THE END OF AN OCEAN TRAMP.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVI, Issue 11199, 20 October 1899, Page 3

THE END OF AN OCEAN TRAMP.

The mate, the chief, and I were sitting in the back parlour of the Aneroid saloon on the York water front. There was a blizzard outside, so when wo got under shelter the mate stamped some of the snow off his seaboots, the chief engineer unwound a red scarf from his throat, while I procured the beer and loaded a pipe. When wo wore comfortable the chief commenced: — • The trouble began with the furnaces!" . It (lidn t,' said the mate, indignantly. It was all along of the paint." "Tell tlio story yourself, Bill." The chief was suave and cheerful, the mate dour as fog. {i Heave ahead, then," ho answered, sulkily. " Well," said the chief, "the trouble all began with the furnaces. The superintendent engineer says she was burning more coal than she was worth, so lie had half my furnace space bricked up, and that crippled her, to save a few tons of coal. They cut down my oil and waste, they give mo a sort of apology muck which they was pleased to call coal, and then they says I'd have to do withXL a(1 ° nl^ eymal V, N °w, °' ( man, say what tliey done to you. The mate growled in his throat. "The lldir" fi Tl° count for my old rope, which is the chief officer's perquisite. Fancy a shipowner coming down to stealing old rope ZV\ m r- Tl "V aitl 1 could paint her e\ cry third voyage. Now if you don't point every voyage a ship ain't no more use than '7 iron. They took "ray ray lamp-trim-mer, and said tlio bo s n had got 'to tend that T 1 *' i y f uall 3 Bo' ™ low clown 'f' , th f y a™ ged 41,0 paraffin "X for my v l" The y, P" 1 tho old man 'by the wtek an , we well nigh starved." now ta to ° k " the tale "You Bee, shin' wit" • 1 ° r ™ Was fair starving the here T l ■?r gg,mg economy, a pound' saved nnnr nU T u 8 ! SCrapod there naturally the poor old Teelf began to look a fair fright." tured they StarVo her? 1 von " t ." Cause slio didn't pay," said the mate, "[j the cluef engineer went on:— i,. llie old m! was just crazed with the way things were going The owners told him that they was sick of losing money on every ojage. Villi e freights kept up we'd done fairly well; but when freights went down therei was no chance for an old, out-of-date job like the Teelf. Even the newost tramps could scarcely make a voyage pay at that time, and they could carry half as much j cargo again for the same outlay in coal, wages • and upkeep. Pile old man said he thought the owners wouldn't go into mourning for the ! lee f if we lost her. My! but she'd a beauturn set of engines, a compound job by Hawtiiornes, 200 indicated horse-power, though I'd get 500 horse-power out of her any day, old as she was." "Shejmd wooden docks, too," said the mate; and had been square-rigged on the lore, only they cut her down to fore-and-aft canvas when they reduced the crew to three lianas in a watch. Yes, sir, a fine ship in her day, he sighed. " So there he was," said the chief, " gallumphmg along through all weathers easy as a duck. Uc was homeward that last trip with grain from Philadelphia for Bremen, and the old man said we would make a landfall before miomght. I didn fc got a sight at noon," said the mate; tlio old man and the second took the sun, but I was bandaging the cook for a scalu. The old man's observations would give us a landfall at. midnight. You know what a cherub is? A brass contraption twisting astern on the end of a string, and it registers tho miles like them odometers on a bicycle. The ckerin said we was doing nino knots, and the skipper he makes out the clierub was right. "I warned him," added the chief, "I warned him that tlio cherub was out of order. I told him that by my engines we were doing nearer ton knots than nine. If my engines were correct, m I timed off tlio revolutions on the marker we was doing ten knots, so that we'd mako tlio coast at eleven p.m., and be ton miles up country at midnight. ' * V i l ' ie "? ale k rolcG in > " ancf the skip- ' per told tho chief to mind iiis own business. j What d ye think of that, eh?" i _ You moan that the captain intended to j risk the ship?" j "I don't mean nothin'," said tlio mate, with a sneer at me. " But the old man says that the owner wouldn't bo breaking his heart at the loss of the Teelf." j "Well, what happened?" I « " I turned in all standing," said the mate. Thought wo might ho going ashore for a plato of Devonshire cream. Second mate says the night was dear enough, but lie didn't see no lights. At six bells in the watchthat's ten p.m.—tho old man went down to the chart room for another look at the chartsighted it through a tumbler. At seven bells ho had another observation, look off his boots and put on slippers. At one bell they were just sending down from tho bridge to call me, when I woke up with a start. Tlio old booker was shivering in all lior bones, and jumping around on something hard'like a pig in a fit." _ " I was in the engine-room," said the chief, "and she felt like a cart going off a wood pavement on to cobble stones. I oloscd all sluice valves, and the bridge telegraphed full speed astern. There was a grating sound all along port side, as wo slid off into deep water." "I was on deck by that time," said the mate. " Beautiful still, clear night, and tho cliffs right up over our heads hundreds of feet high. Wo steamed astern 20 minutes, then tho old man said we must bo clear off tho derelict wreck anyhow. We couldn't bo near the land, says he, because tho second mate cast the lead and found no bottom at 30 fathoms, up and down. So the old rfian 'consulted with his officers' and headed his course— say north-east to south half west for—forcall it Birmingham. " By that time wo was down by tho head, fore compartment full, doing five knots at full speed ahead." " Sinking!" I cried. "No," sneered the mate; "tho bow end of her might liavo been inclined that'way, but her stern end was rising up out of the water." " At throe a.m. we lowered away 'tile boats. By that timo the rats were running aft along the decks by dozens. The water was up over the deck as far as the bridge bulkhead." " I'd been having lots of fun," said the chief, shaking his grizzled old head mid chuckling dryly. "By tho time the lower fires were drowned my firemen were up to their waists in water. They.cleared out, so I got a couple of bottles from the steward and told my boys' Whoever follows me down again gets what's in these bottles.' They followed all right, and stood by me, each' man getting a drink for every shovel of coal ho could gel into the upper fires. They was actually swimming! At last when the fires wero all drowned out, wo were up to our knoes on the engine-room gratings. Tho whisky was no inducement after that, so I lot 'om all go on deck except my third, who wouldn't leave me if iie died for it. I chalked a mark on the bulkhead, and found the water rising on us a foot every five minutes. At half-past three the old man telegraphs from the bridge: 'Finished with engines.' So I put her in centre gear, and opened the safety valves. I wasn't going to have my engines disgrace mo if ever the divers went down to investigate, but the water chased us up the ladders. Ob 1 but them was fine engines!" "Steam blowing off with a roar," cried the mate, " and the old man fair crazed bocause the chief here went to his berth instead of to the boat." " Old man thought I was going ashore in greasy overhalls!" The chief smiled. " I'm a respectable man, and I wasn't going to liavo my new suit of clothes go to waste. So I changed, got my watch, 'money, log, and my old woman's photo. Then there was my canaries in the mess-room wluoh wouldn't leave their cages until I hoisted the little duffers out by hand. Then I lilt tho hens out "of the coop, and the three duckfrwhy tho after-deck was a regular Noah's Ark, ducks quacking, canaries cheep-cheeping on the standin' rigging, hens pecking and crooning, not to mention our nig slithering down the quarterdeck just 'sif it was a switchback at sixpence a run.." . " I went up to the old man, said the mate. "' Well,' says I, 'we can do nothing more now; but he wouldn't come down off the bridge, said 1 is 'cart was broken, and wanted me to remember we'd run on a derelict for the sake of his wife ami kids. I had to tell him I hadn't seen them cliffs or ho d have drowned himself. As it was he borrowed a chow of tobacco, then chawed awav at it while he wrung his hands and sobbed. . "Cut that short," protested the chief. "That ain't the thing to tell to an outsider. He turned to me. "Our old man behaved like a hero." , ~ ~ "We left the ship at half-past four, the old man last to quit." .. „ , T i.„,i "Except," said the mate, that IM" to pitch him into the boat." , The chief took no notice.. We rowed off a piece, and lay waiting to watch the old hooker take her plunge. After 15 minutes she stood for a moment straight on end, stern in the air. Then a compartment burst, the aii broke out through the after hatches, she righted to the horizontal, decks awash, and so sank." ~ ~ ~ , „ . "We bore away, said the mate, "four boats under sail, light breeze from tlio sou - west, heavy swell, , course nor -nor -west, and in. balf-an-hour saw, : the loom of the land. Devonshire cream for breakfast, but —do " you i: know?—thorn infernal . Customs seized our tobacco before thev'd lei us ashore!" • -