CHAPTER FOUR It is well known that seamen often commit violent excesses while in port after a long voyage. Even in time of peace, seamen are apt to try to make up in this way for all the drinking and cavorting they have been forced to forgo during their time at sea. As might be expected, a voyage in wartime, with its greatly magnified nerve stresses, will usually cause a seaman to behave even more extravagantly when he reaches port than he would in time of peace. The behavior of many of the Scapa Flow's crew in their first West African port is as good evidence as their behavior at sea of the strains imposed upon the nervous system by the long and dangerous sea voyage. Except for a few days, the Scapa Flow traveled the last leg of this voyage--the South Atlantic--in complete solitude. We left the island of Trinidad in a convoy which numbered fifteen ships. Knowing that German submarines concentrated around the island, the British gave the fifteen ships as much protection as could be spared until they got a few hundred miles out. Despite the fact that many of the fifteen ships were American vessels, the United States Navy could provide no protection at all. At Trinidad, all the overworked British Navy could spare for our convoy were two little escort vessels. They were converted fishing boats which could not even make the potential speed of a couple of Norwegian and Dutch ships in our convoy. Nevertheless, these little escort boats had listening devices and depth charges, and they safely took us a few days out into the Atlantic. Then the escorts turned back to get another convoy, and the [ 125 ] fifteen ships in our bunch scattered, each to try to make the dash to West Africa on its own. Some of these ships were brand-new Liberty ships on their maiden voyages. These sea-cows, slow (eleven knots) and unwieldly, each had approximately sixty men aboard, plus a war cargo worth millions of dollars--or hundreds, perhaps thousands of lives, to our forces overseas. Each craft was supplied with a four-inch naval gun and a gun crew composed of a dozen or so Navy boys, as were the other American-owned ships in the convoy, There probably is no attack in wartime so safe for the attackers as the torpedoing of a lone merchant vessel by a U-boat. The submarine simply gets up close to the freighter or tanker and lets go a couple of torpedoes. The sub can maneuver and sight at leisure. There is nothing the merchant vessel can do to protect themselves except use their speed and maneuverability, and the Liberty ships, not to mention old rust-buckets like the Scapa Flow, possess little of either. Even if one of the periscopes of the submarine is seen, which happens rarely, there is little that the gun crew can do, for the submarine is under the water. Small wonder that our naval armed guards are ironically dubbed the "Ready, Aim, Abandon Ship" department by other men in the Navy. The word "die" might, just as well be added to this title. The Scapa Flow got across the South Atlantic all right--on the outgoing part of the voyage, that is. Our ship was on the West African coast for a couple of months, long enough for us to learn the probable fate of the other ships which had set out from Trinidad with us. It seemed that eleven out of the original fifteen ships, each traveling alone, were caught and sunk by the Germans. Probably the most erroneous, face-saving theory which has yet been put over on the American people is that our country is so powerful that it can replace lost ships and cargoes. No country at war can do that. A ship has an absolute value in wartime, not a relative one. In time of peace, many vessels are not in use, and many cargoes might better be left at home than dumped abroad. During peacetime the loss of a ship and cargo can really be made good. Often it actually helps rather than damages business, for such is the nature of business. But during wartime every ship and cargo are needed. If a ship and its cargo go down, they cannot [ 126 ] be replaced by a new ship and a new cargo, for the old ship and cargo were needed as much as the new. Until victory we never can have enough. When even such an old rustpot as the Scapa Flow goes down it cannot be replaced. The war merchant fleet of the country is reduced by one--permanently. After more than two weeks of lonely, nerve-racked plodding across the South Atlantic, the Scapa Flow made landfall on the Gold Coast. During the crossing, we had often seen bits of wreckage, life jackets, abandoned life rafts and lifeboats--although it was a relatively little-traveled part of the Atlantic. We always looked carefully over the life rafts and lifeboats, but we never saw any sign of life. It sobered us and half-silenced us when we saw such evidence of a torpedoing, and instinctively men would stroll near the rails for a time, scanning the horizon, as if feeling that the U-boat which had been responsible for the torpedoing might still be around. We knew, of course, that the lifeboats or life rafts might have been floating many months, and that there was hardly more chance of a U-boat being around here than somewhere else, but still we looked. Afterwards, there was idle speculation as to what had happened to the men who once had been in those lifeboats or on those rafts. It was silly to speculate, and we all knew it, but it seemed better, after the shock of seeing the evidence of the torpedoing had passed, to talk about it a little than to keep it inside. Very likely, the men had died and been thrown over the side, one by one, with the last man stepping overside to go for the well-known glass of beer, or soda pop, at the corner. But there may never have been any men on the rafts or in the lifeboats. These often float free from a ship as it sinks, particularly the rafts, even if the men don't get off-an unhappy thought. A pleasanter thought was that some rafts and lifeboats are abandoned by survivors, who crowd into one or two craft to make for more efficiency. The men might have been picked up by a passing ship, although in such a case the rules were that the lifeboat or raft should be picked up too, or sunk. It was rare, however, that freighters or tankers went to the bother of doing anything about the life rafts or lifeboats after the rescued crew was aboard. Some of them were hard to sink, and the Navy gun crews weren't very accurate. The lieutenant of gunners aboard the Scapa Flow never offered to try to sink any we saw, [ 127 ] and for a very good reason. He and his men had already been humiliated publicly before the officers and crew of the Scapa Flow, when the four-incher was tested on the crossing; a target was flung overboard and the naval gunners hadn't been able to hit it at practically point-blank range, The drifting lifeboats and rafts were a menace, if only a slight one, to navigation, and that in itself was enough reason to sink them. In addition, they wasted the time of ships investigating them for possible survivors. It was thought, too, that the Germans might plant dummy figures in some of the lifeboats or rafts and then wait to torpedo a ship which stopped to pick up survivors. I have not yet heard from an eyewitness that this has been done, just as I have never yet heard an eyewitness story of men in a U-boat machine-gunning the helpless, unbelligerent crew of a torpedoed ship. On the contrary, humanitarian acts by German U-boat captains, sometimes involving considerable trouble, and often risk to the U-boat, are well-known among seamen, authenticated for me not only by my own experience but by the experiences of hundreds of torpedoed seamen with whom I have talked. The sight of lifeboats and rafts had another effect upon the men on the Scapa Flow, a curious one. These mute objects, giving their dumb show of past distress, were used by our men as a means of keeping time. We did not know how long our crossing would take us, for we changed course often and our route was by no means as direct as it could have been. The drifting rafts and boats and wreckage were from ships which hadn't made it, and our men took heart, some time after each drifting object was seen, in saying, "Well, we're getting closer to shore. We're still afloat; we got further than they did anyway." They seldom admitted that the sunken ship, from which this lifeboat or raft or wreckage had come, might have been going in the opposite direction and therefore been a great deal closer to home than we would be for many months. Our first physical evidence that there actually was a West African coast came after we had been out of Trinidad for more than a fortnight. A Hurricane fighter plane appeared, flashing in the sun, its Rolls motor purring beautifully. The plane came directly at our ship, flying so low that several of the men ducked [ 128 ] as it passed over the masts. The plane was immediately identified as a Hurricane, and the fact that it was a fighter, with a short range, was good evidence that we were close to the other side. The plane's flier must have been feeling happy, for, once he was assured that the ship was from an. ally, he stunted for five minutes or so, doing steep banks, and several mock dives at us. A majority of the men on the Scapa Flow were soon on deck, watching the plane and waving happily to its pilot. Then he raced off, doubtless reaching land in a few minutes, while it would take us most of a day to cover the same distance. When we reached our port on the Gold Coast, there was space at the dock for our ship. This made unnecessary an anchorage in the harbor, which would have been excruciating to the men, all of whom were agonizing for shore leave. Many of the men on board had not been ashore, any place, since the ship left New York. When it became evident that we were going to dock right away, a delegation went to call upon the first mate to find out how soon we could expect shore leave. To our considerable surprise and great glee we found that, except for skeleton watches in the engine and firing rooms, we were to be allowed ashore immediately after we docked, for two full days. Money was issued to us. In our happy preparations to go ashore, there was little disposition to wonder why we were being graced with so generous and prompt a shore leave. Later, when the mood of the men was different, there was considerable speculation. Most of them then agreed that we had all been allowed ashore--except a few men below who couldn't see what was happening on deck, to give the captain and first mate an opportunity to dispose of the private goods they had brought from the States for resale at a staggering duty-free profit. Although those of us who were strangers to Africa had not exactly expected to see wild animals patrolling the shoreline, we all were surprised at the urban aspects of our first port of discharge. The dock area looked similar to that of an American or English port, except for its smaller size. This urban vista was cause for elation, for it was presumed, in spite of the testimony of the few on board who had been here before, that the civilized aspects of the dock were an assurance of conventional amusement areas near-by. A majority of the men got out their best clothes, [129] and there was an excited borrowing of one another's shaving equipment, pomade, talc, and prophylactic devices. The first mate came into the fo'c'sle while the dressing was proceeding and brought the unwelcome news that eighty per cent of the natives ashore had or had had at least one venereal disease. He said he had a good supply of prophylactic tubes which he would issue free to those who wanted them. He also said that those who came down with venereal diseases and had to miss work would be docked pay for the time lost, that such sickness was not considered legitimate. It was a fair warning, and the men treated it as such. After the Scapa Flow was moored, the men were free to go ashore immediately. They came out on the main deck, rigged out in their best, and when the gangway was lowered you would have thought they would have stormed ashore, released at last after two full months of imprisonment coupled with danger. There was no such rush. The men lined the rail, looking at a near-by town which was visible over the dock, and talking quietly --happily, but quietly, Some drifted back to the fo'c'sle, saying that they had forgotten various articles, but they took their time about getting back on deck again. Perhaps this reaction was caused by a subconscious urge to relish the long-absent sensation of free will. We had been hungry for safety and shore for a long time, and had been unable to get it. Now these were ours for the taking or leaving. It was satisfying to savor the possibility of choice for a while without actually asserting it, just as a man who has been hungry for food sometimes delays eating for a bit when a meal is finally before him. Eventually there was a movement toward the gangway and it swept with it all the men who were free to go ashore. An insistent cue formed at the narrow gangway, and those in the rear of the cue called impatiently for those ahead to hurry up, and most of the men actually ran down the gangway, whooping for joy. 2 Immediately the crew members of the Scapa Flow got ashore in West Africa, a majority of them made for the bars. Inevitably liquor was sold, at fantastic prices, by the Syrians. After the [130] men got tired of paying five or six dollars for a half pint of whisky, they would branch out into the native liquors, which were cheaper but much more dangerous. By the first night, fully half the men were very drunk and being entertained in Negro whorehouses. All but a couple recovered enough to come back to the ship the next day for some food and more money before again going back into town. But from the moment Alabama went ashore until six days later, when the English and Latvian A.B.s and I went to get him, he was not seen on the ship. Although none of the three of us had any particular liking for Alabama, we thought he should be brought back to the ship. A system of fines, based upon the principle of arithmetic progression, was being imposed upon him by the captain, and if Alabama stayed ashore too long he might find himself losing more money than he would make on the entire voyage. The first two days he was ashore he was not fined, as all of us had had the privilege of two days' shore leave. But for the third day ashore he was fined two days' wages; his fourth day cost him four days; his fifth, eight days, and his sixth, sixteen days. Alabama had no real friends on shipboard, and there was little desire to save him from more fines for his own sake. But he had just been married a few months, and had assigned part of his wages to his wife in the States, and some of us felt that just a little trouble on our parts might safeguard this source of money for her. Alabama was not really needed on the Scapa Flow, as the practice of hiring natives to do substitution work had already been inaugurated; but it was a rule of the ship that we had to turn up once a day just in case there was some special work for us to do, and Alabama was taking these whopping fines needlessly. The three of us who went to look for him found him in a native village about twelve miles from the ship. We brought him back. Our worry about Alabama's fines was needless, after all, for they were entered only in the captain's logbook, and this went down with the Scapa Flow. Alabama's carousing was the most extravagant of any of the men's but at least half of the Scapa Flow's men--including the naval gunners--cavorted, in my opinion, far more violently in this West African port than they would have in time of peace. [ 131 ] The Portuguese, who were so penurious that they wouldn't buy work shoes from the slop chest but worked in homemade wooden sandals, got drunk on occasion, and after we left the first port one of them told me contritely that he had spent three pounds (twelve dollars) there. Three pounds in three weeks: he thought this was frightful. The Egyptians were not so close with their money as the Portuguese, but they were by no means freehanded. And yet these men, too, spent far more than they had wanted to spend in the first port. Our Egyptians made friends instantly with the Syrians ashore, as all spoke a common language, and though for this reason the Egyptians got better prices than the rest of our crew members did, they seemed depressed at the money that they had allowed to slip away from them. I am sure that the amount of liquor consumed by the crew in the first port was at least twice as much as they would have drunk in peacetime, Although it seems quite obvious that the extravagance of their behavior was due mostly to a reaction from two months of nerve strain on the voyage from New York, there was another contributing factor. The reaction from this nerve strain was by no means all subconscious; the men talked about it a great deal, and the standard excuse for buying just one more drink was: "After all, we've been in hell. We've had a tough time." 3 Carousing in the prosaic sense, drinking and whoring, was by no means the only evidence that the men were suffering a violent reaction to our voyage from New York. The impulse to carouse was very high, but so also were the impulses to fight and argue. Sometimes all three impulses were evidenced at the same time, and it was then that the Scapa Flow's crew got into their worst scrapes. The worst of all, which resulted in the smashing of a Syrian's store and bar, and the arrest of two of our men, was the result of a political argument with some British merchant seamen. There were a number of British merchant vessels in the port during the time the Scapa Flow was there, and we often would [ 132 ] run across crew members from these British ships while we were in the native towns. Friendships of an ephemeral sort were struck up with these Limey seamen for the purpose of exchanging drinks, stories and views. On the occasion of the trouble at the Syrian's shop, three or four British seamen were seated at tables near the bar, together with half a dozen members of the Scapa Flow's crew. The British seamen were having a boisterous time with the native waiters, ordering them about with an abandon and a selfconscious contempt which made it obvious that they had rarely, if ever, before been in a position to order anyone about. The Limeys were having a great time making fun of the natives by using the prevalent jargon of the West African coast, which is often used for communication between natives and whites. Thus, instead of merely ordering a drink brought to them, the Limeys would tell the native waiter to go and get a drink, and come back with it "one time." In other words, in a hurry. When the waiter brought the drink, just before he put it down on the table, the Limeys would chorus "lefit! .... Lefit" was used by a white to tell a native to stop whatever he was doing, and if he was carrying anything, to put it down. The waiter obviously had no intention of doing anything else, but inevitably before he could get the drink placed on-the table the British seamen would say "lefit" over and over again. The English and Latvian A.B.s from the Scapa Flow, who were seated near-by, grew increasingly irritated at this. The drinks they had had probably loosened their tongues and made them a little careless, in what they said. The two A.B.s began to pass comments to the effect that the men in the British Merchant Navy had finally found somebody who made less dough than they did, and who had to work even harder for this smaller amount of money. One of the Limeys began to overhear, and to resent. "What's the matter, chum?" he began, friendly enough, but then he went on with: "If you don't like our company, you can drink with the other officers at the pub down the road a bit." "Don't think I couldn't afford it," said the Scapa Flow's Englishman. "I can buy drink for drink with any of your officers since I had sense enough to get out of the Merchant Navy." [ 133 ] This brought all the Limeys into it. Not belligerently, but definitely on the testy side, they implied that our man was a deserter for getting onto an American-owned ship, that he was a profiteer, that he couldn't take the hard work of a British merchant vessel. Our man, in turn and in the same mood, declared that British seamen were hardly better than slaves, that they let themselves be kicked around without standing up for their rights, that they were underpaid, overworked, and lived like dogs on their ships. "That's in the old days, chum," said one of the Limeys, tractably. "We're getting our bonus now, you know. Making our eighteen quid a month." This was only seventy-two dollars a month, and our English A.B. was making two and a half times as much on the Scapa Flow, for doing the same work. "I've been bumped three times already in this war," said one of the Limeys, somewhat irrelevantly. "How many times," he asked our Englishman, "have you been bumped ?" Our man had to confess that he had been sailing all during the war and hadn't yet been torpedoed. This wasn't anything to be ashamed of, but all hands in the argument seemed to feel that the Limey had made a point, Our Englishman now went into the question of what had happened to the British merchant seamen which had caused them to remain so poor, hard-worked and ill-fed, all the years between the wars, while the American seamen had been going ahead and winning some decencies for themselves. The Limeys thought the reason was that the American shipowners were softer. Our man countered with a recitation of some of the beatings and shootings which hired thugs of the shipowners in the States had administered on occasion to striking seamen. He said that the English seamen had lost out because they had never freed themselves of the "emergency" measures taken during the last war. At that time seamen had given up certain rights, supposedly for the duration, which had never been returned during the two decades of relative peace which followed the last world war. The British unions, during the last war, had accepted joint shipowner control of the hiring halls and had also accepted a Continuous Discharge Book. This book gives the chronological record of every voyage made by a British seaman, and often gets [134] a militant unionist put on a blacklist, for his record may show many short trips utilized for urging union militancy among his shipmates. So far the American seamen have resisted the acceptance of the American counterpart of this book, called the Copeland Book in the United States, although the Maritime Commission, largely through the influence of the shipowners in it, has not yet given up trying to force the American unions to accept a Continuous Discharge Book. Our man went on to tell the Limeys that the American shipowners were getting lots of valuable tips on holding seamen in check from the British shipowners. Now that the Maritime Commission was laying down policy for both shipowners and, so far as it was possible, for seamen, it meant that government, capital and labor were under the same roof. In Britain, this had crushed the usefulness of the British seamen's unions, to the seamen at least. In the States, unless the unions were ever vigilant, the same trick would crush the unions. The Limeys wanted to know how our A.B. could expect them to be concerned about the problems of American unions when seamen of these unions were already getting more than twice the wages of seamen on British ships. Our man answered that, unless the British unions did something to strengthen themselves, American conditions would topple after the war, and, in the cut in American wages, the seamen of other nations would lose their best propaganda example and eventually be even worse off than they were now. "Suppose you let us take care of the British Merchant Navy, now that you're sailing an American-owned ship," one Limey advised our A.B. "But what happens to you is as much my business as it is yours," said our A.B. "All seamen get ahead or go back together in the long run." The Limeys didn't see it that way. They thought the temporary prominence of the American Merchant Marine would fade again after this war, just as it had after the last war, and that most of the world's cargoes would continue to travel British during peacetime. Our A.B. contested this, pointing out that the Americans would soon have by far the biggest merchant fleet in the world, and that the crisis in American business which would [ 135 ] follow after the war would mean that businessmen would continue to keep our ships in service as long as possible; they would try to sell to foreigners the products made in America which Americans wouldn't have the money to buy. Shipowners were so influential in government agencies such as the Maritime Commission that, for the most part, American goods would be shipped in American vessels in order to ensure the continuous flow of profits to the pockets of the shipowners. The argument rapidly became more acrimonious, but although voices were raised high, fists were not. Here the Syrian storekeeper, who also tended bar, tried to get the arguing men to be quieter. He was told to shut up. He tried to get the seamen to leave, but before the store was left it was pretty well smashed, and six or seven men were arrested. [136]
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