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Notes on Life and Letters-Part30_JOSEPH CONRAD (1857-1924)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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Trade, if properly approached, would consent to give the needed

instructions to its examiners of Masters and Mates. Behold the



examination-room of the future. Enter to the grizzled examiner a

young man of modestaspect: "Are you well up in modern



seamanship?" "I hope so, sir." "H'm, let's see. You are at night

on the bridge in charge of a 150,000 tons ship, with a motor track,



organ-loft, etc., etc., with a full cargo of passengers, a full

crew of 1,500 cafe waiters, two sailors and a boy, three



collapsible boats as per Board of Trade regulations, and going at

your three-quarter speed of, say, about forty knots. You perceive



suddenly right ahead, and close to, something that looks like a

large ice-floe. What would you do?" "Put the helm amidships."



"Very well. Why?" "In order to hit end on." "On what grounds

should you endeavour to hit end on?" "Because we are taught by our



builders and masters that the heavier the smash, the smaller the

damage, and because the requirements of material should be attended



to."

And so on and so on. The new seamanship: when in doubt try to ram



fairly--whatever's before you. Very simple. If only the Titanic

had rammed that piece of ice (which was not a monstrous berg)



fairly, every puffing paragraph would have been vindicated in the

eyes of the credulous public which pays. But would it have been?



Well, I doubt it. I am well aware that in the eighties the

steamship Arizona, one of the "greyhounds of the ocean" in the



jargon of that day, did run bows on against a very unmistakable

iceberg, and managed to get into port on her collision bulkhead.



But the Arizona was not, if I remember rightly, 5,000 tons

register, let alone 45,000, and she was not going at twenty knots



per hour. I can't be perfectly certain at this distance of time,

but her sea-speed could not have been more than fourteen at the



outside. Both these facts made for safety. And, even if she had

been engined to go twenty knots, there would not have been behind



that speed the enormous mass, so difficult to check in its impetus,

the terrific weight of which is bound to do damage to itself or



others at the slightest contact.

I assure you it is not for the vain pleasure of talking about my



own poor experiences, but only to illustrate my point, that I will

relate here a very unsensational little incident I witnessed now



rather more than twenty years ago in Sydney, N.S.W. Ships were

beginning then to grow bigger year after year, though, of course,



the present dimensions were not even dreamt of. I was standing on

the Circular Quay with a Sydney pilot watching a big mail steamship



of one of our best-known companies being brought alongside. We

admired her lines, her noble appearance, and were impressed by her



size as well, though her length, I imagine, was hardly half that of

the Titanic.



She came into the Cove (as that part of the harbour is called), of

course very slowly, and at some hundred feet or so short of the



quay she lost her way. That quay was then a wooden one, a fine

structure of mighty piles and stringers bearing a roadway--a thing



of great strength. The ship, as I have said before, stopped moving

when some hundred feet from it. Then her engines were rung on slow



ahead, and immediately rung off again. The propeller made just

about five turns, I should say. She began to move, stealing on, so



to speak, without a ripple; coming alongside with the utmost

gentleness. I went on looking her over, very much interested, but



the man with me, the pilot, muttered under his breath: "Too much,

too much." His exercised judgment had warned him of what I did not



even suspect. But I believe that neither of us was exactly

prepared for what happened. There was a faint concussion of the



ground under our feet, a groaning of piles, a snapping of great

iron bolts, and with a sound of ripping and splintering, as when a



tree is blown down by the wind, a great strong piece of wood, a

baulk of squared timber, was displaced several feet as if by



enchantment. I looked at my companion in amazement. "I could not




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