Читать книгу Round the Galley Fire - William Clark Russell - Страница 10

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One is sorry to hear of the growth of the very un-English habit of sheering off and scuttling away after a collision. The first duty of a shipmaster who plumps into a vessel or is run into is to stand by, if the condition of his ship will permit him, and render all the assistance in his power. There is nothing more despicable and cowardly than running away after a disaster of this kind. We know what came of such conduct in the case of the Northfleet; and week after week one reads in the shipping papers how such and such a vessel was run into, and how the other ship made off, and how so many people were drowned in consequence. Darkness, that is fruitful of collisions, is also, unhappily, favourable to these mean and unmanly escapes. At night it mostly happens that the utmost you can tell of the vessel that comes grinding into your ship is that she is big or little, a steamer or a sailing-vessel, and rigged in such and such a fashion. The letters on her nameboard cannot be deciphered; she will not answer your hail; and her reply to the melancholy shout of “For God’s sake don’t leave us, we believe we are sinking,” is to shift her helm and vanish in the gloom. The obligation to record such casualties in the log-book or to depone to them before receivers of wrecks does not, it is to be feared, always imply the sort of accuracy that would be useful to sufferers. From time to time a buoy is sunk, a lightship run into, and the Trinity Corporation offer a handsome sum of money for information, but without avail. The absence of all reference by shipmates to such occurrences must make one hope that they are mainly the work of foreigners. But whatever the flag under which a captain sails, his sneaking away from a disaster in which he has had a hand expresses a species of cowardice that presses heavily upon the humbler order of shipowners. A little coaster is run into by a fine large vessel, which stops a minute or two and then proceeds. The master of the coaster may be her owner, and all that he has in the world is in his little ship. She is not sunk, but her masts are over the side, and she looks as if she had been for some hours under the guns of a fort. Whether or not the master be to blame for the collision, he is pretty sure to consider that the fault was not his; and his hardship is, that whilst he stands a chance of being ruined, he is unable to discover the name of the ship that ran into him, so as to be able to bring her owners into a court of justice, and take his risk as a litigant.

I was amused and interested some time since by hearing the story of the resolute behaviour of Mr. John Whitear, master of the schooner Jehu, a vessel of about 150 tons. Giving chase, if you can, is one way, at least, of clearing up the mystery of the paternity of an offending ship that sneaks off in the darkness in the hope of saving her owner’s pocket. Any way, Mr. John Whitear’s conduct illustrates a spirit pleasant to come across in the homely prosaics of the marine life of to-day. Eighty and a hundred years ago it was men of the stamp of Mr. Whitear who commanded British privateers; otherwise how should the maritime memorials of that kind of vessel be so full as they are of the unflinching obstinacy and the grim courage which followed the fleeing enemy over leagues and leagues of ocean, through storms and through calms, finally overhauling and boarding the breathless chase in latitudes so remote from the point of departure that the span between the two places might even now be reckoned a long voyage?

Not very many days ago, then, the Jehu, with 230 tons of coal aboard, was quietly jogging along on her way to her port of destination. The afternoon had been fine, and the night came down very clear and bright, with starlight. The water was smooth, though a merry wind was blowing, and the little vessel under easy canvas lay softly leaning in the gloom, with the white water rippling and crisping past her sides in a hollow, brass-like tinkling. Starlight gives beauty even to a coalman; and I have known stump topgallant-masts and sails yawning upon sheets hard upon a fathom from the points in the yardarms through which they lead, make as dream-like and dainty a picture in the tender sobering shadows of the night as the tall and tapering rig of the handsomest yacht now afloat.

At all events, the Jehu was Mr. John Whitear’s sea-home, and as he paced the weather side of the deck, sometimes squinting into the windward darkness where the loom of the land hung low upon the vague greyish softness of the water that way, or sometimes aloft where the stars, like so many benign and encouraging eyes, were tipping him cheerful winks through the black squares in the shrouds and over the main gaff and among the dim tracery of the standing and running rigging, whose heights seemed to bring near the sweeping enfoldment of the glittering heavens, as though the vast star-laden shadow were revolving and was weaving its circling burden of gloom closer and closer yet round the lonely schooner journeying slowly along with a bell-like resonance of broken water around her, he was no doubt as well satisfied with his little hooker as the captain of an ocean steamer could be with his stately ship.

His pipe being smoked out, the weather looking as steady as a church, and all being well in every possible sense of that marine expression, Mr. John Whitear thought that no harm could come of his going below for a spell to take some rest. Accordingly, after exchanging a few words with his mate, and taking another good look to windward and then aloft, he walked to the companion and disappeared down the steps. But instead of going to bed like a landsman, he kept on his boots and his coat, merely removing his cap as a preliminary to turning in, and stretching himself upon a locker, within easy hearing of the first shout that should come down through the companion, he closed his eyes, and was presently contributing to the other creaking sounds raised in the plain and quaint little cabin by the occasional movements of the Jehu.

How it came about he could not say, not having been on deck at the time; but whilst he lay dreaming such peaceful dreams as should visit a master mariner whose whole professional life is dedicated to the careful attention of the three L’s, he was suddenly aroused, and in some measure startled, by a loud and fearful cry in the companion of “Below, there! here’s a barque running into us.”

Fortunately, Mr. Whitear had no occasion to stay to dress himself; in a breath he was up the ladder and on deck. The first thing he saw was a large barque on the port bow, apparently paying off, having just gone about. Fresh as he was from a deep sleep, Mr. Whitear had all his wits about him in a moment; and he immediately perceived that, let him do what he liked and shout as he would, a collision was unavoidable. The barque loomed up large and massive in the darkness. Her lights were as plainly to be seen as the stars, whilst the Jehu’s burned as brightly. The wind had freshened somewhat, and both vessels were heeling under it. All was silent aboard the barque—not the least sound could be heard; and in that thrilling and breathless moment all other noises took a startling distinctness—the washing of water, the creaking of spars, the squeak up in the darkness of a sheave upon a rusty pin. There is no sensation comparable to what is felt in the few minutes which elapse between the approach and shock of two meeting vessels. A railway collision gives you no time. If by chance you look out of the carriage window and see what is going to happen, before you can sing out the thing has come and is over. But a collision at sea furnishes you with leisure to think, to anticipate, and to make an agony of the disaster before it actually befalls you. Whichever way the helm of the Jehu had been jammed would have been all the same; the barque was bound to come, and in a few moments there she was, with her bows towering like a cliff over the low bulwarks of the well-freighted Jehu, her jibboom and bowsprit arching across the little schooner’s deck like a great spear in the hand of a giant.

The Jehu heeled over under the blow until the rail of her starboard bulwarks was flush with the water. The men came skurrying, half-naked, out of the forecastle, thinking she was sinking, and rushed aft to be out of the way of whatever might tumble down from aloft. You heard the grinding noise of crushed wood; the thud of falling gear, the tearing of canvas. The weight of the barque, that was a big vessel in ballast, swept the stern of the little Jehu to windward, rounding her in such a manner as to free them both. But by this time there was plenty of noise and activity to be noted aboard the barque. Orders were rattled out in plain English, and you could hear the scampering of feet and the songs of the seamen as they ran to and fro and pulled and hauled. She heeled over like a great shadow with her mainyards square and her fore-sheets flattened in. It was impossible to know what mischief she had done; and, running to the side, Mr. Whitear shouted to her at the top of his voice to stand by them, as he feared the schooner was sinking.

No answer was returned.

“They’re leaving us!” cried the mate. “Look! they’re trimming sail; they’re swinging the mainyards!”

Again Mr. Whitear bawled to them not to abandon the schooner; but no answer was vouchsafed, and in a few moments it was not only seen that she was leaving them, but that she meant to get away as fast as she could, for they loosed their fore topgallant-sail and main-royal, and sheeted the canvas home with all expedition.

Under such circumstances most men would have contented themselves with bestowing a sea-blessing on the stranger, and then turned-to to sound the well, and, if the schooner was leaking fast, get the boats over. But Mr. John Whitear was made of the old, and, as some people might think, the right kind of stuff.

“Bill,” says he to William Dart, A.B., who was at the wheel, “keep your eye upon that old catermerang while me and the mate overhauls the schooner. Follow her without a wink, William; for if there’s a creak left in this old bucket, we’ll stick to her skirts and have her name, though she should go all on sailing till we comes to Australey.”

Forthwith he and the mate went to work, sounded the well, looked over the side, peered at the damage done aloft; and then, coming aft again, “She’s tight and she’s right, boys,” said Mr. Whitear. “Now, bullies, here’s a mess that’s to cost some one pounds and pounds. That some one’s not to be John Whitear; so, William, starboard your helm, my lad; and the rest of ye all turn to and make sail forrard, every stitch ye can find, and then we’ll repair the main rigging, and get a new mainsail bent;” for he had discovered that the barque’s jibboom had cut through the centre cloths of the mainsail, ripping it open from the head to the second reef-band as neatly as if a sailmaker’s knife had done the job.

They all went to work with a will, putting uncommon agility into their limbs and spirits by calling the shadow ahead many hard salt names, and swearing they would catch her if she carried them into the Polar regions. The labour was severe, for there were not many of them to “turn-to;” nevertheless, they managed, in a time less by three-quarters than they would have occupied on any other occasion, to repair the damaged shrouds, set up preventer backstays, bend a new mainsail, and cover the little vessel with canvas. The barque was close-hauled, three or four miles ahead, on the port tack, lying over, as a light vessel will in such a merry breeze as was then blowing, under both royals and gaff topsail; she was trusting to her heels and running away, like a big bully from a little man whom he has accidentally hurt, and is afraid of. Her people would probably ridicule the idea of the deep-freighted schooner chasing them; indeed, they had left her apparently helpless, her port main rigging hanging in bights over the side, her mainsail in halves, and the whole fabric looking wrecked and stunned from the shock of the collision.

Meanwhile, Mr. John Whitear stumped the quarter-deck of his little craft, often pausing to point an old leather-covered telescope at the leaning shadow out away under the low-shining stars just the merest trifle to leeward of the lee knighthead, and then cocking the glass under his arm afresh, and swinging round with a sharp, obstinate stamp of the foot to resume his walk.

“Boys,” he sung out, “there’s no occasion for the Watch below to remain on deck.”

“No, no,” was the gruff answer; “there’s no going below till we’ve found out that wessel’s name.”

The wind came along with a fresh, strong sweep, and a deep moan in the gusts as they blew over the bulwark rail into the hollow glimmer of the great mainsail; there was a kind of flashful light in the breaking heads of the little black surges, and a regular rise and fall of fountain-like sound from forward, where the stem of the driven schooner was hissing through the dark water, and the wake ran away astern like a snow-covered road, until, looking at it, you seemed to see the dark water on either side stand up as if the white vein were the frothing stream of a cataract rushing into darkness betwixt the shadows of hills.

“Why, smother me, if she’s not got the scent of us!” suddenly cried Mr. Whitear with the glass at his eye; “she’s off three points, and there’s no luff left in her! Boys, did any of you take notice if she had her stun-sail booms aloft?”

“No,” answered William Dart; “her foreyards were just up yonder” (pointing into the air), “an’ I’ll take my oath she’d got no booms on ’em.”

“Then we’ll run her down yet: we’ll have her!” cried Mr. Whitear, fetching his knee a slap that sounded like the report of a pistol. “Keep her away a bit; ease off the sheets fore and aft. Hurrah, my lads! the Jehu knows the road! We’ll weather the sneak, boys!” And so he rattled on, sometimes talking to his men, sometimes to the schooner, and sometimes addressing the barque ahead.

Shortly after two o’clock in the morning, however, four or five sailing-vessels hove in sight and bothered Mr. Whitear exceedingly, for there was a chance mistaking the chase among them and pursuing the wrong vessel. All hands were implored to keep a bright look-out, and the glass was now much more often at the skipper’s eye than under his arm. It is strange enough to think of a little collier with 230 tons of coal in her bottom pursuing a vessel three times her size. It might really pass as a most satirical travestie of the old maritime business, were it not for the very strong commercial instincts at work in it. The purse was always as great a power on sea as on land, and the flight of the big barque from the little coalman was only another illustration of its supremacy.

To the great satisfaction of Mr. Whitear, the schooner turned out to be more than a match for the cowardly runaway. It was quite clear that the barque had no more sail to set; as it was, she was bowling along under a press of canvas that must have made her decks mighty uncomfortable, to judge from the sharp angle of her inclination. Had she chosen to put her helm up and bring the wind well aft, she would no doubt have walked away from the schooner, whose fore-and-aft canvas then would not have much helped her. But the barque could not forget that she had to work her way to windward, and that her port lay N.E. and not S.W.: and though she might slacken away her lee-braces in the hope of making the obstinate little schooner give up, it would not answer her purpose to do more than that.

Inch by inch the Jehu crawled up to her. Just before daybreak the wind breezed up like a squall, though the sky was clear, and Mr. Whitear, who all through the night had watched the chase with the intentness of an old British commodore following a squadron of flying Frenchmen, shouted out that she had taken in her royals and gaff topsail, and that, as it was, she was nearly out of water to windward. But not so much as a rope-yarn was touched aboard the Jehu; she had never been so pressed since the hour that she was launched. She hove up the foam as high as the head-boards; every bone of her trembled; the wind boomed away from under the foot of her sails in a thunder-note, and the sheets and weather standing rigging stood like bars of iron. There seemed as much eagerness in her shivering, rushing frame as in her skipper, whose excitement deepened as the square and leaning shadow ahead loomed bigger and bigger. Earnestly was it to be hoped that the port main rigging would stand all this straining; and yet such was the temper of the captain and the men of the brave little Jehu, that, I believe, had the mainmast gone overboard, they would have held on after the barque with a single spar, just as I once saw a man with one arm and a wooden leg give chase to a rogue who had sneered at his misfortunes.

The faint grey of the dawn was in the sky when the barque was brought to the wind again, and, after holding on for a short while with a close luff, went about. Before she had her foreyards braced round, the schooner had stayed and was on the starboard tack, savagely breaking the quick seas which were rolling in the wake of the wind, and finding all the advantage she needed in the weathering she had made upon the barque, who, with the rising of the sun, appeared to lose all heart, for no more sail was made, and when she was braced up she was kept so close that the weather half of her fore topgallant-sail was aback. The white sunshine that had flung a deep blue over the stars, and transformed the ocean into a tumbling green surface full of sparkles and white lines, and a horizon so clear that it was like the sweep of a brush dipped in bright green paint along the enfolding azure of the morning sky, gave stout-hearted Mr. John Whitear a good sight of the tall vessel he had been chasing all through the middle and morning watches. She was what he called “a lump of a barque,” so light that half her metal sheathing was out of water, with very square yards and a main skysail mast, and she tumbled with such unwieldly motions upon the running seas that it seemed no longer wonderful that the Jehu should have been able to weather and forereach upon her. Her way was almost stopped by the gripe of her luff, and within an hour of the time of her going about the schooner was on her weather quarter.

Mr. Whitear had already deciphered her name upon her stern, but he had some questions to ask; so, jumping on to the rail and clawing a backstay with one hand, whilst he put the other hand to his mouth, he bawled out, “Barque ahoy!”

“Hallo!” was the answer.

“What’s the name of your vessel?” sang out Mr. “Whitear.

“Have you forgotten how to read, skipper? It’s under your nose,” came the reply.

“You’re the barque Juno, of Maitland, N.S.—that’s clear enough on your starn,” shouted Mr. Whitear, whose temper, inflamed by the long pursuit, was not improved, as may be supposed, by this reception; “and you’re the vessel that ran into us last night, and carried away our shrouds, braces, and running gear, the mainrail, topgallant bulwarks, and split our mainsail.”

“No, we ain’t,” was the reply. “We know nothing of the job you’re talking about; so sheer off, will ye, and take care to spot the right party afore letting fly.”

Without answering, Mr. Whitear shifted his helm so as to bring his vessel to leeward of the barque; and then, running forward when the schooner had forged abreast of the other vessel, he shouted to the man who had answered his hail to look over the port bow of the barque and there he would see the marks of the schooner’s chain-plate bolts, whilst farther evidence of the barque being the culprit lay in particles of her planking adhering to the Jehu’s chain-plates. This was too decisive to admit of farther denial; and Mr. John Whitear having obtained all the information he required, walked aft again, once more shifted his helm, saluted the barque with a farewell flourish of his fist, and then gave orders to his men to trim sail and head for the port to which they were bound.