THE SECOND MATE (IN STEAM).
Upon approaching this portion of my subject I am somewhat alarmed at the prospect before me. For in all that I set down in this book I strive to be perfectly truthful, not only according to the light of my own experience, but in compiling the traditions of the service as they have become known to me. In doing this I am quite well aware that many whose opinions I value will be offended—it is but natural that they should be. We often invite criticism from our friends, and really think that we desire to be told the truth about ourselves. And so long as the truth is pleasant we enjoy hearing it so much, but when our weaknesses come up for review, however gently, we seldom succeed in keeping our temper, even though we know full well we should be grateful. In what has gone before I hope I have not trodden too heavily upon any of my friends' pet corns, but in what is now to come I fear that some heart-burnings will be unavoidably produced; because the second mate has to pass through that most unpleasant time, common to nearly all professions, when those above him feel it somehow to be their duty to snub, annoy, and discourage him, with a view perhaps to stiffening his moral fibre. Yet the impression produced is usually that of a time of misery such as we would not go through again for a great deal.
But here again there is a great range of status. Between the second mate of a large passenger steamer—who is usually a man of large experience, holding a master's certificate, and having occupied many superior positions before—and the second mate of a small sailing ship making his first appearance on the quarter-deck in charge is all the difference imaginable. The one is a most important officer, usually the navigating officer of the ship and principal watch-keeper. His pay is equal to that of many a master of a splendid sailing ship, and his superiors would no more dream of insulting him or bullying him than they would think of flouting the chief engineer. They are perfectly well aware of the fact that before he reached such a post as that he must have proved himself a competent man. The poor fellow, however, who for the first time mounts the quarter-deck the ink scarcely dry upon his certificate, may, and very probably will, have reason before long to wish that he had been content to remain in the obscurity of the forecastle. According to the bent of mind possessed by his commander and, in a less degree, the mate of his ship, so will he be. In some cases it will turn out that no amount of kindness and help given by his superiors is of any avail. The neophyte is no good. In some mysterious manner he has managed to satisfy the examiners at an outport where rules are not so rigidly maintained as they are, say, in Liverpool or London. So he has a certificate, but he is a dunderhead without resources, untrustworthy, not able even to keep awake in his watch on deck, and ignorant of the first principles of his calling. Much may be excused in a skipper who finds that he dare not trust his second mate in charge of the watch except in a dead calm; who, coming on deck to have a glance round, will discover his junior officer, instead of being acutely anxious to justify his elevation to command, is lolling on a hen-coop asleep, while the vessel, with yards untrimmed, is wasting the wind, and the man at the wheel is making mental notes for future reference.
Under such exasperating conditions, especially if the master has had no voice in the selection of this young officer, but has been compelled to receive him because he was sent on board by the owners, it is hardly to be wondered at if, his indignation getting the better of him, his remarks are calculated to make the offender very unhappy. Such an occurrence, however, is, for the reason I have already given, impossible in a fine passenger steamer. So carefully are the officers chosen, so rigidly is their previous experience insisted upon, that only those who have proved their trustworthiness are allowed upon the bridge at all to take charge of the ship. And of them the second mate is the principal. It is, I believe, in most lines of passenger steamers—I know it is in some—the practice to keep a list of officers employed, and every accession to their ranks—no matter how high his previous qualifications may have been—must go in at the bottom. And it is of no earthly use attempting to get one's name upon that list unless one's record is a good one. Then, when appointed to a ship, she will be the least important of the fleet, and the recruit commences his upward climb, his career carefully watched every step of the way and its incidents recorded. By this means it is assured, as far as is humanly possible, that by the time the officer takes command he is the very best man for the position that care and forethought can procure. And how wonderfully is this carefulness justified! Analyze the records of our great passenger lines and see—despite the dangers of the seas, the high speed, and absolute necessity for punctuality—the almost invisible percentage of disasters occurring. It is a truly wonderful proof of the value of our Merchant officers.
The second mate, then, of a liner has attained unto an exalted and honourable position. He may, it is true, be a long time yet before he gets command, but he has soared far above the contemptuous estimate in lower circles of a second mate's position. Beneath him are quite an army of juniors. I well remember the awe I felt when, some years ago, fortified by a letter from a gentleman to whom I had been introduced, I went to the stately offices of the P. & O. Company in Leadenhall Street. I had a first mate's certificate, and, being unmarried, felt that I could take a very subordinate position for the privilege of getting my foot upon the ladder of such a company. But my hopes were dashed at the outset by Captain Angove, the marine superintendent, who said that while my papers were all they could wish, I must have some experience in steam (which I had not). If I could again come before them with six months' experience as an officer of a steamer, no matter how small, they could put me on their list, and I should enter as sixth supernumerary mate of such a ship as the Rome or Carthage, which were then new! My heart sank within me. I had never imagined a ship with seven or eight mates before; and, disregarding the positive evidence before my eyes of the rapidity (comparative) of promotion, as shown by the commanding presence of several masters who were then in the office, I gave up the idea, feeling that life was not long enough. Promotion by seniority is a good rule, when it is tempered by careful watchfulness of the candidates; and I do not believe that it is anywhere more wisely used than it is in our great steamship lines. When once the candidate has passed the preliminary stages of his novitiate, and has entered the service of a great line, he has only to do his duty, and in due time he will, if he live, certainly arrive at one of the most coveted positions known to seamen—that of master of a great steamship.
But this is, perhaps, straying from the second mate too far. Indeed, there is little more to say of his most enviable and onerous position in this type of ship. The very fact of his being navigating officer speaks for itself, for the navigating of a ship that is flying over the sea at a speed little less than that of one of the Metropolitan trains for a week at a time is of itself a great task. And the man to whom it is entrusted holds a position the honour and responsibility of which cannot be lightly esteemed. When, in addition to this, he is known as the first of that fine band who take it in turns to handle the vessel by day and night upon the exalted bridge, and, going into harbour, has charge of the after-part of the deck, while in port he is responsible for what goes on in the hold with respect to the stowage of the cargo, I am sure it will be conceded that his position is one that can be held only by a good man. His comforts are many, quite compensating him for the hardship of watch-keeping. He has plenty of society, for, besides the number of junior officers and engineers, association with whom is as free and unrestricted as it is among the commissioned officers of a man-o'-war—and, for the same reason, the equality of status, though not of rank—there are the passengers. And although his pay is not large, his treatment is so good that many a man ashore with far higher pay might well envy him. He has the very best of food and accommodation—as good, in fact, as he could obtain at a high price in a first-class hotel. On all of which accounts, if he isn't happy, he ought to be.
But as with the master and mate, so with the second mate, when once we step down from the great liners to the smaller passenger ships. More work, fewer comforts, much less pay; no crowd of junior officers, or great crews amply sufficient to do all that there is to be done. Still, even here there are many advantages, and a second mate, remembering that he is working his way upward, has little to complain of. It is the same in the biggest cargo steamers, tramps of the highest type. In fact, some of these are, for the officers, the most comfortable ships afloat, and the pay does not differ much from that given in the liners proper. They are the plums of the profession, and, as such, according to the universal law, seldom attainable by the friendless young man, struggling by his own merits to climb from the forecastle to the quarter-deck.
When we have left these splendid specimens of marine architecture, and come to the tramp proper, we begin to wonder how it is that second mates persevere at all. They have a thankless task. The manning of these vessels is on such a meagre scale that the second mate will usually have to work harder than any of the crew. That, of course, is no evil in itself, but it becomes an evil because it lessens the respect in which an officer is held by his watch, generally composed of men who are never inclined to be over-respectful. Many and many a large tramp to-day is steadily boring her way through opposing seas, outward or homeward, on a voyage of several thousands of miles, where the watch on deck will consist of the second mate and three men. The second mate's orders are never to leave the bridge upon any pretext, unless relieved by an officer. Well, besides himself there are only the master and mate. The first he dare not call to relieve him; the second, having his own watch to keep in his turn, must not be disturbed. Yet there is much work to be done—cleaning ship principally, but also setting and taking in sail. I know there is a prevalent idea ashore, very naturally, that steamships never carry any sails unless they break down. But that is quite wrong. The few sails that a tramp steamer carries are set whenever the wind is favourable, or it is imagined that they will help in the slightest degree. And who is to set them? One man is at the wheel, for no one has yet been clever enough to invent a ship that will steer itself; one man should be on the look-out night and day. But where is the tramp steamer that can afford such extravagance as that? At night he will be at his post, of course, and the remainder of the watch—one man—will be resting. If a sail is to be set or taken in, what is to be done? According to the law the second mate should refuse to quit his post on the bridge, and since it is absurd to suppose that one man could accomplish such a task as setting a sail, he would leave it unset. Such independent behaviour would, however, certainly result in his services being dispensed with at the earliest possible moment. So the practice is for the second mate to come off the bridge, the man to be called off the look-out, and the trio having left the ship plunging blindly along over the gloomy sea, at dire peril to herself and any other vessel that may be near, do their best to accomplish their task in as short a time as is possible.
In the day no pretence of a look-out is kept from the forecastle, and, during the second mate's watch, the bridge is usually vacant also, unless the master choose to remain up there while the second mate, with his two grubby assistants, scrubs and polishes about the deck like any overworked housemaid. Theoretically, of course, this menial occupation is no part of his duty. Moreover, in the event of any accident occurring, he is certain to be severely censured, if not deprived of his certificate, for being off the bridge during his watch on deck. And it will not avail him in the least to declare that it would be impossible for him to keep the bridge and do what was expected of him as well. As before stated, should he refuse to do work about the deck with the men and insist upon obeying the law, he would certainly lose his berth at the end of the voyage. Therefore, in practice, he trusts to luck, and does the only thing open to him if he would keep his berth, i.e. risks the lives of all hands and the safety of the ship continually. It is said of the second mate that he doesn't get his hands out of the tar-bucket by becoming a second mate. That is only partially true, as I have shown; but it is absolutely true to say that no tramp second mate can hope to keep his hands out of the paint-pot, or the soogee-moogee bucket, or off the coal shovel. He may be called Mr. Brown, second officer of the s.s. Albacore, but he is nothing else than a maid-of-all-work on a trifle more than an able seaman's wages.
In harbour he has the holds to look after. Here, perhaps, he is slightly better off than his harassed superior on deck, whose distractions I have endeavoured to sketch briefly in preceding chapters, because he has only one thing to attend to. But he also has often a gaudy time, as the Americans say, with native stevedores, whose one aim in life is to do nothing, and failing that, to do as little as possible wrongly. And he, knowing how essential it is for the safety of the ship that her cargo shall be properly stowed, has many anxieties, unless he quite neglects his duty and dozes peacefully, trusting to luck that things will somehow come all right.