A DREAM COME TRUE.

Press, Volume LXII, Issue 18722, 19 June 1926, Page 13

A DREAM COME TRUE.

MEN WHO RUN SHIPS. HOW THE CREW FARES. No. IV. (By Pilgrim.) During an informal concert in the saloon' one night, our best tenor was in the middle of one of those silly old songs of the sea, when in the background a steward entered with some of the table silver. It was one of the many songs about the joys of the sailor's life, tho port-your-helm-luosc-your-nidder-hands-vo-heave-ho" type, which one suspects are written by landsmen. The steward's face was completely impassive. He appeared to take no interest whatever in this romantic nonsense. The humour of the situation struck more than one of us. We thought of last year's strike about tho £9 a month wage (which is more than the steward gets), life in the forecastle, and the long, monotonous, and often unpleasant duties of the steward. The little scene in the saioon tseeincd symbolical of the contrast between tho landsman's ideas of sea life and the reality. Something more than ideas arc involved, however. [There is indifference. How many travellers really think seriously about the conditions and pay ot the'men who take them across the seas, from the officers on the bridgo to the stokers in the bowels of tlio ship, and the stewards who attend to their want*? Tho modern trend in shipbuilding encourages this ignorance and indifference. In the older ships you were brought into some contact with the crew. You occasionally met firemen and greasers in the alleyways, and you might even get a glimpse Of tho engines on your way U, the cabin. In the new ships the engines are completely shut off from the passengers, and of tho crew uono perhaps come within their ken save the stewards, and an occasional ,deck hand. Yet all theso men have their world, and it would bo a good thing if all travellers were put m tho,'way of knowing something about it. Let <wery traveller who can, make it nis business to go into the stokehold, and penetrate to that mysterious part where the crew sleep m the nose or the ship. To see these places is an education. The forecastle of a modern liner is a much better place to ivo in than the forecastle of a sailing ship. It is dry and well lit, and though many men are crowded into a compartment there is a fair amount of room. Of course, some ships are better than others, but some aromucn worse. It is a common mistake to think of tho Mercantile Marine m terms of tho passenger liner. Koally the liner is in a minority; the tramp steamer; and tho small one at that, forms tho bulk of the service. Conditions in many of these ships must be very, bad. Even in a large ship there may be some that, in the landsman s opinion, call emphatically for improvement. These crowded forecastles must be very hot in the tropics, and m bad weather they receive tho Hirst and strongest fury of tho sea. There is also a lack o'f privacy; for one thing, watches sleep together, and men onduty are disturbed by tho movements of their comrades. And the men eat and sleep in tho samo room, except those stewards'who take their meals, in the pantries. (In tho tropics those pantries rnay not bo very inviting places.) A great need is a room f* meals and recreation apart from w sleeping quarters. Another trouble iu some of tiie older ships is that to got. from the forecastle to duty, a seaman or a steward has to cross an open deck swept by the sea. It has to bo conceded that improvements have been made, and that to find room for better accommodation in a ship-carrying passengers and a large cargo is not always easy. It is not however, creditable to tho British Mercantile Marine that some of tjhese improvements have been introduced by foreign services. Stewards are a class apart. No poot that I know or described their life. Masefield, who served before the mast, has written in a much-read poem that ho Will go down to tho sea again, and :all fie asks is "a tall ship and a star to steei her by." Can one imagine a po© ll saying ho is going down to the sea attain-to clean out cabins and carry food to travellers? Stevenson made a sea cook a famous character an fiction, but apparently it was left to that clever young Australian, Mir Date Collins, to make a largesse villaini ot a mere steward. "Ordeal" is an appropriate book to read on shipboard, it tells of a party of .men and women in a schooner yacht in the Pacifyc, who got into the clutches of their steward. Ws of servitude among wealthy travellers, acting on a base disposition, move this steward to tako charge ot the ship and inflict incredible tyrannies on tho passengers, lo turn the tables on the class that has ordered him about for so long is the highest joy he can. conceive. The book closes with a stroke ot very tolling irony* After escaping from the horrors of this madman's tyranny, the travellers are rescued by a great liner, and the leader of the party, finding that the stewards are a little.slow in bringing drinks, remarks that the only thing wrong with the ship is the service. Though the lesson of his experience was lost on the man, it may ■ do some men—particularly travellersgood to read "Ordeal." The steward is a hard-working, obliging workman who does unpleasant jobs and putsi up with treatment from crochetty, selnsti pecple that would strain the patience of 'most of us. We should not be surprised if he makes a success as a waiter, a club steward, or a hotel manager ashore; afloat he has had a severe training in the management or materials and people. He is a very human person, the steward, with his own opinions and experiences, a shrewd sense of humour at times, and oftenstrange though it may appear—family responsibilities. His hours are very long and his pay poor. Less than £J a month, with broken time, is no great wage, is it? He gets tips, of course, but they vary with the ship, the season, and the class of passenger he serves, and, like the seamen, he often has broken time; that is to say, he signs off on arrival t>f his ship at the home Qprt, and may have to put in some days or weeks in idleness. A new crew, with the exception of departmental heads, is signed on for every vovage and a man may not be able to afford to wait for his ship. And the ships' officers may have to handle new men every trip. On some runs, at any rate, a man loses two months' wages a year on the average, which is a serious matter on a wage of a month or less. Dr. Johnson said that going to sea was like going to gaol, with a chance of drowning added. The conditions of the seaman's life have greatly improved since his day, yet tho question is often suggested: Why does anyone go to sea? To-day we think it extraordinary that men should have been found to work the old sailing ship on miserable wages and in wretched conditions. Think of going aloft round the Horn to furl frozen sails, grappling with t v em with numbed, bleeding hands on n swaying spar! Yet men did this, and took a pride in their work. Some years ago a middle-aged A.B. shipped for his first voyage in steam, in a New

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Zealand liner. Off the Horn the steamer passed a sailing ship that had been trying for weeks to round that point of storm. This sailor looked at her with admiration. "That's a sailor's job," he said, "you're not a sailor here; you're only a paint-scrubber." At the end of his contract he went back to sail; the steamer must have been more comfortable, but he preferred his old work, and had a touch of the artist's contempt for the mere tradesman. Probably there are many sailors who would not thank us for pitying them. It is their job and they do it, and it is a good thing for landsmen that this is so. The landsman, however, can at least, be grateful to them for keeping the wheels of- commerce moving, and when he reads or hears of their grievances is mindful of the hardships of their lives. Future generations may be just as critical of conditions at sea today as this generation is of conditions in the old day's of sail.