Recollections of an Unsuccessful Seaman. Dave Creamer
interior, the lower bridge piled high with potatoes and other items for the captain’s private trade, and with a dozen dogs to be sold down the coast kennelled in the forecastle, the Mango swirls past the gay night haunts of St. Pauli,i down into the dreary lower reaches of the Elbe, and out into the teeth of a howling north-westerly gale. The old packet wallows, creaks, and groans under protest at her top speed of about seven knots through the bad weather and the nasty seas in the English Channel before she can enter the Bay of Biscay.
The deck cargo of heavy oil drums breaks loose from its lashings off Dover and by midnight what remains of the third mate, who had left the bridge to see what was wrong, has to be carried back to his cabin located in the officers’ accommodation under the poop. To cross the slippery decks that are continuously awash from the heavy seas with dry clothes in one hand and clutching the lifeline in the other is indeed a feat, not one of dry feet though. The third officer’s body is landed ashore at Plymouth. We lie at anchor for a couple of days windbound before setting off into the worst gale I had ever seen in the Bay of Biscay. With wicked grey-green curling monsters rearing high above the forecastle head, she dips down into the appalling deep troughs between the rollers, regular ‘Cape Horners’ I would call them, but more dangerously steep. For three days she lies with her nose to the shrieking wind, her cargo derricks swinging perilously and with the engines broken down. The skipper really thought the old tub was doomed and finished when the first mate was injured. By instinct, physique, brain, and mind, I am the conventional ‘office’ man if ever there was one, never as happy as when doing the accounts, manifests, and ship’s business. I find myself beginning to dislike the sea life, but it is too late now.
She didn’t go down though and hasn’t done yet as far as I know. A few years ago I saw her name on a sale board in a Fenchurch Street office: ‘The fine full powered steamer Mango.’ Evidently there are advantages in not telling the whole truth when it comes to advertising!
The skipper dashes me a bottle of champagne when we get her on a southerly course once more. After six-hour watches on that sodden lurching bridge and messing about with the sea anchor and oil bags in between, one needs a tonic. The German crew are steady and good workers, but they aren’t at their best in those conditions. After crossing the Bay, we arrive off Las Palmas where we lie at anchor on her rusty cable for a few hours before heading south to meander along the monotonous sandy coastline of Gambia and the swampy peninsula of Sierra Leone.
For people who are easily influenced, there is a great deal of romance attached to this part of the world. British philanthropists founded the colony of Sierra Leone in 1787 with 400 repatriated slaves and 40 European prostitutes. Most of them died from disease and fighting the local tribes, but obviously nature took its course because look at the number of people in the colony now. Personally I never want to see the confounded country again.
At Sierra Leone, 60 ‘Kroo’ii boys are shipped as stevedores to discharge the vessel’s cargo along the coast and to load her up with the logged wood exports. No accommodation is provided for them on board so they sleep on the iron decks. They work from early morning to nightfall and live on a diet of salt meat and rotten fish. The distinguishing sign of the tribe is the blue tattoo mark on their foreheads. Being the most intelligent on the coast, there are some good sailors in their midst. The headman is in sole charge of the crowd and in cases of insubordination or arguments amongst them, the offender is lashed to the rigging and soundly flogged.
From Monrovia, where the head customs official was caught going ashore with the captain’s cat under his very much gold braided uniform coat, we progress slowly down the Grain, Windward, Ivory, and Gold coasts,iii landing trade gin and cotton goods onto the sandy beaches where the Atlantic rollers ceaselessly thunder. Since the war, trade with the Gold Coast has increased tremendously, probably because it is the richest country in the world for its size, exporting half the world’s cocoa supply, a quarter of the manganese ore, and large quantities of palm oil, gold, diamonds, and bananas. In what was until quite recently ‘Darkest Africa’, 500 new motor car licences were issued in 1928 in the city of Kumasi.
With a harbour on the Gold Coast becoming imperative, Sir Robert McAlpine commenced work in 1921 building the port of Takoradi, a few miles southwest of Sekondi. The harbour is some 200 acres in extent and cost around £4 million to build, but at the time of writing, every ton of cargo is landed on the palm-fringed beaches by means of surf boats.
Here and there we pick up native deck passengers including many young dusky belles. They flaunt their high-heeled French shoes and open work silk stockings and are generally accompanied by half-naked black servants and howling babies. They always carry with them various household effects including that useful ceramic article of toilet-ware often found beneath the bed.
In the early morning mist the vessel anchors as near to the roaring surf edge as she can safely lie. With the rattle of her cable announcing our arrival, the surf boats leave the shore manned by half-naked boat boys paddling as a man to a fantastic chant. I must say it is as well to be on good terms with these boat boys as a capsized boat is a frequent occurrence. Aboard the Mango, the ‘mammy chair’, a box-like contrivance for landing passengers, is slung overside from the derrick head and filled with a laughing, fighting swarm of natives with their umbrellas, babies, pots and pans, looking glasses, poultry, and what not. The chair is swung clear of the rolling decks, the winch rattles, and they are deposited pell-mell into the heaving surf boat far beneath.
The first boat takes the third officer ashore, an experience that on a bad day he will never forget. From the steamer, it doesn’t look so alarming, but once in the boat, the crested white foaming walls ahead rapidly grow in dimensions. At a signal from the headman positioned at the big steering oar aft, the paddles cease for a moment. Waiting for a great green-capped roller to tower astern, he gives a blood-curdling yell and the paddles furiously stab the water. The heavily laden boat swinging high onto the breaking crest of the wave is propelled at tremendous speed into the safety of the shallow water, where a moment later a crewman will carry ashore the boat’s passengers.
The third officer’s duties are to wander around the beach, superintend the discharging and loading of the boats, and collect liquid refreshment and the signed bills of ladingiv from the various factories. Meanwhile, on the steamer, the first and second officers tally the cargo as it comes from the hold and then see it safely into the waiting surf boats.
Occasionally the surf gets too heavy for the boats to return to the ship, leaving the third officer stranded on the beach. This is no great hardship, for the hospitality ashore is generally good and wet. I was once hosted by a royal who was dressed in decrepit check trousers and a topper a size too large. He was a most hospitable old chap who gave me a warm bottle of lager and asked which of his three daughters I would like to entertain me for the evening.
In recent years, the ship’s officer’s duties have changed and they no longer do this kind of work. They have also lost the traditional perk of collecting ‘excessive luggage’ fees from the native passengers in exchange for a worthless piece of paper purporting to be the company’s receipt, a practice from which they innocently made a few extra shillings and, in my opinion, quite deservedly so.
It is hard work along this coast for the ship’s officer. The steamer can often call in at three ports in one day between the early morning and sunset. In addition to working in the day, the second officer keeps his navigational watch from midnight until 4 a.m. on the bridge whilst the vessel cruises along the coast to arrive off the next village by daylight. The middle watch at night can be four long sleepy hours. Although there is little sea traffic, the thunderstorms can be terrific. Sometimes glowing balls of fire seem to rest upon the mastheads and it is often possible to read on the bridge by the light of the continuous vivid lightning. It is said to be the most luminous part of the Atlantic Ocean with the whole sea surface appearing as if it were a sheet of liquid fire with the bow wave throwing a sickly glare through the broken water. The whole experience can be particularly unnerving and distinctly unpleasant for the novice watchkeeper alone on the bridge. In the wet seasons, the nights are dark and gloomy with a strong breeze and not