At the end of the second year during my university time I had to
choose my specialisation. Earlier, when I had spoken about it --
shipbuilding has always been my goal --, fellow-students had been
laughing at my simple-mindedness: they had said, about half of the
400 boys and girls had wanted the same. One day towards the end
of my 2nd year, when I was just placing an application for some
financial help in the dean's office, the lady questioned me about my
plans. To solve my problem she suggested to go to the national
shipping company and to sign a so-called scholarship agreement.
At that time our economy was called socialist, but actually it had a lot
of feudal characters in itself, among others there were no jobless,
instead of it there was a shortage of workforce. It had become
fashionable for companies to get some employees with high
education by giving them scholarship at the university and binding
them for as many years as they received the money.
I have done as she said and so my place as a would-be naval
architect has been secured.
This summer has been a very busy time for me. Shortly after
returning from the Berente camp I got a job on a river passenger
steam-boat as a surplus machinist. It has been my first time to live
on a vessel. I have got a small single cabin with an overhead spare
bed that had been broken. The boat has been named after the
leader of our freedom fight “Kossuth”. My first job on a boat has
formed my mind on a mass scale. A boat is a complete world, but it is
so compact, everybody knows everything about everyone else.
The boat has been a pleasant one, built in 1913 in a shipyard
still existing that time in '61. It has been a typical river steam-boat
with side paddle-wheels and a big gallery as wide as the wheels and
26
Danube
meeting the lines of the hull at both ends. The hull housed the
cabins of the crew-members ahead, the passenger cabins astern
and the engine room and boilers amidships with large built-in fuel
tanks. On the main deck there was the gallery all around, the rest-
aurants in front and the common passenger room aft. In the gallery
the cabins of the officers, the galley and the shower rooms have
been situated.
There was the so-called promenade deck at the next level up, a
vast open space in the front and the back. From midship to the front
there stood the bridge, behind it the upper shaft of the engine room
with skylights, and on both sides a big apartment, one for the capt-
ain, one for the studio of the loudspeaker system. Her funnel was
enormous and could have been lowered during passing under
bridges.
The boilers were still the original flame-tube types, very easily
serviceable. The ship's engine had three cylinders and after five
minutes it could have been handled by a child of 10. The only
unbearable thing has been heat. Sometimes the temperature grew
above 125 degrees F. Noise has not been great, we could speak in a
normal tone when in full speed.
I have met some very kind people among the crew and the
officers. The captain was a true gentleman. His manner and
character could have secured him a pass into any clubs in England.
The chief machinist was of a special type. He was fat and his temper
as flammable as gasoline. But he was a kind man and could not
have done any harm. During the first week I have done some things
wrong because of my inexperience. He has always been angry and
used rough expressions, but after that he has never been unkind
and taught me about all details of the trade.
The deputy chief machinist has been a small man and he looked
very ugly. He has been a good example that the majority of women
are hare-brained and without good taste. Ugly and conceited he
was, he has had the greatest number of love affairs of all the men I
27
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have met in my life. No woman could avoid his courting, and even
his wife, a good-looking and fair person has not left him for his
adventures. I found only one property of his to write on the positive
side and it was his skills in the trade. He had started his career at 15
and there have not been boats on the Danube he could not have
anything to say about.
There have been two ordinary machinists, a young man and an
elder one. The young's wife was pregnant and he left this job soon
after to be able to stay home with his family, and took the job of a
refrigerator mechanic on the company's ships. The elder man has
been a very simple, but really good person. He could also tell me
anything about the trade and knew what to do in different situations,
but his theoretical knowledge has been next to nothing.
There were some unpleasant people, too, but I do not remem-
ber them very well.
The boilers have been heated by mazout, the firemen had a
much better work than before, when fuel had been coal. The only
unpleasant condition of the boiler room that remained: it has always
been even hotter than the engine room.
The passenger steam-boats of the company have been doing
two different missions. From the capital to the southern border town
of Mohács they were passenger and produce transporters. At that
time the capital was the industrial and commercial centre of the
country to such an extent that there was only one wholesale market
in the country, at the southern part of the capital. From all over the
country produce has been carried there and along the Danube the
state farms and newly established private farms loaded their veget-
ables and fruit onto these “market-woman” boats. The upriver trips
have been much slower than the down-river ones, not only because
of the current, the upriver stops have lasted more than one hour at
some settlements, there was so much load to be placed on the pro-
menade deck. Sailors liked these trips: their wallet became thicker
as loading has been done by them and market-women paid in cash.
28
Danube
Along the river south of the capital the traditional dress was still
usual at that time. A big part of the population has been of German
origin and the women carried on themselves a lot of under-skirts.
Some had more than ten. They looked much fatter than they really
were. We called them parachuters as the uppermost skirt took the
form of an open parachute.
It has been funny to see these market-women take their nap.
They arranged their sleeping place on top of their full sacks. As they
lay down, half of their skirts served as bed-sheet, the remaining
ones as cover. Not all of them spent the night this way. Some of
them had enough money to take a comfortable cabin and paid to the
sailors to guard their goods. Today's millionaires in this country
began their original capital accumulation that time.
On these routes most passengers have been ordinary poor
people, who took the boat instead of train, as it has been cheaper.
To sit through the 17-hour upriver trip has not been very easy. Even
in down-river it took 13 hours. Down-river the boat left at 8 p.m. and
arrived at 9 a.m. the next day. Upriver she left at noon and arrived at
the wholesale market at 5 a.m. the next morning. At the terminal she
reported at 8 to 9 a.m.
The other assignment for the boats have been excursions. To
the north from the capital there are two towns on the riverside that
are famous for their historic sites and ruins. Saturdays and Sundays
during the summer season have always been excursion days. The
boats were leaving at 8 a.m. and back at 2 p.m. from the other end.
The trip took 4 hours upriver, 3 down-river.
The Danube has always attracted me and this feeling has
grown even stronger during the years, or rather only months, I have
spent on the river as a boatman. He who has read Mark Twain's
book about his similar period spent on the Mississippi river can have
some idea about the beauty and dangers of a great flow. The boat
itself has contributed to this addiction of mine by turning my
readings in childhood into reality at least in part. But actually it is
29
Canned roaddust
the river that acquires an independent personality, and it becomes a
true partner of man during life on a boat.
When I got on board the "Kossuth", or, as boatman say, "ship-
ped in", after my tiring work of the first day done with the kind assis-
tance of Uncle Mike, the elder machinist, I nested in my microscopic
cabin as a practised camping tent-living man and tried to sleep.
However, it has been made hard by two characteristic phenomena
of the boat. One of them was the unmistakable putrid smell of the
water. No wonder, this smell could come in to me through the
porthole in the hull of the boat placed a little above the waterline,
which was necessary to be kept open for the small volume of the
cabin. And I can declare that Danube water has a very strong smell.
My nose is especially good, smells disturb me very much, for this
reason that first night has almost been sleepless for me.
The other has been the sound of water. At the riverside in
Budapest the speed of the current is 2 to 3 mph at most, but the
Danube sending its flow along the steel hull of the boat has been
loud enough for me. Later I became accustomed to both things, a
little more to the smell, as the porthole had to be kept closed during
the trips, so as not to let in five cubic feet of water into the cabin from
the wave by another passing boat. Noise I didn't notice when the
boat lay on the pontoon, and during trips something even helped me
sleep fast. To understand this it is better to have a small lecture of
physics. The boat weighs some hundred tons, the moving parts of
the steam engine only some tons. The pistons have diameters of
one and a half to three feet. When their mass, together with that of
the unbalanced crankshaft, moves fore once in a second, then
comes back again, the centre of gravity follows them within some
inches. This shift moves the whole boat in the opposite direction at
the rate determined by the ratio of masses, perhaps by some tens of
an inch. Being in a linear motion at a constant speed, the boat has
therefore also an alternative swinging at the same time. For this
reason every object not fixed specially, including crew members
sleeping in transverse positions to the longitudinal axis of the boat,
and taking over the linear motion, but not applying to the swinging
30
Danube
effect, will make a similar vibration related to the boat. The best
cradle in the world. I have never slept nearly so fast as there in that
bunk. The mild monotonic noise even made this effect stronger.
I have more pleasant memories beside good sleep from that
month. In summer the Danube has generally a medium water level,
except in extreme years, about which I still have more to say. In
spring the river swells usually eight to ten feet following snow-melt
and rains, and in autumn, before the regular cold-season precipitat-
ion, water-level is the lowest. At that time buoys (in boatman jargon
floats) multiply on the surface, captains stick to the paths rigorously,
they never use shortcuts as otherwise. And the radio station Petõfi
from Budapest uses more often the expression "passing of towages
is prohibited".
At my boatman time the Danube gave place for a busy sport life.
There still existed the traditional boat-houses (pontoon-like bases
for rowing boats) at sports facilities along the riverside in the owner-
ship of independent clubs. Membership charge was mainly symbol-
ic, and they were open for every young person, their managers still
remembered the banal truth that every person is growing older by
one year annually, consequently, replacement is necessary. In
good weather kayaks and rowing boats were swarming on the river,
during week-ends shipping was almost impossible, especially in the
so called Small Danube (the west fork at the Szentendre island). In
swimming season also swimmers were a nuisance, even when they
knew that paddle-wheels can be very dangerous. They neglected
even that risk. Sometimes drastic means have been used: the oil-
pump was filled up with used oil and they got a shot from it.
Every mile on the Danube is different. A boatman needs several
years to get acquainted with the river, a certain section must be
passed many times, until he can store the information about the
whole section in his brain, every item of it connected to a given
event. I myself have never had the opportunity for this, but I can
remember many details, and they are mainly pleasant memories.
31
Canned roaddust
When you leave the capital downwards, you first pass Csepel
island on its right side, first of all the opening of the wintering
harbour, then nothing for long, only the giant works, of which today
almost nothing is in operation. On the right side you can see Buda-
fok and Tétény. If there is a westerly wind, you had better to close all
portholes: the smell of the pig-farm can be sensed from as far as 12
miles. Or, better to say, could be sensed that time. Today no pigs, no
smell.
On the left the lower end of Csepel island is left behind, some
more hours and you reach the wintering harbour in Dunaújváros (it
means "new town on the Danube", poor settlement, the original
name, Dunapentele was not good enough after the death of Stalin,
when it had to be renamed from Sztálinváros, it had to be given a
new name). We reached this town during night by the time-table, I
found the lights of the town on the high bank attractive. Steaming
farther downwards you cross under a bridge spanning the current,
the upper one of two only under the capital within the country. There
follow some stops during the night still, but they take only minutes
each, only a few passengers get in or out. At dawn the boat reaches
Érsekcsanád then Baja. Here always there are some mail items, or
private cargo to unload, it can take as much as ten minutes. At the
next stop, Dunaszekcsö, it is already broad daylight. At last Mo-
hács, that time it was the last frontier, nobody was allowed to enter
the border zone without special permit. Mohács lies on the western
bank of the river.
Mohács was a sizeable country town at that time. Since those
years the border zone has gone, and besides the tourist attractions
built on the former battle-field has helped to raise the number of
visitors. I have not been very interested in that town, during the
several trips made in that market-woman boat I looked around only
once. Rather I remained on the boat to help oil the engines during
the three hours of waiting.
Exactly at noon the steamboat left for the capital. While down-
wards its speed to the bank was almost twelve miles per hour as the
32
Danube
nine miles per hour speed to water was supplemented by the velo-
city of current, upriver our advance was hindered by the oncoming
current, we couldn't make more than seven miles hourly. My watch
has been timed from 4 p.m. to midnight, upriver it meant from Baja
to Dunaföldvár. Tremendous quantities of produces have been
transported from riverside settlements to the wholesale market by
the market-women, for this reason several stops lasted more than
an hour each. The riverbank that was well-recognisable in daylight,
hid in darkness during loading, you could only distinguish the pon-
toon and the office on the bank. The boxes and sacks have been
carried up to the boat-deck, after a time the whole upper level
resembled an overstuffed store-room.
At midnight I finished my watch and went to sleep. Well, my rest
didn't last long generally, around five we reached the whole-sale
market, and the noise of unloading woke me up.
In some weeks I have got accustomed to the life on a boat
completely. Anyway, it got to an end for me, as my practice expired
and I had to go back to go on my studies in the university. Only,
before that the "Sahara" in Baja was waiting for us with my friend
Zoltán.
33
Canned roaddust
My first trip to the Lower-Danube
In July 1962 I boarded the tug “Esztergom” on a trip down-river
to the Danube delta. It has been my first trip abroad. At the ship-ping
company a special group of the personnel department has dealt
with the delegation of crew members to different boats, tugs or
barges. Our man for the engine room crew has been Uncle Louis.
He has not been old, but his character has made him uncle for even
the oldest. His fate has fixed him to the desk: during the final days of
1956 he lost one of his legs below knee from a rifle shot as he had
been standing in a queue for bread. He had got an artificial limb, but
he could not go back to his loved engine room any more.
As a student with company scholarship I had come to him a year
before and he had sent me to the boat “Kossuth”. Everyone had to
begin with domestic routes. After that have come trips down-river
from our country to the delta. To be assigned to a ship that was go-
ing upriver to Germany has had its preconditions. My turn has been
to be assigned on a down-river trip. The tug has been waiting in the
backwater harbour of Dunaújváros 60 miles down-river from the
capital. In such cases, if there was no maintenance or repair activity
on the boat between two trips, there remained on board only one
man from the deck crew and one machinist. Nobody could ever
forecast where the next trip would be, so, these people were
spending their time with relaxation.
I have taken the train to the town and after arriving there I walk-
ed to the harbour. My suitcase has been heavy and I became tired
after the 2-mile walk. The tug lay there secured by two ropes at the
head and stern, as well as by two poles, and I entered it through the
boarding plank. Everything was deserted, I called loudly into that
nothing:
“Anybody here?”
34
Danube
Some minutes later a small, but broad-shouldered man with a
kind face appeared at the head of the forecastle stairs. He asked:
“How can I help you?”
“I have been assigned here as a machinist.”
“You must wait some minutes. The chief machinist is at home
and the other machinist, your colleague is out in that boat with a
girl.” He made a gesture toward a small paddle barge in 300 feet
from us. It also looked deserted.
The man called out:
“Hooligan!”
From the boat the head of a blond young man popped up.
“What do you want?”
“Your colleague has arrived.”
There was an unintelligible grumble and a girl was sitting up
putting her bra on place. They paddled to the tug. The mood of the
young man mirrored his disappointment for being disturbed. I
thought he would not like me and I guessed it right. His name was
Julius.
It became soon clear that the girl was a woman married not long
ago to another man, but, as she was 16 she did not find much
difference between lying with one man or another. I did not bother
as it was not my business. He showed me to our cabin in the rear
end of the hull below deck. My bed has been under the deck at the
side of the ship. If I wanted to stand up, I could only do it at the
middle part of the cabin that was already inside the deckhouse.
The deck above our cabin, the winch-deck, has been situated at
most four feet above the main deck, the side wall between the two
decks carried portholes for the illumination of all such cabins.
This boat has been a typical sample of Diesel-tugs on the
Danube that time. With a length of about 130 feet, beam (breadth)
around 24 feet and a 6-foot draught this tugboat had an approxim-
ate displacement of 300 to 400 tons. Its side at the main frame was
about nine feet high (measured between its flat bottom and the main
deck at the hull). The living quarter for the engine room crew at the
35
Canned roaddust
stern must have been designed partly above the main deck, just to
have enough standing room inside, as the bottom has been raised
there to make place for the propulsion screws. The main deck has
been left intact at other places, the deckhouse has been situated
directly on it. With one exception, and that was the engine shaft
inside the engine room. The deckhouse occupied around 80 per-
cent of boat length. On the head the deck was raised by two feet on
a length of about ten feet, it supported the winch and the small mast
for the white position lamp and the flag of the country where the boat
was sailing. This raised deck was connected to the main deck by
stairs on both sides. Behind it there followed an open section of the
main deck on a length of five feet, and there was the front bulkhead
of the deckhouse. In the head, under the raised deck, the quarter of
sailors was situated. They numbered 5 to 6 persons, depending on
the kind of trip for the boat. In that very limited space bunks could not
have been mounted longitudinally, the lines of the hull determined
their position. The lower ones have not been under the upper ones,
only below them.
The front bulkhead of the deckhouse went by one level higher,
as it made also the front bulkhead of the bridge. The bridge was
situated on the boat-deck, one level above the main deck. It also
went out on both sides to the outer limit of the boat, although the
covered wheelhouse was as wide as the deckhouse itself (on both
sides along the deckhouse there was a strip of free deck of three
feet). At more difficult manoeuvres the officer went out to the side to
have a better outlook. Inside the deckhouse at the front the canteen
of officers, otherwise the saloon, was situated, behind it smaller
rooms, then the engine room. That was the biggest place with a
large volume of air on the boat. Vertically it went up to the boat-deck
from the bottom occupying two complete levels. It was at least half
as long as the boat itself. About two feet above bottom the engine
room had a steel plate flooring supported by steel structures and
made of separate plates to be taken up anywhere for access. The
largest space was taken by the two main engines driving the pro-
pulsion shaft systems with the screws.
36
Danube
The main engines came up to above the main deck. They had a
piston size of 15 inches, with a height of two feet. There were large
thrust bearings to carry the thrust of the screws more than ten tons
each. Of course, both shaft systems contained more than one shaft
connected by considerable couplings. The switchboard was situat-
ed at the lower level, it took the complete front bulkhead. At the hull
on both sides a watertight compartment has been constructed call-
ed well. They have been open at the bottom, but could be closed by
the bilge valves. The two wells were connected with a large-size
pipe, every items of the equipment, main and auxiliary engines for
cooling, water supply, fire extinguishing pump, etc. were getting
water from there. The boat provided its crew with all the comforts of
a town as water or energy supply beside its main function. This is
the reason, why so many small pumps and other devices were built
in along the two sides of the hull and on the steel floor.
As a tugboat it had its most important piece of equipment
mounted to a rigid foundation on the winch-deck above the stern
living quarter. It was to carry the force needed to tow the barges. Its
drum kept the 650 feet of the steel towing cable (one and a half inch
diameter). The cable was drawn out by the thrust of the screws
when necessary, but to draw it back a