At this time we were much amused by an old Jamaican coloured man, who spent most of the day sitting on the quay beside the vessel close to her stern, where of course the ensign was flying on the flagstaff. He, like all the British West Indian coloured people, of whom there is a very large number at Cristobal-Colon, was enthusiastically loyal, and told us, “I love to sit under de ole flag: while you here, I do no more work—all de day I sit under de ole flag.” The men took a fancy to him, and “de ole flag” found something to spare for him at every meal, and a pipe of baccy afterwards.
At last the repairs were completed—shore accounts all settled up and the Canal Pilot took charge to take us out. We had to go out of the pool stern foremost. It turned out subsequently that the Gatun Locks were at this time passing a vessel through. This caused a current to flow past the pier head of the dock. The pilot did not know of it, with the result that Mana’s stern crashed into the pier head. Luckily the piling was very old and rotten, and Mana extraordinarily strong, so that, though the pier head structure was pretty considerably smashed, our own damage was confined to broken taffrail stanchions and the ironwork of the main gallows. We had therefore to return to our berth and have this new lot of damage made good. The Pilot, a Greek, of course tried to make out that the reversing gear had refused duty when he wanted to handle her, but, before we could find the Captain of the Port, that official had already been aboard and tried the engine, and told us that he found it worked to perfection, and gave us the true cause of the accident. We then asked him to give orders that our damage should be made good by the Canal Administration free of charge, but this he assured us was impossible under the Regulations—we must pay, but the job should be expedited. He also, out of sympathy with our misfortunes, gave us permission, when our job was done, this time to take our ship out ourselves without having another Canal pilot aboard, lest something worse should happen. And this we eventually did, to our own great satisfaction. Before however we could get our clearance, we had to deposit a sum equal to double the estimated cost of our repairs.
The Canal Administration, like the British Post Office, always plays pitch and toss on the terms of “heads I win, tails you lose.” It, very properly, compels you to take a pilot. It gives him absolute power, and requires that he himself shall take command and handle the vessel. But such a man’s experience is confined to big steamers: with them he is probably quite skilful, but give him a small craft or a yacht, and he knows as much about handling her as he does of piloting an aeroplane. Hence those tears.
The foregoing is equally true of the Suez Canal pilots. The risks to a small craft in the passage of the ship canals are great, and are solely due to the pilots being permitted to attempt to handle them.
As the Regulations of the Panama Canal stand, the Pilot may be mad, or drunk, or incompetent, and elect to ram another vessel, or to butt at a lock gate, nevertheless all damage done to the ship, or by the ship, must be paid by the Owners of the ship, before she is allowed to leave the Canal. Under no circumstances will the Administration accept responsibility for the conduct of their pilots. And there you have it.
At 9.15 a.m. Sunday, March the 26th, 1916, we passed through the breakwater into the Caribbean Sea. We had cleared from Cristobal-Colon for Trinidad, one of our West Indian Islands, but when doing so we never had any intention of going there. We informed the British Consul of our reasons and had his sanction. German sympathisers seemed to take a most kindly interest in us. We were really bound for Bermuda, via the Windward Passage, which is the pass between the two great islands of Cuba and St. Domingo. A strong wind and current sweep at this time of year from East to West the length of the Caribbean Sea, consequently we had to get well to the east’ard so as to make sure of carrying a fair wind and current for rounding Cape Tiburon, the western extremity of the Island of St. Domingo. We therefore at once set to work to beat steadily to wind’ard along the Venezuelan coast, keeping close in with the land, in order to cheat the current and to have as little sea as possible. As this coast is only roughly surveyed, and the lighting cannot be depended on, we exercised special care when standing-in to the land. We saw no craft along this coast except that, one night, what looked like a small tramp steamer of about 800 tons entirely changed her course, and bore down on us until she was close alongside. She did not attempt to communicate. We kept our course and took no notice of her. After a good look at us she took herself off.
We had unfortunately lost, at Cristobal, our excellent and popular Japanese cook, and the coloured Panama man who replaced him proved, after being given some days of grace, such a miserable impostor that even the strenuous and varied educational efforts of the fo’c’s’le failed to bring about his regeneration. We heard, indirectly, that the Russian Finn decided that it was a case of demoniacal possession and had attempted to cure it by means of a course of massage of the windpipe. Others of the crew suddenly became afflicted with a variety of complaints for which they drew various drastic drugs from the ship’s medicine chest and then, with great self-sacrifice, refraining from taking these themselves, administered them instead to the chef. We aft got along quite comfortably, as the cabin steward, Edwin Young, belonging to Pitcairn Island, had become, since joining, quite a good cook, and was most willing and hard working. But the fo’c’s’le very naturally complained, so, in its interest, we decided to alter our course and make for Port Royal, Jamaica, to seek that pearl of price—a good sea cook.
Nothing calling for remark occurred on this run until the 6th of April. At 6.15 a.m. on that day Mr. Gillam, whose watch it was, came below and said, “I wish you would come on deck, Sir; there’s a water-spout bearing down on us.” In half a shake of a lamb’s tail we were on deck, and a truly wonderful and impressive sight presented itself. Away on our starboard bow was a vast, dark purple cloud mass shaped like an open umbrella, or rather like a vaulted roof with central pendant. The upper surface of the dome blended with the normal clouds. The edge of the dome was sharply defined, and from it small fragments of cloud, all ragged, and looking like pearl-grey silk muslin torn off and crumpled, kept breaking away to be left behind. The dome-shaped mass, on its lower aspect, gradually became columnar, the column extended downward until it almost, but not quite, reached the sea. The lower part of its length was much attenuated, and convoluted, and terminated in ragged mist, and could be seen to be rotating rapidly.
The surface of the sea beneath it, over an area of perhaps a mile in diameter, presented the appearance of a fiercely boiling cauldron. The water rose up as waves of pyramidal form, from which the wind tore off the apices, and whipped the same into spume. The waves had no fixed direction: they simply dashed into one another. Immediately beneath the ragged termination of the central column the surface of the sea seemed to be bodily lifted up, amidst a welter of mist, and froth, and spray, into a cone-shaped form, but, between the apex of this cone, and the rapidly rotating extremity of the column of cloud above it, there always remained a distinct interval of considerable extent, that had the appearance of dense mist: the appearance of a hard rain-squall, seen from afar, as it sweeps over the sea. The cloud came down towards the sea, and the sea rose up towards the cloud, and there was an interval betwixt the two. The column was not quite vertical: though it maintained perfect continuity with the cloud mass above, of which it formed a part, nevertheless its lower extremity tended somewhat to trail or lag behind. It moved along its path towards us, quite slowly and steadily, cutting our wake, at an acute angle, some miles astern. It is difficult to conjecture what would happen to a small craft, or to any craft, that found itself well within the area of disturbance. Apart from anything else, the seas, tumbling down on to the top of her from all quarters, even if they did not break in her decks, could hardly fail to strip her hatch openings. As we watched, we agreed that even Mana could scarcely be expected to live amidst such seas, and therefore, obviously, nothing could. As it was, the surface of the sea, where we were, was little affected, nor was there any weight in the shifts of wind as they occurred.
We then had breakfast and a pipe and settled down to routine work when, at 10 a.m., a small cloud on the horizon, on our lee bow, was observed to be behaving in a way opposed to the ordinary laws of nature. Though a nice steady breeze was blowing and no other clouds were to be seen anywhere else in this direction on the horizon, yet this one particular patch, like a large sail, remained constant in form and in the same position. As we drew nearer, it was observed to increase and diminish in volume from time to time. The only explanation we could think of was that we had fallen in with a ship on fire, so we bore away towards it. As we reduced the distance betwixt us and it, we gradually made out that it was not one cloud of white smoke, but two separate clouds, that arose, more or less alternately, at two spots situated some two miles or so apart. Another point too gradually developed. Each patch of cloud or smoke suddenly burst forth to its maximum size and then gradually blew to leeward, and dissipated. This led us to think that it must be either gun practice or a naval action. The wind had now fallen light, so we started our engines, and made up our canvas, and, like rats, headed for the scrimmage. It was suggested that, following the classical example of Mr. Midshipman Easy a ladies’ wardrobe aboard should be overhauled to find if possible a green silk petticoat under which we might go into action. As in Easy’s case, being unarmed, our approach was likely to be of greater effect than our presence; but still we all decided to make a claim for prize money. As we cut down the distance it became evident that it could only be a matter of small craft, for no hull could be made out. The fighting was taking place on the northern side of Morant’s Cays, a group of low-lying coral islets that lay between us and the combatants.