SOME WATCHERS OF THE NIGHT

Otago Witness, Issue 2883, 23 June 1909, Page 15

SOME WATCHERS OF THE NIGHT

THE LOOK-OUT MAN.

By Will Lawson.

I'm a sailor-man, and: I'm lookin' out For something out on the E©a, It might be a whale ot -a -waterspout — Tannin' around and walkin 1 about

< "Wlen the officer's waichin' me.

The ship's bell clangs twice in metallic tones. The look-out rises from his seat in the drum of a winch with a gruff.

" Excuse me half a minute."

He goes to the starboard rail and looks to see that the green sidelight is shining well, then crosses to the port side where the blood-red beams of the port light glow. '• Two be'ls, lights' burnin' brightly. All's well," he chants to the officer on the bridge. Then with a glance forward ho resumes his seat and his conversation.

It is a clear moonlight night, and the hour is 1 o'clock. No land is in eight, and there is no sign of another ship oh the ocean. Below, in the cabins, passengers sleep the night hours away, the look-out's cry, if it readies them, doubtless giving a sense of security, of being watched over by the men on deck. ' '" Its a strange thing, when you think of it," the look-out is saying, "that for thousands of years there have been men in the bows of vessels looking out for trouble and very often finding it. And they were needed more then' than now. You kuow those o!d hookers they had with towering castles fore and aft. Well, T -'""'t suppose the man at the stern <:■. . r anything ahead, because of the fore-casJic So they put a fellow there to look-out. But we arn't needed nowa days, not on a modern steamer. They can see better from the bridge. In fog? Oh, yes, I suppose I'd see another ship before the officer of the watch, but what use is that? I couldn't see her in time to avoid collision. Interesting work ? Yes, for a man with some imagination. On a night hke this, for instance, what could be more beautiful? And there is a feeling that you are the first man on the ship to see and realise it all. Hear the roar at her bows ! Come and look over md see the white water."

Together we walk to tnt, hows and look over and down. The steel prow is lifting a white cascade 6ft high, and it falls on either side and. rushes away in the soft light, — two ribbons of foam. • The ocean stretches like a pliant mirror to. the horizon, and the reflected heavens are quivering in its depths. The curve of the earth is brought out in this wonderful view of ocean, dipping beyond t the horizon on every side. Looking back there is the steamer — a thing -of power and commerce — pushing her way through, yet harmonising with the sea — for a steamer at sea is more beautiful than a steamer in port. " Tell you\what I think ; the look-out said, "this place of look-ow,t man should be offered first of all to the young poats. They -couldn't do any harm, and 1 reckon it would produce some good poetry. In bad weather ? ' Well, when it gets too sloppy up here, thpy generally call us up to the bridge, and the poets could go there too. I tell you there are great possibilities in it — Excuse me ." His sharp eyes have discovered a mast-head light just lifting over the horizon. To the bridge he cries, " Light on the starboard bow, sir." " Aye, aye," a deep response rolls back.

'" Have to watch that now to see if its a ship or a steamer. Steamers _carry side-lights," he explains. For a. iime there is silence, broken once by the ship's bell chiming the halfhour. It seems a long wait ere the faint elusive nicker of a green light, makes a pin-point"- of colour beneath the distant white mast-head light. "Starboard light of a steamer, sir."

" Aye, aye." " She wont come near us. She's heading back the way we've come, and a long way off. When both side-lights show, a steamer is coming end-on to you. When only one is seen, she's going to 'one side or the other." "Pass close sometimes?" "Yes, but there are rules of the road and we all observe them."

" Rules of the road ? That sounds like a busy street, and there's no poetry in that. I fancy your theory of putting poets as the look-out men of the sea would fail just there. No poets observe rules. " No ? No, I suppose not ; but all they would have to do would be to see the lights and report them to th© bridge, though even that is a waste of time, because the officer and the steersman taw those lights just as goon ns I did. If a decent poet was here he'd find interest in the stars, and a new star suddenly breaking uiit would be bound to cat?h his eve. A green one would be to him the fealous eye of a lover, and the red light the warm love of his beloved. 1 tell you, these poets see more in things than* meets the eye. Have you ever heard of the personally-conducted tours of the American cities— a man in a motor car with a megaphone describing the sights of the town? That's my idea of a sea-tour, say, through the inland fieas of Japan! A ship full of tourists, and/ a good supply of poets on board. Make the trips in the full-moon time. Below the bridge, right up to the fo'c's'le, have tiers of seats for the tourists. Set 'era all up in them and hays the young poets on hand in the bows with a megaphone nearby. When one -of them got the inspiration let him give it tongue through the megaphone. Can you imagine it? The ship slipping through the phosphorescent water, the soothing throb of her engines, the stars growing Dale before-

the coming of t*h© moon from behind the far-away hills, and that young poet pumping good poetry through the megaphone. I tell you it would be great." " But supposing two poets got the divine afflatus at once?" He considers for a moment. "They'd have to make a duet of it," he says. "Or may be all the poets would be going at once," -I suggest. He laughed. " Look here, 111 tell you how I'd manage that. I'd blindfold them until their turn came,- and thus

ensure a constant stream of viTgin poesy. It's a great scheme, and would revive the romance of the look-out man. Otherwise the post will be a thing of the past in a few years." Clang-clang ! The bell strikes off another hour from the tally of Time. The look-out's cry goes chanting to the bridge and out over the gleaming sea. "All's well." A shell of steel filled with tons of steel and throbbing with human life, riding on a sea that swings and cuddles the ship like a child's toy. Solid earth two miles below and hundreds of miles away in any other direction, ard Man, the God-like animal,

lighting his tiny lights and chanting his confident cry : " Light burning brightly ! All's well!"

"Good-night," I say. "I'll go down now and think over your poet scheme. "'

" Hold on. Another idea. Imagine the poet alone in the bows in a fog. The muttering voices of the sea all about him, the moan of -our whistle, and the distant

answering blasts. And all around the clinging, creeping fog, clogging mind and will and awaking wild imagination. Think of that, too. Wouldn't that breed firstclass poetry ? "

He returns to his watch. Early in the

morning the hoot of the eteam whistle ! awakes the sleeping passengers. I rise

and go on deck. The fog has come with the dawn. Very slowly the ves&el mov&s through the water. Very far away a bhip's bell is striking and it ccr~es to me that it is our ship's bell, muffled in fog. I strain my ears for the lookout's voice. It comes faintly, with a well-known intonation, in the last two words : " Eight bells. Lights burning brightly. All's wpIU " All's well with tho poet in the bows.