Part 17

This was headed “_Elba_, brig,” and was a request to be allowed to thank Captain Jacob Backer, of the Norwegian barque _Sarpen_, for rescuing the eight men who signed the letter “from our water-logged vessel, when only 2 lbs. of putrid meat stood between us and starvation. He gave us food, clothing, medicine, and every attendance, and was most ably seconded by his kind-hearted crew; and in the seven days we were on board his vessel he made us in a great measure forget the privations we had undergone.”

The third extract was of a similar character, signed by three survivors of a crew of fourteen souls.

“Well, sir,” said the shipmaster, as I handed him back the third and last cutting, “what do you think of these documents?”

I replied that they were expressions of gratitude honourable to the saved and to the savers, and that it was a pity such illustrations of the humanity and gratitude of seamen did not obtain more publicity than was generally given them, as not only was there nothing nobler in the world than the marine stories which the letters he had given me to read touchingly testified to, but that the interest of the sailor could never be better served than by landsmen again and again dwelling upon the bitter perils of his vocation, and upon the scores of illustrations of the magnanimity and generosity of his simple heart.

My friend the shipmaster listened to me very attentively, as though I had given him a new view of the subject; but, shaking his head suddenly, as if to clear his mind of all matter that was not in it before, he said, “Ay, it may be as you observe, and I’m not the man to tell you that sailors are likely to get more than what they ought to want. The point’s this: If it’s a beautiful thing to read such pieces of gratitude as these documents contain, how much more beautiful would the reading of them be if it was to be known what impediments, that have grown up like mangrove bushes from the lack of a proper Christian civilization to cut ’em down, a ship’s captain has to contend with in order to gratify his instincts as a man of feeling and compassion. It’s all very well,” said he, striking a match and holding a flame in the hollow of his hand as though a stiff breeze were blowing, “for landsmen to read those letters of thanks and to feel touched, and to talk of the generosity of sailors and the like. Why--since the laws which govern folks are made ashore, and not at sea--why, after they’ve done wiping their eyes over the humble thanks poor sailors give to them who save their lives, don’t they turn to and give a hand to the cause of humanity on the ocean by letting captains know that the laws of the British nation, anyway--leaving other countries out--will never let a man who does a noble act suffer for it as much, ay, and sometimes more than if he did a wrong? You hear of ships passing vessels in distress--taking no notice--pushing on, as if in a hurry to get out of sight. There is nothing in the marine reports which set my teeth more on edge than those yarns--nothing! But I’m master of a ship; I know the duties and responsibilities of that position. I’ve tried to do good, have hauled some fellow-mortals out of the very jaws of death, and have been so made to suffer for my humanity that when I think of it there comes into my mind a bitterness that makes me curse the ill-luck which drove me into the track of the sinking ship and her perishing crew. These are strong words, but if I don’t justify them you shall force me to eat ’em. Give me your attention for five minutes. I’ll try not to keep you longer; and if I should lose my temper and talk a bit stronger than you may think there’s need for, take no notice, but just quietly go on listening till I’ve done; and then, should I fall a-swearing, maybe I’ll have got you into a frame of mind fit to join me.

“In the middle of last October my ship sailed from a certain port--there’s no need to give any names--in ballast, bound on a voyage across the Atlantic. The weather was promising enough for three or four days after we got away; moderate, north-easterly winds which, crank as we were, enabled us to carry a fore-topmast studding-sail, and we drove along prettily enough, nothing happening to call for remark. But this sort of thing was too good to last; accordingly, at midnight or thereabouts on the fifth day of sailing, I was roused by the mate, and, hurrying on deck, found half a gale of wind blowing, everything in confusion, vessel almost on her beam ends, everything let go, and as much shindy aloft as would furnish out noise for a battle-field. It was a squall with a storm behind it. However, bit by bit we managed to roll up the canvas and save our spars, and when daylight broke we found ourselves under a lower maintop-sail, tumbling upon as savage a sea as was ever rolled up in a few hours by a gale in the Atlantic.

“This was the beginning of a deal of delay. The gale kept us humbugging about in one place--allowing for that lee drift which you’ll expect of a ship in ballast--for hard upon a week: then better weather came. We shook out reefs, mast-headed the yards, and crawled a trifle to wind’ard; but the slant was a short one; another gale came along and lasted three days; and so it went on, sometimes fine and most often foul, until at the end of thirty-six days we found ourselves a good deal closer to Europe than we were to America.

“Well, sir, the thirty-seventh day proved moderate; a breeze from the W.N.W., a heavy swell running to show that either a gale had been blowing or was coming, and pretty clear weather, with a little glimmer of sunshine now and again streaming through the cloud-rifts; enough to improve our spirits. I came on deck at half-past seven, and was taking a look at the weather and wondering if the swell that was making the ship roll like an empty cask was to signify more bother, when I was hailed by the mate, who sung out that there was a dark object upon the water, a point on the lee bow. I took the glass and made out the hull of a totally dismantled vessel--apparently a barque, but all that was left of her masts were three stumps barely showing above her topgallant bulwarks. She was water-logged--like a pancake on the swell that hid her with every send; and after taking another look at her, and not doubting from her appearance that she was abandoned, I put the glass down, waterlogged vessels being by no means rare objects in the North Atlantic.

“We were swarming along over the swell at about three to four knots an hour, and as we should pass the hulk pretty close to windward, I reckoned that if there was any poor miserable creature aboard her we were bound to see him as we drove by. However, I had scarcely put the glass down five minutes, and was standing looking over the taffrail, when the mate again hailed me, and on my going to where he stood peering through the telescope, he put the glass into my hand and told me to look yonder, for there was a boat full of men, heading directly for us. I looked, and sure enough saw a whole boat-load of human beings lifting and falling and coming towards us. It was more like an apparition than a real thing, for when I examined the wreck again I could not conceive how such a number of men had managed to keep by a hull which offered them no refuge aloft, and over whose decks the water rolled in shining masses, as she swung into the hollows.

“As the boat approached, we backed the mainyards, and lay waiting for her to come alongside. By this time I could make out no less than fourteen men, and a sadder freight of human beings I never want to see again. Their white faces, their streaming clothes, their gaunt, hollow looks, the languid movement of the oars, and, above all, the manner in which those who rowed kept their faces turned towards us upon their shoulders, as if they feared we should vanish if they did not keep their eyes fixed upon us, was a sight the most iron-hearted man could not have viewed without pain and grief. We hove them the end of a rope, and dragged the boat alongside; and I wanted no better assurance of the character of their sufferings and of the lamentable condition they were then in than their slow, weak motions as they caught the line, and got their oars in and stood up. One by one we lifted or helped them over the side--fourteen of them, sir. Some of them were too weak to answer our questions. My men took the seamen forward, holding them up as they walked, for they could scarcely use their limbs; and I carried the captain and the two mates into the cabin, where we furnished them with food and dry clothing, and then got them to bed.

“All this while we remained hove to with the wreck bearing about a mile distant from us on our lee bow. My own crew consisted of eleven hands only, and the job of helping the rescued men forward had given them work enough until the poor fellows were below. I went on deck, and found the mate singing out to the hands to swing the main-topsail and get way upon the ship. I stood looking on, full of thought. Presently the sails were trimmed, and I called the mate over to me.

“‘Do you know,’ said I, ‘that we have been very nearly forty days at sea?’

“‘Ay, sir,’ he answered, ‘I know it only too well.’

“‘We’re provisioned, Mr. ----,’ said I, giving him his name, ‘for one hundred and ten days, counting for our crew only. But if you add fourteen to eleven you get twenty-five, and that’s the number of people our provisions must now serve for.’

“He grew very thoughtful, and took a long look round at the weather.

“‘I fear,’ continued I, ‘that it will merely be tempting Providence to pursue our voyage with all these extra men aboard in the face of the ill-luck that’s dogged us for near upon forty days. If we’re to make no more headway than we’ve already done in the same time, I’m afraid,’ said I, pointing to the wreck that was slowly drawing abeam of us, ‘we shall be as badly off here as if we turned to and shipped ourselves aboard yonder hulk.’

“‘That’ll be about it, sir,’ said he. ‘The harness cask, to say nothing of the scuttle-butts, is much too small for fourteen extra hands, unless we’re to get a gale of wind astern of us.’

“‘Which we’ve got no right to expect,’ I answered.

“However, before I decided I thought I’d first take counsel with the captain we had rescued, and, on his waking up much refreshed in the afternoon, I put my position before him, and asked him for his opinion. He never hesitated when he heard how long we had been at sea and for how many days we had been provisioned. But I’m not sure that even his advice would have settled my resolution--for what can be more trying than to have to give up and go back, after beating about and toiling to get across for over a month?--had it not that same evening breezed up ahead with a stormy appearance. It was just as if the weather said, ‘No, you don’t.’ I took a look, listened a moment or two at the men singing out as they clewed up the topgallant-sails, and then told the mate to get his helm over and head the ship for the homeward passage.

“Now, sir, though it was disagreeable enough to have to go back after consuming so much time in getting forward, I was a good deal comforted by reflecting upon the cause that was sending me home. It was a cheerful thing, likewise, to see the men who had come aboard half-dead gradually recovering their health and spirits, and testifying their gratefulness by not only lending a hand with a will, but by striving to take all the work they could come at out of the hands of my crew. Besides, I will frankly own to you, sir, that I was buoyed up by the belief that any money difficulty that must follow my useless trip into the Atlantic--useless, I mean, in the commercial sense of that word--would be in some degree met by the owners of the craft whose people I had saved, and if not by them, then by the ‘authorities’--a sort of strange people who come into one’s head when one falls into an expecting mood, and stop there as if they were real and had all the disposition and power you fancy of ’em, though to my mind there’s no illusion to equal ’em, and ne’er a word in the English dictionary that makes a man fiercer to come across after he’s got, by writing letters and calling, to find out the true meaning of it.

“The nearest port was a French port, and there we arrived after a pretty quick run, and landed the rescued men, of whom I’ll say this--that their gratitude was such, that if they could have turned their bodies into gold so that we could have made sovereigns out of their flesh they’d have done it cheerfully. Well, sir, after I arrived in England, the first thing I did was to represent what I had done to the owners of the barque whose crew I had saved. I told them that I had been obliged to abandon my voyage in consequence of the assistance I had rendered, and that by so doing I had not only lost a voyage, but consumed the whole of my stores. No notice was taken of me; and when I complained to a friend who knows a good deal about the law, he said the wonder would have been if any notice _had_ been taken, as I had no claim whatever on the owners of the barque for the rescue of the crew.

“‘But,’ said I, ‘d’ye mean to tell me that there’s no Act of Parliament, no statute, no sort of general understanding, no kind of provision--call it by what name you will--to protect a man from suffering heavily in his pocket because he goes out of his way to save fourteen human lives?’

“‘No,’ says he.

“‘And must I,’ says I, ‘be compelled to pay off my crew--which I’ve done--and ship another--also done--and accept a twopenny freight to the West Indies to enable me to reprovision my ship--all which I’ve had to do--with never a living being in this whole wide world made responsible, either as the manager of a fund set apart for such cases, or as the owner of the wrecked vessel, or as the British Government itself, whose business it should be to encourage acts of humanity shown to those sailors it’s always bragging about and leisurely looking after, for the loss I’ve been put to?’

“‘Well,’ says he, ‘on reflection I think ye might drop a line to the “authorities”’--you know who he meant, sir: ‘there’s a fund called the Mercantile Marine Fund, out of which, I think--mind, I only think--the “authorities” may, if they think fit, pay a certain sum, whatever it be, in satisfaction of salvage where nothing more valuable has been saved than fourteen human lives.’

“‘Well,’ says I, ‘I’ll write to them;’ and so I did. And what do you think was the result?”

“I cannot imagine,” I replied.

“I got no answer,” said he. “I got no answer,” he repeated, passionately; “and there’s no more chance of my getting an answer than there is of----” he paused, and added, “I was going to say than there is of my stopping to pick up more shipwrecked mariners--but God forgive me for the fancy! It’s not in my head, sir. But, putting all sentiment aside, wouldn’t you consider mine a hard case? And is my loss made the lighter to me because I am asked to reflect whether I _ought_ to expect the authorities, or the owners, or anybody else to pay me for saving fourteen men from a dreadful death? Here, sir, you have one of the difficulties--one of the hundred difficulties--master-mariners have to contend with, as little known to or understood by landsmen as Jack comprehends the business of an attorney. It’s not for me to suggest what should be done. But when next you hear of shipwrecked sailors being abandoned by a passing ship, don’t be too quick to condemn the captain as a coward and a villain for leaving his fellow-beings to perish miserably, but say to yourself, ‘His heart was with them, and he’d have saved them if he had dared; but British civilization said, “Whatever you do you do at your own risk. If no harm befalls you, good and well; you shall pass by and nothing more be said or heard of your act; but if you lose money, don’t look to _me_,” says British civilization, “for the only answer you’ll get will be that you’re an impudent fellow to expect to recover any loss you incur in the service of humanity;”’ and so the skipper, knowing this to be true, sails away, holding that his wife and children at home must not be beggared that a perishing crew may be rescued.”

Thus speaking, my friend the shipmaster rose abruptly from his chair, pulled his hat down to his ears, and impetuously wishing me good day, left me to lapse into a very brown, I may almost say a very black, study.

_SMACK APPRENTICES._

“I don’t know what country he hailed from, I’m sure; but, thank the Lord, he wasn’t an Englishman,” said a smacksman, in the most fervent manner, to me the other day, speaking of Osmond Otto Brand, who was executed on the 23rd of May for the murder of an apprentice named William Papper or Pepper. At any other time than this I believe the story of that miscreant’s barbarity would have deeply stirred the public mind; but of late days[C] murder has become a common thing, much talked of and freely practised. People’s capacity of being horrified gets dulled by iteration of shocking news, and the significance of any one item in a blood-red catalogue loses value as a particular impression. Whatever effect, however, may have been produced by Brand’s crime on the lay mind outside the district where the murderer and his victim were known, there can be no doubt of the impression it has made upon smack-owners and smacksman all round the coast. There is scarcely a fisherman who has not the horrible story off by heart, who does not view the atrocious cruelties practised by the foreign smack-master as a foul disgrace to the fishing industries, and who does not indignantly lament that the men who helped Brand to slowly kill the miserable apprentice were not hanged along with their skipper. One result of Brand’s crime was to cause some questions to be asked in the House of Commons. There was also some talk about the whole subject of fishing apprentices being considered by Government. If it is to be dealt with it will be as well, perhaps, first to give the Hull murder time to drop out of memory. To adopt it as a text for legislation would assuredly be to mislead honourable members who vote without looking very deep into the matters on which their opinions are challenged. If the condition of the smack apprentice is an improvable feature of current life, it is not so merely because Brand slowly tortured Pepper to death. We must shelve all thoughts of that murder, and ask questions without the least reference to it. What is the life of a fishing apprentice at sea? What is it ashore? How is he fed and clothed? What is the nature of his relations with the owners’ interests? What is the average character of the men with whom he is thrown? These and other questions I will endeavour to answer from inquiries I have made into the inner or hidden part of the lives of a body of lads of whom the public know less than they know of any other kind of seafaring people.

I once wrote an account of a voyage in a smack in the North Sea. One such journey is enough for a lifetime, and the recollection of it makes me here declare--and I am sure there is not a sailor living who will contradict me--that of all the several forms of seafaring life there is absolutely none comparable in severity, exposure, hardship, and stern peril to that of the smacksman. His vessel is a small one; his cabin a little darksome hole; his working hours are full of harsh toil; he has to give battle to the wildest weather, to struggle on for bread through storm and snow and frost, through the long blackness of the howling winter’s night, through the grey wilderness of a foaming ocean swept by winds as pitiless as the hand of death. No legislation can alter these conditions of his life. Philanthropy will have its cod and sole and turbot. The fish must be caught, but caught in such a manner that those who shoot their trawls for them catch other things besides--a wild roughness of bearing, a defiance of civilized instincts, a sense of outlawed and neglected life that brings with it a fixed conviction of social immunity. “I’m a fisherman myself, sir,” a man once said to me; “and I’ll allow that there are many well-mannered, sober, steady men among us; but, taking us all round, you’ll not find a coarser set of human beings in the world; and, if you want to know the reason, you’ve only got to look at yonder smack, heading away into the North Sea, where, maybe, she’ll be heaving and tossing about for weeks, with ne’er a proper influence in the shape of books or company for the men to come at.”