The Wireless Operator—With the U. S. Coast Guard/Chapter 8
CHAPTER VIII
In the Cradle of the Deep
IT was already dusk and night was at hand when the Iroquois was ready to head for Boston. Already those off duty had eaten. The captain, however, still remained on deck. He waited to make sure the ship was on her proper course, for the new ensign was the only commissioned officer now on duty, and the captain hesitated to allow him to figure the course alone. But the ensign did it with the captain looking on, and set the course with perfect accuracy.
“Very good,” said the captain. “We have something like two hundred miles to go, and we stand on this course the entire distance. Tell the helmsman to hold her northwest three-quarters west.”
The ensign delivered the message, and the captain heard the man at the wheel respond: “Aye, aye, sir. Northwest three-quarters west.” Then the commander headed for his supper.
Henry stood at the foot of the ladder, waiting for him. “Captain Hardwick,” he said, “the quartermaster has asked me if I would take supper with him. May I?”
“So you’re tired of the old skipper already, are you?” laughed the captain.
Henry was a bit embarrassed. “No, indeed, I am not, Captain, but you see, I—I”
“Run along, lad, and enjoy yourself. The old skipper has eaten by himself too long to be worried about one more meal à la solitaire.” And he patted Henry gently on the shoulder. Henry was more than glad to be allowed to eat with the quartermaster. He liked him greatly, and, furthermore, the latter had offered to show him the forward part of the ship. Excepting for his hurried trip to the fireroom and back, when he had caught a glimpse of the interior of the Iroquois, Henry had as yet been nowhere below deck except in the captain’s cabin and in the wardroom. His visit to the Viking had made him curious to see just how the sailors on the Iroquois did live, anyway: and he knew he would see them in their true colors if he went with the quartermaster. There wouldn’t be any standing at attention, as might be the case if the captain was along. But before they could do any sightseeing, the two young men had to eat.
As they climbed down the steps to the mess room forward, Henry said to his companion: “I wonder why the captain prefers to live alone in his cabin. Of course it’s all right to be alone when he wants to work or read, but I should suppose he’d prefer to live with his officers.”
“The matter of preference doesn’t enter into it,” said the quartermaster. “He has to live alone in his cabin. The service regulations require it.”
“I don’t see any sense to that,” said Henry.
“Perhaps not. But you would if you were a seaman. Rules like that are necessary to preserve discipline. The captain must be the absolute and unquestioned boss. His word is law on shipboard. ‘That is necessary for the safety of the ship. And everything is done to make his subordinates understand that he is absolute. This matter of living apart emphasizes all this.”
“I see,” said Henry. “And I suppose the same reason holds for the officers living in the wardroom.”
“Exactly.”
“But what about the warrant officers? They have to be obeyed, too. Yet they don’t seem to be singled out in this way.”
“Oh, yes they are. You know there are four messes on this boat—the captain’s mess, at which you have been eating, the wardroom mess, the warrant officers’ mess, and the general mess for the crew.”
“I see,” said Henry. “But what do you do in a case like the present? It must be an hour or more since mess gear was piped.”
“Oh, there’s always a second mess for those who are on duty at meal time. We'll not have any trouble about that.”
By this time the two had taken their seats at the general mess table in the forward part of the ship. The crew had eaten and gone away, but a few seamen who had been on duty were now seated at the long table. A mess attendant brought Henry and the quartermaster food, and the two ate heartily. As they ate, Henry talked with the seamen about him. At first he didn’t know how to engage them in conversation, but when he mentioned baseball, they responded readily enough. The world’s series was near at hand, and Henry soon found that there are no keener baseball fans than American sailors. In a little while he was on good terms with a number of seamen.
When the meal was ended, they went direct to the fireroom, descending by iron steps into the very bowels of the ship. The farther down they went, the hotter it became, and Henry wondered how men could ever endure it to work in such heat. In front of the furnaces the heat was simply unbearable, and when the firemen threw open the furnace doors, Henry backed as far away as he could. It seemed as though the awful rush of heat would roast him. Yet the stokers stood directly before the open doors and worked at the glowing fires. Henry was surprised to see that they wore thick flannel shirts. Later he learned that without those shirts they could hardly have endured the heat, either. The wool shut out the terrible heat. These stokers were on duty only two hours or so at a time. Even such short watches were exhausting. And when Henry and his guide later came up from the fireroom, they noticed firemen, black with coal dust, stretched out here and there in the passages, sleeping soundly on the hard floors, where they had dropped when they came out of the fireroom.
The great boilers and the huge engines interested Henry greatly. How smoothly the pistons shot back and forth, how the various wheels turned endlessly, how the great shaft revolved ceaselessly. Henry saw the oilers passing from part to part of the engine-room, watching, oiling, tightening or loosening nuts, wiping this or that with oily rags, always alert, watching their engines as a mother watches her child. When Henry thought of the grimy coal passers he had just seen, conveying the fuel for the furnaces, and the men keeping the fires at red heat, and the engineers watching the great machines that drove the ship, and the sailors standing watch forward in the dark, and the helmsman at the wheel, with his eye directed steadfastly at the compass, he saw how necessary every part of the ship was to the other parts, and how especially necessary it was that the man in charge be ever vigilant, and that instant and unquestioning obedience be rendered to him. Henry began to see why it was a good thing for the captain to live in state, alone.
It occurred to him that there must be quantities of explosives aboard a ship like this cutter. Indeed, some of them had just been used, and Henry knew how powerful they were. He wondered if these were also watched. He put the question to the quartermaster.
“You can bet your life the explosives are watched. They are examined every day. You know there’s a lot of guncotton among them, and if that stuff deteriorates, it’s likely to make trouble.”
“But how can they tell if it does deteriorate?”
“Oh, that’s easy. There’s litmus paper packed in each jar of the stuff. That will change color if the guncotton begins to go bad. Haven’t you noticed that heavy, peculiar-shaped flash-light in the captain’s cabin? That’s the light they use in examining the explosives in the magazine.”
“I should think it wouldn’t be safe to store explosives so near those hot furnaces.”
“It wouldn’t be. The magazine is in the very stern of the ship, right under the captain’s cabin. You eat and sleep right over the explosives.”
Henry could almost feel his hair rise on end. “Jumping Jupiter!” he exclaimed. “I do?”
The quartermaster laughed. “If the things in the magazine ever let go,” he said, “I guess the folks in the cabin wouldn’t be much worse off than the rest of us. The explosives there would tear this old boat all to pieces.” After what Henry had seen so lately, he could believe it.
The two continued their tour of investigation. Henry saw the little office of the chief engineer, and spoke to Mr. Farley, who was at work therein. He saw the cook’s galley, with its enormous range, and the place for stores, where food is kept. He saw, too, the compartments farther forward where paints were stored. It amazed him to find what great quantities of paints and oils and varnishes were needed for such a small ship. And Henry remembered, too, that at the time he first came aboard sailors were working on slings over the side, scrubbing the hull with swabs. No wonder she always looked so spick and span. It would have been a good thing, Henry thought, if the Viking had some of these paints, and her crew could touch up and clean her sides.
Before the two came up on deck, the quartermaster also showed Henry the place forward where ropes, chains, cables, anchors, and similar gear were kept. Such hawsers Henry had never seen before.
“How big are they, anyway?” he asked.
“Those are twelve-inch hawsers,” said the quartermaster. “The captain thinks there’s nothing like a twelve-inch hawser for towing disabled ships, unless it’s those heavy wire cables. You just can’t break them. It’s very difficult to get them aboard of another ship in a heavy sea, though. They haven’t the buoyancy of manila hawsers.”
“I see,” said Henry. “But why do you call those manila hawsers twelve-inch hawsers? They look to me only about four inches in diameter. Maybe they area bit more. But they aren’t anything like twelve inches.”
“Oh, it’s the circumference and not the diameter of a hawser we reckon by. You are right in thinking that hawser is nearly four inches in diameter. It’s also about twelve inches in circumference.”
“To be sure,” said Henry. “The circumference of a circle is always a little more than three times the diameter.”
As they made their way back from the bow, where the hawsers were stored, the quartermaster pointed out to Henry the hammock-hooks overhead, and showed him some of the hammocks rolled and stowed away. Already one or two men were asleep in theirs, swinging gently with the motion of the ship.
“How in the mischief did they ever get up there?’ asked Henry.
“Pulled themselves up with their arms,” smiled the quartermaster. “If ever you become a sailor, don’t let them kid you into looking for the hammock-ladder. That’s a favorite trick played on apprentice seamen. Sometimes a kid keeps hunting for a hammock-ladder for an hour or more.”
“Thanks for putting me wise,” said Henry. “I hope to go to sea some day, and I reckon I'll be the worst greenhorn that ever was.”
They started to go on deck. “There’s one thing I don’t understand,” said Henry. “Why are those men going to bed so early? Why, it’s only a little while after supper.”
“They have to do duty in the graveyard watch.”
“The graveyard watch? What is that, anyway?”
“Don’t you know about the watches on shipboard?”
“No.”
“Then I'll tell you. You can see for yourself that men must be on duty constantly in all parts of the ship. So the day is divided into little stretches that we call watches. From noon to four o’clock is the afternoon watch; four to six p. m. is the first day watch, and six to eight is the second day watch. The evening watch is from eight to twelve midnight. That’s a favorite watch, as it means very little loss of sleep. The hard watch is from midnight to four a. m. That is the mid-watch, but we call it the graveyard watch. The watch from four to eight a. m. is the morning watch, and sometimes it is also called the navigator’s watch. That isn’t a bad watch, either. The other watch is from eight o’clock to noon, and is called the eight-to-twelve watch.”
“Gee!” exclaimed Henry. “There certainly is a lot to learn about a boat, isn’t there?”
“Right you are,” said the quartermaster. “I suppose nobody ever learns all there is to know about sailing a ship.”
By this time the two friends had reached the deck. At first Henry could see nothing in the thick darkness. Then, as he became accustomed to the night, he could make out all the features that had now become so familiar to him. Also, he saw some things that were not familiar to him. Little dark objects were moving about on the deck. At first Henry was not sure that he saw aright, but when he was certain that something really was moving, he said to his companion, “What is it that we see on the deck?”
“Birds,” said the quartermaster. “Wait until I get a flash-light. We’ll gather them up and take them to the captain. He’s mighty fond of them.”
He disappeared in the darkness and presently returned with his flash-light. Together the two searched the deck from bow to stern. Many little birds lay cold and stiff. They had evidently flown into something and killed themselves. Regretfully, the searchers threw their bodies into the sea. The living birds seemed to be unharmed, and suffered themselves to be picked up without protest. Seven were found, and, carrying these, the two descended to the captain’s cabin and knocked at the door.
“Well, well,” said the commander, as they entered. “Some more pets for me, eh? Thank you, Quartermaster.”
The captain placed the little birds in the deep embrasures of the air-ports. Then he got saucers of water and some crumbs for them, but they would not eat.
“Utterly exhausted, I suppose,” said the captain. “It’s strange that such tiny creatures will venture so far away from land.”
Henry returned to the deck with the quartermaster. He spent a few minutes in the wireless shack, then went on the bridge. But he had been up a long time and on the go every minute of the day. Soon he was nodding. Presently he said good-night to the men on watch, and in a few moments was sound asleep in his bunk, while the ship stood steadily on her course toward Boston Light.