"GIVE ME THE SEA"

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 70, 24 March 1931, Page 11

"GIVE ME THE SEA"

FOE HEAL LIFE

SAYS CAPTAIN T. HUGO

EARLY REMINISCENCES

To most people in' New Zealand tho lame of Captain T. T. Hugo is associated chiefly with five brigades, .and with his excellent work in this direction. And on fires and fire lighting, Captain Hugo1 can talk, and talk interestingly, for a long time on end. But mention the sea to him, and reminiscences of his first. love and real:, love are the interrogator's .'reward- —reminiscences corroborated by thumb-worn arid faded" newspaper clippings'. and other interesting document^. "I always like to be able to back:,up my tales tfith the printed'or written.: word," says Captain Hugo. His reminiscences' of the sea, are of the days when life on the ocean wave was far less kind than it is to-day; when romance and windjammers went hand in hand; when "those who went down to the sea in ships and occupied '.their 13118111053 in great, waters" really tasted^ life in its hardest, school." " \ ....... That the young TliomasHugo should lave-been drawn, to the sea when a ooyis not surprising. Although actually born in Liverpool, where his father, a naval officer, was in business, young Hugo came from a Devon family, a family in a county famous for its seafarers, and a family'which for generations ha.d -embraced the sea as its call; ing. jHis father had been a naval offi"f'cr in' charge of a transport during the Crimean War, and' for his four sons the sea called, and. its tall was.'■'answered. As a lad of fourteen, Thomas, the eldest of fhe family, was put'"into ah office for six months on the'understanding that, at the*, expiration of '.that time, if ,he still felt'- the' call of the sea,' he would be apprenticed on some boat. When the six months had-expired, there was no doubt m young Hugo's mind as to. the direction in which'lay his future and off to sea ho went. That was in the early .'seventies. - After two years'' voyaging His ship was laid up indefinitely. Papa ■ilugo -was not having Thomas at home doing nothing, so the lad was apprenticed to a'Nova Scotiari barque,.in the days when apprentices on American coastal boats were looked upoii with • suspicion as spies placed aboard by owners. "If was then;" says Captain Hugo* "that I learnt to be a sailor." : . 1 His first voyage as an officer was on a timber boat which in the summer time used to make two or three trips across the Atlantic to fetch timber from Canada.. "I was third mate," said Captain Hugo, "and all the crow-wore fishermen; half of them Irish and the other half Shetland Islanders. It Was- a-regular international match all the way, Scotland versus Ireland, and life had no moment which, was : not exciting." What he politely calls "a further tough time" was experienced by Captain Hugo wKen, in 1879, he was mate on an American vesseltrading on the American coast. TO DIGNITjY OF MASTER.' As a piaster, Captain Hugo sailed hs first charge to Lisbon, and .the Btory of this voyage and- its antecedents would rejoice the heart of a Conrad. The barque Fry lay at'Milford Haven and lay and lay, in spite of her owner's desire to get her away to Algoa Bay. Were the crew right in suppos-ing-her unseaworthy? Perhaps, or perhaps not, but the rest of the tale partially answers that. Anyway,. Thomas Hugo was appointed master of herby a properly drawn-up and legally-stamp-ed document—one of his prized possessions, and ono which produced many years ago before the death of the persons named in' it might have landed all or any of them in penal servitude for many years. It could have been construed as barratry, fdr "hereby it is mutually agreed between "William H. Longman, master mariner, who holds a certificate of competency, that he as the party, of the first part shall/and will serve on the barque Fry'of Liverpool (of which Captain Bichard Horton the party of the second part is the managing owner) as chief officer on a Voyage from Milford Haven to Algoa Bay '■. .'. . it being understood by the parties that Mr. Th. Hugo, late chief officer of the said ship, shall act as master aud have full charge thereof, tho said William Longman agreeing to abide by the orders and to be under-the authority of the. said Thomas Hugo'for the said voyage «.. .. . " and so on. ..: PIUOK WINS THROUGH So with the captain- as mate and the mate as captain, the said barquo Try, with a fresh crew, set ofE from Milford Havem with half a gale behind her. It was not.long-before the crew becamo,uneasy: the pumps, they said, had mo suck, and they-could "not find the .sounding rod; They believed the ship was making water, and it seemed as if trouble was brewing. - So' it was. "I'll see the men," said skipper Hugo {f,f '.I' being a youngster of 21," remarked Captain Hugo in telling the tale to a "Post representative). "I saw them, and told them, that we would all go to tho bottom if we turned round in the gale and bucked- into that sea running, behind us. But what I did promise was/to make the first'port I could, and, would you believe it, that port was th6""ono ! for Which I was bound !•■ ■-\ .•- -.:.. "We got to the mouth of the Tagus, sailed up-the: river' Without a pilot, and then I 'found' the7sounding rod in my bunk. There wero seven feet of water:in tho leaky hold, but we ..made port all. right. . F.or coming up . the river without a pilot I was 'severely cautioned by' the' authorities; - butthey lot me ..off.- ■ lightly ; because I was a youngster.!".... - ... .-•: - ■•- H3JS TIGHTEST CORNER. It was beside'• the. Tagus.'. that-,Cap-tain Hugo found himself in. the tightest corner of a career that can boast-of many, tight corners.. "Thore -was;; a girl in-the case,;as there often is> and Because of her I was foolhardy enough to climb the copper ; dome of Pena Castle .at Cintra, that- famous castle whence Vascb do Gaina sot out on his adventurous' voyages. ■• Starting from some, narrow steps, I forked my way! to the dome's top, only to find that in so doing I had entirely lost my bearings and the sight'of the: steps which were my only avenue to safety again. For an'hour or so no one noticed my plight and I was faced with a plunge of thousands of feet to instant, death. But at last my gesticulations were seen and the way to safety was pointed out." x ■ ■ I For several years after this Captain Hugo" sailed into many waters. One famous ship •of his was the Heather Bell, one of the fastest sailers afloat. Captain Hugo sailed the Heather Bell into Wellington Harbour some forty years ago, little dreaming then that his latter years -would bo, spent in a high and onerous position in New Zealand's capital city. When sailing the Heather Bell, Captain Hugo made close acquaintance—almost too close —with "King O'Keefe of the Carolines," whose career is a story in itself. O'Keefe, a fugitive from justice, was wrecked in<tho Caroline Islands. The natives made a chief of the naked, redhaired, blue-eyed sailor so strangely washed up in their midst. O'Keefo improved the shining hour, developed a. lucrative, trade in the pearling and pirate businesses, aud became a rich man with a largo harem, although he had a legitimate wife mourning his loss in the State*. Ho wanted to purchase the Heather Bell from Cap-1

tain Hugo, and the latter has still the note promising to pay eighteen thousand golden dollars for tho vessel. But O'Keefe never got tho vessel, which was well, for his real idea was capture j rather than purchase. O'Keefe was I again shipwrecked and was this time drowned, leaving, it is Said, an estates worth nearly a million.. - ... IN AUSTRALIA. For various reasons Captain Hugo | took a- temporary farewell of tho sea, and two years wero spent in Australia's interior. Work in. tho bush, wellsinking, and surveying were all under-1 taken, and so-was the skinning of rab--1 bits and kangaroos.. This latter was profitable work when a bunny's scalp {fetched three pence and a kangaroo's a shilling. But there was more than a 10 per cent. cut. in these rates, and to make money, other- avenues of work were sought. Amongst these was the taking of soundings in the Murray: Biver when locks were mooted, and the surveying of: what is now the Broken Hill railway line, and also the first section of . the east-to-west railway, although then the -latter was not thought of. FOUND HIS WAY. •• Australia's "inland is a country of vast distances and.few tracks, the latter being even-fewer- than they are now in > the days when Captain Hugo was traversing them. To tell his" own st s,.y : .i_<<l was •*away back ■■ at some little township, ' willing- to turn my hand to anything. 'Ybu.look like _a seafaring mail: can you drive a coach? said a man. to me, but why a sailor should be a coachman I don't know. On tho principle of never turning down anything that comes'my way, I said I could. -;So. ;I was: engaged to drive some hundreds of miles to a distant township. There -wore hardly any tracks, but I'got there,, and my. boss never- .guessed; that "until .-.then I had never hold roms in my hand." _ But growing weary after a time or land; life, Captain Hugo ■ worked his way up north to Wyndham, and then to Port Pirie, temporarily taking to the sea again. The.-tales,.ha can.tell ot turtles-and of other,, adventures on tho northern islands are as .good as, if not better than,, those .recounted by Louis do Eougemont, and. have the additional merit of being, true. '■■ ■ ■ But finally- the sea. was left for good. Tho fire, brigade at Adelaide claimed his services, and ,tq fire bricades he has since remained true. •'But for life, for.:real life," even now, says Captain Hugo, ■" give me the sea." %. ■ ■■ ■ ■'.