Читать книгу Titanic and Other Ships - Charles Herbert Lightoller - Страница 4

I don't think my relatives ever knew how amazed I was when I obtained their consent to go to sea. I chuckled at my good luck, as they no doubt chuckled at their good riddance.

I had long since made up my mind (or what, at the mature age of thirteen, I was pleased to call my mind) that I would go to sea. And to sea I went, knowing little and caring less about those prospective first few years of hellish servitude, during which experience must be gained-- experience that, like a corn, had to grow, become hardened, and most damnably hurt.

My Dad didn't enter into it, as he was settled in New Zealand, having seen the best days in cotton. In fact we had been "in cotton" for generations, and I had fully expected that I should have to "follow in father's footsteps."

For my part the "going to sea" was just a bluff, but it worked. I hear some say, to my sorrow. Not a bit of it. The sea is a hard, unrelenting mistress, always ready to whip up the fools (as I was soon to discover). She tried to drown me several times, yet I beat her; she nearly broke my neck on more than one occasion, but we still remain the best of friends, and I never regret that my bluff was called.

I had a distant relative, a one hundred per cent sailor to the tips of his stub-ended fingers, so I suppose it was only natural that my near relatives should start me off in his footsteps. The fact remains that I found myself a brass bound apprentice on board the famous Primrose Hill, a four-masted barque and three skysail-yarder.

It was not long before I learned exactly how to throw out my chest as I described my ship as a "three skysail-yarder." There weren't many of them about as most owners considered skysails more ornamental than useful.

If you had been near the half-deck door when one of the Mates sang out, "Now one of you youngsters, up and stop the main skysail buntlines," then you would have known just what we boys thought of them! The sole reason for their existence, in our opinion, lay in the fact that they formed a ready to hand punishment for first voyagers. But skysails undoubtedly did give that finishing touch to a ship with her towering piles of canvas rising, tier on tier, a full two hundred feet above the deck. Courses-- as the three big lower sails were called- lower and upper topsails, lower and upper t'gallant sails, royals, and finally, the boys' pet objection, those skysails. These were exactly forty-five feet from yard-arm to yard-arm, just half the length of the main yard; a perfect pocket handkerchief, but making for perfect symmetry, and taking away that chopped off look that either stump t'gallant masts, or even royals alone are apt to give. Our great objection to these sails was there was no way of getting up the final fifteen feet to this yard except by shinning up the back stays ( the mast being greased). As far as the royal yard the going was not so bad; one had the rigging and Jacob's Ladder. But swinging around on a wire backstay half way to heaven, may have some attraction, but also has its drawbacks, particularly when she was rolling heavily.

Having arrived at the summit of one's present ambition and standing there on the footrope of the skysailyard, looking down two hundred odd feet, always carried a thrill. To a first voyager it seemed inconceivable that such an almighty spread of canvas, as then lay below one, should not put that slight strip of deck on its beam ends.

In addition to the square sails, the Primrose Hill carried fifteen fore and aft sails, in the way of jibs, staysails, spanker and gaff topsail, each with the definite set purpose of passing its drive to that long, narrow hull. She was a great ship, and even in the days when a forest of masts was a common sight in dockland, the tapering spars of the old Primrose Hill always stood out like one of the tea clippers of old.

I know the skipper was a mighty proud man, and we boys almost reverenced him, pacing his lonely beat up and down that poop, lord of all he surveyed. His slightest word was law absolute and immutable. We thought that even such as we, might with luck, some day walk the poop with that deep sea roll. But that was too far in the dim distant future for boys of our age to consider seriously.

Fourteen years of age found me beating down the channel in the teeth of a Westerly gale. My first voyage, horribly seasick-- and sick of the sea. That seemingly objectless and eternal beat from side to side of the Channel, driving along with every stitch she would stand, trying to make to the westward. Once in the fog, we almost succeeded in running down the Royal Sovereign Lightship, and then on the other side, we got into a jam with the notorious Race of Alderney.

At long last, clear of the Chops of the Channel, we squared away to a fine Nor'-Nor'West breeze, and tore down through the Roaring Forties towards good old "flying fish" weather. Shirt and pants the order of the day, the ship heeling over with a bone in her teeth, ropes fore and aft cracking like a machine gun as they surged round the green-heart belaying pins. Day after day, and week after week, snoring along without touching halyard or sheet; bending fine weather sails, holystoning decks, scrubbing bright work and painting ship. Never a lazy moment aboard any sailing ship in fine weather, and the man with the forenoon or afternoon Trick at the wheel, is the man to be envied. At night it is the other way about, as the watch on deck can always find the soft side of a deck plank, for an hour's "caulk."

This was a new world to me, and the first time in my life that I had seen real sunshine. Steadily the mercury rose as it grew hotter and hotter, until the pitch boiled up out ot the seams in the deck, to stick to and blister our still tender feet. It brought other things also; not exactly out of the deck, but from below deck, in the shape of rats and cockroaches. Where they all came from goodness knows. We used to kill rats with belaying pins, and later even became expert in stamping on them with our bare feet! At night in our bunks, the little beasts would come and eat our toe-nails, and the hard flesh off the soles of our feet, and this without awakening us. We knew nothing about it until we got on deck and put our feet into some salt water. Then we knew!

Cockroaches near two inches long. These must have come aboard when she was loading somewhere out East. They had the same happy habit of browsing on our feet, although not quite to the same extent. For their benefit we kept a tin of very strong caustic soda and a small brush with a handle two feet long, and when they started to make themselves objectionable a dab with the brush settled their hash.

We were soon out of the Forties and into the Trades and it was here we were to see our first flying fish rising in shoals out of the water and flying anything up to a quarter of a mile. Some have a spread of 14-16 inches from tip to tip, and to watch them bank and skim the surface of the water makes it hard to believe they are fish at all. In fact, one can sympathise with the old lady whose son, returnng from his first voyage, was telling her yarns, true and stretched, and eventually told her about flying fish. She replied, "John, there may be mountains of sugar, and rivers of rum, but you can't tell me that fish fly!"

My life, in common with other first voyagers, was made a misery until I knew, not only every sail, but every rope used in furling, setting or trimming, and they average a round dozen per sail, in all well over five hundred. Even on pitch dark nights and in blinding rain, you must be able to put your hand on any individual rope, and the consequence of letting go the wrong one may be pretty disastrous to both the ship and the culprit.

The Third Mate is usually the boys' mentor, and hikes them away from their sky-larking in the second dog-watch, to learn the ropes--whence no doubt the saying originated. A second and third voyager, to say nothing of the salt-horse A.B. knows his ropes, and that almost by the feel. These are the men to rely upon when it comes to shortening down in bad weather.

With fine weather sails bent, and decks like snow we drew down the Line and into the region of Bonito, Dolphin, and Albacore. Always a keen fisherman, I was sure of a call if there were fish under the bows, watch on deck mustn't think of anything so frivolous, but someone always managed to sneak into the half-deck and give me a shout in hopes of fish for tea; a mighty welcome addition to the Liverpool pantiles and salt junk, if there should be any left over from dinner. Beautiful ships, but badly found.

With us boys, sneaking grub was no crime, it was a religion, and heaven help the chap that let a chance go by. This led some of us into queer scrapes, for cooks, and particularly stewards were all out to catch the hungry hound and haul him before the Captain. On one occasion we located some biscuits in a spare cabin, and I was told off for foraging. I got into the cabin and got the biscuits all right, but when I came to open the door which I had closed so that it couldn't slam with the roll of the ship, I found I had landed into a trap. The handle turned, but not the catch; that was the catch so to speak! I got the port open in hopes of scrambling out on to the cro' jack braces (ropes that were used to trim that yard) but when I did eventually get my head and one arm out, I found that not only could I get no further out but I could not get back, and I had horrible visions of them having to cut away part of my anatomy, or part of the ship. Anyhow there was nothing for it but to ignominiously call for help. I did get my head back, finally with the loss of a bit of scalp,--and though I succeeded in convincing the Second Mate, who rescued me, that I had walked in my sleep, it wouldn't go down with the Skipper. Six solid weeks of the night watch on sentry go, capstan bar on shoulder, and a six foot elm bar at that!

Another time we discovered a loose plank in the bulkhead of the lazarette, and, after some nights of hard work, gained through. The chap told off for the work, Austin, nicknamed Beaky on account of his nose, was a bit deaf. What he had to do was to get the grub (in this case onions, to put in our Cracker Hash) and climb up over the cargo until he came to No. 4 Booby Hatch, the doors of which opened right facing the half-deck door, inside which we were waiting. He came up all right, but just as he started to shy the onions across the intervening four feet of space between hatch and half deck, the Mate must come along, and, be it known, they were Cabin onions. We sang out cave! when we heard the Mate coming, but Beaky heard neither us nor the Mate, and continued to shy the onions. The Mate was bound through the four foot passage, and, as he turned the corner of the hatch, he stopped one! Stepping back, he viewed the procedure, no doubt inwardly amused at our frantic efforts to put Beaky wise. Beaky smiled serenely, and continued to shy the onions, all of which had to be duly returned, and, in their place we, once again, took what was coming to us.

However that was all in the day's work, and we would, and frequently did, risk our necks crawling along cro' jack braces to pinch a bit of pie or what not from the steward's pantry. Few boys that go to sea are born to be drowned.