At sea with Joseph Conrad

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THE LIBRARY

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THE UNIVERSITY

OF CALIFORNIA

LOS ANGELES

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

Tivelve hundred and Jifty copies only of this book
have been printed for England and America. It
'Will not be reprinted in this or in any other form.

Digitized by the Internet Archive

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AT SEA WITH
JOSEPH CONRAD

BY

J. G. SUTHERLAND

CAPTAIN, B.N.R.

WITH A FOREWORD BY

JOSEPH CONRAD

^

LONDON

GRANT RICHARDS LTD.

ST martin's street

1922

POINTED IN Great Bkitais by the Riveusidc fREds Limited
Edinburgii

0

DEDICATED TO

MY SON

BRIAN O'HALLORAN DEVEREUX SUTHERLAND

Q'

LIST OF PLATES

JOSEPH CONRAD .... Frontispiece

FACING PAGE

AT TARGET PRACTICE . . . .24

ALL READY FOR SEA . . . .28

PIT-PROPS TO HIDE GUNS FROM AIRCRAFT . 42

MR JOSEPH CONRAD . . . . .48

MR CONRAD AT THE WHEEL . . .56

LIEUTENANT OSBORNE, R.N.R., AND MR CONRAD . 60

H.M.S. "ready" BECALMED . . . I20

A STRONG BREEZE . . . . . I24

AIRSHIP WHICH REPORTED US AS A SUSPICIOUS
VESSEL ......

TRAWLER WHICH LANDED MR CONRAD AT BRID-
LINGTON .....

138
140

FOREWORD

Dear Captain Sutherland,

When you first told me oj
your intention to publish a little book about the
cruise of the'-'- Ready " in October-November 1 9 1 6,
and asked me if I had any objection^ I told you that
it was not in my power to raise an effective objection^
but that in any case the recollection of your kindness
during those days when we were shipmates in the
North Sea would have prevented me from putting
as much as a formal protest in your way. Having
taken that attitude, and the book being now ready
for publication, I am glad of this opportunity of
testifying to my regard for you, for Lieutena?2t
Osborne, R.N.R., and for the naval and civilian
crews of H.M. Brigantine " Ready,'' not forgetting
Mr Moodie, the sailing master, whose sterling
worth we all appreciated so ?nuch both as a
seaman and as a shipmate.

I have no doubt that your memories are accurate,
but as these are exclusively concerned with my
person I am at liberty, without giving ofience, to

9

FOREWORD

confess that I dont think they were worth preserv-
ing in print. But that is your affair. What this
experience meant to me in its outward sensations and
deeper feelings must remain my private possession.
I talked to very few persons about it. I certainly
never imagined that any account of that cruise
would come before the public.

When the proofs of the little book, which you
were good enough to send me, arrived here, I was
laid up and not in a condition to read anything.
Afterwards I refrained on purpose. After all,
these are your own recollections, in which you have
insisted on giving me a promine?it position, and the
fitness of them had to be left to your own judgment
and to your own expression.

JOSEPH CONRAD.

Osivaldsy Btshopsbourne.

lO

CHAPTER I

" The Brotherhood of the Sea is no mere
empty phrase."

In these words Mr Joseph Conrad ended a
letter which he sent to me on his arrival
home after what was, without doubt, the most
memorable and exciting experience of his
seafaring career.

It was in the winter of 19 16, when the
Kaiser decided to redouble his submarine
warfare, that my story begins.

Ships were being sunk right and left, the
German submarine commanders taking advan-
tage of every kind of frightfulness, even the
sinking at sight of neutral sailing craft which
were engaged only in their ordinary commercial
pursuits and which had no other end in view
than the carriage of their products and manu-
factures to the markets of other countries.
The neutrals flew their colours at their mast-
heads or from their gaffs, and on their sides
had painted large ensigns from deck to water-
line, leaving no loophole for the non-observance
of International law.

II

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

It was in such a small sailing vessel, during
the height of a particularly severe winter,
that Conrad set sail across the North Sea to
work on the trade routes between Scotland,
Norway and Denmark, where at the time the
enemy was most active, on what he described
as his " joyful experience of U-boat hunting."

I met Conrad in peculiarly fortunate cir-
cumstances. It was at Granton, a small port
within easy reach of Edinburgh, where I was
employed as Commander of Minesweeping
Trawlers. Curiously enough, it was on the
same day that, tired of the dull monotony of
minesweeping, I applied for and was appointed
to the command of H.M.S. brigantine Ready^
the first sailing ship to be commissioned for
active service in the Great War. During the
afternoon I had been visualising the possi-
bilities of a fight under sail against a war
vessel which depended not on wind power
for manoeuvring in action, but worked under
the most modern and scientific conditions both
on the surface and under water. I knew
full well that the odds were all against the
brigantine, but the sheer joy of being in action
with an enemy vessel appealed to me above
all other things. I had scarcely arrived at

12

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

this conclusion when I was sent for by the
Commodore, and on entering his office found
him chatting on things in general, and the
work of the Base in particular, with a stranger
whose appearance struck me as being very
much out of the ordinary. He was seated
close to the window, with legs crossed, listen-
ing intently to the Commodore and, as I
thought, making mental notes of his conversa-
tion. I waited cap in hand, standing very much
at attention, to hear my senior officer's wishes,
during which time I had ample opportunity
of studying his visitor.

My first impression was of a man of about
middle age, extremely well groomed, with
dark hair of which he had a plentiful supply,
closely cropped beard and moustache with the
slightest tinge of greyness, a manner courtly
in the extreme, a fine, clever, sun-tanned face
which betokened an outdoor life, with that
very kindly smile which one associates with
a person thoroughly interested in the world
and its doings, and seeing only the bright side
of things. He wore a monocle, which added
to an appearance already distinguished, and
during every lull in the conversation he
turned to me with a look significant of

i^.

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

apology for the delay which I was being
subjected to. I felt this and by looks tried
to reassure him, so that I should have longer
time to make up my mind as to who and
what he was. He appeared to be familiar
with expressions used by seamen, and used
them himself in his questions and replies to
the Commodore. This led me to conclude
that he was a high naval personage of an
Allied Power : high, because he conversed
with the Commodore on an equality — the
latter being Admiral Sir James Startin, K.C.B.,
one of those fine old types of naval officers
who resigned their commissions in the Royal
Navy to accept commissions in the junior
ranks of the Royal Naval Reserve, so that his
age would not preclude him from serving his
country ; Allied, because he spoke with the
slightest trace of a foreign accent. He did
not speak like a Frenchman and certainly did
not look Italian. While I was still wonder-
ing, the Commodore rose from his seat and
introduced me to none other than Conrad
himself, whose books I had read and re-read,
whose characters I, from my wanderings as
a seaman, seemed to have met without acquir-
ing that insight into their characters, lovable

H

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

and otherwise, which he, with his extra-
ordinary faculty of understanding the greatness
and smallness of their natures, portrayed with
such wonderful exactness in his books. I was
intensely proud to meet him, and said so ;
indeed I expressed my admiration in a manner
which seemed to cause him no little em-
barrassment, but which he was good enough
to say he appreciated, in a manner indicative
of the modesty which (I was to learn later)
was characteristic of the man.

The Commodore instructed me to show
Mr Conrad everything there was to be seen
— ships, guns, torpedoes, devices for disguise
and indicator nets for trapping enemy sub-
marines whose commanders might be daring
and foolish enough to attempt to enter our
harbours. The latter, in both construction
and working, were very ingenious and compli-
cated, necessitating quite a lengthy explanation
to the average seaman and even to fishermen,
who as a rule know everything there is to
know about nets of every description. Conrad
could not have seen this contrivance before,
but his quick brain grasped the whole situation
at once, all his surmises being absolutely
correct in every detail. The drift nets, which,

15

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

as their name indicates, are towed by drifters
and fitted with explosive mines, were next
shown to him, and with his seaman-like in-
tuition he had the whole working of them at
his finger-ends before I had time to explain
the methods of their use. Indeed, trained as
he was in the old sailing clippers, Conrad had
almost uncanny powers for instantly gripping
everything connected with wires, ropes, rigging
and the innumerable different uses to which
material necessary to the working of ships by
shipmen could be put.

Having carried out my Commodore's wishes
to the letter, we adjourned to my cabin, where
Conrad, having seated himself, was silent for
some minutes, due possibly to turning over in
his mind the numerous and well thought-out
traps which to the seaman side of his nature
were a revelation. The arrival of my steward
with refreshments awoke him from his reverie,
and it was then that I casually mentioned my
appointment as commander of the brigantine.
The effect of my remark was electrical :
Conrad was a changed man ; his whole face
lit up ; he was not now listening to parrot-like
explanations of war measures, but to something
that interested him more than anything he

i6

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

had seen or heard. " A brigantine at war ! "

Had he heard aright ? A brigantine, in days

of super-dreadnoughts, battle cruisers, light

cruisers and forty-knot destroyers, any one

of which could have destroyed the whole of

Nelson's squadrons at Trafalgar ! I assured

him that such was actually the case, and he

begged that he might be allowed to accompany

me, to which I, as far as it lay in my power,

joyously agreed. He asked more about the

vessel, and I felt it my duty to tell him that

the craft was seventy years old, falling to

pieces, leaking like a sieve, and was at the

time being patched up in a dry dock at Dundee.

Having given him this information, I feared

the pleasure of his company might be denied

me ; but I had mistaken my man. The call

of the sea, the spice of adventure, the thought

of living as one of the characters created by

his wonderful and imaginative brain, of again

pacing the deck of a ship, sailing with every

stitch of canvas set, or lying hove-to under a

reefed fore-topsail, and main-staysail was too

much to miss, and there and then we proceeded

to the Commodore as a first step to gain his

sanction to approach the Admiralty. At the

outset he was all against such a proposition.
B 17

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

Indeed he painted the Ready even worse
than she was, which was saying something,
and as an alternative he offered Conrad a
cruise on any other vessel under his com-
mand, including mystery steam vessels, steam
yachts, mine-sweepers, patrol vessels or motor
launches. But Conrad held out. He wanted
the sailing vessel — nothing else would do.
And after much persuasion the Commodore
went as far as to say that he personally
had no objection, though of course Ad-
miralty approval would first have to be
obtained.

I am unable to say whether or not the
Commodore addressed, or rather submitted,
the usual type of letter to the Secretary of the
Admiralty, from whose office it would cir-
culate until it finally reached the department
concerned, or whether Conrad had a "friend
at Court " at the Admiralty ! All I know was
that approval was received, and in my anxiety
to have Conrad with me I didn't much care
how it was arranged, and never discussed it
with him.

Two years later, in reading Rear-Admiral
Sir Douglas Brownrigg's delightful articles

published in The Daily Telegraph under the

i8

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

heading of" Indiscretions of the Naval Censor,"
I came across the following : —

" I can honestly say now the war is over
that no man has seen as much as Mr Conrad
saw in those few months when he was going
round observing all the various sorts of work
the Mercantile Marine was performing. I
even got permission for him to go out in one
of the Q-boats which were at that time more
or less in their infancy. I should say that
when I got him permission this perhaps should
not be taken au pied de la lettre. I asked the
imperturbable Chief of the Staff (Admiral
Sir Henry Oliver) if I might send him out.
He looked up at me, merely saying, ' I don't
want to know anything about it,' went on
writing and smoking his pipe, so I darted out
of the room, knowing that I could go ahead
and that all I had to do was to square the
Senior Naval Officer at the port of departure,
which I did ! In due course, therefore, Mr
Conrad went for a cruise in a Q-boat."

The Q-boat was, of course, the brigantine
under my command. I do not suppose that
to this day Sir Douglas Brownrigg knows

19

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

how very much I helped him to square that
Senior Naval Officer !

The same evening I took my leave of
Conrad, with a faithful promise that I would
not " let him down " ; also that I would keep
him informed of my movements.

Later in the evening I was discussing the
cruise with the Commodore. He remarked
that he was undecided as to the wisdom of
allowing Mr Conrad to come with me ; he
was afraid that owing to his European reputa-
tion he might be well known to agents of
the Central Powers, and if we came off second
best in a scrap and he were taken prisoner, he
might be treated as a non-combatant and get
short shrift. For this reason he felt he was
taking a great responsibility, and thought that
he ought to cancel his permission. I, how-
ever, talked him over by saying that no one
knew better than Conrad the risk he was tak-
ing, and as long as he was prepared to accept
it there need be no opposition on his (the
Commodore's) part. Eventually he gave in,
much to my great joy.

20

CHAPTER II

I NOW proceeded to pick my First Lieutenant
from innumerable officers who had volunteered
to come with me. My choice fell on Lieu-
tenant Henry Osborne, R.N.R., a great, strap-
ping, lovable, good-looking fellow, to whom
hard work was life itself, and who had that
rare gift of getting work out of men with a
feeling that they liked it. We had been mine-
sweeping together for a considerable time and
I had marked him down as a man who would
go through anything.

The following morning, having packed
away our uniforms overnight, we proceeded
in mufti, in order not to excite suspicion, to
join the Ready at Dundee.

Having inspected her, I found she was in
a worse condition than I had anticipated.
The foot of the foremast was worm-eaten and
so rotten that steel bands were necessary to
keep it together, and the rest of her — hull,
spars, rigging and sails — was in a deplorable
condition. I had a strong feeling that I
ought to send Conrad a full and true report of

21

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

my inspection, but on second thoughts decided
not to do so, because it would not in any way
affect his decision to sail with me, and — well,
because I very much wanted him to come.

Two weeks later the old craft was considered
sufficiently patched, caulked and pitched to
leave the dry dock, but on taking the water,
like old wine in new bottles, we found that
new planking and old timber did not go well
together, with the result that the cuddy and
lower forecastle were flooded out. More
patching, more caulking and more pitching,
however, rendered her sufficiently seaworthy
to proceed to sea (a Board of Trade Certificate
fortunately was not necessary ! ) and a day or
two later we set sail for St Andrews Bay.

I have given the foregoing description of
the vessel in order to show that Conrad's life
during his U-boat hunting experiences in the
North Sea, in the depth of a very severe
winter, was not spent in a luxuriously fitted
warship — which would have been bad enough
in all conscience — but in a very old, water-
logged derelict, without the slightest pre-
tensions to comfort of any sort.

On my arrival at St Andrews Bay I
dispatched a wire to Conrad's home requesting

22

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

him to join me forty-eight hours later, as after
that time I proposed to sail at the first favour-
able opportunity. He came north the same
night, fearful lest we should depart without
him.

Our guns, ammunition, bedding and stores,
consumable and otherwise, were sent round
by trawlers from Granton and transferred to
us whilst at anchor in the bay — this, of course,
to outwit any enemy spies who might be
lurking at Dundee.

At the time I did not know that Conrad
had come north so hurriedly, and, as I did not
communicate with the shore, he, I am sorry
to say, had to spend a matter of thirty-six
hours at a hotel overlooking the famous golf-
course. He had received instructions from
the Admiralty not to send wires or give any
information of the proposed cruise, so that he
was " between the devil and the deep sea " as
to what he should do.

However, on the third morning I requested
the lieutenant in command of H. M.S. Zedwhale^
at anchor close by, to proceed on shore, look
for Mr Conrad and offer him a passage off.
He had not far to look, as Conrad met him
on landing, and having introduced himself, was

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

given my message, and half-an-hour later was
on board.

During the preceding two days the four
twelve-pounder guns had been mounted, and
during the fore and after noons the guns' crews
were drilled to the highest point of perfec-
tion. They were changed round in order
that each member of the crew might under-
stand each other's work and could, if neces-
sary, become captains of the guns. We had
imaginary casualties, so that loaders, if neces-
sary, could, in addition to their own work, do
the duties of Nos. i, 2, or sight-setters. Guns'
crews on the off side, not engaged in action,
were practised in filling up casualties at the
guns, or in passing up ammunition from
the hold. The " panic party," consisting of
the sailing crew, was drilled in hoisting the
boat out and scrambling into it for the purpose
of abandoning the ship when ordered to do so
by signal from the enemy, as was their custom
before sending a party on board to destroy the
vessel with time-fuse bombs.

When Conrad came on board I introduced
Osborne and Moodie the sailing master.
With the former he conversed at length
on present-day discipline in the Mercantile

24

AT 'I'AKc.rcr rkA("Tit'K

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

Marine. Osborne had, just previous to the
war, been made mate of a four-masted, full-
rigged ship, so that they were on common
ground, and discussed matters with which
,they were both conversant. Conrad was glad
to hear that the old discipline as he knew it
still prevailed ; that the master, by ancient
usage, had still the undisputed right to the
weather side of the poop, and all the power
and authority, unaided by any kind of force,
which Master Mariners through the ages had
built up for themselves, and against whose
spoken word there was no appeal.

Moodie, a shy, retiring, soft-spoken man,
charmed him. He was different in every
way from the skippers he had coasted with,
or imagined other coasting skippers to be.
Moodie, too, was able to tell him how an
enemy submarine had sunk his schooner, and
now that he was in an armed ship he was
going to try very hard to get his own back.

A little later I asked Conrad what his
first impressions were on coming on board.
" Different," he replied, " from anything I
imagined. Instead of decks holystoned like
a yacht, brasswork polished mirror-like, and
everything to the last rope-yarn in its place,

25

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

your ship seemed full of men, your decks
lumbered and littered with all sorts of engines
of destruction and ammunition, depth charges,
lance bombs and disguises ; and I wondered
if it would be possible to enjoy just one
fragrant weed without running the risk of
being blown sky high."

Needless to say, the decks were cleared
before we put to sea, and Conrad was able to
enjoy not one, but many, though I am afraid
the decks never reached that state of perfec-
tion with which his captain, Jasper Allen, of
the brig Bonita would have been content. At
the same time, what would the gallant Jasper
not have given for the armament of my almost
derelict ship when the Dutch Lieutenant
Heemskirk deliberately piled his beloved brig
on the Tamissa Reef outside Makassar !

For an hour in the afternoon Conrad was
left to himself, during which time he pene-
trated everywhere, talked to each member of
the crew and knew everybody long before I
did. He learned that afternoon that the wire-
less operator was in civil life a bank clerk,
and that his name was Musgrove. He was
equally well acquainted with the names and
occupations of each other individual as well,

26

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

including my own ; for I too had told him
everything there was to be told almost before
I knew him. He was sympathetic, extremely
so, and strongly appealed to one. He was
never inquisitive, never wanted to know any-
thing which the whole world could not have
known equally well. His human side was
very human, and I suppose it was that which
appealed so strongly to others and which
made men trust him.

27

CHAPTER III

The same evening we weighed anchor and
were towed out of St Andrews Bay, having
on board the Commodore and his staff, who
had come from Granton by sea to inspect the
Ready and to witness our gunnery practice.
A target was laid out at 2000 yards' range.
The guns were loaded, the captains of the
guns being picked men, and highly trained
gunners lined their eyes along the sights. At
the order " Fire ! " they pressed their triggers,
and the target was knocked endways. A new
target was dropped, and at 3000 yards' fire
was again opened with equally good results.

Practice was then carried out at longer
ranges and under more varied conditions, and
continued until the Commodore had satisfied
himself that further firing was unnecessary.

Conrad had been watching through his
marine glasses, and remarked on the fall of
each shot which either hit the target or
landed within a sufficiently measurable distance
not to miss a submarine, offering as it would
a much larger surface ; and he expressed his

ALL READY FOR SKA

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

great delight at the superb accuracy of the
gunners, congratulating them personally on
their high standard of excellence. He re-
marked to me that no unarmoured vessel could
have withstood the withering fire from our
guns, and that the odds, as he conceived them
to be, had very considerably lessened against
the brigantine.

It was a toss up between foolhardiness and
cunning, and after some discussion we backed
our cunning.

Before the target practice the shooting
abilities of our gunners was an unknown
quantity ; now we were satisfied that if the
enemy adhered to his usual procedure of first
interrogating masters before sinking their
vessels it would be a hundred to one on us.
If, on the other hand, he were suspicious and
torpedoed us without warning, we should
be given short shrift. This last possibility
was thrashed out at some length ; but as the
brigantine was, in actual value, about half the
cost of a modern torpedo, and as she was flying
light, showing that no cargo was carried, we
decided that it was an unlikely one.

Conrad here asked me who on earth con-
ceived the idea of sending a small sailing

29

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

vessel out to fight submarines. He knew
that the fighting men in Flanders in this, the
twentieth, century had adopted methods of
offence and defence which were not even
hinted at in the text-books, and were more
in keeping with battles between early day
warriors ; but to send a very old wooden sail-
ing vessel, which Nelson would have disowned
as a fighting unit, to hunt for and give battle
to a type of craft which had already destroyed
battleships and cruisers, amazed him. He
was somewhat surprised when I told him that
the idea was not conceived by the Admiralty,
not even by a professional seaman, but by a
purely business man, head of one of the largest
manufacturing industries in the country, who,
on the outbreak of the war, surrendered every-
thing, and accepted a junior commission in
the R.N.V.R. on board one of H.M. sea-going
vessels. Later on, this man, by sheer ability
and powers of organisation, was promoted to
the rank of commander, and appointed as
Senior Staff Oflicer at Granton, then one of
the largest and most important Bases on the
East Coast.

Conrad was greatly interested, and wished
to know more about him — how the idea came

30

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

to him, and who he was. I was glad of this,
as it gave me an opportunity of paying a
tribute to the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve,
and to Commander Kenneth Walker, the
originator of the idea, and certainly the ablest
and most capable Volunteer Officer with
whom I had been brought in contact during
the war.

It was one of this officer's duties to examine
the credentials of, and to gain as much in-
formation as possible from, masters of neutral
vessels arriving in the Firth of Forth ; and
from many of these he learnt that they had
repeatedly been stopped on their passage across
the North Sea, and questioned by commanders
of German submarines as to movements of
British war vessels. (This was, of course, pre-
vious to the Kaiser's orders to sink everything,
regardless of nationality.)

Commander Walker discussed the possi-
bilities of fitting out such a vessel and sailing
her under a neutral flag with Commander
W. H. S. Ball, R.N., the technical expert of
the Base ; and the idea having received his
blessing, they both approached the Commodore,
who agreed to ask for Admiralty sanction.

Endless correspondence followed with the
31

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

Admiralty, their Lordships not at all approving
of the scheme. Commander Walker, being
a successful business man, and not used to
having his propositions turned aside, pressed
still further, going as far as to offer to pur-
chase and fit out a vessel at his own expense,
the result being the gaining of Admiralty
sanction for the purchase of and commission-
ing of the brigantine Ready.

During this conversation v^ith Conrad the
Commodore, who had been inspecting the
sleeping quarters with Osborne, approached
and directed me to assemble the officers, petty
officers and crew men on the quarter-deck.

Having reported everybody aft, he asked
each man in turn if he still wished to sail in
the ship, assuring him that failure to do so
would in no way prejudice him or affect his
future. But each man had made up his mind
to sail, and said so. The Commodore then
asked Conrad if he still persisted in such a
dangerous undertaking, to which he smilingly
replied that he " would not miss the oppor-
tunity for worlds." I was thanking my stars
that the inspection was over, and that we should
soon be under way, when the Commodore
suggested that I should return to St Andrews

32

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

and anchor there for another day, for what
reason I do not know, unless it could possibly
have been some premonition of disaster. He
himself did not know what fear was ; indeed,
he seemed to have been fighting all his life.
For his services in the Zulu War he received
promotion and was mentioned in dispatches.
In the Egyptian War, 1882, he landed with
the Naval Brigade. Further promotion and
mention in dispatches came to him in the
Benin War, and in the China War he
commanded H.M.S. Arethusa. He wore the
Silver and Bronze Medals with two clasps
for saving life, on one occasion jumping fully
dressed from the quarter-deck of one of his
Majesty's ships and saving the life of a seaman
who had fallen overboard. He was sixty-
three years of age when he won the Albert
Medal (the civilian V.C.) for descending into
the cabin of a burning motor launch to make
sure there was no one left on board. His
absolute fearlessness was a byword in the
Navy. I felt, therefore, that to obtain his
consent I had only to say how very anxious
we all were to go. He was not a man easily
overruled, and if he decided against a thing
he was always right. At the same time, he

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

listened to everybody and carefully weighed
the facts on both sides. Daring and keenness
appealed to him above everything, and the
humblest rating under his command with any
idea of originality would get the same hear-
ing from him as would his " Second in
Command." I simply said : " I would rather
go, sir," and without any more ado he gave
us permission.

34

CHAPTER IV

It was now getting dusk. The Commodore
had taken his leave of us, with parting in-
structions to keep the colours flying. Conrad
entrusted a small parcel to the Admiral's cox-
swain to be posted to his literary agent, and
a few minutes later we were entirely on our
own.

The order to " away aloft " was obeyed
with alacrity by the sailing crew. Sails were
loosened, buntlines and clewlines overhauled,
and with the guns' crew manning the halyards
and sheets all sail was soon made.

There was one hitch, a slight difficulty in
hoisting the upper topsail yard. I had not
been in charge of a sailing ship for twenty-two
years, and well do I remember giving the
order to let go the topgallant sheets — an
important detail which had been overlooked.
I was glad of this, as I then felt I had forgotten
nothing ; also it was an opportunity of con-
vincing the sailing crew (a very conservative
lot) that I was not a " steam-boat sailor " — a
thing of contempt to the sailing-ship mariner.

35

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

We got away before a following wind, and
were soon clear of the land, when we were
overhauled by a destroyer on patrol duty, the
commander of which asked us our business.
Osborne, disguised in a bowler hat and a thick
muffler, with a very much torn, double-breasted,
threadworn, blue serge coat, to say nothing of
a clay pipe, which he considered part and
parcel of a coasting mate's equipment, replied :
" Hunting for a submarine."

The destroyer's commander, evidently not
having heard of Q-boats in those early
days, then humorously inquired what we
proposed to do with it when we found it ;
to which Osborne as humorously replied :
" Hoist it on board and tame it." This
settled the matter, and we were allowed to
proceed.

All sail now being set, and the vessel mak-
ing good headway, the guns' crews disappeared
to their quarters below deck, in accordance
with instructions, well drilled into them, that
they should not show their faces above the
gunwale during the hours of daylight, unless
specially ordered to do so. This was in case
a U-boat commander, looking through the
periscope of a lurking enemy submarine, should

36

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

consider the vessel overmanned, and become
suspicious.

Moodie, the sailing master, was at the
wheel. Osborne was busy about the disguises
which were to be carried out after dark, test-
ing the night sights for the guns, and setting
the watches for the night.

I was standing aft with Conrad with an
Admiralty Confidential Square Chart spread
out on the skylight in front of us. On his
asking me where I proposed to steer for, I
pointed to the square where the Germans
were at the time sinking Scandinavian sailing
craft, and informed him that on reaching
that position I should cruise about in the
neighbourhood for some days. Conrad then
laid off the course with the parallel rulers,
measured the distance by compasses, looked
up the flow of the tides from the sailing
directions, and indeed took such a keen interest
in the navigation of the vessel that I then
and there suggested that he and Osborne
should act as joint navigators, which he
readily consented to do.

Everything seemed now to be fairly snug,
and we were beginning to feel the pangs of
hunger when the cook approached with the

37

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

joyful information that the evening meal was
prepared. It was laid in the cuddy, and,
leaving Moodie in charge of the deck, we
three descended, Conrad taking up his place
in the corner of the port side, which place
he kept during the remainder of the cruise.
The meal was very enjoyable.

Conrad was very curious to know more
about my intentions, and I fully enlightened
him, adding that I should be very glad of
the benefit of his advice, and hoped he
would not withhold it if, at any time, he
thought it advisable to proffer it. This put
Conrad at his ease. He was good enough to
say that he felt sure I should not need it. I,
however, put it in orders that he, Osborne and
I should meet in conference every evening,
and discuss the situation. This was agreed to,
and was of the greatest benefit to all concerned.

" The Sea Sense " (one might describe it as
" sea instinct " ) was well developed in all three
of us, and it was surprising how much we all
agreed on different points. There was no
secrecy between us, and the decisions arrived
at were at once communicated to the sailing
master, and through him to the ship's company.
This was all arranged during our first meal,

38

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

and after discussing the different disguises,
also which flag we should sail under — the
Norwegian, Swedish or Danish. As the
Norwegian vessels seemed to be receiving
the special attention of the enemy at that
time, we decided to fly their colours, and
hoisted them with great ceremony, not to be
hauled down until the first shot was fired in
action, when, in its stead, would be run up the
British White Ensign, which, on a separate
set of halyards, was always ready for the
eventful moment. We then returned to the
cuddy, and after opening a bottle of rare old
port (of which the far-seeing Osborne had
laid in a plentiful stock) we toasted ourselves
and our ship, and prayed for good fortune on
the morrow.

" Well," said I, as we again seated ourselves,
" what are we going to call her .? "

Conrad at once suggested " Freya," having
in his mind " Freya of the Seven Isles," which
he published as one of three stories in his Twixt
Land and Sea in 19 12. I had read it, and the
name appealed to me. Osborne liked it too,
and that same evening our little vessel was
christened "Freya," Conrad standing as spon-
sor, with no small satisfaction that a British

39

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

ship-of-war should bear the name of a girl
created by his own wonderful imagination.
The next thing to be done was to find a
" Port of Registry " in keeping with her name
and national colours. We wondered if enemy
submarine commanders were supplied with
the Scandinavian equivalent to our Lloyd's
Register, by which he could, through his
" glad-eye," as our own submarine officers
humorously described the periscope, check
the names of all vessels, their rigs, and home
ports. However, we decided not to let this
trouble us, and spreading out the large scale
chart of Norway on the cuddy table, sought
for a suitable name, and after closely examin-
ing the different ports decided on Bergen. So
the same hour our little vessel, called after
Conrad's " Freya of the Isles" became the
Freya of Bergen ; and I personally prayed for
a happier fate for our Freya than befell the
beautiful heroine of one of the most charming
stories ever told.

At 5.30 P.M. Conrad and I went on deck.
It was a bright, clear night, but rather cloudy,
and there was a moon somewhere. The dark
outline of the coast was still in sight, and he
stood for a full quarter of an hour gazing astern.

40

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

He paced the deck alone, stopping occasionally
to look into the lighted binnacle to see the
direction of the ship's head, and then aloft to
see how the sails were drawing. This he
must have done thousands of times in his old
sailing-ship days, when watching for every
breath of air in the doldrums, between the
north-east and south-east trade winds, when
ships are becalmed for weeks at a time, and
the trimming of the sails to every gust of wind
meant so much, or when running before the
prevailing westerly gales between the Cape
of Good Hope and Australia.

The poor weary officer of the watch, four
hours on, four hours off, for months at a time,
with record passages in his mind, could no more
pass a binnacle without looking into it than
fly. He did it automatically, and Conrad was
doing the same then. I remarked this to
him, and in the few minutes' conversation we
had he remarked that in his younger days the
romance of the sailing vessel always made him
forget the drudgery connected with it, "when
the hardest work was never too hard, nor the
longest day too long." With steam every-
thing was quite different. The work was too
mechanical, and the mantle which rested on the

41

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

shoulders of the maker of fast passages, giving
him a reputation world-wide, had passed to
the cylinder, the piston, the crank, and the
power of steam.

It was now quite dark, and Osborne, with
all hands, started to disguise the vessel. Freya,
in large, white block letters, was painted amid-
ships on the port and starboard sides, and
Norwegian ensigns on both bows and quarters,
all with the aid of lamplight, from stages
rigged over the sides. Hundreds of pit-props,
cylindrical in shape and about four feet long,
were sawn lengthwise in two, and nailed close
together on boards, which were set up along
the port and starboard gunwales, the full
length of the ship, to give the enemy the
impression that we were carrying a cargo of
props for use in our coal mines. The same
arrangement was constructed across the after-
deck in front of the binnacle, so that a
submarine coming up astern could neither
see that the decks were clear of all obstruc-
tions, nor that four twelve-pounder guns were
waiting for her to come within range.

Whilst this was going on I sat on the after-
hatchway, working out what should be done
in certain eventualities.

42

■K*T~~f-»»

i
i

\ .

S"

t:

-.■^.mumm:^" i'lBm

K

w%i. »*" 'Tl-^SSSB

I'l'I I'KOI'S TO HIDE t;UNS FROM AIKCKAIT

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

Conrad was still watching the fast fading
coast-line, which, owing to the freshening of
the following wind, was disappearing from
view.

I had decided on every action that would
have to be taken to frustrate all possible
attempts on the part of the enemy to destroy
us, and was anxious to discuss my conclusions
with Conrad and Osborne.

I waited until Conrad had awakened from
his reverie, which he did about fifteen minutes
later. Then together we paced the deck in
the darkness and I unfolded my plans.

Osborne was still busy with the disguises,
on the completion of which we all three
inspected and passed them as being sufficient
for our needs at the moment. I then sug-
gested that we should adjourn to the cuddy
to discuss the plan of campaign, leaving
Moodie in charge of the deck ; but on
Conrad's suggestion he was invited to the
conference, for the reason as before related,
that he had had his schooner sunk under
him and could give valuable information.
Moodie was instructed to turn over the
charge of the vessel to the mate, a very
first-class seaman. This he lost no time in

43

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

doing, and we four sat round the little cuddy-
table, an indifferent oil lamp swinging over-
head, throwing out an equally indifferent
light, under which we discussed every possible
kind of night attack and every possible means
of combating each one.

Needless to say, no Admiralty instructions
had at that time been issued for plans of
attack on board sailing vessels in action against
steam- or petrol-driven submarines. There-
fore our Round Table Conference might fairly
well be described as unique. The decisions
arrived at were :

(i) In no circumstances should Morse
signalling be used in replying to
challenu:es or directions from other
craft, on the score that its use was
not customary in small sailing craft.
(2) Should the beam of a searchlight be
thrown on us, all hands were to go
to action stations, the brigantine to
stand on until a shot was fired across
our bows, when the vessel was to be
brought to the wind, and the twin
motors used for working the vessel
to keep the guns trained to be got
ready for running.
44

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

(3) As only enemy submarines were known

to be carrying out these practices,
every endeavour was to be made to
bring the enemy within sure hitting
distance before opening fire, owing
to the rapidity with which she could
extinguish her lights, and make it
impossible for us to see her.

(4) Wireless was not to be used until the

action opened.

(5) Motors were not to be run until the

vessel went into action, for fear of

the enemy picking up the sound on

their hydrophone.

These instructions were then written out

and posted up in the cuddy, the guns' crews

mess deck, and in the sleeping quarters of the

sailing crew.

We were all very tired by this time, and,
leaving Moodie in charge of the deck, Conrad,
Osborne and I retired to bunks off the cuddy,
with the mistaken idea that we were going
to enjoy a good rest, which we should have
done had it not been for Rampling, the chief
engineer of the motors, who seemed to have
a mania for working twenty-three hours out
of twenty-four. He kept up an unceasing

45

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

hammering, accompanied by song, underneath
our sleeping deck. When he was not tinker-
ing with his charges he was oihng them, or
fining the tanks, and the smell of petrol per-
meated our sleeping quarters to such an extent
that, in my sleepless moments, I decided that
Rampling's occupation of one of the berths
would in some way relieve the difficulty. So
at 2 A.M. I descended to the engine-room, and
informed this worthy that he needed rest —
indeed that we all needed it — and with a very
cheery " Aye, aye, sir," he finished up with
the last two lines of what I was glad to hear
was the last verse of his song, and proceeded
on deck to have what he described as " a final
puff" before turning in.

The moving of Rampling from the deck-
house quarters to be nearer his engines meant
also the moving of the skipper and mate,
to make room for us. Whether Rampling
continued his nocturnal tinkerings or not I
cannot say ; but with the entire absence of
any complaints from Moodie or his mate,
and the improved and refreshed appearance
of Rampling, I gathered that he had decided
to rest himself for lengthier periods, and to
confine his labours to the hours of daylight.

46

CHAPTER V

Breakfast the morning after our departure
was a wonderful meal, quite different from
what I had expected. Heather, my servant,
who had been with me when I was in charge
of a submarine flotilla, and later in command
of mine-sweeping trawlers, informed me in
his own inimitable way that we had " some
cook." Conrad remarked on his excellent
cooking ; Osborne looked happy about it ; and
I was so pleased that I sent for him to receive
our congratulations.

He appeared with spotlessly white cap and
apron, fully conscious of his capabilities. But
the rig of our friend gave me food for thought.
I felt that he, too, needed disguising, but feared
to wound him. I knew he meant well, but
I knew also that chefs were touchy people.
Yet I saw that it was a difficulty that should
be overcome.

Fortune favoured me, for on going my rounds
after breakfast I noticed that his apron, owing
to the confined galley space, was no longer
spotless, and I there and then excused him

47

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

from wearing cap or apron during the cruise ;
a privilege for which he seemed grateful, and
which was satisfactory from all points.

During the forenoon I walked the deck with
Conrad, and asked him what impressed him
most on leaving the night before. I reminded
him that he appeared to be very preoccupied
with his thoughts, and, having read his books,
I, at the time, wondered what was pass-
ing through his mind. He replied that the
complete blackness of the coast, absolutely
lightless as it was, reminded him of some
island in the Pacific, uninhabited or peopled
by savages, and that this sight brought war
home to him more than anything else had
done. Thirty years previously he had sailed
in the same waters in the barquentine Skimmer
of the Seas, on board of which he had shipped
at Lowestoft, which town he considers his
English birthplace, for the reason that it was
the first port he landed in this country after
some years' voyaging to the West Indies.

In this vessel, which was engaged in the
coasting trade, Conrad remained for a consider-
able period. T/ien the whole coast was lit up.
He knew every lighthouse from their revolving
or occulting variations ; the lighted buoys,

48

MK. IctSl'.ril (it.NKAIi

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

marking Channels or the outer ends of shoals,
he also knew. Passenger liners showing
myriads of lights passed him on either side,
relieving the monotony of the darkness ; and
on the East Coast the flames leaping skyward
from the blast furnaces of the great steel and
iron works impressed him with the strength
and might of the country of his adoption.
Now everything was different ! Not a glimmer
of a light anywhere. The great mother of
the greatest Empire the world has ever known
was shrouded in utter darkness. Ships passed
on their way, not only minus their navigation
lights, but with dead-lights screwed hard down
over their port-holes, so that not a streak of
light should show outboard.

Two years previously the shipmaster's
watchword was " Safety above Everything."
With us it was Action. We looked for it,
hoped for it, and even prayed for it ; also that
it should not belong delayed. 'Tis no wonder
that the great novelist's thoughts should have
been preoccupied.

The wind increased during the forenoon,

making it advisable to take in the topgallant

and upper staysails. The rottenness of the

foremast made it necessary for us to exercise
D 49

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

caution in not putting any undue pressure on
it. Under this rig we sailed for the remainder
of the day.

It was during the afternoon that we
exchanged sleeping quarters with Moodie,
the mate (whose name I forget) and Rampling.
They were very cheery about it, more especi-
ally Rampling, a great, big, fifteen-stone
fellow, with a heart of gold, who sang and
laughed alternately, and was forever pulling
the legs of the guns' and sailing crews.
Previous to the war he was chauffeur to
Admiral Lord Beatty, and was proud of the
fact.

Our new quarters, situated on the starboard
side of the deck-house, were very bare indeed.
Four unpainted wooden bunks, carpetless
deck, a small enamel washing basin, a mirror
purchasable at any shop which would stock it
at sixpence, and an oil lamp, fixed by a nail to
whichever part of the cabin it was at the time
required, completed the furniture and fittings.

The second night out we played cards for
some hours. Nap was invariably the game,
and the stakes were very moderate indeed.
Beans were used as counters, twelve of these
going to a penny. We all three enjoyed the

50

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

game, and though one was never in more
than a shilling on the night's play, sometimes
even less, the joy of winning was very great ;
and the hands held were always discussed over
the midnight cup of cocoa, our last repast
before turning in for the night.

During dinner, and both before and after
play, Conrad would talk on different matters,
which always greatly interested Osborne and
myself. Never once did we interrupt him,
nor was it necessary to have any points ex-
plained, so clear did he make everything.
Sometimes he would talk of his early sea
experiences, and of his book Victory which,
just previous to the war, he had completed,
and which was at the time being dramatised
by Macdonald Hastings for the stage. He
thought at that time that it would be produced
by the late H. B. Irving when hostilities
were over ; but, as is now well known, it was
produced by Miss Marie Lohr.

The Freya^ as she must now be described,
leaked to the extent of nme to ten feet every
twenty-four hours, and was pumped out dur-
ing the hours of darkness, generally at mid-
night, when all hands were called to man the
pumps.

51

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

Usually In Scandinavian vessels a wind-mill,
continually working, keeps the bilges dry ;
but I was not sorry at the absence of this
most excellent device, as the pumping, which
lasted an hour, kept the men in condition,
more especially the guns' crews, who spent
their days under hatches.

The pumps, which were as old as the ship
herself, were very often choked ; but Moodie,
with his quick ear, always scented the fault
of the mechanism, and was able, with little
delay, to remedy the defect, and save us from
becoming water-logged.

I can't think of what would have happened
if Moodie had not been blessed with this
peculiar knowledge. Mr Basil Lubbock, in
one of his delightful stories of the American
wooden sailing clippers, writes of a certain
well-known skipper of bygone days who,
when his vessel was lying hove-to and leak-
ing more than usual, threw large quantities of
rope yarns over the side, which were sucked
into the leaks, thereby lessening the inrush of
water. I am afraid our old tub was past that,
for the reason that it would have taken the
yarn of every rope we had on board to have
made any appreciable difference.

52

CHAPTER VI

We generally retired for the night after the
holds were pumped dry. Conrad and I had
upper bunks, Osborne occupying a lower one,
and, sad to relate, owing to seas which we
were continually shipping, a fair amount of
which found its way into our cabin, the con-
stant rush of water from one side of the berth
to the other as the vessel rolled kept his mat-
tress and bedclothes in a state of dampness,
which was not at all to his liking.

As Conrad read for an hour or two before
turning in, our one lamp, of the cheap paraffin
variety, was hung on a nail close to his bunk,
and was generally kept alight all night in case
of a sudden call. This suited our guest, as on
occasions I turned in leaving him fast asleep,
only to wake up an hour or two later to find
him reading Hartley Withers' War and
Lombard Street^ the only book he read during
the whole cruise. This particular publication
was to him one of absorbing interest, and he
devoted all his reading time to the study of it.
We were not supplied with a library on board.

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

but individual members of the crew had
brought with them novels and magazines of
the light and non-technical type. These,
however, did not appeal to Conrad, and he
never read them.

We seldom if ever undressed. Indeed, we
discarded little else than our caps, mufflers
and sea boots. It was an every-morning
occurrence to see Conrad sitting over the
edge of his bunk pulling on his long rubber
sea boots in order to step on to the wet deck.
This always amused him, and his cheeriness
was most infectious.

We each had the exclusive use of the cabin
for an hour each day — a bucket of hot water
being provided by the cook — and this, save
for our after-dinner chats, was voted by all
three the most enjoyable hour of the day.
Indeed, these two occasions were the only
relaxation we had from the dull monotony of
eternally looking for an enemy surface vessel,
or the periscope of an underwater craft.

The second night out the wind increased
to a gale, the sea rising to enormous heights.
Canvas was reduced to fore upper topsail and
fore and main staysails. We ran before it
for a while, and then after an hour or two

54

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

decided to heave-to. As we had only about
fifty tons of ballast on board, and a couple of
thousand pit-props in the hold, the latter to
keep the vessel afloat should an enemy shell
find its mark below the water-line, we tossed
about like a cork on the water, shipping heavy
seas and damaging our disguises. Indeed,
many were swept overboard, but were re-
placed by others as they went, even at the
risk of losing some of our men, although I
had taken the precaution of having life-lines
round them. The gale lasted about thirty-
six hours, during which time we found it
necessary to do double pumping. After that
it moderated sufficiently to enable us to run
before it, and as it got still finer we set more
sail and brought the vessel to her course.

We had had a severe buffeting, and of
course the unpleasantness of it all reminded
us of worse gales we had been through. All
three of us had experienced " Rounding Cape
Horn " and " Running the Easting Down " or,
in other words, the passage from South of the
Cape of Good Hope to Australia ; and it was
during one of these we had all experienced
terrible weather, the worst of which was when
we were in sailing ships.

55

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

Rampling kept us alive through it all. He
was humorous and had a fund of good stories,
though his chief subject of conversation was
Admiral Beatty — " his " Admiral, as he always
spoke of him. According to him, Beatty ought
to have been First Lord of the Admiralty,
Civil as well as Sea. He ought to have been
in Cradock's place at Coronel, where he would
have knocked the Germans out ! The Goeben
and the Breslau would never have escaped
him, and Turkey would never have come into
the war had Beatty been in the Mediterranean!
Beatty ought to have been Commander-in-
Chief of the Grand Fleet on the outbreak of
war, as no Hun vessel would then have dared
to leave harbour ! Indeed, his veneration for
his former employer was so great that I at
times feared he might say that if Beatty had
commanded my Q-boat he would already have
sunk half-a-dozen German submarines.

I always felt that I had a lot to live up
to in satisfying Rampling as to my qualifi-
cations. Whether I succeeded or not I
cannot say, but whenever I did anything in
front of the guardian of my motors I always
wondered how Admiral Beatty would have
acted in similar circumstances. I remember

56

MR. CONRAD AT THE WTIEEI.

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

telling Conrad this, and it greatly amused
him.

The weather for the next few days was as
good as could be expected for the time of the
year — strong winds, with high seas, and bitterly
cold. Conrad joined in the work of the ship,
lending a hand whenever it was required, often
relieving the man at the wheel, so that the
latter might have a smoke during the fore-
noon and afternoon watches. The pit-prop dis-
guises, which were continually being washed
away, he kept a keen eye on, for it gave him
the opportunity of hammering large-sized
French nails into the woodwork, which he
did with all the strength and power of a village
blacksmith.

The rough weather which we experienced
and the constant rolling and pitching of the not
nearly ballasted vessel (I asked for one hundred
tons and was allowed only fifty) damped our
spirits but little. We had reached the danger
area, and were simply begging to be attacked;
eager eyes from behind pit-props scoured the
horizon for a sign of anything approaching the
appearance of an enemy submarine. Musgrove,
the wireless operator, on the pretence that he
was always repairing something, simply lived

57

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

in the top-mast crosstrees with his Zeiss marine
glasses, anxious to be the first to sight the
enemy.

The North Sea is a big place, and days
passed without our seeing as much as the smoke
of a passing steamship. Conrad agreed with
me that we should have sailed down the
English Channel and up the Irish Sea, where
submarines were known to be operating in
large numbers. I had pleaded to be allowed
to take these courses, and I can never help
thinking that commanding officers of areas
did not, at that period of the war, co-operate
sufficiently. True, up to then no enemy sub-
marine had been sunk by a sailing war vessel.
Ours was purely an experimental proposition.
At the same time, it ought to have been
apparent to even a layman that our chances of
success would have been greater in confined
waters than in the North Sea, where hunting
for a submarine, at the most at six knots an
hour, was like looking for a needle in a
haystack.

The idea originated at Granton, and to
Granton must be given the credit of fitting
out the first sailing war vessel. But that was
no reason why the task of testing her should

58

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

be confined to the North Sea. True, enemy-
submarines had been active in certain chart
squares, but during the interval of getting
Admiralty approval for the purchase of and
the fitting out of the vessel, German com-
manders had changed their scene of opera-
tions, and during all those disappointing days
of not going into action I felt that, had
I been allowed to have my way, we should
have been in the thick of it within twelve
hours of passing through the Straits of
Dover and certainly before reaching Land's
End.

I could not get this out of my mind, and
I expressed my feelings pretty strongly to
Conrad on the matter, but he would not be
drawn into any discussion, and, beyond agree-
ing that we had had bad luck so far, he
would say nothing more. To him an order
from superior authority was an order to be
obeyed, and there was an end to it. I,
naturally, did not discuss this with Osborne
or the crew, so that any expression of
opinion to Conrad on the subject would in
no way have affected the discipline of the
ship's company, which was of a very high
standard. Indeed I was reminded of Admiral

59

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

Hopwood's verse in his T^he Laws of the

Navy : —

" Take heed what you say of your rulers,
Be your words spoken softly or plain,
Lest a bird of the air tell the matter,
And so ye shall hear it again."

Conrad took under his own special care
a quick-firing Gardner gun, which he un-
earthed from the top of the deck-house, and
personally screwed it down on the after-sky-
light hatch. He examined the mechanism at
intervals, to make sure that the sea water had
not rusted the parts, and always kept it in
a high state of perfection. He called it
" his " gun, and assured us that whatever else
failed, his gun would not.

We continued to play cards at night, and at
the same stakes, small as they were ; indeed
our daily and nightly routine never altered,
and Osborne and I certainly did look forward
to listening to Conrad's experiences, after we
had entered up the nightly score and paid
over our losses. On one such occasion, and
to my surprise, he told me that during the
war he had been to sea in one of the mine-
sweepers out of Yarmouth, and that what
most impressed him was the deadly dullness of

60

l.IEUr. OSKOKNE, K.N.R.

MK. (ON HAD

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

minesweeping, added to which was the risk
at any moment of being blown up without
the satisfaction of being able to hit back.
He also remarked on the fact that where
mines were known to be laid every class of
vessel, other than minesweepers, was given
a five-mile radius, inside of which they were
not to approach until the mines had been
swept up and destroyed.

Osborne and I, both being minesweeping
officers, greatly appreciated Conrad's views,
and said so.

When Conrad had something amusing to
say he first laughed to himself, more especially
if the joke were against himself. He amused
us greatly by telling us that, before proceeding
to sweep up mines, he wired his wife of his
intentions, and she, in reply, wired, " Don't
catch cold," acting on which he went on
shore and added to his stock of clothing
a cardigan jacket, which stood him in good
stead during the bitterly cold days and
nights spent at sea with us. The joke was,
that catching cold was the last thing that
would worry a minesweeper, as in trawlers
one went out without any certainty of coming
back ; and to survive clearing a mine-field in

6i

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

a vessel drawing from fifteen to sixteen feet
was a blessing for which one ought to be
sufficiently thankful, without worrying too
much about the passing ills to which the flesh
is heir from cold or otherwise.

62

CHAPTER VII

During the hours of daylight, when those
on deck were consciously or unconsciously
keeping their eyes lifting for submarines, it
was no small wonder that this particular
object of our search completely dominated
our whole thoughts. I had sat with, talked
and walked with Conrad on deck, each scan-
ning different parts of the sea, one or the
other sometimes stopping to examine through
marine glasses what turned out to be purely
imaginary objects, yet which could not be
overlooked.

On one occasion Conrad spotted a fisher-
man's dan-buoy just barely visible, which the
untrained eye of the landsman could never
have detected. I remarked this to Conrad,
who discoursed at some length on the sub-
ject of optics, to the study of which he had
apparently devoted much time.

It naturally occurred to those other than
myself that it might be the periscope of an
enemy submarine, but as I had been in charge

63

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

of a submarine flotilla from August 19 14 to
March 19 16, and had from the latter date
used dan-buoys on a large scale in connection
with mine-sweeping, I readily distinguished
the difference from the fact that where a
periscope would be perpendicular, except
when the' submarine was submerging or
coming to the surface, the dan-buoy was
tossing about at all angles. It should be
explained here that a dan-buoy is a wooden
spar, about twelve to sixteen feet long,
weighted at one end to keep it as nearly
upright as possible, with cork fitted, oval in
shape, about the middle of the spar to give
it buoyancy.

As usual, my deduction and explanation
interested Conrad. I don't think he had
previously realised that I had any knowledge
of submarines and their workings ; he was
amused beyond measure when I told him of
my appointment to the Submarine Service,
which is perhaps worth recording.

Opening my morning paper the morning
after the declaration of war I read, in bold,
block type, " Naval Reserves Called Out,"
and on reporting at 58 Victoria Street, S.W.,
the Headquarters of the Admiral Commanding

64

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

Coastguards and Reserves, I found myself
appointed to H.M.S. Dolphin^ better known
as Fort Blockhouse, the Alma Mater of
the Submarine Service, for command of
H.M.S. Nettle^ and in charge on Extended
Defence Duty of the Second Submarine
Flotilla. On mildly protesting that I had
had no experience w^ith submarines, the
Assistant to the Admiral, ignoring my re-
marks, directed his secretary to make the
necessary arrangements for my carrying out
his instructions.

On my reporting for duty I was fortunate
in meeting a commanding officer. Commander
(now Captain) Algernon Candy, R.N., who
in peace time had shown great interest in the
" Reserves," and who, on the outbreak of war,
fully appreciated their value. After a few
explanations I found I was to act as his deputy
at sea, and soon fully realised that as a pioneer
of submarining he was required to be in close
touch with the Admiralty and the Commander-
in-Chief, Portsmouth, not only for consultation
on the development of the Submarine Service
and the training of officers and ratings, but
also for a hundred and one other reasons.
Included amongst these was the making of
E 65

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

necessary arrangements for and attending to
the needs of French destroyers and sub-
marines operating from our Base and working
alternate days and nights at sea with our flotilla,
under the orders of Commander Vincent de
Brechignac. This officer was of striking ap-
pearance, with great charm and personality,
who, with the officers under him, at once
won the hearts of his British colleagues in the
" Trade," by which cognomen the Submarine
Service is popularly known. The object of
the patrol was that the submarines should
attack any enemy vessels which might force
the Straits of Dover.

After many weary months of waiting, which
sorely tried the patience of the submarine
officers, as there appeared to be no likelihood
of such an eventuality, the French submarines
returned to their Base and the Second Sub-
marine Flotilla was disbanded.

My appointment at Fort Blockhouse was
a very interesting and happy one for me, and
during my stay there it was my privilege to
meet the Lions of the " Trade." Nasmith,
Boyle and Holbrooke were there, all three
Dardanelles V.C's., who are as well known to
the great British public as our greatest and

66

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

most distinguished admirals. D.S.O.'s, with
and without bars, were common in the
" Trade," and the younger officers wore their
D.S.C.'s with that dehghtful feeling that they
were well won — and they were.

One fine morning, fairly early in the war,
six " H " Class Submarines arrived at the Base
from Canada, six others of the same class
having been dispatched from Halifax, Nova
Scotia, to Malta. These vessels were con-
structed in the record time of five months,
and crossed the Atlantic on their own bottoms.
I mention this fact, as some years later a great
sensation was caused when it became known
that the German submarine Deutschland^ a
much larger vessel, had crossed the Atlantic.
The secrecy of the crossing of our submarines
never leaked out — one of the hundred other
feats accomplished by officers and men of the
Royal Navy unknown to the many who were
continually asking " What is the Navy doing ? "
In charge of one of the submarines was a
temporary lieutenant R.N.R., afterwards pro-
moted to lieutenant-commander and awarded
the D.S.O. for a great feat of resource and
seamanship. Submerged in the Bight of
Heligoland, his vessel struck a German mine,

67

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

which completely blew her bows off. By
skilful handling this officer managed to navi-
gate his vessel to an East Coast port, under
her own power, a feat which won for him
the admiration of the "Trade," composed, as
it was, of officers who had themselves done
great things.

Conrad enjoyed hearing all this, but he said
there must have been a hundred and one
submarine adventures not generally known
outside the " Trade," adventures which to
the naval officer, however great the achieve-
ment, were looked upon as ordinary incidents
in the day's work, to be forgotten and not
talked about. Submarine officers are a type
peculiar to themselves — very unlike their
" big ship " brothers-in-arms. There is a
bond between them born of the constant
danger to which even in peace time they are
exposed, a freemasonry which it is perhaps
difficult to describe, and which is extended
whole-heartedly to officers and men of the
Reserve and Volunteer forces, with whom
they were associated during the Great War,

I count myself fortunate to have belonged
to the " Trade"; and as Conrad and I continued
our walk, still keeping our eyes skinned for a

68

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

lurking Hun, I was able to tell him many
tales, which he thoroughly enjoyed.

There was the lovely tale of how one of our
most brilliant submarine officers hoodwinked
the Turks when they thought they were
fooling him, and how he more than got his
own back. It was during the early days of
the Dardanelles campaign when, after some
considerable time in the Sea of Marmora, he
reported by wireless that he had expended
his torpedoes and was returning to the Base for
supplies. Whilst waiting either for his relief
or for approval of his signal he noticed greater
activity on the part of Turkish shipping, and
rightly concluded that the Turks had by some
means gained possession of our Confidential
Code Book and decoded his message. He
proceeded with all speed to his Base, took in
a full supply of torpedoes and without delay
returned to the scene of operations. Immedi-
ately on his arrival he sent exactly the same
signal and bided his time. Ten Turkish
troopships sailed that day and ten Turkish
troopships were sunk with all on board.

I gave Conrad the submarine commander's
name, but not for worlds would I put it in
print. I am too proud of his friendship to do

69

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

so, knowing full well that I should lose it if
I did.

During the first week of the war a British
submarine cruising submerged in the Bight
of Heligoland had a very narrow escape from
being blown up. A bumping was heard on
the starboard bow which could not be ac-
counted for. On the commander deciding to
come to the surface to investigate, his horror
may be imagined when, on looking out of
the conning tower, he beheld a German mine
on his starboard forward diving plane. It ap-
peared that the mooring wire of the mine was
caught between the submarine and the plane,
and the forward movement of the vessel
brought the mine down to the plane, which
was held there by the weight of the sinker
being towed. Very little was known about
the mechanism of German mines in those
days, but with careful handling it was cleared
and destroyed.

To my mind one of the most daring feats
carried out by a British submarine was when
her commander, somewhere off the German
coast, discovered his vessel had developed
engine trouble to such an extent that he saw
no possible way of returning to his Base except

70

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

by being towed back. He made plans accord-
ingly : during the night he explained to his
second-in-command, petty officers and crew
that just before daylight, the hour when look-
outs are most tired and weary, he would en-
deavour to come to the surface alongside a
German trawler which was usually at anchor
off a point of land close by. Everything
worked according to plan : the submarine
was skilfully handled and came to the surface
alongside the trawler. The forward hatch
was thrown up, out of which and on to the
deck of the trawler poured armed men. The
wireless was immediately destroyed, the
Germans were made prisoners in their own
vessel, and a quarter of an hour later the
British submarine was being towed to Harwich
by a German trawler, where they arrived in
due course.

Conrad enjoyed these stories greatly, and
was somewhat sorry that at the time I could
not recount more. He was amused with a
story told me by Commander W. H. S. Ball,
R.N., who was one of the pioneers of the
British Submarine Service, and who, with
Admiral Sir Reginald Bacon, Vice-Admiral Sir
Roger Keyes, Captain Percy Addison, R.N.,

71

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

Captain Algernon Candy, R.N., and others did
much by taking incalculable risks to bring
the Submarine Service to its present high
state of perfection.

Commander Ball's story was of what he
described as the earliest ancestor of the K boat.
This was a glass box covered with ass's skin,
made to the order of Alexander the Great in
the fourth century B.C. This bold general must
have been absolutely fearless, for in those days
it required no small courage to allow oneself
to be shut up in a box and lowered below the
water. Apparently it tried even his own
nerves, as he saw many monsters, and some
things so horrible that he would not speak
of them till the day of his death. It must
be remembered that he would be able to see
little, so probably imagination played a large
part in the things he thought he saw. There
are many accounts of this adventure in exist-
ence, all more or less wonderful, but the cold
facts appear to be that the great general got
inside the door, was sealed up with tar, and
lowered to the bottom by a chain. By an
accident, which in those days may or may not
have been intentional, the chain was let go
from the boat, and the king was left sitting in

72

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

his box on the bottom, looking at and being
looked at by " horrible things." However,
to the relief of his friends, and presumably
the chagrin of those who had axes to grind
in his disappearance, the box broke, and up
his majesty shot to the surface, when he was
rescued, a wetted and wiser man.

This episode stands out alone in ancient
history, and it is not on record that any other
person went under water in a completely
enclosed vessel until comparatively modern
times.

CHAPTER VIII

The wireless was rigged after dark, and always
taken down before daylight, but we made
little use of it. When the weather was not
too bad, and the improvised wireless room
not under water, Musgrove used to " listen in '*
for some tit-bits of intercepted information,
which we were very glad to get, more par-
ticularly the news that President Wilson had
been re-elected President of the United States
of America. We had all three hoped he
would be, and were delighted when the news
came through.

Up to this time we had received only one
direct wireless message, this to the effect that
enemy submarines had been sighted in a
certain latitude and longitude ; but as we
were about sixty miles from that position, it
was not much use to us, as it would, at our
speed, have taken twelve hours to reach it,
during which time the submarines would
have altered their positions considerably.

Conrad did not ask to send any wireless

74

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

messages, nor did he receive any. He
certainly had all a father's anxiety for his
eldest son Boris, who had joined up early in
191 5 and was then doing his bit in France
with the iioth Battery under General Plumer.
Boris, of whom his father often spoke with
the greatest pride and affection, was originally
intended for a seafaring career, and was,
previous to the war, a cadet on board H.M.S.
Worcester. The call to arms, however, was
too much for him, and as soon as he was
accepted for service he was trained and sent to
France. Conrad was proud that he had a son
fighting for England, and would have been
prouder still if he could have given his son
John too ; but John was still a boy at school.
Boris went through the campaign scathless
until just before the Armistice, when he was
knocked out and badly wounded, entailing his
going into hospital for a lengthy period.

Admiral Sir Douglas Brownrigg, in his
Indiscretions of the Naval Censor, writing of
Conrad's flight experience, says :

" He was a perfectly delightful man to deal
with, enthusiastic over everything he saw and
did, including a flight in a Royal Naval Air
Service Machine against a 60-mile gale, piloted,

75

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

as he put it, by a child ; meaning a young
officer of 21 or so."

Conrad told us about this after dinner one
night, but he made little of it. " He would
not have missed it," he said, and wanted to
experience anything connected with the war
under the worst conditions. He was certainly
doing it with us, as the weather was unusually
bad, sometimes terrific, and our clothes were
never dry. Yet not one word did he ever
express of regret at having come, was always
breezy and cheerful, and prayed only that we
should have the luck to get into action.

The dynamo for the wireless set was worked
by a small petrol engine fitted on deck, and
when this did appear above water after heavy
weather, Musgrove got busy about it, with
the huge Rampling looking on. It was always
amusing to watch the little operator trying
to start the thing up, and there was certainly
every excuse for any difficulties he may have
had, owing to its being constantly saturated
with salt water. Musgrove knew all about
motor bicycles — he had owned different makes
at different times — but this was the deuce !
He was a good-natured little fellow, and
could stand any amount of chaff, a good deal of

76

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

which he got from Rampling, who, naturally,
was more expert. They were the Mutt and
Jeff of the piece, and Conrad and I laughed
loudly and long at their sallies. We never
missed this part of the day's work, and, unlike
music hall comedians, their performance was
different every time.

The ninth day out the wind increased during
the afternoon to a moderate gale, making it
again necessary to heave-to, and after dark it
blew with such fury that we thought the
masts would go by the board. The vessel
was straining heavily and leaking so badly that
it was found necessary to pump her every four
hours, and then for an hour and a half at a time.
No one attempted to sleep that night, and
through the first middle and morning watches
we just wondered what was going to happen.
How the few sails set were not blown away,
worn and old as they were, nobody knew ; but
they held, or this book would never have been
written. It was a terrible night, the worst
we had experienced during the whole cruise,
and not one that will be easily forgotten. The
deck seams opened so much that water leaked
through to the cuddy and sleeping compart-
ments, and as we had neither pitch, oakum nor

77

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

caulking tools on board, we suffered great in-
convenience from wet during the remainder of
the passage. When the weather moderated we
stood away again, and continued on our hunt.

Bad weather or discomfort made not the
slightest difference to Conrad. He was used
to it — " brought up on it " as it were — and
was just living over again some of the hard-
ships he experienced during his seafaring
career. I have often noticed during my old
sailing-ship days that sailors are more cheery
under short canvas in a gale, when there is
nothing else to do but stand-by for the
weather to moderate, than in the doldrums
between the north-east and south-east trade
winds, when there is the constant trimming
of sails to catch the varying winds between
the intervals of holystoning decks, repairing
rigging or scraping paint work. Sailors hate
monotony, and there is no monotony in a
gale, when any minute anything may happen.
True, there was none in fine weather with us,
for the reason that we were hunting enemy
submarines, but the old training made bad-
weather cheeriness a habit with us, and habit
dies hard, more particularly at sea.

In bad weather, fiddles (cross pieces of wood)
7«

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

were always used on the cuddy table during
meal times, and even then soup plates and
vegetable dishes were constantly somersaulting
from one side to the other, and Heather, my
small servant, was continually diving under
the table retrieving potatoes, cruets, buns and
sauce bottles. The breakages were appalling.
How we prayed for a table that would remain
horizontal, or for something that would keep
the ship steady, if only during meal times — a
sort of gyroscope that one could run, if only
for the time being ; but all the praying in the
world made not the slightest difference, and
more often than not the meal was a regular
scramble. Apropos of gyroscopes a very
amusing unsigned article appeared in the
Nautical Magazine, which read :

" It is related that in a little coasting
steamer for a time experiments were made
with an anti-rolling gyroscope, and the skipper
confessed to a friend that every time, and all
the time, the gyroscope was running he was
in deadly terror the gyrating object would
break loose or asunder and smash the hull to
pieces ; and moreover, that whenever he came
into ' weather ' of any moment he took good

79

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

care to see that the apparatus was ' chained
up.

Coasting skippers, I know, are a conservative
lot, and dislike new inventions. Their ships
have rolled under them all their lives, and
they could go on rolling for all they cared ;
so it was no wonder that the " apparatus " in
this particular instance was " chained up "
when it was most needed. Had we been
supplied with it, also with the power to drive
it, I feel quite certain there were many
occasions when we should have used it, even
at the risk of parting the old craft's timbers,
and eventually ourselves floating away on
pit-props.

It was during the last gale, when Conrad
and I were taking shelter under the lee of the
deck-house, that he reminded me of the
parcel he sent on shore by the Commodore's
coxswain on leaving. I remembered it, for
the reason that the Commodore's vessel had
cast off, and in order to deliver Conrad's parcel
I requested that he might come alongside
again — a request most unusual for a junior
officer to make to a senior ; but as he was in
steam and I in sail there was nothing else for

80

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

it. I laughingly asked him if it were his last
will and testament. He assured me that it was
not so, but a gold watch-chain which he had
purchased out of the first money earned as
captain of a ship.

It was a bitterly cold night, and as there
was no real reason why we should stand there
and freeze, I suggested we should go down to
the cuddy, where we found Osborne trying to
warm himself at the fire, which was doing its
best to smoke him out. I have often thought
that the cheeriness of the sailor is due in a
large way to the delightful way he has of
comparing his lot in life, not with those whom
fortune has placed in what would appear to
others as more enviable surroundings, but to
the man who is worse off than himself. He
is sorry of course for Bill or Tom, or whatever
his name may be, but the fact that he is better
placed and perhaps drawing more dollars cheers
him no end.

On this particular occasion I was frozen
through, and, turning over in my mind those
of my friends whom I thought might gladly
change places with me, my thoughts flew to
my bosom friend, Roderick Day, Commander
R.N.R., who must be building roads through
F 8t

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

ice and snow somewhere in the Arctic. Day
had been with Scott and Shackleton in the
Antarctic Expedition, 1901-1904, and was
chosen, I imagine, for the reason of his power-
ful physique and extraordinary strength as much
as for his tact and cheeriness. I had known
Day for twenty years, and a letter sent from him
at Archangel, which I read to Conrad, told me
about the great road he had built over the snow,
in some places seven feet deep, from Skibotn
in the Lyngen Fjords at the extreme north of
Norway, over the mountains and along the
Finnish-Swedish frontier to the railhead at
Tornea in the Gulf of Bothnia, the distance
being approximately 380 miles.

The British Government, after the failure
of the Gallipoli Campaign, were at their wits'
end to get ammunition and stores into Russia
from Great Britain ; the Dardanelles being
closed they were compelled to search for
other routes. A firm of Finnish contractors
reported that it was possible to make a road
between the points before mentioned, and on
the Foreign Office applying to the Admiralty
for an officer with experience in Polar regions.
Lieutenant Day, R.N.R., as he then was, re-
ceived instructions to proceed to Norway and get

82

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

in touch with the contractors. Day examined
the whole route from Skibotn to Tornea and
reported that it was a practical possibility.
The work was commenced by leading rein-
deer over the route — I say " leading " and not
" driving," for the reason that a Laplander led
the first half-dozen tied together and the others
followed. These were followed by horses
drawing sleighs, and in three weeks the road
was made. This, of course, from Day's modest
description of the undertaking, seems to have
been a very simple matter, but during that time
accommodation was built at different stages
of the route for the sheltering of 5000 men
and stabling for 4500 horses, the reindeer of
course being allowed to wander about in the
snow. When the road was handed over to
the Russians, Day resumed his naval duties at
Archangel.

Conrad, who had listened intently through
the reading of the letter, was deeply impressed.
He was glad that a sailor should have been
selected, and pleased that he should have
accomplished so much, and he often referred
to it afterwards.

In July 1919, after completing the mine
clearance on the north and north-west coasts

83

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

of Ireland, I met Day in London, and although
this story has nothing to do with our voyage
in the Freya^ it is more or less a sequel to one
of our fireside conversations in the cuddy of
the old brigantine. I had just congratulated
him on his wonderful undertaking when, with
that great robust laugh of his, he assured me
that the making of the route was as nothing
compared with the anxiety it caused him
later.

I include his story in the book for the reason
that when I met Conrad after the war he
made tender inquiries about Day.

It appears that during the winter of 19 16-
1 9 1 7, owing to difficulties between the Russians
and Finns, the latter cut off the supply of hay
which was necessary for the horses used for
transport, and a considerable quantity of war
munitions were hung up on the route.

In January 19 18 Day was again sent for
by the Foreign Office, when it was explained
to him that they were afraid that the stores
might fall into the hands of the Germans, and
that he was to proceed at once to Finland and
do all in his power to avert this, the sum of
_^i 0,000 being placed to his credit for this
purpose. On Day's arrival at Stockholm he

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AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

made a provisional agreement with a contractor
whereby the latter was to deliver to him all
the goods hung up in Finland, with the
exception of some 5000 cases of boots, which
were to be sold to the Finnish State in
exchange for bombs, the remainder of the
stores to be placed on board ship at Skibotn.
Later, Day left for Skibotn, where he heard
from indisputable evidence that a member of
the firm of the Finnish contractors had entered
into negotiations with the Germans to sell the
whole of these goods for the sum of 1 20,000,000
kroners. He also heard that the same con-
tractor had entered into a sub-contract with a
Norwegian shipowner to recover the stores, sell
part of the goods in Scandinavia, and transport
the remainder over the Narvick Railway to
Haparanda. Day took prompt and immediate
action ; he prevented the Finnish contractor
and the Norwegian shipowner from carrying
out their prearranged schemes, and on his
own responsibility made new contracts and
proposals with the Norwegian. Unfortunately
the Germans arrived before all the stores were
recovered, and were able to seize 300 tons of
metals and 2500 cases of boots. Two of
Day's officers. Lieutenant I. K. Storey, R.N.R.,

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AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

and Paymaster Lieutenant Burke, R.N.R., were
made prisoners and, insufficiently clad, with a
temperature of minus 35°, were taken by sleigh
under armed escort across Finland to Tornea.
Day next proceeded to recover the metal and
boots seized by the Germans. He knew they
could not transport the stores without hay for
horses, and as they had none in Finland they
must obtain it from Norway or Sweden, which
was prohibited. Day placed secret agents on
the frontiers of both countries and reported
to Stockholm any attempt made to smuggle
hay into Finland. He could not stop it
from Sweden, but made it impossible for the
Germans to transport the stores to Tornea,
and seeing this route closed to them they
decided to bring the goods due south to a
station on the Narvick Railway in Sweden.
As soon as they were committed to this
line of action. Day allowed them to have all
the hay they wanted, and contented himself
by keeping a check on the metal brought to
Sweden. The British Minister at Stockholm
was then able to seize the whole lot, and by
Day's wonderful ingenuity and instrumentality
stores to the value of jr6, 500,000 were not
only prevented from falling into the hands

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AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

of the Germans, but also, save for a small
quantity sold in Scandinavia, reshipped to
England.

In return for services which can only be
described as amazing, in the face of the extra-
ordinary difficulties with which he had been
confronted, Day, as a Royal Naval Reserve
Officer, was awarded the Most Excellent Order
of the British Empire (O.B.E.) ! Had there
been a Scott or Shackleton at the Admiralty
or Foreign Office, I venture to think that he
would have received something more fitting
in the way of a reward.

87

CHAPTER IX

Since beginning this book I have often wished
that I could report Conrad's conversation in
his own words. His expressed opinions were
given in the most delightful English. I had,
in my time, met many distinguished literary
men, and listened to them for hours, but none
of them had ever impressed me as he did with
the beauty of the English language. When-
ever I saw him on deck, or chatted with him
after dinner, I wondered how on earth he could
have mastered it as he did. His vocabulary
seemed unlimited, his phrasing delightful, and
his delivery such that it always gripped me.

He talked about the Courts of Europe as
would a courtier ; he knew everybody and
how they became anybody ; and if a new
personage rose to prominence in European
or Asiatic affairs he knew what following he
had, and how long he was likely to remain in
power. He knew the conducts of Parliaments,
the Reichstag of Germany, the Reichsrath of
Austria, the Italian Senate, and what was once
the Duma of Russia. He could trace the

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AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

origin of all the crowned heads, and the great
aristocratic families who had made history ;
who married who and why ; and the effect
these marriage alliances had in grouping great
Powers together for their mutual betterment.
Nothing has ever so much brought home
to me my own utter lack of education as
in listening to Conrad. His great flow of
language, his wonderful marshalling of facts
and marvellous grasp of matters often made
me wonder why one sailor should know so
much and the generality of them so little.

I remarked to him that, of all the profes-
sions, officers both in the Navy and Mercantile
Marine were the least educated, adding that
the officer in the Mercantile Marine, save
for the study of navigation and seamanship,
finishes his education at a time when his more
fortunate brother goes to his 'varsity or enters
one of the learned professions. The naval
officer, from the time he first sets foot on
board ship, talks of little else but his job.
This, I suppose, is as it should be. Start him
off and he will hold forth on guns, torpedoes,
engines and ammunition, till you hate the
very names of them. He will tell you how
at target practice his ship had the highest

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AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

average of hits of any vessel in his squadron ;
how on some occasion or other his ship got
torpedo nets out in seventeen seconds ; or how
at Zanzibar or Hong-Kong in the all-comers
sailing-boat race over a triangular course of
three miles their cutter won easily, beating
over thirty others of various rigs, from large
sailing launches to gigs and whalers ; but,
delightful as he always makes his conversation,
he never gets away from his own job. All
this I told Conrad, even adding that in sport
— and the naval officer is always a sportsman —
the thing that interests him most is the Navy
and Army Rugby Match, or some other form
of sport connected with the Senior Service.
Conrad listened intently, but he would have
none of it. Then I said that, as a naval
officer, the cadet from the public school was
better educated and more a man of the world
than the Britannia-trained youth. Conrad
again disagreed with me. He simply would
not believe it ; and when I argued that such
was the finding of a Commission set up to
inquire into the advantages and disadvantages
of both, he waxed eloquent, became even
dramatic, and said the Commission was no
doubt composed of schoolmasters — the very

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AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

worst people in the world to decide any-
thing.

The Britannia-trained cadet was to him
everything that an officer should be. His
education was on right lines, and he would
not have it altered one iota. He instanced
the facts that Lord Howe's letters, great
fighter that he was, were far from scholarly ;
that Nelson's reports of his mancEuvres were
in some cases difficult to follow ; and yet, in
spite of this, Britannia-trained youths had,
after rising to eminence, proved themselves
great ambassadors, great governors of colonies,
and from their quarter-decks had, by rapid
computation and with great tact, settled many
questions of supreme national importance,
and always to their country's advantage. He
deplored any outside interference with the
education and training of the naval officer.
It was a matter which should be left solely
and absolutely in the hands of those who had
served before him and had risen high in the
country's service — men to whom tradition was
everything, and who even in their advanced
age never lost touch with the great service to
which they justly and proudly boasted they
had the honour to belong.

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AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

Yes ; I was wrong. Conrad convinced me
that I was. Not that I was ever lacking in
my veneration for tradition, but in this argu-
ment I had left it out of my calculations, and
thought only of education in its accepted sense
as applied to the other learned professions.

I know little about the transference of
thought, but with each individual member
of the crew thinking the same thing and
saying nothing the effect may be imagined.
It did not come suddenly, but I felt it grow-
ing, and wondered in my own mind where
it was going to end. Osborne, usually the
cheeriest and most optimistic of souls, lost
something of his gaiety. Rampling grew
less communicative. Musgrove spent more
time aloft, and, if possible, kept a better look-
out. I knew what it was, for I had the
same feeling myself and consequently felt for
the others. In short, it was the bitter dis-
appointment of not having been in action.
Conrad must have felt as we did, but he was
splendid, and never appeared to lose hope that
the great moment for which we all longed
would eventually come.

During daylight we scanned the horizon
right round, and with marine glasses searched

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AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

every inch of the sea within the line of
visibility, but up to that time to no purpose ;
and it was no small wonder that at the end of
each successive day, when the sun went down
and darkness set in, that we felt that another
day during which an opportunity might have
occurred had been wasted.

Sitting in the cuddy one night after our
usual game of nap, Osborne, with all the
superstition of the seaman, remarked that he
thought the Norwegian ensign was unlucky
for us, and that we ought to try the Swedish
or Danish. As, however, the weather was
unusually bad and heavy seas were running,
the painting of the flags on the sides fore and
aft to bring them in keeping with the national
colours flying from the peak seemed too
dangerous to undertake, more especially as the
operation would have to be carried out under
cover of darkness. So the idea was abandoned.
Poor Osborne was disappointed — I knew he
would be ; I also knew that he would have
undertaken the job single-handed. But he
was too valuable to risk losing, and it was too
much to ask any other member of the crew to
undertake what was, after all, the gratification
of a mere superstition. Osborne, however,

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AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

had had his say ; he had, as it were, got it off
his mind and felt all the better for it ; his
cheeriness returned and never left him again.
Conrad listened to all this without interrupt-
ing. He felt, I imagine, that it was a matter
of argument between the commander and his
first lieutenant ; and when the subject had
been well discussed, and a decision had been
arrived at, he turned the conversation into
more congenial channels.

He talked of his old seafaring days, and
amused us greatly by telling us of his experi-
ences as night-watchman on board the wooden-
built sailing clipper Duke of Sutherland^ when
lying alongside the wharf at Sydney, N.S.W.
He was, I think, sailing "before the mast" at
the time, and was chosen from among the rest
of the crew for the reason of his temperate
habits. This, of course, meant that he was on
duty from eight p.m. until six a.m., during
which time the safety of the ship depended on
his vigilance ; and from my own experience
of the old sailing-ship days, a great deal of his
time must have been spent in assisting certain
jubilant members of the crew over the gang-
way, and with great tact heading them in the
right direction for the forecastle. This was

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AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

all that they wanted, as they had no desire to
bring down on their own heads, as well as on
that of their " ship mate " and friend " the
night-watchman," the wrath of an awakened
skipper, who had his own way, should he so
desire, of making life impossible for them.

His tales of fights between seamen of
different ships on the Circular Quay, Sydney,
were very descriptive. On occasions, when
cabs were waiting for the incoming mail
steamers, the drivers would, with their
vehicles, form a ring, and many a good scrap
was witnessed.

Conrad, as night-watchman, found he was
missing a good deal of this sort of fun, and
after a time requested that he might be
relieved from his night duties, which
request, as I can imagine, was very reluctantly
approved.

We decided now to head away in the
direction of the entrance to the Baltic, and
as the weather got finer, and we got a good
spell of sunshine, the spirits of the ship's
company revived. One night we received
another wireless message to say that German
submarines were reported to be in a certain
latitude and longitude, but as the position was

95

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

a hundred miles or so from ours, and we were
doing only about five knots an hour, it was
not much good to us, more especially as the
course they were steering was not given to
us. Goodness only knew where they would
have been twenty hours later, the time it
would have taken us to reach the reported
position. So, after a consultation with Conrad,
Osborne and Moodie, I decided to stand on,
and simply acknowledged receipt of the wire-
less message. After this decision we returned
to the cuddy for cocoa. Conrad was still
poring over his book, IVar and Lombard Street,
and on this particular night I asked him about
it. His reply was : " It is most interesting
and full of useful information." He en-
deavoured to enlighten us on many subjects
dealt with in it, and thought all masters and
officers should be thoroughly conversant with
matters connected with the money markets of
the world ; also with company law, stocks and
shares, insurance and deals. Indeed, accord-
ing to him, sailors had great opportunities of
mastering the details of finance, and had
excellent ways and means of studying them.
What I thought was that all sailors are not
Conrads, but I did not say so. Two or three

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AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

days later he presented me with this book,
suitably inscribed and autographed, and it is
now one of my greatest treasures.

We made a good " land fall " or " we
were several miles out in our reckoning " are
common enough expressions with seamen,
a good " land fall " being the result of good
and careful navigation, and sighting a point
of land at an expected time on an expected
bearing. Conrad could never understand why
a steamship should be ever even half-a-mile
out of her course, having not only a patent
log for measuring the distance run, but what
was still better, an indicator showing the
revolutions of the engines, which, after allow-
ing for some small percentage of slip, should
give her position with great accuracy.

In sailing ships it was different. One
certainly did " heave the log " at eight bells —
that is, once every four hours. This gave the
speed of the ship at the particular moment of
heaving, leaving the " officer of the watch " to
guess the average hourly speed, after taking
into consideration the variations in the strength
of wind, state of sea, increase or reduction of
sail and leeway, the last perhaps the most
important factor of all.
G 97

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

The sailing master has his worries too ; the
losing or gaining rate of his chronometer after,
say, three months at sea may be anything.
Extremes of temperature, from the icy blast
off Cape Horn to the heat of the Tropics, are
bad for its delicate mechanism, and may put
him ten miles east or west of an assumed posi-
tion. He looks to his big brother the steamer,
if he sights one, to give him a " rate," and
the big brother is always kind. He hoists
his red ensign, and at the moment of hauling
it down the sailing master notes the time of
his chronometer : later, the big brother signals
the time of his and, as he is more correct, the
little brother allows for the difference and
fixes his position accordingly.

One evening Conrad told me of a " land
fall " he made, and of which he was justly
proud. When in command of the barque
Otago he cleared from Sydney for Mauritius
on the 4th August 1888. The day of departure
was a very stormy one indeed, surprising even
to the Sydney pilot, who suggested that
sailing should be postponed until the weather
moderated. Conrad, however, decided to
proceed, and as he was relating the story
suddenly remembered and laughingly told me

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AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

that when he got outside the Heads all his
crockery was smashed. He was racing a
French ship, also bound for Mauritius, and
had received permission from his owners to
proceed by way of Torres Straits, so as to
shorten the distance. After sixteen days' sail-
ing in light variable winds and through cross
currents, and with but two solar and one lunar
observations, he sighted the distinguishing
marks — nothing more than a pole and basket
on one of the small islands at the entrance to
the Bligh Channel. As a navigator this to
me was a very fine and skilful feat of naviga-
tion. It was not told to me in any boasting
spirit : Conrad would have been the last man
in the world to be guilty of such a thing, but
meant rather to illustrate the instinctive feel-
ing which seamen by long practice acquire,
and which makes them feel where they are,
and what allowances should be made for com-
bating the elements, and the hundred and one
other things sent to try the patience of the
sailing-ship master.

The difficulties of navigating the Bligh
Channel and the Torres Straits, with their
coral reefs, rocks and other outlying dangers,
have always been well known to navigators.

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AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

Mariners are warned, when approaching the
former, that " it is little more than half-a-
mile wide, and in some parts navigable for
only two cables (four hundred yards). It is
dangerous from its intricacy and the great
strength of the tidal streams, and it is only
necessary to add that the vessel should be
navigated from aloft and with the sun in a
favourable position." After passing through
this channel one enters the Torres Straits,
where during the north-west monsoon the
water is frequently so discoloured that the eye
is unable to detect the position of the shoals.
It was here, about twenty-five years ago, that
the steamship ^etta of the British India
Steam Navigation Company, when travelling
through at a speed of fourteen knots, took a
rock like a steeplechaser, went right over it
and down the other side, drowning one
hundred and fifty of her passengers and crew.
The sailing-ship masters of those days were
daring fellows, and Conrad was certainly one
of them.

In the Indian Ocean, whilst plunging in a
head sea, the Otago sprung her fore-topgallant
mast. Conrad " put it down " to the second
mate carrying the outer jib too long. He

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AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

thought for a minute and added " she didn't
like the outer jib." Sailing ships, like race-
horses, have their own peculiarities, their own
likes and dislikes, and it seemed wonderful
that thirty years later Conrad should have
remembered this particular sensitiveness of his
first command. He gave orders for striking
the mast (sending it down), but his crew
agreed to carry on with it, and take their
chances, which gave me the impression that
he ruled not by fear but by his own wonderful
personality, which attracted men to him and
encouraged them to take risks beyond the
ordinary ones which are part of a sailor's life.
The Otago arrived off Port Louis, Mauritius,
at night, and anchored close under the land.
On the following morning, when weighing
anchor to proceed into harbour, Conrad found
he had fouled his anchor with another lost or
slipped from another vessel, and, in spite of
the laborious work in clearing it and the con-
sequent delay, he reached Port Louis two days
ahead of the Frenchman. The Otago arrived
at Melbourne from Mauritius on 5th January
1889. In February 1889 she loaded a cargo
of wheat at Port Minlacowie, South Australia,
for Port Adelaide, where she arrived on

lOI

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

26th March, when Conrad gave up his
command.

I have often wondered why Conrad, born,
as he was, far removed from the sea, should
have adopted it as a profession. I can't even
say whether he inherited the sea instinct or
not, but that he was a great seaman there can
be no doubt, and great seamen, like men great
in other professions, are born, not made.

He once told me he felt more at home with
seamen than with men in any other walk of
life. He liked their conversation, their ideas,
their broad outlook and their views of life
generally. They were, above all things, com-
panionable, and their cheery optimism was a
delight to him. He could tell a sailor at sight,
not by his roll or by his peculiar rig, but by
some strange look in his eyes, due, no doubt,
to always gazing miles ahead. On another
occasion he remarked that although the
Mercantile Marine was the most cosmopolitan
of all services, the men in it, regardless of
different stations in life, were a wonderful
band of brothers.

He had serving under him at the same
time a nephew of Canon Fleming, a favoured
friend of her late Majesty Queen Victoria, and

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AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

the son of a fishing-boat builder, these boys
cultivating between them a great friendship
and becoming almost inseparable. I can
imagine this giving Conrad very real pleasure :
the nice things of life appealed to and pleased
him, and what could be nicer than young boys
in such different stations in life sharing the
same dangers and living the same hard life
becoming such boon companions ? The sea
is a great leveller — always has been and always
will be. Sailors, more than anyone else, have
no time for the small things in life. They
realise that the greatness of the Empire is
due in a large way to the greatness of their
own combined efforts, and great they mean to
keep it.

He loved a good story in connection with
the war at sea. One particularly good one
which was told me, the truth of which I
cannot vouch for, appealed to him greatly.
It was of a certain popular temporary Royal
Naval Reserve officer who was stationed at
Scapa in command of one of H.M. trawlers.
This officer had received instructions to take
his ship to Dundee for dry-docking. As was
usual when a vessel left the Base for over-
haul and repairs, her commanding officer was

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AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

commissioned by wine secretaries on board
different warships to bring back with him
certain consignments of wines, spirits, and
tobacco. On this particular occasion he
neglected to carry out the various commissions,
and in order to save himself the trouble of
explanations to the various secretaries entered
the Flow with the American ensign flying from
the triatic stay. A signal from the flagship
demanding the meaning of it brought back
the reply "dry ship." It should be explained
that before our American cousins adopted
Prohibition, wines and spirits were not allowed
to be served on board United States warships.

Compass adjusters had some amusing experi-
ences during the war. To readers conversant
with magnetism and its effects this story will
appeal : to those who are not, it is necessary
to point out that when compasses are adjusted
they must be in their binnacles on board ship,
when magnets are placed in positions to
counteract the effect of iron and steel fittings
actually within about ten feet of the compass.

One skipper in command of a trawler
stationed at Sheerness lacked this elementary
knowledge, and, finding great difficulty in
making headlands, very properly decided that

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AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

his compass must be out. On his next arrival
in harbour he proceeded to unship it, and
tucking it under his arm strolled to the office
of the Commander in Charge of the Compass
Adjustment Department. On being informed
that this officer was at the time in the billiard-
room, our worthy, compass and all, made a bee-
line for that particular part of the building,
and finding the commander in the middle of
an after-lunch game of one hundred up, planted
his compass on the green cloth with a request
that it might be adjusted. The roar of
laughter that went up from the officers present
completely discomfited the poor skipper ; but
on matters being explained to him he heartily
joined in the renewed laughter which followed.
Another commander had just completed
adjusting the compass of an American destroyer
when he politely asked the lieutenant in
charge if he would kindly lend him a pair of
binoculars. The lieutenant shouted down the
forward hatchway, " Anybody down there .? "
Back came the answer, " Yep." " Well, say,"
continued the lieutenant, " one or you go
down to my cabin and in the middle drawer
on the right-hand side you will find a pair of
binoculars ; bring 'em right along " ; the reply

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AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

to which was, " It shall be done just exactly
as you say, lieut." One can imagine the
difference on board a British warship, where
a bluejacket would have bounced up a ladder
two steps at a time and on reaching the top
would have sprung smartly to attention,
saluted, and with an " Aye, aye, sir," carried
out his instructions. There's an old saying,
" Different ships, different long splices," and
I suppose it is the same with nationalities,
" Different countries, different customs."

I remember one evening in the cuddy talk-
ing about the pronunciation of English words,
and how certain words, spelt the same, sound
differently when differently applied.

This reminded me of a story I heard of a
now very distinguished submarine captain
who, as a lieutenant-commander, while super-
intending the building of one of our earlier
submarines at a well-known northern ship-
yard, appropriated all the lead he could find
strewn about the yard. In those experimental
days trimming meant everything to a sub-
marine commander, and lead, as the most
convenient form of movable ballast, owing to
its weight, was for this reason much sought
after. In due course the submarine was

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AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

launched, and at the luncheon in honour of
the event many complimentary speeches were
made, special reference being given to the
great advance made in the utility of under-
water craft, due in no small way to the pluck
and energy of, among other officers, the
commander in question. The chairman, in
proposing the health of the officer, informed
him that, in order to signify the Directors'
appreciation of the valuable services rendered
by him in the construction of what was then
the finest submarine afloat, of his valuable
suggestions gained from his previous experi-
ence, and of the great cordiality and harmony
which existed between the submarine officers
and the officials of the yard, they had decided
to present to the commander a motto, to be
considered his own personal property and to
be used, they hoped, on board all ships under
his personal command, and on his retirement
it was also hoped that some place would be
found for it in his home. On the completion
of his speech the chairman displayed to the
assembled guests an ebony board, beautifully
engraved, and in brass block letters the
motto :

" I NEED NO LEAD."
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AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

The commander blushingly accepted the
compliment and the pronunciation of the
word as it was intended, but deep down in his
heart he knew that the other pronunciation
must have suggested to the amused Directors
the idea of the " motto " and its presentation.

It is now well known that during the early
part of the war British mines were very in-
different affairs, and did not by any means do
what was expected of them. A story in con-
nection with this was another which amused
Conrad, although he doubted, and perhaps with
good reason, the authenticity of it. A certain
British merchant steamer arrived at Hull from
some Continental port, and was met by a
naval officer, who asked for his chart showing
the route he had taken. On being informed
with some heat that he had crossed the British
minefield, the master, with that awful feeling
that he would be " shot at dawn," was trying
to think of some excuse when his mate, who
was standing close at hand, chipped in with
" Well, sir, that accounts for the bumping
last night," which, naturally, did not help
matters. This story, though a good one,
should be taken with a certain amount of
reserve, as I know to my cost, for later I had

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AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

a painful experience in a British-laid sub-
marine minefield at the entrance to one of
our principal Naval Bases. It happened as
follows : —

It was expected that enemy submarines
would attempt to get inside the outer defences,
and I was instructed to take six drifters towing
mine nets and station them in such a position
to make their entry almost impossible. I was
directed to run a line of towed mine nets
inside the minefield, and I pointed out at the
time that the ebb-tide would in all probability
take the vessels towing the nets across the
field. I was told, however, this must be
risked. Everything happened as I anticipated.
When the ebb-tide did make, we were carried
right over the mines, the exploding of which
was to us like " hell let loose." We were all
very much shaken ; not a pane of glass was
left in any of the vessels ; some of them were
almost lifted out of the water, and two leaked
so badly that it was necessary to put them into
dry dock for caulking and other repairs.

Another story that Conrad liked showed
the friendly rivalry between commanding
officers of destroyers and trawlers. One of
the latter, commanded by an R.N.R. officer,

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AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

was one day patrolling about twenty miles off
the Scottish coast and observed the periscope
of a submarine. He at once wirelessed the
information to his senior naval officer, which
message was intercepted by a destroyer com-
mander, who at once proceeded at top speed
to the position given. This greatly angered
the trawler officer, who knew that as long as a
destroyer was in the vicinity a submarine would
not come to the surface. The other was his
senior in rank, and he could not order him
away, and what looked like a good chance of
an engagement was fast slipping away when a
brilliant idea occurred to him. He called for
his signalman and wrote out the following
signal, to be sent by wireless to the senior naval
officer: — "Call your dog off, frightening the
birds." The signal was rightly interpreted
and the destroyer recalled, thus leaving the
trawler a free hand to deal with the submarine,
which later in the evening it damaged, though
there was, unfortunately, no conclusive proof
that it had been destroyed.

Of course our general conversation centred
around our experiences at sea. I was proud
of the fact that I made my first voyage in the
year 1887 under Jock Muir in the full-rigged

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AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

ship Invercargill of the Shaw, Savill & Albion
Line. He was known as one of the hardest
cases and finest seamen sailing the seas — a
broad-shouldered, immensely strong, mahogany-
skinned, brown-bearded man, who put the
fear of death into everyone sailing under him.
He cracked on sail until the last possible
moment, and in heavy weather he kept men
standing by the halyards, with instructions
never to lower away without orders. As long
as the masts would stand he carried on, and
if one sail blew away into shreds he bent
another immediately, seldom waiting for
daylight.

We made the passage from the East India
Docks to Wellington, New Zealand, in seventy-
one days, often averaging, when running our
easting down, three hundred and twenty
nautical miles in twenty-four hours.

Old Muir was a terror with slackers, and
it was a word and a blow to any man who
came up against him. With us boys he had
a different and more effective form of punish-
ment. Sometimes he sent us aloft and made
us crow from the truck before allowing us to
have our next meal. At other times he would
make us ride the spanker boom for a whole

III

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

dog watch. In spite of all this we boys liked
him ; he told us it was for our good and we
believed him ; and although he was hard on
us himself, it was Heaven help anyone else on
board who as much as looked sideways at us.

A former apprentice who served under him
in the still earlier eighties, and now a much-
decorated Captain R.N., had some wonderful
tales to tell of old Jock in the Invercargill.
They left Lyttleton, New Zealand, for Astoria,
California, and after a record passage arrived
at the entrance of the harbour to find the place
blocked with shipping which had been unable
to cross the bar owing to the low depth of
water. Muir, disregarding orders to anchor,
sailed the Invercargill across the bar and along-
side the wharf, and had no sooner made his
ship fast than dozens of boarding-house crimps
swarmed on board with the object of persuad-
ing the men to desert the ship, under promise
of more congenial work on shore at increased
rates of wages. Most of the hands were aloft
furling the sails, and in their eagerness to get
the men for their own particular boarding-
houses many of the crimps followed them
aloft, ostensibly to assist them with their work.
But Jock Muir knew differently. He walked

112

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

along the deck, damned the mate for allow-
ing them on board, and hailing the heftiest
crimp on the foreyard asked him what the hell
he was doing up there. The boarding-house
runner, with that want of politeness one would
associate with his class, asked him what the
devil it had to do with him, whereupon Jock,
with a well-directed shot from his revolver,
put a bullet through the softest part of the
crimp's anatomy, bringing him with a quick
slide down the rigging to the deck, where he
doubled up squealing and bleeding like a pig.
When the shot rang out the others asked who
the skipper was, and on learning it was none
other than the famous Jock Muir legged it up
the wharf and were no more seen. Later, the
police called with a stretcher for the wounded
man and carted him away, no questions being
asked.

The Invercargill loaded at Astoria for
London, and, before leaving, two elks were
sent on board for passage to England. They
were very young, and became pets of the crew
on the voyage. Three days after the ship's
arrival in the East India Docks Jock Muir
found them still on board, and without waiting
any instructions from his owners gave orders
H 113

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

to the mate that the boys were to take them
to the Zoological Gardens. My Captain R.N-
friend was one of these. Ropes carefully
padded were passed round the necks of each
animal, a short lizard rope being attached so
as to keep them together. Four boys in their
brass-bound uniforms set out with them early
in the forenoon, and as they passed up the
East India Dock Road a great crowd collected
and followed them as far as Aldgate. The
animals, to show their friendly disposition,
would put their noses into the pockets of any
person coming near enough to them ; others
fed them with biscuits and other scraps, and
the farther they went the fatter they got. By
the time they reached St Paul's they were
completely blown out. Passing through some
parks the animals saw green grass for the first
time for four months, and out of this park
they simply would not go. They laid down
to it, and all the coaxing in the world would
not induce them to move. Eventually the
boys sat down with them and waited events.
After some hours, during which time the elks
nibbled until they could nibble no more,
further persuasions were brought to bear, this
time with better effect, and again they wended

114

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

their way Zoowards. It was eleven p.m. when
they reached the gates, which were opened by
a keeper or other person in authority, who at
that time of the night refused to accept them.
The boys, however, had not served under Jock
Muir for nothing ; they had been taught that
difficulties were only things that had to be
overcome, so, pushing the animals inside, they
bolted for their lives.

We talked late into the night, not retiring
until well past midnight.

115

CHAPTER X

For the first time the weather seemed to be
really moderating, and the air was compara-
tively mild. Towards early morning the
wind quite died away, and we were more or
less becalmed. The sun shone brilliantly, and
the poor fellows below deck expressed a great
desire to come up for an airing, see the sun
and breathe the warm air. Of course they
were always privileged to do so one or two at
a time, but on this particular morning no one
man saw why he should be below deck at all.

At eight o'clock the wind went to the east-
ward, so the vessel was put on the port tack and
headed to the S.S.E. We had been crawling
along at about two knots when an object was
observed on the starboard bow — a mere speck
at first, which gradually grew, though assuming
no real size at all. Osborne had his eyes
glued to his Zeiss glasses, with his head just
above the gunwale. " By Gad, sir, it is ! "
he exclaimed, " and heading right for us."

" A submarine ? " I asked.
ii6

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

" Yes," he said, and his face lit up as if he
had been left a legacy.

Conrad was standing aft on the port side,
his face full of smiles, thankful that his
prophecies had proved to be true. He had
come out with us to experience a real live
battle, and not the discomforts to which we
had been subjected.

Word was at once passed along, and one by
one the guns' crews came up the hatchway
and stole under cover of the gunwale to their
stations. Rampling warmed up his engines all
ready for running, and stood at the bottom of
the cuddy hatchway waiting for orders — the
only soul on board left below, and who groused
only because he would not see the fun.

The wireless being down, there was nothing
for Musgrove to do, and as he passed Conrad
with a camera the latter asked him where he
was going.

"Up aloft," replied he, " to photograph the
action."

I, however, stopped him, and told him to
assist the " panic party " if necessary.

Everything went like clockwork. Guns
were cast loose and loaded ; a plentiful supply
of ammunition was passed up from below ;

117

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

and the men were in great spirits. It was
here I gave Conrad the first and only direct
order during the cruise.

"You," I said, "go down and bring up all
the confidential books and take charge of
them. If ordered to do so, throw them
overboard."

Conrad obeyed with alacrity, and stood by
for any other orders which might be given.
The sailing mate walked along the decks
behind the guns' crews, and in a very cheery
voice said : " Knives for those who want
them " — these for cutting away the pit-prop
disguises, leaving the guns free to work.

On and on came the submarine, making to
cross our bows. The guns were brought to the
ready, with the crews " closed up " waiting for
the order to cut pit-props — "Independent
firing, carry on."

I was standing by Conrad, and remarked that
she would cross our bows and attack on the port
side in the rays of the sun. At about seven hun-
dred yards I examined her carefully, but could
see no sign of life on deck, though I knew
from my former experience with submarines
that an officer was hidden away behind the
weather cloth on the conning tower. Her

ii8

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

ensign was flying over the stern, but owing
to the bad state it was in I could not make
out its nationality.

The guns' crews were growing impatient,
and I gently reminded them that all rounds
must be hits, otherwise she would submerge
and torpedo us ; but they were confident, and
smiled back their assurances.

She crossed our bows to the port side at a
distance of about four hundred yards, and it
was then that we made out the ensign to be
British, and from her build beam on to be one
of the G class, evidently bound for the Baltic.

I don't know how I gave the order to
"secure." The reaction of the intense excite-
ment told immediately, and the feeling of
utter depression was indescribable. I have
never seen such looks of disappointment on
men's faces ; not a word was spoken during
the " secure." I looked to Conrad for con-
solation, but got none, as he was as sad as any
of us. I noticed then he was keeping watch
over the confidential books, and suddenly
remembered the order I had given him. It
occurred to me that perhaps I should not
have sent him, but at the time I forgot his
individuality. I only knew that I was in

119

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

command, and that everybody else was there
to obey, and when I found him at the end of
it all still waiting for orders I realised that
in giving Joseph Conrad an order I had done
what no other living man could have done.
We laughed over it afterwards, and when he
insisted on returning them to the cuddy we
laughed still more.

He told me later that on his way from the
cuddy with the books he twitted Rampling
on being out of the fun, and that Rampling
assured him that sinking submarines was
nothing new to him; which remark was taken
at its worth, for the man was never lost for
an answer, and this one given was meant only
as an excuse for not seeing this particular
action.

Conrad was, as usual, the first one to cheer
us up. He condoled with us on our dis-
appointment and consoled us for having had
an opportunity of experiencing the real thing
up to a certain point. Anything, he said,
that had been overlooked could be put right,
and everything we had done might possibly
be improved on ; adding that on our home-
ward passage we should be sure to fall in with
something.

120

n.M.S. RKADY — BECAI.MKl)

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

It was as much the way he said things as
what he actually said that was so convincing.
One believed him instinctively and trusted
him implicitly, and after this expression of
opinion we settled down to our work, our
thoughts full of "what might have been."

During the fine spell of weather we ex-
amined the spars and overhauled the sails and
rigging. Osborne again suggested altering her
nationality for luck, but I decided to remain
Norwegian, and if I were Norwegian, every-
body else had to be, for the time being. I,
however, told Osborne that if the next sub-
marine we met proved to be British, we should
all turn Danes or Swedes, whichever he liked
the better. This pleased him, and settled the
matter.

Some days later we received a wireless
message informing us that enemy submarines
were laying mines off Grimsby, and that we
were to cruise in the vicinity. The wind
being favourable, we accordingly bore away
in that direction. We could hardly expect to
find one on the surface, in close proximity to
the land, so that our only chance of sighting
one would be before dawn, either on her way
to the scene of her activities, or returning to

121

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

her Base after completing operations. For
this reason we steered to get on a line joining
the geographical positions of Grimsby and
Kiel, before heading for the English coast.

The weather remained fine, though very-
cold, and instead of playing cards at night we
paced the deck and talked. Conrad told me
that when war broke out he was in Vienna
with his wife and two boys, and had the
greatest difficulty in getting permission to
leave the country. Mr Penfield, the American
Minister, had taken charge of British affairs,
and to him he appealed to use his influence
with the Austrian Foreign Office to secure
passports for himself and family. Mr Penfield
received Conrad with the greatest cordiality,
and spared no pains in interceding on his
behalf, but, as it appeared at the time, all to
no purpose, when the strangest of all things
happened.

Conrad was at the Legation and in con-
versation with the Minister when a telegram
arrived from our own Foreign Office request-
ing his Excellency to inform the Austrian
Minister for Foreign Affairs that the British
Government had decided to release the Prince
and Princess of Zu Solm, both of whom had

122

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

been arrested at Cape Town, and to allow them
to return under safe conduct to Austria. The
American Minister at once conveyed this
information to the Austrian Foreign Minister,
making at the same time another request
for Conrad's passports. The occasion was
auspicious indeed, and shortly afterwards
Conrad, with his wife and two sons, found
their way to Genoa, where they took passage
on board a Dutch steamer bound for England,
and in due course arrived at and disembarked
at Gravesend.

The wind remained favourable, and during
the night increased in strength, sending us
along at a good seven knots. My decision
to steer so as to intercept submarines leaving
or returning to Germany put new heart into
the crew, as they, like myself, were dead
against returning to our Base without what
a sporting member of the crew described
as a " bag." We still had a good supply
of provisions left, though all tinned stuff and
hard biscuits, and had saved a good deal of
rain water for drinking purposes, so that we
could hang about for a considerable time on
the off-chance of luck coming our way. But
what we did grouse about was the shortness

123

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

of daylight — only eight hours out of the
twenty-four, with sixteen hours' utter blackness,
during which time a dozen submarines could
have passed us without being seen. On one
or two occasions Musgrove picked up German
Telefunken messages, but as they were in code
they conveyed nothing to us. The messages
were generally weak, indicating that the
senders were far away, so that the chances
of our falling in with them were small.
Musgrove was a wonderful little fellow. I
have seen him night after night during heavy
weather sitting in his little hut, knee-deep in
water, with the receivers to his ears, waiting
to catch any Morse signals which might be
in the air, and then up aloft all day. I don't
believe he ever slept, as when he had absolutely
nothing else to do he was teaching Conrad
wireless, both in the working of the instru-
ments and the Morse code. Once, during a
gale, when poor Musgrove was trying to get
his instruments together after they had been
knocked endways by a heavy sea, with
Conrad as a very interested onlooker, I asked
him what progress Mr Conrad was making
under his tuition. Musgrove's reply was :
" He knows it now from A to Z, sir." The

124

I ^

A SrKO\<; liREK/.E

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

same afternoon Conrad wrote on a sheet of
paper : —

K^v^l

,Icm^ }\<\ _, ^c

Musgrove and I often had long chats
together, and towards the end of the cruise
he asked me if I thought Mr Conrad would
write about our experiences. Strangely enough,
it never occurred to me that he would,
perhaps for the reason that, had he intended
to do so, he would have mentioned it ; also
that throughout the vovao:e I never once saw
him make a single note of anything. No
doubt, Conrad, on his return home, could have
written a most descriptive article on our
venture, which would have been read with
avidity by his countless admirers ; but the
tale he would have told would have had to

125

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

include himself, and Conrad's natural modesty
would have prevented that. Besides, we were
only doing what thousands of others were doing,
only in a different and more experimental way.
I have since read that Admiral Sir Douglas
Brownrigg hoped he would do so, and must
again quote from his " Indiscretions of the
Naval Censor " :

"It was in the autumn of 19 17 that I
came to the conclusion that it was time the
doings of the wonderful Mercantile Navy
should be written up, by which I do not
mean slobbered over, or ' boosted,' but written
up by somebody whose heart would be in the
job, and who would understand the hearts
and minds of the Merchant Navy, as well as
those of the public. I therefore approached
Mr Joseph Conrad, and he very kindly came
up and saw me, though he said he was not a
writer to the Press. I was overjoyed at secur-
ing his co-operation, and we fixed up an ex-
tensive programme for him, and he travelled all
over the country, and had the free entry into
every port and every ship in which the Royal
and Mercantile Navies were co-operating."

I never asked Conrad if he intended writing
126

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

about his experience with us, so was unable
to satisfy Musgrove's curiosity.

One evening, when Conrad was in a re-
miniscent mood, he told me that when sitting
for his Masters' Certificate before Mr Sterry,
a London Board of Trade Examiner, he was
asked by him how he would " rig a jury
rudder," and straightway told Conrad how he
himself rigged one in a ship he commanded,
when carrying troops to the Crimea. In the
circumstances there was nothing for Conrad
to do but to agree that Mr Sterry's was the
best way. Examiners in those days had their
own pet method of carrying out different
evolutions, and what would do for one would
not always do for the other ; so that at the
navigation schools it was always impressed on
us that if we appeared before Captain So-and-
so we were to do things this way, and before
Captain somebody else the other way. Conrad,
doubtless, had a different and possibly a better
and simpler way of rigging a jury rudder, but
it was not policy to say so.

There was a certain examiner before
whom Conrad appeared (and I also at a later
date) who had the reputation of making
young candidates talk and talk until they tied

127

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

themselves in knots, and then " failing '*
them. He was out to fail as many as he could,
and through sheer nervousness many aspirants
to masters' and mates' certificates v^ere sent
down. Conrad and I both survived his efforts,
and passed our examinations with credit.

I think we discussed the " Merchant Ser-
vice in the War " more than any other sub-
ject. It was a source of delight to Conrad to
hear of anything to the credit of the types of
men he had served with. He readily under-
stood how easily officers and men of the
Merchant Service could adapt themselves
to war conditions : all their lives they were
fighting the elements, and their discipline and
natural courage suited them for the purpose
for which they were employed.

The first single ship action of the war
between the Carmania and the Cap Trafalgar
was an instance of this, as, although the ship
was commanded by a very distinguished
officer of the Royal Navy, she was almost
entirely officered by lieutenant - commanders
and lieutenants of the R.N.R.

The temporary officers of the R.N.R. were
taken straight out of the Merchant Service,
and without as much as a day's training were

128

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

given very responsible commands, at high rates
of pay, added to which they had greater
advantages of attaining distinction over the
more highly trained officer of their own rank
in the Royal Navy, who had, in most cases, to
be content with a subordinate appointment in
a battleship, cruiser, destroyer, or any other
class of war vessel, with the exception of
submarines.

Conrad was delighted to hear of the good
feeling prevailing between the two Services,
and agreed that any previous misunderstanding
was due to the fact that they had never before
had an opportunity of knowing each other.
Now they were sharing the same perils, doing
exactly the same work and all with the same
object. No man had a greater admiration for
the merchant captain than the naval officer :
he knew almost better than anybody else that
the carriage of food, guns, ammunition and
other supplies depended on the courage and
tenacity of these hardy old seafarers keeping
the sea. Submarines and mines had no terror
for him ; and although during the early period
of the war he had no gun to hit back with,
he sailed the seven seas rejoicing, and never
missed a tide.

I 129

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

Conrad, too, was very much interested in
the training of the permanent Royal Naval
Reserve officer — how up to 1904 he was not
allowed to attain higher rank than that of
lieutenant; how during the intervening years
the restrictions had been broken down, and
that at the time there were officers serving who
held the ranks of lieutenant -commanders,
commanders, captains and commodores.
Decorations had come their way, some of
the more senior being awarded Companion-
ships of the Bath (one has since been made a
Knight Commander of the Most Excellent
Order of St Michael and St George, and
two Knights of the Most Excellent Order of
the British Empire. His Majesty the King
has also graciously approved of two officers
being selected as his Aides-de-Camp in rota-
tion of seniority). Great strides had been
made in ten years : the two Services realised
more than ever that they were interdependent,
and that henceforth in any common cause they
were a band of brothers.

We also discussed the fighting qualities of
the Navies of other Powers, and the part
played by Japan in her sea fight with Russia.
We talked of Admiral Togo, the Japanese

130

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

Admiralissimo, having received his early train-
ing in H.M.S. Worcester. This reminded me
of two Japanese naval stories.

In 1902 I w^as serving as a lieutenant in
H.M.S. Empress of India^ then doing duty
as Guardship at Queenstown, when one fine
summer afternoon one of the latest types of
Japanese battleships entered the harbour and
anchored close astern of us, her stay in port
extending to a week or ten days. We had
one of the finest bands in the Service, and
each morning as the Colours were hoisted the
National Anthem was played, followed by the
National Anthem of Japan. On the fourth
night after her arrival we invited the captain
and officers to dinner. Captain Henry Louis
Fleet, R.N. (a brother of Mr Rutland Barring-
ton, the famous old Savoyard), taking the head
of the table. When the wine had been served
Captain Fleet proposed the health of his
Majesty the King : the band played the
National Anthem and the toast was drunk,
all officers remaining seated by right of a
privilege accorded them by, I think, one of
the Georges. Rumour has it that when
dining on board some ship or other the King
in question bumped his head against one of

131

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

the beams in the then low-ceilinged ward
rooms, and said that the loyalty of the officers
of the Royal Navy was sufficiently assured to
drink his health seated. A few minutes later
Captain Fleet rose and proposed the health of
his Majesty the Emperor of Japan, all officers
rising. The band played the Japanese National
Anthem, at the end of which each officer, lift-
ing his glass, drank to the health of his Majesty.
When quiet again reigned, the Japanese captain,
who spoke perfect English, asked Captain Fleet
if he would tell him the name of the tune which
had just been played. Our captain's consterna-
tion may be imagined when our distinguished
visitor assured him that he had not heard it
before ! Our bandmaster, an Italian, was sent
for, who explained that to the best of his
belief it was the National Anthem of Japan.
Unhappily it was not. Apologies and ex-
planations followed, and a band sergeant was
dispatched to the Japanese battleship for the
real score, which, when played, was so entirely
different that one can only wonder that such
a mistake could have been made.

The other story concerns a Japanese battle-
ship which, long previous to the Great War,
had anchored at The Nore. On her arrival

132

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

the Commander-in-Chief gave orders that
during the stay of the vessel in harbour
Gilbert and Sullivan's famous comic opera
The Mikado was not to be played by the bands
of ships under his orders. One evening,
whilst captains and officers were going about
their usual duties on board their various vessels,
the strains of a familiar tune floated across the
waters ; they could scarcely believe their ears :
it was The Flowers that bloom in the Spring, Tra
la la. Great Heavens, thought everyone,
which ship had dared to disobey such an
important order ? Officers of watches and
signalmen gazed round and looked at one
another in bewilderment. The laugh that
went round the fleet may be imagined when
it was discovered that the opera in question
was being played by none other than the band
of the Japanese battleship !

As the cruise was slowly drawing to a close
I must candidly confess that I thought more
of losing Conrad's companionship than I did
of sinking submarines. Naturally, the latter
was never out of my thoughts, but the other
feeling predominated. I knew I should soon
be out in the ship again, and dreaded to think
how different everything would be without

133

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

his company. One evening I gave expression
to these thoughts, and added that I should be
very sorry to think we should not meet again.
Conrad, however, put me at my ease by say-
ing that, if we survived, he would always be
delighted to welcome me in his home, and
that it would give him a very real pleasure to
present me to his wife. Then, turning to
Osborne and Moodie, he extended the same
invitation. Naturally this pleased us all greatly.

That same night I asked Conrad what first
induced him to take up literary work. He
was silent for some minutes, and then said, as
if he had considered my question : " Well,
Commander, I was a long time on shore."
What he meant by that I don't know to this
day, and as he did not enlighten me, I did not
ask.

It is a curious thing that followers of the
sea seldom or never betray the slightest curi-
osity in connection with the antecedents or
private affairs of each other. I have been
shipmates for twelve months at a time with
men without knowing whether they were
married or single, where they came from, or
what their future intentions were. I suppose
it was partly for the reason that I was not

134

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

interested ; I could have asked, but there was
always something about it all which pre-
vented me, and there was always this some-
thing which prevented others from knowing
any more than I did. Sailors are not com-
municative about their homes or their affairs ;
they know each other's names, and that appears
to be good enough to go on with.

I candidly confess I was most curious about
Conrad. I wanted to ask him hundreds of
things that I would greatly like to have
known, but couldn't. Had he been purely an
author, or any other kind of landsman, I should
have had no hesitation ; but he was a seaman
as well : I could never get away from that,
and so my tongue was tied, and I had to rest
content with what he was pleased to tell me.
Perhaps it was that he had told me so much
and interested me so much that, like Oliver
Twist, I wanted more. Anyway, I was never
the first to rise from the cuddy table during
our long talks after supper, and willingly
would I have remained, even to daybreak, had
it not been that there was always a possibility
of much to do on the morrow.

We had not played cards since falling in
with the British submarine, and three nights

135

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

before we made the coast Osborne suggested
that play should be resumed. Conrad readily
agreed, and we played until it was time to
man the pumps. Osborne brought the card
book out, and as far as I can remember the
biggest loss was not more than two shillings,
so that the play was throughout very even.
The wind remained in the east, varying from
north-east to south-east, and we were not
obliged to do any beating to windward. The
weather, too, held good, which was a blessing
after all the atrocious weather we had experi-
enced on the outer passage. Night sleep was
less disturbed, and we felt much fresher for
the benefit of it.

136

CHAPTER XI

The following morning it was Osborne's turn
to take over charge of the deck at six o'clock,
and when daylight broke he called me to
report that a submarine was in sight. Conrad
and I turned out immediately, jumped into
our sea boots, and were on deck in an instant.
Osborne had turned everybody out, and having
handed me his binoculars superintended the
clearing away of the guns. I turned to speak
to Conrad, but found that he had not waited
for orders, but had bolted down to the cuddy
for the confidential books, and a moment or
two later reported to me for orders. He
remarked, with a smile of satisfaction, that
surely our luck would be in this time. He
was fearfully anxious that this should be the
case. Alas ! We were again doomed to dis-
appointment, as she, too, proved to be British.
I shouted down to Rampling that he could
let his engines cool down. " What .? " replied
he, " another Britisher .? " and when I answered
in the affirmative, I heard Rampling muttering

137

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

" My Gawd, and some people ask, ' What
is the Navy doing ? ' "

We had a good beam wind, and with all
sail set were fast approaching the coast. Dur-
ing the afternoon a British airship crossed
and recrossed over us, and as it descended
to scrutinise us the better we could see its
occupants were examining us closely through
binoculars. We were still flying the Nor-
wegian ensign, and as we were not sure whether
she could see our guns or not, we brought up
our largest-size white ensign, and spreading it
out flat on the deck pointed to it ; on which
the airship made off for the coast. Later, we
learnt that she reported us to her headquarters
as a suspicious vessel.

Just before dark we sighted the English
coast, but knowing that we could do nothing
during the night, and in order to keep clear
of shipping, we stood out to sea until daylight.

The wind was light and variable, with
a smooth sea, so we just sailed about, altering
our courses so as to bring us at daylight to
a position about five miles east of Grimsby, as
we thought it unlikely that an enemy sub-
marine would be on the surface much inside
that distance.

138

AIKSmi' WHICH RKl'OKIKD US AS A SUSPICIOUS VKSSEI.

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

We remained on deck until ten p.m., then
sat in the cuddy till midnight, talking, as
sailors always will, of their sea experiences.

Conrad listened rather than talked on this
particular night, and was interested in my
Klondyke experiences in 1898, and of the
shooting of Soapy Smith, a notorious Alaskan
highwayman, which I witnessed in Skagway,
a small port at the foot of the White and
Chilcoot Passes, over which one had to climb
to get to Dawson City. Osborne, too, had
some thrilling experiences to tell him, all of
which he greatly enjoyed.

At daylight we sighted a submarine about
i^ miles on our starboard bow, and altered
course in her direction. The wind was very
light at the time, so we made little headway.
Before we could get near enough, even to
make out her nationality, a cloud of smoke
appeared from the entrance to the Humber, out
of which emerged four destroyers, steaming
at top speed in the submarine's direction,
forced her to submerge, and she was lost to
us. Had we been left to it, and had she
remained on the surface, we should, no doubt,
have got her ; but our chance was spoilt, our
optimism reduced to a minus quantity, and

139

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

feeling that our luck was dead out, I sent a
wireless message to Granton asking permission
to return to harbour. This being approved, I
headed away for Flamborough Head.

The wind increased very slightly, but the
glass was falling, and as heavy clouds were
gathering I felt that we were in for a bad night.

Towards evening we sighted minesweeping
trawlers to the north, so steered in shore so as
to intercept them. I suggested to Conrad
that he might like to land in the vicinity, and
so shorten his train journey from the north to
his home. He at first wouldn't hear of it, as
he thought we might still have a chance of a
scrap ; but I held out little hope, and in the
end he decided to take advantage of my offer.

As the minesweepers closed on us I made a
signal to the senior officer of the unit informing
him that I wished to communicate with him.
On receiving this, to my surprise he signalled
to the other vessels of his unit to spread, and
they took up positions far apart from one
another. I then signalled requesting him to
be good enough to land a passenger from my
ship, also to send a boat for this purpose. We
were still under the Norwegian flag, which,
naturally, made the officer in charge take every

140

ika\vi,f<:r which lanhed mr. conkai>
HRii)i.i\(;i'nN

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

possible precaution ; so that when he sent
a boat alongside with armed men under the
command of a lieutenant, the astonishment of
that officer, on stepping over the gangway and
finding the vessel armed as she was, may be
imagined. He looked hurriedly aloft at the
ensign, to make sure he hadn't made any mis-
take, and even when I had introduced myself
he seemed doubtful. Conrad was an amused
spectator of all this, and I must say I enjoyed
it not a little myself. My invitation to the
officer to descend to the cuddy was not readily
accepted, so once again the confidential books
were sent for, and these reassured our visitor,
who thereupon signalled to his senior that
everything was in order. He then informed
us of the airship's signal which they had
intercepted, and how on sighting us they had
thought that they had really fallen in with
the strange suspicious craft. Not knowing
our armament, the senior officer decided not
to have his vessels in what he described as a
"bunch," lest we should open fire from guns
heavier than their modest six-pounders. The
senior officer, having signalled his willingness
to land Conrad, immediately proceeded to re-
form his unit, during which time we were

141

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

regaled with the latest news, the officer also
very kindly sending his boat to collect news-
papers for us.

Soon afterwards Conrad bade us good-bye,
every man coming up from below to bid him
farewell, and as he passed over the side there
was not a soul on board who did not feel that
he had lost not only a very real friend, but
also a very good shipmate.

Our vessel, which had been " hauled to the
wind " with the fore-yard aback, was then
headed to the north, and in the twilight —
both going in opposite directions — we soon
lost sight of each other.

The wind increased during the first watch,
and at midnight was blowing very hard. At
four A.M. Osborne called me and told me that
the whole of the North Sea was in the cuddy,
and certainly there was a certain amount of it.
Between that time and our arrival at Granton
we experienced our very worst weather, and I
felt somewhat relieved that Conrad had missed
it. Our light square sails and upper staysails
were blown to ribbons, and our rigging badly
damaged.

On nearing May Island at the entrance
to the Firth of Forth we unshipped all our

142

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

disguises, unmounted our guns, painted out the
Norwegian ensigns on the bows and quarters
of the hull, and ran up the red ensign, in
order to deceive any neutral vessels which we
might pass or overhaul in the Firth.

There was a howling gale behind us and
with the flood tide we went along at a great
pace. At the Examination Anchorage we
were challenged and directed to proceed to
Leith, but on satisfying the officer-in-charge
were allowed to proceed. Then came the
tricky work of manoeuvring between the fifty
odd vessels at anchor in order to pick up a
sheltered berth, the hauling to the wind, and
eventually, with the helm hard-a-lee, the main-
sail to windward and the fore-yard aback, we
dropped our anchor after certainly a novel and
experimental experience. It was nearly forty-
eight hours later before the weather moderated
sufficiently to allow us to land.

Conrad certainly left a great impression on
me, and this, I know, was quite apart from
that subconscious influence which the study
of his writings for years previous had had
upon me. To me, having lived with him in
fair weather and in foul, the thought always
in my mind was that he could never have

143

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

remained merely a seaman ; his genius and
temperament forbade this. The quality of
his brain being of so alert and virile a nature,
even the constant warring with the elements
would not have given him sufficient outlet
for his creative powers. The poetry of the
man's mind required the possibility of constant
expression. His characters are live people,
and in my old sailing days I met them
frequently. He describes them, not only as
he saw them, but as they saw themselves, and
also as they saw others. He read men's minds
and knew their innermost thoughts. He
revealed beauty as he saw it in language
which his marvellous genius has enriched.
He, in all his works, extols all that is great
and wonderful in life, and portrays not in
words but by inference the true beauty of
righteousness.

To a student of psychology Conrad would
have been a wonderful study. He was, to me,
intellectually head and shoulders over any man
I had ever met. His charm, his ideas, his
outlook on life generally were to me wonder-
ful, and much as 'X puzzled me then, it has
since puzzled me still more how he, a Polish
aristocrat, should have adopted as a profession

144

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

the sea, with all the cramped hardships of
forty years ago in pilot vessels out of Marseilles,
in small sailing craft in the Mediterranean,
and later in the crack flyers out of England.
A sailor spending his life on the waste of
waters is naturally a dreamer. Hours at the
wheel, with every stitch of canvas set in
the trade winds, with little to do but keep the
weather leach of the mizzen-royal shivering,
or at the weather ear-ring when reefing a
topsail, the sailor is always the same, always
dreaming ; and what visions Conrad, with his
great imagination, must have conjured up in
these varied and trying circumstances !

I had been wondering whether I should
have the good fortune to meet him again
when I was reassured by a letter which arrived
at the Base from him, and was sent on board
(the weather had not sufficiently moderated
to make it desirable for me to land). He
thanked me for what he was good enough to
describe as " my true seaman-like hospitality,"
and repeated the wish that I should visit him,
asking me at the same time to extend his
invitation to certain other members of the
crew. Then followed an account of his land-
ing at Bridlington, and the kindness he had
K 145

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

received from the minesweeping officers,
whom he invited to breakfast w^ith him at his
hotel on the following morning ; of the visit
of a police officer during the meal asking him
to explain his landing from a sailing vessel
flying a foreign flag, and his satisfactory replies ;
and, finally, more grateful remarks on the
kindness and consideration shown to him both
by myself and those serving under me, ending
up with the ten words quoted in my opening
chapter, " The Brotherhood of the Sea is no
mere empty phrase."

I made two more trips in command of the
brigantine, each extending over three weeks,
but without any results. It was thought that
she was known to the German submarine
commanders, who let her pass on her way. I
then returned to minesweeping, and Osborne,
on my strong recommendation, was appointed
in command.

In the meantime other sailing vessels had
been fitted out, all of them being placed under
the orders of Admiral Sir Alexander Duff,
K.C.B., then Deputy Chief of the Naval Staff;
and my old brigantine, under Osborne's com-
mand, was ordered to the English Channel.
On the 1 6th June 19 17 she engaged two

146

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

German submarines off the coast of Brittany
(one of them being disguised as a ketch), and
after a prolonged and gallant action sent one
to the bottom totally destroyed, gaining for the
officers and crew two Distinguished Service
Crosses, three Distinguished Service Medals,
and the thanks of the Lords Commissioners of
the Admiralty.

It was characteristic of Osborne to write to
Conrad and myself on his return to harbour,
saying that after the action his one regret was
that we were not on board at the time ; also
that this regret was shared by the whole
ship's company.

After the Armistice Conrad sent me a very
cordial invitation to stay with him, but as I
was at the time engaged in clearing the sea
of mines, British as well as German, I was
unable to accept ; in fact it was not until the
summer of this year that I met my old
" Comrade in Arms " again. I suggested to
him that the time was ripe for my long-
deferred visit, to which he lost no time in
replying, adding that he would meet me at
the railway station with his car.

The train by which I travelled steamed
punctually into the station, but alas ! there was

147

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

no Conrad and no car. Later, he turned up
brimful of laughter and apologies, explaining
that he had abandoned his own car in mid-
road and transferred his flag to this jury-rigged
arrangement, as he described a very worn and
rickety old taxi. A mile from the station his
own car hove in sight, and in this — a magni-
ficent smooth-running Cadillac — we soon
covered the six or seven miles to his home.
As we swung into the drive Conrad looked
skywards and smilingly whispered, " The sun
is over the fore-yard." As a sailor I knew
what he meant, and I was glad, because, as
some writers would describe it, " It was near
high noon."

Some few minutes later we celebrated our
reunion. He was delightful, full of laughter,
and when he presented me to Mrs Conrad
and the other members of his household he
gave me the true Conradion impression that
I was the one person in all this wide world
that he most wished to meet.

In his study, with its shelves on three sides
full of books, we talked for an hour. He
recalled many incidents of the cruise, and
nearly five years later had not forgotten the
names of different members of the crew.

148

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

At luncheon we laughed as we recalled our
menus on shipboard, starting with all the
delicacies in season, and ending with salt
horse (as sailors describe salt beef) and hard
biscuits.

Afterwards he showed me round his wonder-
ful gardens, and on his well-rolled, carefully
trimmed lawn, which he called his " Quarter
deck," we walked arm-in-arm, as we had done
many and many a time on the deck of the old
Freya. It was a lovely day in June ; the
trees were in full leaf and the flowers in
bloom ; the sun was shining gloriously and
the birds singing to their hearts' content : it
was a day when one felt that it was good to
be alive ; and yet we would have given every-
thing, risked all, for one glorious hour of
battle with an enemy submarine.

After tea I took my leave, after a truly
delightful and most enjoyable day. What
I felt on leaving was that I had been " At
sea with Mr Conrad " and " At home with
Mr Conrad" — two great privileges; but what
was to me greater than all was that I had
made a friend of Mr Conrad.

Since my visit to him it has many times
occurred to me that the countless admirers of

149

AT SEA WITH JOSEPH CONRAD

Conrad's works would be interested to read of
the great part he nobly played in the Great
War for Civilisation. He chose the three
most dangerous sides — the Q-brigantine, mine-
sweeping and flying — at an age, too, when
thousands of men years younger than himself
were excused from serving. My attempt,
unpractised and unliterary as it may seem, can
convey only but a poor idea of the great
charm of the man — his love of the sea and
seamen ; his kindness and thoughtfulness for
others ; his nobility ; his bravery and every-
thing about him, which brought to mind
Kipling's conception of " The Hundredth
Man." Having said this much, my story is
ended.

150

This book is DUE on the last date stamped below.

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