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Acorn Archive
Hearts of Oak
Captain J L Vivian Millett
Part 10
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We
finished discharging, and the owners gave me a pilot to proceed to South
Shields, where the crew were paid off. The majority signed on again, amongst
them being two Shields firemen who were, without exception, the best men at
their work at sea, but the most notorious of hard cases in port. As chief
officer I had had to discipline them several times. I still remember their
names and can see them in my mind's eye. One was called Dyas and the other one
Egan, and when I was signing them on the shipping-master asked me how it was
possible for me to be willing to take them, when it was notorious that they
were such hard cases that they were never able to stay in a ship more than one
voyage, the whole of the ship's crew from the captain downwards being only too
glad to be rid of them. However, I knew what I was about, and that they did
their work well at sea, and if they gave any trouble in port I was well able to
deal with them.
We
loaded coal for the Admiralty, and, in due course, we were ready to proceed to
sea. I had engaged a chief officer called Fox, and an elderly man, with coal
black hair, moustache and side whiskers, for second officer. He looked an
active middle-aged man, but by the time we had got into the Bay of Biscay the
dye washed off his hair and revealed him as a very old, white-headed, and
white-whiskered man, much to the amazement, not to say amusement, of
everybody aboard the ship.
The
pilot came aboard to move us out of the dock, and a number of friends of the
sailors were down saying good-bye. Just as the ropes were being let go Dyas and
Egan clambered down the wharf in their usual "leaving port"
condition, fighting drunk. When they got on deck, I, being on the bridge,
noticed that each of them had a bottle in his pocket. Without thinking what I
was doing I jumped off the bridge and ordered them to give them to me. They
very resentfully handed them over, and with murder in their eyes watched me
throw them overboard. I expected the affair to end up in a scrap, and so did
everybody else, but they thought better of it and staggered forward, whereupon
all their friends on shore yelled out, "Well done, skipper". I
suppose I had their sympathy because I had no hair on my face and looked much
younger than I was, and it appeared to onlookers to be a risky thing for a
young fellow to have tackled two such obviously hard cases.
The
owners gave me a North Sea pilot as far as Dover, so I left the navigation down
the coast to him, and, as we were making Dover at four o'clock in the morning, I
lay down in the chart-room that night. I remember wondering as I went to sleep
what on earth I should do when the pilot left and I should be in sole command.
As a matter of fact, I got the wind up badly and dreaded his leaving. However,
at four o'clock, when I was called, I went up on the bridge. He said good-bye
to me, and it was with a sinking in my heart when, by the light of a hurricane
lamp hung over the side, I saw him going down the ladder into the boat and
realized that I had to depend upon myself. Strangely enough, when the pilot
yelled out good-bye from the boat, I turned round to the officer on the bridge
with me and told him to put the engines full speed ahead, and as I set the
course down Channel, felt as if I had been in command for a hundred years.
We were
bound to Malta, and all went well on the trip with the exception of the steam
steering-gear constantly breaking down, necessitating the ship being steered by
hand most of the time. She was a beast to steer at any time, and so steering by
hand was mighty hard work on the poor devil at the wheel. It was a proud man I
was when we made Malta and I went on shore for the first time in a foreign port
as master of a ship. The Admiralty were in a great hurry for the cargo, so we
were completely discharged in three days from the time of arrival; and as the
last basket of coal went over the side I had everything, including the pilot,
ready to proceed to sea. To my disgust, however, I found that Dyas and Egan
were missing, but on blowing the steam whistle I saw them hurriedly leaving the
pub on shore to come aboard the ship. I was jumping mad and went to the gangway
to receive them, threatening all manner of things which I do not think for one
moment I could have done, but they in their ignorance thought I could. They
slunk forward, and as soon as we got to sea I had them brought aft, and, with
the power that shipmasters had in those days, fined them a fortnight's pay each
for being ashore without leave, but, at the same time, told them that if they
behaved themselves I would ask the Board of Trade to remit the fine.
We
passed through the Straits of Messina and up the Grecian Archipelago, and I
safely navigated the ship through the Dardanelles and arrived at
Constantinople, where, of course, we had to take a pilot through the Bosphorus.
We made a record trip from Malta to Constantinople. Although the ship would not
steam more than eight knots an hour when loaded, she was so fine lined in
ballast that she averaged thirteen and one-quarter knots all the way. Of course
we passed every ship. When we were clear of the Bosphorus the engineer opened
her out and we did nearly fourteen knots all the way to Odessa, where, on
nearing the breakwater, I received orders to proceed to Sebastopol. We drove
her again as hard as we could, and on arrival there, the same night, we
proceeded at once to our loading-berth, as the merchants were in a hurry for
the ship.
Two days
after that we left to complete our cargo at Odessa, where the merchants again
used every dispatch in completing our loading, which was effected in another
two days, and we sailed for London, arriving there without incident, save the
usual breaking down of the steam steering-gear, in forty-eight days from the
time we left Shields. The owners had always regarded the S.S. BRACADAILE as an
absolute white elephant, and were agreeably surprised at her making what was
then, and is perhaps now (even for smarter ships), a record round trip. A
master's reputation is often made or marred by his first trip in command; but,
in my case, the owners thought a great deal more of me than I did of myself,
for I knew that I had had the most phenomenal luck with the ship, and that the
record trip was not due to anything else. However, they gave me an increase of
wages (they were so pleased), and on completion of discharge I received orders
to load from Cardiff for Genoa.
When we
dropped the pilot at Dover it was beginning to blow hard from the westward, and
shortly after passing Dungeness the ship, which was flying light, refused to
stand up to the wind, and, in fact, one gust nearly turned her round
despite
the fact that we were going full speed ahead. As the glass was falling, I
turned round and ran back, and anchoring behind Dungeness, lay there quietly
all night. The next morning, although I did not like the look of the sunrise,
which was a most brilliant and streaky red, lie wind had moderated so much that
I resolved to proceed.
All went
well until we were off the Owers lightship, when the gale came on worse than
ever, and the ship refused to steam against it. I resolved to run back to
Dungeness, but, on arrival there, finding so many ships sheltering, I decided
to continue to the Downs. The tide was on the flood and running strong, aided
by the force of the wind, so I took a big sweep to come up to the wind and tide
before dropping anchor. Just as I was on the point of doing so, the
cross-channel boat, which had been sheltering, suddenly steamed across my bow,
and in order to avoid collision I had to drop my anchor, with the result that,
before I was able to steam up to overcome the strength of the tide and wind the
whole of the chain on the anchor I had let go ran out of the hawse-pipe,
despite our attempts to check it with the compresser. I dropped the other
anchor immediately and brought the ship up ; but as the gale continued to
freshen, I found it was necessary to go half-speed ahead on my engines, and
even then the ship was surging many points each way. However, we rode the gale
out, and next morning, as the weather had moderated, I hoisted the flag for the
Deal boatmen to come off, in order to take me on shore to communicate with my
owners.
There
were no telephones in those days, and I , had to telegraph. While waiting for
the answer, I invited the crew of the Deal boat to join me at a small
"pub" and we all had a merry time spinning yarns. The Deal boatmen in
those days were, without exception, the finest and most fearless men that could
be found anywhere in the world, and one of the best examples I ever saw was the
owner and boss of the boat who was attending to me. He was a man about fifty
years of age, bearded, splendidly made, and looked as if he had no fear in his
composition, and I can see him now leaning up against the mantelpiece of the
little bar parlour joining in the banter of the other men against the youngest
member of the boat's crew, who was about twenty years of age, and apparently
had just got engaged. One of the men had said to him "When are you going
to get married, Jim?" To which he answered "Don't know". Another
man said "Has the girl got any money?" and Jim said "No"
blushing furiously; whereupon the old owner of the boat said "Don't you
ever marry for money, Jim. When I married my old woman I had twenty-five bob in
my pocket and she had forty-nine, and she has never done talking about it
since".
Presently
the answer came back from the owners to abandon my anchor and chain and proceed
to Cardiff. I was taken back on board my steamer, and we proceeded; but all this
running back had consumed coal, so I had to put in to Dartmouth to replenish
bunkers. The Board of Trade authorities there wanted to detain the ship until I
had procured another anchor, but eventually allowed me to sail without it, to
my great relief, as I had already been far too long on the passage.
However,
ill luck still kept with me, for that night a thick fog came on, and in the
early morning, when I knew I ought to be in the vicinity of the Wolf Rock
Lighthouse, the fog was so thick that it was impossible to see anything a
ship's length distant. We were going half speed, listening intently for the fog
signal, but strangely enough never heard it until we saw the loom of the
lighthouse not more than three hundred feet away. It was a lucky miss, but at
the same time it was a bit of luck my sighting it, as I was able to take my
departure and put my engines full speed ahead, and eventually got to Cardiff
without further trouble.
Dyas and
Egan begged me to take them again, so I did so; but the chief engineer had got
sick of nursing his old engines and constantly repairing the steam steering
gear, and the second engineer was promoted to chief. My chief officer remained
with me, but I engaged another second officer. Nothing of any interest occurred
on the trip. We discharged our cargo at Genoa, and proceeded in ballast for
Odessa.
It was
the month of January and bitterly cold in the Black Sea. On nearing Odessa we
found our way barred by a field of ice. I sent the chief officer up aloft to
see whether he could see the end of it, and although the horizon was clear he
said that the field stretched for miles and he could see no opening. I
therefore steamed cautiously up to the field and found that it was about
eighteen inches thick, so I came astern until I was a quarter of a mile off,
and then I put full speed ahead on the engines and drove as hard as I could
into the field. It was most interesting to watch the way that the ship
commenced to cut her way through, gradually losing speed as she did so, but before
actually doing so I came astern on my engines, backed down in the cutting that
I had made for a couple of hundred yards, and then put her full speed ahead
again and cut another stretch. I had a good old iron ship to handle, but if it
had been a modern steel one I would not have dared to use her as a battering
ram; none but an iron ship would have stood the strain. It took me six hours to
cut through the field, which I estimate was only a mile wide, and I got to the
mouth of Odessa Harbour at nine o'clock at night. The sea was calm and the
light of a brilliant full moon showed me that the harbour was full of ice. I
had had such a strain all day standing on the bridge in the bitter cold that,
knowing that I should not get a pilot, I proceeded to ram my way into the
harbour and cut myself a berth out of the ice. By great good luck I actually
managed to find myself eventually in a position that, next morning, the pilot
told me could not be improved upon for a berth while awaiting our turn to load.
When the
old Customs officer came on board and was going through the manifest he
suddenly looked up and remarked "How old are you, captain?" to which
I replied "How old do you think?" He said "Me no' know. Me look
at your head, me think you fifty. Me look at your face, me think you one
boy!" This was owing to my hair rapidly turning grey, not through worry or
anxiety or even early piety, as none of these things troubled me, but simply
because in my family it is hereditary to turn grey at the age of nineteen or
twenty. My father was perfectly white before he was forty, and so was I.
We took
in grain for Christiania, and I loaded her so deep that I could only carry
sufficient bunkers to take me from the Baltic to Dartmouth, where I called in
to replenish. It was the month of January. When we left Dartmouth we ran into a
hard southwest gale, which we carried right along to the Norwegian coast. I got
no sights, but was lucky enough after leaving the Goodwins to pick up a
light on
the Danish coast which gave me my position, and after running my distance by
dead reckoning I cautiously bore up to endeavour to make the land leading into
Christiania Sound. It was still blowing hard, with heavy rain and snow squalls,
and visibility was very poor. However, I kept going until I suddenly found
myself in a small bay with rocks on both sides, on which the sea was breaking.
I went astern in a hurry and luckily came across a fishing-boat, and, by means
of a Norwegian sailor we had aboard, learnt from the fishermen that we were in
a bay below that of the entrance to Christiania. It was a narrow escape of
going ashore, but my luck was still in the ascendant, and we eventually arrived
at Christiania, where I was greeted as being the youngest master of the biggest
ship that had been there up to that time.
In those
days Norway and Sweden were under the same Government, and my cousin, Tom
Mitchell, was consul-general of both countries. As soon as it was reported to
him that my steamer had arrived he sleighed down in state to call upon me.
Christiania
being a comparatively small place, the news soon got round, and everybody
thought that I must be a bit of a swell, for, much to my amusement, everybody
made a tremendous fuss of me when I went ashore. I was there for twelve days
and had a gorgeous time of it, but that is another story.
I got
orders to proceed to Shields to lay the steamer up, and when we left
Christiania we found that although it was the month of February the sea was
like a mill pond. I instructed the chief engineer to open her out for all she
was worth and see what she could do. She averaged thirteen and a half knots the
whole way across, and we arrived in Shields twenty-four hours before the marine
superintendent
expected us. We moored in Jarrow Slake, and I said "Good-bye" to the
old ship which had been such a white elephant to others, but had behaved so
well with me that my name was made with the owners.
Raymond
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