IN PERIL ON THE SEA

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 768, 14 September 1929, Page 18

IN PERIL ON THE SEA

f Written for TUB SUIT) Mussolini said once that no indtilfeeace is more damaging to character than lying in bed when you know you ought to be up. Quite so, but like most of my fellows I had always preferred to take II Duce as read until . . . Chill daylight was breaking when slunk into Swansea docks. It was one of those cheerless mornings that only happen at the Bay of "Whales (vide Russell Owen, copyright New York Times) anywhere in Britain, or Sn midwinter Auckland. I had been ordered at 6.30 to turn to with a Scrubbing brush, but New Zealanders toot being equipped with that nice Sen«e of discipline so acutely developed in the Liverpool under-steward, J was at 6.45 still in situ. On deck outside our cabin, the barman’s and mine, the bos’n was issuing asthmatic exhortations to a bunch of sailors. A winch being warmed for the day’s work spluttered and rattled irritatingly. With a “Heave, O” and a “Once again, boys” the crew was raising a derrick. Then all at once there was a shout of warning followed by a shattering crash. Splintered fragments of the deck head fell about my bunk with showers of flaked enamel paint and caulking. Half a dozen Beared faces appeared at the cabin door. “Tackle broke and the derrick fell,” the bos’n apologised. As I reached for my scrubbing brush t felt a oneness with the sailor in Juvenal who believed himself . . . Removed from death By five, or maybe Seven fingers’ breadth. On thinking the incident over I liave concluded that Mussolini’s fight—he always is. I repeat I lived with the barman. Being senior in rank he had the top bunk. It seemed an anomaly and I asked why new hands were given what appeared the better position. It was surely a disadvantage having to climb six feet when one wanted to turn in. “New men get the bottom bunk because the fluff drops down from the higher one,” he said nonchalantly. “Another thing, when we have visitors you’ll find they will lie ull over your bunk and fill it with matches and ashes, whereas they can’t reach mine.” Time made it abundantly clear that Whatever my shipmate’s excesses might be, exaggeration was not one of them. Strange, but after the accident with the boom he made* overtures, without forcing the pace, for an exchange of bunks. He thought that as I had occupied the lower level for some months I might like the higher for a Bpeli. Oh, dear no, he wasn't afraid. Thought he would like to do the fair thing, that was all.

The barman continued his plea for b change-over, in desultory fashion, all round the English coast, but it was toot until we were a few days at sea that I saw daylight. The ship ran into dirty weather, and spray came ever our quarters. The top bunk began to be mysteriously damp and rheumaticky though mine continued fluffy—but dry. “Chippy” had made « bad job of restoring the roof, which leaked on to the barman’s blankets. My friend had soon to cover himself with a piece of tarpaulin, while I remained fluffy—but dry. Later, when spume was reinforced by torrential rain, he had to contrive h system of basins and jam tins all fixed absurdly to the cracks by nails and bits of string. On two occasions T remember hearing him muttering dismally and emptying the receptacles through the porthole at three o’clock in the morning, then getting under liis tarpaulin for an hour or two of grumbling coma. "When the ship had slogged out into the wastes of the Western Ocean we encountered the storm which sank the British freighter Antinoe, and life in the deck-house became intolerable. In parenthesis I remark that being barely 100 miles from the tortured vessel we intercepted her piteous S.O.S. and the story of the eleventh hour rescue of her company by the American liner, the President Roosevelt. That was a terrible night. Our old rattletrap, wallowing in seas the like of which must be seen that their Immensity may be appreciated, crawled on its belly like a wounded thing too wearied to fight for life. Nobody was allowed on deck except an occasional seaman, who, in treading the timbers, undertook a perilous duty. The deck-house being located on the weather side felt the weight of green seas and the door shuddered every now and then as the ivaters bore down upon it. We ought to have quitted days before, but hung on. Bravado? Certainly not. The barman, because he sensed a loss of mana by bunking with the stewards, and I because their “Glory Hole” was a disagreeable dive and communistic In its regard for private property.

But on that night of the Antinoe Pate forced submission. At midnight when they were changing the watch at the wheel the relieving quartermaster made a blunder and the old ship lurched into the weather. We heard a shout from the bridge above the shrieking of the tempest. A roar like a train entering a tunnel and the deck-house trembled under the impact of an Atlantic roller. The cabin was used also as the ship's office (I being writer as well as steward—made out the manifests, menu cards, and that sort of thing) and the disturbance outside flung a massive letter press, typewriter and everything moveable to the deck. At the same instant the door burst in and swept a great cascade. I can hear Joe now fumbling at a switch which gave no light, striking a match, and making throaty noises which betokened a vocal air-lock. I can see him paddling in a foot of water, pyjamas tucked to the knee, grabbing at shoes and socks and shore clothes and hair brushes, which eddied in a glorious swirl. Then as the ship heeled to 45 degrees and the water rose half-way up his thighs, to save himself from sitting in it he seized something, forgetting he had both hands full of articles, which he had to retrieve all over ngain. And his language—well, I feel Erich Maria Remarque missed a great opportunity. —' C.T.C.W.