Chapter XVII: The Bo'sun

It is impossible to help regarding the boatswain as a great figure of romance. His title rings on the ear like the voice of the sea. And although not one person in ten thousand among our crowded populations could give a definition of his position that would not be a caricature, there are few, very few, who do not feel a responsive thrill when the word is mentioned. But I am compelled to take for granted that the average man or woman has formed some hazy idea of what a bo'sun is like. For one thing, it is certain that to speak of a gentlemanly bo'sun would be considered as absurd as to speak of a fair negro. He is, of course, to the general, the _beau-ideal_ of a "Jack Tar," a magnificent monster with a bull's voice, burned almost black by the tropical sun, with eagle eyes forth-looking from a thicket of beard, and great hairy arms whose innumerable devices of Indian ink or gunpowder are almost hidden by a hirsute covering that would shame an ape. Brave as a man can be, he is terrible in his wrath, yet his heart is tender as a little child's, and any tale of pity never fails to empty his pockets. Now, it has so often been my ungrateful task to shatter old beliefs in the untrue and impossible, that I am quite glad that no necessity is laid upon me for doing so at this present. There are bo'suns to whom the above fancy description would apply precisely, only it would not be complete. Other qualities, not so picturesque, perhaps, but far more useful, would have to be added to finish the picture. And then you have a man whose better it would be almost impossible to find in the wide world.

In the Navy, the bo'sun, upon rising to the full height of that position, becomes for picturesque purposes spoiled. He wears a frock-coat, a "boiled" shirt, and carries a sword. He is a warrant officer at the head of his profession, as far as concerns any man who enters the service as a seaman. No amount of ability, education, or conspicuous courage can elevate him another step. But his mates, who may go barefoot, who wear the characteristic and eminently suitable rig of the blue-jacket, distinguished only by devices upon their sleeves, and a silver whistle or pipe--these are the typical bo'suns of the popular fancy, the fine flower of the naval seamen.

As with all the rest of the officers, there are differences, not exactly in status, but in duties, between bo'suns of the highest class of steamships and the sailing ships which are big enough to carry bo'suns properly so called. But these differences are not nearly so great as among the certificated officers, for the bo'sun, whatever his ship may be, is essentially a foreman, a working man who, by reason of his superior qualifications, has risen above his fellow workers, and takes the oversight of them. It is his duty, not to originate work, but to see it carried out. He is no theorist, but a practical seaman of the best kind. In steamers his seamanship is seldom called upon, but his power of carrying on work is tested to the utmost. And in case of a sudden emergency, such as the outbreak of fire, breakdown of engines, or falling in with a helpless sister that requires a tow, the boatswain is of the utmost importance. A good boatswain in a big steamship is a treasure of great price, although he does not command very high wages. He it is that makes all the difference to the mate between a happy life and one full of those minor worries that whiten the hair and wrinkle the face.

It cannot need any argument to enforce this fact. When the mate can call the boatswain to him, and give his orders, secure in the knowledge that the work will proceed without hitch or neglect, he may attend to his other duties with an easy mind. The boatswain looks to the mate, and to him alone, for his orders, and would be indignant at interference by any officer of a lower grade. That is, supposing him to be, as usual, a man fully competent. Where, by some accident, he has slipped into the position without ability to command or knowledge to carry out, he will generally be glad to curry favour with anybody, not merely junior officers, but with the men under him--which is fatal.

The boatswain's position is not affected greatly by a change from a liner into a big cargo steamer, unless it be in cases where, from mistaken notions of economy, he is called bo'sun and lamp-trimmer. This degradation of an ancient and honourable position is quite unfair to the man who in a moment of folly or being hard up accepts such a queerly-associated employment. For how can a sailor be expected to show due deference to a man who, after all, is only "lamps"? In all the steamers of the Australasian colonies a lad is carried as lamp-trimmer, and his duties are confined to that and cleaning brass-work, both tasks that are quite unfit for a man who is a leader and commander of the crew, as a bo'sun is. Small tramps, of course, do not carry a bo'sun. The duties which he should perform fall upon the hapless officers, as aforesaid.

But if you would see the bo'sun in his glory go on board a large sailing ship. There he has room and scope for his talents, can show of what metal he is made. Even the radical changes that have taken place in the rigging of sailing ships during the last quarter of a century do not affect him much, except in so far as undermanning has reduced the number of men available to carry out his directions. I am old enough to remember the stately ships of Messrs. Green or Wigram or Devitt and Moore coming into Melbourne and Sydney with crews more than double what they would now carry if afloat. The bo'sun with his two mates were most prominent figures, while their hoarse voices and the shrill scream of their pipes resounded over the adjacent water as the vessel came up to her berth. Those grand old vessels are gone, and with them the fine complement of British seamen they used to carry, men who were so disciplined that transference to a man-o'-war would have come as the easiest and most natural thing in the world.

Yet it must not be supposed that the type of bo'sun they carried is yet extinct. Fortunately, no; for he would be a heavy loss indeed. He has grafted the old on to the new, and may be found to-day aboard the great sailing ships, that still do a fair share of ocean traffic, carrying on the work under the changed conditions, even as his forerunners did. One of the greatest changes made in modern sailing ships has been the substitution of wire rope for hemp. First of all wire was used for the standing rigging, that is, for the great stays which support the masts. Then came the invention of mild steel, and the discovery that ropes made of mild steel wire were sufficiently pliable to be used for a great deal of the running gear, that is, ropes that had to run through blocks or pulleys. Then it was found that, instead of having a cumbrous arrangement of stout ropes called lanyards to "set up" (tighten) the standing rigging, stout screws would answer the purpose equally well; and instead of needing a large number of men, much complication of tackles, and many hours to "set up" the rigging, one man with a short iron bar to turn the screws could do all that was required in about a couple of hours. But this innovation, although it lessened labour in one direction, did not make any difference to the work of the ship aloft, where, on account of increased sail area and the practice of carrying an additional mast, the work was more onerous than ever.

So the bo'sun of to-day must, in addition to the knowledge possessed by those of bygone days, be an expert at handling wire rope, that is, splicing the refractory stuff. He cannot be content with simply knowing how it should be done, but he must be prepared to educate a crew such as he may very easily find under him--a crew whose only previous experience has been in steamers, and who hardly know one end of a marline-spike from the other. He must be able to keep a ship in thorough repair, going over the mastheads himself, and prying into every detail for little defects, which may bring disaster if not attended to in time. And his mastery of ships' work should be such that it will be sufficient for the mate to say to him, "Bo'sun, I want so-and-so done to-day," and then turn away completely easy in his mind, because he knows that the work will be done, and done well.

I have had the misfortune to be once shipmates with, I was going to say, a bad bo'sun; but perhaps the better description of him would be that he was not a seaman at all, much less a bo'sun. We used to call him "the Curiosity," abbreviated to "Curio." He said that he had been bo'sun of the ill-fated _La Plata_. That may have been so, because the vessel was lost only two days after leaving port, although none of us could in the least understand how he had been able to obtain such a berth. At any rate, he managed to get shipped with us in the _Herat_ as bo'sun, and as she was a 1300-ton sailing ship, there was a fair scope for his abilities. We found him out on the first day, although, as nearly all hands were suffering from the last drunk, little notice was taken. But before we cleared the Channel he was made of less account than one of the boys. He was actually ignorant of how to do the most trivial job. Even as a foremast hand he would have had a bad time; as a bo'sun, his sublime audacity took our breath away. The officers were all good men, and were able to carry on the work easily enough, leaving nothing to him but such matters as washing decks or repeating their orders. Then he took to coming into the fo'c'sle, and trying to curry favour with the men by telling them of his varied experiences ashore. By his own confession, he had been a salesman at Mortlock's in Oxford Street, a door-keeper at a West End restaurant, something in the ring at a circus, and other equally curious, out-of-the-way employments. His impudence as well as a certain _bonhomie_, which, however out of place in a bo'sun, would have been admirable in any of the positions he had occupied ashore, softened the crew towards him, and really he did not have such a bad time.

Of course he was discharged as soon as we reached Calcutta, the master informing him that he would not carry him but for ballast, giving him a "declines-to-report" discharge, which is equivalent to useless, but paying him on the seamen's wages scale. Three days afterwards he visited us, an overpowering swell of _distingué_ appearance, and grandly informed us that he was ring-master in a great travelling circus. After distributing orders lavishly, and inviting all hands to come ashore and drink at his expense, he left, and I saw him no more--the most amazing bo'sun I have ever even heard of.

At the other end of the scale I place the bos'un of the _Harbinger_, a man of rot more than thirty, a giant in stature and strength, and completely master of his profession. Of all the seamen I have ever known, he was the most perfect specimen as far as rigging work was concerned, and the handling of a ship's company. So splendid was his work that, in conversation with him one day, after watching him splice a two-inch wire grummet round the goose-neck of the spanker-boom with far greater ease than most men would have done the same thing in rope, I asked him whether he had not received some special instruction in handling wire. He then told me that he was a Blackwall rigger, _i.e._ a man whose trade is rigging ships in harbour, and that he only went to sea when he could find a ship that suited him. That explained a great deal; but I must admit that he was just as smart at handling sails aloft in bad weather as he was at rigging work proper, so that I should say he never allowed himself to get in the least rusty.

Other bo'suns I have known intimately by being shipmates with them, good men as one would wish to sail with, but never one that came quite up to this paragon among sailor-men. For some were perfect in all their ways as far as "sailorizing" was concerned, yet could not get the work out of their men; others were good drivers, but were weak in their technical knowledge--at least, not quite so good at certain work as some of the seamen under them; others were lazy, and one especially do I remember, although a splendid seaman, was so great a coward, that he was a by-word fore and aft. He was an Alsatian from Metz, who had somehow got to sea, and after serving several years in British ships, had become a bo'sun, a post for which his one defect eminently disqualified him. And he never learned to talk intelligible English. Sailors can understand almost any jargon that is spoken at sea under the guise of English, but this man's talk was too funny for anything. He would come to the fo'c'sle door as the watch was turning out, and say, "Now, poys, gum lonk. Ve shrub und shrabe mit sant unt racks alla now;" which, being interpreted, was, "Now, boys, come along. We'll scrub and scrape with sand and canvas to-day." Poor fellow, his abilities and long service deserved a better fate than he met with at last. A couple of years after I left the ship I met him in Old Gravel Lane, hopelessly crippled by a fall from aloft on his last passage home. He was hobbling off to the workhouse to try and get in, to be saved from starvation, for there is no redress for the sailor who is maimed in the execution of his duty.

As I have said in the previous chapter, bo'suns are seldom carried in American ships, where the third mate or second mate, as the case may be, will efficiently perform a bo'sun's usual duties. But where they are carried, they will be found, like all the other American officers of whom I have spoken, the best seamen that can be found anywhere, but in general conduct undoubtedly brutal to those under them. One case of a "brevet" bo'sun is, I believe, sufficiently quaint to be noticed here. A friend of mine, a man of rather small build, was second mate of a Nova Scotian barque bound from New York to Hong Kong. When the crew came on board--eight of them--he saw with some trepidation that they were all huge negroes, and he did not feel any too comfortable at the prospect of keeping them in order if they should turn out to be a rowdy lot. But, putting a bold face on the matter, he mustered them. As they trooped aft he noticed that, big as they all were, one towered above all the rest, a black giant. A bright idea struck him, and as soon as they had answered to their names he turned to the monster and said, "Now look here, bo'sun, I want you t' hurry up 'n git these spars lashed." "Ay, ay, sah," bellowed the delighted black man, "I put de b'ys froo, sah." And put them through he did. There was never any trouble from that day, the black bo'sun doing his work well, just for the sake of the title with which he had been so suddenly honoured.