Читать книгу The Kip Brothers - Jules Verne - Страница 13

5

A Few Days at Sea

It was six o’clock in the morning when the James Cook hoisted anchor and, with all sails set, began to get under way. The captain had to maneuver his way through the harbor and leave it through a narrow opening. After skirting Point Nicholson, thanks to much tacking, he found where the headwind was gusting and entered with the opposing wind blowing from the north. But when the ship reached Orokiva,¹ the sea breeze from the west allowed the captain to cross at close quarters the vast gulf along Ikana-Maoui’s coast between Wellington and New Plymouth, beyond Cape Egmont.²

The James Cook, cutting diagonally across the bay, thus sailed away from land and would approach it again only at the latitude of the aforementioned Cape.

The distance to cover along the western shore of North Island was about a hundred miles. With a steady breeze it could be crossed in three days. Moreover, given the wind’s direction, it would be impossible to remain in sight of the coast, whose hydrographic contours Harry Gibson knew perfectly. There would be no difficulty for the brig in maintaining its proper distance.

This first day went by under quite pleasant conditions. Mr. Hawkins and Nat Gibson, seated near their quarters, indulged themselves in the delightful sights and sounds that a ship at sea can provide. Leaning a bit under the wind, the brig rapidly cut through the long swells, leaving behind a frothy wake. The captain was walking back and forth, with quick glances at the binnacle facing the helmsman, and exchanging a few words with the passengers. Half the crew was forward on watch, the other half was resting in their quarters, after having received their morning rations. Several fishing lines had been cast off the stern and by lunchtime they would not be pulled in without bringing in some of the fish that were so numerous in these seas.

It is also well known that the localities around New Zealand are highly frequented by whales, which are hunted with great success. In this vast bay, a number of them appeared around the brig, and they easily could have been caught.

This led Mr. Hawkins to tell the captain as they watched these enormous mammals:

“I have always wanted to combine whaling with coastal trade, Gibson, and I believe the one would bring in as much profit as the other.”

“It’s possible,” replied the captain, “and the whalers who reach these waters easily fill their hold with barrels of oil, fat, and whale bone.”

“In Wellington they say,” Nat Gibson observed, “that whales are easier to catch here than elsewhere.”

“It’s true,” said the captain, “and that is based on the fact that they have less hearing ability than other species. So you can get within harpoon distance of them. By and large, any whale you catch sight of, you can catch, period. Well, unless bad weather takes over. Unfortunately, storms are just as numerous as they are fearsome in these seas.”

“Agreed,” Mr. Hawkins replied,” someday we’ll outfit for whaling …”

“With some other captain, then, my friend. Each has his own way, and I’m no whaler.”

“With some other captain, fine, Gibson, and with some other ship too, for it takes a special outfitting that the James Cook wouldn’t allow for.”

“No doubt, Hawkins, a ship that can take on two thousand barrels of oil during some campaign that might last as much as two years, and longboats for pursuing the beasts, and a crew numbering as many as thirty or forty men, harpooners, coopers, blacksmiths, carpenters, sailors, apprentices, at least three officers and a doctor.”

“Father,” affirmed Nat Gibson, “Mr. Hawkins would not neglect anything that this type of outfitting requires.”

“It’s an expensive undertaking, my boy,” answered the captain, “and in my opinion, in this part of the Pacific, coastal trade yields more dependable results. Some of these whaling expeditions have been ruinous. I might add that whales have sometimes been hunted out, so they tend to move toward the polar seas.³ To find them, you have to go to the Bering Straits, the Kourile Islands,⁴ or the Antarctic seas. These make for long and perilous trips, and more than one ship has never returned.”

“After all, my dear Gibson,” the shipowner said, “this is only an idea. We’ll see about it later on. Let’s just stick to coastal waters, since they have always turned out well, and then sail the brig back to Hobart Town with a good cargo in its hold.”

Toward six o’clock in the evening, the James Cook crew came in sight of the coastline along the Waimah Bay and across from the small ports of Ohawe.⁵ A few clouds appearing on the horizon made the captain decide to lower the topgallant sails and take reefs in the topsails. It is moreover a precaution taken by all ships sailing in this area, where the gusts of wind are as sudden as they are violent, and every night the crew pulls in the sails for fear of being surprised.

And, in fact, the brig was fairly well buffeted until dawn. It had to move out a few miles, having noticed the lights of Cape Egmont.⁶ When day had come, the brig passed by the harbor of New Plymouth, one of the important cities of North Island.

The wind had grown during the night. It was now a stormy gale. The crew was unable to use the topgallant sails, which had been tightened the day before, and Mr. Gibson had to be content to shake out the reefs from the topsail that had been drawn the night before. The brig was moving at a speed of twelve knots, leaning to starboard, rising slowly over the open sea. Sometimes the waves, striking its side, covered the bow with foam. The bow plunged so deep as to submerge the ship’s figurehead, then immediately rose back up.

This pitching and rolling didn’t worry Mr. Hawkins or Nat Gibson. Having many years of sailing experience, they were used to it. They breathed with gusto this air impregnated with the salty tang of the ocean, filling their lungs with it. At the same time, they took great pleasure in contemplating the infinitely varied sites along the western shore.

This shore is perhaps more curious than that of the southern island. Ikana-Maoui, meaning in Polynesian “The Maoui Fish,” offers a greater number of creeks, bays, and harbors than Tawaï-Pounamou, a name that the natives give to the lake where green jade can be collected.⁷ From a distance, one’s view extends over the chain of mountains that are covered with green and where, in the past, volcanic eruptions had occurred. They constitute the skeleton or rather the backbone of the island whose average width is some thirty leagues. All in all, the surface of New Zealand is no less than that of the British Isles and resembles a second Great Britain owned by the United Kingdom in the antipodes of the Pacific. But if England is separated from Scotland only by the narrow stream of the Tweed, here it is a sea channel that separates North Island from South Island.⁸

From the time the James Cook had left the port of Wellington, the chances of the ship being successfully taken over had assuredly decreased. Flig Balt and Vin Mod often discussed this subject. And that day, at lunchtime, when Mr. Hawkins, Nat Gibson, and the captain were together in the officers’ quarters, they discussed it once again. Vin Mod was at the helm, and they were not running any risk of being overheard by the sailors on duty up forward.

“Ah, that wretched packet …,” Vin Mod kept repeating. “That’s what stopped our plan! For a whole day that confounded ship hung across our path. If its commander is ever sent up to the yardarm, I demand the right to haul on the rope that’ll grip his throat! Couldn’t he just have continued on his way instead of cruising along beside the brig? Without his interference, the James Cook would now be rid of the captain and his men! It would be sailing the eastern seas with a good cargo for the Tonga or the Fiji.”⁹

“All that’s … just words!” observed Flig Balt.

“We console each other the best we can!” Vin Mod replied.

“The question is to know,” continued the bosun, “whether the presence on board of the shipowner and Gibson’s son might oblige us to give up our plans.”

“Never!” cried out Vin Mod. “Our companions won’t ever listen to such a tune as that! Len Cannon and the others would have certainly figured out some way to slip into Wellington, if they had thought that the brig would just come back peacefully to Hobart Town! What they want is sailing for their own profit, and not for Mr. Hawkins’s benefit.”

“All that’s … just words, I repeat,” Flig Balt said, shrugging his shoulders. “Can we hope that the proper moment will turn up?”

“Well, of course,” affirmed Vin Mod, angered at seeing the bosun’s discouragement, “and we’ll just have to take advantage of it. And if it’s not today or tomorrow, then later on in the neighborhood of Papua¹⁰ in the middle of those archipelagoes where the police hardly ever bother you. Let’s suppose, for example … the shipowner and a few others, Gibson’s son, two or three sailors don’t show up some evening … We don’t know what became of them … The brig continues on, right? …”

And Vin Mod, speaking in a low voice, whispered these criminal thoughts into Flig Balt’s ear. Determined not to let him weaken, resolved to push him to the end, he could not restrain himself from uttering a powerful curse, when the bosun tossed out, for the third time, this less than encouraging reply:

“Words, words, nothing but words, all that.”

Vin Mod shouted out another curse, which, this time, was heard as far as the officers’ dining room. Mr. Gibson, having risen from the table, appeared at the after doorway.

“What’s the trouble?” he asked.

“Nothing, Mr. Gibson,” replied Flig Balt, “a sudden pitch that almost stretched Vin Mod out flat on the bridge …”

“I thought I was going to be tossed over the rail!” added the sailor.

“The wind is strong, the seas are unforgiving,” said Mr. Gibson after having examined with a rapid glance the brig’s sails.

“The breeze tends to pull to the east,” observed Flig Balt.

“True. Pull closer in, Mod. No trouble about getting closer to land.”

Then, that order being given and executed, he returned to his quarters.

“Ah!” murmured Vin Mod, “if you were in command of the James Cook, Master Balt, instead of letting the ship do the carrying, you’d let it luff.”

“Sure … but I’m not the captain!” replied Flig Balt, heading toward the bow.

“He’s going to be one, though,” Vin Mod repeated to himself. “He has to be … should I be hanged!”

During the next day, they saw fewer whales than before, which would explain the scarcity of whalers in the area. It is rather along the eastern shore that crews try to catch them, toward Akaroa, and the bay surrounding the islands of Tawaï-Pounamou.¹¹ But the sea was not deserted. A certain number of coastal vessels were coming and going, sheltered by the land across and beyond the Bay of Taranaki.¹²

In the afternoon, still served by a strong breeze, having lost sight of the summit of Whare-Orino,¹³ two thousand feet high and whose base rises out of the sea, the James Cook passed before the ports of Kawhia and Aotea, where a flotilla of fishing boats were heading in, unable to weather the open seas.¹⁴

Mr. Gibson had to reef in the topsails, while holding the foresail, the mainsail, the spanker, and the jibs. If the sea grew rougher, if the wind became a tempest, he would still have a refuge for the night, since around six o’clock in the evening the ship would be sheltered by Auckland.¹⁵ So he preferred not to alter his route.

Supposing that the James Cook were required to seek shelter from the bad weather on the open sea, it would find it without difficulty in Auckland. The city occupies the back and north of a harbor that is one of the most reliable in this part of the Pacific. When a boat enters its narrow mouth between the Parera rocks and the “Manukan hafen,”¹⁶ it finds itself inside a basin, protected on all sides. No need to reach the port. The basin suffices, and even entire fleets would find good mooring space there.

With such advantages for maritime commerce, it is not surprising that the city has rapidly achieved great importance. Including the outlying areas, it counts around sixty thousand inhabitants. Arranged in tiers on the slopes of the southern side of the bay, the city is quite varied in aspect. Superbly laid out with its squares and gardens, decorated with tropical flowers, its broad, clean streets, bordered with hotels and shops, this curious city, industrial and commercial, might be the envy of Dunedin and Wellington.

If Mr. Gibson had sought refuge in this port, he would have encountered a hundred ships coming and going. In this northern part of New Zealand, the attraction of gold mines was felt less than in the southern part of Ikana-Maoui and especially in the provinces of Tawaï-Pounamou. There, the brig could have rid itself—without much difficulty—of the recruits embarked in Dunedin and replaced them with four or five sailors chosen from among those dismissed from other ships. So little did he esteem Len Cannon and his comrades, the captain might well have made up his mind, much to the disgust of Flig Balt and Vin Mod, to cast anchor in Auckland. But to avoid further delay, he thought it best to remain under shortened sail during the night. Sometimes, even, he hove to and faced the waves from the west, only to pull away from the coast when lights seemed to close in on the starboard side.

In short, the James Cook behaved wondrously in the heavy winds, thanks to the capable hands on duty. It experienced no damage either in the hull or aloft.

The next day, November 2nd, under gentler gusts and a more manageable sea, the brig passed through an oblique wind at the opening of another harbor, more extensive than that of Auckland, the harbor of Kaipara,¹⁷ at the back of which Port Albert¹⁸ was founded.

Finally, twenty-four hours later, for the breeze had noticeably calmed, the heights of the Mannganni Bluffs, Hokianga Harbor, Beef Point, and Cape Van Diemen,¹⁹ after a distance of seventy or eighty miles, also lay in their wake. They passed on their left the reefs of the Three Kings.²⁰ The sea then opened graciously before the bowsprit as far as the jumble of the archipelagoes of the Tongas, the Hebrides, and the Solomons,²¹ which are located between the equator and the Tropic of Capricorn.

There was naught to do but set sail toward the northwest and New Guinea, still some nineteen hundred miles away, and to become acquainted with the Louisiades²² and, beyond them, island groups that are today part of the German colonial domain.

If wind and sea remained favorable, Mr. Gibson counted on making that crossing without delay. Sailing up the equinoctial line, bad weather is less frequent, less dangerous than in the vicinity of Australia and New Zealand. On the other hand, it is true, a ship navigating by sail is exposed to calms that can slow it down for days, whereas ships powered by steam can provide swift and sure navigation. But that is quite costly, and when it is a question of long or short offshore trade, it’s better to use sailcloth than spend for coal.²³

However, the breeze, weak and intermittent, threatened to reduce the speed of a brig to two or three miles an hour. Yet he had all the equipment, right down to the staysail, the studding sail—every type of sail there was. But if a total calm arrived, without a breath that could wrinkle the surface of the water and where long ground swells rock a ship without moving it on its way, all of its sailing equipment would be of no use. Mr. Gibson could only be helped by currents that generally bear northward in this part of the Pacific.

However, the wind did not fall completely. A full sun seemed to make the sea simmer, as though it had been superheated in its lower layers. The upper sails swelled and the James Cook left a slight wake trailing behind.

And during the morning hours, as Mr. Hawkins, Nat Gibson, and the captain were talking about what it is so natural to discuss in the course of navigating—the weather of the moment and the weather to come—Mr. Gibson said:

“I don’t think this will last …”

“Why’s that?” asked the shipowner.

“I see on the horizon certain clouds that will soon bring us a wind … or I am sadly mistaken.”

“But they are not rising, those clouds,” Mr. Hawkins observed, “or if they are rising a bit, they’re dissipating.”

“No matter, old friend, they’ll end up by taking on more substance, and clouds, that means wind.”

“Which will be to our advantage,” added Nat Gibson.

“Oh!” said the captain, “we don’t need a breeze to triple-furl the sails. Just enough to fill the sails and round out the lower ones.”

“And what does the barometer say?” asked Mr. Hawkins.

“A slight tendency to sink,” replied Nat Gibson after consulting the instrument installed in the deckhouse.

“So let it go down,” said the captain, “but slowly, not making leaps like a monkey climbing the coconut palm and then falling out of it … If calmness is boring, storms at sea are dreadful, and I believe that all in all …”

“I’ll tell you what would be preferable, Gibson,” interrupted Mr. Hawkins. “That would be having aboard ship a little auxiliary engine, fifteen to twenty horsepower, for instance. That would provide a means to make headway when there’s no longer a breath of air at sea, at least to enter the ports and leave them.”

“We’ve gotten along without so far, and we can still do it,” replied the captain.

“It’s just that you’re still a sailor from long ago, the ancient mariner of commerce.”

“Indeed, Hawkins, and I’m not in favor of those mixed ships! If they’re well made for steam, they’re badly constructed for sails, and vice versa.”

“In any case, Father,” said Nat Gibson, “there’s some steam out there that it wouldn’t be bad to have right now on this ship.”

The young man pointed out a long, dark plume stretching out along the northwest horizon. It could not be confused with a cloud. It was the smoke from a steamship traveling rapidly toward the brig. Within the hour both ships would be abeam of each other.

The meeting of ships is always an interesting event at sea. One tries to recognize the ship’s nationality by the shape of the hull, the mast arrangement, while waiting for it to fly its own colors in a sign of greeting. Harry Gibson brought his spyglass to his eye, and some twenty minutes after the steamer had been seen, he believed he was able to say the ship was French.

He was not mistaken, and when the ship was just two miles from the James Cook, the tricolored flag²⁴ rose to the peak of its mizzenmast.

The brig answered immediately by flying the flag of the United Kingdom.

This steamer of some eight or nine hundred tons was probably a coaler headed for one of the ports of New Holland.

Toward eleven thirty, it was a couple of cable lengths from the brig, and it approached closer as though it were intending to “study” them. Moreover, a very calm sea would favor the maneuver, and presented no risk. Aboard the ship there were no preparations for lowering a tender, and the questions and answers were exchanged by means of a megaphone, which was the usual way.

And this is what was said between the steamer and the brig, in English:

“The name of your ship?”

“The James Cook out of Hobart Town.”

“Captain?”

“Captain Gibson, and you?”

“The Assumption, out of Nantes. Captain Foucault.”²⁵

“You’re heading?”

“To Sydney, Australia.”

“Understood.”

“And you? …”

“To Port Praslin, New Ireland.”

“And you’re from Auckland? …”

“No, Wellington.”

“I see.”

“Good voyage to you, Captain Foucault!”

“And you?”

“From Ambon in the Moluccas.”²⁶

“Good sailing? …”

“Fine. One piece of information. At Ambon they are very anxious about the schooner Wilhelmina,²⁷ out of Rotterdam, which is a month overdue, coming from Auckland. Have you any news of it?”

“None.”

“I’ve come up from the west, across the Coral Sea,” declared Captain Foucault, “and we’ve not sighted her. Are you expecting to head east for New Ireland?”

“That’s where we intend on going.”

“It’s possible that the Wilhelmina has been disabled in some storm.”

“Possible, all right.”

“We ask you to kindly keep an eye out for her while crossing these seas …”

“We’ll keep an eye out.”

“Very good. Have a good voyage, Captain Gibson.”

“And good voyage to you, Captain Foucault!”

An hour later, the James Cook had lost sight of the steamer and was sailing up the coast toward the northwest, heading for Norfolk Island.²⁸