II.

Some commanders of ships take their Departure from the home coast sadly, in a spirit of grief and discontent.  They have a wife, children perhaps, some affection at any rate, or perhaps only some pet vice, that must be left behind for a year or more.  I remember only one man who walked his deck with a springy step, and gave the first course of the passage in an elated voice.  But he, as I learned afterwards, was leaving nothing behind him, except a welter of debts and threats of legal proceedings.

On the other hand, I have known many captains who, directly their ship had left the narrow waters of the Channel, would disappear from the sight of their ship’s company altogether for some three days or more.  They would take a long dive, as it were, into their state-room, only to emerge a few days afterwards with a more or less serene brow.  Those were the men easy to get on with.  Besides, such a complete retirement seemed to imply a satisfactory amount of trust in their officers, and to be trusted displeases no seaman worthy of the name.

On my first voyage as chief mate with good Captain MacW- I remember that I felt quite flattered, and went blithely about my duties, myself a commander for all practical purposes.  Still, whatever the greatness of my illusion, the fact remained that the real commander was there, backing up my self-confidence, though invisible to my eyes behind a maple-wood veneered cabin-door with a white china handle.

That is the time, after your Departure is taken, when the spirit of your commander communes with you in a muffled voice, as if from the sanctum sanctorum of a temple; because, call her a temple or a “hell afloat”—­as some ships have been called—­the captain’s state-room is surely the august place in every vessel.

The good MacW- would not even come out to his meals, and fed solitarily in his holy of holies from a tray covered with a white napkin.  Our steward used to bend an ironic glance at the perfectly empty plates he was bringing out from there.  This grief for his home, which overcomes so many married seamen, did not deprive Captain MacW- of his legitimate appetite.  In fact, the steward would almost invariably come up to me, sitting in the captain’s chair at the head of the table, to say in a grave murmur, “The captain asks for one more slice of meat and two potatoes.”  We, his officers, could hear him moving about in his berth, or lightly snoring, or fetching deep sighs, or splashing and blowing in his bath-room; and we made our reports to him through the keyhole, as it were.  It was the crowning achievement of his amiable character that the answers we got were given in a quite mild and friendly tone.  Some commanders in their periods of seclusion are constantly grumpy, and seem to resent the mere sound of your voice as an injury and an insult.