A STRANDED SHIP AND A BOARD OF SURVEY.
In a struggle between steam and iron on the one side and human flesh
on the other, the flesh must generally give way; and it was so in
this case. The winch turned, the rope tautened, and in another second
something must have broken.
The man was more sober than his companions, as well as more stubborn;
and the moment the rope began to strain he simply bent his body, and
the winch drew him easily out upon the deck. A minute later he was
unfastened and set to work.
“That’s the usual picnic we have at the beginning of a voyage,” Captain
Godfree said when, everything being in working order, he returned to
the bridge. “We ship a new set of seamen for each voyage, and they
generally come aboard too drunk for duty. A bad condition that poor
Jack has come to in these days, isn’t it? You see the minute they
arrive in New York after a voyage they are seized upon by the sailors’
boarding-house keepers, who get all their money away from them and
supply them with food and drink till it’s time to get rid of them. Then
the boarding-master finds a new ship for Jack and gets an order for his
advance pay, and brings him aboard so full of Water Street whiskey
that half the time the man doesn’t know what ship he is on, nor where
he is going. If the boys who think of running away to sea knew what the
life of a modern sailor is, they’d go rather slow.”
“I should think it would be dangerous to take the ship to sea with a
crew that you know nothing about,” Dick suggested.
“Oh, no. You see there are enough of us who belong with the ship to
handle her. Besides myself there are the first and second mates, the
chief engineer and first and second assistants, the quartermaster,
and four stokers. With these and the supercargo and the cook and two
stewards, we can keep the crew in order.”
Dick expected to have a view of the whole length of the New Jersey
coast, as he had had in the Alameda; but in this he was disappointed.
The Smeaton Tower headed a little east of south as soon as she passed
Sandy Hook, her bow pointed direct for Porto Rico; and in about two
hours the American coast sank below the horizon.
There were three good meals a day in the comfortable cabin; and for the
evening there was a checkerboard, with the captain and supercargo to
play with; and there was the full run of the ship for Dick, with a much
better chance to see everything than one can have on a passenger ship.
The six days between New York and Porto Rico went by like a song, the
sun growing hotter every day. About two o’clock in the afternoon of the
sixth day, the high mountains of the island were sighted.
“There we are,” said Captain Godfree; “you see the little sextant and
the chronometer have guided us right, though we have hardly seen as
much as a schooner since we lost Sandy Hook. We’ll eat dinner in San
Juan to-night, if everything goes well.”
It was a beautiful sight, that mountain-peak in the clouds, and Dick
remained on the bridge to watch it. By three o’clock the mountains were
much plainer, and by four he could distinguish their outlines plainly.
When the supper-bell rang at five, he was just beginning to make out
some cocoanut trees on shore.
“I don’t like the looks of the weather very much,” Captain Godfree said
as they went down into the cabin. Dick and the captain and the first
mate and supercargo ate together always at the first cabin table, the
second mate eating from the same table later on.
“There’s a squall coming,” Captain Godfree continued, “but we may get
into harbor before it reaches us.”
The captain got the meal started, but Dick saw that he was not at ease.
He ate a few hurried mouthfuls; and then, taking his cup of tea in his
hand, he arose and said:--
“You’ll have to excuse me, gentlemen; I must be on the bridge when
we’re approaching land in a squall.”
The others quickly finished their supper and went up to the bridge.
Dick was surprised to see how much darker it was. The clouds had grown
blacker and there were some lights on shore. The captain stepped to the
signal dial and pulled the handle that gave the engineer the order:--
“Half speed!”
It was the act of a prudent commander. If he had not done it, the bones
of the Smeaton Tower would be lying on the rocks of Porto Rico at this
moment.
All who had any right to be on the bridge were there to see the
steamer enter the harbor of San Juan, the capital of Porto Rico. They
were Captain Godfree and first mate Gran, each of whom had made eight
previous voyages to the island; Mr. Maloney, the supercargo, an old
navigator, who was perfectly familiar with the place; and Dick, an
interested spectator.
“There is the great castle of San Juan on the side and summit of that
hill,” said Mr. Maloney; “the harbor runs in behind the hill, and the
city lies on the other slope. You see where the two mountain ridges
seem to join? Well, just below that the city lies. That light on the
right is the lighthouse; on the left are the castle lights. We run in
between the two.”
“How far are we from the harbor mouth, captain?” Dick asked.
“About four miles,” Captain Godfree answered. “Now see how close a
guess I have made. We are running six miles an hour, and you can tell
by looking at your watch now and when we have the light abeam.”
Darker grew the sky and brighter gleamed the lights on shore. There
came a blinding flash of lightning, followed instantly by such a pour
of rain as falls only in a tropical shower.
A moment later there was a grating and grinding and crunching beneath
their feet, and the ship stopped with a jar that threw them all against
the bridge’s rail. The propeller continued to revolve, but the vessel
was stationary. Dick did not know what it meant, but he saw by the
countenances of his companions that something had happened.
Not a soul moved for a second or two, but the seconds seemed like
half-hours. Then the captain sprang to the signal dial.
“Blast my eyes!” he shouted. “I’ve put the ship aground!”
“Stop her! Back her!” he signaled; and the propeller first stopped,
then began to reverse. But the ship’s only answer was to begin pounding
against the rocks. She was hard and fast on a reef.
Everything was in confusion in a moment. The captain was shouting
orders, men were rushing about the decks, the rain continued to pour,
lightning flashed, and thunder seemed to roll across the water and
echo a dozen times among the mountains. To add to the weirdness of the
scene, a number of bright lights sprang up along the shore; some down
on the beach, others apparently up in the hills.
Dick was soaked with the rain, but he did not know it. The violent
pounding of the ship made standing uncertain, and he wound his arm
around one of the iron stanchions.
“I’m sorry for Captain Godfree,” he said to himself, “but I wouldn’t
have missed this for a thousand dollars! Just this scene alone is good
for two or three columns. Those must be tar barrels they’re burning on
shore for signals; and there are hundreds of people running about them,
looking in that light like naked savages on a cannibal island. Talk
about shipwreck scenes in the theatre! They’re nothing compared with
the reality.”
Dick was alone on the bridge now. All the officers were on deck. He
heard the captain rapidly issuing orders.
“Lower away the port quarterboat, Mr. Gran!”
“Sound the wells, Mr. Turner!”
“Quartermaster, heave the lead!”
“This is something for me to keep an eye on,” Dick thought. “I’ll have
a chance to see exactly what they do when a steamship is run on a reef.”
At that moment Mr. Maloney sprang up the iron ladder and seized Dick by
the arm.
“Don’t stay up here!” he shouted; nothing less than a shout could have
been heard in that furious din. “She’s liable to pound the masts out of
herself at any minute, and these iron masts will smash everything when
they fall. You’ll be safer in the cabin.”
Dick had no idea of hiding himself in the cabin, but he went down as
far as the deck, where he almost ran against Captain Godfree.
“Blast my eyes, Sumner!” the captain shouted; “I’ve made the wrong
port. This is not San Juan, at all; this is Arecibo, forty miles down
the coast!”
By this time the officers had executed their orders.
“Port quarterboat lowered, sir!” Mr. Gran shouted.
“Fore and aft wells dry, sir,” said Mr. Turner.
“Six fathom fore and aft, sir,” the quartermaster reported. “Less than
two fathom amidship. She’s run up on a reef till she’s nearly balanced
on it.”
But the worst report of all came from the engineer. He ran up to say:--
“Machinery disabled, sir. The jar has disconnected the main steampipe!”
“You must mend it, chief!” the captain answered. “We _must_ have
steam or we’re gone. She’ll break in two inside of an hour on this
reef.”
Leaving that work to the chief engineer, the captain went on issuing
orders.
“Get out a kedge anchor, Mr. Gran, and put the cable on the after
winch.”
This work took some minutes, and while it was in progress Dick was
delighted to hear the propeller revolving again, for that showed that
the steampipe had been repaired. Dick was dodging into the little chart
room every minute now, making memoranda of all the orders issued; for
in that flood of rain it was impossible to write.
When the kedge anchor was in place over the stern the after winch was
started and the line tautened, but after a hard pull it snapped like a
cord.
“Get out another anchor!” The captain and all on board were growing
more excited--all but Dick; he was busy taking notes.
The second kedge anchor did better. With the engines reversed at full
speed and the winch revolving, they could feel the ship move. They
sighted her bow with one of the fires on shore, and she certainly
backed. She had begun to move faster, when there was a terrible crash
aft and the stern flew up into the air.
“That settles us!” the captain shouted. “We’ve struck something and
knocked the whole stern out of her.”
But he kept the engines backing and the winch going, and in a minute
the stern settled to its proper position and the ship continued to
back. The anchor cable was cut and the quarterboat hoisted, and on went
the ship, backing slowly seaward. She was afloat!
“Sound the wells, Mr. Turner!”
“Heave the lead, quartermaster!”
The ship was taking a little water, so “start the number two pump, Mr.
Gran,” was ordered. But the stern was still sound as far as could be
seen in the rain and darkness, and she still floated and moved.
For nearly half an hour the captain kept the engines reversed and the
ship backing seaward; then he started her ahead, pointed up the coast
toward San Juan.
“That thing never happened to me before,” Captain Godfree said when he
and Dick were in the cabin together an hour later. “There must have
been something in the atmosphere to deceive me; perhaps it was the
refraction; I had no more doubt that we were off San Juan than I have
that we’re sitting here. We had a narrow escape, and there’s no telling
how badly we’re injured till we get into San Juan harbor. I think we
have lost most of our propeller, but we have enough left to move us.
It’s a bad beginning for your Porto Rico voyage.”
“Bad!” Dick repeated; “why, you couldn’t have done anything to suit me
better. I know as much about stranding a ship now as an old sailor. I’m
only sorry I could do nothing to help you.”
“Oh, but you can!” Captain Godfree retorted. “You can do a great deal
to help me. It’s lucky for me I have you aboard, for you can give me a
great deal of assistance with the cabling and the Board of Survey.”
“Board of Survey?” Dick asked; “what is that?”
“Oh, you see you don’t know all about stranding a ship yet!” the
captain laughed. “When you get her off, that’s only the beginning of
the job. The Board of Survey is worse than running on the rocks. We
have all that to come yet, and it will make a good newspaper article
for you, too.”
“Why, you’re a perfect jewel of a captain to travel with!” Dick
exclaimed. “The voyage down will make one article, stranding the ship
is good for another, and this Board of Survey, whatever it is, will be
the third, before I begin with Porto Rico at all. One thing I don’t
understand, captain. What were all those lights on shore? How did they
come to be there?”
“Those were signals for us,” the captain replied, “to warn us off. They
saw us standing in for the shore, and knew that we’d be on that deadly
Arecibo reef in a few minutes unless we put about. Arecibo is one of
the ports we touch at, and our agents there burned those tar barrels
to show us we were in danger. That is one of the most dangerous reefs
on the coast, covered with the bones of lost ships. When we brought up
sharp astern and probably broke our propeller, we ran into the ribs of
some sunken vessel.
“But I want you to help me, Sumner,” the captain went on; “and we have
a big job before us. I’ll explain to you what has to be done in such
a case, so that you’ll understand. As soon as we reach port I have to
cable my owners that the ship has been stranded and tell them how much
damage was done. That has to be done with the cable code, of course,
because telegraphing from Porto Rico to London costs three dollars a
word, and we must put it in as few words as possible. You’ve no idea
what hard work it is to put a dispatch into the code; at least it is
for me; perhaps it may be easier for you.
“Then,” the captain went on, “comes the Board of Survey. This is a
British ship, as you know; so as soon as the cable is sent I go to the
British consul in San Juan and report that my ship has been stranded
and ask him to appoint a board of survey. He does so, appointing
generally three masters of vessels that happen to be lying in the
harbor. They examine the ship and decide whether she is fit to proceed
on her voyage or not. Their decision is law, too, and we have to obey
it.”
“Why!” Dick exclaimed, “I had no idea there was so much red tape about
it. What is the use of all that fuss?”
“Because the ship might be so badly injured as to be unseaworthy,” the
captain replied; “and to take her to sea in that case would be to risk
the lives of the crew. I couldn’t compel the crew to go another mile in
her without a survey.”
“Now here is the cable code,” the captain continued, handing Dick a
small red-covered book. “You see there are single words to express most
every sentence a shipmaster could want to send. Of course the owners
in London have another copy of the book, so that they can decipher the
dispatch. The single word ‘Refuse,’ for instance, means ‘No cargo to be
had here,’ and saves five words in telegraphing. I will write out the
dispatch I want to send, and you can translate it into the code for me.”
The captain took a pencil and wrote his dispatch in plain English, in
this way:--
Smith & Jones, London:--
Stranded at Arecibo. On the rocks forty minutes. Damage unknown.
Proceeded to San Juan and requested Board of Survey. GODFREE.
“Now, there are twenty-four words,” the captain continued, “for the
cable company charges for the address and signature. You will find some
word in the book that means a whole sentence, and that will reduce the
number of words about one half.”
Dick examined the book and soon mastered its principles. It might be
hard work for a sea captain to prepare a cipher dispatch, but it was
easy enough for a newspaper man. The word adjoins, he found, meant
“stranded at”; forward meant “on the rocks forty minutes”; mystery
meant “proceeded to”; and simply the word board stood for “requested
Board of Survey.” For “damage unknown” he had to search some time, but
at length he found that the word motion expressed that. So his cipher
dispatch, when done in the code, read in this way:
Smith & Jones, London:--
Adjoins, Arecibo, forward, motion, mystery, San Juan, board.
GODFREE.
“There,” he said as he finished it, “try that over with the book,
captain, and see whether it doesn’t express what you want to say.”
“That’s it exactly,” the captain declared, after a long struggle with
the book. “You’ve got it into thirteen words--a saving to the company
of over thirty dollars; and you did it in ten minutes. It would have
taken me half the night to cipher that thing out, Sumner.”
“I know something about the expense of cabling from Porto Rico,”
Dick said. “A reporter finds out a little of everything, you know. I
interviewed a man once who had been a cable operator in San Juan. He
happened to be there when the Count de Paris arrived on his way from
Havana to Barcelona. The count’s daughter was very sick in England, and
he sat down in the office and wrote her a letter of one thousand four
hundred words, and cabled it. That cost him over four thousand dollars.”
“That might do for a millionaire like the Count de Paris,” the captain
laughed, “but I don’t think my owners would stand it. Now we must take
hold of the Board of Survey matter, and I want you to do a little
headwork for me there. You’re just the man to do it, too.”
“Well, we’ve got safely out of one bad scrape to-night,” Dick answered;
“I think we’ll pull through the next one.”
“The main thing I’m afraid of, Sumner,” the captain said, “is that the
Board of Survey may order us into dry dock for repairs. There is no dry
dock at Porto Rico, and we’d have to go over to St. Thomas. If they
should make us put in a new propeller, we’d have to cable to England
for it, and that would keep us in St. Thomas at least a month or six
weeks.”
“That would be very bad for me,” he continued, “to have the ship lose
so much time. The owners won’t say much about my stranding the ship,
if I don’t lose too much time over it. Now what we’ve got to do is to
influence the Board of Survey so that they’ll let us proceed on our
voyage, and I want to do that through you.”
“Through me!” Dick exclaimed.
“Yes, through you. You see shipmasters ain’t very good writers, as a
rule, and it will be an easy matter to arrange things so that they’ll
ask you to act as clerk and do the writing. Then whenever they get
stuck for a sentence to put in the report, you can suggest one. And of
course you’ll suggest the things that we make up our minds we want in
the report. Oh, that will work; I’ve seen that done before.”
“Well,” Dick laughed, “that seems fair enough. Of course you’ll not
want me to put in anything that isn’t fair and square. I want to help
you in every honest way I can.”
They sat up late discussing the report they wanted the board to make,
and the substance of it all was that the ship was seaworthy and should
be allowed to proceed on her voyage.
“That’s it!” the captain exclaimed; “of course she’s seaworthy. We’re
moving under our own steam, ain’t we, and taking hardly any water?
We’re fit to go around the world in. But I don’t honestly believe,” he
added “that there’s more than part of one blade left in our propeller.”
When the Smeaton Tower lay safely in San Juan harbor next morning Dick
went out with Captain Godfree in one of the small boats, and they saw
for themselves what had happened to the propeller. Two blades were gone
entirely, the third was broken off about six inches from the shaft;
and the fourth, the only serviceable blade, had lost but a few inches
from its tip.
“But the bonnet is what I’m afraid of,” the captain said; “the bonnet
you know is the part that fits around the shaft, that the blades are
fastened to. If that should be cracked, it might drop off at any minute
and then we’d be helpless. However, we’ll go on if the board will let
us.”
There was an interval of two days between the arrival of the Smeaton
Tower at San Juan and the convening of the Board of Survey. This time
Dick used to the best advantage on shore, driving out to the sugar and
coffee plantations, making himself acquainted with the people and their
mode of life, and riding over the railway.
“It’s the people I like best to write about,” he often said to
himself, “because they are what the reader takes most interest in.
Suppose I should try to write a glowing description of one of those
mountain-peaks? How many readers would care anything about it? But
everybody is interested in the way the people of other countries live.
I don’t want to be one of the glowing-sunset writers, all color and no
substance.”
On the third day the members of the Board of Survey visited the ship.
The British consul had selected three shipmasters who were altogether
satisfactory to Captain Godfree. One was Captain Fraser, of the
steamship Caribbee; another was the good-natured captain of a fine
Spanish steamer lying in the harbor; and the third was a real live
Yankee skipper from Maine, whose schooner was waiting for a cargo of
sugar.
Dick and the captain naturally made everything as pleasant for the
board as they could. A fine lunch was spread on the cabin table, to
which they immediately sat down. The three shipmasters spent half an
hour in looking over the vessel, rowed around to the propeller in a
small boat, asked to have the engines moved, went down into the hold,
and retired to the cabin with Dick and Captain Godfree, to make out
their report. Dick, as had been anticipated, was asked to act as their
clerk.
“I think we can say that the propeller is damaged but still
serviceable,” said Captain Fraser, who was the spokesman.
Dick put that down; the consul had sent out the proper blanks for the
report, and only the board’s findings had to be written in.
“And--and”--
“Engines moved and found in good order?” Dick suggested.
“Yes, put that in,” Captain Fraser said. “And you can say that we have
inspected the hull and find it fairly tight--with very little cement
started. And you might add that we find that--that”--
Captain Fraser looked inquiringly at his fellows.
“That the ship is seaworthy and able to proceed on her voyage?” Dick
suggested.
“Y-e-s,” Captain Fraser said, looking inquiringly at the others, who
both nodded. “Yes, you can put that in, with a recommendation that she
be docked on her arrival in New York.”
It was all down in a minute, and Dick filled out the duplicate copy to
be filed with the consul, and the members of the board signed them both.
The danger of being sent to St. Thomas was over. The board had
officially declared the ship seaworthy, and nothing would prevent her
now from going on to her other ports.
“You did that famously, Sumner!” Captain Godfree exclaimed, giving Dick
a stunning slap on the back after the board had gone. “I should have
been in a tight fix without your help. I wish I could always have a
newspaper man on board.”
That same night the ship steamed back to Arecibo, having a quantity of
cargo for that port, but this time she was careful to avoid the reef.
Then she proceeded to Mayaguez, a port on the west coast, to deliver
more cargo. In Mayaguez harbor she was soon surrounded by a little
fleet of bum-boats, every boat loaded with something to sell--parrots,
cigars, cigarettes, fruits, shell-work, sugarcane, bay rum, walking
sticks, and a dozen other things.
“Hold on there!” the captain exclaimed to the first boatman who came up
the ladder. “What have you got in those bottles? I’m not going to have
any rum brought aboard to the crew.”
“Him only bay rum, señor,” the man replied. “Not drinkee; only rub on
face after shavee. Very nice bay rum, señor.”
“We’ll see about that,” the captain replied; and he sent for a
corkscrew and opened several of the bottles. He and Dick both smelled
them and were convinced that they contained nothing but bay rum.
“All right,” said the captain. “You can sell all the bay rum you like,
but no other kind. Put the quartermaster at the head of the gangway,
Mr. Gran, and let him open every bottle that’s brought aboard. They may
sell bay rum, but nothing to drink.”
Either to let the crew go ashore or to allow any liquor on board meant
a repetition of the scene of the first day, and strict orders were
given that no one should land. Shoal water compelled the ship to anchor
nearly a mile from the wharf, and the cargo was taken in lighters. But
the order of course did not prevent Dick and the captain from landing,
and they learned in the afternoon that a ball was to be given in the
“Gran Hotel Marina” that night.
“I want you to see that,” the captain said to Dick. “A ball in one of
these old towns will give you something to write about. Our agents here
will get invitations for us.”
They returned to the ship for supper, and about nine o’clock in the
evening, dressed in their thinnest clothes (for the night was intensely
hot), they set out for shore and the ball, leaving Mr. Gran in charge
of the deck.
The open space in front of the hotel was full of carriages, and the
ball was in full progress when they arrived. The dancers were in the
dining-room, clad in the gayest of clothes. Music was playing, gay
señors and señoritas were whirling. On the broad portico that extended
across the whole front of the building most of the spectators were
gathered, for the air was cooler there.
Dick was enjoying the scene very much, going in and out among the
dancers, admiring their grace and wondering at their strangely cut
clothes, when Captain Godfree beckoned him to a retired part of the
portico.
“I think we’d better get out of this, Sumner,” the captain whispered.
“I have just found out that there’s a case of yellow fever in the
house.”
“There is!” Dick exclaimed.
“Yes; and only two rooms from where they’re dancing, too. All those
doors down the other end of the portico open into bedrooms, and the
sick man is in the second room. He was taken down yesterday, but
they’re keeping it quiet so as not to break up the ball. These natives
are not much afraid of the fever, you know, but it won’t do for us;
and the sooner we get out the better. The sick man is an American
shipmaster with a brig lying in the harbor.”
“An American!” Dick repeated; “and all this music and dancing about
his ears! Perhaps you had better go, captain; but I shall stay and
see whether my countryman is in need of help. Oh, yes; I couldn’t do
anything else,” he went on in answer to the captain’s surprised look.
“You would do the same thing for an Englishman; any decent man would. I
am not afraid of the fever; I have seen plenty of it in Havana and Vera
Cruz.”
“By George, I’m glad the English and Americans are cousins!” the
captain exclaimed. “That’s said like a man. But in this case it would
be worse than useless for you to stay, for the man is well supplied
with money, has good nurses and a good English doctor attending him; so
you would only be in the way. Come along.”
Dick would not go until he learned from the hotel people that his
countryman was supplied with every possible comfort; and then he and
the captain returned to the ship. It was after midnight when they
reached her side, and they were surprised to hear a great commotion on
deck.
“On deck, there, Mr. Gran!” the captain shouted when they were within a
few feet of the vessel.
“Aye, aye, sir!” Mr. Gran replied; “I’m glad you’re back, sir. These
lubbers have been drinking bay rum till they’re wild. They’re in a
state of mutiny, sir.”
[Illustration: HE SNATCHED A BELAYING PIN FROM ITS SOCKET AND SPRANG
FORWARD.]
“Are they?” the captain exclaimed. “I’ll sober ’em, the drunken
beasts!” He sprang up the ladder with Dick close behind, and the moment
he reached the deck he threw off his coat.
“Call Mr. Turner and the quartermaster,” he ordered; and Mr. Gran
turned to obey.
The men, eight of them, were in a cluster forward, near the starboard
rail, fighting furiously, struggling, swearing, striking, too drunk to
know or care that the captain had returned.
Without waiting for assistance, Captain Godfree sprang into the midst
of them, knocking two down with the first rush and staggering two more.
Three of the others shrank back before the captain’s powerful fists;
but one big fellow stood his ground and whipped out a long knife. In a
second, almost, one of the men who had been knocked down sprang to his
feet and seized the captain from behind, while the big fellow in front,
his face livid with rage and rum, raised his hand with the knife.
Dick stood perhaps ten feet away, with the captain’s coat over his arm.
He heard the two mates and the quartermaster coming, but before they
could reach the spot the captain would be a dead man. He saw the gleam
of the long knife.
Without an instant’s hesitation he snatched an iron belaying-pin from
its socket and sprang forward.
Crash! crash!
Two blows with that heavy club laid the knife-wielder helpless upon
the deck. Next moment the two mates and the quartermaster were there,
and the mutiny was ended. Dick was glad to see the man with the knife
struggle as the mates put handcuffs on him; he was afraid he had killed
him.
“Sumner, I’ll always read the newspapers with greater respect after
seeing what kind of fellows make them,” Captain Godfree said when they
had retired to their cabin. “Whether it’s to manage a board of survey,
to brave the yellow fever, or to knock out a drunken sailor, you’re on
hand every time. If you’ll stay on board this ship, I’ll make a mate of
you in short order.”
“Oh, that would be a holiday!” Dick laughed. “I’ve got three hours of
writing to do now, captain.”