Titanic and Other Ships By Charles Lightoller
Chapter 12 HOME IN A TEA CLIPPER
I sampled Australian life for three good and hospitable months. Sometimes up in the Bush on a station, at other times in the town sharing a happy-go-lucky life with those impulsive lovable, carefree people. Picnics that could be planned with safety weeks ahead. Glorious sunshine and three good meals a day--what more could a healthy lad of sixteen want? Welcome everywhere as a survivor of a wreck that echoed round the world, and which was common knowledge with every man, woman and child of that island nation.
All good things must end, and the time at last came when I must tear myself away from the everlasting attractions "Down under," if I was to keep to the sea as a career, and I had no intentions of parting company with her, as yet. Despite all the hours of buffeting, I never hesitated in my allegiance to that hard-boiled mistress; harsh and bitter as she can be at times, at others, full of captivating smiles and surprises. A hundred years at sea couldn't wholly unfold all she has to show you. Things that would make a landsman's eyes pop out of his head. But you must laugh in her face, when she hits you hardest, and, above all, never fear her; she will let you out, and make up for it in the end.
Our crew had all shipped off home, except another boy and myself. This was before the days of D.B.S. (Distressed British Seamen), when all you have to do is to walk into the nearest British Consul's Office, and be forwarded on to your port of hail.
Another curious law of the sea that still exists is, that a man's pay stops from the time his ship is wrecked. In these days of steam and quick passages, it does not cut so hard, but in the case of the Holt Hill it caught out some of the crew pretty badly, particularly the Mates, who must work their way back to England, before they could hope to pick up their proper rank, and pay again, and you could safely reckon on say 125 days to the Lizard. Even when you got home there was still the ship to find.
However, these problems didn't worry Archer and myself, and I don't suppose we should have broken away when we did, had it not been for the Agents, impressing on us the necessity. They told us, when we used to go round on a Saturday, for our pocket money that the Company was worrying them to send us home. Eventually they said they would have to stop our allowance if we didn't get move on, and get a ship. They had been awfully decent to us; so had everyone for that matter, so much so that when we did finally get a ship, we very nearly deserted--which would have completely torn our Indentures, and put a finish to our budding career.
We had shipped on Board the Duke of Abercorn, one of the old time tea clippers; towed down from Adelaide and anchored off the Semaphore, waiting for a breeze. That night, Archer and I had the 8 to 12 watch. It was a real Australian summer night, soft as silk, and full of magic. I can't just describe it, but it gets you in a weak spot. It did with us, sitting there on the rail looking at the shore lights twinkling and beckoning. Thinking of all the jolly fine times we had had there these three months past; reflecting on one or two very nice folk (we'll call them folk anyway) who would be tickled to death to see us back ashore again. I suppose it was through talking there that the urge at last got too strong, and we suddenly determined to chuck our hands in, and get ashore again; a perfectly crazy idea, but what of it.
We couldn't lower a boat; too much noise, and anyway it would be sure to be seen.
There was a long wooden ladder and a big wooden refuse shoot; they would float. So forthwith we proceeded to launch our rickety craft. The fact that it was a good three miles to the beach, and rotten with sharks, didn't enter into our calculations. We had got the ladder overboard, when fate, and our good fortune intervened, in the shape of a light breeze.
Quickly orders were being bellowed along the decks. "All hands on deck. Man the windlass. Heave short. Loose all sail." Then, to the clank, clank, of the pawls of the windlass rose the words of that good old shanty "Rolling Home." It's a wonder if we didn't make some of them turn over in their sleep, particularly when it came to the line, "To Australia's charming daughters, we must bid a long good-bye." However, it was soon over, and within an hour, the old timer was heeling over to a steady breeze on her first clip for the Cape.
Less than a month, with an extraordinary good slant of easterly winds, saw us within a couple of days of the Cape. Then the wind banged round out of the westward, and became a dead muzzler.
For fourteen solid days we tried to beat up those few miles tack tack and tack. Like Vanderdecken of old, it seemed as though we should never make Table Bay, till at last, in desperation, we reached away south, and picked up a slant which carried us round.
It was almost in sight of the Cape that I got my first view of a huge Sea Bat.
For the last couple of days we had been shortened down, and I was up loosing the fore royal, when I spotted my fish, lying apparently asleep, on the surface of the water. Even at that height, he looked monstrous. I could easily gauge his span by comparing him with the fore yard, which was immediately under me, and measured exactly 90 feet from yardarm to yardarm. I could see he was a fraction less, 10 feet perhaps. We were almost on top of him, before he sounded; in fact, it looked as though we were going to hit him. Then with just a couple of flaps of those gigantic wings, and he was down and out of sight. Since then, I have seen two others, but smaller.
The Duke was a real old timer. Built long before the days of steel and iron, she had raced with such redoubtable ships as the Red Jacket, Thermopylae and Cutty Sark. In those days she carried more of a crew than the crack Atlantic liner has on deck to-day. Nineteen knots, day after day, she had to her credit, in her old logs, but these hair-raising races from China, are no more.
We rounded the Cape, stretched up through the Tropics and Trades, through the Roaring Forties, and finally reached Falmouth for orders, and a few days later made fast in the East India dock, after being away, just on eighteen months.
I had to go through the hoop with Messrs. William Price and Co., the owners of the old Holt Hill, in Liverpool for staying so long in Adelaide. Other delinquencies, mainly to do with practical jokes in foreign ports, were also on the list of the "Please explains." Unfortunately, other nations don't appreciate the Britisher's love of a skylark, particularly when played by a set of boys, whose reputation was rather too well-known.
It was to find the ringleader, that Archer and I were called up and hauled over the coals.
I always think it was a good thing, that the half deck crowd of the Holt Hill was broken up, and scattered amongst other ships of the Line; I think, as a combination-- not forgetting Old Jock who loved a lark as well as any of us-- we were just a bit too hot for our own welfare.
