McANDREW'S HYMNor

THE MARINE STEAM ENGINEER'S HYMN

by Rudyard Kipling

It is indeed a great pity that this 'monologue', the musings of a ship's Scottish chief engineer as his ship approaches port, has never, to the best of the present writer's knowledge, ever been recorded for it is indeed one of those 'gems' that should be better known, a little 'work of genius' that not only gives us an insight into a working area of a ship normally forbidden to all but the ship's crew themselves but too in many ways, one which may cause us to reflect on our own musings about life in moments of solitude.

Here is a tale to be savoured slowly, not to be rushed, for it is spread over the four hour period of The Middle Watch, from midnight till 4 am and it is a tale best read if one can keep in mind the voice of, perhaps, the late Scottish actor Duncan Macrae, he most famous for his rendition of of the tale of 'The Wee Cock Sparra', which he wrote with Hugh Frater - A wee cock sparra sat in a tree . . . An' it was chirpin' awa' as fine as could be - Alang came a boy, wi' a bow an' an arra . . . An' he took a shot, at the wee cock sparra - The arra missed the wee cock sparra . . . And it hit a man, whae was wheelin' a barra - The man hit the boy, though he wasnae his fatha . . . An' the boy gret, for he was hurt to the marra - An' all the time, the wee cock sparra . . . Sat chirpin' awa on the shaft o' the barra.

However, it is not for any reason of 'The Sparra' that one should think Macrae when reading through this 'monolgue' but rather through the Macrae with, as someone put it, 'the lived in face' and his general mannerisms and delivery of his speech in films like Compton Makenzie's

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'Whisky Galore !' (1949) and 'Rockets Galore !' (1957) and even better playing the schoolmaster in 'Geordie' (1955), the very laid-back police sergeant in 'The Bridal Path' (1959) and too for his portrals of Para Handy, the puffer captain, think Macrae, not M'Phail, when you read 'McAndrew'.

Kipling, who was later made Rector of St Andrews University, in 1922, started to write "McAndrew's Hymn" in 1893, the poem perhaps speaking the mind and soul of a Marine Steam Engineer more elequently than anything else than one will probably ever read.

The inspiration for Kipling's work coming from Kipling's conversations on board ship during a trip home from India in 1889 and from the outward leg of Kipling's 1891 voyage, to South Africa, Australia and New Zealand, covering the first half of 'McAndrew's' round voyage and the poem launching upon The World a new concept, 'The Romance of Machinery'.

According to one source, the rhythms for the poem, or at least part of it, came from Samuel Sebastian Wesley's wonderful hymn tune "Aurelia", its metre, for those of a musical persuasion, 7676.D and it used to accompany Samuel John Stone's hymn "The Church's One Foundation", Kipling's wife, Carrie, reporting her husband 'humming and strumming it all over the house' as he wrote of McAndrew.

Kipling, writing shortly before his own death, telling us that they'd been married in London, on January 18, 1892, in the "thick of an influenza epidemic, when the undertakers had run out of black horses and the dead had to be content with brown ones".

What a pity we were never told such little 'titbits' in school, we might have then been a little interested in learning if we had.

That too was the case in school music classes, or perhaps few teachers knew that e.g. the composer Antonin Dvorak was a great railway enthusiast and, on one occasion, too busy to pop down to the local station, he asked his future son-in-law to go and get him a locomotive number on a certain train, the young man foolishly returning with the number and Dvorak commenting to his daughter, "So this is the sort of man you intend to marry" !

'McAndrew' is a 'narrative' poem, McAndrew the narrator and he the chief engineer of a cargo-liner, the fiction based on the "Doric", which made round trips from the UK to New Zealand, outward via the Cape of Good Hope and homeward via Cape Horn.

The 4,784-ton "Doric", designed for The White Star Line's New Zealand trade, was launched at Harland and Wolff's Belfast shipyard on March 10, 1883 and began her maiden voyage,

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on charter to The New Zealand Shipping Co., from London to Wellington, via Cape Town, on July 26, 1883.

The four-masted ship, having accommodation for 70 1st class and 900 Emmigrant Class passengers, was 441 feet long by 44.2 feet beam, had a single funnel and her single screw engine gave her a service speed of 14 knots.

In 1885, the "Doric" was employed on the joint-operated, White Star Line / Shaw, Savill and Albion Company service to New Zealand and, then, in 1896, chartered to The Occidental & Oriental Steam Ship Co. for their San Francisco - Yokohama - Hong Kong service. Sold to The Pacific Mail Steam Ship Co. in 1906, she was renamed "Asia" and then wrecked, in fog, near Wenchow, on a voyage from Hong Kong to San Francisco, with no loss of life, on April 23, 1911, the ship looted and burned out by local fishermen.

As the present writer was never much amused by school teachers deconstructing plays and poems line-by-line, Rudyard Kipling's 'McAndrew' is set out first with some italicised references, taken largely from a set of online notes from 'TheDefinitive Edition of Rudyard Kipling's Verse' (Hodder and Stoughton, 1940), the insertion and inclusion of these provided for the education of anyone interested in the workings of steam machinery, other, earlier, 'Marine Steam Engineers' Manuals' also having been included amongst the documents where this file has been uploaded.

AND, for those who then might want to read 'McAndrew' through from end to end without the 'interruptions and explanations', the original text of 'McAndrew' has been added at the end of this document, that simple text version more suitable for computer 'text-to-speech' conversion, though, it must be said, there are not as yet at the time of writing, any really good Scottish 'TTS' voices for any of the commercially available 'text-to-speech' programs and none with the 'lexionaries' necessary to properly pronounce some of McAndrew's, or should that be Kipling's, 'Scotch' speech language expressions !

AND so at last to 'McAndrew' !

McAndrew, the company's senior engineer, is elderly and experienced and attends company board meetings when he is in port, the company large enough to have three peers on the board, perhaps merely to grace the company's letterhead !

The year is 1887 and the ship, which we now know in real life to be the "Doric", is on the last leg of her homeward trip and will arrive off Plymouth by morning.

McAndrew is on the ship's engine-control platform, just below a skylight and above the upper ends of the main engine's cylinders, half-watching and half-listening to what is going on around him, but too is aware of what is happening on deck as the ship approaches port.

It is the 'Middle Watch', from midnight till 4 am and McAndrew musing take the form of a very much one-sided conversation with God, who little surprisingly does not reply . . . . .

Lord, Thou hast made this world below the shadow of a dream, An', taught by time, I tak' it so -- exceptin' always Steam. From coupler-flange to spindle-guide I see Thy Hand, O God --

[The "coupler flange" being between the engine crankshaft and the forward end of the tail-shaft, which in turn is connected to the propeller and the "spindle-guide" the mechanism which guides the valve spindle as it moves backwards and forwards to admit steam to alternate ends of the cylinder, McAndrew essentially seeing the hand of God everywhere, from the bottom to top of the engine].

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Predestination in the stride o' yon connectin'-rod.

[Predestination is a particular tenet of The Calvinist Faith, the connecting rod connecting the piston rod to the crank and converting the reciprocating movement of the piston to the rotary motion of the shaft and then the propeller and, as it rotated, looking somewhat like the legs of a long-striding person and the power moving the ship, just as God moves The World].

John Calvin might ha' forged the same -- enorrmous, certain, slow -- Ay, wrought it in the furnace-flame -- ~my~ "Institutio".

[The "Institutio" being John Calvin's 1536-published "Institutio Religionis Christianae" - These first half-dozen lines really a reflection of McAndrew's philosophy based on his Calvinist up-bringing. To him The World is less than real and what counts is the power of steam which has meant faster means of communication and set the whole World on the move].

I cannot get my sleep to-night; old bones are hard to please; I'll stand the middle watch up here -- alone wi' God an' these My engines, after ninety days o' race an' rack an' strain Through all the seas of all Thy world, slam-bangin' home again. Slam-bang too much -- they knock a wee -- the crosshead-gibs are loose;

[The crosshead was in effect an X-shaped piece of metal with the outer end of the piston rod and the upper end of the connecting rod meeting in the centre on a pin, the four arms of the X sliding on the surfaces of the slide-bars which prevented any sideways flexing movement in the piston rod. The fixing of the connecting rod to the crosshead involved the use of a gib-and-cotter, the cotter-pin a tapered pin, as on a bicycle, to keep the cranks of the pedals on the shaft. and, after a 30,000 mile voyage, the distance of a round trip to New Zealand via the two Capes, they might well have started to develop wear and slightly loosen, perhaps just one-hundredth of an inch or less and so would tend to 'rattle to an engineer’s ear - Kipling's comment a letter to his illustrator suggesting a play of about 1½" was an exaggeration, the engine would have ground to a halt].But thirty thousand mile o' sea has gied them fair excuse . . . . . Fine, clear an' dark -- a full-draught breeze, wi' Ushant out o' sight,

[a full-draught breeze indicates that the velocity of the relative wind, the combination of the true wind and the 'wind' generated by the ship’s passage through the water, is the maximum that can be usefully used to burn coal, thus generating the maximum amount of steam. The amount of steam a boiler could generate depended on a number of factors, one of them being the amount of air available in the stokehold to be admitted to the furnace, both under and over the firebed, to ensure complete combustion of the coal and the release of all the energy in the form of heat - wi’ Ushant out of sight - The Île d’Ouessant (anglice Ushant), some 10 miles to the west of the western extremity of Brittany, is the land fall and turning point for vessels crossing The Bay of Biscay and making their way up Channel. In this case, the "Doric" has now passed Ushant and the light, being out of sight, must be some 20 miles or so on their way to Plymouth].

An' Ferguson relievin' Hay. Old girl, ye'll walk to-night !

[An’ Ferguson relievin’ Hay indicates that it is just a few minutes before midnight – you always relieve your watch by the start time of the new watch].

His wife's at Plymouth. . . . Seventy --

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[The inference must be that they are going to call at Plymouth to land some or all of their passengers, though not their cargo, Plymouth a recognised port of call for the liners as a means of getting the mail, most importantly and their passengers to London more quickly than if they remained in the ship while it made its way up-channel. In these days it might have taken six hours to reach London by train, 36 hours on the ship and, quite possibly, Mrs Ferguson would be permitted to take passage in the ship from Plymouth to London, otherwise there would not be much point in her being at Plymouth, the call would only last a matter of an hour or two].

(Seventy -- ) One -- Two -- Three since he began -- Three turns for Mistress Ferguson . . . and who's to blame the man ?

[The count suggesting that the ship's engine has been running at 70 revolutions per minute and that Ferguson, the duty engineer, has just opened the throttle that little bit wider, to go that little bit faster, in his haste to see his wife again, McAndrew himself within the engine-room and able to see the engine and to count the revolutions].

There's none at any port for me, by drivin' fast or slow, Since Elsie Campbell went to Thee, Lord, thirty years ago. (The year the ~ "Sarah Sands" ~ was burned [1857]. Oh roads we used to tread, Fra' Maryhill to Pollokshaws -- fra' Govan to Parkhead !)

[McAndrew is now seemingly a widower and speaks of his early courting days - These are all areas of Glasgow, going respectively from north to south and west to east, crossing The Clyde in each case].

Not but they're ceevil on the Board. Ye'll hear Sir Kenneth say : "Good-morrn, M'Andrew ! Back again ? An' how's your bilge to-day ?" Miscallin' technicalities but handin' me my chair To drink Madeira wi' three Earls -- the auld Fleet Engineer, That started as a boiler-whelp -- when steam and he were low.

[Sir Kenneth being presumably the chairman of the board of directors and probably the largest shareholder in the Company, suggesting that the "three Earls" are more for the letterhead than their knowledge of and financial interest in, the shipping business - McAndrew had started as a boilermaker’s assistant and then progressing to become a boilermaker's apprentice and like most marine engineers had learned his trade in an engineering works building engines and other plant, a seven-year long apprenticeship and, in the years before becoming an indentured apprentice, unlikely to be much before the age of 14, would have worked in even lowlier positions].

I mind the time we used to serve a broken pipe wi' tow.

[To serve, means to wrap a flexible material round a pipe or rope, 'tow' being a mass of rope fibres and not a very effective way of stopping steam from leaking out of a pipe, even low-pressure steam pipe as in the case he speaks of at ten pounds per square inch].

Ten pound was all the pressure then -- Eh ! Eh ! -- a man wad drive; An' here, our workin' gauges give one hunder fifty-five !We're creepin' on wi' each new rig -- less weight an' larger power : There'll be the loco-boiler next an' thirty knots an hour !

[In the 1880s, most marine boilers were what were called "Scotch Boilers", which were cylindrical, with the firegrate within a flue inside the actual pressure vessel. In the "loco-boiler", as in those of railway locomotives, the grate and firebox were at one end of the boiler BUT, in fact, the "loco-boiler" per se, was rarely used at sea, then or later. The next

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development, which was just starting for use in warships as Kipling was writing "McAndrew's Hymn", was the water-tube boiler in which, instead of the hot gases from the coal's combustion, or later oil, passing through a nest of small diameter tubes immersed in water, more-or-less as in the domestic kettle, where the coiled electric element replaces the fire-tubes, a nest of small tubes filled with water, linking two drums, passed through the furnace. This arrangement was more efficient in transferring heat from the gases to the water and enabled the rate of steam generation to be more quickly altered. This was of value in a warship, where speeds might alter at short notice and by small amounts, to keep station, one ship on another but, in a merchant ship, was of less concern. On leaving port, one opened the throttle and left it wide open until the ship slowed to enter the next port, one day, one week, or one month later and the 'Scotch' boiler found at sea into the last days of steam in The Merchant Navy].

Thirty an' more. What I ha' seen since ocean-steam began Leaves me no doot for the machine : but what about the man ?

[Here McAndrew, or rather Kipling the writer, is being optimistic, McAndrew's ship, which we now known to be read as the "Doric", had a service speed of 14 knots and the record speed for crossing The Atlantic at that time was about 21 knots. The average British coaster went around at eight to nine knots. Ship designers are always designing ships to operate at higher speeds, but the economics do not make it worth-while].

The man that counts, wi' all his runs, one million mile o' sea : Four time the span from earth to moon . . . How far, O Lord, from Thee ? That wast beside him night an' day. Ye mind my first typhoon ? It scoughed the skipper on his way to jock wi' the saloon.

[Unusual as it may seem, in the midst of the typhoon, the captain had left the bridge to reassure the passengers of their safety].

Three feet were on the stokehold-floor -- just slappin' to an' fro --

[Three feet of water, which would have come down through the stoke-hold air intakes].

An' cast me on a furnace-door. I have the marks to show. Marks ! I ha' marks o' more than burns -- deep in my soul an' black, An' times like this, when things go smooth, my wickudness comes back. The sins o' four and forty years, all up an' down the seas, Clack an' repeat like valves half-fed . . . Forgie's our trespasses (O Lord).

[The clacking coming from the opening and shutting action of the valve through which the boiler is fed with water, the valve called a 'clack-valve'].

Nights when I'd come on deck to mark, wi' envy in my gaze, The couples kittlin' in the dark between the funnel stays; Years when I raked the ports wi' pride to fill my cup o' wrong -- Judge not, O Lord, my steps aside at Gay Street in Hong Kong ! Blot out the wastrel hours of mine in sin when I abode -- Jane Harrigan's an' Number Nine, The Reddick an' Grant Road ! An' waur than all -- my crownin' sin -- rank blasphemy an' wild. I was not four and twenty then -- Ye wadna judge a child ? I'd seen the Tropics first that run -- new fruit, new smells, new air -- How could I tell -- blind-fou wi' sun -- the Deil was lurkin' there ? By day like playhouse-scenes the shore slid past our sleepy eyes; By night those soft, lasceevious stars leered from those velvet skies.

[In port, the ship used no steam to power the winches for the derricks which handled the cargo, all the cargo handling would done by gangs of coolies and no need for even the most

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junior engineer to stay on board to attend to a boiler generating steam for cargo-handling purposes].

In port (we used no cargo-steam) I'd daunder down the streets -- An ijjit grinnin' in a dream -- for shells an' parrakeets, An' walkin'-sticks o' carved bamboo an' blowfish stuffed an' dried -- Fillin' my bunk wi' rubbishry the Chief put overside. Till, off Sambawa Head, Ye mind, I heard a land-breeze ca', Milk-warm wi' breath o' spice an' bloom: "M'Andrew, come awa' !"

[It would seem that 'Sambawa Head' is perhaps a corruption of Tanjong, the Malay for 'Head', or 'Cape', Sambar, at the south-west corner of Borneo, that fitting in with the fact that McAndrew's first voyage was clearly to The Far East and also with fitting in with other later mentioned places in the monologue].

Firm, clear an' low -- no haste, no hate -- the ghostly whisper went, Just statin' eevidential facts beyon' all argument : "Your mither's God's a graspin' deil, the shadow o' yoursel', Got out o' books by meenisters clean daft on Heaven an' Hell. They mak' Him in the Broomielaw, o' Glasgie cold an' dirt, A jealous, pridefu' fetich, lad, that's only strong to hurt, Ye'll not go back to Him again an' kiss His red-hot rod, But come wi' Us" (Now, who were ~They~?) "an' know the Leevin' God, That does not kipper souls for sport or break a life in jest, But swells the ripenin' cocoanuts an' ripes the woman's breast".

An' there it stopped: cut off : no more; that quiet, certain voice -- For me, six months o' twenty-four, to leave or take at choice. 'Twas on me like a thunderclap -- it racked me through an' through -- Temptation past the show o' speech, unnameable an' new -- The Sin against the Holy Ghost ? . . . An' under all, our screw. That storm blew by but left behind her anchor-shiftin' swell, Thou knowest all my heart an' mind, Thou knowest, Lord, I fell.

[The storm here is metaphorical. Although the surface of the sea is unbroken by waves, deep down there are ocean movements which will shift the anchor on the sea-bed – the certainties one has learnt or absorbed during one’s youth – leaving one to drift without any firm set of principles on which to base one's life].

Third (engineer) on the ~Mary Gloster~ then, and first that night in Hell !

[A cross-reference to Kipling's other, nearly contemporaneous, poem "The Mary Gloster"].

Yet was Thy hand beneath my head, about my feet Thy care -- Fra' Deli clear to Torres Strait, the trial o' despair,

[In other words, the whole length of The Timor Sea. Deli is a small island off the south-west corner of Java and The Torres Strait is the relatively narrow strait between the northern tip of the Australian continent and New Guinea, Papua New Guinea as it is known today].

But when we touched the Barrier Reef Thy answer to my prayer ! We dared not run that sea by night but lay an' held our fire,

[The seas around The Great Barrier Reef, which stretches down the east coast of Queensland are shallow and in those days, McAndrew looking back to the early 1860's, were largely uncharted and, certainly unlit by lighthouses or buoys, no captain willingly running the risk of making a passage through them by night, when he could not see the tell-tale signs of shallow water and it the norm to bank the fires under their boiler(s), riding at anchor, or at least hove-to with a sea anchor out and waiting for daylight, when the boilers and engines would again be made ready for use].

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An' I was drowsin' on the hatch, sick, sick wi' doubt an' tire : "Better the sight of eyes that see than wanderin' o' desire ! "

[Ecclesiastes 6 : 9 - Better is the sight of the eyes than the wandering of the desire].

Ye mind that word ? Clear as our gongs -- again, an' once again, When rippin' down through coral-trash ran out our moorin'-chain; An' by Thy Grace I had the Light to see my duty plain. Light on the engine-room -- no more -- bright as our carbons burn.

[The first electric lighting at sea was by carbon arc lamps, most usually used on deck, so that cargoes could be handled in darkness and in engine rooms and stoke-holds despite their dangers].

I've lost it since a thousand times, but never past return. Obsairve. Per annum we'll have here two thousand souls aboard --Think not I dare to justify myself before the Lord, But -- average fifteen hunder souls safe-borne fra' port to port -- I ~am~ o' service to my kind. Ye wadna blame the thought ? Maybe they steam from grace to wrath -- to sin by folly led, -- It isna mine to judge their path -- their lives are on my head. Mine at the last -- when all is done it all comes back to me, The fault that leaves six thousand ton a log upon the sea. We'll tak' one stretch -- three weeks an' odd by any road ye steer - Fra' Cape Town east to Wellington -- ye need an engineer. Fail there -- ye've time to weld your shaft -- ay, eat it, ere ye're spoke;

[When two ships pass, they exchange signals, an entry made in the ship's log e.g. "Spoke Steam Ship "Doric", bound Fremantle to Capetown"].

Or make Kerguelen under sail -- three jiggers burned wi' smoke !

[Kerguelen is a small isolated island in the southern Indian Ocean, officially French, not regularly inhabited, then or now and lies about 2,000nautical miles from the nearest point of the African continent, about the same from Australia and is not far off The Great Circle route from the Cape to eastern Australia. It was and is virtually the only place in the whole of the southern ocean where a ship might anchor to make repairs - a 'jigger' is a triangular staysail, a sail mounted on a fore-and-aft stay, rigged in an emergency and at that time many, if not most, steamers still had masts and yards for occasional use and carried sails for emergency use].

An' home again, the Rio run: it's no child's play to go Steamin' to bell for fourteen days o' snow an' floe an' blow -- The bergs like kelpies overside that girn an' turn an' shift Whaur, grindin' like the Mills o' God, goes by the big South drift.

[The Southern Ocean's South drift current carries ice and, a look at a normal atlas, in which most of the maps are made on Mercator’s projection, suggests that the shortest way from Capetown to Wellington is to go more-or-less due east, well north of the normal limits of the ice. Given Capetown's latitude, 36° 56' S and that of Albany, the southernmost port in Western Australia, 35° S, the shortest route is via a Great Circle course, an arc on the earth's surface between the two points named, the arc having the centre of the earth as its origin. Over long distances this is actually significantly shorter than any seemingly direct line between any two such distant ports. Thus e.g. on leaving Capetown, a ship would have headed substantially south-of-east and, every two days or so, would have altered course more to the east until, at the half way point it was steering due east, the ship then similarly altering course, to the north-of-east, until its destination was reached, the ship's track,, in other words, taking it down towards the edge of The Antarctic pack-ice - A similar course being followed on the homeward passage e.g. from Wellington to Cape Horn and on to Rio].

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[For those not so conversant with The Southern Hemisphere, the simple way to do it is to get hold of a 'Gnomic Chart' and draw a straight line from say Mizzen Head, in the south of Eire to The Gulf of St Lawrence and, from the lines of Latitude and Longitude thereon, plot as many positions as required to accept a Day's Run of the ship at say 10 knots, or half a Day's Run at 15 - 20 knots - A Day's Run at 10 knots probably finding 14 to 16 positions].

[One then goes to an ordinary 'Mercator Chart', the type most commonly used and plot the previously noted 14 to 16 positions onto it, what appearing previously as a straight line between the two points on the Gnomic Chart now appearing as a curve with, in the case of The North Atlantic Chart, the top of the curve nearest The North Pole, conversely, in The Southern Hemisphere, the curve will tend to peak towards The South Pole - A 'Gnomic Chart' will show the section of the sphere as if it had been flattened and show The Parallels of Latitude as curves whereas the 'Mercator Chart' would be what one might see if one held a roll of blank paper around a Globe of The Earth with a light bulb in its centre, The Lines of Latitude appearing in parallel, though The Lines of Longitude might taper inward nearer the poles - There is also a crude method using Azimuth Tables whereby one can update the course adjustment daily, but most ships would try to stay on the course line prepared upon their 'Mercator Chart'].

(Hail, snow an' ice that praise the Lord: I've met them at their work, An' wished we had anither route or they anither kirk). Yon's strain, hard strain, o' head an' hand, for though Thy Power brings All skill to naught, Ye'll understand a man must think o' things. Then, at the last, we'll get to port an' hoist their baggage clear -- The passengers, wi' gloves an' canes -- an' this is what I'll hear : "Well, thank ye for a pleasant voyage. The tender's comin' now".

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[In many ports at this time, there would be no berths alongside a jetty, or no berths with sufficient depth of water for ocean-going steamers, the ships having to lie in a roadstead and discharge their passengers into a 'tender, a small steamer which would ferry the passengers between ship and shore, Plymouth then and a case in point and the practice continuing in The Clyde, at Greenock, until the withdrawal of the regular summer Cunard and Canadian Pacific Railway's services between Liverpool, Greenock and Canada in the late 1960's].

While I go testin' follower-bolts an' watch the skipper bow (to the shore-bound passengers).

[The piston 'follower-bolts' were found on the top of the piston, where they held the 'junk ring' in place, it in turn holding the main piston ring in place, that making the piston steam tight and these under heavy load in worn engines due to any 'slop' in the rings being passed on as a shock-reversing load - The only way of checking these would likely be to lift the top cylinder cover and rotate crank to bring the piston being checked to top dead centre, when the bolts would then be immediately to hand and their tightness could easily be checked - Since the top of the engine was often virtually at upper deck level, immediately under the engine-room skylight, one can imagine McAndrew standing on top of his engine and looking out through either portholes or skylight to "watch the skipper bow"].

They've words for every one but me -- shake hands wi' half the crew, Except the dour Scots engineer, the man they never knew. An' yet I like the wark for all we've dam' few pickin's here -- No pension, an' the most we earn's four hunder pound a year. Better myself abroad ? Maybe. ~I'd~ sooner starve than sail Wi' such as call a snifter-rod ~ross~. . .French for nightingale.

[A snifting valve, or snifter valve, is a relief valve, in later practice automatic in operation and requiring no rod to actuate it].

Commeesion on my stores ? Some do; but I can not afford To lie like stewards wi' patty-pans --. I'm older than the Board.

[Patty-pans are small dishes for baking pies].

A bonus on the coal I save ? Ou ay, the Scots are close, But when I grudge the strength Ye gave I'll grudge their food to ~those~.

[McAndrew gesturing towards the ship's engines, albeit the ship had but one main engine].

(There's bricks that I might recommend -- an' clink the fire-bars cruel. No ! Welsh -- Wangarti at the worst -- an' damn all patent fuel !)

[Penny-pinching owners might try to run their ships on inferior fuel, such as coal briquettes i.e. compressed coal-dust and some binding agent, but most engineers would insist that this was a false economy. Welsh coal, from the South Wales valleys, was highly regarded as the best and huge quantities were exported to coaling ports all round The World, coal from the west coast of the South Island of New Zealand also having a good reputation and, for a ship calling at New Zealand, it obviously made sense to buy local coal for its bunkers for indeed, not having already had to be carried half way round The World to a bunker refuelling station, all other things being equal, it would of course be cheaper].

Inventions ? Ye must stay in port to mak' a patent pay. My Deeferential Valve-Gear taught me how that business lay, I blame no chaps wi' clearer head for aught they make or sell. ~I~ found that I could not invent an' look to these -- as well. So, wrestled wi' Apollyon -- Nah ! -- fretted like a bairn -- But burned the workin'-plans last run wi' all I hoped to earn.

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[Apollyon being the Greek name for The King of Hell].

Ye know how hard an Idol dies, an' what that meant to me -- E'en tak' it for a sacrifice acceptable to Thee. [McAndrew would seem to have a distinctly Old Testament view of his God].

~Below there ! Oiler ! What's your wark ? Ye find it runnin' hard ?

[The oiler has replied that the bearing he is oiling is rather warmer than it should be, more lubrication needed and, with little by way of instrumentation in those days, the back of the oiler's hand, rather like a mother using her elbow to test the baby's bathwater, used as a thermometer].

Ye needn't swill the cap wi' oil -- this isn't the Cunard !

[With a bearing on a rotating shaft, the top will remain on top and so a small brass cup, with its base screwed into the bearing, will remain upright as the machinery rotates and so can be filled with oil, without spilling and the oil then feeds down into the bearing to lubricate the rubbing surfaces, The Cunard Steamship Company having a reputation for not counting the cost of any excesses].

Ye thought ? Ye are not paid to think. Go, sweat that off again ! ~ Tck ! Tck ! It's deeficult to sweer nor tak' The Name in vain ! Men, ay an' women, call me stern. Wi' these to oversee Ye'll note I've little time to burn on social repartee. The bairns see what their elders miss; they'll hunt me to an' fro, Till for the sake of -- well, a kiss -- I tak' 'em down below. That minds me of our Viscount loon -- Sir Kenneth's kin -- the chap Wi' Russia leather tennis-shoon an' spar-decked yachtin'-cap.

[A yachting-cap often worn by pretentious first-class passengers taking their exercise on the spar-deck, it an 'incomplete deck', the uppermost deck, which consisted of walk-ways on each side of the ship between the poop and the focs'le, the space between the two walk-ways filled with the ship's spare spars and the ship's upper decks the preserve of the first-class passengers].

I showed him round last week, o'er all -- an' at the last says he : "Mister M'Andrew, don't you think steam spoils romance at sea ?" Damned ijjit ! I'd been doon that morn to see what ailed the throws, Manholin', on my back -- the cranks three inches off my nose.

[Something is not quite right at the bottom end of the engine in the crank-pit, perhaps a bearing running hot and McAndrew has already been down there, uncomfortably wedged into a small trying to determine what is amiss].

Romance ! Those first-class passengers they like it very well, Printed an' bound in little books; but why don't poets tell ? I'm sick of all their quirks an' turns -- the loves an' doves they dream -- Lord, send a man like Robbie Burns to sing the Song o' Steam ! To match wi' Scotia's noblest speech yon orchestra sublime Whaurto -- uplifted like the Just -- the tail-rods mark the time.

[A tail-rod was an upward extension of a piston, or valve, rod, passing through another bearing at the top of a cylinder and, as a piston or valve went up and down, the tail-rod would also bob up and down].

The crank-throws give the double-bass, the feed-pump sobs an' heaves,

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[This is exactly the sound and noise of the water feed pump as as it heaves itself upward to force the water in against the pressure in the boiler]. An' now the main eccentrics start their quarrel on the sheaves :

[The eccentrics provided the drive to the valve(s) which controlled the admission of steam into and exhaust from, the cylinders, their reciprocating motion derived from the rotary motion of the crank-shaft by means of the eccentric-sheaves. These are circular metallic discs, mounted on the crank-shaft, so that the centre of the disc is not on the centre of the centre-line of the crank-shaft, the lower end of the eccentric, or eccentric rod, itself, which encloses the sheave, describing a circle in a way similar to the crank. So, whereas the up-and-down motion of the piston rod is transferred into rotary motion at the bottom end of the connecting rod, here the rotary motion at the bottom end of the eccentric (rod) is transmitted as reciprocating motion at its upper end, these, continually rubbing one on another and so might be said to be 'quarrelling'].

Her time, her own appointed time, the rocking link-head bides,

[Of the "rocking link-head", there are two eccentric rods, usually mounted at 90° to one another, so that when the top end of one is at the outermost limit of its reach, the other is half-way through its travel, each connected to the ends of the link, a metal arc of a circle and, because the two eccentrics are not in step with each other, the effect is to rock the link backwards and forwards, the link itself connected on a sliding block to the valve rod and the effect that, if the sliding block is moved to one end of the link, then the motion of the valve rod is derived from the eccentric at that end of the link, it being the case that, if it is moved to the other, then the other eccentric controls the valve and, because these eccentrics are 90° apart, the effect of moving the block from one end of the link to the other is to reverse the engine].

Till -- hear that note ? -- the rod's return whings glimmerin' through the guides. They're all awa' ! True beat, full power, the clangin' chorus goes

[A well maintained set of engines most certainly should not "clang", if they did, there would certainly be something a great deal more wrong that just the 'crosshead gibs' being loose].

Clear to the tunnel where they sit, my purrin' dynamos.

[In the early days, the ship's dynamos were sometimes mounted on the propeller-shaft itself, in the propellor shaft tunnel, the tunnel mentioned here, which was fine until you had to stop the engine, the ship's dynamos then only powering the carbon arc lamps used on deck, sometimes when cargo-handling and only otherwise found in the ship's engine room, there then being no electric lighting in the ship's passenger accommodations - The stoppage or failure of the ship's electricity supply was thus not of much real consequence, power being supplied to the ship's ordinarily and electrically lit spaces from a bank of batteries, rather as in the way electricity was supplied in big country houses before supplies from the mains became universal].

Interdependence absolute, foreseen, ordained, decreed, To work, Ye'll note, at any tilt an' every rate o' speed. Fra' skylight-lift to furnace-bars, backed, bolted, braced an' stayed, An' singin' like the Mornin' Stars for joy that they are made;

[Job 38 : 7 "When the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy].

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While, out o' touch o' vanity, the sweatin' thrust-block says : "Not unto us the praise, or man -- not unto us the praise !" Now, a' together, hear them lift their lesson -- theirs an' mine : "Law, Orrder, Duty an' Restraint, Obedience, Discipline !" Mill, forge an' try-pit taught them that when roarin' they arose, An' whiles I wonder if a soul was gied them wi' the blows. Oh for a man to weld it then, in one trip-hammer strain, Till even first-class passengers could tell the meanin' plain ! But no one cares except mysel' that serve an' understand My seven thousand horse-power here. Eh, Lord ! They're grand -- they're grand ! Uplift am I ? When first in store the new-made beasties stood, Were Ye cast down that breathed the Word declarin' all things good ? Not so ! O' that warld-liftin' joy no after-fall could vex, Ye've left a glimmer still to cheer the Man -- the Arrtifex ! ~That~ holds, in spite o' knock and scale, o' friction, waste an' slip, An' by that light -- now, mark my word -- we'll build the Perfect Ship. I'll never last to judge her lines or take her curve -- not I.

[Shipbuilding terms relating to the laying out of a ship’s lines on a mould loft floor and, in these days of computer-generated plans and computer controlled machines, which cut metal according to the plans, it is salutary to think that, until very recently, the essential structure of ships was still laid out full size on the mould loft floor before being cut or fabricated].

But I ha' lived an' I ha' worked. 'Be thanks to Thee, Most High ! An' I ha' done what I ha' done -- judge Thou if ill or well -- Always Thy Grace preventin' me . . . Losh ! Yon's the "Stand by" bell.

[The bridge has rung the engine room telegraph and the pointer now moved from 'Full Ahead' to 'Stand By', preparatory to slowing or stoppingthe engine, to pick up the pilot].

Pilot so soon ? His flare it is. The mornin'-watch is set.

[McAndrew's musings have lasted the whole four hours of The Middle Watch, from midnight till 4 am, the ship now approaching Plymouth in the darkness and the pilot boat, in the midst of the mass of small boats, fishing for pilchards off Looe, not easily seen, sends up a flare to say "Here I am", the pilot readily able to see the lights of any large ship approaching and, any large ship heading for Plymouth Sound presumed to require the pilot's services].

Well, God be thanked, as I was sayin', I'm no Pelagian yet.

[The Pelagians denied the doctrine of 'Original Sin']

Now I'll tak' on . . . [Here McAndrew, the ship's chief engineer, takes charge of the engine room, his duty when the ship is manoeuvring to go into or out of port].

~'Morrn, Ferguson. Man, have ye ever thought What your good leddy costs in coal ? . . . I'll burn 'em down to port.

[Ferguson's "three turns (of the engine's thottle wheel) for Mistress Ferguson" in his haste to be reunited with his wife will have cost an extra hundredweight or two of coal and now McAndrew will let the fires die down gradually, skillfully judging the steam needed so that, when the engines are 'rung off' from the bridge, there is the absolute minimum of unburned coal remaining on the fire-bars].

AND NOW, the original text of 'McAndrew' which might be 'convertible' using one of the commercially available 'text-to-speech' programs.

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Lord, Thou hast made this world below the shadow of a dream, An', taught by time, I tak' it so - exceptin' always Steam. From coupler-flange to spindle-guide I see Thy Hand, O God - Predestination in the stride o' yon connectin'-rod. John Calvin might ha' forged the same - enorrmous, certain, slow - Ay, wrought it in the furnace-flame - my "Institutio". I cannot get my sleep to-night; old bones are hard to please; I'll stand the middle watch up here - alone wi' God an' these My engines, after ninety days o' race an' rack an' strain Through all the seas of all Thy world, slam-bangin' home again. Slam-bang too much - they knock a wee - the crosshead-gibs are loose; But thirty thousand mile o' sea has gied them fair excuse. Fine, clear an' dark, a full-draught breeze, wi' Ushant out o' sight, An' Ferguson relievin' Hay. Old girl, ye'll walk to-night ! His wife's at Plymouth... Seventy-One-Two-Three since he began - Three turns for Mistress Ferguson - an' who's to blame the man ? There's none at any port for me, by drivin' fast or slow, Since Elsie Campbell went to Thee, Lord, thirty years ago. The year the 'Sarah Sands' was burned. Oh roads we used to tread, Fra' Maryhill to Pollokshaws - fra' Govan to Parkhead ! Not but they're ceevil on the Board. Ye'll hear Sir Kenneth say : "Good morrn, McAndrew ! Back again ? An' how's your bilge to-day ?" Miscallin' technicalities but handin' me my chair To drink Madeira wi' three Earls - the auld Fleet Engineer, That started as a boiler-whelp - when steam and he were low. I mind the time we used to serve a broken pipe wi' tow. Ten pound was all the pressure then, Eh ! Eh ! - a man wad drive; An' here, our workin' gauges give one hunder' fifty-five ! We're creepin' on wi' each new rig - less weight an' larger power: There'll be the loco-boiler next an' thirty mile an hour ! Thirty an' more. What I ha' seen since ocean-steam began Leaves me no doot for the machine; but what about the man ? The man that counts, wi' all his runs, one million mile o' sea: Four time the span from earth to moon... How far, O Lord, from Thee ? That wast beside him night an' day. Ye mind my first typhoon ? It scoughed the skipper on his way to jock wi' the saloon. Three feet were on the stokehold floor - just slappin' to an' fro - An' cast me on a furnace-door. I have the marks to show. Marks ! I ha' marks o' more than burns - deep in my soul an' black, An' times like this, when things go smooth, my wickudness comes back. The sins o' four and forty years, all up an' down the seas, Clack an' repeat like valves half-fed... Forgie's our trespasses. Nights when I'd come on deck to mark, wi' envy in my gaze, The couples kittlin' in the dark between the funnel stays; Years when I raked the ports wi' pride to fill my cup o' wrong - Judge not, O Lord, my steps aside at Gay Street in Hong Kong ! Blot out the wastrel hours of mine in sin when I abode - Jane Harrigan's an' Number Nine, The Reddick an' Grant Road ! An' waur than all - my crownin' sin - rank blasphemy an' wild. I was not four and twenty then - Ye wadna judge a child ? I'd seen the Tropics first that run - new fruit, new smells, new air - How could I tell - blind-fou wi' sun - the Deil was lurkin' there ? By day like playhouse-scenes the shore slid past our sleepy eyes; By night those soft, lasceevious stars leered from those velvet skies, In port (we used no cargo-steam) I'd daunder down the streets - An ijjit grinnin' in a dream - for shells an' parrakeets, An' walkin'-sticks o' carved Bamboo an' blowfish stuffed an' dried - Fillin' my bunk wi' rubbishry the Chief put overside. Till, off Sumbawa Head, Ye mind, I heard a landbreeze ca' Milk-warm wi' breath o' spice an' bloom: "McAndrews, come awa' !" Firm, clear an' low - no haste, no hate - the ghostly whisper went, Just statin' eevidential facts beyon' all argument: "Your mither's God's a graspin' deil, the shadow o' yoursel', "Got out o' books by meenisters clean daft on Heaven an' Hell. "They mak' him in the Broomielaw, o' Glasgie cold an' dirt, "A jealous, pridefu' fetich lad, that's only strong to hurt. "Ye'll not go back to Him again an' kiss His red-hot rod, "But come wi' Us" Now, who were 'They' ?" an' know the Leevin' God, "That does not kipper souls for sport or break a life in jest, "But swells the ripenin' cocoanuts an' ripes the woman's breast." An' there it stopped; cut off; no more; that quiet, certain voice - For me, six months o' twenty-four, to leave or take at choice. 'Twas on me like a thunderclap - it racked me through an' through - Temptation past the show o' speech, unnamable an' new - The Sin against the Holy Ghost?... An' under all, our screw. That storm blew by but left behind her anchor-shiftin' swell, Thou knowest all my heart an' mind? Thou knowest, Lord, I fell - Third on the 'Mary Gloster' then, and first that night in Hell ! Yet was Thy hand

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beneath my head; about my feet Thy care - Fra' Deli clear to Torres Strait, the trial o' despair, But when we touched the Barrier Reef Thy answer to my prayer. We dared na run that sea by night but lay an' held our fire, An' I was drowzin' on the hatch - sick - sick wi' doubt an' tire : "Better the sight of eyes that see than wanderin' o' desire !" Ye mind that word? Clear as our gongs - again, an' once again, When rippin' down through coral-trash ran out our moorin' chain, An' by Thy Grace I had the Light to see my duty plain. Light on the engine-room - no more - bright as our carbons burn. I've lost it since a thousand times, but never past return. Obsairve ! Per annum we'll have here two thousand souls aboard - Think not I dare to justify myself before the Lord, But - average fifteen hunder' souls safe-borne fra port to port - I am o' service to my kind. Ye wadna' blame the thought ? Maybe they steam from grace to wrath - to sin by folly led, It isna mine to judge their path - their lives are on my head. Mine at the last - when all is done it all comes back to me, The fault that leaves six thousand ton a log upon the sea. We'll tak' one stretch - three weeks an' odd by any road ye steer - Fra' Cape Town east to Wellington - ye need an engineer. Fail there - ye've time to weld your shaft - ay, eat it, ere ye're spoke, Or make Kerguelen under sail - three jiggers burned wi' smoke ! An' home again, the Rio run: it's no child's play to go Steamin' to bell for fourteen days o' snow an' floe an' blow - The bergs like kelpies overside that girn an' turn an' shift Whaur, grindin' like the Mills o' God, goes by the big South drift. (Hail, snow an' ice that praise the Lord; I've met them at their work, An' wished we had anither route or they anither kirk.) Yon's strain, hard strain, o' head an' hand, for though Thy Power brings All skill to naught, Ye'll understand a man must think o' things. Then, at the last, we'll get to port an' hoist their baggage clear - The passengers, wi' gloves an' canes - an' this is what I'll hear : "Well, thank ye for a pleasant voyage. The tender's comin' now." While I go testin' follower-bolts an' watch the skipper bow. They've words for everyone but me - shake hands wi' half the crew, Except the dour Scots engineer, the man they never knew. An' yet I like the wark for all we've dam' few pickin's here - No pension, an' the most we earn's four hunder' pound a year. Better myself abroad? Maybe. I'd sooner starve than sail Wi' such as call a snifter-rod 'ross'... French for nightingale. Commeesion on my stores ? Some do; but I can not afford To lie like stewards wi' patty-pans. I'm older than the Board. A bonus on the coal I save ? Ou ay, the Scots are close, But when I grudge the strength Ye gave I'll grudge their food to 'those'. (There's bricks that I might recommend - an' clink the fire-bars cruel. No ! Welsh-Wangarti at the worst - an' damn all patent fuel !) Inventions ? Ye must stay in port to mak' a patent pay. My Deeferential Valve-Gear taught me how that business lay, I blame no chaps wi' clearer head for aught they make or sell. I found that I could not invent an' look to these - as well. So, wrestled wi' Apollyon - Nah ! - fretted like a bairn - But burned the workin'-plans last run wi' all I hoped to earn. Ye know how hard an Idol dies, an' what that meant to me - E'en tak' it for a sacrifice acceptable to Thee. Below there ! Oiler ! What's your wark ? Ye find her runnin' hard ? Ye needn't swill the cap wi' oil - this isn't the Cunard. Ye thought ? Ye are not paid to think. Go, sweat that off again ! Tck ! Tck ! It's deeficult to sweer nor tak' The Name in vain ! Men, ay an' women, call me stern. Wi' these to oversee Ye'll note I've little time to burn on social repartee. The bairns see what their elders miss; they'll hunt me to an' fro, Till for the sake of - well, a kiss - I tak' 'em down below. That minds me of our Viscount loon - Sir Kenneth's kin - the chap Wi' russia leather tennis-shoon an' spar-decked yachtin'-cap. I showed him round last week, o'er all - an' at the last says he : "Mister McAndrews, don't you think steam spoils romance at sea ?" Damned ijjit ! I'd been doon that morn to see what ailed the throws, Manholin', on my back - the cranks three inches off my nose. Romance ! Those first-class passengers they like it very well, Printed an' bound in little books; but why don't poets tell ? I'm sick of all their quirks an' turns - the loves an' doves they dream - Lord, send a man like Robbie Burns to sing the Song o' Steam ! To match wi' Scotia's noblest speech yon orchestra sublime Whaurto - uplifted like the Just - the tail-rods mark the time. The crank-throws give the double-bass; the feed-pump sobs an' heaves : An' now the main eccentrics start their quarrel on the sheaves. Her time, her own appointed time, the rocking link-head bides, Till - hear that note ? - the rod's return whings glimmerin' through the guides. They're all awa ! True

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beat, full power, the clangin' chorus goes Clear to the tunnel where they sit, my purrin' dynamoes. Interdependence absolute, foreseen, ordained, decreed, To work, Ye'll note, at any tilt an' every rate o' speed. Fra skylight-lift to furnace-bars, backed, bolted, braced an' stayed, An' singin' like the Mornin' Stars for joy that they are made; While, out ot touch o' vanity, the sweatin' thrust-block says : "Not unto us the praise, o' man - not unto us the praise !" Now, a' together, hear them lift their lesson - theirs an' mine : "Law, Order, Duty an' Restraint, Obedience, Discipline !" Mill, forge an' try-pit taught them that when roarin' they arose, An' whiles I wonder if a soul was gied them wi' the blows. Oh for a man to weld it then, in one trip-hammer strain, Till even first-class passengers could tell the meanin' plain ! But no one cares except mysel' that serve an' understand. My seven thousand horse-power here. Eh, Lord ! They're grand - they're grand ! Uplift am I ? When first in store the new-made beasties stood, Were Ye cast down that breathed the Word declarin' all things good ? Not so ! O' that warld-liftin' joy no after-fall could vex, Ye've left a glimmer still to cheer the Man - the Arrtifex ! That holds, in spite o' knock and scale, o' friction, waste an' slip, An' by that light - now, mark my word - we'll build the Perfect Ship. I'll never last to judge her lines or take her curve - not I. But I ha' lived an' I ha' worked. All thanks to Thee, Most High ! An' I ha' done what I ha' done - judge Thou if ill or well - Always Thy Grace preventin' me. Losh ! Yon's the "Stand by" bell. Pilot so soon ? His flare it is. The mornin' watch is set. Well, God be thanked, as I was sayin', I'm no Pelagian yet. Now I'll tak' on. 'Morrn, Ferguson. Man, have ye ever thought What your good leddy costs in coal ? ...I'll burn em down to port.

.

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