Now H.M.S. Rapid was in port, and Lieut. Sparks, R.N., her first lieutenant, a friend of mine, was, I knew, in command at that time. To him I dispatched my second officer to ask that he would send me means to blow a hole through the deck. Like the good fellow he was he did exactly what I asked, no more and no less, for it would have been easy for him to have gained a lot of kudos had he done more than I asked. He sent his gunner and a cake or two of gun cotton, and with that in reserve I knew it would be all right. As it turned out we did not need it, for the carpenters had managed to get through the steel, and we were then able to put a heavy flow of water right in the heart of the fire, and our troubles were soon over.
My fellows had worked splendidly—Clifford, the third officer, going into such an atmosphere of smoke and heat in the endeavour to get a hose to bear on the flames, that I had to order him to desist, and he was dragged up by a rope that was fast round his waist. No set of officers and men could have given a better performance, for by midnight the fire was entirely subdued, and the damage done was confined to some twisted steel decks and woodwork that could be repaired before it was time to sail for home. The directors caused a letter to be written thanking me and the officers for our exertions, and sending a sum of money to be divided between those men of the ship’s company who were actually employed in putting the fire out.
On the succeeding voyage to Lyttelton my friend the port captain tried to induce the Company to make me appear before a Harbour Board tribunal, at which matters concerning the line of action I had taken were to be inquired into, but the Company said they were not intending to play that game, and as the powers that were were equally anxious to avoid any unpleasantness, no more was heard of the affair. I suppose that technically I was wrong, for a ship in port is to some extent under the orders of the local authorities. But I was always very jealous of any attempt to encroach upon my prerogative as “master.” It is a very fine designation and title, but to my mind it carries with it the obligation to maintain its meaning. I was never particularly anxious to take the courtesy title of captain which is commonly assumed on shore by those in charge of merchantmen. Mr. ——, master s.s. ——, looks quite well enough on a visiting card.
In this same year 1889 I was asked to attend a meeting of the Hobart Chamber of Commerce in order that I might receive the thanks of the Chamber for taking my ship alongside the Dunn Street pier. It reminded me somewhat of an old Mexican episode. A most flattering resolution was passed and I was congratulated upon the fact that the light on the western land I had advocated seven years previously was now actually in course of construction. That sort of thing was gratifying, although no special merit attached to my action, for the pier was large enough to accommodate a far larger ship than mine was.
Among the intimates that I had in New Zealand was Captain Edwin, R.N., the meteorologist, who resided in Wellington. We had many tastes in common, for he was one of the old school and had learned his business thoroughly, commencing with the bombardment of Sebastopol, at which time he was serving as a midshipman in the Albion, and his stories of the bluejackets of the period, of fights between the men on the lower deck, of men, when dying of cholera, asking an officer to hold their hands, these and other matters were graphic in the extreme. As a specimen of his powers as a raconteur the following is an extract from one of his letters to me—
“By the bye, I had a curious dream lately; I had departed this life and found myself covered with feathers and fitted with a pair of three folding wings like an albatross, and was outward bound; being not used to flying, and off my first letter, I did not get on very well; and found I was putting my tail too hard over, which frequently brought me broadside on. After a while I settled down, but made rather heavy weather of it; and a lot of clipper chaps passed me on the way. When I had been out about a month, I heard a fellow coming up astern, and before long he hailed me and it turned out to be you: ‘Hullo, Crutchley,’ said I; ‘where are you bound?’ ‘Gabriel for orders,’ said you. ‘Same here,’ said I; and we flapped along together. After a good while we saw a faint sort of pale light ahead and you remarked that you thought we were running into ice; after some time we made out that it looked like a fog bank, with a bright place in it, and on coming nearer we saw that in this bright part there was a high gate, so we eased down and worked our tails a little so as to be sure we had everything in readiness; for not being accustomed to being up under feathers we were a little anxious; all, however, went well and we both perched on the gate in a masterly style and folded our wings very neatly. We had no sooner landed, so to speak, when a bell rang twice, and immediately a voice hailed us and asked who we were; when we had replied, the voice said: ‘Tell the Recorder that two fellows have come for orders!’ Presently we heard someone say, ‘What name was it? Ah! yes: I see; Crutchley, Master Mariner, Lieutenant Naval Reserve, rather bad style both. Dear me! Dreadful record! I am afraid he must go on. Who did you say the other fellow was? Edwin: I have him! Why, dear me! This is very sad! Naval officer, and bad at that; send him on at once!’ So then we heard the first one hail us. ‘Outside there! You Crutchley! Edwin! Go round by the left immediately.’ But we didn’t see it, being sailormen and willing to contest the point; so we called out that we wanted a rest, being very tired and thirsty—could they not let us come inside and sit down for a while? (you see, that gate was not good holding ground), but a loud voice said, ‘Go away! be off immediately! We shall have others here to deal with directly.’ But we held on; presently a long pole came out of the fog and proceeded to shove us off and in so doing gave us some pretty hard knocks. Still we held on; but at last we each got a most awful punch with the pole end which made us let go, and we so far forgot ourselves as to say cuss words; whereupon there came a clap of thunder and we found ourselves tumbling about anyhow. When we got way upon us again and could see, we found that my starboard wing was singed and that the feathers on your head were badly burned. We consulted what to do, and as we could only just see the light we knew that we must have been blown a long way off shore; we therefore decided to work up to it again, and though we flapped our level best and tried all we knew, we could not rise the light at all and had to give it up. We then noticed that we seemed to be in a strong set, for the light was broad away on the starboard bow, while on the port bow there was a reddish glow which made us feel rather creepy, and we both remarked that we had got into a kind of haze which had a sort of burnt powdery smell. We saw the white light dip, but it comforted us a bit to see that the other did not get any redder—we kept ourselves under easy speed with a bright look-out all round, and to make all sure, one of us wore ship every hour, just dropping a little to leeward and coming up again. Time went by slowly, but we didn’t care about making much headway ‘to the left,’ and at last we sighted something moving, and carefully edged down on it in open order. As we got nearer we saw it had wings and we made it out to be a hoary old chap of a decidedly Egyptian head, but there was no mistaking him, for he was a real true blue old sailorman by the way he worked his wings, which showed he had been a long time afloat, and we could not but admire his style. As we came up he sheered off, but we were one on each side of him and had evidently plenty of wing power in reserve, so he stopped and took a long pull at a bottle that he hauled out from under his port wing and then hove a deep sigh. Now the sight of that bottle did us good and we hailed him, saying that if he didn’t want it all we should be glad of a drop, for we had come a long way; he looked at us compassionately and shook his head: ‘No such luck,’ says he; ‘why, I’ve been sucking this bottle for nigh on to four thousand years and can’t get a drop out of it! Though it seems to be good stuff, too! But there,’ says he, ‘that’s your job.’ He was a pleasant old fellow and was telling us that he commanded a squadron of war boats on the African Lakes under King Rameses the First, and was just deploring the degeneracy of the seamen of the present day, when he suddenly said, ‘Here comes the Old Man,’ and the way he spread his wings was a sight to see.”
There was one incident that may be set down here as worthy of notice. It relates to the period of unrest that was manifest in the maritime world both at home and oversea in the year 1889. Some portion of that time we were in New Zealand, and so far as we were concerned the affair culminated in the port of Lyttelton. On August 31 I had arranged for a dinner-party in the evening, but an urgent message came down from Christchurch that I was to attend a consultation at the head office that evening at eight o’clock. The strike at that time was in full swing, and the previous day we had seen officers leaving one of the Union Company’s ships owing to the pressure brought to bear on them by the men. They did, however, leave the masters of all vessels unmolested. By great good fortune my wife happened to be making that voyage by the courtesy of the directors, so that I could leave my chief to do the honours to my guests, and the lady to represent me. When I got to the office the matter for discussion was whether we could get the ship away to her date in spite of the labour troubles, and to that I gave an unhesitating affirmative, provided that I was allowed to manage the matter in my own way. This was on the Sunday evening, and with that understanding we separated. Monday passed by, so did Tuesday, with varying incidents, and as I did not leave the ship I formed the view that the next day might see trouble, so I was up very early. I knew we were ready for a move in the engine-room, and that my only chance lay in a surprise. The Company’s manager and myself were walking the quarter deck, off which was the only gangway, when a fireman came along and was going on shore, when I stopped him, and forbade him leaving the ship. He wanted to know why he could not go, and was told no one could leave the ship. That, of course, let the cat out of the bag, but I was prepared and they were not, so with the help of the officers we kept the crew on board until we got into the stream, where they soon found themselves, much to their disgust. To this they gave somewhat free expression, the firemen being the most aggrieved. There was one gratifying thing about it all. One of the quartermasters, a man that had been with me many years, and that I had rescued once from a painful ending with the help of another man, came to me surreptitiously and said he was asked by our men to say that if there was trouble with the firemen I had only to say the word and they would take them on and give them a hiding. This made me laugh, but there was no more trouble and we sailed to time next day. That time when we arrived in London we had to get the ship loaded as best we could, the officers driving winches and hydraulic cranes. It was then that the rumour was spread that John Burns was coming down with a crowd of dockers to stop the work, but fortunately the rumours were never crystallised, and I know that the ship’s reputation at this time facilitated greatly the task of getting a crew for the next voyage.