Читать книгу The Gifts of Frank Cobbold - Arthur W. Upfield - Страница 7

1.

Young Francis Cobbold joined the Ann Duthie during the slow transition of sail to steam in ocean transport. The Act of Parliament had recently been passed which created the Plimsoll Mark, defining the limit of loading any ship could take.

One day late in 1867, Mr Arthur Cobbold took his youngest son to the London Docks, probably in a growler carrying a heavy sea chest in addition to the two passengers. The sight of a forest of tall masts would not be strange to the boy, who was familiar with his grandfather's ships, but the sight of the Ann Duthie must have stirred his heart with admiration.

She was a lovely ship and brand-new. Her cargo was stowed and final preparations for the long maiden voyage were being rapidly completed. In the forecastle, the crew of fourteen able-bodied seamen were in several stages of intoxication, while on the deck the First Mate was roaring and ranting at everyone - his appearance and his expletives shocking and terrifying the new apprentice.

7. Model of the Ann Duthie

This latest addition to the famous Australian wool clippers weighed about 750 tons and, beside the captain and his three officers, it carried a bosun, a sailmaker and a carpenter, six apprentices, the fourteen seamen, two second-class passengers and about a dozen saloon passengers. She had been built by and was owned by Messrs Duthie of Aberdeen, Scotland - a well- reputed shipping firm who owned, among other ships, the well- known William Duthie, the John Duthie, the Abergeldie and the Cairnbulg.

Mr Cobbold and his son entered the maelstrom of activity and the cacophony of shouted orders on the deck of the Ann Duthie, and eventually reached Captain Birnie, who was engaged in the feverish business of getting his ship to sea and anxious to catch the tide.

"He is small and thin, but you will find him active," Mr Cobbold said to the captain when presenting his son.

Birnie was a man of light stature, with a straggling light- brown beard and cold penetrating grey eyes. He was quiet and efficient, cynical and sarcastic, and he eyed the boy up and down as a man might look over the points of a horse. Since he appeared to show no great interest in Francis Cobbold, father and son went forward on the deck among the crowd of riggers, the maze of ropes and tackle, and the seeming general confusion. During the short period of time at his disposal, the elder Cobbold earnestly talked with this son whom he had wished to keep at home and who had maintained a steady determination to go to sea.

Perhaps the boy did not hear all that his father had to say, for the first mate was addressing the riggers in lurid language, and someone troubled himself to apologise by saying: "That's only 'Dafty' Donaldson's gentle method of urging the workers to greater efforts."

As the old saying had it, Francis Cobbold had long insisted on making the bed on which he was to lie.

2.

A tug took the ship in tow till well beyond Dover and by this time a sufficient number of the hands had been sobered up to enable the mates to get some canvas on her.

The passage down the Channel was made in squally and cold weather, the crew grumbling and fumbling in their bemused mental condition and, after a short and sharp attack of seasickness, the youngest apprentice engaged in the general labour of working the ship. In the morning, after a deck watch spent during a wild and wet night, the muster of men called to the poop for a tot of rum included him. Looking down and observing the thin, shivering boy, the cynical captain shouted: "Rum! I think a coffin would fit you better!"

Not a very kindly man, he probably practised the use of sarcasm without finesse to hide an inferiority complex - he may well have been an embittered man, and certainly his judgement of the material placed in his hands was poor.

What youth, having gained his sea legs, would not delight in every hour of the beginning of such a voyage, experiencing the glow of ambition realised! The whine of the cold wind through the rigging, and the wash of water crashing against the clipper's dainty bows would be music in his ears, while the manner in which order and discipline evolved from chaos in just a few hours would be a revelation and a never-to-be-forgotten lesson.

Within the space of a few days three significant facts were impressed on the mind of this boy thrust into a rough, albeit new and romantic, world. The first was the quick acceptance of and obedience to every order; the second, that the officers and the crew were kindly men beneath their rough exterior; and the third was the terrible quality of the food served to both the apprentices and the men and the manner in which the food was eaten. And in those days, no ship could be sailed without orders expressed in fluent and excessively adjectival language.

'Dafty' Donaldson was then in the prime of life, with an erect posture and fine physique. A full black beard and bold brilliant eyes gave him the appearance of ferocity which went no deeper than his skin - or further down than his tongue. Appalled at first, young Cobbold quickly came to see that he was a dog who delighted to bark and seldom bit, and that the manner in which Donaldson carried out his job was entirely divorced from his natural disposition. Bred and reared in a hard school, the First Mate merely applied his experience to his trade of driving men and assisting to sail a ship. Though master of his trade, he was not mastered by it.

The second officer had learned his trade in a harder school. By sheer strength of mind and tenacity of purpose he had, as it were, crawled through the hawser pipe of a collier to reach the poop of a clipper. His junior was quite a young man, having but recently gained his second mate's ticket. He, too, was a sailor of the Second Mate's stamp.

Here then were young Cobbold's sea-going school masters: the Captain maintaining aloof isolation - an unknown ogre in a secluded cave, ruling the destinies of all on board the Ann Duthie through his officers. The three mates were like the school form masters, in much closer contact with the 'young varmints' who had to be kept subdued and made to learn their sea lessons.

The sailmaker and the carpenter had a much more familiar relationship with the six apprentices. Hard-bitten, yet kindly seamen, these two sub-officers were always ready with advice and encouragement; it is possible to imagine their benevolence, their patience, and their secret admiration of the 'young gentlemen', who in the future might well command their ships. Both were excellent specimens of the seafaring types existing in those days. 'Chips' was an Aberdonian, dour, deliberate and efficient, while 'Sails' hailed from Sweden, gloried in his trade, and was seldom seen on deck without his palm and needle and hardwood fid. He appears to have been a man possessed of common sense, for the first piece of advice offered to the youngest apprentice was: "The finest equipment a sailor can have is a sharp knife and a clear conscience."

The working conditions of the seamen of today do not bare comparison with those operating in the late 1860s other than for the purpose of contrast. Modern steamer sailors on the Australian coast in the 1920s have much to thank progress for: fourteen pounds a month and overtime; duty shifts of four hours on and eight off; no possibility of being summoned from their warm bunks to go aloft in the middle of icy and wind-tormented nights to spend hours reefing or stowing sails; and a menu which contains fresh meat and vegetables and even bacon and eggs for breakfast.

Among the crew of the Ann Duthie were men of a fine type. Some were studious and ambitious to become officers, and they had with them sextants and books on navigation. Not a few were hoary old salts whose life experience was bounded by long voyages, alternating with short and lurid periods spent in a mental haze of women and alcohol. Their meagre pay having been spent at the millionaire rate, it was then the cry of the boardinghouse keeper: "Get out Jack and let John come in, for I see you're outward bound!"

There was a small minority of the crew, half-starved wretches who spent most of the voyage malingering in their bunks. They could hardly be blamed for this, since on the outward run they were between the regular sailors and the passengers in that they were merely working their passages and received only one shilling a month. Their purpose was to reach Sydney, where they would be taken in charge by the boardinghouse keepers until a berth was obtained for them on a homeward bound wool ship on which their wages would be four pounds a month. When the chits had been paid to the boardinghouse keepers from this low wage, there was nothing much for them to draw on arrival at an English port.

Soon after clearing the Channel, one of these unfortunates seems to have made up his mind that he had reached the end of life's tether - or it may be that he had been shanghaied and could not contemplate the months of absence from England. Whatever the reason, he rushed suddenly out of the forecastle, looked round wildly, and then dashed to the bulwark over which he sprang into the sea.

The ship was hove to, but the man was indeed homeward bound.

3.

With the crew reduced to thirteen able seamen, some of whom in practice were distinctly unable, the Ann Duthie proceeded south to the Azores and into finer weather, her cargo of rails for the New South Wales railways keeping her well trimmed.

Young Cobbold quickly became accustomed to going aloft with his fellow apprentices to handle any one of three skysails or to assist the sailors working in the standing rigging or the three tall masts when manhandling the royals, the skysails, and in reefing and stowing the topsails or courses. They were never allowed to work on the jibs out on the jib boom, that being considered too dangerous for boys in training.

The run to the Cape of Good Hope was accomplished in favourable weather, and before this latitude was reached the youngest apprentice had fallen into his place on board the ship and was fast becoming seasoned in and by this environment. The only distasteful dish on life's otherwise delightful menu was the atrocious food served alike to the apprentices and the crew. They lived on hard salt junk one day, odoriferous pork and watery pea soup another day, and rice on Saturdays. They never saw fresh meat and vegetables, and instead of bread they received brick-hard biscuits made of bran and meal - often weevilly. There was water to drink, of course, but limited to three quarts, and an occasional tot of rum and more frequent issues of limejuice to defeat scurvy; hence the nickname of the sailing ships - hungry limejuicers.

The midship dock house was devoted to the cook's galley, aft of which on the port side were the cabins occupied by the sub-officers. The apprentices occupied two cabins on the starboard side - three to each cabin - and here the boys slept, ate and lived when off watch. At the head of each bunk hung the occupant's hook pot which was taken to the galley at meal times with a plate and brought back containing the same food served to the sailors, who took theirs away in a kid - a wooden tub.

For a while, the boys did fare better than the crew with the addition of the contents of hampers provided for them by knowing parents, but when the hampers gave out nimble minds sought other avenues of supply - and there was one in the lazarette.

The leading or senior apprentice was a young fellow named Bob and, although he'd never hesitate to fire the bullets he himself made, he was considered by authority to be too sophisticated to carry out a certain duty better suited for the youngest apprentices.

Every day, one of them had to visit the lazarette and there fill the bread barge for the crew - in other words, to fill a wooden box with the weevilly biscuits kept in several iron tanks. To reach the lazarette, the boy first had to enter the saloon at the break of the poop deck, pass through it to reach an alleyway on to which opened the cabins occupied by the officers and the Chief Steward. He then continued to the hatch which gave entry down into the lazarette at the stern of the ship. The lazarette did not contain only weevilly biscuits.

The layout and the nature of the stores were well known to the observant Bob. To the guileless apprentice appointed to visit the lazarette, he quickly described the opportunities waiting there for any sensible person.

"You will find yourself among cases and boxes of all description and of great variety," he was always careful to explain. "The cases are all marked 'For the Crew' and 'For the Passengers'. Those marked 'For the Crew' are, of course meant for us and, as the Chief Steward has a bad memory and often forgets to serve out the food contained in those cases, we are entitled to repair the omissions. You delve into some of them, and then the Chief Steward, who is really a decent old sort, will never experience poignant regret."

Young Cobbold set off on his first visit to the lazarette, a slight youth carrying the empty bread barge through the gauntlet of the passengers in the saloon, then slipping by the officers' cabins keyed up with excitement. Arriving in the lazarette, with haste and trembling he carried out Bob's careful instructions, delving into this case and that until a layer of 'luxuries' - tinned milk and jam, raisins and currants and bottled fruit - covered the bottom of the bread barge, and were then hidden beneath the quantity of biscuits.

The return journey was even more thrilling, and no gun or whiskey runner ever enjoyed the game of running contraband as the youngest apprentice on the Ann Duthie enjoyed bringing the bread barge from the lazarette, having to pass the open door of the Chief Steward's cabin, perhaps an officer, and then the passengers in the saloon.

Every crewman knew what was underneath the ration biscuits, and on the way to the forecastle the bread barge had to be halted at the dock house for removal of part of the contraband for the apprentices, the remainder going to the seamen. To their credit there was not one among them to give away the show. All honour to them, although it was honour among thieves.

Perhaps the Chief Steward was not so blind after all - he must have known the leakage at the end of every voyage when he checked the stores. Doubtless he chuckled every time a white- faced boy slipped by his open door with the laden bread barge, and possibly he was torn between the economy laid down by the owners and his naturally generous heart. Anyway, he never placed any restrictions or obstacle in the way of this 'luxury' running which, after all, could not be regarded as theft because the 'luxuries' rightly belonged to the crew.

Despite the unwholesome food, life at sea had a beneficial effect on the youngest apprentice. The winds and the sun, allied to the constant physical occupations, began to harden and toughen his body and, when the ship had passed the Cape of Good Hope and began its run down the Easting, his nerve and his courage were tested.

Though heavy following seas, raised by a succession of gales, assisted the ship on her way across the Southern Ocean, they made her steering more difficult than normal against the wind blowing from a few points ahead of either beam. The helmsman's task was therefore made more laborious, so young Cobbold was sent to assist him. Because of the experience gained on his father's yachts, he quickly became proficient at steering, or assisting to steer, an ocean-going ship, taking two-hour shifts at the lee wheel.

Day after day and all through the long nights, the high seas raced after the heavily-laden ship, hovering threateningly above the stern, then bending down to shoulder her forward on the surge as though impatient of her slow speed. Her decks were constantly boarded by tons of white water necessitating the rigging of a safety gangway from the break of the poop to the after end of the deck houses to which life lines were secured, and from the foreward end of the deck houses to the forecastle head. As much as possible of the running gear was removed from the often-submerged deck to the gangways fore and aft of the deck houses, as well as to the higher elevated poop and forecastle head, and thus the crew were saved many a sousing as well as the hazard of being washed overboard. The doors of the cook's galley were battened fast and a square hatch cut in the roof, the cook having to climb a ladder to reach this unusual ingress.

This was not an easy school for any boy to attend.

It was the practice among the apprentices for those who spent the watch below to lend any article of apparel to a member of the watch on deck. Early one dirty night it began to blow harder than ever. Those boys and members of the crew taking the deck watch huddled into whatever shelter they might find, then were ordered aloft to reduce even further the canvas carried above the top gallant sails. Young Cobbold was directed to the foremast.

As has been stated, the Ann Duthie was a full rigged ship. Beside the usual square sails on each mast - the courses, the double topsails, topgallant sails and royals - she carried skysails above each of the royals, and hence she was known as a 'flash ship'. Whether or not the skysails were of any material assistance in driving her is problematical, but they certainly gave her a smart appearance and revealed in her captain what in modern parlance would be termed 'swank'.

Given a new ship, where the gear was not only new but stiff, and given a skipper anxious to show what he could do with her, every stitch of canvas she could carry was piled on, even up to the royals. About midnight on one pitch-dark night, when the violence of the gale was continually increasing, the Chief Officer warned the skipper, who reluctantly consented to allow the royals and the topgallant sails all to come in together. The order then was to let go the topgallant sails and royal halyards, get on to the clew lines, and go aloft; apprentices to the royals, able seamen to the topgallants, one man or boy to each sail. Away went young Cobbold up to the fore royal, Brown to the main royal, and Fraser to the mizzen. The boys were followed by the able seamen of the watch, who would stow the topgallant sails.

In the teeth of the hurricane wind, Cobbold was lying alone across the fore royal yard, maintaining the folds there by the weight of his body and the strength of his bleeding hands, and at times having to let go the canvas in order not to be pulled bodily across the yard. Suddenly, above the shrieking gale came the dreaded cry "Man overboard!"

The seaman working on the main topgallant yard underneath the apprentice Brown had heard his yell, and in the pitch darkness he had sensed that the boy on the royal yard above him had gone down to the sea.

All hands were ordered to the deck and the Captain sent was for. Birnie quickly appeared, to stand at the break of the poop looking up at the shivering sails. He was seen to shake his head. The carpenter was cutting loose and throwing overboard anything that would float.

The inexperienced boy and the unimaginative crew waited for the order to lower away a boat, unable to appreciate the distance that the ship had covered from the moment of the accident, and the impossibility of locating the sea's victim in the absolute darkness of the night, even had a boat been successfully launched.

The victim in this instance was the apprentice Brown, sent aloft to stow the main royal; and, picturing the unfortunate lad struggling in the wild waste of water far astern and frantically screaming for help, it was like a blow between the eyes to be ordered aloft again to complete the job of furling the sails, and to know that the ship was speeding on her way leaving the human flotsam to die, if death had not already claimed him.

Afterwards, the crew heatedly discussed what they considered was the Captain's callousness in making no effort in locating and rescuing the lad. However, in view of the darkness of the night, the running sea, the speed of the ship when the accident happened, the amount of canvas she was carrying at the time, and certainly the great risk in bring his ship about in such weather with the weak crew at his disposal, Birnie had no alternative but to act as he did. Even had he accepted the risk and endangered all the lives in his keeping, the odds of locating the lad, even if still alive, were ten thousand to one against.

For the first time in his short career, Francis Cobbold was brought face to face with life in the raw; perhaps also for the first time, he was made aware of both the cheapness and frailty of human life when one of the apprentices, on being aroused and told the news, sleepily said: "Why, Brown had on my sea boots!"

4.

The wild westerlies blew the Ann Duthie across the Southern Ocean to Australia in a quick passage averaging 300 miles a day - according to the cook who got it from the Captain's steward. Certainly the wind was favourable from the longitude of the Cape of Good Hope to the longitude of the Leauwin, south- western Western Australia.

Fremantle was then a small settlement maintained by the hated convict settlement system and for several years the eastern States had refused to have anything to do with these residents. The Ann Duthie did not call there, or at either Adelaide or Melbourne, and when she arrived off the Victorian coast fine weather was experienced all the way to Sydney, which was reached on the eighty-fourth day out from London.

Sailing up the harbour, when the wind was soft and off the land, the cries of cocks from the fowl runs were delightful to all hands. Entranced by the beauty of miniature promontories, islands and bays guarded from the Pacific by the frowning Heads, Francis Cobbold beheld the youthful city and its surrounding hills covered with their natural bottle brush and fuchsias that, in the years to come, were to give place to the streets and houses.

Having to wait for an available berth at Circular Quay, the anchor was dropped in the harbour and almost immediately the ship was blessed by the arrival of the meat boat, which also brought fresh vegetables and potatoes. Passengers were eagerly looking forward to the promise of this beautiful land after the long and arduous voyage; the apprentices were high-spirited and boisterous; and the 'round-trippers' of the crew were estimating the amount of money due to them and looking forward to a short burst of a full life in the company of harpies and perfumed with strong drink. Only the poor shilling-a-month sailors who had come all the way from England for the privilege of working a wool ship home were not exactly overjoyed by this landing. Immediately the ship was berthed, they were paid off with less than three shillings each, submissively to approach the boardinghouse keepers for food and shelter until a ship could be found when they would have to seek an advance with which to recoup their hosts.

After the more fortunate sailors had been discharged, the work of unloading the ship began, and continued in the leisurely fashion of the day when harbour charges were more sanely reasonable. The Colony's wool was then loaded into the empty ship, the loading done even more leisurely, as at that time there were just a few waterfront warehouses and much time was spent in waiting for the arrival of the many consignments.

Altogether, the Ann Duthie was in Sydney for three months, and if the time passed slowly for the Captain and the Chief Steward - with their visions of irate owners to whom economy was almost religion - the weeks passed pleasantly enough for young Cobbold and his fellow apprentices.

They all had a little money entrusted to the Captain by their parents, and this was doled out to them as pocket money. The meagre income was augmented by the sale of excess clothing to a Johnny Allsorts, who would purchase anything from the ship's cat to the lead off her keel and who was no doubt eager with advice regarding the expenditure of the money he paid over.

Naturally, now that they were in port none of the youngsters thought to do his own washing, and a source of expense lay in connection with this hated task, which was given to an old lady who visited the ship. She was a shrewd businesswoman, and evidently a student of psychology in her humble way, for on every visit she took with her articles and delicacies she knew would be appreciated - and willingly paid for.

The berthed Ann Duthie was at this time situated directly opposite the Paragon Hotel that still remains with no visible alterations to this day. About her were other famous ships: The Paramatta, frigate built, all her ports painted white; La Hogue, a similarly built ship; the smart Damascus and, in the harbour, the John Duthie of the same line as the Ann Duthie. The apprentices of both ships often visited each other.

8. The Paragon Hotel, Sydney

Although Francis Cobbold and his fellows had nothing to do with the actual loading of the ship, they were not allowed to be idle. They were kept employed by unbending and sending down the sails , overhauling the running gear, and washing down the deck at the end of each day. A favoured duty was that of night watchman when, after all the officers had come on board and retired, it was customary to curl up in the companion way and do the watching in their dreams.

Eventually the Ann Duthie sailed from Sydney and the days mounted into weeks, governed by the renewed routine of sea life aboard a clipper. The inevitable high seas and strong winds were encountered as the ship approached the Horn.

9. The Clipper Route followed by ships sailing between England and Australia/New Zealand

Each successive gale was more violent than the one before, and Francis Cobbold's earlier experience of the sea became as nothing to the roaring tempest which almost overwhelmed the ship when rounding the Horn. The darkness of the night hid the white, serrated summits of the mountainous waves, while above the deck the sails which could not be taken in were torn to ribbons and blown away one after another.

Night shut down on the ship like the lid of a box. The cacophonous elements took charge of the vessel wallowing in the troughs and shuddering on the heights. Out of the surrounding blackness, the white-capped walls of water sprang into ghostly visibility like the hands of demon spirits trying to pull the ship down to the bottom. In the saloon, the passengers held continuous service to God, beseeching his mercy and succour, some of them weeping, others terror-stricken and silent, a few courageous souls singing and praying and calmly prepared for death.

At the break of the poop stood the Captain, his white face surrounded by his wind-whipped whiskers and hair. The carpenter stood by, his hands clamped about the haft of his broad axe, waiting for the order to cut the lanyards that held the standing rigging of the foremast and thus let everything go.

All night long Birnie stood at his post, tensed and reluctant to give the order to Chips, delaying the decision until it should be inevitable. Many others in his position would have accepted defeat. When dawn came, however, the wind moderated and the grim captain had won. By then, the carpenter had waited through almost two watches for the order that was never given.

Afterwards, he told Cobbold that it was the worst storm he had ever experienced.

Expecting to encounter ice at any time, the reliable Swedish sailmaker was entrusted with the keeping of the forecastle head watch during the long and dark nights. His broad figure would be pressed into the lee bulwark, his keen eyes constantly trying to pierce the gloom out of which might spring the ghostly shape of an iceberg. Conscious of his responsibility, he was worthy of it.

One Sunday, when Francis Cobbold was about to go off watch, the weather was not particularly boisterous but a squall threatened and the Chief Officer sent the lad below to call the Captain. Birnie came on deck to look aloft, first at the sky and then at the full load of canvas that was driving the ship forward. In that instant, as though the sails were a passing cloud, the fore topmast and the fore top gallant mast and the main topmast all went overboard.

The watch below were called, and the men then had to slave all that day to cut away the gear, to let the spars drift clear of the ship and then recover them. Being the youngest person aboard, Cobbold was listed with the night watch over the deck, during which he had to strike the ship's bell every two hours and call the cook at five o'clock.

After this delay, affairs went well with the Ann Duthie until, shortly after having crossed the Line, a series of further squalls again brought down the repaired masts. Once again the crew had to slave for hours in cutting away the fouled gear and repairing the damage. From then on, the sea was kind to her and the weather remained fine. Off Dover, she was taken in tow in the company of the Donald McKay, a ship that had left Sydney the same day as the Ann Duthie.

Thus ended Francis Cobbold's first voyage. And for the crew it was the boardinghouse keeper's cry: "Come in John - let Jack get out, for I see you're homeward bound!"

10. Flyer advertising a voyage of the Ann Duthie from London to Sydney