Notes on Life and Letters

J >> Joseph Conrad >> Notes on Life and Letters


Yes; a man, a quartermaster, an able seaman that would know how to jump
to an order and was not an excitable fool. In my time at sea there was
no lack of men in British ships who could jump to an order and were not
excitable fools. As to the so-called cork-fender, it is a sort of soft
balloon made from a net of thick rope rather more than a foot in
diameter. It is such a long time since I have indented for cork-fenders
that I don't remember how much these things cost apiece. One of them,
hung judiciously over the side at the end of its lanyard by a man who
knew what he was about, might perhaps have saved from destruction the
ship and upwards of a thousand lives.

Two men with a heavy rope-fender would have been better, but even the
other one might have made all the difference between a very damaging
accident and downright disaster. By the time the cork-fender had been
squeezed between the liner's side and the bluff of the _Storstad's_ bow,
the effect of the latter's reversed propeller would have been produced,
and the ships would have come apart with no more damage than bulged and
started plates. Wasn't there lying about on that liner's bridge, fitted
with all sorts of scientific contrivances, a couple of simple and
effective cork-fenders--or on board of that Norwegian either? There must
have been, since one ship was just out of a dock or harbour and the other
just arriving. That is the time, if ever, when cork-fenders are lying
about a ship's decks. And there was plenty of time to use them, and
exactly in the conditions in which such fenders are effectively used. The
water was as smooth as in any dock; one ship was motionless, the other
just moving at what may be called dock-speed when entering, leaving, or
shifting berths; and from the moment the collision was seen to be
unavoidable till the actual contact a whole minute elapsed. A minute,--an
age under the circumstances. And no one thought of the homely expedient
of dropping a simple, unpretending rope-fender between the destructive
stern and the defenceless side!

I appeal confidently to all the seamen in the still United Kingdom, from
his Majesty the King (who has been really at sea) to the youngest
intelligent A.B. in any ship that will dock next tide in the ports of
this realm, whether there was not a chance there. I have followed the
sea for more than twenty years; I have seen collisions; I have been
involved in a collision myself; and I do believe that in the case under
consideration this little thing would have made all that enormous
difference--the difference between considerable damage and an appalling
disaster.

Many letters have been written to the Press on the subject of collisions.
I have seen some. They contain many suggestions, valuable and otherwise;
but there is only one which hits the nail on the head. It is a letter to
the _Times_ from a retired Captain of the Royal Navy. It is printed in
small type, but it deserved to be printed in letters of gold and crimson.
The writer suggests that all steamers should be obliged by law to carry
hung over their stern what we at sea call a "pudding."

This solution of the problem is as wonderful in its simplicity as the
celebrated trick of Columbus's egg, and infinitely more useful to
mankind. A "pudding" is a thing something like a bolster of stout rope-
net stuffed with old junk, but thicker in the middle than at the ends. It
can be seen on almost every tug working in our docks. It is, in fact, a
fixed rope-fender always in a position where presumably it would do most
good. Had the _Storstad_ carried such a "pudding" proportionate to her
size (say, two feet diameter in the thickest part) across her stern, and
hung above the level of her hawse-pipes, there would have been an
accident certainly, and some repair-work for the nearest ship-yard, but
there would have been no loss of life to deplore.

It seems almost too simple to be true, but I assure you that the
statement is as true as anything can be. We shall see whether the lesson
will be taken to heart. We shall see. There is a Commission of learned
men sitting to consider the subject of saving life at sea. They are
discussing bulkheads, boats, davits, manning, navigation, but I am
willing to bet that not one of them has thought of the humble "pudding."
They can make what rules they like. We shall see if, with that disaster
calling aloud to them, they will make the rule that every steamship
should carry a permanent fender across her stern, from two to four feet
in diameter in its thickest part in proportion to the size of the ship.
But perhaps they may think the thing too rough and unsightly for this
scientific and aesthetic age. It certainly won't look very pretty but I
make bold to say it will save more lives at sea than any amount of the
Marconi installations which are being forced on the shipowners on that
very ground--the safety of lives at sea.

We shall see!

* * * * *

To the Editor of the _Daily Express_.

SIR,

As I fully expected, this morning's post brought me not a few letters on
the subject of that article of mine in the _Illustrated London News_. And
they are very much what I expected them to be.

I shall address my reply to Captain Littlehales, since obviously he can
speak with authority, and speaks in his own name, not under a pseudonym.
And also for the reason that it is no use talking to men who tell you to
shut your head for a confounded fool. They are not likely to listen to
you.

But if there be in Liverpool anybody not too angry to listen, I want to
assure him or them that my exclamatory line, "Was there no one on board
either of these ships to think of dropping a fender--etc.," was not
uttered in the spirit of blame for anyone. I would not dream of blaming
a seaman for doing or omitting to do anything a person sitting in a
perfectly safe and unsinkable study may think of. All my sympathy goes
to the two captains; much the greater share of it to Captain Kendall, who
has lost his ship and whose load of responsibility was so much heavier! I
may not know a great deal, but I know how anxious and perplexing are
those nearly end-on approaches, so infinitely more trying to the men in
charge than a frank right-angle crossing.

I may begin by reminding Captain Littlehales that I, as well as himself,
have had to form my opinion, or rather my vision, of the accident, from
printed statements, of which many must have been loose and inexact and
none could have been minutely circumstantial. I have read the reports of
the _Times_ and the _Daily Telegraph_, and no others. What stands in the
columns of these papers is responsible for my conclusion--or perhaps for
the state of my feelings when I wrote the _Illustrated London News_
article.

From these sober and unsensational reports, I derived the impression that
this collision was a collision of the slowest sort. I take it, of
course, that both the men in charge speak the strictest truth as to
preliminary facts. We know that the _Empress of Ireland_ was for a time
lying motionless. And if the captain of the _Storstad_ stopped his
engines directly the fog came on (as he says he did), then taking into
account the adverse current of the river, the _Storstad_, by the time the
two ships sighted each other again, must have been barely moving _over
the ground_. The "over the ground" speed is the only one that matters in
this discussion. In fact, I represented her to myself as just creeping
on ahead--no more. This, I contend, is an imaginative view (and we can
form no other) not utterly absurd for a seaman to adopt.

So much for the imaginative view of the sad occurrence which caused me to
speak of the fender, and be chided for it in unmeasured terms. Not by
Captain Littlehales, however, and I wish to reply to what he says with
all possible deference. His illustration borrowed from boxing is very
apt, and in a certain sense makes for my contention. Yes. A blow
delivered with a boxing-glove will draw blood or knock a man out; but it
would not crush in his nose flat or break his jaw for him--at least, not
always. And this is exactly my point.

Twice in my sea life I have had occasion to be impressed by the
preserving effect of a fender. Once I was myself the man who dropped it
over. Not because I was so very clever or smart, but simply because I
happened to be at hand. And I agree with Captain Littlehales that to see
a steamer's stern coming at you at the rate of only two knots is a
staggering experience. The thing seems to have power enough behind it to
cut half through the terrestrial globe.

And perhaps Captain Littlehales is right? It may be that I am mistaken
in my appreciation of circumstances and possibilities in this case--or in
any such case. Perhaps what was really wanted there was an extraordinary
man and an extraordinary fender. I care nothing if possibly my deep
feeling has betrayed me into something which some people call absurdity.

Absurd was the word applied to the proposal for carrying "enough boats
for all" on board the big liners. And my absurdity can affect no lives,
break no bones--need make no one angry. Why should I care, then, as long
as out of the discussion of my absurdity there will emerge the acceptance
of the suggestion of Captain F. Papillon, R.N., for the universal and
compulsory fitting of very heavy collision fenders on the stems of all
mechanically propelled ships?

An extraordinary man we cannot always get from heaven on order, but an
extraordinary fender that will do its work is well within the power of a
committee of old boatswains to plan out, make, and place in position. I
beg to ask, not in a provocative spirit, but simply as to a matter of
fact which he is better qualified to judge than I am--Will Captain
Littlehales affirm that if the _Storstad_ had carried, slung securely
across the stem, even nothing thicker than a single bale of wool (an
ordinary, hand-pressed, Australian wool-bale), it would have made no
difference?

If scientific men can invent an air cushion, a gas cushion, or even an
electricity cushion (with wires or without), to fit neatly round the
stems and bows of ships, then let them go to work, in God's name and
produce another "marvel of science" without loss of time. For something
like this has long been due--too long for the credit of that part of
mankind which is not absurd, and in which I include, among others, such
people as marine underwriters, for instance.

Meanwhile, turning to materials I am familiar with, I would put my trust
in canvas, lots of big rope, and in large, very large quantities of old
junk.

It sounds awfully primitive, but if it will mitigate the mischief in only
fifty per cent. of cases, is it not well worth trying? Most collisions
occur at slow speeds, and it ought to be remembered that in case of a big
liner's loss, involving many lives, she is generally sunk by a ship much
smaller than herself.

JOSEPH CONRAD.



A FRIENDLY PLACE


Eighteen years have passed since I last set foot in the London Sailors'
Home. I was not staying there then; I had gone in to try to find a man I
wanted to see. He was one of those able seamen who, in a watch, are a
perfect blessing to a young officer. I could perhaps remember here and
there among the shadows of my sea-life a more daring man, or a more agile
man, or a man more expert in some special branch of his calling--such as
wire splicing, for instance; but for all-round competence, he was
unequalled. As character he was sterling stuff. His name was Anderson.
He had a fine, quiet face, kindly eyes, and a voice which matched that
something attractive in the whole man. Though he looked yet in the prime
of life, shoulders, chest, limbs untouched by decay, and though his hair
and moustache were only iron-grey, he was on board ship generally called
Old Andy by his fellows. He accepted the name with some complacency.

I made my enquiry at the highly-glazed entry office. The clerk on duty
opened an enormous ledger, and after running his finger down a page,
informed me that Anderson had gone to sea a week before, in a ship bound
round the Horn. Then, smiling at me, he added: "Old Andy. We know him
well, here. What a nice fellow!"

I, who knew what a "good man," in a sailor sense, he was, assented
without reserve. Heaven only knows when, if ever, he came back from that
voyage, to the Sailors' Home of which he was a faithful client.

I went out glad to know he was safely at sea, but sorry not to have seen
him; though, indeed, if I had, we would not have exchanged more than a
score of words, perhaps. He was not a talkative man, Old Andy, whose
affectionate ship-name clung to him even in that Sailors' Home, where the
staff understood and liked the sailors (those men without a home) and did
its duty by them with an unobtrusive tact, with a patient and humorous
sense of their idiosyncrasies, to which I hasten to testify now, when the
very existence of that institution is menaced after so many years of most
useful work.

Walking away from it on that day eighteen years ago, I was far from
thinking it was for the last time. Great changes have come since, over
land and sea; and if I were to seek somebody who knew Old Andy it would
be (of all people in the world) Mr. John Galsworthy. For Mr. John
Galsworthy, Andy, and myself have been shipmates together in our
different stations, for some forty days in the Indian Ocean in the early
nineties. And, but for us two, Old Andy's very memory would be gone from
this changing earth.

Yes, things have changed--the very sky, the atmosphere, the light of
judgment which falls on the labours of men, either splendid or obscure.
Having been asked to say a word to the public on behalf of the Sailors'
Home, I felt immensely flattered--and troubled. Flattered to have been
thought of in that connection; troubled to find myself in touch again
with that past so deeply rooted in my heart. And the illusion of
nearness is so great while I trace these lines that I feel as if I were
speaking in the name of that worthy Sailor-Shade of Old Andy, whose
faithfully hard life seems to my vision a thing of yesterday.

* * * * *

But though the past keeps firm hold on one, yet one feels with the same
warmth that the men and the institutions of to-day have their merit and
their claims. Others will know how to set forth before the public the
merit of the Sailors' Home in the eloquent terms of hard facts and some
few figures. For myself, I can only bring a personal note, give a
glimpse of the human side of the good work for sailors ashore, carried on
through so many decades with a perfect understanding of the end in view.
I have been in touch with the Sailors' Home for sixteen years of my life,
off and on; I have seen the changes in the staff and I have observed the
subtle alterations in the physiognomy of that stream of sailors passing
through it, in from the sea and out again to sea, between the years 1878
and 1894. I have listened to the talk on the decks of ships in all
latitudes, when its name would turn up frequently, and if I had to
characterise its good work in one sentence, I would say that, for seamen,
the Well Street Home was a friendly place.

It was essentially just that; quietly, unobtrusively, with a regard for
the independence of the men who sought its shelter ashore, and with no
ulterior aims behind that effective friendliness. No small merit this.
And its claim on the generosity of the public is derived from a long
record of valuable public service. Since we are all agreed that the men
of the merchant service are a national asset worthy of care and sympathy,
the public could express this sympathy no better than by enabling the
Sailors' Home, so useful in the past, to continue its friendly offices to
the seamen of future generations.




Footnotes


{1} Yvette and Other Stories. Translated by Ada Galsworthy.

{2} _Turgenev_: A Study. By Edward Garnett.

{3} _Studies in Brown Humanity_. By Hugh Clifford.

{4} _Quiet Days in Spain_. By C. Bogue Luffmann.

{5} Existence after Death Implied by Science. By Jasper B. Hunt, M.A.

{6} _The Ascending Effort_. By George Bourne.

{7} Since writing the above, I am told that such doors are fitted in the
bunkers of more than one ship in the Atlantic trade.

{8} The loss of the _Empress of Ireland_.