Part 19

Such a vessel as this carried one huge sail bent to a yard resembling a gigantic fishing-rod whose butt when the sail was set came nearly down to the deck, while the tapering end soared many feet above the masthead. As it was the work of all hands to hoist it, and the operation took a long time, when once it was hoisted it was kept so if possible, and the nimble sailors with their almost prehensile toes climbed up the scanty rigging, and clinging to the yard gave the sail a bungling furl. The hull was just that of an exaggerated boat, sometimes undecked altogether, and sometimes covered in with loose planks, excepting a hut-like erection aft which was of a little more permanent character. Large oars were used in weather that admitted of this mode of propulsion, and the anchors were usually made of heavy forked pieces of wood, whereto big stones were lashed. There was a rudder, but no compass, so that the crossing of even so narrow a piece of water as separated Syria from Cyprus was quite a hazardous voyage. Tacking was unknown or almost so, and once the mariners got hold of the land they were so reluctant to lose sight of it that they heeded not how much time the voyage took or what distances they travelled.

The nameless ship of Adramyttium then at last ventured from Sidon and fetched Cyprus, sailing under its lee. How salt that word tastes, and what visions it opens up of these infant navigators creeping cautiously from point to point along that rugged coast, heeding not at all the unnecessary distance so long as they were sheltered from the stormy autumn weather. Another perilous voyage across “the sea which is off Cilicia and Pamphylia” (another purely maritime term) and the harbour of Myra was gained. Great were the rejoicings of the voyagers, but premature, for every day that passed brought them nearer to the time of tempest, and consequently of utmost danger. In fact the memorable voyage of St. Paul may be said to begin here. The crossing of the Great Sea had been accomplished without incident, although doubtless occupying so many days that the landsmen were by this time somewhat accustomed to the misery of life at sea in those days, when in coarse weather sea-sickness was one of the least of their woes.

The shipment by the centurion of his prisoners on board of the Alexandrian wheat-ship marked the commencement of a series of troubles. In the first place, for such a ship and such a voyage the number of people on board was far too great, even if we accept the lower estimate--seventy-six--which is placed on her complement by some ancient authorities. If she carried two hundred and seventy-six she must have been like an Arab dhow running a full cargo of slaves, and it is difficult to see how, even taking into consideration the way in which both mariners and passengers were inured to hardship, she could have carried them all through the wild weather and weary days following without some deaths. “And when we had sailed slowly many days” (what a world of suffering can be read into those few pathetic words), they fetched under the lee of Crete with all the thankfulness that might be expected from men who had been so pitilessly exposed to the fury of the open sea. With difficulty they crept along the coast until they got into the Fair Havens and refreshed their weary hearts.

No wonder they were reluctant to put again to sea, even though they knew that every day brought wilder weather, and their chance of wintering in their present harbour safely was poor, from its exposed position. And now we find St. Paul taking the risky step of advising seafarers as to the proper conduct of their own business--risky because while no man likes to be interfered with at his work by one whom he considers an outsider, sailors are perhaps more touchy upon this matter than most people. True, the science of navigation and seamanship was in its infancy, and no such gulf of knowledge separated landsmen from seamen in those days as existed afterwards, but one can easily picture the indignation of the commander of the ship (curiously enough here called the owner, the very same slang title given to the Captain of a man-of-war by his officers and crew to-day) when he heard this presumptuous passenger-prisoner thus daring to give his unasked advice. Besides, Paul’s motive for wishing to remain in port was one easily misconstrued.

Therefore the centurion’s refusal to listen to Paul’s suggestion was quite natural; nay, it was inevitable. Still, there was evidently no intention of persevering with the voyage upon getting under way, only of entering the nearest harbour that might afford sufficient shelter against the fury of the winter gales. With a gentle southerly breeze they left Fair Havens, and moved along the shore. But presently down from the Cretan mountains Euraquilo came rushing, the furious Levanter, which is not surpassed in the world for ferocity, hurling their helpless cockle-shell off shore. Their fear of the storm was far greater than their fear of the land, for unlike the sailors of to-day, to whom the vicinity of land in a gale is far more dreaded than the gale itself, they hugged the small island, Clauda, and succeeded in their favourite manœuvre, that of getting under the lee of the land once more. It was high time. The buffeting of the ship had weakened her to such an extent that she must have threatened to fall asunder, since they were driven actually to “frap” her together, that is, bind their cable round and round her and heave it taut--a parlous state of things, but one to which sailors have often been brought with a crazy ship in a heavy gale.

In this dangerous state they feared the proximity of hungry rocks, but instead of reducing sail and endeavouring to get along in some definite direction, they lowered down the big yard and let the ship drive whithersoever she would. The storm continued, the poor, bandaged hull was leaking at every seam, a portion of the cargo, called by St. Paul by its true nautical name “freight,” was jettisoned. But that did not satisfy them, and they proceeded to the desperate extremity of casting overboard the “tackling,” the great sail and yard, and all movable gear from the upper works except the anchors.

Then in misery, with death yawning before them, already half drowned, foodless, and hopeless, they drifted for many days into the unknown void under that heavy-laden sky before the insatiable gale. In the midst of all this horror of great darkness, the dauntless prisoner comforted them, even while unable to forbear reminding them that had they listened to him, this misery would have been spared them. His personality never shone brighter than on this occasion; the little ascetic figure must have appeared Godlike to those poor, ignorant sufferers.

At the expiration of a fortnight, the sailors surmised that land was near, although it was midnight. How characteristic is that flash of insight into the sea-faring instinct, and how true! They sounded and got twenty fathoms, and in a little while found the water had shoaled to fifteen. Then they performed a piece of seamanship which may be continually seen in execution on the East African coast to-day--they let the anchors down to their full scope of cable and prayed for daylight. The Arabs do it in fair weather or foul--lower the sail, slack down the anchor, and go to sleep. She will bring up before she hits anything.

Unfortunately, space will not admit of further dealing with this great story of the sea, so familiar and yet so little understood. The sailors’ cowardly attempt at escape, the discipline of the soldiers foiling it, the arrangements for beaching her by the aid of what is here called a foresail, but was probably only a rag of sail rigged up temporarily to get the ship before the wind, and the escape of all as foretold by St. Paul, need much more space for dealing with than can be spared.

But the one thing which makes this story go to the heart of every seaman is its absolute fidelity to the facts of sea-life; its log-like accuracy of detail; its correct use of all nautical terms. In fact, some old seamen go so far as to aver that St. Paul, having kept an accurate record of the facts, got the captain of the ship to edit them for him, as in no other way could a landsman such as Paul was have obtained so seaman-like a grip of the story, both in detail and language.

_Note._--It will of course be noted that while the general opinion is in favour of assigning to Luke the authorship of the narrative commented upon above, I have credited Paul with it. I have my reasons, but because of controversy I refrain from stating them.

THE POLITY OF A BATTLESHIP

Among the many interesting features of life at sea, few afford studies more fruitful in valuable thought than the internal economy of that latest development of human ingenuity--a modern battleship. It is not by any means easy for a visitor from the shore, upon coming alongside one of these gigantic vessels, to realise its bulk; the first effect is one of disappointment. Everything on board is upon a scale so massive, while the limpid space whereon she floats is so capacious that the mind refuses to take in her majestic proportions. And a hurried scamper around the various points of chief interest on board leaves the mind like a palimpsest where one impression is superimposed upon another so swiftly that the general effect is but a blur and no detail is clear. Besides, in such a flying visit the guide naturally makes the most of those wonders with which he himself is associated in his official capacity, and thus the visitor is apt to get a very one-sided view of things. Again, in the course of a hurried visit in harbour the mind gets so clogged with wonders of machinery and design, that the human side, always apt to keep itself in the background, receives no portion of that attention which is its due. From all of which causes it naturally follows that the only way in which to obtain anything like a comprehensive notion of the polity of a battleship is to spend at least a month on board, both at sea and in harbour, and waste no opportunity of observation of every part of the ship’s daily life that may be presented. Such opportunities, naturally, fall to the lot of but few outside the Service, and from the well-known modesty of sailors, it is next to hopeless to expect them to enlighten the public upon the most interesting details of their daily lives.

The mere statement of the figures which belong to a modern battleship like the _Mars_, for instance, is apt to have a benumbing effect upon the mind. She displaces 14,900 tons at load draught, is 391 ft. long, 75 ft. wide, and nearly 50 ft. deep from the upper deck to the bottom. She is divided into 232 compartments by means of water-tight bulkheads, is protected by 1802 tons of armour, is lit by 900 electric lights, steams 16½ knots, carries 82 independent sets of engines, mounts 54 different cannon and 5 torpedo tubes, and is manned by 759 men.

Now it is only fair to say that such a hurried recapitulation of statistics like these gives no real hint as to the magnitude of the ship as she reveals herself to one after a few days’ intimate acquaintance. And that being so, what is to be said of the men, the population of this floating cosmos, the 759 British entities ruled over by the Captain with a completeness of knowledge and a freedom from difficulty that an Emperor might well envy? As in a town, we have here men of all sorts and professions, we find all manner of human interests cropping up here in times of leisure, and yet the whole company have one feeling, one interest in common--their ship, and through her their Navy.

First of all, of course, comes the Captain, who, in spite of the dignity and grandeur of his position, must at times feel very lonely. He lives in awful state, a sentry (of Marines) continually guarding his door, and although he does unbend at stated times as far as inviting a few officers to dine with him, or accepting the officers’ invitation to dine in the ward-room, this relaxation must not come too often. The Commander, who is the chief executive officer, is in a far better position as regards comfort. He comes between the Captain and the actual direction of affairs, he has a spacious cabin to himself, but he takes his meals at the ward-room table among all the officers above the rank of Sub-Lieutenant, and shares their merriment; the only subtle distinction made between him and everybody else at such times being in the little word “Sir,” which is dropped adroitly in when he is being addressed. For the rest, naval _nous_ is so keen that amidst the wildest fun when off duty no officer can feel that his dignity is tampered with, and they pass from sociability to cast-iron discipline and back again with an ease that is amazing to a landsman. The ward-room of a battleship is a pleasant place. It is a spacious apartment, taking in the whole width of the ship, handsomely decorated, and lit by electricity. There is usually a piano, a good library, and some handsome plate for the table. It is available not only for meals, but as a drawing-room, a common meeting-ground for Lieutenants, Marine officers, surgeons, chaplain, and senior engineers, where they may unbend and exchange views, as well as enjoy one another’s society free from the grip of the collar. A little lower down in the scale of authority, as well as actually in the hull of the ship, comes the gun-room, the affix being a survival, and having no actual significance now. In this respect both ward-room and gun-room have the advantage over the Captain’s cabin, in which there are a couple of quick-firing guns, causing those sacred precincts to be invaded by a small host of men at “general quarters,” who manipulate those guns as if they were on deck. The gun-room is the ward-room over again, only more so--that is, more wildly hilarious, more given to outbursts of melody and rough play. Here meet the Sub-Lieutenants, the assistant-engineers and other junior officers, _and_ the midshipmen. With these latter Admirals in embryo we find a state of things existing that is of the highest service to them in after life. Taking their meals as gentlemen, with a senior at the head of the table, meeting round that same table at other times for social enjoyment, once they are outside of the gun-room door they have no more privacy than the humblest bluejacket. They sleep and dress and bathe--live, in fact--_coram publico_, which is one of the healthiest things, when you come to think of it, for a youngster of any class. Although they are now officers in H.M. Navy, they are still schoolboys, and their education goes steadily on at stated hours in a well-appointed schoolroom, keeping pace with that sterner training they are receiving on deck. The most grizzled old seaman on board must “Sir” them, but there are plenty of correctives all around to hinder the growth in them of any false pride.

On the same deck is to be found the common room of the warrant officers, such as bo’sun, carpenter, gunner; those sages who have worked their difficult way up from the bottom of the sailor’s ladder through all the grades, and are, with the petty officers, the mainstay of the service. Each of them has a cabin of his own, as is only fitting; but _here_ they meet as do their superiors overhead, and air their opinions freely. But, like the ward-room officers, they mostly talk “shop,” for they have only one great object in life, the efficiency of their charge, and it leaves them little room for any other topics. Around this, the after part of the ship, cluster also another little body of men and lads, the domestics, as they are termed, who do their duty of attendance upon officers and waiting at table under all circumstances with that neatness and celerity that is inseparable from all work performed in a ship-of-war. Body-servants of officers are usually Marines, but the domestics are a class apart, strictly non-combatant, yet under naval law and discipline. Going “forrard,” the chief petty officers will be found to make some attempt at shutting themselves apart from the general, by arrangements of curtains, &c., all liable and ready to be flung into oblivion at the first note of a bugle. For the rest, their lives are absolutely public. No one has a corner that he may call his own, unless perhaps it is his “ditty box,” that little case of needles, thread, and etceteras that he needs so often, and is therefore allowed to keep on a shelf near the spot where he eats. Each man’s clothes are kept in a bag, which has its allotted place in a rack, far away from the spot where his hammock and bed are spirited off to every morning at 5 A.M., to lie concealed until the pipe “down hammocks” at night. And yet by the arrangement of “messes” each man has, in common with a few others, a settled spot where they meet at a common table, even though it be not shut in, and is liable to sudden disappearance during an evolution. So that a man’s mess becomes his rallying-point; it is there that the young bluejacket or Marine learns worldly wisdom, and many other things. The practice of keeping all bedding on the move as it were, having no permanent sleeping-places, requires getting used to, but it is a most healthy one, and even if it were not it is difficult to see how, within the limited space of a warship, any other arrangement would be possible. Order among belongings is kept by a carefully graduated system of fines payable in soap--any article found astray by the ever-watchful naval police being immediately impounded and held to ransom. And as every man’s kit is subject to a periodical overhaul by officers any deficiency cannot escape notice.

Every man’s time is at the disposal of the Service whenever it is wanted, but in practice much leisure is allowed for rest, recreation, and mental improvement. Physical development is fully looked after by the rules of the Service, but all are encouraged to make the best of themselves, and no efforts on the part of any man to better his position are made in vain. Nowhere, perhaps, is vice punished or virtue rewarded with greater promptitude, and since all punishments and rewards are fully public, the lessons they convey are never lost. But apart from the Service routine, the civil life of this little world is a curious and most interesting study. The industrious man who, having bought a sewing-machine, earns substantial addition to his pay by making every item of his less energetic messmates’ clothes (except boots) for a consideration, the far-seeing man who makes his leisure fit him for the time when he shall have left the Navy, the active temperance man who seeks to bring one after the other of his shipmates into line with the ever-growing body of teetotalers that are fast altering completely the moral condition of our sailors, the religious man who gets permission to hold his prayer-meeting in some torpedo-flat or casemate surrounded by lethal weapons--all these go to make up the multifarious life of a big battleship.

And not the least strange to an outsider is the way in which all these various private pursuits and varied industries are carried on in complete independence of each other, often in complete ignorance of what is going on in other parts of the ship. News flies quickly, of course, but since every man has his part in the ship’s economy allotted to him, it naturally follows that he declines to bother his head about what the other fellows are doing. Sufficient for him that his particular item is to hand when required, and that he does it as well and as swiftly as he is able. If he be slack or uninterested in what concerns himself many influences are brought to bear upon him. First his messmates, then his petty officer, and so on right up to the Captain. And through all he is made to feel that his _laches_ affects first the smartness of his ship, then the reputation of the great British Navy. So the naval spirit is fostered, so the glorious traditions are kept up, and it continues to be the fact that the slackest mobilised ship we can send to sea is able to show any foreign vessel-of-war a lesson in smartness that they none of them are able to learn. And in the naval battle of the future it will be the few minutes quicker that will win.

THE PRIVACY OF THE SEA

Whether expressed or implied, there is certainly a deep-rooted idea in the minds of shore-dwellers that the vast fenceless fields of ocean are in these latter days well, not to say thickly, populated by ships; that, sail or steam whither you will, you cannot get away from the white glint of a sailing ship or the black smear along the clean sky of a steamship’s smoke. There is every excuse for such an attitude of mind on the part of landward folk. Having no standard of comparison against which to range the vast lonely breadths of water which make up the universal highway, and being mightily impressed by the statistics of shipping owned by maritime nations, they can hardly be blamed for supposing that the privacy of the sea is a thing of the past. One voyage in a sailing ship to the Australasian Colonies or to India, if the opportunities it afforded were rightly used, would do far more to convince them of the utterly wrong notion possessing them than any quantity of writing upon the subject could effect. But unhappily, few people to-day have the leisure or the inclination to spend voluntarily three months upon a sea passage that can be performed in little more than one. Even those, who by reason of poverty or for their health’s sake do take such passages, almost invariably show signs of utter weariness and boredom. As day after day passes, and the beautiful fabric in which they live glides gently and leisurely forward, their impatience grows until in some it almost amounts to a disease. This condition of mind is not favourable, to say the least, to a calm study of the characteristic features of ocean itself. Few indeed are the passengers, and fewer still are the sailors who will for the delight of the thing spend hour after hour perched upon some commanding point in wide-eyed, sight-strengthening gaze out upon the face of the sea.

Upon those who do there grows steadily a sense of the most complete privacy, a solemn aloofness belonging to the seas. The infrequent vessel, gentle though her progress may be through the calm waters of the tropics, still strikes them as an intruder upon this realm of silence and loneliness. The voices of the crew grate harshly upon the ear as with a sense of desecration such as one feels upon hearing loud conversation in the sacred peace of some huge cathedral. And when a vessel heaves in sight, a tiny mark against the skyline, she but punctuates the loneliness, as it were--affords a point from which the eye can faintly calculate the immensity of her surroundings.