those pre-war days from 1908 to 1913, when trade grew and changed enormously, a voyage from the Continent to West Africa was said to be one of the toughest in the mercantile marine. In the years I mention, there were no trade union secretaries opening harbours, for there were no harbours to speak of on that vast stretch of coastline, and there were no native kings emptying their bottles of gin on the beach to set a good example for their subjects!
There was hardly a coastal village from Dakar to the Congo that wasn’t visited by the company’s vessels. I was on all the different runs at one time or another – the creeks, the oil rivers, and the Congo. We sailed from Hamburg to the slimy and shark-infested Niger creeks, leaving a trail of trade gin at every little out-of-the-way factory (as these trading stations were called) from Sierra Leone to the Cameroons, and then down the fever-reeking Gabon and Muni rivers to load mahogany and other wood for the return voyage to Hamburg. Unlike the mail boats from England, we had none of the pleasures of orchestras, French menus, ships’ doctors, or other luxuries. On these steamers, we just made do with rum, bully beef, and pyjamas instead.
The steamship SS Mango, in which I sailed as second mate, was an old rattletrap engaged in the West African trade. In the two years I was on board she was commanded by five different masters: one too shaky to hold a sextant, one a card fiend who would play patience going through the surf, two who were really quite mad, and the last a teetotaller. As the second officer, I was reckoned to be a little crazy, but the chief officers were considerably worse. One took drugs and another consumed trade gin, or ‘methylated’ as it is known, a practice not tolerated even on this coast.
Sailing from Hamburg in the SS Mango is quite an experience. With many thousands of green cases of gin, a few additional trade goods loaded in her rusty interior, the lower bridge piled high with potatoes and other items for the captain’s private trade, and with a dozen dogs to be sold down the coast kennelled in the forecastle, the Mango swirls past the gay night haunts of St. Pauli,i down into the dreary lower reaches of the Elbe, and out into the teeth of a howling north-westerly gale. The old packet wallows, creaks, and groans under protest at her top speed of about seven knots through the bad weather and the nasty seas in the English Channel before she can enter the Bay of Biscay.
The deck cargo of heavy oil drums breaks loose from its lashings off Dover and by midnight what remains of the third mate, who had left the bridge to see what was wrong, has to be carried back to his cabin located in the officers’ accommodation under the poop. To cross the slippery decks that are continuously awash from the heavy seas with dry clothes in one hand and clutching the lifeline in the other is indeed a feat, not one of dry feet though. The third officer’s body is landed ashore at Plymouth. We lie at anchor for a couple of days windbound before setting off into the worst gale I had ever seen in the Bay of Biscay. With wicked grey-green curling monsters rearing high above the forecastle head, she dips down into the appalling deep troughs between the rollers, regular ‘Cape Horners’ I would call them, but more dangerously steep. For three days she lies with her nose to the shrieking wind, her cargo derricks swinging perilously and with the engines broken down. The skipper really thought the old tub was doomed and finished when the first mate was injured. By instinct, physique, brain, and mind, I am the conventional ‘office’ man if ever there was one, never as happy as when doing the accounts, manifests, and ship’s business. I find myself beginning to dislike the sea life, but it is too late now.
She didn’t go down though and hasn’t done yet as far as I know. A few years ago I saw her name on a sale board in a Fenchurch Street office: ‘The fine full powered steamer Mango.’ Evidently there are advantages in not telling the whole truth when it comes to advertising!
The skipper dashes me a bottle of champagne when we get her on a southerly course once more. After six-hour watches on that sodden lurching bridge and messing about with the sea anchor and oil bags in between, one needs a tonic. The German crew are steady and good workers, but they aren’t at their best in those conditions. After crossing the Bay, we arrive off Las Palmas where we lie at anchor on her rusty cable for a few hours before heading south to meander along the monotonous sandy coastline of Gambia and the swampy peninsula of Sierra Leone.
For people who are easily influenced, there is a great deal of romance attached to this part of the world. British philanthropists founded the colony of Sierra Leone in 1787 with 400 repatriated slaves and 40 European prostitutes. Most of them died from disease and fighting the local tribes, but obviously nature took its course because look at the number of people in the colony now. Personally I never want to see the confounded country again.
At Sierra Leone, 60 ‘Kroo’ii boys are shipped as stevedores to discharge the vessel’s cargo along the coast and to load her up with the logged wood exports. No accommodation is provided for them on board so they sleep on the iron decks. They work from early morning to nightfall and live on a diet of salt meat and rotten fish. The distinguishing sign of the tribe is the blue tattoo mark on their foreheads. Being the most intelligent on the coast, there are some good sailors in their midst. The headman is in sole charge of the crowd and in cases of insubordination or arguments amongst them, the offender is lashed to the rigging and soundly flogged.
From Monrovia, where the head customs official was caught going ashore with the captain’s cat under his very much gold braided uniform coat, we progress slowly down the Grain, Windward, Ivory, and Gold coasts,iii landing trade gin and cotton goods onto the sandy beaches where the Atlantic rollers ceaselessly thunder. Since the war, trade with the Gold Coast has increased tremendously, probably because it is the richest country in the world for its size, exporting half the world’s cocoa supply, a quarter of the manganese ore, and large quantities of palm oil, gold, diamonds, and bananas. In what was until quite recently ‘Darkest Africa’, 500 new motor car licences were issued in 1928 in the city of Kumasi.
With a harbour on the Gold Coast becoming imperative, Sir Robert McAlpine commenced work in 1921 building the port of Takoradi, a few miles southwest of Sekondi. The harbour is some 200 acres in extent and cost around £4 million to build, but at the time of writing, every ton of cargo is landed on the palm-fringed beaches by means of surf boats.
Here and there we pick up native deck passengers including many young dusky belles. They flaunt their high-heeled French shoes and open work silk stockings and are generally accompanied by half-naked black servants and howling babies. They always carry with them various household effects including that useful ceramic article of toilet-ware often found beneath the bed.
In the early morning mist the vessel anchors as near to the roaring surf edge as she can safely lie. With the rattle of her cable announcing our arrival, the surf boats leave the shore manned by half-naked boat boys paddling as a man to a fantastic chant. I must say it is as well to be on good terms with these boat boys as a capsized boat is a frequent occurrence. Aboard the Mango, the ‘mammy chair’, a box-like contrivance for landing passengers, is slung overside from the derrick head and filled with a laughing, fighting swarm of natives with their umbrellas, babies, pots and pans, looking glasses, poultry, and what not. The chair is swung clear of the rolling decks, the winch rattles, and they are deposited pell-mell into the heaving surf boat far beneath.
The first boat takes the third officer ashore, an experience that on a bad day he will never forget. From the steamer, it doesn’t look so alarming, but once in the boat, the crested white foaming walls ahead rapidly grow in dimensions. At a signal from the headman positioned at the big steering oar aft, the paddles cease for a moment. Waiting for a great green-capped roller to tower astern, he gives a blood-curdling yell and the paddles furiously stab the water. The heavily laden boat swinging high onto the breaking crest of the wave is propelled at tremendous speed into the safety of the shallow water, where a moment later a crewman will carry ashore the boat’s passengers.
The third officer’s duties are to wander around the beach, superintend
