THE AFTER BULKHEAD
After coming home from the East I had, like many other ship's officers, taken up steam. There was more in it than the old wind-jammers, and the runs were short in comparison. It was not long before I went in the Prince Line, as they needed navigators badly.
I was chief mate of the liner, and it was my unpleasant duty to do about everything. Old Man Hall, captain and R. N. R. man, did little beside working the ship's position after we got to sea. Ashore, he left everything to Mr. Small and myself, as far as the ship was concerned, and if there were a piece of frayed line, a bit of paint chafed, we heard all about it within two hours after he came aboard.
Small was second under me, while the third and fourth officers were hardly more than apprentices, both being for the first time in the ship and not more than twenty-one or two years of age.
Captain Hall was nearly seventy, and somewhat decrepit, but he was an accurate navigator, and had kept his record clean, making one hundred runs across the Western Ocean without accident. Masters of merchantmen are good or bad, according to their records, according to their reputations. Some said Hall had excellent luck. But, anyway, he was a good man, a fair-minded skipper, and he always brought in his ship on schedule, which was saying a good deal, for the Prince Line steamers were not noted for keeping close to time—any old time was good enough for most of them until the Prince Gregory, of twenty thousand tons, came along and made the lubbers look up a bit.
She was the largest ship of the fleet—which comprised ten good steamers—and she was fitted with all the modern conveniences, from telephones to wireless, had a swimming pool, barber shop, gymnasium, café, and elevators to the hurricane deck.
With only four watch officers, and six cadets, who were about as useful as a false keel on a trunk, I had enough to do before clearing.
The chief engineer was an American, for a wonder, and his six assistants, including donkey man, were Liverpool cockneys. They drove a swarm of fire rats and coal passers that would have made a seaman crazy in two days, but Smith took things easy below, and, although he had to push her to keep the new record, he let his assistants do the heavy work. That's the reason he grew so fat—grew fat and even-tempered, while poor Small and myself sweated out our lives after the usual routine.
We had forty men in the crew, and needed more, for we often had a thousand emigrants in the steerage. Sometimes we carried bunches of those big chaps from the European forests, Lithuanians, strong, sturdy brutes, totally without sense.
It was in December that we took over five hundred of them on board, and while I was polite as possible, I put Small wise to keep a lookout on the critters. They were miners, for the most part. Contract men, going to the mines in Pennsylvania.