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
CHAPTER TWENTY
A SURFBOAT TRAGEDY
We had arrived off Grand Bassam to take in mahogany logs, but it happened to be a “surf day,” and as a result there was no communication between ship and shore, and no logs could be floated off to the ship for loading. The question to be settled was, should we stay in hopes of the weather moderating, or should we push on homeward.
Waters gave the Chief orders to go in with the surf boat, and get in touch with the shore and find out if they proposed to ship off any logs. This the Chief proceeded to do; anchoring and trying to signal to the shore when he was as close to the surf as he could get, with any degree of safety. Grand Bassam is open to the full force of an Atlantic swell, and if there is, or has been, a good westerly gale within a few hundred miles, the sea banks up, with the shoaling water, curling over as it rushes in, to finally crash down the beach throwing up sheer volcanoes of surf. To be caught in one of these mountainous breakers, even a surf boat (double ended like a lifeboat) is almost sure to be fatal, unless every member of that surf boat’s crew is trained to the last hair, and even then, the chances are odds on being capsized. Our boys were quite good in the surf boat, but not by a long shot equal to tackling anything like the sea running that day. Waters sent for me and asked “Why the hell can’t the Chief get in touch with the beach? He’s too far out.” As a matter of fact, from where we were it did seem as if he might get closer in. I replied that “although he seemed well clear of the breakers, it was impossible to form an opinion unless one were to take a boat and see for oneself.” He gallingly sneered, “I don’t know what the blazes you fellows are afraid of,” This jeer was calculated to a nicety, knowing full well that it held just the right sting to make me carry out any crazy attempt to make touch with the shore. Naturally my reply was pointed and pungent. “All right,” said he, with biting contempt, “take the gig and let’s see what you can do.”
Like a fool I took the gig, a boat with a square stern, the very worst type of boat for the work in hand; called away a crew, and off we went, in full view of the first and second class passengers, many of whom were witnesses both to the “dare” and the disastrous results. They gave their opinions in no measured terms a little later on, for it all happened within a mile or so of the ship. The Captain’s last instructions were “take a lead line, sound in, and see how far I can bring the ship.” This called for a Quartermaster.