all their fodder and utensils on board for a voyage to England in only three hours. Packed from stem to stern with horseflesh, the whining electric fans make little difference to the heat and stench below decks; the lucky ones are the animals and their tenders in the fresh air of the upper deck.
Our short stay in Virginia is not without incident. The assistant vet, a German living in Boston, aired his views on the war too freely and has been kicked ashore to find other work. There has also been trouble amongst the culinary staff. The horse tender’s cook, a fat oily Indian, insulted the Turkish ship’s cook and a fight ensued. Strong words passed before knives appeared and a fireman was stabbed when trying to separate them. A warrant was taken out for the Indian’s arrest, but he was nowhere to be found. Later in the evening, and much to everyone’s surprise, he appeared outside the chief officer’s cabin door and asked permission to go ashore for the evening to see his girlfriend. In the meantime, the Turk abandoned his job and ‘jumped ship’, never to be seen again. With time being too short to hire a replacement cook, the warrant was cancelled and the Indian promoted to being the ship’s chef. It’s a poor knife that doesn’t do anyone any good!
We are soon back at sea; on the second day out, I’m leaning over the bridge rail enjoying the cool breeze when I see a row of heads pop out of the horseboxes on deck. The animals also appear to be revelling in the fresh air until it dawns on me that the wreath of smoke curling up from the bows shouldn’t be there at all. A fire on a packed horse transport would be ghastly. We are lucky that this one is confined to the bosun’s store and is promptly extinguished; on the other side of the bulkhead and just a few feet away is hay, oats, and straw for 700 horses for three weeks.
In the two voyages we made across the Atlantic, we lost only four out of the 1,400 horses we transported, which I believe was a record. The Canadian vet had every right to feel proud and was always boasting ‘that there were no flies on him’; unfortunately that didn’t stop the flies from landing on everyone else on board!
As we near the danger zone of the Western Approaches, the lifeboats are swung out and their launching crews mustered. My lot consists of two wireless operators, the baker, a Swede, two Greeks and three Negro horse tenders from the southern states. The bridge is barricaded round with bales of hay to protect the steering position in case of shellfire. The horses are restless and continuously neigh as they scent the approaching land. The amount of good manure being dumped overboard during the passage worried me. If only I could have had that manure a little later in my career when I went ashore to take up farming!
No sooner are we safely anchored off Avonmouth than we’re ordered back out to sea to sail round to Liverpool. The German submarines are very active in the Irish Sea and many good ships, like the White Star liner Arabic II, ii and much war material have been lost in this way. The alarm is raised one morning when we spot twin periscopes ahead; fortunately they prove to be harmless, but I don’t suppose the back legs of a dead horse have ever caused such a stir before!
The horses are discharged onto the Liverpool landing stage and we sail for Canada almost at once, taking with us those of the horse tenders who aren’t in gaol. Nine days later, after an uneventful crossing of the Atlantic, we arrive for bunker coal at Sydney, a pretty little harbour surrounded by pine forests on Cape Breton Island which lies to the south of Newfoundland. The town is reported to be ‘dry’ until we find some ‘wet’ in the first store we enter. Being good sailors and ambassadors, we always observe the customs of the country we are visiting!
We sail up the St. Lawrence River and berth in Montreal under a 300-foot grain elevator that looks like a large packing case affair. As soon as the ship is moored, a gang of men commences breaking up the horse pens whilst the horse tenders are driven away in motor lorries, under the surveillance of the police, to the railway station. These men live and play hard; despite it being November and getting cold here, many are poorly dressed, some walk in bare feet, and most of them carry not a single item of luggage, which does, admittedly, have its advantages when travelling.
A ship can arrive in Montreal in the morning and by night have her nose turned eastward towards the sea with 300,000 bushelsi of grain in her holds. Canada is one of the great granaries of the world, but I can’t say I like Montreal; it’s too cold in November and the whisky is not to my taste. I find the Gaiety Music Hallii as warm a spot as any in that city.
We load 3,500 tons of oats and 1,000 tons of hay before setting off for the 800-mile journey down the mighty and swift-flowing river to reach the ‘blue water’ of the open sea. The St. Lawrence River has a certain cold grandeur in the autumn season. We keep close along the southern shore, steaming past the clumsy square-sailed timber crafts plying their local trade between the grassy islands. In the distance we can see little farm houses with canvas covered ricks, and the low and level plains broken only by the occasional rocky hill, as if they were boulders intruding upon a freshly mowed lawn.
At Sorel, the river widens into a great lake – shallow, unprotected, and windswept – with a deep hidden waterway cut into the solid clay through which the ocean traffic can pass. Beyond the lake on the northern shore, the foothills grow higher and turn purple in the fading daylight. The sun slowly sets in a blood red sky, painting the vast river a soft amber below the deepening blue of the evening sky, and then…the steering gear fails and the vessel runs ashore on the rocks at a particularly nasty bend in the river. Fortunately she can be backed off, and then we scurry off downstream with the current behind us towards Quebec.
The engines refuse to go astern when we try to stop off at Quebec. The ship is swept some miles downriver before she can be brought up, and all the time she is taking in water fast. Without further delay, tugs are summoned and we are towed back upriver and the cargo rapidly discharged. In the dry dock, the ship’s bottom is repaired and returned to a temporarily seaworthy condition at a cost of some £4,000.
I find Quebec to be a tranquil city, but as cold and hard as a diamond on a snow bank; a city where miracles are enacted daily in the way the little horse cabs slither down the steep icy streets in safety. From the chateau on the heights there is a fine view looking over Orleans Island and down the amphitheatre of the lower St. Lawrence. Six miles below the city are the Montmorency Falls,iii one of the finest water cascades in eastern Canada, made all the better by the café at the top of the falls that sells hard drinks.
After leaving the dry dock in a genuine blizzard, with the snow and wind making it impossible to see more than a few yards ahead, the ship drags her anchors and nearly goes ashore again. The cargo is loaded back on board and we sail off down the river steaming under the giant suspension bridge,iv the largest of its kind in the world. The serenity of this mighty stream seems to be absorbed by the many contented-looking little towns nestling near the river banks; the black pine woods outlined against the snow gives the country that frosted Christmas card appearance. At Father Point, which is practically at the entrance to the St. Lawrence River and the scene of the Empress disaster,v thin ice is beginning to form on the water and there is a green steely look about the distant mountains. It is high time the vessel is out of it.
I don’t want to see eastern Canada again, but unfortunately my next voyage leads to my return, and the second glimpse is worse than the first. For all those intending to emigrate, you should take a look at a winter’s gas bill before deciding whether you like it or not, and I don’t like it, not in November. I don’t
