SHIPS AND THE SEA

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 134, 3 December 1938, Page 25

SHIPS AND THE SEA

(By "Helmsman.")

Probably the most important day in any sailor* life is the first day he went to sea. Although in his many voyages to different lands and countries new impressions and sights wiU tend to crowd out the old ones, he will also retain the memory of his first sea trip as vividly as happenings on the day before A typical taJe of the experiences of a lad callow to the ways of ships and sea life is told by a writer in 'Sea Breezes'" and is one that could be retold by thousands.

'1 left Barrow for Liverpool around 1888." he says, "on a visit to my uncle who lived in Beaconsfield Street. f had been a great admirer of Clark Rus-

sell (and am yet), and am sure it was through his book that I tried my luck in sail. Well, my uncle knew quite a few influential folk in Liverpool, so one day (while in de Silva's) he met a friend who told him of a vacancy in a real Cape Homer for an appren* tice. I got the job and trotted my aunt around Liverpool looking for a sea-going outfitter; we ended up at Lewis's. How my heart thumped on entering those portals; I was measured for a uniform, gold buttons and braid, then the cap and badge, with the house flag on it, and S.W. and Son across the top, then the sea boots—tried them on, and trod around the shop assuming a deep-sea role; then . the oilskins (I can smell them now); dungarees, belt, and a real honest-to-goodness sheath knife.

"After everything was accounted for we spotted a chest, fit for a Cape Horn sailor, ditty box and all. Then came the sea bag—what a' wonderful assortment those bags held.

i "I could hardly wait to get my sailing orders. Then came the news— Chepica docked, West Bute Docks, Cardiff, grain. Off I started, so excited that I o nearly forgot to bid my aunt good-bye. I arrived.; on-: board.in the early morning, cold arid: hungry, and made my way to the half-deck, pulled back the scuttle and looked down into total darkness. Putting my fyand to my mouth, I shouted "Ahoy below'; up came a voice, 'Ahoy the deck." 'New apprentice,' I returned.

"Suddenly, out of the gloom emerge^ a head, tousled and long.- As it emerged into the daylight it took the shape of a big North Country youngster. Rigging a tackle at the cathead, .1 watched him overhaul the falls, and then I hooked the falls to the land-lubber lashings on my heavily-laden sea chest, miserably praying that they would hold; they did. Taking me to the galley, he poured out from a tin kettle a fluid he named coffee into two dirty tin cups, threw in a spoonful of brown sugar; stirring it up. he finished it at a gulp. I stood with my cup untasted. 'What are you waiting for?" he asked. 'Milk,' quoth I; his laughter still rings in my ears.

"MY FIRST DAY AT SEA"

LANDMARK OF EVERY SAILOR

"Well, they started unloading, and Captain Hughes provided me with a broom to sweep up around the hatch coamings, which I started to do in my uniform. The skipper told me to furl it and put on my heavy-weather sails, much to my disgust. We lay there three weeks, and all the company I nad was an old watchman, who woke me up at all hours to gi. into the forepeak for coal for the galley fire, after which he would invite me into the galley and spin cht most awful blood-curdling tales >f the sea a youngster ever listened to

"I had to eat ashore, and along West Bute Road there were some queer-

looking dining-rooms, displaying tn their windows ancient-looking platters of roast beef, kippers, and tripe. Many a time 1 was on the point of bolting, when I thought of the comfortable home I had so- shortly Left. I even began to hate Clark Russell; the halfdeck had inhabitants strange to me. My donkey's breakfast became a refuge for those pests. The only portlight, gave little rays of much-needed light.' The table was sticky from the salt horse that had slid across its top. The mizzen mast came through the entrance and the sail' locker lay on the starboard side. Old sea boots peeped out from underneath the bunks, and, all in all, it was an awful place for a clean-living lad to live in.

"Many years afterwards, when a junior officer in the Clan Line, with the white tablecloth, Hindu boys behind your chairs, four and five courses, 4 o'clock tea and toast, room to yourself, I let my mind drift back to the cold, bare half-deck, and the scanty fare of dandy junk, hard tack, rice and currants, harriet lane, and lime juice, and, to top it all, one shilling a month, for what? —four-hour watches, keeping the binnacle light primmed,-calling the watches, holystoning decks, fair weather and foul, furling royals, coiling braces over the belaying pins, holding the log reel till the glass ran out; sculling the old man around on his jaunts ashore; keeping a weather eye on the pole compass, lending a hand on the patent cleaner, working the hand winches in port.

"All this, and more, for a sup of greasy soup, a hunk of pork, and a couple, of sinkers. No wonder you heard the oft-time lament, "Who would sell a farm and go to sea?" Yet, strange as it seems, those same men would be found around the shipping office just.as soon as their money was gone, which was not long, seeing that it was only £3 10s a month. A certain fascination seemed to draw them like a magnet back to the sea, and they would undertake again the hard, poorly-paid and dangerous life of the sailor on the ships that made history, from Drake, Cook, down to almost the present day."