I would not close this all-too-brief account of the steward without again emphasizing the fact of his heavy claim to the consideration of all men. His business is not a showy one, and Jack is far too fond of hurling the opprobrious epithet, flunkey, at him; but there is a great deal of quiet heroism in his annals, and, in any case, his work is just as important as any other seafarer's. For men must be fed and their food taken care of. The doing of this with regularity, cleanliness, and cheerfulness is the part of the steward, and how well he does it let all sailors testify.
THE COOK (IN STEAM).
In many respects the cook is the most interesting figure on board ship. From him of the vast floating hotel, where the cook is a man of many attainments, an artist in foods, who should, but does not, command as great a salary as the chef of a first-class London hotel, down to the miserable urchin who crouches low over his scarcely-shielded pot on the open deck of a foreign-going barge, they not only deserve our attention, they demand it, dumbly yet imperiously. How are the cooks of first-class passenger steamers trained? Whence are obtained those able manipulators of provisions who are always to be found on board of excursion steamers that are laid up half the year, as soon as they commence running? What do they do in the dead seasons, these magicians who, in a space no larger than a reasonably-sized cupboard, succeed in turning out a dinner of several courses for five hundred people, no matter what the weather may be? Magician is surely the word, if only for the marvellous way in which every corner of cramped space is utilized, every trick of the culinary art—whereby the same thing is presented under two or three totally different aspects and flavours, and roasting, boiling, frying, and stewing go on apparently in the same glowing chamber at the same moment—is practised. These things amaze me; but, after all, much of the work may be done ashore, or in the quiet of the moorings before starting-time in the morning, and pastry may be bought all ready for table, also cold side-dishes.
But none of these adjuncts are available to the sea-going ship. His dinners must be prepared, down to the smallest item, by the cook himself and his subordinates. It is true that he has a large staff in a liner, and that those assistants are carefully selected for their several duties; but he has not, as his far better paid brother ashore has, the power of dismissing any assistant summarily if that assistant be incompetent or worse. That is, he has not such a power at the time when it would be of use. In the day of battle, when the great organization of an Atlantic liner's catering is going on, he must use such men as he has; they cannot be exchanged for others. But how very striking is the moral to be drawn from such a state of affairs. It is that, considering the excellence of the work performed by these men, there must be a most exalted standard of quality among them. And they would seem to be a contented folk. We know, most of us, that the great steamship companies have a reputation for treating their servants generously, but generously-entreated workpeople are not always the most contented. The cook and steward class in these vessels must be, or we should hear them, for they are by no means a feeble folk. You will find them occupying comfortable positions ashore while still in the prime of life, having earned sufficient within a few years to enable them to abandon the strenuous toil demanded of them at sea. They have earned every penny, and have not been compelled to "carry the banner" in order to get more. And in strangest out-of-the-way places of this wonderful England of ours, you will come across quiet, gentlemanly men who, upon opportunity arising, will inform you that they were cook of the steamship So-and-so, or steward of such another one. They enjoyed the life, but presently, like sensible men, they felt the need of a wife and home and children, and they therefore looked about for something suitable ashore, found it, and made room for a younger man.
No one, unless he belongs to the cooking-staff, has much opportunity afforded him for prying into the galley on board a big passenger ship during working hours. Those splendidly-fitted hives of industry may be viewed at other times, but then they reveal nothing to the outsider. This exclusiveness is not malicious, or for fear of being found fault with. It is solely because there is no room for any but the workers, who work indeed. Every inch of space is needed. Look down through the hatch above, or peer in through the ports, and you will be astounded at the way in which the cooks are handling the food, how in a space where, by all ordinary rules of cookery, they should not have room to move, they are turning out with conjurer-like dexterity a state dinner of ever so many courses for a couple of hundred saloon passengers. And then contrast their surroundings, if your previous experience enables you so to do, with the palatial spaces of a grand hotel kitchen. Only, you must remember at the same time the gale raging over the wide sea, and the complicated movements indulged in by the ship as she strides over the tremendous waves. So shall you acquire a respect for the sea-cook that will endure all your days.
To compare great things with small, this mental picture brings before me by association the cooks in the Australian coasting steamers. We have nothing like the same lavish arrangements for cooks and stewards on our own coasts, because our system is different. Here the fare is exclusive of food. You may dine or not as it suits your purse or your appetite. When you dine, you pay. But in the colonies the fare between ports includes sumptuous feeding arrangements for the first-class passenger, for the second—there are no third or deck passengers, as with us—rough accommodation, but an unlimited supply of excellent plain food. Australasia is truly the land of plentiful eating. And the cooks—well, they are good, some of them super-excellent, and all of them trained by hard experience to do much work in a very small compass and with a tiny staff. The cook of the Wonga Wonga stands out boldly in my memory as one of the characteristic figures of my sea experience. A huge negro with a voice of thunder, and an effervescing humour that made him a prime favourite, he succeeded in his vocation where many a better man might have failed. He was a fairly good cook, but in his details of work reminded me strongly of the elderly negress in "Uncle Tom's Cabin," who dished up a dinner out of chaos and old night somewhere down below. Such an extraordinary jumble of pastry-making, poultry-trimming, and all the varied operations required in the preparation of a dinner was surely never seen. And out from the weird confusion of things Sam would burst, smeared with blood and grease and dusty with flour, brandishing a big knife and declaiming Shakespeare on the slightest provocation. But in spite of the fact that the whole preparation of a dinner for sometimes as many as five hundred people, except peeling potatoes and the actual cooking, devolved upon Sam alone, he was always up to time. It was dangerous to come near him, though, as that time drew near. For then he drew perilously near being a howling maniac. Yet no sooner had the last dish disappeared aft, than Sam would sally forth from the galley, his ebony countenance aglow with satisfaction, and a big pipe in his mouth. Down anywhere he would fling himself, ready to discuss any question in the world, from the ruling of an empire to the winning moves in a game of draughts. His successor, when he got promoted to the City of Melbourne, was a far better cook, and a paragon of order and cleanliness, but there wasn't a man in the ship to say a good word for him. He was a shy Englishman.
Then, dropping still lower, I have every reason to remember the cook of the Helen M'Gregor, sweetest of small passenger steamers had she been on the London-Margate route, but a grisly terror when scaling the steeps of the Southern Pacific waves in a "southerly buster" between Grafton and Sydney. She was far too small for such an arduous service. Yet we carried over a hundred passengers when full. All her cooking was done in a caboose—just such a square box as may be seen on the deck of any old sailing barque—a cube of about eight feet clamped to the deck by iron rods. There was no table within it, only a locker seat which contained coals running across it in front of the stove. Two men could not pass between this locker and the stove without careful edging or one of them getting burnt. Most of the implements had permanent abiding places on the stove, but a few lived on racks above when not in use; and when the skittish little ship was dancing they would clatter down at intervals. Outside, in an angle between the back of the galley and the steam-chest, was a movable board for pastry (and other things). Its dimensions, with liberal measurement, may have been two feet square—not another inch, if I were bribed to say so.