CHAPTER V
“The liner she’s a lady by the paint upon her face,
An’ if she meets an accident they count it sore disgrace.”
Kipling
Good-bye to sail! The chance had come to make the plunge that was rendered inevitable by the opening of the Suez Canal and the march of modern invention. It was sad to realise that the sailing-ship was becoming a back number and that the future for the sea lay with steam—a means of propulsion that would for ever put in the background the manly management of masts, yards and sails. To-day, the period in which this country won its greatest triumphs on the sea is commonly referred to (even in the Royal Navy) as the “stick and string time,” but I am old-fashioned enough to believe that the seamen of the past were in their way as clever engineers as the men that fit and drive the modern turbine engines.
In the museum of the Royal United Service Institution is to be seen a fully rigged model of the old Cornwallis. Stand by the side of it and try to realise the exquisite skill that was necessary to rig that vessel, and then keep the masts in her through all the varied experiences that would befall. How, pitching in a head sea, every stay must bear its due proportion of strain or something would go! Consider the friction and chafe that would be constantly taking place with rope rigging, and the unceasing vigilance that was necessary to preserve it intact, and then, if you know enough to realise what it meant, sneer if you will at the days of stick and string, but forgive those who look back with regret at what was the inevitable eclipse of a notable phase in a very noble calling.
The sailing-ship man had a little doubt in his mind as to how he should properly rank the steamship man. I had on the previous voyage heard engineer officers in a mail steamer speak disparagingly of the seamanlike qualities of the ship’s officers—such, for instance, as an order to the engine-room, “Half a turn sideways if you can; if you can’t never mind.” Not to be believed for a moment, but still we sailors doubted as to how they ought to rank in the hierarchy of the sea. It was also said by the same engineers that they had a chief officer who was worth anything in bad weather, for he could go round the decks with such a beautiful command of language that nothing ever went wrong with them, and so the conclave with whom I discussed the matter concluded that there might possibly be an opening for one that had graduated even in a hard school of seamanship. Need I say that, in spite of chaff and theoretical leanings, I was unfeignedly thankful to be offered the berth of third mate in the mail steamer Roman belonging to the Union Steamship Company, of Southampton. I said good-bye to Captain Gissing of the Albuera with regret, and proceeded with all due haste to take up my appointment.
It was in July 1870 that I first set eyes upon the Roman. It was evening and she was deserted save by an old shipkeeper, who having been an officer in the very early days of the company was willing enough to gossip, and satisfy such curiosity as I was not backward to confess on the subject of my new surroundings.
U.S.S. “ROMAN”
