And yet there was a lot of energy in that sturdy form standing there upon the deck of his undermanned schooner waving his acknowledgments to me upon the bridge of the liner. Yes, Captain Johnny Sparks was a good seaman. May the deep ocean hold him gently in its eternal embrace, for he loved it—loved it as only a true seaman does!
We made the run south, and were coming up with a full complement of passengers from Jamaica, when we began to notice a definite change in the weather. It was the hurricane season, September, and the heat was oppressive. The passengers lay about the decks in chairs all day and half the night, getting what air the ship made with her rush of fifteen knots an hour through the quiet sea. We ran along through the Passage, leaving Cape Maysi out of sight before dark, and rapidly hauling up under the lee of the Great Inagua Bank. Here in the smooth sea night fell upon the ocean, and I went on the bridge for the first watch.
As I came into the pilot house to sign the order-book for my course, Captain Boldwin called my attention to the glass. It had fallen rapidly during the last few hours, and was now dangerously low.
"Keep a good lookout," he said, "and call me at the first signs of a change." I signed the order-book, and he went below.
How many times has an officer signed that order-book before even going on the bridge? And how many times has the said officer made an entirely different course from that signed for? But then steamship companies do not supply ships and coal for their officers to study navigation. It would not look well on paper. Every officer of a passenger ship is a licensed master, a captain; and no first-class company will ship any other kind of man to go on the bridge to take charge for the watch of four hours, for during that time the ship is absolutely under his command, and it is necessary that he shall be a skilled navigator, capable of taking the ship along just as safely should accident befall her commander. For this responsibility he receives from seventy-five to a hundred dollars per month; and half of the passengers whose lives he holds in the hollow of his hand for half the night look upon him as little better than a ship's cook!
We appeared to follow the low barometer, or it to follow us, for when daylight came we were still running smoothly across the Atlantic with nothing but an oppressive heat and mugginess to warn the landsman of the low pressure.
"There's something coming along behind us; something there astern that will probably make things howl," said Boldwin, as he came on deck in the morning.
The sun was brassy in a coppery haze, but it was clear enough to get a good sight for longitude. I called off three good sights, took the note, and went below to work the longitude before breakfast. On ships running across the Gulf or Florida Stream from the southward, bound for New York or some port south of it, there is every necessity for getting the westing accurate. We always found that, running diagonally across for the Diamond Shoal Light vessel, we were set about twelve miles to the northeast while running at from twelve to fifteen knots. This was almost a regular fixed factor, but in heavy weather it was not always safe to run full speed inside of it.
To make to the eastward of the lightship was well enough, but to fetch to the westward was the one thing that has always made Boldwin nervous, and rightly so. If he missed it going to the eastward, he would pick up some other landfall to the northward, if he was too far off; but if he missed it going to the westward in a driving gale, when it was too thick to see half a mile—well, we had never done so yet, and had no reason to pray for the experience.
We were a fast liner, full of fruit and passengers, and we could not stop for anything on the run up. With fifty thousand bunches of bananas below, we must drive the ship to her destination as fast as she could go, and neither hurricane nor calm must stop her. The company seldom kept a seaman long who brought in fifty thousand bunches of ruined fruit, some of it twelve hands, and most of it more than eight, selling at retail at nearly a dollar a bunch.