But the sea!

My friend asked me once, of the Mediterranean—Is it really blue? And I replied that I could give him no notion of the colour of it. And that is true. From the real “sea-green” of the shallow North Sea to the turquoise-blue of the Bay; from the grey-white rush of the Irish Sea to the clear-cut emerald of the Clyde Estuary; from the colourless, oily swell of the Equatorial Atlantic to the paraffin-hued rollers of the Tropic of Cancer, the sea varies as human nature itself. To the artist, I imagine, no two square miles are alike, no two sunsets, no two sunrises:

As I climbed the steep side of the almost-empty steamer, lying at the Tyne-main Buoys, a keen, alert, bearded face looked over the gunwale above me. I stepped aboard and spoke to the owner of this face. I said, “Is the Chief aboard?”

“He is not.”

“Is the Captain aboard?”

“He is not.”

“Then who is aboard?”

“The Mate’s aboard.”

“Are you the Mate?”

“I am that.”

“My name is McAlnwick. I am signing on with this steamer.”

“Ye’re welcome.” And we shook hands.

He is the very image of my old Headmaster, is this mate of the Benvenuto. The trim beard, the keen, blue, deep-set eyes, the smile—how often have I seen them from my vantage-point at the bottom of the Sixth Form! On his head is an old uniform cap with two gold bands and an obliterated badge. He wears a soiled mess-jacket with brass buttons in the breast-pocket of which I see the mouthpiece of a certain ivory-stemmed pipe. His hands are in his trouser pockets, and he turns from me to howl into the cavernous hold some directions to the cargo-men below. In the gathering gloom of a short January afternoon, with the rush and roar of the winches in my ears, I stumble aft to my quarters, thinking pleasantly of my first acquaintance.

And our friendship grows as we proceed. When we have slipped out of the Tyne one grey evening, when the lights of Shields and Sunderland die away, we are friends. For, as I prophesied, my whiskey would open hearts. It was on a cold, bleak morning, ere we left Newcastle, that I heard a stealthy step down the stairs to my room, and a husky whisper—had I a nip o’ whiskey? Yes, I had a nip. The bottle is opened, and I fill two glasses. Evidently the First Officer is no believer in dilution. With a hushed warning of “Ould Maun!” as a dull snoring comes through the partition, he tosses my whiskey “down his neck,” rubs his stomach, and vanishes like—like a spirit! Later in the day, as I stare across at some huge ships-of-war (for we are opposite Elswick now), I hear a voice, a hearty voice, at my elbow.

“Thank ye, Mister McAlnwick, for the whiskey. ’Twas good!”

I express my pleasure at hearing this. He touches me on the shoulder.

“Come down to me berth this evening,” he says, “an’ we’ll have a nip.” And I promise.

Perhaps it is the sensation of drinking whiskey with my Headmaster’s double, but I enjoy creeping down the companion-way to the Mate’s room. And I, being of the true line of descent, with my father held in memory still, am welcome. I am taken into this old sea-dog’s confidence, and we talk. I have learnt, I think, the delicate art of asking questions of the men who do the world’s work. Perhaps because I have dwelt so long with them, because I love them truly, they tell me the deep things of their lives. And so you must picture me in the Mate’s room, seated on his settee, while he loads my knees with photographs of his wife and children. This is Jack, son and heir, in his Boys’ Brigade uniform. He has a flute, too, which he “plays beautiful, Mr. McAlnwick—beautiful!” Then there is Madge, a sweet little English maid of fourteen, with a violin: “Her mother to the life.” “Dot” follows, with only her big six-year-old eyes looking out of curls which are golden. And the Baby on his mother’s knee—but I cannot describe babies. To me they are not beautiful creatures. They always seem to me, in photographs, to be stonily demanding why they have been born; and I, wretched man that I am, cannot answer them, for I do not know. Calypso, too, not “eternally aground on the Goodwin Sands of inconsolability,” interests me, in that I also was mothered of a sea-wife. A hard life, I imagine, a hard life. I find no delight in the sea in these mariners. “A Life on the Ocean Wave” was not written by one who earned his bread from port to port. My friend the Mate (he has gone on watch now, so I may speak freely) lives for the future. He holds a master’s ticket, yes; but commands do not come to all. He lives for the time when the insurance money falls in, when he will sit down in the little house in Penarth where the sun warms the creeper on the back-garden wall. He will keep chickens, and perhaps there will be a cucumber frame between the peas and the vegetable patch, and he will do a little gardening when the weather is fine, and smoke, and read the shipping news. “And there shall be no more sea.”

Not that I would give you to think that a Chief Officer’s life is one of toil. Indeed, on a steamship, while at sea, he has little to do. His “watch” is a sinecure save in thick weather, and is usually occupied by day with sundry odd jobs, by night with thoughts of home. In port he is busy like everybody else; but at sea, in fine weather, his greatest grievance is the short hours “off” and “on.” Our steamer carries but two deck officers, and these two keep alternate “watch and watch” throughout the twenty-four hours. This means that his watch below is all sleep. The Chief Officer comes off at eight p.m., say, washes himself, smokes a pipe, and “turns in.” At eleven-forty-five the sailor coming on watch at the wheel calls him, and he “turns out.” Nothing can equal the ghastly expression on the faces of men who have been torn from their sleep at an unnaturally premature hour. They move along the iron decks like ghosts, peering into one’s face like disembodied spirits seeking their corporeal correlatives, and avoiding stanchions, chains, and other pitfalls in an uncanny fashion. In the meantime, the Second Officer drifts “aft” to his bunk for another four-hour sleep. And so on, day after day, for weeks.

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