STEAMBOAT MAC

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22627, 15 January 1937, Page 2

STEAMBOAT MAC

BY CECITj H. V. STEERE

"Less fuel consumption, lower operating costs and performances which are entirely satisfactory. The Dunedin has been in commission for two months only, and you must admit, captain, that motorships have many advantage over steamers."

Brethwaite, managing-director of Southern Steamships, Ltd., looked significantly at McClintock) the company's marine superintendent at Wellington. Brethwaite realised only too well that old Steamboat Mac did not agree with these views. His faith in steam was as impregnable as the Rock of Gibralter.

"That maybe," grunted the lean, rawboned Scotsman. "But ye must remember, yon motor job has been a/loat in two months of fine weather. The auld Navua is a better ship today than the Dunedin ever will be. She'll still be holding her own after the Diesel boat has gone to scrap." "Not if 1 know it," Brethwaite declared emphatically, "lhe Navua is too costly to run. It it high time she was replaced by something more modern and economical. I iihall tell you now, definitely, just as soon as we find a .suitable buyer, that ship goes East for scrap metal. And what's more, her place will be taken by another motor-ship. Good morning, captain." - "Verra well," said McClintock as he prepared to leave the office. "When th' new-fangled oil job lets ye down, dinna ye go and say 1 nae .var-r-ned ye. Mind, I'll nae take the blame." It was said of Captain Donald Murdoch McClintock, D.5.0., R.N.R., that lie was a man feared by the devil. For sheer audacity and nerve he had few equals. His decoration followed a North Sea drama in 1917, when he was in command of an armed merchantman sailing under Admiralty orders. Came a foggy dawn near the coast of Scotland, and with it an enomy submarine lurking on the surface. A shell whistled across the steamer's fore-deck, but the hardy Scot did not wait to receive another visiting card. He put the helm hard over, roared down the speaking-tube for ail the steam his chief engineer could give him, and charged upon the U-boat at full speed. The Britisher was nothing more than a glorified tramp, but she was fast and her bows Mere solid. Too late, the submarine tried to dive. There followed the crash and the crunch of tearing steel, and in a few minutes the tramp had completed her grisly work. McClintock rescued as many survivors as possible, and, without turning a hair, resumed his voyage. ' The war over, McClintock returned to his command with the Southern Line, his faith in steamers complete. Some time later, after his appointment to the position of shore skipper at Wellington he witnessed, to his profound disgust, the advent of the motor-ship. Mac hated Diesel-driven vessels, maintaining that they had not the power' nor the endurance of steamships. "Ye canna beat steam," he would say to his senior captains and colleagues on the engineering side. "Oil boats are like them fancy hats wimmin wear these days; all right in fine weather."

Brethwaite thought otherwise, and was responsible for the company building the Duncdin, of just over 1000 tons gross register. She was fairly fast, economical to run and the latest in cargocarriers for coastal and intercolonial work.

"We have secured the contract with the Chatham Island:! this season," Brethwaite opened without preliminary. "1 want two ships ut Waitangi on the 23rd; one for wool, the other for general. See to it, captain. That wool must reach Wellington by the afternoon of the 2Gth, otherwise it will miss the opening sale. I wa it the fastest and best ship you have," he added. "Verra well, sir, it's the Navua I'll send."

"Rubbish," Bretlwaite retorted. "I want the Dunedin for this job. The Navua can go, too; but she will load the hides and general, also for Wellington. You have your orders?"

McClintock's temper did not boil over, even though a seething volcano within him went very close to erupting. It may have been significant, however, that when the Navua arrived at Waitangi on the evening of the 22nd, old Steamboat, himself, was in command. Rather an unusual procedure, perhaps, but the company was short of skippers at the time, and for reasons best known tc himself, McClintock decided on taking ov?r the steamer for this one trip only. He wore a shabby brass-bound uniform and a battered peak cap, both of which had been shot at and shelled at during his war years. And he smoked a pipe that had the odour of smouldering rags as he directed berthing operations from the bridge. Presently, iie went to the weather rails and sniffed the keen, south-westerly breeze. . "Yo can smell it coming, mister," he commented to the mate. "A real old man southerly. Glass is not too healthy, either."

"Bad weather coming up from the sutli'ard," the mate agreed. "Take us all our time to load and get away tomorrow."

"We line nothing to worry aboot, Nae with hides; but the oil boat arrives to-night. I ken she'll have a har-r-d time getting across. Maybe we'll see," he chuckled. . In view of the approaching bad weather from the south. loading operations were commenced before daybreak next morning, and throughout the day both ships worked overtime. The glass was still falling and the wind rising. McClintock stamped about the deck, continuously alert to the progress being made, and at nightfall the motor-ship and the steamer were ready for sea. When the skipper ordered the hatches to be covered, the southerly was piping its warning note. "Hullo, von stink boat's awa'!"

The Duuedin was away sure enough. Even at the moment she was gliding past the steamer and making for the harbour entrance, Wellington-bound. A colli wind snapped at McClintock as he gave his ardors. Came the clank, clank of the winches hauling in the mooring linos; within a fevr minutes' of the Dunedin's departure.!, the Navua was swinging with the tide. With a flurry of foam astern and her bows lifting to the oncoming swell, the Navua steamed at full speed for the entrance. Heavy rain was now falling and somewhere ahead tlie lights of the Dunedin were discernible, bobbing and dancing as the motor-ship met. l;he first onslaughts of the southerly. Wlien clear of the entrance, McClintock set a course for Cape Palliser, almost, due west and 370 miles out there in :he murk. Late that night, when the steamer was pitching -violently with the wind hard on her port bow, the third mate became ill with a serious internal complaint. He was Brotlnvaite's only son. serving his time at sea and advancing in the service entirely 011 his merits. McClintock, whose many years at sea had given him a knowledge of first-aid ;;nd medicme. left the third mate's cabin with gravely-set features. The ship was plunging lur way through big seas, making heavy jjoing of it already and frequently taking green water on board. To return to tiie Chathams under such circumstances wis an impossibility. Young Brethwaite required urgent medical attention; but there was nothing in that waste or turbulent ocean. McClintock, his mind determined on a course of action, communicated with the engineroom through the bridge speaking-tube. "Give her all ye got," he commanded 1

A NEW ZEALAND STORY

"Certainly not

ICUI'I lIIOUT,

when the shouted response Cani(V through. atner "She's already racing badly " engineer of the watch shouted back I m afraid to open her too much, but IJI do my best. 6 McClintock felt the ship quiver as tJT revolutions were increased. She to t a wild yaw to starboard, swung bari : and dipping her lee rails of water. Again the Navua swung hp! mast-head lamp performing wild gyra. tions as the hard-pressed screw aftor nately raced and thumped away astern" The wind reached gale force at the emi of the middle watch, and although th« Navua was making fairly good progress she was doing so at the cost of a ter' rific pounding.

"She'll never stand it, Mac," ; th chief engineer fought his way along tha wind-swept bridge to the port weather cabin, where McClintock had wedded himself in a corner protected to some extent from the stinging, driving rain and snaking spindrift.

,v1,,,t? " lhe * ki w

"This pounding. Engines will leave their bed-plates soon. Awful down there "

"Canna be helped. Third's in a bad way. Wellington operation—" wind snatched the words from his ling "Ye nae want to see him die?"

The chief engineer got no further An immense wall of curling water' frothing at its summit, loomed from out of the night and struck the steamer a smashing blow amidships. One side of the port weather-cabin was ripped away; McClintock and his companion were swept off their feet. Continuing its path of destruction, the big . sea passed aft, reduced two life-boats to splintered matchwood and became lost in a surging, roaring mass of water astern ,

"What tlfe blazes—" Dazed and bleeding from a gash across his forehead. the captain assisted the chief to his feet and groped for the wheelhouse door.

"Watch ye steerin'!" he thundered as the vessel's bows yawed again. Clinging desperately to the wheel the helmsman brought the Navua'g head round with no time to spare. Another big sea went roaring and hissing on the beam.

Daybreak, cold, and grey, found the steamer still struggling; still smashing her way at full speed through merciless seas. No quarter was given and none expected. A man's life hung suspended by a thread. It was i fight to the bitter end. The ship's officers looked at their captain, fearful of the glint in his Wood-shot eyes. Only the old boatswain understood—he had served with McClintock in that North Sea drama of 'l7. Sea after sea crashed over the Navua as she rose, tottered and fell, her low well-decks awash fore and aft. Time and time again the steamer struggled like a living.thing, almost engulfed in the trough of enormous seas: but on each occasion, like a gallant stag, she shook herself free and bounded on. Nursing her, coaxing her, pleading with her was old Steamboat Mac, using every trick of seamanship he knew and battling against big odds. McClintock realised that unlesi they reached port on the morning of the following day, young Brethwaite could not live another 24 hours. At eight bells captain and chief officer determined the ship's approximate position. Observations were impossible and they were forced to assume their calculations from the patent log and dead reckoning. So far, according to their figures, the slnpi had already steamed 140 miles. .Reluctantly, McClintock scribbled out a wireless message for immediate transmission. Brethwaite, snr., was to be advised that his only son was dangerously ill; that the Navua was racing for port in a hard, south-westerly gale. Noon sights were impossible and once more the course was checked by dead reckoning. McClintock's heart was ai heavy as lead; his only hopes a rising glass and inexliaustable faith in a wonderful ship; a steamer that was as solid to-day as that proud occasion when she had left the Clyde. The master considered that the gale would blow itself out sometime in the late afternoon; that the Navua would subsequently reach her maximum speed—l 3 knots. The Admiralty built her for 12, for economy reasons the Southern Line normally ran her at ten; the chief engineer, in love with her flashing rods and gleaming mechanism, considered another knot within her capacity, Heaven alone knew how much depended upon that extra knot! Toward sundown the gale wore itself out. A rift appeared in the western sky and for a few fleeting moments a streak of crimson danced on the heading nrean. The steamer's bridge was trembling under forced pressure; her entire hull shaking. Double shifts were being worked in the stokehold, where weary men with muscles gleaming in the ruddy glaxe/'of open fires, swung their clangiggpshovels and they kept the steam gauges high. At eight o'clock that night. McClintock sent a further radiogram • "Expect to arrive Wellington 8 a.m. to-morrow. Wind light, heavy swell. Steaming at 12.fi knots. Third officer's condition unchanged." Twelve-point-six- knots! It was not enough. The Navua was lunging through long swells, her grimy funnel pouring out showers of sparks. The great rods were thundering in their crankpits; the engine room an inferno of hot oil and steam. McClintock left the bridge for a time, but not to sleep. He sat beside the third mate and tried to comfort him with the news t hat the coastline was only a few hours away. He spoke quietly, with a note of appeal in his tones; a different McClintock from the roaring, storm-lashed master mariner who had just brought his ship through the jaws of hell. But the third mate was in a stupor, his face the pallor of death. Wearily, the skipper returned to the bridge. A glimmer of gold in the eastern sky announced the birth of a new day. Far ahead. Palliscr Light flashed its welcome from a dark line of coast. Like a phantom ship, her masts, funnel and superstructure etched against the coloured horizon, came the Navua. smoke pouring from her salt-encrusted stack and the water boiling under her stern. When she entered Cook Strait, an hour earlier than expected, she was steaming at 13.2 knots, faster than she had steamed ever before. And with a bono in her teeth she entered the harbour, dipping her stern to the last of the ocean rollers and making for the wharves. Not until she was within a short distance of Clyde Quay, where a group of anxioii* people and an ambulance were waiting. did the bridS® bell ring. McClintock brought his ship alongside without i jolt or jar. A gear was in readiness and it was as a matter of minutes only for the sic man to be transferred to the am bu * finee. McClintock watched the vain through the wharf gates, and wonder® •' Young Brethwaite was alive, but n moro. $ ~ It was sometime during the ! V'_* noon that Brethwaite. snr.. came dow to the wharf. He looked considers . older and lacked his usual McClintock met him at the head of tne gangway; for once in his life at a lofor words. The two men retired to master's cabin M Brethwaite was silent for a "J? 1 "® k or two. He was regarding McClint keenly. Then a smile appeared on n steel features and his hand went ou • "Mac, I false off my hat to you an- , the Navua."