Dockworker

“ Down the deserted wind-swept streets we drive steadily on, till house lights glinting behind the blinds and hurrying figures of a 'night-shift' show that we are near the river and the docks. A turn along the waterside, the dim outlines of the ships and tracery of mast and spar looming large and fantastic in the darkness, and the driver, questioning, brings up at a dim-lit shed, bare of goods and cargo—the berth of a full-laden outward-bounder. My barque—the Florence, of Glasgow—lies in a corner of the dock, ready for sea. ”

“ Small wonder that you hand a dollar to your sister and kiss the porter who has brought your steamer-rugs.
Ah, blessed moment when the dock begins to move away with all those laughing, crying, waving, shouting people; when snub-nosed tugs begin to warp the ship into the stream; when the final howlings of the megaphonomaniacs sound dim. ("Bon voyage, Charlie!" "Take care of yourself, old man! Think of me in gay Par-ree!") ”

“ A floating dry dock, as its name makes clear, floats on the water, the vessel resting on the bottom of the dry dock after the water has been removed. (2) A graven dry dock is dug into the land. The vessel floats in but rests on land once the water has been pumped out. (3) Finally there is the marine railway, on which the vessel is drawn out of the water, instead of the water being drawn away from the vessel. A ship is no more and no less on land when it rests in a graven dry dock than when it rests on a marine railway. ”

“ Her decks, encumbered with harbour gear and tackle, are given over to the rude hands of the longshoreman; a lumber yard for harbour refuse, a dumping ground for the ashes of the bustling dock tugs. On the hatch covers of her empty holds planks and stages are thrown aside, left as when the last of the cargo was dragged from her; hoist ropes, frayed and chafed to feather edges, swing from the yardarms; broken cargo slings lie rotting in a mess of grain refuse. The work is done. There is not a labourer's pay in her; the stevedores are gone ashore. ”

“ As the work is intermittent the men are paid by the hour, and there is a keeper who does nothing else but take down the time each one is employed. Certain gangs of longshoremen stick to certain lines, and many of them have worked nearly all their lives for the same company. When the loading of a ship is completed a detailed inspection of cargo is made by one of the officers, and for this reason the boss stevedore is always careful to prevent slovenly methods on the part of his men, being aware that in the end he will be the one held responsible for haste or error. ”

“ There are sixteen or seventeen rafters (all preferable men) employed by the Commercial Dock Company, and in busy times there are occasionally as many as forty casual rafters, or “pokers,” as they are called, from their poking about the docks for a job: these casual men are not capable of rafting a ship, nor are they free watermen, they are only employed to float the timber from the ship up to the ponds and stow it, or to attend to deliveries. The skill of the rafter lies in gauging and sorting the timber according to size, quality, and ownership, and making it up into floats. ”

“ Anon, the thunder of the tugs' pulsations eases, then stops: they back away, turn, and speed off on a quest for other employment—while we move ahead, out of the run of the tide, and make fast at the pier.
Our ship is keenly in demand. The dockers are there, ready with gear and tackle to board and commence work. The wharf superintendent hails us from the dockside before the warps are fast. He is anxious to know the amount of ballast coal to be shifted from the holds before he can commence loading. ”

“ The knots of labourers trooping in clumsily round the corners of cargo-sheds to eat their food in peace out of red cotton handkerchiefs had the air of picnicking by the side of a lonely mountain pool. They were restful (and I should say very unprofitable) , those basins, where the chief officer of one of the ships involved in the harassing, strenuous, noisy activity of the New South Dock only a few yards away could escape in the dinner-hour to stroll, unhampered by men and affairs, meditating (if he chose) on the vanity of all things human. ”

“ The Court of Appeals properly concluded that the work was part of the loading process and that therefore the longshoreman was in the service of the ship. That gives pragmatic, realistic meaning to the concept of loading and avoids the narrow, grudging, hypertechnical definition.
Loading activity that involves work on the ship and on the dock. Longshoremen are both shipside workers and shoreside workers and move back and forth from deck to dock. At times an individual worker may be using the ship's appliances and a moment later the stevedore's appliances. ”

“ It is interesting to watch the labours of a crew of workmen in a dry dock. If a ship looks large in the water, it looks startlingly gigantic in a dry dock, especially if one walks down to the dock floor and views the high bow or the overhanging stern from the level of the keel. Propellers from a distance look small, but with half-a-dozen men realigning their blades or working about them, they look huge indeed. ”

“ Into a little-used dock space remote from harbour traffic she is put aside—out of date and duty, surging at her rusted moorings when the dock gates are swung apart and laden steamships pass out on the road she may no longer travel. The days pass—the weeks—the months; the tide ebbs, and comes again; fair winds carry but trailing smoke-wrack to the rim of a far horizon; head winds blow the sea mist in on her—but she lies unheeding. ”

“ The docks on the Middlesex side of the river, which are used for the reception and unlading of timber-ships, are the West India and the Regent’s Dock, or the entrance to the Regent’s Canal.
The number of wood-laden ships that have entered the three principal docks for the last ten years is given below. I am informed by Mr. Jones of the Commercial Docks, that for every ship above 100 tons six men are required to sort and pile away. Rafting from ships of the above burden requires one or two men daily, according to circumstances. ”

“ The Chief Mate who gives his crew a right deal, and knows how to handle and take care of his men, never has any trouble in getting work done after hours. The answer is be human—also just and firm—no sailor has any use for a jelly fish officer.
Upkeep. The work in port is usually confined to washing down, cleaning up after the stevedores, preparing holds for cargo, painting over the side, painting the boot-topping when the vessel is light, and cleaning up after coaling. At this time the steering gear and steering engine should be looked after, cleaned up and overhauled. ”

“ The dry-dock accommodates a ship as long as three hundred and forty feet, and is one hundred feet across. The gouty steamer potters comfortably in, and lays up its tired keel, while the dock is being discharged, as serenely as a patient who lays his foot on the knee of a corn-doctor: in due time, relieved and sound, the invalid is ready to take the stage of life again. Another boat comes in to be lengthened: it has growing-pains, and wants assistance. The stern is sliced off, the keel is spliced, and the adolescent leaves the docks longer by twenty feet. ”

“ See that necessary lines, fenders, ladders, etc., are handy.
Prepare to do the work that is necessary on board ship, and best done while the vessel is dry, viz.,
Paint scuppers; hose reels. Range cables on floor of dock, overhaul same. Clean and paint or bitumastic the chain lockers. Have windlass overhauled. Paint funnels; cargo booms, king posts, etc. Paint and overhaul boats.
As the crew of a merchantman is not any too large, only work that can be thoroughly done while in dock should be attempted. ”

“ To my surprise, the water is pumped out of the dry docks by a horse-mill instead of a steam-engine. In one of the dry docks we saw the unfortunate ship FortitudoI.2 repairing. All her timbers were decayed; her copper destroyed, and she required three new masts; her repairs I.19 cost the house of Roelands of Antwerp eight thousand pounds. There is at this dock a huge iron kettle, in which ship timber is boiled in sea water in order to protect it from the dry rot. About two thousand two hundred men are daily employed in this yard, and some earn thirty-six shillings a week. ”

“ Men were rushing hither and thither, as if their lives depended on it, with tools, coils of rope, bundles of clothing, and trucks of belated freight. Dockmen, sailors, stevedores, porters, hackmen, outward-bound passengers, and visitors coming ashore again after taking leave of their friends, jostled each other; and all this, seen under the fitful lamp-light, with the great black waste of the shadowy river behind it, seemed like the whirl of a troubled dream. ”

“ We call it lightening a ship when she is laden too heavy, and draws too much water to enter the docks. In such a case we generally begin discharging the timber or deals in the river, either off Deptford or Blackwall, according as the ship may be for the docks on the Middlesex or Surrey side. In the river we discharge the deals into lighters, whereas when the ship is in the dock we generally discharge along a stage on to the shore. ”

“ They are good hands at managing their own craft, and although they might not be of much use aloft, they are as a rule thoroughly trustworthy fellows, and quite as good for work on deck as our own men. I will give you an order on the dockyard for any repairs that you cannot get executed elsewhere. They will of course be charged for, but need not be paid for here, as they will go down in the account against the ship."
Fortunately the dockyard was not busy, and the Agile and the Arrow were the next morning taken into dock, and a strong gang of men at once set to work upon them. ”

“ When the water is all out, there she stands, balanced and braced. Now men can work under her and all over her—and inside. They{51} scrape off the barnacles, paint the hull, and repair any parts that have begun to wear out. To reach some parts of the hull painters use long-handled brushes—really long. They’re often three times as tall as a man!
Experts go over the ship as carefully as doctors examine people. But many men work at top speed in shifts around the clock, and a ship often spends only twenty-four hours in drydock. ”

“ Waves which were unusually big would knock down the men in the water, burden and all, and then there would be laughter from all hands, and grumbles from the victim. I never saw men work harder. The freight was all flung out and landed and packed in half an hour. It passed out in a continual stream from both sides of the boat; everybody working like a person possessed. And when the lugger was nearly free of cargo, and the string of workers in the water was broken on the port side, it occurred to me that I had a chance of escape. ”

“ The hurry of the times, the loading and discharging organization of the docks, the use of hoisting machinery which works quickly and will not wait, the cry for prompt despatch, the very size of his ship, stand nowadays between the modern seaman and the thorough knowledge of his craft.
There are profitable ships and unprofitable ships. The profitable ship will carry a large load through all the hazards of the weather, and, when at rest, will stand up in dock and shift from berth to berth without ballast. ”

“ They are ill content with the vile weather and their job in the open, where the rain lashes down pitilessly, soaking their working clothes. Doubtless they envy the dry divers their suits of proofed rubber, when they are called on to manhandle the heavy timber shores from the mud and litter of the dockside and launch them out towards the steel sides of the settling vessels. There the tide-workers on deck secure them by lanyards, and the spars hang in even order, sighted on doublings of the plates, ready to pin the ships on a steady keel when the water drains away. ”

“ The jingle of the anchor chains, the rattle of the links of the trucks that bring down the cargoes, the metallic clank of sheets of iron falling on the stone pavement, the dull thud of wood, the creaking of the carts plying for hire, the whistles of the steamers, piercingly shrill and hoarsely roaring, the shouts of dock laborers, sailors, and customs officers— all these sounds melt into the deafening symphony of the working day, that hovering uncertainty hangs over the harbor, as though afraid to float upward and be lost.
And fresh waves of sound continually rise up from the earth to join it ”

“ The dock, if it could be commenced upon this moderate scale, could not, it is true, have been considered as a powerful rival to the other dock establishments, but it would have relieved them from the greatest part of the lumber trade, which they could not accommodate without great inconvenience and even loss, such as the timber, guano, hemp, flax, coal trades, &c.; moreover, it would give accommodation for laying up in ordinary the great number of vessels which are always more or less unemployed in the port of London. ”

“ This is the dark side of the Dock-labourer's story. It has a brighter and better one inside, where on miles and miles of wharf hundreds of men, package- and bale-laden, are hurrying to and fro, stowing the produce of the world in shed after shed. Thousands of barrels of sugar are lying in one, and the air is perfectly sweet with it. The ground is treacly with it, and one's boots are saturated with it as one walks through a thick slime of what looks like toffee gone wrong in a sweetstuff window on a hot summer day. ”