DISMASTED
Captain Burke's manner of going persuaded me his mind was unhinged. He
had talked with excitement, shouted at his wife, his eyes had been full
of fire, and still it did not seem that he had fully grasped the whole
dreadful meaning of the disaster.
After he had been gone a little while two men came into the cabin with
fuel for the stove. One had a bloodstained bandage round his forehead
under his sou'wester. The snow fell in pieces of white crust from the
oilskins of the seamen as they reeled with their hands full to the
stove. In the instant of their descent the sweep of the black gale
followed, and filled the atmosphere with darting needles of stinging
cold.
'Is any water coming into the ship?' cried Mrs. Burke.
'No, mum. The well's just been sounded. She's right enough in the
hull,' answered the man with a bandage round his head.
'Aren't the decks being swept?'
'Now and again a spray,' answered the same man. 'She's a-jumping of
it drily enough. She'll not hurt as she lies providing there's nothen
knocking about to run foul of.'
'Is your head badly hurt?'
'Just a little bit of a cut. Nothen to take notice of, thankee,'
answered the man, and he knelt down and lighted the fire, the other
looking on and around him with a gleaming gaze of curiosity.
The lighting of that fire was a marvellous piece of rich deep colour as
I see it now, though I had no thoughts that way, I assure you, as I sat
watching the kneeling figure on that frightful night. He was in black
oilskins bright with snow; the other in yellow, snowclad likewise, and
as the kindling shavings spat out their yellow flames, the two men
showed more like some wild startling imagination of a poet done into a
grotesque glowing canvas, than a commonplace detail of shipboard life;
their faces sharpened and shrank, grinned and grew grim with twenty
shadowy expressions, their roaming seeking eyes burned like rubies
under the pent-houses of their sea-helmets; add the convulsive motions
of the dismasted hull, the ceaseless roar of seas pouring in mountains,
the dizzy flight, the sickening fall, the wild play of the lamp, the
deep, almost human groanings of the fabric with blows of the surge,
like bolts from the sky, shocking to her heart in sounds of rending.
I hoped Mrs. Burke would ask questions of these men as to the safety
of the vessel, what would be done, our chances for our lives, and the
like, seeing that they were able seamen, mariners of experience with
memories perhaps of such things as this too; but she was the captain's
wife; so I held my peace and watched the men, clasping myself close in
the furs I sat in.
Scarcely was the fire alight when again the cabin was made bitterly raw
by an icy-shriek out of the blackness, and three men, one of them the
steward, all clad in oilskins and hardly recognisable, descended. A
couple bore some galley things, a coffee pot, a saucepan, a gridiron,
some drinking mugs, and such matters. One of them said, 'By the
captain's orders, ladies,' and put the utensils on the deck near the
stove. Another exclaimed, 'We've been told to stop here. We can't get a
fire to burn in the galley. The fok'sle's cruel cold.'
'Where's the cook?' said Mrs. Burke.
'Overboard, along with the mate and three others,' said one of the men.
Mrs. Burke tossed her hands and after a pause said:
'I'd cook a meal for you with pleasure, men, but I cannot bear this
motion--I cannot stand. Steward, fetch a ham from the pantry; there's
coffee there and biscuits. Get what's needed for a plentiful supper.
Four overboard! How many are left?'
'Nine foremast hands, counting the bo'sun,' exclaimed the seaman with
the blood-stained bandage, looking round from the stove.
Just then the rest of the seamen came below, a shaggy, snow-bleached
huddle, the gale following in a howl, with the captain's voice in the
frost-keen sling of it, shouting, 'Give them all they want to eat. Let
them have plenty of hot coffee, and top the meal off with a dram of rum
apiece.'
The companion doors were then closed, but in such wise as to be easily
opened from within. After that moment's roar of ocean and volley of
iron blast, the comparative calm in this interior seemed like peace
itself.
'Isn't the captain coming down?' said Mrs. Burke in a voice something
wild with anxiety.
'Presently, mum,' answered the boatswain, swaying easily from leg to
leg, his huge form thickened out by an immensely stout pea-coat; he
pulled his sou'-wester off as a mark of respect, and the snow on the
hatch of it flew to the deck compact, and lay there like a white wreath
on a grave.
'He'll be frozen,' cried Mrs. Burke.
'He's a-watching of an ice-mountain out over the bows,' said a man.
I clasped my hands, and felt the blood forsake my heart on hearing
this. One of the men observed me, and in a voice that went through the
straining noises, like the sound of the sawing of wood, cried:
'There's no call to frighten the ladies, Jim. That there block ain't
agoing to hurt us, anyhow.'
They then settled who should cook; a man undertook the job; the steward
cut the ham into rashers, and after a little the place was full of the
smell of frying. They had their orders, and went to work. You would
not have guessed from their behaviour that we were a dismasted hull,
low down past the Horn, ice near us, ourselves rolling helpless on
a mountainous sea, a hurricane blowing, often blind with snow, our
situation so frightful that every next lurch, every next drive, might
carry us headlong out of hand. They fried the bacon, they boiled plenty
of coffee, they overhauled the pantry, and got out biscuit and jam and
such things; but all very quietly; I saw respect in their behaviour;
yet what I best remember was their easy, unconcerned way of going about
this business of getting supper. Whilst one cooked and others prepared
the table, others again rolled the wet carpet off the deck and stowed
it away in a corner.
All this while poor Mrs. Burke kept straining her weak eyes at the
companion way. At last she jumped up and shrieked out:
'Why doesn't the captain come down? He'll be frozen to death or washed
overboard. Which of you'll go and tell him to come to me?'
The boatswain instantly went. He was absent five minutes, then returned
followed by the captain, who merely saying in a voice I should not have
known but for seeing him, 'Get on with your supper, my lads, get on
with your supper. 'Tis a bad job,' came to the stove and stood before
it warming his hands.
His wife began to reason with him in a crying appealing voice for
remaining on deck: he looked at her and shook his head. She saw
something in his face that arrested her speech, and when I glanced at
the poor man I was thankful she ceased to worry him. He stood on wide
straddled legs at the stove with his hands behind him, and the snow
draining into a pool at each heel, watching the men eating and drinking.
I never should have imagined any ocean interior could make such a
picture as this. The wonder came into it out of the contrast betwixt
the rough coarse forecastle hands gathered around the table, with the
sparkle of silver plate in their fists, and the comparative elegance
of the state-room in which they sat, with its few looking-glasses and
other odds and ends of decoration as before described; and always
present was the overwhelming thought of the vessel's loneliness. I
could not indeed then figure her in her wretched state, but with
imagination's eye I saw the pale sweep of the decks glimmering with
snow, the deserted wheel: with each heave and fall I figured the climb
and plunge of the desolate mutilated craft upon the huge seas, black
and roaring as thunder, with a hanging, steadfast faintness out upon
the bow whenever the snow squall slackened and gave a view of a mile of
the flashing froth breaking in sullen glares between the iceberg and
the ship.
'Eat hearty, lads,' said the captain, 'eat hearty. There's nothing to
be done with the ship till the dawn gives us a sight of her. Four of
ye gone....' He gave a sort of gasp, and stared a moment or two at his
wife, and then said to the boatswain, 'Wall, would she have righted,
think you, if the masts had stood?'
The boatswain swallowed the contents of his mouth, and said
emphatically, 'No, sir. That second bust-down must ha' done for her.'
A growl of assent ran round the table.
'Well,' said the captain, 'we all know what's to be done. We've to
stick her northwards anyhow. Something may come along to give us a tow.
Failing that, there's enough of foremast standing for a jury rig. The
machinery of the helm's sound. We've to blow to the nor'rards, I say,
edging that way for the crowded track.'
The men said nothing. I seemed to find something ominous in their
silence. At the same time it rejoiced me to observe that the captain
talked collectedly, as though he had rallied his wits, and had clear
ideas and intentions.
When the men had supped and cleared the table, they made as though
to go. The captain told them to occupy the cabin for the night. They
looked grateful at this, and then around them, as though considering
where they should lie. Their awkward grins, queer swaying postures,
backs curved, arms up and down, and fingers curled, their bearing,
glances, and manners, which expressed but little reference to our
lamentable and awful situation, gave me, I own, a sort of heart.
They looked as though, but for the captain and us women, and the
quarter-deck restraint of the cabin, they'd have gathered about the
stove, and roared out hearty songs, drowning the fury without with
hurricane lungs of music, and spun yarns, and smoked their pipes with
as much thoughtless gaiety as they carried to their diversions ashore.
The captain begged me to go to my cabin, and turn in and lie warm.
'Will you go to bed at all to-night?' his wife asked him.
'No,' he answered.
'I suppose you mean to do all the looking out yourself, and end in
being found a frozen corpse, while Jack here is to sit by the stove?'
said she in a low voice, but audible to him and me, glancing round her
at the men.
He peered at her with a scowl, and answered, 'I'm nearly crazy. Say
nothing if I'm not to go raving mad.'
'May I not stop here?' said I.
'What, with these men, miss?'
'I like the company of sailors. The sight of these seamen keeps up my
spirits.'
'My poor, dear Marie!' cried my nurse, putting the back of her hand
against my cheek. 'You can't sit here. Your father would not thank us
for throwing you into such company.'
'How can you talk so at such a time?' I exclaimed. 'I dread to be alone
in my cabin. Where is this ship being hurled to? If she should be flung
against an iceberg----'
'If _that_,' cried he, abruptly, and with temper, 'then as lief be in
your cabin as here, as here as on the deck.'
Then, softening his voice, he said some reassuring things--I forget
them--I was crying with my face averted, that the men should not see
me. Mrs. Burke took my arm, and we entered my berth. She called to
the steward to light the lamp, and named some refreshments which he
presently brought, but it was too bitterly cold to talk; nay, our
voices here, right aft as my berth was, were almost inaudible for the
thunderous wash of the sea along the slant of the side, with a lift of
it, when the toppling, helpless hull tumbled my cabin window to the
foam, that must again and again have soared high above the line of her
bulwark rails.
I would not undress, but after I had drunk some wine, I got into my
bunk, where Mrs. Burke made a heap of me with bedclothes and furs;
then, kissing me and promising to look in from time to time, she dimmed
the lamp and went.
I afterwards passed many terrible nights in this ship, but none worse
than this--perhaps because it was the first of them. The noises of the
sea and straining fabric drowned all sounds in the state-cabin. I could
not hear if the men talked, nor tell what they were doing. I terrified
myself by imagining that they would get at the spirits and make
themselves drunk. Then there was always the haunting horror of ice near
us. At any moment I might feel a rending shock of collision. I was
sailor enough to know that if our ship was thrown against such a berg
as we had sighted that day, nay, even against a piece of ice of her own
bulk, she would be shivered into staves, and all before we could put
up one prayer to God. And often did I pray that night, and with plenty
of fervour of tongue, I don't doubt, but with little heart, I fear; I
was too frightened to realise the meaning of the words I used. Twice
Mrs. Burke visited me and said all was right; the sailors had been on
deck to pump the ship out; the hull was dry and buoyant, and the gale
abating. This news she gave me on her second visit. There was a vast
deal of snow in the wind, and the blackness was so thickened by it
there was no power in the rushing sea-flares to make a light for the
eye beyond a pistol shot; but the captain believed, she said, there
was no ice nearer to us than the cathedral island we had seen that
afternoon.
Nature, however, was worn out at last and I fell asleep, and when I
awoke it was daylight, by which I guessed it was not much earlier than
noon; I looked through the porthole, a large lead-coloured, confused
swell was running, but it was unwrinkled and frothless. The motions of
the ship were extraordinarily wild and agitated; she was flung into
twenty postures in a minute. When I got out of my bunk I found it
impossible to stand without holding on. The water in the wash-stand
was a solid block of ice, but the cold did not seem so piercing, nor
of an edge so saw-like as I had found it yesterday. I contrived to
wrap myself up, and went out and saw Mrs. Burke sitting alone near
the stove. She sprang to help me, and said that a few minutes earlier
she had looked in, and left on finding me asleep. A pot of coffee was
beside the stove, and a breakfast of cold ham, tinned meat and other
things on the table.
'Where are the crew?' I asked.
'On deck,' she answered, 'endeavouring to rig up a mast.'
'Is the captain hopeful?'
'He means to stick to the ship,' she answered. 'Some of the men talk as
if there was nothing to be done with her, and spoke of going away in
the long boat.'
'Is the vessel utterly dismasted?'
'She is in a terrible plight. But make a good breakfast, dear. It is
quiet weather in spite of this horrible rolling. The hull is sound, and
we are sure to be fallen in with by some vessel that will help us.'
As she spoke Mr. Owen came out of his cabin. His face was the pale
shadow of the countenance he had brought on board. He blinked his eyes,
and they were bloodshot; his very hair seemed to have been toned by
emotion into a sort of ashen colour. He made a slight bow, and sat
down at the table without speaking. Evidently he had breakfasted. Also,
no doubt, he had previously met Mrs. Burke. I judged by his behaviour
that the captain had talked to him; it was a mixture of sulkiness and
dislike.
He had been kind and attentive to me on many occasions during the
voyage, and, full of fear and other crowding passions as I myself was,
I yet felt sorry for him. I bade him good morning and asked him if he
had been on deck. On this he rose, and clawing his way round the table,
so as to get near to me, he said:--
'I owe you an apology for my conduct last night. My indiscretion was
not so much the result of cowardice as the state of my health. Much
less than I took in the hope of obtaining a little warmth and spirit
must have overcome me. I trust I have your forgiveness.'
'There is nothing to forgive, Mr. Owen, nor is this a time to talk of
such things.'
'The captain was scarcely manly in his language,' said he, turning to
Mrs. Burke. 'I am not an officer of the ship nor one of his crew. I am
practically a passenger, and claim the privileges of a passenger.'
'Passengers are not allowed to take too much. All captains object
to drinking in their ships, particularly in such dreadful times of
excitement as last night,' said Mrs. Burke.
I lifted my finger to call attention to the cries of men and the tread
of heavily shod feet overhead. Mr. Owen returned to his seat at the
table. Soon after this the skylight that was thick with frozen snow
whitened as to a watery beam of sunshine, or to some transient glance
of clearer day in the sky. I asked Mrs. Burke to take me on deck. She
seemed to shrink. I asked her if she had been on deck.
'Yes,' she answered.
'Then why should not I go?'
'Feel how dangerously the hull rolls,' said she. 'You might be thrown
and break your neck.'
But I saw that her real objection did not lie so much in that as in her
fear of the effect of the scene of the wreck upon me. Thus reading her
mind, I exclaimed:
'I will go alone; but why will you not come?' and went to my cabin for
more wraps.
She was ready before I was, and we clasped hands, and holding on
carefully likewise, stopping always for that sudden recovery of the
deck which would happen out of its slant with the rush of a cannon
ball slung by a line and let go at an angle, so ungovernable were the
motions of the dismasted hull, we gained the companion ladder, and
crawled to the head of the steps, where we stood in the companion
itself, with our heads above the hood.
I shrieked on looking! Let my imaginations have been what they would,
here was the reality! I could not credit my sight. All three masts were
gone! nothing of the lower-masts remained saving a height of two or
three feet of jagged and splintered trunk-sheaves of barbed milk-white
wood on the main and quarter decks, and about ten to fifteen feet of
the foremast. On the right or starboard side, lengths of the bulwark
were crushed flat. The decks were littered with gear, ropes' ends were
swimming overboard in the leaden swell like huge eels and sea-snakes
making from the wreck. On one side, dangling between the irons, was the
keel of a quarter-boat--all that remained of her; the opposite davits
were empty.
But what idea can such talk as this give you of that wonderful dismal
picture of shipwreck, that spectacle of decks covered with snow, of
rails like an armoury with their bristling pendants of bayonet-blue
icicles? The galley was partly wrecked; the bowsprit stood soaring and
sinking upon the leaping waters, but the jibbooms were gone. I did
not know the hull. She looked shrunk to half her former size. The
sky stooped to the sea with its burden of vapour, but a break right
overhead hovered in a colour of sulphur. No wind stirred. Never was
there a deader stagnation in the atmosphere under the height of the
Line. Yet you were sensible of the presence of the spirit of this
wild, desolate part of the world even in such pauses as this, when you
watched the sullen motion of that troubled breast of deep, hurling
its glassy folds in comminglings which ran in silent warring to the
horizon. Far astern was a shape of white, a gleam in the sallow air
there, like that of a sail; but my eye was now experienced, and since
that dash of radiance was too big to be a ship, it must needs be ice. I
saw a collection of white tips on the starboard quarter when the swell
threw us high, and some points or shafts faint and bluish over the
bows. Otherwise the ocean line swept clear.