"ALL CLEAR AFT!"

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 83, 8 April 1933, Page 1 (Supplement)

"ALL CLEAR AFT!"

"DE LUXE"—AND OTHERWISE.

TRAVELLING EST TRAMP SHIPS,

(By MARC T. GREENE.)'

A huge liner, American-owned but temporarily for vinous reasons under the flag of the Republic of Panama, drew slowly away from her pier. She was setting forth on a "de luxe cruise of the world." Gaily-coloured streamers fluttered from her rails, showers of confetti descended upon cheering throngs on the dock, and many a merry envy-tinged jest sped the joyous passengers on on their long-anticipated journey. It was a spectacle likely to arouse longing even in the least imaginative. "Ah," sighed my companion, "it's a great thing to be able to travel." I agreed, adding that the same sentiment doubtless found expression on the quays at Tyre as the quinquiremes of Nineveh set forth westward, or at Ostia as the galleys of Rome commenced the loner' voyage to Britain.

"And ifc was bo doubt just as expensive/' he grumbled. "Not many of us can see the world."

"It depends largely upon the degree of one's determination," I corrected him. "Or, perhaps, as Conrad says, upon ■whether one possesses the courage of one's dreams. Look there!"

Wallowing along in the rising wash of the "do luxe" liner there stood sea : ward a dingy old coal-burner, a "hardrun tramp from anywhere," spurned by the great ship as scornfully as a mongrel dog following half-fearfully in the- trail of a greynound. A knot of men in odds and ends of attire hung over the bow watching the faster vessel draw away. And I knew that they, even as the "de luxe" travellers, were men with that '•'taste for travel" which has discovered new oceans and placed the boundaries of continents. I knew because I had been one of such a group many times. And I seemed to hear their scornful comments on the proud liner and her pampered company, comments springing from the realisation that in such journeying there lay nothing whatever of the thing called adventure, of the real satisfaction of roaming the world in close touch with its common life, of the delight of earning one's way and of writing one's experiences indelibly upon the tablets of memory.

Working One's Way. "A freight boat," observed my friend, in a tone that suggested a vague resemblance between the vessel and a moon-directed rocket as a method of travel. "But they have no passenger accommodation." "No," I agreed, "but they carry crews." He pondered this as we watched the two ships disappear in the haze about the harbour entrance. Still I perceived that nothing tangible suggested itself in the connection. The idea of earning one's way about the world by the labour of one's hands did not partake of reality. And yet my own craving, as aroused in the departure of two; worl<f?rbving vessels, directed itself, not at the great liner, but at the dingy tramp. For I thought of the long tricks at the wheel through placid waters, of the hour of leisure at twilight, of the chats in the forecastle before "turning in" with men who had sailed every sea and knew every port, men whose keen and succinct summaries of their experiences were worth a hundred guide bo6ks and a dozen "travelogues" in luxurious saloons. I once met a burly oil-driller prospecting for an English syndicate near Manzanillo, Mexico. He was a fascinating world rover. He had ridden the range in Montana, fished with the Gloucester fleet, been lost in a Papuan jungle, participated in the defence of a Chinese town against bandits, and been nine times around the Horn on a "windjammer." One evening in the bunkhouse, in the midst of a tale of two weeks in an open boat in the Coral Sea, he broke off with, "I'm tired of this oil business. What snv, old-timer, let's go to sea? You say you were in the Navy; you can steer, ch?"

I admitted having held the spokes of more than one wheel.

"0.K., then," he decided. "We'll make for San Diego, work up to 'Frisco on a freighter, and ship from there on the first thing that offers!" " See You in Hongkong ! " It was surprisingly easy. We got a cargo vessel to Honolulu, by way of the northern lumber porta, and I stood a quartermaster's watch, four hours on and eight off, with two of the watch at the wheel and two as lookout on the hritlge with the mate, two hours of pleasant chat. Abandoning half our pav, we left the ship at Honolulu, though not without listening to some scathing comments from the "old man" on the aimlessness and general mediocrity of present-day sailors; We shipped on a schooner to Samoa, and I left my wandering friend on the beach at Apia as he negotiated for a place in the crew of a New Zealand vessel loading copra. "See you in Hongkong, shipmate,' my roving friend shouted in farewell. And perhaps he willyet.

I never stand on a dock when a freighter is leaving and hear that epic call "All clear aft!" without recalling my many voyages on cargo ships and yearning for others. "All clear aft! What a significance for the sailor and the wanderer in that familiar call! It indicates the severance of the last tie with the land ere setting forth on a long voyage, the definite abandonment of all shore considerations for the men of the sea. Not in the very least does the departure of a "de luxe" liner stir within me the: pangs of envy, unless, indeed, she is bound somevyhere I am anxious to go and to go quickly.

On the bridge on a warm night there is talk of many things and places and experiences and people far without the* landsman's ken, sober wonder at the might and mystery of the sea, or light chat of remembered yesterdays in Yokohama or Port Said. Of a western ocean morning when the weather is conservatively described in the log as "heavy," there is rough humour as one sits at meat at a heaving table and juggles with dishes determined to leap into his lap. Best of all, there is companionship here on the "tramp,' such companionship as only found in the fraternitv of the sea. It is the binding friendship of the true rover, even the brotherhood of the gentry of the high road who foregather of a summer's evening about the bush fire, "boil the billy," and consider amicably the incredible dullness of staying for long in the same place.