“What size lifeboat?’
“Take one of the Titanic’s lifeboats.”
“Well,” I pointed out, “it would depend greatly on weather conditions.”
“Make your own conditions,” replied by legal opponent impatiently.
I suggested, as an example, we should take the wind as force six Beaufort’s scale.
“Yes,” he agreed.
“Then,” I added, “there would be an accompanying sea, or course.”
Yes, yes,” he again agreed, and fell into the trap which Lord Mersey proceeded to spring, by informing Mr. Scanlan that in the circumstances described it would be impossible to launch any boat.
So the legal battle went on.
Still, I think we parted very good friends.
A washing of dirty linen would help no one. The B.O.T. had passed that ship as in all respects fit for sea in every sense of the word, with sufficient margin of safety for everyone on board. Now the B.O.T. was holding an enquiry in to the loss of that ship — hence the whitewash brush. Personally, I had no desire that blame should be attributed either to the B.O.T. or the White Star Line, though in all conscience it was a difficult task, when handled by some of the cleverest legal minds in England, striving tooth and nail to prove the inadequacy here, the lack there, when one had known, full well, and for many years, the ever-present possibility of just such a disaster. I think in the end the B.O.T. and the White Star Line won.
The very point, namely the utter inadequacy of the life-saving equipment then prevailing, which Mr. Scanlan and his confrиres had been fighting tooth and nail to prove has since been wholly, frankly, and fully admitted by the stringent rules now governing British ships, “Going Foreign.”
No longer is the Boat-Deck almost wholly set aside as a recreation ground for passengers, with the smallest number of boats relegated to the least possible space.
In fact, the pendulum has swing to the other extreme and the margin of safety reached the ridiculous.
Be that as it may, I am never likely to forget that long drawn out battle of wits, where it seemed that I must hold that unenviable position of whipping boy to the whole lot of them. Pull devil, pull baker, till it looked as if they would pretty well succeed in pulling my hide off completely, each seemed to want his bit. I know when it was all over I felt more like a legal doormat than a Mail Boat Officer.
Perhaps the heads of the White Star Line didn’t quite realise just what an endless strain it had all been, falling on one man’s luckless shoulders, as it needs must, being the sole survivor out of so many departments — fortunately they were broad.
Still, just that word of thanks which was lacking, which when the Titanic Enquiry was all over would have been very much appreciated. It must have been a curious psychology that governed the managers of that magnificent Line. Promotion and service in their Western Ocean Mail Boats was the mark of their highest approval. Both these tokens came my way, and fifteen of my twenty years under the red Burgee with its silver star, were spent in the Atlantic Mail. Yet, when after twenty years of service I came to bury my anchor, and awaited their pleasure at headquarters, for the last time, there was a brief,
“Oh, you are leaving us, are you. Well, Good-bye.”
A curious people!
However, that was not to be for some years, and I was yet to see another of the Line, my old favourite, the Oceanic, swallowed up by the insatiable sea.
Having at last finished with the “Titanic Enquiry,” I again set about picking up the threads and found myself once more signing Articles on the Oceanic with many that had survived the Titanic. One well-known figure was missing from the Shipping Office about this time and that was “Old Ned”, known to all and sundry as just “Ned.” Actually, he was responsible for the stokehold crowd, and a tougher bunch than the firemen on a Western Ocean Mail boat it would be impossible to find. Bootle seemed to specialise in the Liverpool Irishman, who was accounted to be the toughest of the tough, and prominent amongst the few that could stand up to the life, where life below consisted of one endless drive. Even the engineers seemed to get tainted with that unqualified “toughness,” for they must be able to hold their own with the worst. This type reached its peak in the days of the old Majestic and Teutonic. The conditions under which firemen laboured in these boats, were inhuman. Little blame if the men did become brutes. The heat of the stokehold alone, when driving under the last ounce of steam, was terrible. Added to this, when in the Gulf Stream, was the intense humidity.
It was no uncommon sight to see a man, sometimes two, three or even four in a watch, hoisted up the ash-shoot with the bucket chain hooked roughly round their arm-pits, to be dumped on deck unconscious. A few buckets of water over them and then they were left to recover. Neither must they be long about it, or up comes the Leading Fireman, who, with strict impartiality, will apply both boot and fist to drive his dogs of war below again.
The instructions were to keep up that “arrow,” indicating the steam pressure, at all costs, regardless of body or bones. Small wonder at the tales that used to creep about, of men gone missing after a free fight, when sharp shovels are used as flails.
“So and so missing, He must have gone overboard during the night. Caught with the heat, poor beggar.”
Yes, caught, all right, but perhaps with the sharp edge of a shovel.
An engineer at one time was seen to go into the stokehold, and never seen to come out, nor yet seen on deck. He was a particularly powerful type of man and brutal withal, who hazed his watch to the limit in the demand for steam, till the stokehold was Bedlam let loose. From that day till this — though never mentioned ashore — his disappearance was frankly attributed to the swift cut of a shovel from behind, and his body shot into a furnace. The truth will never be known, but from then on, and engineer never went into the stokehold unaccompanied by his leading hand.
These were the type of men “Old Ned” was called upon to supply and handle. Originally a fireman himself, he knew all the tricks, and feared none. Tall, keen, alert. Perfect athletic build. A hawk-like eye, and monstrous aquiline nose, that had been broken more times than even he could remember. Slow of movement and quiet of speech, with a voice that came rumbling from way down in his chest.
A couple of hundred toughs, crowing and jostling together, waiting to sign on. “Ned,” towering above the tallest, comes through the doorway and makes his way with hardly a check, surging through, and throwing aside the Bootle toughs like a ship contemptuously flinging off the little waves that would hold her. A shoulder here, an elbow there. Nor would he hesitate to put the flat of that huge hand of his on the flat of some more than usually objectionable face, with the base of his wrist tucked neatly under the chin. If the man was sensible, he stepped back, quickly and sharply, regardless of the curses of those behind him, or how they might retaliate. Arriving at the table, “Ned” quickly says, “Stand back” to those who would crowd in with their Discharge books held out. For be it known that there will be a full score and more eager to accept every single vacancy. Even “Brutal Bootle” looks with respect at a man who has gained that giddy height, and been chosen by “Ned” for “The Mail Boat” A vicious and resentful crowd they were, and though master of the situation at the pay table, it was a different matter when turning a dark corner in Dockland, as old “Ned” had known to his cost, many a time and often. On the other hand, there was not a pub within a mile or more radius, that he could not walk into and call for enough beer to drown a man, had he wished. No fireman came ashore from the Mail Boat, with his pay in his pocket but “chalked one up for Ned.” Even a Chicago gangster might have envied the cortиge that finally followed “Old Ned” after signing his last ship.