Complete Works of Joseph Conrad (Illustrated) (814 page)

The bond between us was the ship; and therein a ship, though she has female attributes and is loved very unreasonably, is different from a woman.  That I should have been tremendously smitten with my first command is nothing to wonder at, but I suppose I must admit that Mr. B-’s sentiment was of a higher order.  Each of us, of course, was extremely anxious about the good appearance of the beloved object; and, though I was the one to glean compliments ashore, B- had the more intimate pride of feeling, resembling that of a devoted handmaiden.  And that sort of faithful and proud devotion went so far as to make him go about flicking the dust off the varnished teak-wood rail of the little craft with a silk pocket-handkerchief — a present from Mrs. B-, I believe.

That was the effect of his love for the barque.  The effect of his admirable lack of the sense of security once went so far as to make him remark to me: “Well, sir, you
are
a lucky man!”

It was said in a tone full of significance, but not exactly offensive, and it was, I suppose, my innate tact that prevented my asking, “What on earth do you mean by that?”

Later on his meaning was illustrated more fully on a dark night in a tight corner during a dead on-shore gale.  I had called him up on deck to help me consider our extremely unpleasant situation.  There was not much time for deep thinking, and his summing-up was: “It looks pretty bad, whichever we try; but, then, sir, you always do get out of a mess somehow.”

VI.

It is difficult to disconnect the idea of ships’ anchors from the idea of the ship’s chief mate — the man who sees them go down clear and come up sometimes foul; because not even the most unremitting care can always prevent a ship, swinging to winds and tide, from taking an awkward turn of the cable round stock or fluke.  Then the business of “getting the anchor” and securing it afterwards is unduly prolonged, and made a weariness to the chief mate.  He is the man who watches the growth of the cable — a sailor’s phrase which has all the force, precision, and imagery of technical language that, created by simple men with keen eyes for the real aspect of the things they see in their trade, achieves the just expression seizing upon the essential, which is the ambition of the artist in words.  Therefore the sailor will never say, “cast anchor,” and the ship-master aft will hail his chief mate on the forecastle in impressionistic phrase: “How does the cable grow?”  Because “grow” is the right word for the long drift of a cable emerging aslant under the strain, taut as a bow-string above the water.  And it is the voice of the keeper of the ship’s anchors that will answer: “Grows right ahead, sir,” or “Broad on the bow,” or whatever concise and deferential shout will fit the case.

There is no order more noisily given or taken up with lustier shouts on board a homeward-bound merchant ship than the command, “Man the windlass!”  The rush of expectant men out of the forecastle, the snatching of hand-spikes, the tramp of feet, the clink of the pawls, make a stirring accompaniment to a plaintive up-anchor song with a roaring chorus; and this burst of noisy activity from a whole ship’s crew seems like a voiceful awakening of the ship herself, till then, in the picturesque phrase of Dutch seamen, “lying asleep upon her iron.”

For a ship with her sails furled on her squared yards, and reflected from truck to water-line in the smooth gleaming sheet of a landlocked harbour, seems, indeed, to a seaman’s eye the most perfect picture of slumbering repose.  The getting of your anchor was a noisy operation on board a merchant ship of yesterday — an inspiring, joyous noise, as if, with the emblem of hope, the ship’s company expected to drag up out of the depths, each man all his personal hopes into the reach of a securing hand — the hope of home, the hope of rest, of liberty, of dissipation, of hard pleasure, following the hard endurance of many days between sky and water.  And this noisiness, this exultation at the moment of the ship’s departure, make a tremendous contrast to the silent moments of her arrival in a foreign roadstead — the silent moments when, stripped of her sails, she forges ahead to her chosen berth, the loose canvas fluttering softly in the gear above the heads of the men standing still upon her decks, the master gazing intently forward from the break of the poop.  Gradually she loses her way, hardly moving, with the three figures on her forecastle waiting attentively about the cat-head for the last order of, perhaps, full ninety days at sea: “Let go!”

This is the final word of a ship’s ended journey, the closing word of her toil and of her achievement.  In a life whose worth is told out in passages from port to port, the splash of the anchor’s fall and the thunderous rumbling of the chain are like the closing of a distinct period, of which she seems conscious with a slight deep shudder of all her frame.  By so much is she nearer to her appointed death, for neither years nor voyages can go on for ever.  It is to her like the striking of a clock, and in the pause which follows she seems to take count of the passing time.

This is the last important order; the others are mere routine directions.  Once more the master is heard: “Give her forty-five fathom to the water’s edge,” and then he, too, is done for a time.  For days he leaves all the harbour work to his chief mate, the keeper of the ship’s anchor and of the ship’s routine.  For days his voice will not be heard raised about the decks, with that curt, austere accent of the man in charge, till, again, when the hatches are on, and in a silent and expectant ship, he shall speak up from aft in commanding tones: “Man the windlass!”

VII.

The other year, looking through a newspaper of sound principles, but whose staff
will
persist in “casting” anchors and going to sea “on” a ship (ough!), I came across an article upon the season’s yachting.  And, behold! it was a good article.  To a man who had but little to do with pleasure sailing (though all sailing is a pleasure), and certainly nothing whatever with racing in open waters, the writer’s strictures upon the handicapping of yachts were just intelligible and no more.  And I do not pretend to any interest in the enumeration of the great races of that year.  As to the 52-foot linear raters, praised so much by the writer, I am warmed up by his approval of their performances; but, as far as any clear conception goes, the descriptive phrase, so precise to the comprehension of a yachtsman, evokes no definite image in my mind.

The writer praises that class of pleasure vessels, and I am willing to endorse his words, as any man who loves every craft afloat would be ready to do.  I am disposed to admire and respect the 52-foot linear raters on the word of a man who regrets in such a sympathetic and understanding spirit the threatened decay of yachting seamanship.

Of course, yacht racing is an organized pastime, a function of social idleness ministering to the vanity of certain wealthy inhabitants of these isles nearly as much as to their inborn love of the sea.  But the writer of the article in question goes on to point out, with insight and justice, that for a great number of people (20,000, I think he says) it is a means of livelihood — that it is, in his own words, an industry.  Now, the moral side of an industry, productive or unproductive, the redeeming and ideal aspect of this bread-winning, is the attainment and preservation of the highest possible skill on the part of the craftsmen.  Such skill, the skill of technique, is more than honesty; it is something wider, embracing honesty and grace and rule in an elevated and clear sentiment, not altogether utilitarian, which may be called the honour of labour.  It is made up of accumulated tradition, kept alive by individual pride, rendered exact by professional opinion, and, like the higher arts, it spurred on and sustained by discriminating praise.

This is why the attainment of proficiency, the pushing of your skill with attention to the most delicate shades of excellence, is a matter of vital concern.  Efficiency of a practically flawless kind may be reached naturally in the struggle for bread.  But there is something beyond — a higher point, a subtle and unmistakable touch of love and pride beyond mere skill; almost an inspiration which gives to all work that finish which is almost art — which
is
art.

As men of scrupulous honour set up a high standard of public conscience above the dead-level of an honest community, so men of that skill which passes into art by ceaseless striving raise the dead-level of correct practice in the crafts of land and sea.  The conditions fostering the growth of that supreme, alive excellence, as well in work as in play, ought to be preserved with a most careful regard lest the industry or the game should perish of an insidious and inward decay.  Therefore I have read with profound regret, in that article upon the yachting season of a certain year, that the seamanship on board racing yachts is not now what it used to be only a few, very few, years ago.

For that was the gist of that article, written evidently by a man who not only knows but
understands
— a thing (let me remark in passing) much rarer than one would expect, because the sort of understanding I mean is inspired by love; and love, though in a sense it may be admitted to be stronger than death, is by no means so universal and so sure.  In fact, love is rare — the love of men, of things, of ideas, the love of perfected skill.  For love is the enemy of haste; it takes count of passing days, of men who pass away, of a fine art matured slowly in the course of years and doomed in a short time to pass away too, and be no more.  Love and regret go hand in hand in this world of changes swifter than the shifting of the clouds reflected in the mirror of the sea.

To penalize a yacht in proportion to the fineness of her performance is unfair to the craft and to her men.  It is unfair to the perfection of her form and to the skill of her servants.  For we men are, in fact, the servants of our creations.  We remain in everlasting bondage to the productions of our brain and to the work of our hands.  A man is born to serve his time on this earth, and there is something fine in the service being given on other grounds than that of utility.  The bondage of art is very exacting.  And, as the writer of the article which started this train of thought says with lovable warmth, the sailing of yachts is a fine art.

His contention is that racing, without time allowances for anything else but tonnage — that is, for size — has fostered the fine art of sailing to the pitch of perfection.  Every sort of demand is made upon the master of a sailing-yacht, and to be penalized in proportion to your success may be of advantage to the sport itself, but it has an obviously deteriorating effect upon the seamanship.  The fine art is being lost.

VIII.

The sailing and racing of yachts has developed a class of fore-and-aft sailors, men born and bred to the sea, fishing in winter and yachting in summer; men to whom the handling of that particular rig presents no mystery.  It is their striving for victory that has elevated the sailing of pleasure craft to the dignity of a fine art in that special sense.  As I have said, I know nothing of racing and but little of fore-and-aft rig; but the advantages of such a rig are obvious, especially for purposes of pleasure, whether in cruising or racing.  It requires less effort in handling; the trimming of the sail-planes to the wind can be done with speed and accuracy; the unbroken spread of the sail-area is of infinite advantage; and the greatest possible amount of canvas can be displayed upon the least possible quantity of spars.  Lightness and concentrated power are the great qualities of fore-and-aft rig.

A fleet of fore-and-afters at anchor has its own slender graciousness.  The setting of their sails resembles more than anything else the unfolding of a bird’s wings; the facility of their evolutions is a pleasure to the eye.  They are birds of the sea, whose swimming is like flying, and resembles more a natural function than the handling of man-invented appliances.  The fore-and-aft rig in its simplicity and the beauty of its aspect under every angle of vision is, I believe, unapproachable.  A schooner, yawl, or cutter in charge of a capable man seems to handle herself as if endowed with the power of reasoning and the gift of swift execution.  One laughs with sheer pleasure at a smart piece of manoeuvring, as at a manifestation of a living creature’s quick wit and graceful precision.

Of those three varieties of fore-and-aft rig, the cutter — the racing rig
par excellence
— is of an appearance the most imposing, from the fact that practically all her canvas is in one piece.  The enormous mainsail of a cutter, as she draws slowly past a point of land or the end of a jetty under your admiring gaze, invests her with an air of lofty and silent majesty.  At anchor a schooner looks better; she has an aspect of greater efficiency and a better balance to the eye, with her two masts distributed over the hull with a swaggering rake aft.  The yawl rig one comes in time to love.  It is, I should think, the easiest of all to manage.

For racing, a cutter; for a long pleasure voyage, a schooner; for cruising in home waters, the yawl; and the handling of them all is indeed a fine art.  It requires not only the knowledge of the general principles of sailing, but a particular acquaintance with the character of the craft.  All vessels are handled in the same way as far as theory goes, just as you may deal with all men on broad and rigid principles.  But if you want that success in life which comes from the affection and confidence of your fellows, then with no two men, however similar they may appear in their nature, will you deal in the same way.  There may be a rule of conduct; there is no rule of human fellowship.  To deal with men is as fine an art as it is to deal with ships.  Both men and ships live in an unstable element, are subject to subtle and powerful influences, and want to have their merits understood rather than their faults found out.

It is not what your ship will
not
do that you want to know to get on terms of successful partnership with her; it is, rather, that you ought to have a precise knowledge of what she will do for you when called upon to put forth what is in her by a sympathetic touch.  At first sight the difference does not seem great in either line of dealing with the difficult problem of limitations.  But the difference is great.  The difference lies in the spirit in which the problem is approached.  After all, the art of handling ships is finer, perhaps, than the art of handling men.