Sea Fever

by Sam Jefferson

  The China seas north and south are narrow seas. They are seas full of every-day, eloquent facts, such as islands, sand-banks, reefs, swift and changeable currents – tangled facts that nevertheless speak to a seaman in clear and definite language.

  Once again, he was on a steep learning curve but was proving to be an adaptable sailor. He was five months aboard the Vidar, exploring the steamy, sweltering coast and observing closely some of the strange, broken down characters who occupied these outposts of colonialism; drinkers, despots over tiny kingdoms, madmen, they were all here, including one Dutch trader called Olmeijer, who was to become the central character in his first novel, Almayer’s Folly. After five months of happily tramping this interesting coast he signed off rather abruptly:

  Suddenly I left all this. I left it in that, to us, inconsequential manner in which a bird flies away from a comfortable branch. It was as though all unknowing I had heard a whisper or seen something. Well – perhaps! One day I was perfectly right and the next everything was gone – glamour, flavour, interest, contentment – everything. It was one of these moments, you know. The green sickness of late youth descended on me and carried me off. Carried me off that ship, I mean.

  You would swear that he was doing little more than research for future novels, yet Conrad claims it never even occurred to him to take up writing at this point in his life. Besides which, one of his most momentous adventures was just around the corner, for a strange twist of fate was about to land the young officer his first command: the Otago.

  The circumstances of his gaining this command were, on the face of it, extremely fortunate. While awaiting a passage home from the East, he lodged at a sailors’ home in Singapore. While he was loafing there he was invited to take command of a small barque, which was stuck in nearby Bangkok following the death of her previous skipper. Conrad eagerly accepted the offer of command, headed to Bangkok and this is where the trouble started. He narrates the early days of his command in The Shadow-Line a short story in which he confesses to a degree of trepidation: ‘A strange sense of exultation began to creep into me. If I had worked for that command ten years or more there would have been nothing of the kind. I was a little frightened.’

  Little wonder either; at 29 Conrad was unusually young to gain command of a ship, and his rather erratic and itinerant lifestyle meant that he had served far fewer hours as an officer than many of a similar age with the same qualifications. Nevertheless, the first sight of the trim little Otago as he arrived in Bangkok by steamer seems to have dismissed his fears and doubts:

  I leaned over the rail of the bridge looking over the side. I dared not raise my eyes. Yet it had to be done – and, indeed, I could not have helped myself. I believe I trembled. But directly my eyes had rested on my ship all my fear vanished. It went off swiftly, like a bad dream. Only that a dream leaves no shame behind it, and that I felt a momentary shame at my unworthy suspicions. Yes, there she was. Her hull, her rigging filled my eye with a great content. That feeling of life-emptiness which had made me so restless for the last few months lost its bitter plausibility, its evil influence, dissolved in a flow of joyous emotion. At first glance I saw that she was a high-class vessel, a harmonious creature in the lines of her fine body, in the proportioned tallness of her spars. Whatever her age and her history, she had preserved the stamp of her origin. She was one of those craft that, in virtue of their design and complete finish, will never look old. Amongst her companions moored to the bank, and all bigger than herself, she looked like a creature of high breed – an Arab steed in a string of cart-horses.

  She was indeed a sweet little vessel; built of iron in Glasgow in 1869. She was 147ft long, which was a handy size for a first command, and evidently pleasing to the eye. That, however, was about as far as Conrad’s good fortune went, for the ship was languishing in Bangkok in unusual circumstances. It appears that after the death of her previous captain, a Mr Snadden, the mate, Mr Born, had taken her to Bangkok rather than the more cosmopolitan Singapore. His reason for this was that he realised he had a far greater chance of gaining command of the vessel if she was stuck in some backwater rather than busy Singapore. This led to immediate friction between Conrad and Born. What is more, the mate seemed utterly spooked by the death of Captain Snadden, who is described in The Shadow-Line:

  He used to keep the ship loafing at sea for inscrutable reasons. Would come on deck at night sometimes, take some sail off her, God only knows why or wherefore, then go below, shut himself up in his cabin, and play on the violin for hours – till daybreak perhaps. In fact, he spent most of his time day or night playing the violin. That was when the fit took him. Very loud, too.

  According to Born, his former skipper had thrown the offending instrument overboard on the night he died. Whether this tale is merely a bit of poetic licence from Conrad we will never know. What there is no doubt about is that Snadden had left a pretty tangle behind him for the new skipper to unthread. The ship’s accounts were in a terrible mess, and her crew was ailing with disease after too long spent in the unhealthy air of Bangkok. Yet work must go on, and after loading a cargo of teak logs – rather picturesquely aided by local elephants, the Otago was ready for sea with orders to head to Sydney. The first part of this trip was tortuous, with fickle breezes fanning vessels through a maze of reefs towards the Sunda Strait, which divides Java and Sumatra and is the gateway to the Indian Ocean and freedom. Things did not go well from the start; Otago was towed out of Bangkok and ghosted along before a few catspaws (a gentle puff of breeze that soon dies away again) and shortly afterwards the wind died completely. Then she lay for days motionless and sweltering in the heat. To make matters worse, it was soon evident that many of the crew were seriously ill with cholera, dysentery and fever. As the vessel drifted, the men grew increasingly sick. The relationship between Conrad and his first mate was also distilling into one of mutual dislike. This was not helped by the fact that Mr Born was ailing with fever, and his terror that the ship was under the curse of the departed Captain Snadden seemed reinforced by the deathly calm. Conrad describes their relationship:

  To begin with, he was more than five years older than myself at a time of life when five years really do count, I being twenty-nine and he thirty-four; then, on our first leaving port (I don’t see why I should make a secret of the fact that it was Bangkok), a bit of manoeuvring of mine amongst the islands of the Gulf of Siam had given him an unforgettable scare. Ever since then he had nursed in secret a bitter idea of my utter recklessness.

  The scare he refers to occurred when Conrad opted to stand in toward some islands off Bangkok in order to get the benefit of the evening land breeze. No breeze materialised and the Otago was left drifting helpless and too close to land for comfort. By now it was clear the crew was too sick to continue, and Conrad discovered that Captain Snadden had sold off the ship’s supply of Quinine and substituted it with an unknown white powder. This was the final straw and a course was set for Singapore. It took her 21 days to stagger there and she finally arrived flying a flag of distress. Conrad’s first voyage as captain was over and it had clearly been a thoroughly testing experience. In Singapore a new crew was shipped and from hereon things generally went without a hitch, the Otago arriving in Sydney in May of 1888.

  Interestingly, the services of the fractious mate, Born, were retained and Conrad grew to value his strengths. This picturesque description gives a good insight into the manner in which business was conducted aboard the Otago:

  He was worth all his salt. On examining now, after many years, the residue of the feeling which was the outcome of the contact of our personalities, I discover, without much surprise, a certain flavour of dislike. Upon the whole, I think he was one of the most uncomfortable shipmates possible for a young commander. If it is permissible to criticise the absent, I should say he had a little too much of the sense of insecurity which is so invaluable in a seaman. He had an extremely disturbing air of being everlastingly ready (even when seated at table at my right h
and before a plate of salt beef) to grapple with some impending calamity. I must hasten to add that he had also the other qualification necessary to make a trustworthy seaman – that of an absolute confidence in himself. What was really wrong with him was that he had these qualities in an unrestful degree. His eternally watchful demeanour, his jerky, nervous talk, even his, as it were, determined silences, seemed to imply – and, I believe, they did imply – that to his mind the ship was never safe in my hands. Such was the man who looked after the anchors of a less than five-hundred-ton barque, my first command, now gone from the face of the earth, but sure of a tenderly remembered existence as long as I live. No anchor could have gone down foul under Mr. Born’s piercing eye. It was good for one to be sure of that when, in an open roadstead, one heard in the cabin the wind pipe up; but still, there were moments when I detested Mr. Born exceedingly. From the way he used to glare sometimes, I fancy that more than once he paid me back with interest. It so happened that we both loved the little barque very much. And it was just the defect of Mr. Born’s inestimable qualities that he would never persuade himself to believe that the ship was safe in my hands. But upon the whole, and unless the grip of a man’s hand at parting means nothing whatever, I conclude that we did like each other at the end of two years and three months well enough.

  Despite this rather strained relationship, both captain and mate were able to settle into the Otago after the dramatic start and evidently enjoyed the experience. The clipper was next despatched to Mauritius. This exotic little outpost of the French empire was a beautiful stopover and Conrad welcomed the chance to mix with the local society and practise his French. He even had time to fall in love with one Eugenie Renouf and seems to have proposed to her a couple of days before the Otago was scheduled to sail. To his horror he discovered she was already betrothed and he departed Mauritius somewhat melodramatically proclaiming that he would never again set foot on the island. This proclamation was to return to haunt him a year later, when, following passages to Madagascar and Melbourne, the Otago’s owners secured another charter to Mauritius. Conrad begged them to explore new avenues of trade in the East, but the charter was secured and that was that. As a result, Conrad resigned his command in 1889. Within a couple of months he was back in London, having returned by passenger steamer. He was understandably ready for a break and, only a few days after settling in to lodgings in London, he determined to start writing a book, which was eventually shaped into his first novel, Almayer’s Folly.

  He may have started the ball rolling on his literary career, but this was 1889 and Almayer’s Folly wasn’t published until 1895. For now his future was still very closely tied up with ships and the sea. Conrad had already reached the peak of his seafaring career and was casting around for the next great adventure. He settled upon Africa and the roots of his decision are clear from his short novel, Heart of Darkness:

  I had then, as you remember, just returned to London after a lot of Indian Ocean, Pacific, China Seas – a regular dose of the East – six years or so, and I was loafing about, hindering you fellows in your work and invading your homes, just as though I had got a heavenly mission to civilize you. It was very fine for a time, but after a bit I did get tired of resting. Then I began to look for a ship – I should think the hardest work on earth. But the ships wouldn’t even look at me. And I got tired of that game too.

  Now when I was a little chap I had a passion for maps. I would look for hours at South America, or Africa, or Australia, and lose myself in all the glories of exploration. At that time there were many blank spaces on the earth, and when I saw one that looked particularly inviting on a map (but they all look that) I would put my finger on it and say, ‘When I grow up I will go there.’ The North Pole was one of these places, I remember. Well, I haven’t been there yet, and shall not try now. The glamour’s off. Other places were scattered about the Equator, and in every sort of latitude all over the two hemispheres. I have been in some of them, and … well, we won’t talk about that. But there was one yet – the biggest, the most blank, so to speak – that I had a hankering after.

  True, by this time it was not a blank space any more. It had got filled since my boyhood with rivers and lakes and names. It had ceased to be a blank space of delightful mystery – a white patch for a boy to dream gloriously over. It had become a place of darkness. But there was in it one river especially, a mighty big river, that you could see on the map, resembling an immense snake uncoiled, with its head in the sea, its body at rest curving afar over a vast country, and its tail lost in the depths of the land. And as I looked at the map of it in a shop-window, it fascinated me as a snake would a bird – a silly little bird. Then I remembered there was a big concern, a Company for trade on that river. Dash it all! I thought to myself, they can’t trade without using some kind of craft on that lot of fresh water – steamboats! Why shouldn’t I try to get charge of one? I went on along Fleet Street, but could not shake off the idea. The snake had charmed me.

  It was with such a careless rationale that Conrad approached the Societe Anonyme pour le commerce du Haut Congo about the possibility of working for them as skipper. They accepted and Conrad signed a contract committing himself to work on a steamer plying the trading outposts of the upper Congo. The Congo River is divided into three navigable sections that are divided by a series of rapids and waterfalls. To reach his command, Conrad would be obliged to undertake a long overland trek to Kinshasa where he would join the steamer. Much of this disastrous trip is narrated in Heart of Darkness which, according to Conrad, strays ‘a little, only a very little’ from the actual facts. King Leopold II of Belgium, keen to attain a colony for his country, had established the Congo Free State in 1884. What happened next was the transformation of the Congo into a place of unspeakable cruelty. An example of the horrors inflicted is that rubber plantation workers who did not reach their quota of rubber had their hands amputated as punishment. Some of the worst crimes ever committed were taking place here and it was into this maelstrom of intolerable degradation and disease that Conrad ventured in. Like the rest of the world, he would have been utterly unaware of the state of things beforehand, and what he saw on his travels was seared indelibly onto his conscious.

  The first rumblings of misgiving came on the trip down the coast of Africa to the Congo. He wrote with concern to a friend about receiving the disquieting news that ‘sixty per cent of the company’s employees return to Europe before they have completed even six months service. Fever and dysentery!’ He saw other things that filled him with foreboding, as described in Heart of Darkness:

  Once, I remember, we came upon a man-of-war anchored off the coast. There wasn’t even a shed there, and she was shelling the bush. It appears the French had one of their wars going on thereabouts. Her ensign dropped limp like a rag; the muzzles of the long eight-inch guns stuck out all over the low hull; the greasy, slimy swell swung her up lazily and let her down, swaying her thin masts. In the empty immensity of earth, sky, and water, there she was, incomprehensible, firing into a continent.

  Conrad made his way up the Congo River to Matadi and then had to make the overland trip to Kinshasa. This was a painful trek and Conrad did well to arrive there with his health intact. He was disgusted with most of the white people he met on the way, who for the most part were unsavoury desperadoes looking to make a quick fortune exploiting the local populace. Conrad noted in his diary that he would ‘try to avoid making acquaintances as much as possible’. During his trek upriver, Conrad relates seeing an endless succession of dead and mutilated bodies along the trail. In Kinshasa, his spirits took a further tumble, as he discovered that his command, the Florida was badly damaged and would not be back in commission for several months. In the meantime he was assigned to provide back-up to the skipper of the steamer Roi de Belges, which was soon to be despatched upriver to the Stanley Falls. One of the purposes of this trip was to pick up one of the company’s agents, Klein, who was seriously ill. During the course of this trip also,
Conrad was forced to take command of the Roi de Belges, as her skipper was taken ill. This would have been a new challenge to Conrad, for handling a river steamer in restricted waters, often extremely fast flowing, is very different from being in charge of a ship in the open sea. It required an almost completely new skill set and the fact that the trip was accident-free is much to Conrad’s credit. Despite the rapid and untroubled trip, Klein died before the steamer returned to Kinshasa, and with his burial the bare bones of Heart of Darkness were laid out. If other authors, most notably Robert Louis Stevenson, had hinted that perhaps the imperialism of the ‘civilised’ world was not always beneficial, Conrad’s book was set to blow the lid completely off that myth. Heart of Darkness was to document the true rapaciousness, greed and horror of imperialism gone wrong with the unflinching eye of a man who had headed into Africa full of optimism and returned from the interior repulsed.

  On returning to Kinshasa, Conrad saw quite clearly that there was no hope of a permanent command, and fell out with some of the company directors. To make matters worse, he had finally succumbed to the malaria and typhoid that were decimating the populace and he had little choice but to return home or die. He relates the trip down the Congo thus:

  I got round the turn between Kinshasa and Leopoldville more or less alive, although I was too sick to care whether I did or did not. I arrived at the delectable capital of Boma, where before the departure of the steamer which was to take me home I had the time to wish myself dead over and over again with perfect sincerity.