Читать книгу A Son of the Sea - John Arthur Barry - Страница 6

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"BOY," said the second mate to Torre one morning, as the latter was busy feeding the fowls, "jump up and jockey the gaff, and reeve those signal-halliards. Look sharp now!"

This, perhaps, is one of the most dangerous jobs that can be given on board ship, even to an old and practised seaman, let alone a "first voyager." It meant climbing out some thirty feet to the end of a swaying spar which, projecting at almost an acute angle from the mast, has nothing except a few ropes such as vangs, lifts, etc., to steady it.

Luckily, the captain was near, and, happening to hear the order, at once put his veto on it, and told the second to send somebody else.

Looking very ill-pleased, Phillips called a Dane, Svenson by name, and gave him the errand.

The seaman, an elderly, grizzled, stolid fellow, looked first at the second mate, then at the spar, and seemed about to make some remark. But, thinking better of it, he took the end of the halliards and slowly began to ascend the mizzen-rigging.

It was a bright sunshiny day, and the Andromeda, running before more than half a gale and showing nothing to it above her upper topsails, was foaming majestically along over the great combers, one minute sliding up a rounded glassy slope, the next settling down with a roaring and hissing of white smother between the lofty furrows, down, down, till, losing the wind, her topsails gave a flap, becalmed in that deep ravine. Then, rising once more, she would hang poised on the very summit of a wave for just so much time as enabled one to look around before the descent began.

Away on the port quarter was a small barque showing only her lower topsails, and a forestay-sail to the gale blowing in her teeth. Evidently she was making pretty heavy weather of it, and taking lots of water on board. So long did she stay out of sight, indeed, between the sea-mountains, that those watching oft and again wondered whether she had not foundered. But always she re-emerged, thrashing away into the head-sea, the fore part of her hull hardly discernible for the big masses of spray and foam that broke over it. From her gaff flew a string of bright flags, the American ensign on top, giving a needed flash of colour to her naked spars and rigging as she tossed and stormed like a cork amongst the vast abysses.

Right aft at the Andromeda's taffrail stood a group of passengers alternately watching the barque and the flocks of Mother Carey's chickens and mollyauks which, together with a couple of huge albatrosses, were fluttering and crying hoarsely in the ship's wake.

Torre had finished his fowl-feeding. Overhead, Svenson had succeeded in crawling out to the peak of the gaff, whence, having rove the halliards, he overhauled them on deck where Phillips was busy in bending on the "Answering Pennant," whilst the captain stood close by with the signal book in his hand.

As Torre looked at the Dane, still clinging to the extreme end of the spar, the man at the wheel, minding the distant ship more than his helm, let the Andromeda a trifle up in the wind, so that a big following comber, in place of breaking under the stern, hit her a tremendous smack on the quarter, bursting in spray across the poop and giving the gaff such a sudden violent jerk as shook Svenson from his precarious hold and flung him rods out to sea. In a minute all was confusion. "Man overboard!" roared the helmsman, whilst a passenger cut adrift and flung over two life buoys.

"Down with your helm!" shouted Phillips, suddenly losing his head. "Port main braces here, some of you!" he continued, running for'ard.

"Keep all fast!" thundered the captain to the men as they raced along the deck. "Up aloft a hand and don't let him out of sight! Let go your topsail-halliards fore and aft! Clew up foresail and mainsail! Lively there, my boys! Now then, main and cross-jack yards round! Let her come! Brace up the foreyard! There, eediot!" he remarked to the second mate, "that's the way to heave a ship to! Did ye want to sweep oor decks? "All this passed in less time than it has taken to tell it; and the Andromeda lay to, dry enough, but with a tremendous banging and clattering of canvas up aloft.

Meanwhile, Svenson could be seen, as the ship rose, swimming strongly towards her. Although volunteers to man a boat were in plenty, it was impossible, so the captain said, to launch one in such a sea; also the chances were that, encumbered by his heavy boots and clothing, the man must sink in any case long before help could reach him.

Every soul in the ship was now standing aft eagerly staring, as she lifted, towards the black mass of birds that showed the swimmer's whereabouts. Repeatedly, too, the men urged that a boat be lowered. But the captain would not hear of it.

"My God!" exclaimed someone presently, "he's turned, and is swimming away from us!" And in a minute a hail from the mizzen-royal yard confirmed the fact.

"It's them birds," said the boatswain, his mahogany-hued face paling. "They're peckin' oot his een! Hech, sirs, but yon's a crool sicht! He's better dead! An' him thinkin' he's mekkin' straight for us?"

A low groan went up from both watches, and the captain and the mate turned away from the awful scene.

One of the passengers was an Australian squatter returning home; a tall, stout, big-bearded man, very popular with the crew, to whom, now and then, he would smuggle forward a bottle of rum, or fill his pockets with cabin bread for them.

"Good God, men!" he exclaimed, "wouldn't it be better to put him out of his misery. You won't lower a boat, captain?"

The latter shook his head. "It would only be to lose her and every man in her," said he.

"Then," replied Mr Barker, "if you'll let me, I'll shoot him. I'm a dead shot. Look! isn't anything before that? And he may keep it up for hours yet."

Another low groan arose from the men as they now saw the Dane, apparently as strong as ever, swimming with one hand, but still in the wrong direction, whilst with the other he buffeted and struck at his merciless tormentors, swooping at him with fierce screams, audible even above the slatting canvas and the rush of the great seas that at times poured over the fok'sle-head. Without waiting for an answer to his appeal, Mr Barker ran below, and in another minute appeared with an express rifle. Putting it to his shoulder, and waiting for a second of comparative steadiness, he fired. But the heave of the deck threw his aim out; and in place of hitting the swimmer, a great albatross soared up and fell back, flapping the water with broken wings.

"Try again, sir," said a man.

"No," replied Mr Barker, his lip twitching with emotion, "I see I can't make certain on such bad footing. I may only wound him, and so increase his agony."

"Why," exclaimed some one at this moment, "there's a boat making for him!"

In the excitement of the drama acting out before their eyes, nobody had taken any notice of the barque. Now, looking round, they saw that she had shifted her helm and run down on their starboard quarter. Then, heaving to, had lowered a boat which with six men in her was pulling swiftly towards the swimmer.

"Hooray!" shouted one of the Andromeda's crew in a deep salty note, "there's a Yankee Chrischun on board o' that little hooker! If he'd ha' been with us, we'd not been a shipmate short, you bet!" M'Cutcheon turned scarlet as he heard this, and noticed how the passengers glanced askance at him.

"Ay," remarked another man, a shaggy-haired, wild-looking customer, as he pointed to the approaching boat, now, as it seemed, standing upright on her bows, now sitting completely out of water on her stern, "an' what'll them brave boys think on us as wasn't game enough to make our skipper put a boat over? Oh, the bullies! I'm fair 'shamed to be an Englishman!" And the fellow brought his shut fist savagely down on the rail.

"Silence!" roared Phillips; "stow that long tongue of yours!"

"Silence yerself," retorted the man, with a nasty look in his eyes and a hand wandering towards his sheath-knife. "Silence yerself, ye d—d greaser! How'd you, or yer skipper, like to jockey that gaff, now, eh? I reckon ye'd soon be where poor Hans is."

The men were greatly excited, and some very free talk was being indulged in when, all at once, the swimmer, with the boat not more than a hundred yards from him, suddenly disappeared.

"He's gone!" shouted one.

"No, there his head shows again!" roared another, pointing.

But it was only the black body of a mollyauk; and the barque's boat was tossing and tumbling over the very spot to which, all along, the thick flock of birds had directed them.

For awhile they lingered. Then they pulled back towards their own vessel. As they passed the Andromeda the whole of the latter's crew tumbled into the fore-rigging, utterly regardless of orders calling them to the braces, and gave three rousing cheers, acknowledged by the man at the boat's steering-oar by as many waves of his sou-wester.

"He'll have a nice job getting his boat aboard again," remarked Phillips to the chief officer, as the men, at last, and sulkily enough, came to the topsail halliards.

"Tshee!" sneered the man who had before spoken, overhearing this, "there's a sailor got charge of that ship—not a soger." And the mate very wisely took no notice of the insult to his own captain.

And as they mastheaded their yards, and set their courses, and brought the Andromeda before the wind, during which operation she repeatedly filled her decks, they saw that the stranger had indeed picked up her boat, and that—significant fact—not only were her signals hauled down, but that, when the Andromeda dipped her own ensign, the Stars and Stripes stood out motionless to the gale, whilst the brave little ship, turning her head once more to wind and sea, battered away again upon her course.

"Bully for 'em!" exclaimed a sailor loudly, as the starboard watch came aft to get a pull on the crossjack braces. "She don't want to have nothin' to say to us! An' she won't bid us good-bye. Wot a flamin' hinsult! But, by God, they're men, those Yanks!"

This matter lost Captain M'Cutcheon prestige fore and aft, everyone feeling acutely the slur that the American had thrown upon the ship by her smart piece of work, unavailing though it had been. Certainly the captain had acted according to his best judgment and conscientiously, and nothing more would have been heard of the affair if the barque had not so completely demonstrated the possibility of saving the man's life had steps been taken in time. Actually, the catastrophe in the first place was the result of the helmsman's inattention. If he had not let the ship fall off and then brought her to so suddenly, poor Hans would never have been slung to his doom from the peak like a potato from a stick. And Torre fully appreciated his own narrow escape from a similar fate; for, undoubtedly, the captain's interference had saved his life. A few days after this, another disaster overtook the Andromeda. Running heavily under her fore and main lower topsails and a mizzen and fore topmast staysail, she broached to and swept her decks.

Torre had just turned in when, all at once, the ship seemed to stand still, there was a sound as of some huge weight falling on her decks, and she quivered from stem to stern.

"Ah," remarked Munro sleepily, "she's taken a sea on board that time!" And so she had; for, even as he spoke, the omnibus windows were darkened by a big body of water that made its way in over the wash-board and through every crevice until the lower bunks were afloat. Then they felt the ship heel slowly over, until Torre, in his bunk, had to hang on like a parrot to stop himself from pitching out across Munro on the opposite side.

"Oh," shouted the latter, "she's turning turtle, and we canna get oot. Lord ha' maircy upon us, puir sinners!"

Then they heard a terrific banging and thundering of canvas, and slowly, very slowly, the ship became nearly upright again, the water cleared away, and the pair, forcing the door open, rushed on deck.

It was a clear night; but it was blowing a gale. The Andromeda, who had been running with the sea on her quarter, was now hove to, head to wind and sea, and making dismal weather of it. All her topsail sheets had been let fly to stop her from going over, and the racket was indescribable; whilst green combers rushed thundering aft along the deck, bursting even into the saloon, already half full of water. Here and there dim forms came and went with hoarse cries and shoutings. Torre, hanging to the fife-rail round the mainmast, looked on for a minute or two bewildered, and up to his waist in boiling foam. Then, following Munro's example, he clawed his way aft on to the poop, nearly getting his legs broken by a harness cask which had washed adrift.

To his utter astonishment he saw the poop swept bare. The wheel was gone, so were the skylights, binnacle, companion, everything. Making for'ard again, Torre found one watch clewing up and furling the topsails, whilst others were getting a tarpaulin ready to lash in the mizzen-rigging, and sails to cover the yawning holes in the poop deck where the skylights had stood. Whilst doing his best to help, he was sent away by the mate to trim and light a riding-lamp to use with the spare compass.

Not until towards morning did he hear that both of the helmsmen had gone with the wheel; that the second mate's leg was broken; and the captain's face badly cut by the hood of the companion.

Desolate and storm-swept, indeed, did the ship look when dawn at last broke, as she lay to under a storm-staysail forward and the tarpaulin aft, the only remnants visible of all her huge pile of fine-weather canvas. Her decks were afloat with a raffle of gear, spare spars, hencoops full of drowned fowls, pots and pans out of the galley, seamen's dunnage from the forecastle. Through her rigging the gale blew with a stern, steady, threatening hum; over the bows, at intervals, green seas were pouring. The galley fire was out; and the two pigs who had managed to escape from their pen were crouched in it. A monstrous grey sea curved its rolling hills up to a lowering grey sky. It was bitterly cold, for they were in 46° south. Aloft, the slack running gear stood out in bights; on the yards were heaped sodden masses of canvas. From their davits the two quarter boats hung in bunches of splintered planks.