Merchantmen-at-arms : the British merchants' service in the war

by David W. Bone

But no! It cannot properly be done. We recall that there is one way for our ready recognition when we come on shore these days. We cannot appropriate a longshore point of view, we cannot conceal our seafaring and merge into the crowd. There is a mark—our tired eyes, as we come off the sea! True, there are now, sadly, many tired eyes on the beach, but few carry the distant focus, the peculiar intentness brought about by absence of perspective at sea. We cannot adopt a public outlook owing to this obliquity in our vision, we are barred by the persistence of that vexed perspective in our views on shore.

Still, the point may be raised that only in our actual seafaring are we recognized. We are poor citizens, nomads, who have little part with settled grooves and communal life on shore. The naval seaman is a known figure on the streets. His trim uniform, the cut of his hair, the swing of a muscular figure, his high spirits, are all in part with a stereotyped conception. He is the sailor; Mercantile Jack has lost his tradition in attire and individuality, he has vanished from the herd with his high-heeled shoes, coloured silk neckerchief, and sweet-tobacco hat.

In the round of shore communications there is exercise for assessing a measure of the other man's work: a large proportion of success hinges on easy fellowship, on an understanding and acquaintance not only with the technics of another's trade, but with his habits and his pursuits. All trades, all businesses, all professions have relations, near or distant, with the sea, but to them our grades and descriptions are dubious and uncertain. For this we are to blame. We are bad advertisers. We are content to leave our fraternization with the beach to the far distant day when we shall retire from the sea-service, 'swallow the anchor,' and settle down to longshore life. We cannot join and rejoin the guilderies on shore in the intervals of our voyaging. We preserve a grudging silence on our seafaring, perhaps tint what pictures we do present in other lights than verity. The necessary aloofness of our calling makes for a seclusion in our affairs: we make few efforts to remedy an estrangement; in a way, we adopt the disciplinary scourge of the flagellants, we glory in our isolation. If we share few of the institutions that exist for fellowship ashore, we have made no bid for admittance: if the tide of intercourse leaves us stranded, we have put out no steering oar on the drift of the flood. We are somewhat diffident. Perhaps we are influenced by a certain reputation that is still attached to us. Are we the prodigals not yet in the mood to turn unto our fathers?

Stout old Doctor Johnson enlarged on the sea-life—of his day—with a determination and no small measure of accuracy. "Sir," he said, "a ship is worse than a gaol. There is in a gaol better air, better company, better conveniency of every kind; and a ship has the additional disadvantage of being in danger. When men come to like a sea-life they are not fit to live on land. . . . Men go to the sea before they know the unhappiness of that way of life; and when they have come to know it, they cannot escape from it, because it is then too late to choose another profession." At least he admitted the possibility of some of us coming to like a sea-life, though his postulate conveyed no high opinion of our intelligence in such a preference.

We have travelled far since the worthy Doctor's day. Not all his dicta may stand. There is still, perhaps, greater danger in a ship than in gaol, but Johnson himself admitted that "the profession of sailors has the dignity of danger"! For the rest, our air has become so good that invalids are ordered to sea; our conveniences are notably improved, our ships the last word in strength and comfort. Our company? Our company fits to the heave of our sea. If we have middling men for the trough, we have bold gallants for the crest. We draw a wide range to our service. The sea can offer a good career to a prizeman: we can still do moderately well with the wayward boy, the parents' 'heart-break,' the lad with whom nothing can be done on shore. Steam has certainly given a new gentility to our seafaring, but it cannot wholly smooth out the uneven sea-road. If we lose an amount of polish, of distinguished association, of education in our recruitment, we may gain just that essence that fits a man for our calling. Our company is, at any rate, stout and resolute, and, without that, we had long since been under German bondage.

THE MERSEY FROM THE LIVER BUILDINGS, LIVERPOOL

The war has brought a new prominence to our sea-trade. The public has become interested not alone in our sea-ventures, but in our landward doings. The astonishing fact of our civilian combatance has drawn a recognition that no years of peace could have uncovered. Not least of the revelations that the world conflict has imposed is the vital importance of the ships. Our naval fleets were ever talked of, read of, gloried in, as the spring of our national power, but not many saw the core of our sea-strength in the stained hulls of the merchants' ships. They were accepted without enthusiasm as an existing trade channel; they were there on a round of business and trade, not dissimilar to other transport services—the railways, road-carriage, the inland canals, the moving-van, the messengers. They were ready to hand for service; so near that their vital proportions were not readily apparent. Perhaps the greatest compliment the public has paid to the Merchants' Service lay in this abstract view. One saw an appreciation, perhaps unspoken, in the consternation that greeted the first irregularity in delivery of the oversea mails. Then, indeed, the importance of the ships was brought sharply home. It was incredible: it was unheard of. Mercantile practice and correspondence had outgrown all duplications and weatherly precautions; the service was so sure and uninterrupted that no need existed for a second string to the bow. Bills of exchange, indents, invoices, the mail-letter, had long been confided to sea-carriage on one bottom. Pages could be written of the tangled skeins, the complex situations, the confusion and congestion that were all brought about by extra mileage of an ocean voyage. Fortunes, not alone in hulls and cargo, lie with our wreckage on the floor of the channels.

The sea-front suddenly assumed an importance in the general view, as the drain on our tonnage left vacant shelves in the bakehouse. Commodities that, so common and plentiful, had been lightly valued, were out of stock—the ships had not come in! Long queues formed at the shop doors, seeking and questioning—their topic, the fortunes of the ships! The table was rearranged in keeping with a depleted larder. Anxious eyes turned first in the morning to the list of our sea-casualties; the ships, what of the ships? The valiant deeds of our armies, the tide and toll of battles, could wait a second glance. Not all the gallantry of our arms could bring victory if our sea-communications were imperilled or restrained; on the due arrival of the ships centred the pivot of our operations.