SWEETHEARTS IN A STORM
No man could imagine that so heavy a sea was already running until
Caudel hove the yacht to. The instant the helm was put down the dance
began! As she rounded to a whole green sea struck her full abeam, and
fell with a roar like a volcanic discharge upon her decks, staggering
her to the heart--sending a throe of mortal agony through her, as one
might have sworn. I felt that she was buried in the foam of that sea.
As she gallantly rose, still valiantly rounding into the wind, as
though the spirit of the British soil in which had grown the hardy
timber out of which she was manufactured was never stronger in her than
now, the water that filled her decks roared cascading over the rails.
Grace sat by my side, her arm locked in mine; she was motionless with
fear; her eyes had the fixed look of the sleep-walker's, nor will I
deny that my own terror was extreme; for imagining that I had heard a
shriek, I believed that my men had been washed overboard, and that we
two were locked up in a dismasted craft that was probably
sinking--imprisoned, I say, by reason of the construction of the
companion cover, which, when closed, was not to be opened from within.
I waited a few minutes with my lips set, wondering what was to happen
next, holding Grace close to me, and harkening with feverish ears for
the least sound of a human voice on deck. There was a second
blow--this time on the yacht's bow--followed by a sensation as of every
timber thrilling, and by a bolt-like thud of falling water, but this
time well forward. Immediately afterwards I heard Caudel shouting
close against the skylight, and I cannot express the emotion, in truth,
I may call it the transport of joy, his voice raised in me. It was
like being rescued from a dreadful death that an instant before seemed
certain.
I continued to wait, holding my darling to me; her head lay upon my
shoulder, and she rested as though in a swoon. The sight of her white
face was inexpressibly shocking to me, who very well knew that there
was nothing I could say to soften her terrors amid such a sea as the
yacht was now tumbling upon. Indeed, the vessel's motions had become
on a sudden violently heavy. I was never in such a sea before; that is
to say, in so small a vessel, and the leaping of the craft from peak to
base, and the dreadful careering of her as she soared, lying down on
her beam ends to the next liquid summit were absolutely soul subduing.
It was idle, however, to think of going on deck. I durst not leave my
darling alone lest she should swoon and be thrown down and injured,
perhaps killed; whilst, for myself, the legs of a man needed a longer
apprenticeship to the sea than ever I had served, or had the faintest
desire to serve, to qualify him for such capering planks as these, and
I was quite sure that if I wished to break my neck I had nothing more
to do than to make an attempt to stand.
Well, some twenty minutes, or, perhaps, half an hour passed, during all
which time I believed every moment to be our last, and I recollect
cursing myself for being the instrument of introducing the darling of
my heart into this abominable scene of storm in which, as I believed,
we were both to perish. Why had I not gone ashore yesterday? Did not
my instincts advise me to quit the sea and take the railway? Why had I
brought my pet away from the security of the Rue de Maquetra? Why, in
the name of all the virtues, was I so impatient that I could not wait
till she was of age, when I could have married her comfortably and
respectably, freed from all obligations of ladders, dark lanterns,
tempests, and whatever was next to come? I could have beaten my head
upon the table. Never did I better understand what I have always
regarded as a stroke of fiction--I mean the disposition of a man in a
passion to tear out his hair by the roots.
At the expiration, as I supposed, of twenty minutes, the hatch cover
was opened, this time without any following screech and blast of wind,
and Caudel descended. Had he been a beam of sunshine he could not have
been more welcome to my eyes. He was clad from head to foot in
oilskins, from which the wet ran as from an umbrella in a
thunder-shower, and the skin and hue of his face resembled soaked
leather.
"Well, Mr. Barclay, sir," he exclaimed, "and how have you been getting
on? It's been a bad job; but there's nothen to alarm ye, I'm sure."
Then catching sight of Grace's face, he cried, "The young lady ain't
been and hurt herself, I hope, sir?"
"Her fear and this movement," I answered, "have proved too much for
her. I wish you would pull off your oilskins and help me to convey her
to the lee side there. The edge of this table seems to be cutting me
in halves," the fact being that I was to windward with the whole weight
of my sweetheart, who rested lifelessly against me to increase the
pressure, so that at every leeward stoop of the craft my breast was
caught by the edge of the table with a sensation as of a knife cutting
through my shirt.
He instantly whipped off his streaming waterproofs, standing without
the least inconvenience whilst the decks slanted under him like a
see-saw, and in a very few moments he had safely placed Grace on the
lee locker with her head on a pillow. I made shift to get round to her
without hurting myself, then cried to Caudel to sit and tell me what
had happened.
"Well, it's just this, sir," he answered, "the mast has carried away
some feet below the head of it. It went on a sudden in the squall in
which the wind burst down upon us. Perhaps it was as well it happened,
for she lay down to that there houtfly in a way so hobstinate that I
did believe she'd never lift herself out of the water agin. But the
sail came down when the mast broke, and I managed to get her afore it,
though I don't mind owning to you now, sir, that what with the gear
fouling the helm, and what with other matters which there ain't no call
for me to talk about, 'twas as close a shave with us, sir, as ever
happened at sea."
Grace moaned, opened her eyes and then shut them again, and moved her
hand that I should take it. The companion cover lay a little way open,
but though tons of water might be flying over the bow for aught I knew,
not a drop glittered in the hatch. I could now, however, very clearly
hear the roaring _hum_ of the gale, and catch the note of boiling
waters; but these sounds were not so distracting but that Caudel and I
clearly heard each other's voice.
"Is the yacht tight, do you think, Caudel?" cried I.
"I hope she is, sir."
"Hope! My God, but you must _know_, Caudel."
"Well, sir, she's adraining a little water into her--I'm bound to say
it--but nothen that the pump won't keep under; and I believe that most
of it finds its way into the well from up above."
I stared at him with a passion of anxiety and dismay, but his cheery
blue eyes steadfastly returned my gaze as though he would make me know
that he spoke the truth--that matters were not worse than he
represented them.
"Has the pump been worked?" I inquired.
He lifted his hand as I asked the question, and I heard the beat of the
pump throbbing through the dull roar of the wind as though a man had
seized the brake of it in response to my inquiry.
"This is a frightful situation to be in," said I, with a glance at
Grace, who lay motionless, with her eyes shut, rendered almost
insensible by the giddy and violent motion of the hull.
"It'll all come right, sir," he exclaimed; "daybreak 'll be here
soon--" he looked up at the clock, "then we shall be able to see what
to do."
"But what is to be done?"
"Plenty, sir. Tarn to first of all and secure the remains of the mast.
There's height enough left. We must secure him, I says, then wait for
this here breeze to blow himself out, and then make sail and get away
home as fast as ever we can."
"But is the vessel, wrecked aloft as she is, going to outlive such
weather as this?" I cried, talking in a half-dazed way out of the sort
of swooning feeling which came and went in my head like a pulse with
the wild, sky-high flights and the headlong falls of the little vessel.
"I hope she will, I'm sure, sir. She was built for the seas of the
Dogger, and ought to be able to stand the likes of this."
"Does much water come aboard?"
"Now and agin there's a splash, but she's doing werry well, sir. Ye
see we ain't a canoe, nor a wherry. A hundred years ago the _Spitfire_
would have been reckoned a craft big enough to sail to Australia in."
"Was anyone hurt by the sea as you rounded to?"
"Bobby was washed aft, sir, but he's all right agin."
I plied him with further questions, mainly concerning the prospects of
the weather, our chances, the drift of the yacht, that I might know
into what part of the Channel we were being blown, and how long it
would occupy to storm us at this rate into the open Atlantic; and then
asking him to watch by Grace for a few minutes, I dropped on my knees,
and crawled to my cabin, where I somehow contrived to scramble into my
boots, coat and cap. I then made for the companion steps, still on my
knees, and clawed my way up the hatch till I was head and shoulders
above it, and there I stood looking.
I say looking, but there was nothing to see save the near, vast,
cloud-like spaces of foam, hovering as it seemed high above the rail as
some black head of surge broke off the bow, or descending the pouring
side of a sea like bodies of mist sweeping with incredible velocity
with the breath of the gale. Past these dim masses the water lay in
blackness--a huge spread of throbbing obscurity. All overhead was mere
rushing darkness. The wind was wet with spray, and forward there would
show at intervals a dull shining of foam, flashing transversely across
the labouring little craft.
It was blowing hard indeed, yet from the weight of the seas and the
motions of the _Spitfire_, I could have supposed the gale severer than
it was. I returned to the cabin, and Caudel, after putting on his
oilskins and swallowing a glass of brandy and water--the materials of
which were swaying furiously in a silver-plated swinging tray suspended
over the table--went on deck, leaving the companion cover a little way
open in case I desired to quit the cabin.
Until the dawn, and some time past it, I sat close beside Grace,
holding her hand or bathing her brow. She never spoke, she seldom
opened her eyes; indeed, she lay as though utterly prostrated, without
power to articulate, or, perhaps, to think either. It was the effect
of fear, however, rather than of nausea. At any rate, I remember
hoping so, for I had heard of people dying of sea sickness, and if the
weather that had stormed down upon us should last, it might end in
killing her; whereas, the daylight, and, perhaps, some little break of
blue sky would reanimate her if her sufferings were owing to terror
only, and when she found the little craft buoyant and our lives in no
danger, her spirits would rise and her strength return.
But what an elopement is this! thought I, as I gazed upon her sweet,
white face and closed lids darkening the cheek with the shadowing of
the fringes. One reads of fugitive lovers in peril from overset stage
coaches, from detectives in waiting at railway stations, from
explosions, earthquakes and collisions on land and ocean. But a gale
of wind--a storm-dismantled dandy yacht of twenty-six tons furiously
working in the thick of a wild Channel sea, where the surge swells
large with the weight of the near Atlantic--here are conditions of a
runaway match, the like of which are not to be found, I believe,
outside of my own experience.
The blessed daylight came at last. I spied the weak wet grey of it in
a corner of the skylight that had been left uncovered by the tarpaulin
which was spread over the glass. I looked closely at Grace and found
her asleep. I could not be sure at first, so motionless had she been
lying, but when I put my ear close to her mouth, the regularity of her
respiration convinced me that she was slumbering.
That she should be able to snatch even ten minutes of sleep cheered me.
Yet my spirits were very heavy, every bone in me ached with a pain as
of rheumatism; though I did not feel sick, my brain seemed to reel, and
the sensation of giddiness was hardly less miserable and depressing
than nausea itself. I stood up, and with great difficulty caught the
brandy as it flew from side to side on the swinging tray, and took a
dram, and then clawed my way as before to the companion steps, and
opening the cover, got into the hatch and stood looking at the picture
of my yacht and the sea.
There was no one at the helm; the tiller was lashed to leeward. The
shock I received on observing no one aft, finding the helm abandoned,
as it seemed to me, I shall never forget. The tiller was the first
object I saw as I rose through the hatch, and my instant belief was
that all my people had been swept overboard. On looking forward,
however, I spied Caudel and the others of the men at work about the
mast. I am no sailor and cannot tell you what they were doing, beyond
saying that they were securing the mast by affixing tackles and so
forth to it. But I had no eyes for them or their work; I could only
gaze at my ruined yacht, which at every heave appeared to be pulling
herself together, as it were, for the final plunge. A mass of cordage
littered the deck; the head of the mast showed in splinters, whilst the
spar itself looked withered, naked, blasted, as though struck by
lightning. The decks were full of water, which was flashed above the
rail, where it was instantly swept away by the gale in a smoke of
crystals. The black gear wriggled and rose to the wash of the water
over the planks like a huddle of eels. A large space of the bulwarks
on the port side abreast of the mast was smashed level with the deck.
The grey sky seemed to hover within musket shot of us, and it went down
the sea in a slate-coloured weeping body of thickness to within a
couple of hundred fathoms, and the dark green surges, as they came
rolling in foam from out of the windward wall of blankness, looked
enormous.
In sober truth a very great sea was running indeed; the oldest sailor
then afloat must have thought so. The Channel was widening into the
ocean, with depth enough for seas of oceanic volume, and it was still,
as it had been for some hours, blowing a whole gale of wind. I had
often read of what is called a storm at sea, but had never encountered
one, and now I was viewing the real thing from the deck of a little
vessel that was practically dismasted in the heart of a thickness that
shrouded us from all observation, whilst every minute we were being
settled farther and farther away from the English coast towards the
great Atlantic by the hurling scend of the surges, and by the driving
fury of the blast.
Caudel on seeing me came scrambling to the companion. The salt of the
flying wet had dried in the hollows of his eyes and lay in a sort of
white powder there, insomuch that he was scarcely recognisable. It was
impossible to hear him amidst that roaring commotion, and I descended
the ladder by a step or two to enable him to put his head into the
hatch. He tried to look cheerful, but there was a curl in the set of
his mouth that neutralised the efforts of his eye.
"Ye see how it is, Mr. Barclay?"
"Nothing could be worse."
"Dorn't say that, sir, dorn't say that. The yacht lives, and is making
brave weather o't."
"She cannot go on living."
"She'll outlast this weather, sir, I'll lay."
"What are you doing?"
He entered into a nautical explanation, the terms of which I forget.
It was of the first consequence, however, that the mast should be
preserved, and this the men were attempting at the risk of their lives.
As the mast stood there was nothing to support it, and if it went (he
explained) the _Spitfire_ would become a sheer hulk and then our
situation would be desperate indeed; but if the men succeeded in
preserving the mast, they could easily make sail upon the yacht when
the weather moderated, "and the land ain't very fur off yet, sir," he
added.
"But we are widening our distance rapidly."
He shook his head somewhat dolefully, saying, "Yes, that was so."
"I am thinking of the hull, Caudel. Surely this wild tossing must be
straining the vessel frightfully. Does she continue to take in water?"
"I must not deceive you, sir," he answered; "she _do_. But a short
spell at the pump sarves to chuck it all out again, and so there's no
call for your honour to be oneasy."
He returned to the others, whilst I, heart-sickened by the intelligence
that the _Spitfire_ had sprung a leak--for _that_, I felt, must be the
plain English of Caudel's assurance--continued standing a few moments
longer in the hatch looking round. Ugly rings of vapour, patches and
fragments of dirty yellow scud flew past, loose and low under the near
grey wet stoop of the sky; they made the only break in that firmament
of storm. The smother of the weather was thickened yet by the clouds
of driving spray which rose like bursts of steam from the sides and
heads of the seas, making one think of the fierce gusts and guns of the
gale as of wolves tearing mouthfuls with sharp teeth from the flanks
and backs of the rushing and roaring chase they pursued.
How the seamen maintained their footing I could not imagine. In order
to climb the naked spar they had driven short nails at wide intervals
up it; and one of them--Foster--as I watched, crawled up the mast with
a big block on his back.
It seemed to me as though the men were working for life or death. The
yacht rode buoyant to her lashed helm under a fragment of mizzen if I
remember right, and very little water came aboard, though great
fountains of spray would occasionally soar off the bow, and blow in a
snowstorm fathoms away into the sea on the opposite side. But the
motions of that naked height of splintered mast were like a baton in
the hands of an excited orchestra conductor, and though I believe I was
not more wanting in nerves in my time than most others, my eyes reeled
in my head at sight of the plucky fellow, doggedly rising nail by nail,
till he had reached the point of elevation where the block was to be
secured.
My anxieties, however, were below, on the locker where I had left my
sweetheart sleeping, and I was about to descend, when my sight was
taken by a shadow in the grey thickness to windward. It was a mere
oozing of darkness, so to speak for a moment or two; then as though to
the touch of the wand of an enchanter, it leapt upon the eye in the
full and majestic proportions of a great, black-hulled ship, "flying
light," as the term is. She came rushing down upon us under two lower
topsails, and a reefed foresail, pitching to her hawse-pipes as she
came, then lifting a broad surface of greenish sheathing out of the
acre of yeast that the blow of her cutwater had set boiling. She
rushed by close astern of us, and the thunder of the gale in her
rigging and the hissing sounds of the seas as she burst into them rose
high above the universal humming and seething of the storm. Two
figures alone were visible; one in a sea helmet and oilskins at the
wheel; a second in a long coat and fur cap, holding by a backstay. She
vanished with the velocity with which she had emerged; but I could not
have conjectured her nearness till I reflected how plainly I had seen
the two men--all features of their clothing--their very faces, indeed!
Shall we be run down, sent helplessly to the bottom before this weather
has done its work for us? thought I, and shuddering to the fancy of a
blow from such a stem as that which had just swept past us, I descended
the cabin steps. Grace was awake, sitting upright, but in a listless,
lolling, helpless posture. I was thankful, however, to find her
capable of the exertion even of sitting erect. I crept to her side,
and held her to me to cherish and comfort her.
"Oh, this weary, weary motion!" she cried, pressing her hand upon her
temples.
"It cannot last much longer, my darling," I said; "the gale is fast
blowing itself out, and then we shall have blue skies and smooth water
again."
"Can we not land, Herbert?" she asked feebly in my ear, with her cheek
upon my shoulder.
"Would to Heaven that were possible within the next five minutes!" I
answered.
"Whereabouts are we?"
"I cannot tell exactly; but when this weather breaks we shall find the
English coast within easy reach."
"Oh, do not let us wait until we get to Mount's Bay!" she cried.
"My pet, the nearest port will be our port _now_, depend upon it."
This sort of talk making me feel most wretchedly and miserably
hopeless, I got away from the subject by asking her how she felt, and
by reassuring her as to the buoyancy of the yacht, and I then coaxed
her into taking a little weak brandy and water, which, as a tonic under
the circumstances, was the best medicine I could have given her. I
afterwards made her lie down again, and procured Eau de Cologne and
another pillow, and such matters, but at a heavy cost to my bones; for
had I been imprisoned in a cask, and sent in that posture on a tour
down a mountain's side, I could not have been more abominably thumped
and belaboured. It was one wild scramble and flounder from beginning
to end, blows on the head, blows on the shins, complete capsisals that
left me sitting and dazed; and when my business of attending upon her
was at an end, I felt that this little passage of my elopement had
qualified me for nothing so much as for a hospital.
The day passed; a day of ceaseless storm, and of such tossing as only a
smacksman, who has fished in the North Sea in winter, could know
anything about. The spells at the pump grew frequent as the hours
progressed, and the wearisome beat of the plied break affected my
imagination as though it were the tolling of our funeral bell. I
hardly required Caudel to tell me the condition of the yacht when,
sometime between eight and nine o'clock that night, he put his head
into the hatch and motioned me to ascend.
"It's my duty to tell ye, Mr. Barclay," he exclaimed, whispering
hoarsely into my ear, in the comparative shelter of the companion
cover, that Grace might not overhear him, "that the leak's againing
upon us."
I had guessed as much; yet this confirmation of my conjecture affected
me as violently as though I had had no previous suspicion of the state
of the yacht. I was thunderstruck, I felt the blood forsake my cheeks,
and for some moments I could not find my voice.
"You do not mean to tell me, Caudel, that the yacht is actually
_sinking_?"
"No, sir. But the pump'll have to be kept continually going if she's
to remain afloat. I'm afeer'd when the mast went over the side that a
blow from it started a butt, and the leak's growing worse and worse,
consequence of the working of the craft."
"Is it still thick?"
"As mud, sir."
"Why not fire the gun at intervals?" said I, referring to the little
brass cannon that stood mounted upon the quarter-deck.
"I'm afeered--" he paused with a melancholy shake of his head. "Of
course, Mr. Barclay," he went on, "if it's your wish, sir--but it'll do
no more, I allow, than frighten the young lady. 'Tis but a peashooter,
sir, and the gale's like thunder."
"We are in your hands, Caudel," said I, with a feeling of despair
ice-cold at my heart, as I reflected upon the size of our little craft,
her crippled and sinking condition, our distance from land--as I felt
the terrible might and powers of the seas which were tossing us--and as
I thought of my sweetheart!
"Mr. Barclay," he answered, "if the weather do but moderate, I shall
have no fear. Our case ain't hopeless yet by a long way, sir. The
water's to be kept under by continuous pumping, and there are hands
enough and to spare for that job. We're not in the middle of the
Atlantic Ocean, but in the mouth of the English Channel, with plenty of
shipping knocking about. But the weather's got to moderate. Firing
that there gun 'ud only terrify the young lady, and do no good. If a
ship came along no boat could live in this sea. In this here blackness
she couldn't kept us company, and our rockets wouldn't be visible half
a mile off. No, sir, we've got to stick to the pump, and pray for
daylight and fine weather," and, having no more to say to me, or a
sudden emotion checking his utterance, he pulled his head out and
disappeared in the obscurity.
Grace asked me what Caudel had been talking about, and I answered with
the utmost composure I could master that he had come to tell me the
yacht was making a noble fight of it and that there was nothing to
cause us alarm. I had not the heart to respond otherwise, nor could
the bare truth, as I understood it, have served any other end than to
deprive her of her senses. Even now, I seemed to find an expression of
wildness in her beautiful eyes, as though the tension of her nerves,
along with the weary endless hours of delirious pitching and tossing,
was beginning to tell upon her brain. I sought to comfort her, I
caressed her, I strained her to my heart, whilst I exerted my whole
soul to look cheerfully and to speak cheerfully, and, thank God! the
influence of my true, deep love prevailed; she spoke tranquilly; the
brilliant staring look of her eyes was softened; occasionally she would
smile as she lay in my arms, whilst I rattled on, struggling, with a
resolution that now seems preternatural when I look back, to distract
her attention from our situation.
At one o'clock in the morning she fell asleep, and I knelt by her
sleeping form, and prayed for mercy and protection.
It was much about this hour that Caudel's face again showed in the
hatch. I crawled along the deck and up the steps to him, and he
immediately said to me in a voice that trembled with agitation:
"Mr. Barclay, good noose, sir. The gale's ataking off."
I clasped my hands, and could have hugged the dripping figure of the
man to my breast.
"Yes, sir," he continued, "the breeze is slackening. There's no
mistake about it. The horizon's opening too."
"Heaven be praised. And what of the leak, Caudel?"
"'Taint worse than it was, sir, though it's bad enough."
"If the weather should moderate--"
"Well then, if the leak don't gain, we may manage to carry her home.
That'll have to be found out, sir. But seeing the yacht's condition, I
shall be for trans-shipping you and the lady to anything inwards bound,
that may come along. Us men'll take the yacht to port, providing
she'll let us." He paused, and then said: "There might be no harm now,
perhaps, in firing off that there gun. If a smack 'ud show herself,
she'd be willing to stand by for the sake of the salvage. We'll also
send up a few rockets, sir. But how about the young lady, Mr. Barclay?"
"Everything must be done," I replied, "that is likely to preserve our
lives."
There was some gunpowder aboard, but where Caudel had stowed it I did
not know. However, five minutes after he had left me, and whilst I was
sitting by the side of my sweetheart, who still slept, the gun was
discharged. It sent a small shock through the little fabric, as though
she had gently touched ground, or run into some floating object, but
the report, blending with the commotion of the seas and bell-like
ringing, and wolfish howlings of the wind, penetrated the deck in a
note so dull that Grace never stirred. Ten or twelve times was this
little cannon discharged at intervals of five and ten minutes, and I
could hear the occasional rush of a rocket, like a giant hissing in
wrath, sounding through the stormy uproar.
Tragical noises to harken to, believe me! communicating a significance
dark as death, to the now ceaseless pulsing of the pump, to the blows
of the sea against the yacht's bow, and to every giddy rise and fall of
the labouring little structure amid the hills and valleys of that
savage Channel sea.