Titanic and Other Ships By Charles Lightoller
Chapter 19 'BULLY' WATERS
I soon found myself third mate of a Western Ocean Packet, bound across the Pond. No more watching every vagary of the wind, no more luffing up to a squall and easing her away as she would bear it. Never again to hear the music of that gurgling hiss, as the water skirls in the scupper holes. How one was to miss that straining heel as she laid her lee rail down to the water, with the welcome sound of ropes surging and cracking, or even the well-known cry as the strain increases, "Stand by the royal halyards."
Now, three watches, and when a squall is in the offing, "Quartermaster, pull the dodger up, please." Nothing to do but keep a sharp look-out. All the driving done for one by the stokehold gang below. Just the steady plug and thud of the engines; into one sea, and through the next. No quick downward flick of the wheel, as she lifts her head to crash down into the trough, like the way one nursed a sailing ship. I tried it on a steamer, but it hadn't the slightest effect; the only way with a steamer is to ease her engines. In fact, one seems wholly dependent on the engines.
We were bound up the St. Lawrence, and in those days ten knots was considered quite a good speed. In many places in the St. Lawrence, such as the Racine Rapids, and even up at Montreal, before the revetment was built, I have seen the ship doing her ten knots and barely making headway. Even alongside at Montreal, the engines had to be kept going at very nearly full speed whilst the ship was made fast, with the result that owing to the huge head of steam, the moment the engines were stopped, the safety valves lifted, and the row for the next half an hour or so was simply deafening.
I soon began to see that steam had its good points--lots of them. Better time, better food, better pay, and one did not lose touch so completely with the world.
Had I been of a steady disposition and stayed in Elder Dempsters, where I started in steam, no doubt I should have got to the top of the tree very quickly, but for one thing I was not steady, and for another, it was only the tallest tree that would satisfy me. Time and again I took to the beach on some hair-brained stunt or other, just wasting time; spending months shooting or fishing, until funds petered out. Then off to the sea again, in the first company that would take me. Get through an examination, and then have another glorious binge--not a boozing binge--for I've a whole-hearted contempt for the chap who takes more than he can hold.
It was after one of these little breaks that I found myself in the African Royal Mail s.s. Niagara, bound down the Coast of West Africa, under that notorious and well-known Captain who glorified in the name of Bully Waters, a man of such exceeding unpopularity that his life would not have been worth a minute's purchse in the streets of Liverpool. To even cross the town he invariably took a cab for safety--and I'll admit he needed it. He made an open boast that he had killed two men, though in point of fact, he didn't actually kill them, but, owing to his perpetual bullying and driving, he was the moral cause of one man committing suicide, while the other chap just died, and though malaria went down in the log, that wasn't the real cause.
When one takes into consideration the enervating climate, the terrific heat, heavy work, unquenchable thirst, and withal a skipper who could literally wear the sole off a sea boot, it is easy to understand a man lacking a bit perhaps in courage and strength of character, just cracking up completely. Bully Waters seemed to have the natural born ability to taunt and torment men to the limit of their endurance; as a rule just stopping short of the point were a man loses control. Why no one ever brained the beast puzzles me.
A double crew is carried on these boats, one part white to work the ship, the second part of negroes to work the cargo. These latter are trained to handle the cargo peculiar to the West Coast, both discharging and loading. Work commences about 5 a.m. and Waters on principle, would visit every hatch, quarrel, annoy and thoroughly put every officer on edge, and then, having set everybody by the ears, retire happily to his cabin, have a drink, and go off to sleep again.
On one of these occasions we were part loaded with about twenty tons of explosives, mainly gunpowder. This had to be discharged at a place called Borutu, and it happened to be at my end of the ship, stowed in a specially built-in magazine. Embarking this cargo at Liverpool, every possible precaution is taken as a matter of form, such as men wearing rubber boots, every particle of iron work carefully covered up, and the kegs handled gingerly from man to man, until they eventually arrive, and are stowed away in the magazine; whilst, at the masthead, high above all, the powder flag flies. When we arrived at the port of discharge, although we did not trouble to cover up the iron, nor adopt rubber boots, still powder is powder, and has to be treated with a certain amount of respect. Our "boys" passed it up by hand via wooden stages, and placed it on the deck, whilst it was taken from overside by a company of West African Housas (one of the finest fighting races in Africa). The latter had a stage rigged which brought with them from the shore to the ship and breast high with our deck. These men are born scrappers, and it was only by using the utmost tact that peace was kept between the Sierra Leone boys, belonging to the ship, and the Housas belonging to the shore. At any time the slightest carelessness on the part of one of our boys, say dropping a keg on one of a Housa's toes, would, as likely as not, end up in a free for all tribal fight, which would take the whole of the white men on board to put a stop to, and that only after some few had been knocked out.
We were already labouring under these conditions, when Bully Waters must come along and raise Cain about the slowness with which the explosives were being discharged. These early morning efforts invariably ended in a wordy war, for I could cuss just as long and loud as he could--and did. Work was going on all right, and skipper or no skipper I was not going to be bullied by him or anyone else. A very effective method I found for dealing with him was to deliberately stop all work, and give him my whole attention. Not edifying, it's true, but it used to do the trick, and did on this occasion. When he had finally retired, Massey, the fourth officer, and I put our heads together and decided to give him all he was asking for. So a half ton iron tub was procured from forward, and every scrap of care just thrown to the wind. The boys were worked up--as it is always possible to work up any of these West African tribes by telling off one boy to beat a tom-tom, until they were just dancing in a frenzy of excitement. The half ton tub was loaded up, by simply hurling in kegs of powder until it would hold no more; many hitting the lip of the tub, and bursting scattered powder everywhere. Up went the tub, off with the catch, crash came the whole half ton of powder kegs on deck, to be simply torn away in bulk, and almost thrown at the Housas who were waiting overside. These Housa boys also soon got wound up to the dancing stage of excitement. Powder above, powder below, powder everywhere. It was not long before everybody connected with the ship found a reasonable excuse to park themselves on shore, as far away from the ship as they could get.
A certain amount of zest was added, by the fact that the s.s. Matade's bows were even then visible in the Bush, as a result of discharging a similar cargo in the same place, when, even though infinite care was taken, luck was against them, and up she went.
I got a certain amount of cussed contentment out of the knowledge that even Bully Waters dare not come to my end of the ship and show the white feather by calling a halt, not, on the other hand, dare he funk, and go on shore. However, she did not blow up, and he gave me a rest after that, so it was worth it.
I did one more voyage with him, and was not so lucky. Due to his everlasting bully-ragging I succeeded in drowning three boys and a quarter-master, and incidentally nearly drowning myself.
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