panic-tainted performance extorted +from the dire extremity of nine good and honourable seamen, revolted me. +I saw the duplicity of the sea’s most tender mood. It was so because it +could not help itself, but the awed respect of the early days was gone. +I felt ready to smile bitterly at its enchanting charm and glare +viciously at its furies. In a moment, before we shoved off, I had looked +coolly at the life of my choice. Its illusions were gone, but its +fascination remained. I had become a seaman at last. + +We pulled hard for a quarter of an hour, then laid on our oars waiting +for our ship. She was coming down on us with swelling sails, looking +delicately tall and exquisitely noble through the mist. The captain of +the brig, who sat in the stern sheets by my side with his face in his +hands, raised his head and began to speak with a sort of sombre +volubility. They had lost their masts and sprung a leak in a hurricane; +drifted for weeks, always at the pumps, met more bad weather; the ships +they sighted failed to make them out, the leak gained upon them slowly, +and the seas had left them nothing to make a raft of. It was very hard +to see ship after ship pass by at a distance, “as if everybody had agreed +that we must be left to drown,” he added. But they went on trying to +keep the brig afloat as long as possible, and working the pumps +constantly on insufficient food, mostly raw, till “yesterday evening,” he +continued monotonously, “just as the sun went down, the men’s hearts +broke.” + +He made an almost imperceptible pause here, and went on again with +exactly the same intonation: + +“They told me the brig could not be saved, and they thought they had done +enough for themselves. I said nothing to that. It was true. It was no +mutiny. I had nothing to say to them. They lay about aft all night, as +still as so many dead men. I did not lie down. I kept a look-out. When +the first light came I saw your ship at once. I waited for more light; +the breeze began to fail on my face. Then I shouted out as loud as I was +able, ‘Look at that ship!’ but only two men got up very slowly and came +to me. At first only we three stood alone, for a long time, watching you +coming down to us, and feeling the breeze drop to a calm almost; but +afterwards others, too, rose, one after another, and by-and-by I had all +my crew behind me. I turned round and said to them that they could see +the ship was coming our way, but in this small breeze she might come too +late after all, unless we turned to and tried to keep the brig afloat +long enough to give you time to save us all. I spoke like that to them, +and then I gave the command to man the pumps.” + +He gave the command, and gave the example, too, by going himself to the +handles, but it seems that these men did actually hang back for a moment, +looking at each other dubiously before they followed him. “He! he! he!” +He broke out into a most unexpected, imbecile, pathetic, nervous little +giggle. “Their hearts were broken so! They had been played with too +long,” he explained apologetically, lowering his eyes, and became silent. + +Twenty-five years is a long time—a quarter of a century is a dim and +distant past; but to this day I remember the dark-brown feet, hands, and +faces of two of these men whose hearts had been broken by the sea. They +were lying very still on their sides on the bottom boards between the +thwarts, curled up like dogs. My boat’s crew, leaning over the looms of +their oars, stared and listened as if at the play. The master of the +brig looked up suddenly to ask me what day it was. + +They had lost the date. When I told him it was Sunday, the 22nd, he +frowned, making some mental calculation, then nodded twice sadly to +himself, staring at nothing. + +His aspect was miserably unkempt and wildly sorrowful. Had it not been +for the unquenchable candour of his blue eyes, whose unhappy, tired +glance every moment sought his abandoned, sinking brig, as if it could +find rest nowhere else, he would have appeared mad. But he was too +simple to go mad, too simple with that manly simplicity which alone can +bear men unscathed in mind and body through an encounter with the deadly +playfulness of the sea or with its less abominable fury. + +Neither angry, nor playful, nor smiling, it enveloped our distant ship +growing bigger as she neared us, our boats with the rescued men and the +dismantled hull of the brig we were leaving behind, in the large and +placid embrace of its quietness, half lost in the fair haze, as if in a +dream of infinite and tender clemency. There was no frown, no wrinkle on +its face, not a ripple. And the run of the slight swell was so smooth +that it resembled the graceful undulation of a piece of shimmering gray +silk shot with gleams of green. We pulled an easy stroke; but when the +master of the brig, after a glance over his shoulder, stood up with a low +exclamation, my men feathered their oars instinctively, without an order, +and the boat lost her way. + +He was steadying himself on my shoulder with a strong grip, while his +other arm, flung up rigidly, pointed a denunciatory finger at the immense +tranquillity of the ocean. After his first exclamation, which stopped +the swing of our oars, he made no sound, but his whole attitude seemed to +cry out an indignant “Behold!” . . . I could not imagine what vision of +evil had come to him. I was startled, and the amazing energy of his +immobilized gesture made my heart beat faster with the anticipation of +something monstrous and unsuspected. The stillness around us became +crushing. + +For a moment the succession of silky undulations ran on innocently. I +saw each of them swell up the misty line of the horizon, far, far away +beyond the derelict brig, and the next moment, with a slight friendly +toss of our boat, it had passed under us and was gone. The lulling +cadence of the rise and fall, the invariable gentleness of this +irresistible force, the great charm of the deep waters, warmed my breast +deliciously, like the subtle poison of a love-potion. But all this +lasted only a few soothing seconds before I jumped up too, making the +boat roll like the veriest landlubber. + +Something startling, mysterious, hastily confused, was taking place. I +watched it with incredulous and fascinated awe, as one watches the +confused, swift movements of some deed of violence done in the dark. As +if at a given signal, the run of the smooth undulations seemed checked +suddenly around the brig. By a strange optical delusion the whole sea +appeared to rise upon her in one overwhelming heave of its silky surface, +where in one spot a smother of foam broke out ferociously. And then the +effort subsided. It was all over, and the smooth swell ran on as before +from the horizon in uninterrupted cadence of motion, passing under us +with a slight friendly toss of our boat. Far away, where the brig had +been, an angry white stain undulating on the surface of steely-gray +waters, shot with gleams of green, diminished swiftly, without a hiss, +like a patch of pure snow melting in the sun. And the great stillness +after this initiation into the sea’s implacable hate seemed full of dread +thoughts and shadows of disaster. + +“Gone!” ejaculated from the depths of his chest my bowman in a final +tone. He spat in his hands, and took a better grip on his oar. The +captain of the brig lowered his rigid arm slowly, and looked at our faces +in a solemnly conscious silence, which called upon us to share in his +simple-minded, marvelling awe. All at once he sat down by my side, and +leaned forward earnestly at my boat’s crew, who, swinging together in a +long, easy stroke, kept their eyes fixed upon him faithfully. + +“No ship could have done so well,” he addressed them firmly, after a +moment of strained silence, during which he seemed with trembling lips to +seek for words fit to bear such high testimony. “She was small, but she +was good. I had no anxiety. She was strong. Last voyage I had my wife +and two children in her. No other ship could have stood so long the +weather she had to live through for days and days before we got dismasted +a fortnight ago. She was fairly worn out, and that’s all. You may +believe me. She lasted under us for days and days, but she could not +last for ever. It was long enough. I am glad it is over. No better +ship was ever left to sink at sea on such a day as this.” + +He was competent to pronounce the funereal oration of a ship, this son of +ancient sea-folk, whose national existence, so little stained by the +excesses of manly virtues, had demanded nothing but the merest foothold +from the earth. By the merits of his sea-wise forefathers and by the +artlessness of his heart, he was made fit to deliver this excellent +discourse. There was nothing wanting in its orderly arrangement—neither +piety nor faith, nor the tribute of praise due to the worthy dead, with +the edifying recital of their achievement. She had lived, he had loved +her; she had suffered, and he was glad she was at rest. It was an +excellent discourse. And it was orthodox, too, in its fidelity to the +cardinal article of a seaman’s faith, of which it was a single-minded +confession. “Ships are all right.” They are. They who live with the +sea have got to hold by that creed first and last; and it came to me, as +I glanced at him sideways, that some men were not altogether unworthy in +honour and conscience to pronounce the funereal eulogium of a ship’s +constancy in life and death. + +After this, sitting by my side with his loosely-clasped hands hanging +between his knees, he uttered no word, made no movement till the shadow +of our ship’s sails fell on the boat, when, at the loud cheer greeting +the return of the victors with their prize, he lifted up his troubled +face with a faint smile of pathetic indulgence. This smile of the worthy +descendant of the most ancient sea-folk whose audacity and hardihood had +left no trace of greatness and glory upon the waters, completed the cycle +of my initiation. There was an infinite depth of hereditary wisdom in +its pitying sadness. It made the hearty bursts of cheering sound like a +childish noise of triumph. Our crew shouted with immense +confidence—honest souls! As if anybody could ever make sure of having +prevailed against the sea, which has betrayed so many ships of great +“name,” so many proud men, so many towering ambitions of fame, power, +wealth, greatness! + +As I brought the boat under the falls my captain, in high good-humour, +leaned over, spreading his red and freckled elbows on the rail, and +called down to me sarcastically, out of the depths of his cynic +philosopher’s beard: + +“So you have brought the boat back after all, have you?” + +Sarcasm was “his way,” and the most that can be said for it is that it +was natural. This did not make it lovable. But it is decorous and +expedient to fall in with one’s commander’s way. “Yes. I brought the +boat back all right, sir,” I answered. And the good man believed me. It +was not for him to discern upon me the marks of my recent initiation. +And yet I was not exactly the same youngster who had taken the boat +away—all impatience for a race against death, with the prize of nine +men’s lives at the end. + +Already I looked with other eyes upon the sea. I knew it capable of +betraying the generous ardour of youth as implacably as, indifferent to +evil and good, it would have betrayed the basest greed or the noblest +heroism. My conception of its magnanimous greatness was gone. And I +looked upon the true sea—the sea that plays with men till their hearts +are broken, and wears stout ships to death. Nothing can touch the +brooding bitterness of its heart. Open to all and faithful to none, it +exercises its fascination for the undoing of the best. To love it is not +well. It knows no bond of plighted troth, no fidelity to misfortune, to +long companionship, to long devotion. The promise it holds out +perpetually is very great; but the only secret of its possession is +strength, strength—the jealous, sleepless strength of a man guarding a +coveted treasure within his gates. + + + + +XXXVII. + + +THE cradle of oversea traffic and of the art of naval combats, the +Mediterranean, apart from all the associations of adventure and glory, +the common heritage of all mankind, makes a tender appeal to a seaman. +It has sheltered the infancy of his craft. He looks upon it as a man may +look at a vast nursery in an old, old mansion where innumerable +generations of his own people have learned to walk. I say his own people +because, in a sense, all sailors belong to one family: all are descended +from that adventurous and shaggy ancestor who, bestriding a shapeless log +and paddling with a crooked branch, accomplished the first coasting-trip +in a sheltered bay ringing with the admiring howls of his tribe. It is a +matter of regret that all those brothers in craft and feeling, whose +generations have learned to walk a ship’s deck in that nursery, have been +also more than once fiercely engaged in cutting each other’s throats +there. But life, apparently, has such exigencies. Without human +propensity to murder and other sorts of unrighteousness there would have +been no historical heroism. It is a consoling reflection. And then, if +one examines impartially the deeds of violence, they appear of but small +consequence. From Salamis to Actium, through Lepanto and the Nile to the +naval massacre of Navarino, not to mention other armed encounters of +lesser interest, all the blood heroically spilt into the Mediterranean +has not stained with a single trail of purple the deep azure of its +classic waters. + +Of course, it may be argued that battles have shaped the destiny of +mankind. The question whether they have shaped it well would remain +open, however. But it would be hardly worth discussing. It is very +probable that, had the Battle of Salamis never been fought, the face of +the world would have been much as we behold it now, fashioned by the +mediocre inspiration and the short-sighted labours of men. From a long +and miserable experience of suffering, injustice, disgrace and aggression +the nations of the earth are mostly swayed by fear—fear of the sort that +a little cheap oratory turns easily to rage, hate, and violence. +Innocent, guileless fear has been the cause of many wars. Not, of +course, the fear of war itself, which, in the evolution of sentiments and +ideas, has come to be regarded at last as a half-mystic and glorious +ceremony with certain fashionable rites and preliminary incantations, +wherein the conception of its true nature has been lost. To apprehend +the true aspect, force, and morality of war as a natural function of +mankind one requires a feather in the hair and a ring in the nose, or, +better still, teeth filed to a point and a tattooed breast. +Unfortunately, a return to such simple ornamentation is impossible. We +are bound to the chariot of progress. There is no going back; and, as +bad luck would have it, our civilization, which has done so much for the +comfort and adornment of our bodies and the elevation of our minds, has +made lawful killing frightfully and needlessly expensive. + +The whole question of improved armaments has been approached by the +governments of the earth in a spirit of nervous and unreflecting haste, +whereas the right way was lying plainly before them, and had only to be +pursued with calm determination. The learned vigils and labours of a +certain class of inventors should have been rewarded with honourable +liberality as justice demanded; and the bodies of the inventors should +have been blown to pieces by means of their own perfected explosives and +improved weapons with extreme publicity as the commonest prudence +dictated. By this method the ardour of research in that direction would +have been restrained without infringing the sacred privileges of science. +For the lack of a little cool thinking in our guides and masters this +course has not been followed, and a beautiful simplicity has been +sacrificed for no real advantage. A frugal mind cannot defend itself +from considerable bitterness when reflecting that at the Battle of Actium +(which was fought for no less a stake than the dominion of the world) the +fleet of Octavianus Cæsar and the fleet of Antonius, including the +Egyptian division and Cleopatra’s galley with purple sails, probably cost +less than two modern battleships, or, as the modern naval book-jargon has +it, two capital units. But no amount of lubberly book-jargon can +disguise a fact well calculated to afflict the soul of every sound +economist. It is not likely that the Mediterranean will ever behold a +battle with a greater issue; but when the time comes for another +historical fight its bottom will be enriched as never before by a +quantity of jagged scrap-iron, paid for at pretty nearly its weight of +gold by the deluded populations inhabiting the isles and continents of +this planet. + + + + +XXXVIII. + + +Happy he who, like Ulysses, has made an adventurous voyage; and there is +no such sea for adventurous voyages as the Mediterranean—the inland sea +which the ancients looked upon as so vast and so full of wonders. And, +indeed, it was terrible and wonderful; for it is we alone who, swayed by +the audacity of our minds and the tremors of our hearts, are the sole +artisans of all the wonder and romance of the world. + +It was for the Mediterranean sailors that fair-haired sirens sang among +the black rocks seething in white foam and mysterious voices spoke in the +darkness above the moving wave—voices menacing, seductive, or prophetic, +like that voice heard at the beginning of the Christian era by the master +of an African vessel in the Gulf of Syrta, whose calm nights are full of +strange murmurs and flitting shadows. It called him by name, bidding him +go and tell all men that the great god Pan was dead. But the great +legend of the Mediterranean, the legend of traditional song and grave +history, lives, fascinating and immortal, in our minds. + +The dark and fearful sea of the subtle Ulysses’ wanderings, agitated by +the wrath of Olympian gods, harbouring on its isles the fury of strange +monsters and the wiles of strange women; the highway of heroes and sages, +of warriors, pirates, and saints; the workaday sea of Carthaginian +merchants and the pleasure lake of the Roman Cæsars, claims the +veneration of every seaman as the historical home of that spirit of open +defiance against the great waters of the earth which is the very soul of +his calling. Issuing thence to the west and south, as a youth leaves the +shelter of his parental house, this spirit found the way to the Indies, +discovered the coasts of a new continent, and traversed at last the +immensity of the great Pacific, rich in groups of islands remote and +mysterious like the constellations of the sky. + +The first impulse of navigation took its visible form in that tideless +basin freed from hidden shoals and treacherous currents, as if in tender +regard for the infancy of the art. The steep shores of the Mediterranean +favoured the beginners in one of humanity’s most daring enterprises, and +the enchanting inland sea of classic adventure has led mankind gently +from headland to headland, from bay to bay, from island to island, out +into the promise of world-wide oceans beyond the Pillars of Hercules. + + + + +XXXIX. + + +The charm of the Mediterranean dwells in the unforgettable flavour of my +early days, and to this hour this sea, upon which the Romans alone ruled +without dispute, has kept for me the fascination of youthful romance. +The very first Christmas night I ever spent away from land was employed +in running before a Gulf of Lions gale, which made the old ship groan in +every timber as she skipped before it over the short seas until we +brought her to, battered and out of breath, under the lee of Majorca, +where the smooth water was torn by fierce cat’s-paws under a very stormy +sky. + +We—or, rather, they, for I had hardly had two glimpses of salt water in +my life till then—kept her standing off and on all that day, while I +listened for the first time with the curiosity of my tender years to the +song of the wind in a ship’s rigging. The monotonous and vibrating note +was destined to grow into the intimacy of the heart, pass into blood and +bone, accompany the thoughts and acts of two full decades, remain to +haunt like a reproach the peace of the quiet fireside, and enter into the +very texture of respectable dreams dreamed safely under a roof of rafters +and tiles. The wind was fair, but that day we ran no more. + +The thing (I will not call her a ship twice in the same half-hour) +leaked. She leaked fully, generously, overflowingly, all over—like a +basket. I took an enthusiastic part in the excitement caused by that +last infirmity of noble ships, without concerning myself much with the +why or the wherefore. The surmise of my maturer years is that, bored by +her interminable life, the venerable antiquity was simply yawning with +ennui at every seam. But at the time I did not know; I knew generally +very little, and least of all what I was doing in that _galère_. + +I remember that, exactly as in the comedy of Molière, my uncle asked the +precise question in the very words—not of my confidential valet, however, +but across great distances of land, in a letter whose mocking but +indulgent turn ill concealed his almost paternal anxiety. I fancy I +tried to convey to him my (utterly unfounded) impression that the West +Indies awaited my coming. I had to go there. It was a sort of mystic +conviction—something in the nature of a call. But it was difficult to +state intelligibly the grounds of this belief to that man of rigorous +logic, if of infinite charity. + +The truth must have been that, all unversed in the arts of the wily +Greek, the deceiver of gods, the lover of strange women, the evoker of +bloodthirsty shades, I yet longed for the beginning of my own obscure +Odyssey, which, as was proper for a modern, should unroll its wonders and +terrors beyond the Pillars of Hercules. The disdainful ocean did not +open wide to swallow up my audacity, though the ship, the ridiculous and +ancient _galère_ of my folly, the old, weary, disenchanted sugar-waggon, +seemed extremely disposed to open out and swallow up as much salt water +as she could hold. This, if less grandiose, would have been as final a +catastrophe. + +But no catastrophe occurred. I lived to watch on a strange shore a black +and youthful Nausicaa, with a joyous train of attendant maidens, carrying +baskets of linen to a clear stream overhung by the heads of slender +palm-trees. The vivid colours of their draped raiment and the gold of +their earrings invested with a barbaric and regal magnificence their +figures, stepping out freely in a shower of broken sunshine. The +whiteness of their teeth was still more dazzling than the splendour of +jewels at their ears. The shaded side of the ravine gleamed with their +smiles. They were as unabashed as so many princesses, but, alas! not one +of them was the daughter of a jet-black sovereign. Such was my +abominable luck in being born by the mere hair’s breadth of twenty-five +centuries too late into a world where kings have been growing scarce with +scandalous rapidity, while the few who remain have adopted the +uninteresting manners and customs of simple millionaires. Obviously it +was a vain hope in 187– to see the ladies of a royal household walk in +chequered sunshine, with baskets of linen on their heads, to the banks of +a clear stream overhung by the starry fronds of palm-trees. It was a +vain hope. If I did not ask myself whether, limited by such discouraging +impossibilities, life were still worth living, it was only because I had +then before me several other pressing questions, some of which have +remained unanswered to this day. The resonant, laughing voices of these +gorgeous maidens scared away the multitude of humming-birds, whose +delicate wings wreathed with the mist of their vibration the tops of +flowering bushes. + +No, they were not princesses. Their unrestrained laughter filling the +hot, fern-clad ravine had a soulless limpidity, as of wild, inhuman +dwellers in tropical woodlands. Following the example of certain prudent +travellers, I withdrew unseen—and returned, not much wiser, to the +Mediterranean, the sea of classic adventures. + + + + +XL. + + +IT was written that there, in the nursery of our navigating ancestors, I +should learn to walk in the ways of my craft and grow in the love of the +sea, blind as young love often is, but absorbing and disinterested as all +true love must be. I demanded nothing from it—not even adventure. In +this I showed, perhaps, more intuitive wisdom than high self-denial. No +adventure ever came to one for the asking. He who starts on a deliberate +quest of adventure goes forth but to gather dead-sea fruit, unless, +indeed, he be beloved of the gods and great amongst heroes, like that +most excellent cavalier Don Quixote de la Mancha. By us ordinary mortals +of a mediocre animus that is only too anxious to pass by wicked giants +for so many honest windmills, adventures are entertained like visiting +angels. They come upon our complacency unawares. As unbidden guests are +apt to do, they often come at inconvenient times. And we are glad to let +them go unrecognised, without any acknowledgment of so high a favour. +After many years, on looking back from the middle turn of life’s way at +the events of the past, which, like a friendly crowd, seem to gaze sadly +after us hastening towards the Cimmerian shore, we may see here and +there, in the gray throng, some figure glowing with a faint radiance, as +though it had caught all the light of our already crepuscular sky. And +by this glow we may recognise the faces of our true adventures, of the +once unbidden guests entertained unawares in our young days. + +If the Mediterranean, the venerable (and sometimes atrociously +ill-tempered) nurse of all navigators, was to rock my youth, the +providing of the cradle necessary for that operation was entrusted by +Fate to the most casual assemblage of irresponsible young men (all, +however, older than myself) that, as if drunk with Provençal sunshine, +frittered life away in joyous levity on the model of Balzac’s “Histoire +des Treize” qualified by a dash of romance _de cape et d’épée_. + +She who was my cradle in those years had been built on the River of +Savona by a famous builder of boats, was rigged in Corsica by another +good man, and was described on her papers as a ‘tartane’ of sixty tons. +In reality, she was a true balancelle, with two short masts raking +forward and two curved yards, each as long as her hull; a true child of +the Latin lake, with a spread of two enormous sails resembling the +pointed wings on a sea-bird’s slender body, and herself, like a bird +indeed, skimming rather than sailing the seas. + +Her name was the _Tremolino_. How is this to be translated? The +_Quiverer_? What a name to give the pluckiest little craft that ever +dipped her sides in angry foam! I had felt her, it is true, trembling +for nights and days together under my feet, but it was with the +high-strung tenseness of her faithful courage. In her short, but +brilliant, career she has taught me nothing, but she has given me +everything. I owe to her the awakened love for the sea that, with the +quivering of her swift little body and the humming of the wind under the +foot of her lateen sails, stole into my heart with a sort of gentle +violence, and brought my imagination under its despotic sway. The +_Tremolino_! To this day I cannot utter or even write that name without +a strange tightening of the breast and the gasp of mingled delight and +dread of one’s first passionate experience. + + + + +XLI. + + +We four formed (to use a term well understood nowadays in every social +sphere) a “syndicate” owning the _Tremolino_: an international and +astonishing syndicate. And we were all ardent Royalists of the +snow-white Legitimist complexion—Heaven only knows why! In all +associations of men there is generally one who, by the authority of age +and of a more experienced wisdom, imparts a collective character to the +whole set. If I mention that the oldest of us was very old, extremely +old—nearly thirty years old—and that he used to declare with gallant +carelessness, “I live by my sword,” I think I have given enough +information on the score of our collective wisdom. He was a North +Carolinian gentleman, J. M. K. B. were the initials of his name, and he +really did live by the sword, as far as I know. He died by it, too, +later on, in a Balkanian squabble, in the cause of some Serbs or else +Bulgarians, who were neither Catholics nor gentlemen—at least, not in the +exalted but narrow sense he attached to that last word. + +Poor J. M. K. B., _Américain_, _Catholique_, _et gentilhomme_, as he was +disposed to describe himself in moments of lofty expansion! Are there +still to be found in Europe gentlemen keen of face and elegantly slight +of body, of distinguished aspect, with a fascinating drawing-room manner +and with a dark, fatal glance, who live by their swords, I wonder? His +family had been ruined in the Civil War, I fancy, and seems for a decade +or so to have led a wandering life in the Old World. As to Henry C—, the +next in age and wisdom of our band, he had broken loose from the +unyielding rigidity of his family, solidly rooted, if I remember rightly, +in a well-to-do London suburb. On their respectable authority he +introduced himself meekly to strangers as a “black sheep.” I have never +seen a more guileless specimen of an outcast. Never. + +However, his people had the grace to send him a little money now and +then. Enamoured of the South, of Provence, of its people, its life, its +sunshine and its poetry, narrow-chested, tall and short-sighted, he +strode along the streets and the lanes, his long feet projecting far in +advance of his body, and his white nose and gingery moustache buried in +an open book: for he had the habit of reading as he walked. How he +avoided falling into precipices, off the quays, or down staircases is a +great mystery. The sides of his overcoat bulged out with pocket editions +of various poets. When not engaged in reading Virgil, Homer, or Mistral, +in parks, restaurants, streets, and suchlike public places, he indited +sonnets (in French) to the eyes, ears, chin, hair, and other visible +perfections of a nymph called Thérèse, the daughter, honesty compels me +to state, of a certain Madame Leonore who kept a small café for sailors +in one of the narrowest streets of the old town. + +No more charming face, clear-cut like an antique gem, and delicate in +colouring like the petal of a flower, had ever been set on, alas! a +somewhat squat body. He read his verses aloud to her in the very café +with the innocence of a little child and the vanity of a poet. We +followed him there willingly enough, if only to watch the divine Thérèse +laugh, under the vigilant black eyes of Madame Leonore, her mother. She +laughed very prettily, not so much at the sonnets, which she could not +but esteem, as at poor Henry’s French accent, which was unique, +resembling the warbling of birds, if birds ever warbled with a +stuttering, nasal intonation. + +Our third partner was Roger P. de la S—, the most Scandinavian-looking of +Provençal squires, fair, and six feet high, as became a descendant of +sea-roving Northmen, authoritative, incisive, wittily scornful, with a +comedy in three acts in his pocket, and in his breast a heart blighted by +a hopeless passion for his beautiful cousin, married to a wealthy hide +and tallow merchant. He used to take us to lunch at their house without +ceremony. I admired the good lady’s sweet patience. The husband was a +conciliatory soul, with a great fund of resignation, which he expended on +“Roger’s friends.” I suspect he was secretly horrified at these +invasions. But it was a Carlist salon, and as such we were made welcome. +The possibility of raising Catalonia in the interest of the _Rey netto_, +who had just then crossed the Pyrenees, was much discussed there. + +Don Carlos, no doubt, must have had many queer friends (it is the common +lot of all Pretenders), but amongst them none more extravagantly +fantastic than the _Tremolino_ Syndicate, which used to meet in a tavern +on the quays of the old port. The antique city of Massilia had surely +never, since the days of the earliest Phoenicians, known an odder set of +ship-owners. We met to discuss and settle the plan of operations for +each voyage of the _Tremolino_. In these operations a banking-house, +too, was concerned—a very respectable banking-house. But I am afraid I +shall end by saying too much. Ladies, too, were concerned (I am really +afraid I am saying too much)—all sorts of ladies, some old enough to know +better than to put their trust in princes, others young and full of +illusions. + +One of these last was extremely amusing in the imitations, she gave us in +confidence, of various highly-placed personages she was perpetually +rushing off to Paris to interview in the interests of the cause—_Por el +Rey_! For she was a Carlist, and of Basque blood at that, with something +of a lioness in the expression of her courageous face (especially when +she let her hair down), and with the volatile little soul of a sparrow +dressed in fine Parisian feathers, which had the trick of coming off +disconcertingly at unexpected moments. + +But her imitations of a Parisian personage, very highly placed indeed, as +she represented him standing in the corner of a room with his face to the +wall, rubbing the back of his head and moaning helplessly, “Rita, you are +the death of me!” were enough to make one (if young and free from cares) +split one’s sides laughing. She had an uncle still living, a very +effective Carlist, too, the priest of a little mountain parish in +Guipuzcoa. As the sea-going member of the syndicate (whose plans +depended greatly on Doña Rita’s information), I used to be charged with +humbly affectionate messages for the old man. These messages I was +supposed to deliver to the Arragonese muleteers (who were sure to await +at certain times the _Tremolino_ in the neighbourhood of the Gulf of +Rosas), for faithful transportation inland, together with the various +unlawful goods landed secretly from under the _Tremolino’s_ hatches. + +Well, now, I have really let out too much (as I feared I should in the +end) as to the usual contents of my sea-cradle. But let it stand. And +if anybody remarks cynically that I must have been a promising infant in +those days, let that stand, too. I am concerned but for the good name of +the _Tremolino_, and I affirm that a ship is ever guiltless of the sins, +transgressions, and follies of her men. + + + + +XLII. + + +It was not _Tremolino’s_ fault that the syndicate depended so much on the +wit and wisdom and the information of Doña Rita. She had taken a little +furnished house on the Prado for the good of the cause—_Por el Rey_! She +was always taking little houses for somebody’s good, for the sick or the +sorry, for broken-down artists, cleaned-out gamblers, temporarily unlucky +speculators—_vieux amis_—old friends, as she used to explain +apologetically, with a shrug of her fine shoulders. + +Whether Don Carlos was one of the “old friends,” too, it’s hard to say. +More unlikely things have been heard of in smoking-rooms. All I know is +that one evening, entering incautiously the salon of the little house +just after the news of a considerable Carlist success had reached the +faithful, I was seized round the neck and waist and whirled recklessly +three times round the room, to the crash of upsetting furniture and the +humming of a valse tune in a warm contralto voice. + +When released from the dizzy embrace, I sat down on the carpet—suddenly, +without affectation. In this unpretentious attitude I became aware that +J. M. K. B. had followed me into the room, elegant, fatal, correct and +severe in a white tie and large shirt-front. In answer to his politely +sinister, prolonged glance of inquiry, I overheard Doña Rita murmuring, +with some confusion and annoyance, “_Vous êtes bête mon cher_. _Voyons_! +_Ça n’a aucune conséquence_.” Well content in this case to be of no +particular consequence, I had already about me the elements of some +worldly sense. + +Rearranging my collar, which, truth to say, ought to have been a round +one above a short jacket, but was not, I observed felicitously that I had +come to say good-bye, being ready to go off to sea that very night with +the _Tremolino_. Our hostess, slightly panting yet, and just a shade +dishevelled, turned tartly upon J. M. K. B., desiring to know when _he_ +would be ready to go off by the _Tremolino_, or in any other way, in +order to join the royal headquarters. Did he intend, she asked +ironically, to wait for the very eve of the entry into Madrid? Thus by a +judicious exercise of tact and asperity we re-established the atmospheric +equilibrium of the room long before I left them a little before midnight, +now tenderly reconciled, to walk down to the harbour and hail the +_Tremolino_ by the usual soft whistle from the edge of the quay. It was +our signal, invariably heard by the ever-watchful Dominic, the _padrone_. + +He would raise a lantern silently to light my steps along the narrow, +springy plank of our primitive gangway. “And so we are going off,” he +would murmur directly my foot touched the deck. I was the harbinger of +sudden departures, but there was nothing in the world sudden enough to +take Dominic unawares. His thick black moustaches, curled every morning +with hot tongs by the barber at the corner of the quay, seemed to hide a +perpetual smile. But nobody, I believe, had ever seen the true shape of +his lips. From the slow, imperturbable gravity of that broad-chested man +you would think he had never smiled in his life. In his eyes lurked a +look of perfectly remorseless irony, as though he had been provided with +an extremely experienced soul; and the slightest distension of his +nostrils would give to his bronzed face a look of extraordinary boldness. +This was the only play of feature of which he seemed capable, being a +Southerner of a concentrated, deliberate type. His ebony hair curled +slightly on the temples. He may have been forty years old, and he was a +great voyager on the inland sea. + +Astute and ruthless, he could have rivalled in resource the unfortunate +son of Laertes and Anticlea. If he did not pit his craft and audacity +against the very gods, it is only because the Olympian gods are dead. +Certainly no woman could frighten him. A one-eyed giant would not have +had the ghost of a chance against Dominic Cervoni, of Corsica, not +Ithaca; and no king, son of kings, but of very respectable +family—authentic Caporali, he affirmed. But that is as it may be. The +Caporali families date back to the twelfth century. + +For want of more exalted adversaries Dominic turned his audacity fertile +in impious stratagems against the powers of the earth, as represented by +the institution of Custom-houses and every mortal belonging +thereto—scribes, officers, and guardacostas afloat and ashore. He was +the very man for us, this modern and unlawful wanderer with his own +legend of loves, dangers, and bloodshed. He told us bits of it sometimes +in measured, ironic tones. He spoke Catalonian, the Italian of Corsica +and the French of Provençe with the same easy naturalness. Dressed in +shore-togs, a white starched shirt, black jacket, and round hat, as I +took him once to see Doña Rita, he was extremely presentable. He could +make himself interesting by a tactful and rugged reserve set off by a +grim, almost imperceptible, playfulness of tone and manner. + +He had the physical assurance of strong-hearted men. After half an +hour’s interview in the dining-room, during which they got in touch with +each other in an amazing way, Rita told us in her best _grande dame_ +manner: “_Mais il esi parfait_, _cet homme_.” He was perfect. On board +the _Tremolino_, wrapped up in a black _caban_, the picturesque cloak of +Mediterranean seamen, with those massive moustaches and his remorseless +eyes set off by the shadow of the deep hood, he looked piratical and +monkish and darkly initiated into the most awful mysteries of the sea. + + + + +XLIII. + + +Anyway, he was perfect, as Doña Rita had declared. The only thing +unsatisfactory (and even inexplicable) about our Dominic was his nephew, +Cesar. It was startling to see a desolate expression of shame veil the +remorseless audacity in the eyes of that man superior to all scruples and +terrors. + +“I would never have dared to bring him on board your balancelle,” he once +apologized to me. “But what am I to do? His mother is dead, and my +brother has gone into the bush.” + +In this way I learned that our Dominic had a brother. As to “going into +the bush,” this only means that a man has done his duty successfully in +the pursuit of a hereditary vendetta. The feud which had existed for +ages between the families of Cervoni and Brunaschi was so old that it +seemed to have smouldered out at last. One evening Pietro Brunaschi, +after a laborious day amongst his olive-trees, sat on a chair against the +wall of his house with a bowl of broth on his knees and a piece of bread +in his hand. Dominic’s brother, going home with a gun on his shoulder, +found a sudden offence in this picture of content and rest so obviously +calculated to awaken the feelings of hatred and revenge. He and Pietro +had never had any personal quarrel; but, as Dominic explained, “all our +dead cried out to him.” He shouted from behind a wall of stones, “O +Pietro! Behold what is coming!” And as the other looked up innocently +he took aim at the forehead and squared the old vendetta account so +neatly that, according to Dominic, the dead man continued to sit with the +bowl of broth on his knees and the piece of bread in his hand. + +This is why—because in Corsica your dead will not leave you +alone—Dominic’s brother had to go into the _maquis_, into the bush on the +wild mountain-side, to dodge the gendarmes for the insignificant +remainder of his life, and Dominic had charge of his nephew with a +mission to make a man of him. + +No more unpromising undertaking could be imagined. The very material for +the task seemed wanting. The Cervonis, if not handsome men, were good +sturdy flesh and blood. But this extraordinarily lean and livid youth +seemed to have no more blood in him than a snail. + +“Some cursed witch must have stolen my brother’s child from the cradle +and put that spawn of a starved devil in its place,” Dominic would say to +me. “Look at him! Just look at him!” + +To look at Cesar was not pleasant. His parchment skin, showing dead +white on his cranium through the thin wisps of dirty brown hair, seemed +to be glued directly and tightly upon his big bones, Without being in any +way deformed, he was the nearest approach which I have ever seen or could +imagine to what is commonly understood by the word “monster.” That the +source of the effect produced was really moral I have no doubt. An +utterly, hopelessly depraved nature was expressed in physical terms, that +taken each separately had nothing positively startling. You imagined him +clammily cold to the touch, like a snake. The slightest reproof, the +most mild and justifiable remonstrance, would be met by a resentful glare +and an evil shrinking of his thin dry upper lip, a snarl of hate to which +he generally added the agreeable sound of grinding teeth. + +It was for this venomous performance rather than for his lies, impudence, +and laziness that his uncle used to knock him down. It must not be +imagined that it was anything in the nature of a brutal assault. +Dominic’s brawny arm would be seen describing deliberately an ample +horizontal gesture, a dignified sweep, and Cesar would go over suddenly +like a ninepin—which was funny to see. But, once down, he would writhe +on the deck, gnashing his teeth in impotent rage—which was pretty +horrible to behold. And it also happened more than once that he would +disappear completely—which was startling to observe. This is the exact +truth. Before some of these majestic cuffs Cesar would go down and +vanish. He would vanish heels overhead into open hatchways, into +scuttles, behind up-ended casks, according to the place where he happened +to come into contact with his uncle’s mighty arm. + +Once—it was in the old harbour, just before the _Tremolino’s_ last +voyage—he vanished thus overboard to my infinite consternation. Dominic +and I had been talking business together aft, and Cesar had sneaked up +behind us to listen, for, amongst his other perfections, he was a +consummate eavesdropper and spy. At the sound of the heavy plop +alongside horror held me rooted to the spot; but Dominic stepped quietly +to the rail and leaned over, waiting for his nephew’s miserable head to +bob up for the first time. + +“Ohé, Cesar!” he yelled contemptuously to the spluttering wretch. “Catch +hold of that mooring hawser—_charogne_!” + +He approached me to resume the interrupted conversation. + +“What about Cesar?” I asked anxiously. + +“Canallia! Let him hang there,” was his answer. And he went on talking +over the business in hand calmly, while I tried vainly to dismiss from my +mind the picture of Cesar steeped to the chin in the water of the old +harbour, a decoction of centuries of marine refuse. I tried to dismiss +it, because the mere notion of that liquid made me feel very sick. +Presently Dominic, hailing an idle boatman, directed him to go and fish +his nephew out; and by-and-by Cesar appeared walking on board from the +quay, shivering, streaming with filthy water, with bits of rotten straws +in his hair and a piece of dirty orange-peel stranded on his shoulder. +His teeth chattered; his yellow eyes squinted balefully at us as he +passed forward. I thought it my duty to remonstrate. + +“Why are you always knocking him about, Dominic?” I asked. Indeed, I +felt convinced it was no earthly good—a sheer waste of muscular force. + +“I must try to make a man of him,” Dominic answered hopelessly. + +I restrained the obvious retort that in this way he ran the risk of +making, in the words of the immortal Mr. Mantalini, “a demnition damp, +unpleasant corpse of him.” + +“He wants to be a locksmith!” burst out Cervoni. “To learn how to pick +locks, I suppose,” he added with sardonic bitterness. + +“Why not let him be a locksmith?” I ventured. + +“Who would teach him?” he cried. “Where could I leave him?” he asked, +with a drop in his voice; and I had my first glimpse of genuine despair. +“He steals, you know, alas! _Par ta Madonne_! I believe he would put +poison in your food and mine—the viper!” + +He raised his face and both his clenched fists slowly to heaven. +However, Cesar never dropped poison into our cups. One cannot be sure, +but I fancy he went to work in another way. + +This voyage, of which the details need not be given, we had to range far +afield for sufficient reasons. Coming up from the South to end it with +the important and really dangerous part of the scheme in hand, we found +it necessary to look into Barcelona for certain definite information. +This appears like running one’s head into the very jaws of the lion, but +in reality it was not so. We had one or two high, influential friends +there, and many others humble but valuable because bought for good hard +cash. We were in no danger of being molested; indeed, the important +information reached us promptly by the hands of a Custom-house officer, +who came on board full of showy zeal to poke an iron rod into the layer +of oranges which made the visible part of our cargo in the hatchway. + +I forgot to mention before that the _Tremolino_ was officially known as a +fruit and cork-wood trader. The zealous officer managed to slip a useful +piece of paper into Dominic’s hand as he went ashore, and a few hours +afterwards, being off duty, he returned on board again athirst for drinks +and gratitude. He got both as a matter of course. While he sat sipping +his liqueur in the tiny cabin, Dominic plied him with questions as to the +whereabouts of the guardacostas. The preventive service afloat was +really the one for us to reckon with, and it was material for our success +and safety to know the exact position of the patrol craft in the +neighbourhood. The news could not have been more favourable. The +officer mentioned a small place on the coast some twelve miles off, +where, unsuspicious and unready, she was lying at anchor, with her sails +unbent, painting yards and scraping spars. Then he left us after the +usual compliments, smirking reassurringly over his shoulder. + +I had kept below pretty close all day from excess of prudence. The stake +played on that trip was big. + +“We are ready to go at once, but for Cesar, who has been missing ever +since breakfast,” announced Dominic to me in his slow, grim way. + +Where the fellow had gone, and why, we could not imagine. The usual +surmises in the case of a missing seaman did not apply to Cesar’s +absence. He was too odious for love, friendship, gambling, or even +casual intercourse. But once or twice he had wandered away like this +before. + +Dominic went ashore to look for him, but returned at the end of two hours +alone and very angry, as I could see by the token of the invisible smile +under his moustache being intensified. We wondered what had become of +the wretch, and made a hurried investigation amongst our portable +property. He had stolen nothing. + +“He will be back before long,” I said confidently. + +Ten minutes afterwards one of the men on deck called out loudly: + +“I can see him coming.” + +Cesar had only his shirt and trousers on. He had sold his coat, +apparently for pocket-money. + +“You knave!” was all Dominic said, with a terrible softness of voice. He +restrained his choler for a time. “Where have you been, vagabond?” he +asked menacingly. + +Nothing would induce Cesar to answer that question. It was as if he even +disdained to lie. He faced us, drawing back his lips and gnashing his +teeth, and did not shrink an inch before the sweep of Dominic’s arm. He +went down as if shot, of course. But this time I noticed that, when +picking himself up, he remained longer than usual on all fours, baring +his big teeth over his shoulder and glaring upwards at his uncle with a +new sort of hate in his round, yellow eyes. That permanent sentiment +seemed pointed at that moment by especial malice and curiosity. I became +quite interested. If he ever manages to put poison in the dishes, I +thought to myself, this is how he will look at us as we sit at our meal. +But I did not, of course, believe for a moment that he would ever put +poison in our food. He ate the same things himself. Moreover, he had no +poison. And I could not imagine a human being so blinded by cupidity as +to sell poison to such an atrocious creature. + + + + +XLIV. + + +We slipped out to sea quietly at dusk, and all through the night +everything went well. The breeze was gusty; a southerly blow was making +up. It was fair wind for our course. Now and then Dominic slowly and +rhythmically struck his hands together a few times, as if applauding the +performance of the _Tremolino_. The balancelle hummed and quivered as +she flew along, dancing lightly under our feet. + +At daybreak I pointed out to Dominic, amongst the several sail in view +running before the gathering storm, one particular vessel. The press of +canvas she carried made her loom up high, end-on, like a gray column +standing motionless directly in our wake. + +“Look at this fellow, Dominic,” I said. “He seems to be in a hurry.” + +The Padrone made no remark, but, wrapping his black cloak close about +him, stood up to look. His weather-tanned face, framed in the hood, had +an aspect of authority and challenging force, with the deep-set eyes +gazing far away fixedly, without a wink, like the intent, merciless, +steady eyes of a sea-bird. + +“_Chi va piano va sano_,” he remarked at last, with a derisive glance +over the side, in ironic allusion to our own tremendous speed. + +The _Tremolino_ was doing her best, and seemed to hardly touch the great +burst of foam over which she darted. I crouched down again to get some +shelter from the low bulwark. After more than half an hour of swaying +immobility expressing a concentrated, breathless watchfulness, Dominic +sank on the deck by my side. Within the monkish cowl his eyes gleamed +with a fierce expression which surprised me. All he said was: + +“He has come out here to wash the new paint off his yards, I suppose.” + +“What?” I shouted, getting up on my knees. “Is she the guardacosta?” + +The perpetual suggestion of a smile under Dominic’s piratical moustaches +seemed to become more accentuated—quite real, grim, actually almost +visible through the wet and uncurled hair. Judging by that symptom, he +must have been in a towering rage. But I could also see that he was +puzzled, and that discovery affected me disagreeably. Dominic puzzled! +For a long time, leaning against the bulwark, I gazed over the stern at +the gray column that seemed to stand swaying slightly in our wake always +at the same distance. + +Meanwhile Dominic, black and cowled, sat cross-legged on the deck, with +his back to the wind, recalling vaguely an Arab chief in his burnuss +sitting on the sand. Above his motionless figure the little cord and +tassel on the stiff point of the hood swung about inanely in the gale. +At last I gave up facing the wind and rain, and crouched down by his +side. I was satisfied that the sail was a patrol craft. Her presence +was not a thing to talk about, but soon, between two clouds charged with +hail-showers, a burst of sunshine fell upon her sails, and our men +discovered her character for themselves. From that moment I noticed that +they seemed to take no heed of each other or of anything else. They +could spare no eyes and no thought but for the slight column-shape astern +of us. Its swaying had become perceptible. For a moment she remained +dazzlingly white, then faded away slowly to nothing in a squall, only to +reappear again, nearly black, resembling a post stuck upright against the +slaty background of solid cloud. Since first noticed she had not gained +on us a foot. + +“She will never catch the _Tremolino_,” I said exultingly. + +Dominic did not look at me. He remarked absently, but justly, that the +heavy weather was in our pursuer’s favour. She was three times our size. +What we had to do was to keep our distance till dark, which we could +manage easily, and then haul off to seaward and consider the situation. +But his thoughts seemed to stumble in the darkness of some not-solved +enigma, and soon he fell silent. We ran steadily, wing-and-wing. Cape +San Sebastian nearly ahead seemed to recede from us in the squalls of +rain, and come out again to meet our rush, every time more distinct +between the showers. + +For my part I was by no means certain that this _gabelou_ (as our men +alluded to her opprobriously) was after us at all. There were nautical +difficulties in such a view which made me express the sanguine opinion +that she was in all innocence simply changing her station. At this +Dominic condescended to turn his head. + +“I tell you she is in chase,” he affirmed moodily, after one short glance +astern. + +I never doubted his opinion. But with all the ardour of a neophyte and +the pride of an apt learner I was at that time a great nautical casuist. + +“What I can’t understand,” I insisted subtly, “is how on earth, with this +wind, she has managed to be just where she was when we first made her +out. It is clear that she could not, and did not, gain twelve miles on +us during the night. And there are other impossibilities. . . .” + +Dominic had been sitting motionless, like an inanimate black cone posed +on the stern deck, near the rudder-head, with a small tassel fluttering +on its sharp point, and for a time he preserved the immobility of his +meditation. Then, bending over with a short laugh, he gave my ear the +bitter fruit of it. He understood everything now perfectly. She was +where we had seen her first, not because she had caught us up, but +because we had passed her during the night while she was already waiting +for us, hove-to, most likely, on our very track. + +“Do you understand—already?” Dominic muttered in a fierce undertone. +“Already! You know we left a good eight hours before we were expected to +leave, otherwise she would have been in time to lie in wait for us on the +other side of the Cape, and”—he snapped his teeth like a wolf close to my +face—“and she would have had us like—that.” + +I saw it all plainly enough now. They had eyes in their heads and all +their wits about them in that craft. We had passed them in the dark as +they jogged on easily towards their ambush with the idea that we were yet +far behind. At daylight, however, sighting a balancelle ahead under a +press of canvas, they had made sail in chase. But if that was so, then— + +Dominic seized my arm. + +“Yes, yes! She came out on an information—do you see, it?—on +information. . . . We have been sold—betrayed. Why? How? What for? We +always paid them all so well on shore. . . . No! But it is my head that +is going to burst.” + +He seemed to choke, tugged at the throat button of the cloak, jumped up +open-mouthed as if to hurl curses and denunciation, but instantly +mastered himself, and, wrapping up the cloak closer about him, sat down +on the deck again as quiet as ever. + +“Yes, it must be the work of some scoundrel ashore,” I observed. + +He pulled the edge of the hood well forward over his brow before he +muttered: + +“A scoundrel. . . . Yes. . . . It’s evident.” + +“Well,” I said, “they can’t get us, that’s clear.” + +“No,” he assented quietly, “they cannot.” + +We shaved the Cape very close to avoid an adverse current. On the other +side, by the effect of the land, the wind failed us so completely for a +moment that the _Tremolino’s_ two great lofty sails hung idle to the +masts in the thundering uproar of the seas breaking upon the shore we had +left behind. And when the returning gust filled them again, we saw with +amazement half of the new mainsail, which we thought fit to drive the +boat under before giving way, absolutely fly out of the bolt-ropes. We +lowered the yard at once, and saved it all, but it was no longer a sail; +it was only a heap of soaked strips of canvas cumbering the deck and +weighting the craft. Dominic gave the order to throw the whole lot +overboard. + +I would have had the yard thrown overboard, too, he said, leading me aft +again, “if it had not been for the trouble. Let no sign escape you,” he +continued, lowering his voice, “but I am going to tell you something +terrible. Listen: I have observed that the roping stitches on that sail +have been cut! You hear? Cut with a knife in many places. And yet it +stood all that time. Not enough cut. That flap did it at last. What +matters it? But look! there’s treachery seated on this very deck. By +the horns of the devil! seated here at our very backs. Do not turn, +signorine.” + +We were facing aft then. + +“What’s to be done?” I asked, appalled. + +“Nothing. Silence! Be a man, signorine.” + +“What else?” I said. + +To show I could be a man, I resolved to utter no sound as long as Dominic +himself had the force to keep his lips closed. Nothing but silence +becomes certain situations. Moreover, the experience of treachery seemed +to spread a hopeless drowsiness over my thoughts and senses. For an hour +or more we watched our pursuer surging out nearer and nearer from amongst +the squalls that sometimes hid her altogether. But even when not seen, +we felt her there like a knife at our throats. She gained on us +frightfully. And the _Tremolino_, in a fierce breeze and in much +smoother water, swung on easily under her one sail, with something +appallingly careless in the joyous freedom of her motion. Another +half-hour went by. I could not stand it any longer. + +“They will get the poor barky,” I stammered out suddenly, almost on the +verge of tears. + +Dominic stirred no more than a carving. A sense of catastrophic +loneliness overcame my inexperienced soul. The vision of my companions +passed before me. The whole Royalist gang was in Monte Carlo now, I +reckoned. And they appeared to me clear-cut and very small, with +affected voices and stiff gestures, like a procession of rigid +marionettes upon a toy stage. I gave a start. What was this? A +mysterious, remorseless whisper came from within the motionless black +hood at my side. + +“_Il faul la tuer_.” + +I heard it very well. + +“What do you say, Dominic?” I asked, moving nothing but my lips. + +And the whisper within the hood repeated mysteriously, “She must be +killed.” + +My heart began to beat violently. + +“That’s it,” I faltered out. “But how?” + +“You love her well?” + +“I do.” + +“Then you must find the heart for that work too. You must steer her +yourself, and I shall see to it that she dies quickly, without leaving as +much as a chip behind.” + +“Can you?” I murmured, fascinated by the black hood turned immovably over +the stern, as if in unlawful communion with that old sea of magicians, +slave-dealers, exiles and warriors, the sea of legends and terrors, where +the mariners of remote antiquity used to hear the restless shade of an +old wanderer weep aloud in the dark. + +“I know a rock,” whispered the initiated voice within the hood secretly. +“But—caution! It must be done before our men perceive what we are about. +Whom can we trust now? A knife drawn across the fore halyards would +bring the foresail down, and put an end to our liberty in twenty minutes. +And the best of our men may be afraid of drowning. There is our little +boat, but in an affair like this no one can be sure of being saved.” + +The voice ceased. We had started from Barcelona with our dinghy in tow; +afterwards it was too risky to try to get her in, so we let her take her +chance of the seas at the end of a comfortable scope of rope. Many times +she had seemed to us completely overwhelmed, but soon we would see her +bob up again on a wave, apparently as buoyant and whole as ever. + +“I understand,” I said softly. “Very well, Dominic. When?” + +“Not yet. We must get a little more in first,” answered the voice from +the hood in a ghostly murmur. + + + + +XLV. + + +It was settled. I had now the courage to turn about. Our men crouched +about the decks here and there with anxious, crestfallen faces, all +turned one way to watch the chaser. For the first time that morning I +perceived Cesar stretched out full length on the deck near the foremast +and wondered where he had been skulking till then. But he might in truth +have been at my elbow all the time for all I knew. We had been too +absorbed in watching our fate to pay attention to each other. Nobody had +eaten anything that morning, but the men had been coming constantly to +drink at the water-butt. + +I ran down to the cabin. I had there, put away in a locker, ten thousand +francs in gold of whose presence on board, so far as I was aware, not a +soul, except Dominic had the slightest inkling. When I emerged on deck +again Dominic had turned about and was peering from under his cowl at the +coast. Cape Creux closed the view ahead. To the left a wide bay, its +waters torn and swept by fierce squalls, seemed full of smoke. Astern +the sky had a menacing look. + +Directly he saw me, Dominic, in a placid tone, wanted to know what was +the matter. I came close to him and, looking as unconcerned as I could, +told him in an undertone that I had found the locker broken open and the +money-belt gone. Last evening it was still there. + +“What did you want to do with it?” he asked me, trembling violently. + +“Put it round my waist, of course,” I answered, amazed to hear his teeth +chattering. + +“Cursed gold!” he muttered. “The weight of the money might have cost you +your life, perhaps.” He shuddered. “There is no time to talk about that +now.” + +“I am ready.” + +“Not yet. I am waiting for that squall to come over,” he muttered. And +a few leaden minutes passed. + +The squall came over at last. Our pursuer, overtaken by a sort of murky +whirlwind, disappeared from our sight. The _Tremolino_ quivered and +bounded forward. The land ahead vanished, too, and we seemed to be left +alone in a world of water and wind. + +“_Prenez la barre_, _monsieur_,” Dominic broke the silence suddenly in an +austere voice. “Take hold of the tiller.” He bent his hood to my ear. +“The balancelle is yours. Your own hands must deal the blow. I—I have +yet another piece of work to do.” He spoke up loudly to the man who +steered. “Let the signorino take the tiller, and you with the others +stand by to haul the boat alongside quickly at the word.” + +The man obeyed, surprised, but silent. The others stirred, and pricked +up their ears at this. I heard their murmurs. “What now? Are we going +to run in somewhere and take to our heels? The Padrone knows what he is +doing.” + +Dominic went forward. He paused to look down at Cesar, who, as I have +said before, was lying full length face down by the foremast, then +stepped over him, and dived out of my sight under the foresail. I saw +nothing ahead. It was impossible for me to see anything except the +foresail open and still, like a great shadowy wing. But Dominic had his +bearings. His voice came to me from forward, in a just audible cry: + +“Now, signorino!” + +I bore on the tiller, as instructed before. Again I heard him faintly, +and then I had only to hold her straight. No ship ran so joyously to her +death before. She rose and fell, as if floating in space, and darted +forward, whizzing like an arrow. Dominic, stooping under the foot of the +foresail, reappeared, and stood steadying himself against the mast, with +a raised forefinger in an attitude of expectant attention. A second +before the shock his arm fell down by his side. At that I set my teeth. +And then— + +Talk of splintered planks and smashed timbers! This shipwreck lies upon +my soul with the dread and horror of a homicide, with the unforgettable +remorse of having crushed a living, faithful heart at a single blow. At +one moment the rush and the soaring swing of speed; the next a crash, and +death, stillness—a moment of horrible immobility, with the song of the +wind changed to a strident wail, and the heavy waters boiling up menacing +and sluggish around the corpse. I saw in a distracting minute the +foreyard fly fore and aft with a brutal swing, the men all in a heap, +cursing with fear, and hauling frantically at the line of the boat. With +a strange welcoming of the familiar I saw also Cesar amongst them, and +recognised Dominic’s old, well-known, effective gesture, the horizontal +sweep of his powerful arm. I recollect distinctly saying to myself, +“Cesar must go down, of course,” and then, as I was scrambling on all +fours, the swinging tiller I had let go caught me a crack under the ear, +and knocked me over senseless. + +I don’t think I was actually unconscious for more than a few minutes, but +when I came to myself the dinghy was driving before the wind into a +sheltered cove, two men just keeping her straight with their oars. +Dominic, with his arm round my shoulders, supported me in the +stern-sheets. + +We landed in a familiar part of the country. Dominic took one of the +boat’s oars with him. I suppose he was thinking of the stream we would +have presently to cross, on which there was a miserable specimen of a +punt, often robbed of its pole. But first of all we had to ascend the +ridge of land at the back of the Cape. He helped me up. I was dizzy. +My head felt very large and heavy. At the top of the ascent I clung to +him, and we stopped to rest. + +To the right, below us, the wide, smoky bay was empty. Dominic had kept +his word. There was not a chip to be seen around the black rock from +which the _Tremolino_, with her plucky heart crushed at one blow, had +slipped off into deep water to her eternal rest. The vastness of the +open sea was smothered in driving mists, and in the centre of the +thinning squall, phantom-like, under a frightful press of canvas, the +unconscious guardacosta dashed on, still chasing to the northward. Our +men were already descending the reverse slope to look for that punt which +we knew from experience was not always to be found easily. I looked +after them with dazed, misty eyes. One, two, three, four. + +“Dominic, where’s Cesar?” I cried. + +As if repulsing the very sound of the name, the Padrone made that ample, +sweeping, knocking-down gesture. I stepped back a pace and stared at him +fearfully. His open shirt uncovered his muscular neck and the thick hair +on his chest. He planted the oar upright in the soft soil, and rolling +up slowly his right sleeve, extended the bare arm before my face. + +“This,” he began, with an extreme deliberation, whose superhuman +restraint vibrated with the suppressed violence of his feelings, “is the +arm which delivered the blow. I am afraid it is your own gold that did +the rest. I forgot all about your money.” He clasped his hands together +in sudden distress. “I forgot, I forgot,” he repeated disconsolately. + +“Cesar stole the belt?” I stammered out, bewildered. + +“And who else? _Canallia_! He must have been spying on you for days. +And he did the whole thing. Absent all day in Barcelona. _Traditore_! +Sold his jacket—to hire a horse. Ha! ha! A good affair! I tell you it +was he who set him at us. . . .” + +Dominic pointed at the sea, where the guardacosta was a mere dark speck. +His chin dropped on his breast. + +“. . . On information,” he murmured, in a gloomy voice. “A Cervoni! Oh! +my poor brother! . . .” + +“And you drowned him,” I said feebly. + +“I struck once, and the wretch went down like a stone—with the gold. +Yes. But he had time to read in my eyes that nothing could save him +while I was alive. And had I not the right—I, Dominic Cervoni, Padrone, +who brought him aboard your fellucca—my nephew, a traitor?” + +He pulled the oar out of the ground and helped me carefully down the +slope. All the time he never once looked me in the face. He punted us +over, then shouldered the oar again and waited till our men were at some +distance before he offered me his arm. After we had gone a little way, +the fishing hamlet we were making for came into view. Dominic stopped. + +“Do you think you can make your way as far as the houses by yourself?” he +asked me quietly. + +“Yes, I think so. But why? Where are you going, Dominic?” + +“Anywhere. What a question! Signorino, you are but little more than a +boy to ask such a question of a man having this tale in his family. +_Ah_! _Traditore_! What made me ever own that spawn of a hungry devil +for our own blood! Thief, cheat, coward, liar—other men can deal with +that. But I was his uncle, and so . . . I wish he had poisoned +me—_charogne_! But this: that I, a confidential man and a Corsican, +should have to ask your pardon for bringing on board your vessel, of +which I was Padrone, a Cervoni, who has betrayed you—a traitor!—that is +too much. It is too much. Well, I beg your pardon; and you may spit in +Dominic’s face because a traitor of our blood taints us all. A theft may +be made good between men, a lie may be set right, a death avenged, but +what can one do to atone for a treachery like this? . . . Nothing.” + +He turned and walked away from me along the bank of the stream, +flourishing a vengeful arm and repeating to himself slowly, with savage +emphasis: “_Ah_! _Canaille_! _Canaille_! _Canaille_! . . .” He left +me there trembling with weakness and mute with awe. Unable to make a +sound, I gazed after the strangely desolate figure of that seaman +carrying an oar on his shoulder up a barren, rock-strewn ravine under the +dreary leaden sky of _Tremolino’s_ last day. Thus, walking deliberately, +with his back to the sea, Dominic vanished from my sight. + +With the quality of our desires, thoughts, and wonder proportioned to our +infinite littleness, we measure even time itself by our own stature. +Imprisoned in the house of personal illusions, thirty centuries in +mankind’s history seem less to look back upon than thirty years of our +own life. And Dominic Cervoni takes his place in my memory by the side +of the legendary wanderer on the sea of marvels and terrors, by the side +of the fatal and impious adventurer, to whom the evoked shade of the +soothsayer predicted a journey inland with an oar on his shoulder, till +he met men who had never set eyes on ships and oars. It seems to me I +can see them side by side in the twilight of an arid land, the +unfortunate possessors of the secret lore of the sea, bearing the emblem +of their hard calling on their shoulders, surrounded by silent and +curious men: even as I, too, having turned my back upon the sea, am +bearing those few pages in the twilight, with the hope of finding in an +inland valley the silent welcome of some patient listener. + + + + +XLVI. + + +“A FELLOW has now no chance of promotion unless he jumps into the muzzle +of a gun and crawls out of the touch-hole.” + +He who, a hundred years ago, more or less, pronounced the above words in +the uneasiness of his heart, thirsting for professional distinction, was +a young naval officer. Of his life, career, achievements, and end +nothing is preserved for the edification of his young successors in the +fleet of to-day—nothing but this phrase, which, sailor-like in the +simplicity of personal sentiment and strength of graphic expression, +embodies the spirit of the epoch. This obscure but vigorous testimony +has its price, its significance, and its lesson. It comes to us from a +worthy ancestor. We do not know whether he lived long enough for a +chance of that promotion whose way was so arduous. He belongs to the +great array of the unknown—who are great, indeed, by the sum total of the +devoted effort put out, and the colossal scale of success attained by +their insatiable and steadfast ambition. We do not know his name; we +only know of him what is material for us to know—that he was never +backward on occasions of desperate service. We have this on the +authority of a distinguished seaman of Nelson’s time. Departing this +life as Admiral of the Fleet on the eve of the Crimean War, Sir Thomas +Byam Martin has recorded for us amongst his all too short +autobiographical notes these few characteristic words uttered by one +young man of the many who must have felt that particular inconvenience of +a heroic age. + +The distinguished Admiral had lived through it himself, and was a good +judge of what was expected in those days from men and ships. A brilliant +frigate captain, a man of sound judgment, of dashing bravery and of +serene mind, scrupulously concerned for the welfare and honour of the +navy, he missed a larger fame only by the chances of the service. We may +well quote on this day the words written of Nelson, in the decline of a +well-spent life, by Sir T. B. Martin, who died just fifty years ago on +the very anniversary of Trafalgar. + +“Nelson’s nobleness of mind was a prominent and beautiful part of his +character. His foibles—faults if you like—will never be dwelt upon in +any memorandum of mine,” he declares, and goes on—“he whose splendid and +matchless achievements will be remembered with admiration while there is +gratitude in the hearts of Britons, or while a ship floats upon the +ocean; he whose example on the breaking out of the war gave so chivalrous +an impulse to the younger men of the service that all rushed into rivalry +of daring which disdained every warning of prudence, and led to acts of +heroic enterprise which tended greatly to exalt the glory of our nation.” + +These are his words, and they are true. The dashing young frigate +captain, the man who in middle age was nothing loth to give chase +single-handed in his seventy-four to a whole fleet, the man of enterprise +and consummate judgment, the old Admiral of the Fleet, the good and +trusted servant of his country under two kings and a queen, had felt +correctly Nelson’s influence, and expressed himself with precision out of +the fulness of his seaman’s heart. + +“Exalted,” he wrote, not “augmented.” And therein his feeling and his +pen captured the very truth. Other men there were ready and able to add +to the treasure of victories the British navy has given to the nation. +It was the lot of Lord Nelson to exalt all this glory. Exalt! the word +seems to be created for the man. + + + + +XLVII. + + +The British navy may well have ceased to count its victories. It is rich +beyond the wildest dreams of success and fame. It may well, rather, on a +culminating day of its history, cast about for the memory of some +reverses to appease the jealous fates which attend the prosperity and +triumphs of a nation. It holds, indeed, the heaviest inheritance that +has ever been entrusted to the courage and fidelity of armed men. + +It is too great for mere pride. It should make the seamen of to-day +humble in the secret of their hearts, and indomitable in their unspoken +resolution. In all the records of history there has never been a time +when a victorious fortune has been so faithful to men making war upon the +sea. And it must be confessed that on their part they knew how to be +faithful to their victorious fortune. They were exalted. They were +always watching for her smile; night or day, fair weather or foul, they +waited for her slightest sign with the offering of their stout hearts in +their hands. And for the inspiration of this high constancy they were +indebted to Lord Nelson alone. Whatever earthly affection he abandoned +or grasped, the great Admiral was always, before all, beyond all, a lover +of Fame. He loved her jealously, with an inextinguishable ardour and an +insatiable desire—he loved her with a masterful devotion and an infinite +trustfulness. In the plenitude of his passion he was an exacting lover. +And she never betrayed the greatness of his trust! She attended him to +the end of his life, and he died pressing her last gift (nineteen prizes) +to his heart. “Anchor, Hardy—anchor!” was as much the cry of an ardent +lover as of a consummate seaman. Thus he would hug to his breast the +last gift of Fame. + +It was this ardour which made him great. He was a flaming example to the +wooers of glorious fortune. There have been great officers before—Lord +Hood, for instance, whom he himself regarded as the greatest sea officer +England ever had. A long succession of great commanders opened the sea +to the vast range of Nelson’s genius. His time had come; and, after the +great sea officers, the great naval tradition passed into the keeping of +a great man. Not the least glory of the navy is that it understood +Nelson. Lord Hood trusted him. Admiral Keith told him: “We can’t spare +you either as Captain or Admiral.” Earl St. Vincent put into his hands, +untrammelled by orders, a division of his fleet, and Sir Hyde Parker gave +him two more ships at Copenhagen than he had asked for. So much for the +chiefs; the rest of the navy surrendered to him their devoted affection, +trust, and admiration. In return he gave them no less than his own +exalted soul. He breathed into them his own ardour and his own ambition. +In a few short years he revolutionized, not the strategy or tactics of +sea-warfare, but the very conception of victory itself. And this is +genius. In that alone, through the fidelity of his fortune and the power +of his inspiration, he stands unique amongst the leaders of fleets and +sailors. He brought heroism into the line of duty. Verily he is a +terrible ancestor. + +And the men of his day loved him. They loved him not only as victorious +armies have loved great commanders; they loved him with a more intimate +feeling as one of themselves. In the words of a contemporary, he had “a +most happy way of gaining the affectionate respect of all who had the +felicity to serve under his command.” + +To be so great and to remain so accessible to the affection of one’s +fellow-men is the mark of exceptional humanity. Lord Nelson’s greatness +was very human. It had a moral basis; it needed to feel itself +surrounded by the warm devotion of a band of brothers. He was vain and +tender. The love and admiration which the navy gave him so unreservedly +soothed the restlessness of his professional pride. He trusted them as +much as they trusted him. He was a seaman of seamen. Sir T. B. Martin +states that he never conversed with any officer who had served under +Nelson “without hearing the heartiest expressions of attachment to his +person and admiration of his frank and conciliatory manner to his +subordinates.” And Sir Robert Stopford, who commanded one of the ships +with which Nelson chased to the West Indies a fleet nearly double in +number, says in a letter: “We are half-starved and otherwise +inconvenienced by being so long out of port, but our reward is that we +are with Nelson.” + +This heroic spirit of daring and endurance, in which all public and +private differences were sunk throughout the whole fleet, is Lord +Nelson’s great legacy, triply sealed by the victorious impress of the +Nile, Copenhagen, and Trafalgar. This is a legacy whose value the +changes of time cannot affect. The men and the ships he knew how to lead +lovingly to the work of courage and the reward of glory have passed away, +but Nelson’s uplifting touch remains in the standard of achievement he +has set for all time. The principles of strategy may be immutable. It +is certain they have been, and shall be again, disregarded from timidity, +from blindness, through infirmity of purpose. The tactics of great +captains on land and sea can be infinitely discussed. The first object +of tactics is to close with the adversary on terms of the greatest +possible advantage; yet no hard-and-fast rules can be drawn from +experience, for this capital reason, amongst others—that the quality of +the adversary is a variable element in the problem. The tactics of Lord +Nelson have been amply discussed, with much pride and some profit. And +yet, truly, they are already of but archaic interest. A very few years +more and the hazardous difficulties of handling a fleet under canvas +shall have passed beyond the conception of seamen who hold in trust for +their country Lord Nelson’s legacy of heroic spirit. The change in the +character of the ships is too great and too radical. It is good and +proper to study the acts of great men with thoughtful reverence, but +already the precise intention of Lord Nelson’s famous memorandum seems to +lie under that veil which Time throws over the clearest conceptions of +every great art. It must not be forgotten that this was the first time +when Nelson, commanding in chief, had his opponents under way—the first +time and the last. Had he lived, had there been other fleets left to +oppose him, we would, perhaps, have learned something more of his +greatness as a sea officer. Nothing could have been added to his +greatness as a leader. All that can be affirmed is, that on no other day +of his short and glorious career was Lord Nelson more splendidly true to +his genius and to his country’s fortune. + + + + +XLVIII. + + +And yet the fact remains that, had the wind failed and the fleet lost +steerage way, or, worse still, had it been taken aback from the eastward, +with its leaders within short range of the enemy’s guns, nothing, it +seems, could have saved the headmost ships from capture or destruction. +No skill of a great sea officer would have availed in such a contingency. +Lord Nelson was more than that, and his genius would have remained +undiminished by defeat. But obviously tactics, which are so much at the +mercy of irremediable accident, must seem to a modern seaman a poor +matter of study. The Commander-in-Chief in the great fleet action that +will take its place next to the Battle of Trafalgar in the history of the +British navy will have no such anxiety, and will feel the weight of no +such dependence. For a hundred years now no British fleet has engaged +the enemy in line of battle. A hundred years is a long time, but the +difference of modern conditions is enormous. The gulf is great. Had the +last great fight of the English navy been that of the First of June, for +instance, had there been no Nelson’s victories, it would have been +wellnigh impassable. The great Admiral’s slight and passion-worn figure +stands at the parting of the ways. He had the audacity of genius, and a +prophetic inspiration. + +The modern naval man must feel that the time has come for the tactical +practice of the great sea officers of the past to be laid by in the +temple of august memories. The fleet tactics of the sailing days have +been governed by two points: the deadly nature of a raking fire, and the +dread, natural to a commander dependent upon the winds, to find at some +crucial moment part of his fleet thrown hopelessly to leeward. These two +points were of the very essence of sailing tactics, and these two points +have been eliminated from the modern tactical problem by the changes of +propulsion and armament. Lord Nelson was the first to disregard them +with conviction and audacity sustained by an unbounded trust in the men +he led. This conviction, this audacity and this trust stand out from +amongst the lines of the celebrated memorandum, which is but a +declaration of his faith in a crushing superiority of fire as the only +means of victory and the only aim of sound tactics. Under the +difficulties of the then existing conditions he strove for that, and for +that alone, putting his faith into practice against every risk. And in +that exclusive faith Lord Nelson appears to us as the first of the +moderns. + +Against every risk, I have said; and the men of to-day, born and bred to +the use of steam, can hardly realize how much of that risk was in the +weather. Except at the Nile, where the conditions were ideal for +engaging a fleet moored in shallow water, Lord Nelson was not lucky in +his weather. Practically it was nothing but a quite unusual failure of +the wind which cost him his arm during the Teneriffe expedition. On +Trafalgar Day the weather was not so much unfavourable as extremely +dangerous. + +It was one of these covered days of fitful sunshine, of light, unsteady +winds, with a swell from the westward, and hazy in general, but with the +land about the Cape at times distinctly visible. It has been my lot to +look with reverence upon the very spot more than once, and for many hours +together. All but thirty years ago, certain exceptional circumstances +made me very familiar for a time with that bight in the Spanish coast +which would be enclosed within a straight line drawn from Faro to +Spartel. My well-remembered experience has convinced me that, in that +corner of the ocean, once the wind has got to the northward of west (as +it did on the 20th, taking the British fleet aback), appearances of +westerly weather go for nothing, and that it is infinitely more likely to +veer right round to the east than to shift back again. It was in those +conditions that, at seven on the morning of the 21st, the signal for the +fleet to bear up and steer east was made. Holding a clear recollection +of these languid easterly sighs rippling unexpectedly against the run of +the smooth swell, with no other warning than a ten-minutes’ calm and a +queer darkening of the coast-line, I cannot think, without a gasp of +professional awe, of that fateful moment. Perhaps personal experience, +at a time of life when responsibility had a special freshness and +importance, has induced me to exaggerate to myself the danger of the +weather. The great Admiral and good seaman could read aright the signs +of sea and sky, as his order to prepare to anchor at the end of the day +sufficiently proves; but, all the same, the mere idea of these baffling +easterly airs, coming on at any time within half an hour or so, after the +firing of the first shot, is enough to take one’s breath away, with the +image of the rearmost ships of both divisions falling off, unmanageable, +broadside on to the westerly swell, and of two British Admirals in +desperate jeopardy. To this day I cannot free myself from the impression +that, for some forty minutes, the fate of the great battle hung upon a +breath of wind such as I have felt stealing from behind, as it were, upon +my cheek while engaged in looking to the westward for the signs of the +true weather. + +Never more shall British seamen going into action have to trust the +success of their valour to a breath of wind. The God of gales and +battles favouring her arms to the last, has let the sun of England’s +sailing-fleet and of its greatest master set in unclouded glory. And now +the old ships and their men are gone; the new ships and the new men, many +of them bearing the old, auspicious names, have taken up their watch on +the stern and impartial sea, which offers no opportunities but to those +who know how to grasp them with a ready hand and an undaunted heart. + + + + +XLIX. + + +This the navy of the Twenty Years’ War knew well how to do, and never +better than when Lord Nelson had breathed into its soul his own passion +of honour and fame. It was a fortunate navy. Its victories were no mere +smashing of helpless ships and massacres of cowed men. It was spared +that cruel favour, for which no brave heart had ever prayed. It was +fortunate in its adversaries. I say adversaries, for on recalling such +proud memories we should avoid the word “enemies,” whose hostile sound +perpetuates the antagonisms and strife of nations, so irremediable +perhaps, so fateful—and also so vain. War is one of the gifts of life; +but, alas! no war appears so very necessary when time has laid its +soothing hand upon the passionate misunderstandings and the passionate +desires of great peoples. “Le temps,” as a distinguished Frenchman has +said, “est un galant homme.” He fosters the spirit of concord and +justice, in whose work there is as much glory to be reaped as in the +deeds of arms. + +One of them disorganized by revolutionary changes, the other rusted in +the neglect of a decayed monarchy, the two fleets opposed to us entered +the contest with odds against them from the first. By the merit of our +daring and our faithfulness, and the genius of a great leader, we have in +the course of the war augmented our advantage and kept it to the last. +But in the exulting illusion of irresistible might a long series of +military successes brings to a nation the less obvious aspect of such a +fortune may perchance be lost to view. The old navy in its last days +earned a fame that no belittling malevolence dare cavil at. And this +supreme favour they owe to their adversaries alone. + +Deprived by an ill-starred fortune of that self-confidence which +strengthens the hands of an armed host, impaired in skill but not in +courage, it may safely be said that our adversaries managed yet to make a +better fight of it in 1797 than they did in 1793. Later still, the +resistance offered at the Nile was all, and more than all, that could be +demanded from seamen, who, unless blind or without understanding, must +have seen their doom sealed from the moment that the _Goliath_, bearing +up under the bows of the _Guerrier_, took up an inshore berth. The +combined fleets of 1805, just come out of port, and attended by nothing +but the disturbing memories of reverses, presented to our approach a +determined front, on which Captain Blackwood, in a knightly spirit, +congratulated his Admiral. By the exertions of their valour our +adversaries have but added a greater lustre to our arms. No friend could +have done more, for even in war, which severs for a time all the +sentiments of human fellowship, this subtle bond of association remains +between brave men—that the final testimony to the value of victory must +be received at the hands of the vanquished. + +Those who from the heat of that battle sank together to their repose in +the cool depths of the ocean would not understand the watchwords of our +day, would gaze with amazed eyes at the engines of our strife. All +passes, all changes: the animosity of peoples, the handling of fleets, +the forms of ships; and even the sea itself seems to wear a different and +diminished aspect from the sea of Lord Nelson’s day. In this ceaseless +rush of shadows and shades, that, like the fantastic forms of clouds cast +darkly upon the waters on a windy day, fly past us to fall headlong below +the hard edge of an implacable horizon, we must turn to the national +spirit, which, superior in its force and continuity to good and evil +fortune, can alone give us the feeling of an enduring existence and of an +invincible power against the fates. + +Like a subtle and mysterious elixir poured into the perishable clay of +successive generations, it grows in truth, splendour, and potency with +the march of ages. In its incorruptible flow all round the globe of the +earth it preserves from the decay and forgetfulness of death the +greatness of our great men, and amongst them the passionate and gentle +greatness of Nelson, the nature of whose genius was, on the faith of a +brave seaman and distinguished Admiral, such as to “Exalt the glory of +our nation.” + + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MIRROR OF THE SEA*** + + +******* This file should be named 1058-0.txt or 1058-0.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/0/5/1058 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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