Читать книгу South Sea Shipmates - John Arthur Barry - Страница 9

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One day we met a steamer. The ancients, ogling her with binoculars and telescopes, presently showed signs of excitement.

"Call me Dutch," suddenly exclaimed one of them, "if that ain't Harry Henderson and the Loango! We ought to hoist the flag. He's an honorary member o' the League. He's giving up the sea this trip. Going into the stevedoring business. He'll be elected permanent at the next meeting. Let's ask the skipper if he minds."

Lord went aft for the required permission, which was grumpily given on condition that the flag should be flown at the fore.

Of course there were no signal-halliards rove, but one of the boys soon remedied this. And by the time the Loango, a big lump of a tramp, was on our port bow, a great red burgee, bearing in white letters the full title of the League, together with the emblematic albatross, was streaming from the fore-royal-masthead in great style.

Apparently attracted by the phenomenon, the Loango altered her course, slowed down, and came quite close to the Zenobia, so close that we could make out the puzzled faces of her officers on the bridge as they stared aloft at our fore.

The ancient ones had gathered on the fo'c'sle head, and they now hailed the steamer and called the skipper by his given name, and sent messages home by him, and generally made a deuce of a noise, while Henderson still stared speechless at seeing so many leading and reputable citizens of Capricorn in such guise and condition.

At last, finding his voice, he roared, "What are you doing there? Have you been shanghaied? Shall I stand by to take you off?"

Shouts of "No, no, Harry, it's all right. We've gone to sea again for our health. They'll tell you all about it when you get home."

Then they dipped their flag thrice in farewell as the steamer forged ahead, her skipper bearing on his rugged features a comical look of bewilderment.

Presently the "Trades" failed us quite suddenly and unexpectedly, and in their place we ran into even heavier weather than we had encountered in the Great Bight. But there was no trouble as regarded "snugging down" the Zenobia on this occasion. Our seasoned old salts simply waltzed around her, so to speak, and the weather being warm, they quite enjoyed themselves. Fortunately the wind was fair, and under her topsails and foresail the ship ran swiftly before it with a high sea following her.

"Algoa Bay should lie 'bout three hundred miles to the west'ard," remarked an ancient at tea-time. "Port Elizabeth they call it now. Beastly hole when I was there thirty year ago—all sand, and flies, and niggers ashore, and cut and run like hell from the roadstead in every westerly blow."

"Well," said another, "this gale'll see us well on our way to Table Bay. And not before it's time either, for the tucker is getting mighty short. We're about down to ham and cheese; enough to take us in."

"Yes, I expect we'll be walking up Adderly Street in less than a fortnight," remarked Lord. "And I think we'll all be sorry, gentlemen, when this little trip of ours is over. Perhaps some day—"

But he never got any further with his impromptu speech. Somehow or other, probably through inattention on the part of the helmsman, the Zenobia came up too much in the wind, and one of the big following seas, taking a mean advantage of the ship, crashed over the quarter and filled her decks from rail to rail fore and aft.

The fo'c'sle doors burst asunder, and in surged the water, carrying us all off our feet, and slamming us to and fro, and thwartships, and every other way, banging us against chests that had broken adrift, and generally mixing everybody up in great style.

Almost all the watch on deck had sneaked into the starboard side for a smoke, so that there was no lack of company in misfortune.

The lamp was out, and from all sides arose cries, and oaths, and strange gurglings and chokings, as we hung to each other and anything else we could feel.

"The d—d ship's overboard," gasped an ancient who had gripped me fast by a leg, and refused to let go.

"Strike a light, somebody!" exclaimed the doctor's voice, sputtering and cursing, as I got clear at last and clambered into a top-bunk.

"Light your grandmother!" retorted Lord's bass tones. "Let's get out of this. On deck everybody. The water's clearing. Let go of me, whoever y'are under the windlass, there, or I'll kick the head off you."

Similar compliments were being exchanged among the ancients, mingled with execrations and groans as loose dunnage washed against them.

But at last we all scrambled free of the place, and, soaked and bruised, crawled aft, relieved beyond measure to see the Zenobia apparently undamaged, and running as fast as ever.

We lost nothing; but it was a great wash-out from saloon to fo'c'sle—utter and complete. There was not a dry stitch for'ard or aft. And for once the Ancient Mariners, as they gathered their belongings together, seemed to think that there might be more comfortable places to be found than the Zenobia.

The next day it blew harder than ever, and we took in the fore and main upper-topsails and stowed the mizzen, while the ancients opined that it was pretty nearly time to heave-to.

But the skipper seemed to think differently; for though manifestly anxious, as he stared aloft and around, he still kept all on.

At four bells in the morning watch we sighted a big ship with only her lower masts standing. She was fair in our track, hove-to but making shocking weather of it. The three topmasts had gone at the caps. From the mizzen peak the Red Ensign flew Jack down, while presently through our glasses we could see a string of signals fluttering up the halliards.

The wreckage of spars and canvas had for the most part fallen inboard, and she looked a most deplorable object as she one moment rose to the summit of a comber, full in view, and with a heavy list to port, and then disappeared from sight in one of the great watery valleys. The skipper was on deck eyeing her through his glasses. It was the chief mate's watch, and he went into the cabin and returned with the signal book, telling the two apprentices to get our own flags ready to bend on.

"What are you about?" asked Captain Haynes.

"Won't you see what she says, sir?" asked the mate.

"What's the use?" replied the skipper. "We can't help her in any case. Make fast those halliards again and put the flags away."

As it happened, Lord, the best helmsman in the ship, was at the weather wheel. We were rapidly approaching the other ship, and could already distinguish the figures of people aft; could also see that she was desperately low in the water, and that all the forepart of her was constantly swept by breaking seas.

The mate stood irresolute with the book in his hand, looking from the skipper to the labouring hull ahead.

"Did I hear you say, cap'n," shouted Lord, "that you were going to carry on, and not try to help those poor chaps yonder?"

"You did," replied the captain angrily. "Nothing can be done for them. And I'll not risk the loss of my ship in trying to assist them. No man could do anything in such weather. And, in any case, it's no business of yours."

"By G—d, is it not!" exclaimed Lord. "You useless son of a sea-cook! You fine-weather sailor trash! Here, Mister Mate, you take the wheel. And the League'll show this poor yahoo how to do his work."

And the mate, dominated by the great roaring voice, and the cold fury in the keen, blue eyes, meekly took the weather helm, while Lord rushed for'ard and called the watch below.

"On deck all hands!" he bellowed. "Here's men drowning alongside us, and the murderin' skipper won't even have a try to help 'em. Jump, you Leaguers, jump as you never jumped before!"

They were up in a jiffy, having turned in "all standing."

And then Lord practically took charge of the ship. First he clewed up the fore-topsail and stowed it. Then he hauled the foresail up, and putting his helm down rounded short to in a bit of a smooth, furled the foresail, and in a very short time the Zenobia under his skilful handling was lying hove-to under a lower main-topsail and fore-staysail as quietly as a duck asleep in a pond.

Needless to say that Phil and I seconded the patriarchs to the utmost of our power. So, indeed, did everybody but the mates. It was mutiny of a kind; and with the skipper lay the power to ruin their careers. Therefore, they merely stood by and looked on, while our two selves, and the boys, and the "idlers"—the cook, carpenter, and "sails"—aided and abetted Lord and his crowd for all we were worth.

The stranger was now broad on our port bow, some half a mile distant, and it was evident to all that her time was getting short; she seemed deeper in the water than ever; indeed, all hands—we counted a dozen—were in the mizzen rigging.

To a sailor's eye she presented a dreadfully pathetic spectacle as she wearily crawled up one great declivity and went sliding out of sight into the gulfs between. And all the time the Zenobia drifted steadily down upon the derelict, while on the break of the fo'c'sle stood Lord watching, and at intervals signalling to the two ancients who had relieved the wheel. Presently he set the foretopmast-staysail, put the helm up, kept his main-topsail full, squared the head-yards, hauled down the staysail again, and once more hove her to on the other tack; a delicate piece of manoeuvring which brought the Zenobia's bows heading straight for the stern of the other vessel.

But we shipped several seas, during these proceedings, that more than once nearly filled our decks, and some of us had narrow shaves of going overboard. It takes the highest standard of seamanship to monkey with a vessel in such weather as then prevailed, and both Phil and I doubted very much whether Lord could effect any good by tempting Providence further in the way he was doing, splendid sailor as he had shown himself to be. But we were mistaken.

"Clear away the life-boat," was the next order he gave, and the ancients rushed her off the midship skids, hooked tackles on to each end of her, and in a very short time had her ready for shoving overboard.

Then he had drums of oil brought out of the lamp lockers and lashed to the rail under the lower fore and main rigging, and holes punched in them through which the oil leaked slowly into the sea.

"By Jingo!" exclaimed Phil in admiration, "there's a wrinkle for you! That chap's got a headpiece on him, if you like. Harry, my man," he added, as he watched the magical effect, "we'll do the trick yet."

It must be remembered that the use of oil in a heavy sea was almost unknown in those days—so far, at any rate, as concerned sailing-ships. But Lord had seen it successfully tried once before even in his time.

And on this occasion it took all the vice out of the combers. They actually appeared to flatten under the action of the lubricant. Comparatively, of course, the ever-narrowing space between the two ships became smooth; the rolling masses rolled more sluggishly and with rounded summits; the sound of their roaring diminished to a sullen murmur.

"Out boat!" suddenly shouted Lord. "Ward, Scott, and three others. I must stop here, or the Old Man 'll be giving us the slip."

In a minute the boat was in the water; and while Phil and I were fending her off the Zenobia's side, four of the ancient ones fell into her, and the next thing we knew we were adrift and sinking into a valley, cool and dark and deep, and the ship was hidden from sight.

But there was not much danger; the oil had done its work well, and we out oars and pulled with a will towards the wreck, while faintly to our ears came the voices of the Ancient Mariners cheering shrilly. By the time we reached the derelict she was nearly awash aft, making our task of rescue almost easy, as man after man jumped and was hauled inboard, a baker's dozen of them all told. The remainder had been killed by falling spars, or washed off the decks.

As we pulled back to the Zenobia we could see them preparing to make sail upon her; could see also a broad burgee ascending to the fore-royal truck blown out like a scarlet flame against the lowering sky.

But the getting on board! There lay the Zenobia with her iron sides towering like a wall above us, rolling not a little as she sank and rose amid her; oily surrounding.

And but for the oil we should never have trod the old ship's decks again. Lord and his men emptied whole drums over amidships until they made a "smooth." Meanwhile, scores of rope's ends were hung over the rail with bowlines in them. There was nothing else for it.

"Now," roared the great voice, "pull in like hell and grab your lines!"

The ship was rolling gently towards us on the slope of a big comber as Phil skilfully put the life-boat alongside, and as the Zenobia rose she carried and dragged with her the entire boat's company. Some stuck to her sides like flies against a pane of glass, others, gasping and half-choked with oil and salt water, were hauled up hand-over-hand like monstrous fish by the crowd inboard.

It was a wonderful save; bar many bruises and missing patches of skin, there were no casualties. But the boat was lost, of course. It would have been sudden death to attempt to keep her alongside for more than a minute.

The first words the rescued captain said after a glance at where his vessel had been, were: "She's gone! You were only just in time. Where's the master of this ship? I want to tell him he's the greatest sailorman that sails the seas to-day."

At this moment Captain Haynes, bursting with indignation, malice, and envy, rushed forward, and addressing Lord, shouted: "You infernal scoundrel, have you finished with my ship yet? Or are you going to play any more mad games with her? There's the life-boat gone now! And you and your crowd shall pay for her, and go to gaol into the bargain directly we get to Cape Town. League of Ancient Mariners! I'll league you when we arrive. And you'll get no discharges from me except 'decline to report,' I can assure you."

"Keep your hair on, cap'en," replied Lord coolly. "And take your old hooker, now I've done with her. You ain't fit to have charge of a mud barge in a pinch. But we'll all stand by and help you when you get jammed again."

Meanwhile, the master of the lost ship, having gathered the true state of affairs, shook hands heartily with Lord, complimented him on his skill and courage, and finally asked permission to take up his quarters for'ard.

"I've got no time," he concluded, "for a man who'd pass a sinking ship without lifting a hand to her, even so far as answering her signals of distress goes."

Then, turning to our skipper, he added; "You're a disgrace to the name of sailor, sir. You needn't talk Cape Town gaol to these brave men. It's Cape Town, aye, and all England will talk to you."

So saying, he and his men went away for'ard, while Haynes, purple-faced, and gasping with rage, clambered on to the poop.

Ten days later the Zenobia entered Table Bay. And when the master of the lost ship Windward, of London, went ashore and told the story of the rescue, even slow-going and lethargic Cape Town awoke to a large amount of enthusiasm.

The League was feasted and feted everywhere; gold medals were presented to each of its members. The ladies of the city made them a silk burgee. The cable flashed the news of their doings throughout the world. Their photographs, together with their combined and individual ages, were in all the shop windows, selling like hot cakes at two shillings each in aid of the Shipwrecked Mariners Society.

And the ancients behaved themselves with an unassuming modesty that made them immensely popular. But they thought more of the discharges bearing their three "V.G.'s," writ large, than they did of all the compliments showered upon them.

They had won their wager. And each of them had vindicated his right, in spite of age and disuse of the sea, to be known by the, to him, still very honourable title of Able-bodied Seaman.