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Danger & Beauty. When not on the bridge, Captain Illingworth sits at his desk just below it, bobbing up every three or four minutes to scan the sea ahead. He is equally alert to the danger and the beauty of the North Atlantic, and the slightest change of light brings him to his feet. "Look at that, sir. Look at that patch of sunlight to the right of the fog bank ahead. Did you ever see anything like that?" he roars, his sea-blue eyes glowing at the sight. After 44 years at sea he still acts like a man from the Rockies seeing blue water for the first time.
In fog or bad weather the Captain does not leave the bridge. He has stood 53 consecutive hours on the bridge of the Queen Mary, 55 on the Elizabeth. Once on the Ascania he stood 75 hours without sleep. As a precaution against collision, the Mary has two radar installations. Captain Illingworth welcomes them, but he does not deputize even to radar his task of watching the sea. "In the North Atlantic trade we have a saying: 'We blow the fog horn for five hot-weather months and blow on our fingers to keep warm the other seven.' When fogs abound, any captain of a ship like this who doesn't watch the sea himself is a fool, sir, a fool."
When they gave him peacetime command of the Mary a few weeks ago, a spokesman for the Cunard Line said graciously: "You know, Captain, we've come to consider the Queen Mary as your ship." Replied Illingworth: "I've considered her my ship for over ten years."
To act as his deputy and a kind of general manager of the Queen Mary, Captain Illingworth has Staff Captain G. N. Jones, C.B.E., D.S.O., R.D., R.N.R. Captain Jones has a square-rigged jaw and a thatch of white hair over deep-set eyes. He looks (and is) the embodiment of that stout British character which a gloomy statesman in the House of Commons corridor recently said was Britain's one hope. As Captain Illingworth's deputy, he runs the crew. On last week's voyage, the crew was about 30% new to the ship. A few obviously did not know their way about. But, considering that it was a maiden voyage in a sense, surprisingly few hitches developed and the officers were delighted. The crew morale was skyhigh.
Bar & Showers. Seamen's wages are up to £24 a month minimum now, much more than before the war, when Labor politicians were yelling that the Queen Mary was a palace for the passengers with slave quarters for the crew. Now each seaman has a curtained bunk with a reading lamp of his own. Seamen have their own bar, plenty of shower baths and much more space than before. The big inducement, however, is the Queen Mary's food and the chance to buy in New York.