The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1898-06-14
NOT ALL FUN.
The Chase of War News on a Tu.ho.+
(Brooklyn Eagle. ,

Key West, Fla, May 21.-If Won have
never been to sea in tug take the advice
of the Eagles" war correspondent and
never go. You will have saved up a LARGE
store of happiness and will only have
lost world of uncomfortable experience.
The Key West correspondence life lust
now is very much made up of tugboat
life and he learns the tugboat's vagaries
in waters about the most unfit in the
globe for tugboat navigation. Day after
day the army of young men here, which
is trying to get war news to you good
people at home sets out on some miser-
able little tub to rock and jump in the
Gulf Stream, hoping to see naval fight,
or, at least, to see some small lombard
ment of the shores
The chances are that he sees none of this
and hears less. He has wasted a day or
so beating about the empty face of the
waters. His Office wonders what has be-
come of him, probably curses him for in
efficiency. And, worse fate, the poor devil
may have missed the biggest news of the
week, neither by passing too many
degrees to the right or left at sea or by
not sitting ashore when it has come in,
clear of all dispatch boat surveillance.
The good story of theJ Winslow fight off
Cardenas came to us ashore like a gift
dropped into the hand, passing over the
heads of all the hard working m en- at sea.
But the tugboat sailor correspondent
must have his due and the people at home
give him credit for work and courage like
which American correspondents have
never known. The average tug has no
such thing as cabin. Its only hunks
are ranged below around the wall in the
engine room. No one could sleep there
in these hot latitudes save the most hard
ened Of engineers and sailors. The cap
tain usually has snug little cabin near
the wheel and perhaps the chief engineer
has another on the after part of the lower
deck. Forward is a small kitchen and
dining room com bined, where the seasick
landsman is expected to eat, with the
grimy officers of the boat in room we'll
heated by the cook stove, on which is
simmering the odorous food intended for
the crew.
The correspondent sleeps on deck with
the crew, all packed about like sardines,
and all more or less under water. Some
times hammocks are hung for the lands
men. My last trip we had two iron cots
dashed to the deck and also two steamer
chairs. 1t was, however, SO wet that the
chairs were better to sleep in than the
beds-at least in them you were not con-
stantly strangled, did not have buckets of
water dashed into your face every few
minutes. Bed clothes were impossible. I
fortunately had large rubber sheet,
blessed with all the unpleasant adors that
wet rubber can acquire in hot countries.
I had in spite of the heat to wrap myself
in this, as if in bottle, with my head
out of the neck, and even then the water
sometimes washed over SO adroitly as to
come into the opening and fill up the
bottle with water.
No kind Of exercise by day is possible.
If you will look at any Of the smaller tugs
which pull barges about East River, you
will zee how small their accommodations
and how the average landsman risks fall.
ing overheard whenever he moves about
on them. Put them into the whirling
Gulf Stream, which all about the Cuban
coast is SO rough that the English Channel
is a mill pond by the side of it and you
will see how it would be impossible to
move about even were there room. If you
60 up on the pilot house deck you may
only be wet by the spray, whereas below
the very waves wash over you. But there
is only standing room above and If you
are at all inclined to sea sickness the sight
you have of the great crests on which you
rise only TO plunge into deep pits beyond
will SETTLE your inclination into positive
actuality.
In spite of the fact that liberal papers
allow the men to buy everything neces-
sary for trip, !. have never yet been on
a boat where either the ice OF tine sugar
or something equally essential did not
give out. Then we had to drink hot
Apollinaris or coffee and tea sweetened
with molasses. Both of these are recon-
mended as especial aids to incipient sea-
sickness Above all and over everything,
however, when you get used to being
sort OF perpendicular piston rod, is the
awful smell which comes from a dirty
boats kitchen. 1t is an old, familiar
smell, the same on the dirty boats in the
Black Sea as on Key West tug, and 1
have always found it peculiarly effective
in overcoming a determination not to give
way to what is called purely an "imagin-
airy ailing.'
But, leave the purely personal pleasure
out of these expeditions. Granted that
the poor Literary gent" Chat is what I
heard a sailor call me Sunday, is as sick
as possible. Granted that only the strong
est news instinct in the world keeps his
head ND and his eye keen for sails Even
then his path is so hard that this little
plea for sympathy is more than justified.
No one wants him about. Nearly all
commanders consider him a nuisance TO
be borne with. in the event of an ENGAGE
ment perhaps burden to be assumed
This on ordinary occasions On others the
oo,,oma pderS will not l,oz.LI