Berth (ship)

“ BERTH AND SPACE. In ship-building, the distance from the moulding edge of one timber to the moulding edge of the next timber. Same as room and space, or timber and space.
BERTH-DECK. The 'tween decks.
BERTHER. He who assigns places for the respective hammocks to hang in.
BERTHING. The rising or working up of the planks of a ship's sides; as berthing up a bulk-head, or bringing up in general. Berthing also denotes the planking outside, above the sheer-strake, and is called the berthing of the quarter-deck, of the poop, or of the forecastle, as the case may be. ”

“ There were times, too, when Dick or Alec would take post in the engine-room, and there stand at the levers which controlled the movements of this giant vessel. Never once did the gallant midshipman lose his admiration for this work of art, this massive ship, so huge, so stable, and so strong, and yet so extremely frail in appearance. Never did he cease to wonder at that magnificent vista of almost transparent girders and beams and rods ranging overhead, whenever he cared to crane his neck and stare upward. ”

“ Then Bertric signed to me that I should help him lift the inboard end of the planking, and we stepped forward together and bent to do so. Even as my hands touched the wood there came a sudden rushing, and I felt a new lift of the ship, and into the open gangway poured the head of a great, still wave, flooding the deck around our feet, and hiding in its smother of white foam and green water that which lay before us, so that we must needs start back hastily. The ship lurched and righted herself, and the wave was gone. ”

“ Bertric and I lifted our voices together in a great hail, and then in a second, and third, but there was no answer. Only she yawed and swung away from us as if she would pass us, and at that Dalfin cried out, while I paid off fast to follow her, and again Bertric hailed. Now she was broad off our bows and to the starboard, an arrow flight from us, and Bertric and I were staring at her in amazement. She was the most wonderfully appointed ship in all sea bravery we had ever seen--but there was no man at the helm, and not a soul on deck.
"They are asleep, or dead," said I ”

“ The last fagot went overboard, and Bertric rose up and looked at me. His face was white as with some fear, and he stepped backward away from the penthouse aft.
"Comrades," he said, "why did they want to burn this ship? She is not burnt, only because as she ran in the light breeze there was no wind to set the peat aflame. They meant her to burn when she was in the open sea--when the spark they set in the turf should have had time to grow to flame, and fire the brushwood. ”

“ For five weary months they endured the winter gales of the Atlantic, wallowing to and fro along the trade routes, outwardly a scallywag tramp, but behind her untidy bulwarks observing, with certain necessary modifications, the discipline and customs of his Majesty's Navy. With paint-pot and sail-cloth they improved the ship's disguise from time to time, and wiled away the heart-breaking monotony of the days by inventing fresh devices to conceal their character. ”

“ She is falling! We shall all be killed."
He formed the mad resolution of rushing to the engine-room, and stepped in that direction. But, as we have said, the inclination of the decks considerably upset his equilibrium. The magnate indeed took a header, slithered along the smooth platform beneath the gas chambers, and landed up against one of the partitions with a bang which shook his eyeglass from its holding. By then the vessel was within a hundred feet of the canal, sailing along directly over it, and just ahead of the ship ploughing her way through the water. ”

“ It was the head of a square, brown sail, the ship herself to which it belonged being hull down, but holding the same course as ourselves, or thereabouts, so far as one could judge as yet. And before long a second hove up from astern the first.
"They are running a bit freer than we," Bertric said. "They have a shift of wind astern of them, whereby they are overhauling us."
"Two brown-sailed ships," said I. "They mind one too much of Heidrek to be pleasant, else one might welcome the coming of any honest Norsemen who would help us to do the right." ”

“ A rope ladder dropped from the upper deck of the ship, and a figure in oil-skins, which had been standing in the stern-sheets of the steam-boat, caught it as it swayed.
“Lay off,” he said curtly to the coxswain, and climbed inboard.
A seaman stood at the gangway holding a lantern above his head, and as the new-comer stepped inboard another figure came forward into the light to greet him. He was a loose-limbed, youngish man, wearing the cap and monkey jacket of a commander. Leather sea-boots reached to his knees, and he dragged his feet as he walked, as if oppressed with a great weariness. ”

“ And the foaming, seething billows now
⁠Are fearful to look upon.
She beareth weight of precious freight,
⁠Of gold and gems good store;
She beareth Bertram and his bride
⁠Back to old England’s shore.
“O captain, give me the ship’s small boat!”
⁠Young Bertram loud he cried;
“Oh! give me straight the ship’s small boat,
⁠To save my fair young bride!”
“I will not give thee the ship’s small boat,
⁠To sink in such a sea ”

“ For the great airship lay helpless in the air, turning slowly as if on a pivot, and dangling a thousand feet above that tiny Union Jack which marked the summit of Mount Everest. Then a breeze caught her and wafted her to one side, so that Dick, looking desperately from the window of the engine-room, could gaze down into India. But a swirling current from the opposite direction gripped her a moment later, swayed the ship which was rocking like a vessel at sea, drove her round and launched her northward, till the opposite slopes of the Himalayas came into view. ”

“ A Zeppelin can't escape. Every breath plays on her big lateral bulk. In my ship the wind strikes a thin keel on whichever side it comes, is divided there, and passes over and under the ship, sliding as it were upwards and downwards away from the gradually-sloping surfaces which lead from those keels. In fact, the ship is almost as flat as a tortoise, and as wide comparatively, though she's very much longer."
"And—and this flattening of the ship makes her laugh at gales?" asked Andrew, staring at the plans before him. ”

“ Alec told him, with a laugh. "You see, if the wind's blowing, we head up to it. The hangar opens away from the point from which the gale comes. We manœuvre [Pg 93] opposite it, and enter easily. You watch. No one is wanted to hang on to ropes. Our pilot can manage the ship in any direction. See, we've dropped opposite the shed; but we're not quite head on. We're getting near it, however, for those propellers located in the cross tubes are being set to work. Ah! that's better. See, we're creeping in. Now our huge lateral keels run into wide slots built into the sides of the hangar. ”

“ As the Arla drew in to an anchorage in the midst of mangrove swamps, a double row of barbed wire was stretched around above her rail. That looked like business, and when Bertie saw the shore canoes alongside, armed with spears, bows and arrows, and Sniders, he wished more earnestly than ever that the cruise was over.
That evening the natives were slow in leaving the ship at sundown. A number of them checked the mate when he ordered them ashore. “Never mind, I'll fix them,” said Captain Hansen, diving below. ”

“ Bertric and I leant on the gunwale close by, and Dalfin set himself on the deck near us. And all the while she spoke, Bertric was glancing eastward across the still water for the first sign of the breeze we longed for. I know now that on him was a dread lest it should bring with it the brown sails of Heidrek's two ships; but he did not show it. It was likely that men would have watched for the smoke of the burning ship, and that when they did not see it, would put out to search, guessing what had happened. ”

“ I hop into the water just here, and swim up alongside the steamer, and when I get to her bows, I clamber aboard somehow. We all know that she's anchored in mid-stream, and I'm pretty well sure, from the sounds which came when she dropped her anchor, that she's moored by a hawser. A chain would have clanked out over the side, and we should have heard it, whereas there was a sharp splash and nothing followed. See the point, eh?" he asked eagerly. "She's moored by a rope, and I have a knife here that would cut through a ship's cable." ”

“ It is a sad subject. Poor Bertha! The gallant Ceaton never came home. His health gave way, but he did not die of disease. He fell on the deck of his own ship in action, at the moment the enemy’s flag was seen to come down, the cheers of his victorious crew ringing in his ears.
Now, dear readers, old and young, farewell. I must bring these recollections of my early career as a Midshipman to a conclusion. I wish that I had reason to believe they were as edifying as I hope they may have proved amusing. All I ask is, that you will deal lightly with the faults of the work. ”

“ Another, in more recent times, as flagship on the East Indies station, had the honour of escorting his present Majesty King Edward, then Prince of Wales, through the Indian Ocean on his historic visit to India. Yet another Undaunted, our present cruiser of the name, was Lord Charles Beresford's first ship as a captain of the Royal Navy—with the Mediterranean fleet under Sir George Tryon,—and proved herself during a memorable commission nulli secundus for smartness and efficiency, in the spirit of her well-remembered duty call:—
'Undaunteds,' be ready! ”

“ A roll-topped desk occupied a corner near the fireplace, and round the bulkheads, affixed to white enamelled battens, hung water-colour paintings of his ships. A sloop of war under full sail; a brig, close-hauled, beating out of Plymouth Sound; a tiny gunboat at anchor in a backwater of the Upper Yangtse. There were spick-and-span cruisers; a quaint, top-heavy looking battleship that in her day had been considered the last word in naval construction, and whose name to-day provokes reminiscences from the older generation and from the younger half-dubious smiles ”

“ He was beginning to catch some of Alec's enthusiasm. He was longing to peep into every corner, to get to understand every detail. And we must remember that Mr. Midshipman Hamshaw was not unacquainted with things mechanical. What naval officer can be in these days, indeed, when the old wooden walls have long since departed, and when your modern ship is composed of steel, while almost every movement aboard her, however trivial, is, where possible, carried out by some cleverly-contrived mechanical means? No, Dick had a fondness for mechanics. ”

“ Joe, tell us like a good fellow, how far can a man see into other waters?"
"A hundred feet, sometimes more. In the Yellow Sea not nearly as much. But let us take the English Channel. I have carried out experiments there, and have detected the presence of a wreck in quite deep water. As to a submarine, from a ship such as this is one could drop a heavy mine over a submerged vessel without difficulty and without much danger to oneself."
"So that the use of submarines will become limited once such ships as this are built in numbers," ventured the Major. ”

“ Lightly laden, and with a great part of her hull high out of water, the high wind was driving her before it, while my vessel, her bow to the breeze, was moving at a much slower rate.
As I looked at the rapidly approaching steamer, it seemed as if she certainly must run into the Sparhawk. But for that I cared not. All that I now hoped for was that Bertha should come to me. Whether one vessel sank or the other, or whether both went down together, I should be with Bertha, I would live or die with her. ”

“ His words conveyed the impression that if anything in this world were a success it was the curious lift attached to the great airship, although, as a matter of course, that huge vessel was of even greater excellence. But it can be imagined that to one who had never seen the ship floating in the air, who had never even set foot upon her galleries, nor climbed to the height of her upper deck, it was hard to believe that what Alec described so glowingly could in fact be possible. ”

“ The tinker climbed into the cart and handed a petrol tin down to the speaker. "Ein!" he said. "Count them," and lifted out another. "Zwei!" The third man, who had not hitherto spoken, received them with a grunt, and set off down to the boat with his burden.
Eight times the trio made the journey to and from the beach. Three times they waited while the tiny collapsible boat ferried its cargo out to where, in the darkness, a long, black shadow lay, with the water lapping round it, like a partly submerged whale. The last time the tinker remained alone on the beach. ”

“ Why, that type of ship can't hold a candle to this one!" declared Alec loftily. "I've seen 'em. They're fine to look at, fast, and have big lifting capacity. But see how they behave. Let it blow just a little hard, and they're done for, that is if they happen to be outside their sheds and run out of petrol. It's only a week or more ago since one of them lost her way in a fog, ran out of spirit, and was forced to descend. She dropped into the hands of the French, my boy, and they soon had every one of her cherished secrets laid bare. Don't you make any mistake. This ship's not a Zeppelin. ”

“ Only when they reached the house did Betty volunteer a remark, and then in the privacy of her own room, whose window looked out across the harbour and the sea.
"Oh, I hate the War," she said. "I hate it, I hate it. . . ."
[1] Paying calls.
V THE KING'S PARDON Ask the first thousand bluejackets you meet ashore, any afternoon the Fleet is giving leave, why they joined the navy. Nine hundred and ninety-nine will eye you suspiciously, awaiting the inevitable tract. If none is forthcoming they will give a short, grim laugh, shake their heads, and, as likely as not, expectorate. ”