MUTINY AND DEATH.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 85, 11 April 1931, Page 6 (Supplement)

MUTINY AND DEATH.

STORY OF A VOYAGE ON A TRAMP STEAMER.

(By ERIC MOORE.)

As I walked along 'the slippery deck I was thinking of things at home; the things that made me go to sea. At home they had seemed like very bic things and I had left with the feeling that nothing would ever be quite the same again. When one is young a little thing can turn his world very dark. Now I was part of a strange, adventurous world bound for I didn't know where.

Rain fell straight down from a grey Bky—a soft weeping rain from a grey sky—far astern lay Rio, twenty-one days normally. No one knew how many days for na. We were a tramp; a grey ship that pokes into queer places for queer cargoes, whose crew keeps its mouth shut for all time. Water ran down the arms of men who handled the shovels. They were heaving overboard the ashes and garbage that had accumulated in port and the ashes flew around in a smother with Dot enough wind to 'blow the cloud clear of the ship. After that was done we "would clean decks. Far behind lay Ontario. On a Saturday night I had 'been at a dance in a little Ontario town. Monday morning I had sailed out of Montreal. It was early June, and holiday time. The ship rolled gently over the long swells and the smoke from her single funnel hung low around her. We were getting our sea-legs with a feeling of having shaken off something fettering; it's a feeling that only comes when long days of open sea lie ahead. In Montreal I asked a few questions and walked down the dock. I clambered on to the deck of the worst tramp on the worst route on the seven seas: the South American trade. The steward gave me my "tick" and I put it in a, bunfc. The foc's'le was aft on this ship, with the sailors' and firemen's quarters separated iby a wooden partition. This was wrecked later during a mutiny. Rolling Down to Rio. It was hot in Montreal while we were loading boots and shoes, machinery and 100,000 motor-car tyres. Then it got cooler as we dropped down the St. Lawrence and headed around for Sydney NJ3.—the dirtiest town in the world, the sailor's said. No street lights, up hill and down dale, smoke in a pall all the time. Here we took on Canadian mining machinery.

Our crew numbered 41 men. The captain was a "blue nose," a Nova Scotian. He was a tremendous man with a foghorn voice and wore pyjamas most of the time. The first mate was a "limejuicer" and a bruiser; the second a Jew; the third was a French-Canadian, and the Ibosun was a The latter was a hulking man whose sleeves always were too short for him, and he always followed hi 6 orders with, "or I'll yump down your neck." He boasted he could thrash any man on the ship. He needed his ability.

The crew lived and slept aft in the foc's'le; the firemen on iheir side and the sailors on their side —starboard and port respectively. The oilers and engineers slept amidships in their own cabin, as did the bosun. The bosun had his own mess, where he and the carpenter ate. There were two deckboys and outward bound one served the bosun and the other, the foc's'le. Inward bound they switched because the bosun had better food. Rolling down to Rio. Those four words form the theme for a sea chantey sung in every port of the world; a song of clipper ships and days of doldrums on the Equator. Rolling along through rain and sunshine, with every day the same. We chipped ruet, painted, scrubbed decks and paintwork, polished brass. Watch off and watch on. Twenty-five dollars a month and we ran out of ice 'before we hit the Equator. The water tanks were clean then, but the water was 60 hot that a cupful of it had to be set aside to cool before it could be drank. Gambling All the Way. V.A poker game started before we left Montreal and it never stopped As one watch went on duty the off-coming watch was dealt into the game. We stood tricks of eight hours off and eight on. There were three oilers and they stood watch, as did the engineers and officers. The engineers were all FrenchCanadians.

Day passed into night and back to day. The poker game went on. Fights were frequent, with the bosun butting in if it looked serious. The firemen and trimmers (the stokehole gang) were the worst. They fought over everything and lived in a wo/ld apart. On the Equartor it was terrible in the stokehole. One fireman a Greek,, made a little canvas bucket affair that he hung on a lifeboat davit where it caught any breeze. The water he kept in it came out icy cold, but he said he would kill any sailor who touched a drop of it. We picked up Rio after 22 days if I remember rightly. We dropped boots and shoes and machinery at Rio. The firemen took on a load of whisky and the chief had to raise a fuss before we got undsr way again. We headed for Gull Rocks, 350 miles off the coast of Africa, and straight across the Atlantic. No one knows much where a tramp, steamer is going and we knew less. Three or four white men greeted us hungrily and a score of natives watched us wonderingly at Gull Rocks and we hove Canadian mining machinery over the rail. It looks like the end of creation, Gull Rocks—a straight-sided wall of rock rising out of the Atlantic and nothing else. We couldn't learn what the machinery was to be used for and sailors are never told anything. Some said it wasn't even machinery. Then back to Rio, wireless orders rumour said. More long days of heat and sunshine as we crept across the Atlantic again. In mid-ocean we passed six schooners under full sail. A seagoing tug ploughed alongside them. When becalmed the tug would take the schooners in tow. Below the Equator sailing ships are plentiful. Then we knew why we came back to Rio. Tramp steamers are ships that will take cargoes without asking questions, will try to place the cargo in any port it is ordered to reach, and will do this despite plague, laws, famine or pestilence. They will run any gauntlet, quarantine or warfare. Rio had an epidemic of scarlet fever. "No ships were allowed to leave if thev entered port. No reputable ship would venture in because that meant quarantine and loss of money. A tramp skipper ifiils despite mutiny, plague or murder. Ours did in all ttoe© instancy

We dropped anchor in the roads three miles from Rio. The bumboats swarmed around before the lighters reached us. We were to take on package freight for Santos and Buenos Ayres, and we started loading before we even dropped the hook. The bumboats were our downfall. Port always means a trip ashore for the crew. But no one was allowed to leave the ship at Rio. That meant everyone must get drunk aboard ship. The jam and pickles were produced. The Firemen Plan Mutiny. Every Saturday morning the foc's'le gets its supply of jam and pickles. These come in five-pound pails, and we got three of each every Saturday. We ate about one pail a week. We saved the rest for bartering with bumboat-men. In addition, the bosun's deckboy enealcs down the oversupply from the bosun's mess. For one pail of jam a bumboatman will give three dozen bananas, three dozen oranges and one bottle of "casashe" whisky. After the bartering the gains rae always evenly divided; that is the most rigid law of the foc's'le; a man must get his share no matter how much he is cordially and generally disliked by everyone else. The firemen had saved a lot of jam and money. They laid in copious supplies of casaslie. Over the partition in their foc's'le tliey were making merry. The night was velvety dark as the last gasp of the donkey engine died away after hoisting the freight aboard. Two of us went down into the chain locker to stow the anchor away as it came in. The winches whistled and ground over our heads and the chain came down dripping and greasy with mud. Stowing chain, Ave didn't know what was going on above. It was one of the hardest jobs on a ship. While we worked the rats nimbly leaped about our feet or sat on the little foot-ledges i on the walls-

We came out wringing wet and tired. We went to the foc's'le and there we heard the news. The donkey-man, who was an oiler at sea, had kept up enough steam to operate his hoists, but now the stokehold gang was roaring drunk, had gone on strike and were defying anyone to get them out of their foe s le. The donkey-man's steam was getting us to sea at about two knots an hour. Along the partition down the centre of the foc's'le was our mess-table. The sailors climbed on that and looked over the partition at the firemen. They were uproarious. And they had lots of unopened casashe bottles still on their table and in their bunks. It wasn't our fight. We sat back and waited for results. The watch was called out, and it went; the bosun would "jump down our necks." I was wheeling and I knew something Was afoot because the officers were all in the chartroom. The captain also had his clothes on; till then we only saw him "when he took bearings at eight bells morning and night, and he always wore pyjamas. No one went to sleep. Dawn came and we rolled along, just making headway. The firemen were louder than ever. We could hear them making plans for 1 unning things. There were Englishmen, Scotchmen, Irishmen, Finns, Greeks, and several ; other nationalities in their gang. Then came the fight. (To bo concluded.)