An announcement

All this writing there exist as they are without the proofreading and final correction

The wandering soul

Chapter 23

The tanker was a big Norseman. After boarding the ship we dropped into the mess room to have breakfast. There was a coal-black character who refused to give us anything to eat. “No coffee for bums,” he said, and with a very quick motion picked up the coffee cups from the table.
We were upset. “What the hell?” Bergen began. He went on: “I’ll tell you, you. . . mess-boy, this is a Norwegian ship and we’re squarehead sailors too, you know. If you think you’ll be some kind of boss aboard here, you’re wrong about your place onboard and I think you’d better go back to your Jim Crow car. We’re sailors and we will join today.”
Bergen was upset when he delivered this little speech, and he cruelly swore in Norwegian. The mess, who was small, glanced terrified toward the doorway with flashing eyeballs, as though looking for the way out.
This coolie fashioned mess-man was a new seafarer. Among international sailors, some have always been solitary, and some been given to comradeship. If one of them was on the beach, as the saying went, he was not called a beachcomber; he were given food in the mess room or provided with a packed lunch by other sailors—there was nothing shameful in it, because most sailors in some degree had experience and faced the same destiny, to be without money and waiting for a ship.
The mess man said, with a remorseful tone, “Aha, blimey. You’re the sailors?”
Bergen said, “Yes. Let’s have our coffee now.”

Even the mess man was deeply sorry for his foolish behavior. We never forgot it, and we renamed him Monkey-Nut.
After this incident, we went amidships and found a cabin with a door decorated with a brass label. It read Chief Officer. I knocked on the door and pushed it open. A lanky young man wearing a khaki uniform was lying on a sofa. He sat up as we entered. He answered our hello with a questioning look.
“We’re looking for a job,” I began.
“Which job are you looking for? Have you any papers?” the chief mate asked. We handed him our certificates of discharge. He read them and asked: “Are you a Finn? And this other one is a Norwegian?” He asked knowing well that this was mentioned in the discharge books in his hand. “Yes,” I said.

There were jobs available onboard. We found out that the ship was short of hands on deck and the engine room as well. She lacked an Ordinary Seaman, an oiler, and two deck boys. Bergen said that he would take the job as Ordinary Seaman; but then decided that he wanted to be an oiler, and went looking for the Chief Engineer to sign on as oiler in the engine room.

When I checked out of the hotel the clerk behind the counter gave me back six dollars from the advance payment. There was no letter waiting for me when we left the hotel.

Copyright Harry Tobin 2007
Harry Tobin assert the moral right to be identified as the author of this site and is owner of all this written material and samples.

Chrismas at sea

There is a small maritime museum in a small coastal town named Rauma, in Finland The museum still keep up the memories of that sombre Christmas eve in 1947 when the American ship named Park Victory went down off the south west coast of Finland taken ten crew members with her into wateri grave of the Baltick Sea.
In this museum you could find the dismal story of Park Victoria telling with those small remains and debris of that ill- fated ship.

On 9 of December in 1947 the liberty ship Park Victoria was arriving at Hampton Road to be load cargo as coal charity for Europe. Getting the loading completed, she 11th December left Hampton Road and sailed out to Atlantic bound for Finland. Captain Allen Luis Zeppin the master of the Park Victory hardly had any exact knowledge about that remote country in a far corner of the northeast Europe.
The ship had the crew of 43 aboard, all told, and after been crossed the pool she arrived at the northern Baltic Sea in the afternoon of Christmas Eve just before as the grey winter day of sixty latitude turned into darkness.
The ship was bound for Turku, a city that located on the mainland, seen from the sea, beyond a hundred of rocky isles. By five o’clock at afternoon the Park Victory was calling out the pilot from the Uto, the utmost lighthouse post of the southwest archipelago. When the pilot was boarding there was a new order for the new destination being now Helsinki. Mr, N. Linström, the pilot in duty suggested to the captain to anchor the ship off the island to be wait there the next morning and then continued the voyage to Helsinki, the daylight allowing better navigation with good visibility, for the region between the lighthouse Uto and the Helsinki, was still partly unclean of the mines, and there was just a narrow passage which need the daylight to be find.

The pilot remains aboard and the starboard anchor was dropped to the bottom near the rocky islad, not far from the lighthouse. By the night the southwest wind strengthen, the pilot who slept in pilot’s cabin, was wakened with the feeling that the ship was heavily rolling, from which he instantly understood that the anchor has loosened its hold, and the ship was drifting.

It was snowing and the gale was blowing with full strength, the temperature of air was lowered two degrees in minus Celsius.
The watch was turned to and was stand-by on the forecastle head ready to lower the second anchor, but the captain hesitated for the main engine was slowly propelling against the wind and he evidently thought the problem what the two anchors at the same time down could cause. The seas grew biggest and after two ours there was a bang as the ship touch the bottom in a trough . It wasn’t serious touch and there reported not damages. An our later there was more serious hit in the amidships and the ship was grounding. The blow broke the plates of the engine room bottom and the engine room rapidly flooded. To the next the ship suffered black out as the generator went off.
The order was given sent out the distress signal and lowered the boat.

On the Uto, inhabitants consisted of a fishing community about a hundred occupants including the military staff and the pilots.
As there was tradition among the islander to gather together every Christmas Eve in the stone chapel to be cerebrate and singing together, so was also in that particular Christmas Eve in 1947. When the oldest lighthouse keeper was delivered the sermon of the Christmas, and the occasion in this tiny chapel was over, the people returned to their homes without knowing that at the same time there was a ship in distress and the crew of it was struggling for their life in the dismal winter night, not far from the chapel.
Decades after the distress, a fisherman named Tovard Sjöberg, islander by born, and who must have been quite young that time, with accordance the interview in 1997 he still well remembered that very long night:
“When the alarm was given, it was half past three in the morning and everybody rushed towards the pilot station asking of questions to each other; what has happen? Or whether she is still aloft? “
The pilot boat set out to the dark stormy sea following by a small military craft under command of Tovard Sjöberg.
“ We were heading in direction where we assumed the ship been anchored, but there wasn’t anything to be seen but lot of tiny lights, floating on the waves. When we picked up one of them we found it being a life buoy. We criss-crossed the scene hopping to find something else, then we spotted a light from a rock and we steered towards it. We circled the small rock trying to find a place for safety landing but we didn’t found a suitable place get ashore. was too dangerous put right to shore With the gale blowing and the underwater rock surfing in the pitch-dark night, so I decided stay close by the rock and wait the morning to come, and the daylight with it.

With first rays of the dawn we made new attempt to come near the rock. It was little abated and we approached the rock from lee side and succeed got a rope over. There were fifteen men, they were spend all the nigh on that small rock being expose all that time to the winter gale and ice cold water. One of them was passed away by hypothermia. fourteen were alive but in bad condition. We hauled all them in by and by then retuned to Uto. There were many of survivors wore just a underwear and were chilled to the bone
There was another lifeboat of the Park Victory, been beached on another rocky, it was half submerged and it beat itself against the rocky there were sailors there sitting in water unable to climb ashore. In this lifeboat was sitting among the American sailors, the pilot who was boarding the ship a day before.
Among the first survivals was the master of Park Victory, captain Allen Luis. Many of the survivors were in bad condition for there was frost in air, so that I had many times cleared the windscreen of the boat to be able to see something ahead.”
The people of the Uto continued search the region hopping still find more survivors from the wrecked American ship. There was plenty of floating wreckage and debris beached the isle around but not a survivors. A lifeboat reported been found washed up on an islad far a way from the scene with the perished sailors in it.
From the forty-eight crewmembers of the Park Victory, ten were lost in the watery grave of the northern Baltic Sea.
The days after the disaster there could see the tip of masts and the white bridge of the vessel showing through the water in deep about ten feet. During the winter the moving ice lifted the wreck up in sight, and sifted the remnants into more deep and she disappeared forever



The text is so as it is, there lack of the edition.

the chain locker

The ship was approaching the Kiel and when I was turned in as the off watch I was after an hour turned out again. There was the anchorage and the forecastle head was occupied with the stand-by part of the chief mate.
I, and the Junky were limbing up the forecastle just to hear the chief mate saying to the Bosum,
“Tell the boys go down into the chain locker”.

“The boys into the chain locker”! the Bosum scouted.

We went under the forecastle and lowered ourselves through a small hatch down below into the chain locker. The portside anchor was out and there was half a chain left in the port side locker, the chain was rusted and thick of man’s thigh and there was dried mud on the bottom of the locker.
“Stand-by there below” a voice cried through the chine pipe and the windlass started working with noise og rattle on the forecastle heaving the chain up and lowering it down into locker. We took the hooks and pulled the lowering chain from side to side in the locker, trimming it and coiling it all along, the chain turned thirty with mud of seabed and we soon were covered with the dry bad smelling mud. The chain was heavy and we sweated more heavily till the command came through the chain pipe. “Haloo Boys there below.Did your heard there. Get off from the locker”!
There was not seen any expression of compassion of the men on deck as we emerged from the locker and joined the part on the forecastle head.

the lifeboat

We started fix the boat, making her sea shape, ‘the sea clearing’, as they called it by the ship's usage. We took out gears and sails from the boat and piled that on deck. Many interesting things appeared which use I had no idea. The second mate came and took look over the brink into boat. “It’s leaky.There mus be many holes. You is going Plung, Plung, if your lower her down,” he said by his odd way to speak.

the bums

I looked over the rail, down on the quay. In spite of the late hour, there were people there, walking along the illuminated quayside and hanging around here and there, in pairs or in groups. My attention was arrested by a black figure at the foot of an unmoving crane—the black, lonely shape of a man leaning against the foot of the crane. There was something strange about this motionless, dumb, black figure standing there in the dark; and because he stood at the distance of about a hundred and fifty feet, it was difficult to make out in what direction he was looking.
“It’s the fucking phantom there. Lurking for girls,” Junky said.
“Girls?” I asked.
“Yes, whores,” he answered, taking a quick glance at his wrist. “Usually they don’t come down here until the small hours, if they come at all. That little bastard down there will spend the night waiting like a watchdog. It’ll be a cold night.”
I wondered what loyalty made this sad-faced knight stand there, out on a cold winter night, watching women’s illicit boardings. What was the use? It could not be that sort of duty that made him stand alone in the cold night; no, there must be something else on the mind of this fever-eyed dog.
We heard the noise of an argument from the officers’ mess. Then there was a shout: “Come on, come on deck you!” We went to see what it was all about.
The Chief Mate stood in the passageway, his arms waving. A bit in front of him stood the Pole, still with a benevolent expression on his round face. His face was literally perspiring. I saw at once that there was a fight going on.
With a light and easy movement the Pole hit the face of the Chief Mate—it was easy indeed; there was no resistance or will to fight anymore. The Chief Mate let his hand fall, turned his back, and went into the mess room. The whole performance was over in less than five minutes.

The night was bitterly cold, and snow was falling. The light of the lamps made the snow shine yellow on the quay. A man with a gaunt, unshaven face, bare-headed and wearing a snappy gabardine, was climbing up the gangway. Junky, on guard, blocked the way of the embarking stranger.
“What do you want?” I heard him demand.
“I’m looking for some friends of mine,” was the reply.
“What’s your friend’s name?”
“Legion Kane is the name of the stoker I’m looking for. I’m a stoker too, you know. No jobs now—it’s winter, you know. The winter’s theirs, the summer’s ours,” the man said, nodding his head toward the bridge.
“No man like that onboard,” said Junky.
“Should be.”
“There’s no one aboard with a name like that.”
“Let me come aboard for a bit to get a drink and warm my feet.”
“No way.” Junky held firm and the man turned around and started for shore. I bent to look down over the rail and saw this freeze-dried Lazarus descend to shore, then cross the quay and disappear behind a storage hut. For a moment, I felt privilege—the familiar shipboard behind me, with its warm interiors, and all that food, made my feel cozy—made me feel like a belonged to the ships’ company.

At midnight, on that particular night when the old year turned into the New Year, there were siren blasts from the ships around, and the wild hailing of men bidding the New Year welcome.

The last cabin, on the port side of the amidships passageway, was the abode of Mr. Hendrickson, the third mate. Mr. Hendrickson was a large, bony man, with a gaunt face. He was already past his best years, and there was a screwball stare in his watery gray eyes. He seemed to spent most of his time in his cabin, for I very seldom found him sitting in the mess room with the other people. Mr. Hendrickson was a native of Aland, a Finnish Swede by descent, from an island in the Gulf of Finland, which was famous for the great days of its deep-sea sailing ships.
Now, his cabin door was wide open. Seeing me pass by, he beckoned for me to step in. I entered; he was sitting at a small table. After he gestured or me to sit down, he filled a glass with whiskey. With an imperious motion, he waved the glass toward me. He didn’t say much, just sat and made noises—for a while he grunted, as though he was trying to remember something. Suddenly, he hit his forehead with his palm, and if he had just now remembered his name and address, he loudly exclaimed: “I am Rilly Hendrickson of Mariehamn, Aland, Finland!” He said something else, his eyes glittering. He seemed to have fallen into his confused memory so deeply that he had totally forgotten my presence. Then, he burst into a fit of awful coughing. I stood up and set off, leaving him to duel with his cough. Far out, I could still hear how the ancient sailing ship’s mariner was coughing alone in his small cabin.
On my way to the deck, I came across Rissa. “The Captain doesn’t like this noise,” she said, wishing me good night and a better New Year, then disappearing into her cabin.
The next day was a Sunday; and as Sunday was always a holiday in the port, there was silence all over the shipboard. I did my duty, though no one appeared in the mess room until nine o’clock. The cook was sick. So was everyone else on board.