AROUND THE WORLD.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 200, 24 August 1929, Page 4

AROUND THE WORLD.

GOSSIP OF THE PORTS.

SEA STORIES BY LANDSMEN

(By LEE-FORE-BRACE.)

What an excellent thing it would be if all authors who write stones about the sea would pass their manuscripts over to a sailonnan for perusal before publishing them. The palpable errors contained in some of these stories would thereby be obviated, and mediocre stories turned into good ones. The latest book from the hands of a well-known English author dealing with the sea, a "best-seller" by the way, contains some of the most glaring errors and impossibilities imaginable. The scene of one part of the story is laid on a big ship entering Sydney Harbour. The time is early morning, and as the vessel, "with all her kites flying," passes through the heads, we are told that the sun "is just rising over her jib-boom." Authors are allowed a lot of latitude, but to force the hard-worked old sun to rise in the west is going a wee bit too far. But that is nothing. A little further on in the story, we find the hero, the fair maiden, and her mother seated at the • tea-table in one of Sydney's fashionable hotels. At an adjoining table is seated the ship's second officer, and in the word picture in the book it is stated that the brass-bounder "drank his tea after the manner of deepsea sailormen." That is to say, you could shut your eyes and still know that he was drinking hot tea. You who have read Geraint and Enid will remember how, as a prisoner in the stronghold of the outlaw baron, poor Enid crouched in terror in the dining hall, listening to the baron and his spears "feeding like horses when you hear them feed." That was dry entertainment in comparison to the fun the brass-bounder was giving his listeners. The only thing that might puzzle one, is how did the author know it was hot tea. Why not hot rum, or beef-tea, or if he were a Scot, why not toddy? It was after the manner of deepsea sailormen too. That deep-sea is decidedly complimentary. This was none of your harbour headland heroes, but an over-the-line-round tlie-Horn mariner. By the way, I forgot to say that this hot tea swiller with a lieutenant in the Royal Naval Reserve. You must know that, or you will never appreciate "sailor-men." I have occasionally heard R.N. officers called seamen, but never sailor-men. But, however, we'll let that little slip pass, because we must get back to that hot tea before it gets cold.

Can't you hear the old lady's ribs cracking against each other, when, with a sudden she shrieks, "Oh, the horrid creature, I'm sure a gentleman would never assimilate his liquid sustenance in that disgusting manner."

"Of course not," quivers the shamefaced Letitia. She had been making up to him all through the voyage, and now that she had a chance of comparing the delicate and gentlemanly manner in which the hero, sitting opposite her, could sink the juice, the comparison was an odious one, and the brass-bounder's barometer was showing a heavy fall. In other words, the tea swilling process was rapidly ruining his chances.

As I read the book, I wished that its author had been a voyage with me in sail. Then, on a Monday or a Wednesday or a Friday, I would, after seven bells in the forenoon watch, have taken him along to sit at the end of. the spar outside the door of the fo'c'sle. "Jy'ovr, listen," I would have said, and after some five minutes of the sonorous ambrosial sound, I would have ordered: "Now, close your eyes that you may still know in what manner deep-sea sailormen absorb their pea-soop."

Then I would have taken him to the door of the half-deck—the home of the ship's bad bargains—to let him assimilate the different note formed by the beardless lips of the apprenticed partakers of pea soup. Finally, if the second mate didn't boot us off the poop, I would have led him by the hand to the cabin skylight that he might hearken to the hairy duet of the old-man and the mate. He would have got some good copy there, for he would have been able to describe in his "best-seller," how hirsute adornment can be used as a strainer. And I would have let him look down the skylight, and if we were in time he -would have been able to have seen the old-man, after helping the mate to his "fair whack," draw the soup tureen lovingly to his breast, and use the ladle. If my author friend could have seen all that, what splendid local colour he could have got. He would have been able to make it pea-soup instead of tea, given the brass-bounder a ladle, and at one fair shot, as it were, upset the lovemaking scheme for all time. Again, speaking as an old sailor, who ever heard of a second mate drinking tea? Now, if it had been a snifter," a "chota-peg," a stinger, or a "bo'sun's tickler," his readers might have believed him. but tea— never:

But there is even better to follow if you go on with the yarn. The-■'brass-bounder is back home in England. He is bound, per train, to the ancestral mansion up in Yorkshire. At the junction where the train stops, another sailorman enters the carriage, a fully-fledged captain of the Royal Navy, this time. (It is Letitias brother by the way.) The two have much in common, and become great friends. At Liverpool they part company, and the tea-swiller hands the Navy his card, telling him, when in London, to be sure and call for him at the office of the Shipping Federation.

Ye gods and little fishes of the deep waters! Who ever heard of a second mate with a visiting card and the Shipping Federation! Now, if the tea-swiller had been a Glasgow man he would have told Letitia's brother that he was generally to be found at the Goat's Head at the Broomielaw Corner, between 10 a.m. and noon. On the other hand, if a Londoner, he should have made the meeting place the Dock House, or the Three Nuns, or if Cardiff had been honoured with his nativity, the Chain Locker in Bute Street would have found him there any hour of the day or night. But, of course, it would never have done to have let "her" brother come to these places. He might have heard about Madge, or Nellie, or Sophie, and then subsequent events would have required more rectification than the tea-swilling episode. And he would have been easy to find. All the Navy would require to do would be to put his head inside the door and listen. Even if the brass-bounder had not been in uniform, the Navy would immediately have recognised him by the noise he made in imbibing his refreshment, for it cannot be expected that a long apprenticeship to peasoup and hot tea will not leave an echo, however faint, in the cavernous depths of a quart pot.