Getting back to the vessel Clancy was pretty gloomy. "That's
settled. We can't chase them as far to the east'ard as the big
banks--a three hundred mile run to the nearest edge of it and tens of
thousands of square miles to hunt over after we'd got there. And it
would be child's work anyway to ask Maurice to leave her on the bank.
Who'd take his place even if Dave would stand for it? 'Twould mean
laying up a dory or taking his dory-mate too. Maurice wouldn't leave
her anyway, even if he believed he'd never get home--no real fisherman
would. And yet there it is--Dave in a devil of a mood, and a vessel
according to all reports that won't live out one good easterly.
And there's a crazy crew aboard her that won't make for the most
careful handling of a vessel. Oh, Lord, I don't see anything for
it, but, thank the Lord, Maurice has been behaving himself--and that
in spite of how blue he must have been feeling. By this time he's
cert'nly made up his mind he's with a pretty bad crowd, but maybe
he's glad of a little excitement. What I don't understand is how
Dave ever left old man Luce's place without breaking up the
furniture before going away. Gen'rally that's his style. Maybe
Maurice being along had something to do with it--a pretty able man in
close quarters is Maurice. Yes, he must be glad of the excitement,
but Lord, that won't save him from being lost. Oh, oh, and now
what'll we do? Let's see, the Flamingo's on the way to the Banks,
and that's the end of that chase. We've got to wait now and see that
she comes home--or don't come home--one or the other. I told that
girl that I was going to put out--put out if it blew a hundred gales.
And so I would if any good would come of it, but putting out to sea a
day like this because you bragged you would--risking your vessel and
crew, or making hard work for them if nothing else--that ain't good
sense, is it? Besides, I had to tell her something to get away
without setting up to be a model of virtue. What else could I do?
Women are the devil--sometimes--aren't they, Joe? There's some are. I
suppose it wouldn't do any great harm to head her for home. I don't
believe there's going to be much more fish going to be seined this
fall--and wouldn't she make a passage of it in this easterly? Oh,
Lord, it would be the race all over again, only ten times as long a
drag."
While he sat there in the cabin, smoking and meditating, letting us
into his thoughts every now and then, the voices of some of our crew
were heard on deck.
We all went up and got the word that was being passed around. A coast
steamer had just come to anchor in the harbor with the report that
just outside--about ten miles to the west'ard--was a vessel, dismasted
and clean-swept, and dragging toward the rocks. They could not help
her themselves--too rough--a hurricane outside--to launch a boat was
out of the question. They didn't mind taking a chance, they said, but
to attempt her rescue would be suicide.
It looked like a pretty hard chance going out in that gale, but Clancy
didn't wait. "Nobody else seems to be hurrying to get out, and we
being the able-est looking craft in the harbor, I callate it's up to
us to go." He got the exact location of the distressed vessel from the
coaster, and then it was up anchor, make sail, and out we went.
There were people who called Clancy a fool for ordering out his vessel
and risking his crew that day--men in that very harbor--and maybe he
was. But for myself, I want that kind of a fool for my skipper. The
man that will take a chance for a stranger will take a bigger chance
for his own by and by.
We saw her while we were yet miles away, down to the west'ard--near
Whitehead and with the cruel stretch of rocks under her lee quarter.
Even with plenty of sea-room she could not have lasted long, and here
with these ledges to catch her she looked to be in for a short shrift.
We had a good chance to get a look at her as we bore down. Everything
was gone from her deck, even the house and rail. There was not as much
loose wood on deck as would make a tooth-pick. Afterwards we learned
that two seas hove her down so that they had to cut the spars away to
right her, and then just as she was coming up another monster had
caught her and swept her clean--not only swept clean, but stove in her
planks and started some of her beams so that she began to leak in a
fashion that four men to the pumps could just manage to keep up with.
We could just see them--the men to the pumps working desperately--with
the others lashed to the stumps of the masts and the stanchions which
were left when the rail went. Her big hawser had parted and her chain
was only serving to slightly check her way toward the rocks.
With spars and deck gear gone and her hull deep in the water, a vessel
is not so easily distinguished. But there was something familiar in
this one. We had seen her before. All at once it flashed on half a
dozen of us--"the Flamingo!" we said. "God! that's luck!" said
Clancy.
She lay in a sort of inlet that was wide open to the gale, rocks on
the better part of three sides of her, north, south and west. She was
then within all but striking distance of the rocks, and the seas, high
and wicked, were sweeping over her. It looked like a bad place to work
out of if we should get close in, but Clancy held on.
"Not much lee-room, but plenty of water under her keel anyway," and
himself to the wheel, sailed the Johnnie around the Flamingo. He
hailed Maurice as he went by, waved his hand to the others, and hove a
line aboard. They took the line, hauled in the hawser at the end of
it, made that fast to the windlass, and then we started off with her
in tow.
We were doing pretty well, what with plenty of wind and the Johnnie
buckling down to her work like she was a steamer, till the hawser
parted and back toward the rocks went the Flamingo again.
"No use," said Clancy, "sea's too much for any line we got. We'll try
it with the seine-boat. Who'll go in the seine-boat and try to take
them off? Think quick, but mind what it means."
Every man of the crew of the Johnnie Duncan said, "Here!" The cook
even came out of the forec's'le and put in his "And me, too,
skipper."
"You're good men," said Clancy,--"damn good men," and looked us up and
down. We felt proud, he said it in such a way. "But you're taking your
lives in your hands and some of you got wives and children--mothers or
something. Who hasn't anybody depending on him? Which of you hasn't
any woman somewhere, or little brothers or sisters?"
About twelve of the sixteen men standing on the deck of the Johnnie
Duncan said "Me!"
"Three-quarters of you, at least," said Clancy, "are damn liars. Over
with the seine-boat and be careful nobody gets hurt."
Somebody did get hurt, though. Andie Howe got his foot smashed and was
helped below. Clancy gave the rest of us a scolding in advance.
"You're not hurt yet, but some of you will be--like Andie--if you
don't watch out. You'd think that some of you were out on some little
pond up in the country somewhere launching a canoe off one of those
club-house floats. Keep an eye out for those seas when they board. And
watch out for that deckload or some of you'll have a head cut off. A
man killed or a man washed over the rail--what's the difference--it's
a man lost. Look out now--watch, you Steve--damn you, watch out! Over
with it!"
And over it went and with it leaped two men before it could sag away,
while the rest of us stood by the rail watching our chance.
"Nelson," called Clancy, "come away from that rail! Steve, come
away!--come away, I say, and no back talk. Pat, you can go--jump
in--watch your chance or it's the last of you. Eddie, you can go, and
you Bill, and you Frenchy. Joe! stand away from that rail or I'll put
you in the hold and batten the hatches on you. Now, that's better. And
that's enough--six men to the oars and one to steer."
"And who'll steer?" asked somebody.
"You'll know in a minute," said Clancy, and he leaped for the
seine-boat and made it, and grabbed the steering oar. "Stand by--push
off! Fend off in the vessel there! Steve, if anything happens--you
know--you're to take the Johnnie home. Give way, fellows. Now! Watch
out!--now--now then, around with her--end on, and there she is like a
bird! And now drive her!"
"A bird!" said Clancy--but a wild-looking bird--fifty feet she looked
to be going into the air one moment and down out of sight the next,
and water slamming aboard her so that we thought she was swamped half
a dozen times. Two had to leave the oars and go to bailing, while
Clancy with an arm and shoulders and back and swinging waist
like--well, like nothing a man ever had before--kept her end to it.
"Good luck!" we called.
"Never fear--we'll bring 'em back!" said Clancy.
"Or stay with them," we thought.
But he didn't stay with them. It was a ticklish job, but Clancy got
away with it. He didn't dare to go too near the Flamingo, for that
meant that the seas would pitch the seine-boat up and dash it to
kindling wood against her hull. What he did do was to go as near the
Flamingo as he could and keep her clear, then heave a line aboard and
call to her crew one after the other to make it fast around themselves
and jump overboard. It took some nerve to make that jump--from the
rigging of the Duncan we watched them--saw them shiver and draw
up--these were men accustomed to face danger--reckless men--but the
shiver was over in a breath, and then over the rail and into that
sea--a game fight--and they were hauled into the seine-boat. Some of
them we thought would never make it, for it was an awful sea.
As fast as one of the Flamingo's men made the seine-boat he was set to
work bailing out or taking a haul at the oars, for it was a difficult
matter in that sea to keep the seine-boat at the right distance from
the Flamingo. But they got them all--ten of them. Two were hauled in
unconscious, but came to after awhile.
To get aboard the Johnnie again was almost as bad as to get into the
seine-boat from the Flamingo. But we managed it. Long Steve was swept
over while we were at it, but we got him back with the help of Maurice
Blake and another of the Flamingo's crowd. By smart clever work they
grabbed Steve before he could go down and hauled him into the
seine-boat.
When they were all safe aboard the Duncan Clancy shook hands with
Maurice. "I call that luck, Maurice--to come out to save a stranger
and find you've saved your own. And now whose trick to the wheel--you,
Joe? Put her on the off-shore tack till we're well clear of that
headland--maybe we c'n make it in one leg. No? Then a short tack and
have an eye out for the ledges--not too close. And Maurice, go
below--you and Dave and all hands of you, and we'll get out dry
clothes for you. Man, but you must be cold and hungry, but the cook's
getting coffee and grub ready. And for the Duncan's crew--on deck all
hands and put the tops'ls to her. For, Maurice-boy, we're going
home--going home, Maurice--where there's people waiting for you. Hang
on a while longer, Joe, and I'll take her myself."
No need to tell me to hang on. If I hadn't hung on or been lashed to
the wheel I could never have kept my feet, for at this time it was so
bad that they had passed a line from my waist to the windward bitt and
I was up to my waist with every dive of her.
"Lord, she's a dog, ain't she! If old man Duncan could see her now!
Remember Tom O'Donnell singing that song the other night:
'West half-no'the and drive her--we're abreast now of Cape
Sable--
'Tis an everlasting hurricane, but here's the craft that's
able.'
We're not abreast of Cape Sable yet, but it won't take us too many
hours at this clip. And here's the craft that's able. Man, wouldn't it
be fine if Tom O'Donnell himself was with us and the pair of us racing
home? Let me take the wheel, Joe. And go for'ard and have a mug-up for
yourself--and have a care going, Joe, for it's leaping she is now and
seas that'd lift you a cable's length to looard if ever they caught
you fair. That's it--oh, but if your mother could see you now, Joe,
it's never to sea you'd come again."
I made my way for'ard. A dash between the house and windward rail, a
shoot for the mainmast and holding on there for awhile. Another dive
for the gripes on the dories, another shoot between rail and dories, a
grip of the bow gripes, a swing around and I was at the forec's'le
hatch. Here I thought I heard him call and looked aft.
He had a leg either side of the wheel, standing full height and sawing
the spokes a bit up and down to get the feel of her. The life line was
trailing from his waist to the bitt--the clear white sea was up to his
middle and racing over the taffrail. He had cast away his mitts the
better to grip the spokes, and even as I looked he took off his
sou'wester and sent it scaling. The wind taking hold of it must have
carried it a quarter a mile to leeward. Watching it go, himself
looking out under the boom, he laughed--laughed--such a roar of a
laugh--stamped his feet and began to sing:
"Oh, I love old Ocean's smile,
I love old Ocean's frowning--
My love's for Ocean all the while,
My prayer's for death by drowning."
The devil was in him then. "Did you call me, skipper?" I sang out.
"Did I? Did I? Lord, Joe, I don't know. Maybe I did. I feel like
calling from here to Gloucester, and if I did I bet they'd hear me.
God, Joe, but it's good to be alive, isn't it?--just to be alive.
Whew! but I wish I had a few more sou'westers--just to see 'em scale.
But what was it I wanted--but is the cook there?"
"He is--I c'n hear him talking."
"Then go below and tell him, Joe--tell him to mouse his pots and
kettles, for with sail alow and sail aloft, with her helmsman lashed
and her house awash, in a living gale and the devil's own sea, the
Johnnie Duncan's going to the west'ard."
And she certainly went.