Frank Brown, Sea Apprentice

by Frank Thomas Bullen

Still, as I said, this matter did not affect the general comfort of the ship or the happiness of the two junior officers, who both made splendid progress, the captain saying one day to Frank, “What a pity it is you weren’t either a Worcester or a Conway boy, you would have been able to come as second mate next voyage. As it is, you’ll have to make another trip as third before you can go up for your ticket.”

“Then all I hope and pray is, Captain Sharpe,” brightly responded Frank, “that it will be with you. I don’t care a bit about the position as long as I am treated as you treat me; I am happier than I have ever been in my life before.”

“That’s all right, my lad, you deserve all you’re getting,” answered the captain. “I am always very pleased with you.”

At which Frank turned away, his heart too full for utterance, and yet with a sense of shame that he should have allowed the transient evil of being under Captain Forrest to have almost made him hate the noble profession. In which I do not at all agree with him, knowing as I so well do what a hell of misery a bad captain can make of a ship.

So the Thurifer fared homeward, happily, uneventfully, her crew all now thoroughly trained and ready for any eventuality, a ship where there were no quarrels or discontents, where the work went as goes well-oiled machinery, dominated by the splendid personality of one man. Shall I be believed when I say Frank actually dreaded the arrival of the ship at her destination? I am afraid not, yet such was really the case. As each day saw her drawing nearer home, he had hard work to keep from feeling downhearted with the prospect of another ship or another skipper in view; he felt so fit and so happy, that the idea of again being bullied and worried as he had been on the passage out almost terrified him. So that in very truth he was what the old salts used to say the perfect sailor must be, wedded to his ship. Indeed he grew to love her more and more every day, as the perfect weather they were having allowed them to paint, polish, varnish, and beautify her generally, even to the extent of granting a calm for two days, without more than an incipient swell, just to the southward of the Western Islands, so that they were able to paint her round outside quite close to the water’s edge. Oh but they were proud men on board that ship, feeling that never did a homeward bound Sou’spainer come into port looking as their ship would look.

Nearer and nearer home they drew, still favoured by fortune with the brightest and best of weather, until they were met in the chops of the Channel by a heavy easterly wind, hardly a gale, but necessitating a good deal of stern carrying on in order to hold their own, since the bottom of the ship was of necessity foul, affecting her weatherly qualities very much. Now it so happened that just about this time Captain Sharpe was not at all well, not ill enough to lay up entirely, but compelled to take all the rest he could. And so he was not able to be with Mr. Carter in taking over the “gravy-eye” watch, as it is called—4 A.M.—when the tides of life run lowest, and some men find it positive agony to keep awake. There is little doubt that owing to the captain’s constant supervision of him the mate had become utterly careless, so much so, that even the fact that he was left to himself to watch over the lives of thirty-four of his shipmates had no power to make him vigilant. At least that is the only construction I can put upon his behaviour upon this terrific occasion, the account of which I am now about to give.

It was about 4.15 A.M., with a moderate gale blowing and the fine ship under topgallant sails, a tremendous press of canvas for the weight of wind, was standing across the mouth of the Channel on the starboard tack. As always with an easterly wind up there the weather was clear, but there being no moon it was fairly dark. Still there was ample range of sight for a sailor.

Suddenly a shout was heard from the forecastle, “A green light on the port bow, sir.”

The mate emitted a sleepy roar in reply, but actually for several minutes did not trouble himself to go to leeward and look, although he must have known that by the rule of the road at sea it was his duty to give way to the other vessel in the event of their approaching too closely to each other, and at night it is impossible to be too careful with ships crossing. When he did go over and look, the crossing vessel seemed to leap out of the dark at him, she was so close.

Panic-stricken, he ordered the helm hard up, but as the Thurifer swung slowly off the wind, the officer in charge of the crossing ship having waited in agony for some sign that the other vessel was going to do the right thing and give way, until he could bear it no longer, hove his helm hard up also. The result was that the two ships, which might have gone clear had both kept their course, rushed at each other end on, and when the stranger hauled his wind again, it was too late, he had only time to present his broadside to the immense shock of the Thurifer’s 4000 tons coming on at the rate of about eight miles an hour. There was an awful moment of suspense as men’s hearts stood still, a tremendous crash, and the huge steel wedge of the Thurifer’s bow shore its relentless way right through the strange vessel’s middle, amid a gigantic chorus of crashing masts, rending metal, and human yells of terror.