Glo'ster I should be in a blue funk. I must keep up my spirits, and
show 'em what my luck's like. I've been in worse fixes than this
many a time, and after all, with a good seaworthy berg underfoot, and
lashings of grub, I don't see why anyone should growl. If anyone
does I'll knock his head off. Now, which of these jokers is the
cook?"
He found the steward, and booted him gently in the ribs. At least he
said it was gently, whatever the aggrieved steward thought of it.
"Now then, Cox," said the skipper, "turn out and find me the
cook,--he's one of this pile of snorin' hogs,--and let's have some
breakfast."
By the time the grub was ready, Ward and Day were 'on deck,' and the
sun was beginning to think of doing the same. The two mates looked
round the horizon and saw nothing to comfort them. The only cheerful
thing in sight was the skipper, and for very shame the more
pessimistic Ward screwed up a smile.
"Not so bad, is it?" asked Spink.
"It might be worse, I own," replied the mate. "What course are you
steerin', Spink?"
"Straight for Glo'ster," replied Spink cheerfully. "How did you
chaps sleep?"
Ward said he hadn't slept at all, but Day averred that he had dreamt
he had been locked in a refrigerator belonging to some cold-meat
steamer from Australia. And just then the steward said that
breakfast was ready. It consisted of cold tinned beef, iced biscuit,
and melted berg. There were signs of a mutiny among the crew at once.
"Say, cook, where's the cawfy?" they asked, and they were only
reduced to a proper sense of the situation by a few strong remarks
from Captain Spink. The riot subsided before it really began, and
all the 'slop-built, greedy sons of corby crows,' as Spink called
them, sat down meekly and ate what they were given. And then the sun
came up and warmed them, and they soon began to feel well and happy.
But now the real trouble of the situation began to develop. The heat
of the summer sun when it once got high enough to do some work began
to melt the berg. It was rather higher in the middle than it was on
the edges, and it was most amazingly slippery. The water ran off it
in streams, and as it was barely big enough to start with, it looked
as if they would shortly be crowded.
"I never thought of this," said Spink. "I tell you, Ward, she'll
turn turtle before we know where we are. We must put all the stores
in the boat, and have a man in her to keep her clear if the berg
capsizes."
"Your luck ain't what you let on," said Ward gloomily; "the thing
fair melts under us, and we'll have to swim."
"To thunder with your croaking," said Spink. "Oh, do dry up."
"I wish the berg would," said Ward, as he superintended the shipment
of the stores. When it was done he put a cockney deck-hand into her
and made him shove off.
"Blimy," said Lim'us, "I'm likely to be the on'y dry of the 'ole
shoot."
The word 'shoot' soon threatened to become highly appropriate, for
about noon the berg was distinctly cranky. However fast it melted
above, it was obviously melting much faster down below, for they had
apparently struck a streak of comparatively warm water, and when ice
does go it goes fast. The 'crowd' got very uneasy, and Spink got
very cross as he arranged them so as to trim his craft.
"Sit still, you swine," said Spink. "Do you want to capsize us?"
"But we're so cold be'ind, sittin' still, sir," said one bolder than
the rest.
"I'll warm you if I have to come over and speak to you," said Spink,
and he presently undertook to do it. The moment he rose to carry out
his threat the iceberg wobbled in the most dreadful manner, and so
encouraged the offender that he laughed.
"If you come to 'it me, captain, she'll go over," he said with a
malicious grin.
"So she will," said Ward, laying hold of the skipper to prevent his
moving. But Spink was not to be baulked. He spoke to another of the
men sitting near the mutineer.
"Jackson, you come here while I go over there and dress Billings
down."
"Don't you go, Jackson, for if you do I'll dress you down to a proper
tune arterwards," said the insubordinate Billings, as he grabbed hold
of Jackson, who looked at the skipper appealingly.
"What am I to do, sir?" he asked.
"You're to obey orders," said Spink.
"Don't you forgit I'll plug you if you do," said Billings.
Poor Jackson was obviously in serious difficulties, for Billings was
the boss and bully of the fo'c'sle. He could even lick any of the
firemen, and there were some very tough gentry among that gang.
"If I don't come over to you, sir, what will you do?" Jackson asked
the skipper nervously.
"I'll come over to you, if we're in the drink the next moment,"
replied Spink firmly. "Don't any of you Johnnies think you can best
me. Are you coming or are you not?"
Jackson shook his shock head.
"This is very hard lines on a peaceable cove like me," said Jackson;
"but if I am to catch toko, I'd much rather take it from Billings
than from you, sir."
And as he spoke, he smote Billings very violently on the nose.
Billings, who expected nothing less, let a horrid bellow out of him
and promptly slipped on the ice. He fell, and slid overboard with a
howl, and the berg came near to capsizing then and there.
"Well done, Jackson," said Spink approvingly, as Billings disappeared
in the sea, "very well done indeed." And then Billings rose to the
surface.
"Can you swim, Billings?" asked Spink with an air of kindly
curiosity. "Oh, yes, I see you can, so keep on doing it till you
feel a little less mutinous."
It took Billings rather less than a minute to become obedient, for
though the sea was warm enough to melt the berg it was by no means so
warm as a swimming bath, and he presently howled for mercy and was
dragged upon the ice once more.
It was lucky for Billings that the sun by now was really hot. He
stripped off his clothes and squeezed them as dry as he could, while
he threatened to kill Jackson as soon as he could. His threats were
interrupted by the sound of a large crack, and presently there were
obvious signs that the berg was about to capsize. Lim'us got quite
excited as they discussed the situation, and came in close, till Ward
ordered him to get farther away. As he rowed off reluctantly he
encouraged them by yelling, "She's goin' over! May the Lord look
sideways at me if she ain't."
"Oh, oh!" said poor old Mac, "I'm a puir meeserable sinner wi' a sore
head and no medicine, and I'll be wet in a crack, and I'll die wi'out
a wee drappie. Oh, oh, oh!"
And the berg stopped cracking but took on an ugly cant. A big lump
of ice broke off it down below and came up to the surface with a leap.
"Steady, you swine," said Spink politely to his unhappy crew; and
Ward asked him where his luck was. Whatever answer he was to get he
never knew, for with a curious heave the berg started on a roll, and
with a suddenness which took them all with surprise she bucked them
into the Atlantic, together with what materials they had for a raft.
It was a lucky thing for at least half of them that there had been
time to save such dunnage from the _Swan_, for half the crowd,
including M'Pherson and Day, could not swim a stroke. Ward grabbed
Day and helped him to a spar, and Spink did the same for old Mac.
And in the meantime Lim'us made everyone furious by squealing with
laughter in the boat. Billings threatened him with death when he got
hold of him, and Spink had no mind or breath to rebuke the horrid and
bloodthirsty language with which the late mutineer reinforced his
threats.
"Oh, oh!" squealed old Mac when the skipper laid hold of him; "oh,
oh, I'm drooned, I'm drooned! and I've the rheumatism bad in a' my
joints."
And Spink said he was the howling and illegitimate descendant of
three generations without any character whatever, as he dragged him
to a floating oar alongside the capsized berg. Now it was not so
high out of water, and there was far more space on it. For some time
it would be comparatively stable, and when Spink scrambled on it the
first of anyone he congratulated himself on his never failing luck.
He helped the rest on board, and the whole space was soon occupied by
an unclad crowd wringing the Atlantic out of their clothes, and
trying to get warm in the sun. It was quite astonishing how cheerful
everyone was, with the single exception of that confirmed pessimist
the chief engineer. At their end of the berg the men took to
skylarking, and Billings actually forgave Jackson.
"You done what I'd ha' done myself," said Billings, "for I owns now
I'd a'most as soon take on that big brute Ward as 'ave the skipper
get about me. But when I give 'im that back-talk I was that icy
be'ind that I was like froze Haustralian mutting, and as cross as if
my old woman 'ad been relatin' what 'er mother thought of me. I
furgives you, Jackson, I furgives you this once. But don't you hever
'it me on the smeller agin, or a penny peep-show won't be in it for
the sight you'll be."
It was considered by the crowd that Billings by this act of nobility
had shown himself a 'gent,' and Billings swaggered greatly on the
strength of it.
The crew, of course, did not think. They were not paid to do so.
All that was the officers' business. It hardly occurred to them that
the ice on which they stood wasn't likely to last for ever. In the
warmth of the sun they forgot the discomforts of the past night, and
did not think of the night to come. But Ward did, and he was still
very gloomy on the situation.
"Just as she spilt us," said Ward, "I was askin' you your opinion of
your luck. What do you think of it now? Perhaps you'll use that
regal authority of a skipper to get us out of the hole you've got us
in."
If ever any skipper had the right to be justly indignant, Spink
thought he was that man.
"The hole I got you in! I like that, oh, I do like that. Who was
it, I ask, that pestered me to go half speed, and almost wept till I
said 'Have your own way, you cross-eyed swine'?"
"You never addressed them words to me," said Ward truculently, "or
I'd have given you what for, and well you know it."
Spink shook his head.
"I ain't sayin' that I used them very words," he urged, "all I mean
is that that was what I meant when I let you have your own silly way,
which has landed me and Day, to say nothin' of the rest, on a
penn'orth of ice in mid-Atlantic, more or less."
"Don't bring me into the argument," said Day. "You're a cunning sort
of a chap, Spink, but you needn't try to raise ructions between me
and Ward, for I won't have it. I know you, Spink."
"I'm a very unfortunate man," said poor Spink, "for at this very
moment I'd give three months' pay to be able to lick the pair of you.
I did think after what the Chief Foreign Officer said of my authority
that I should be more civilly treated by my officers, even if I have
an unfortunate disposition which compels me to lick them if I can. I
shipped you two because I can't, but that ain't any reason for makin'
me miserable, or at anyrate more miserable than bein' in the position
of not bein' able to."
"Oh, all right," said Day, "go ahead and moan. Nobody's stoppin'
you, is he? Let him alone, Ward. He's all right; and as for
fightin', I believe I could teach him to be too much for myself in a
month with the boxin' gloves."
"I wish you would," said Spink. "Oh, Day, you've no notion how I
should enjoy pastin' you."
He fell into contemplation of such a joy, and did not speak till Ward
clapped him on the back and said he was a very good sort after all.
"And if it's any use to you, I own that my havin' gone half speed
that time may have put us here. But sayin' so much don't mean that I
now approve of buttin' headlong into an ice-pack at twenty knots an
hour. But to go back to what I was sayin' before you started this
row, where's your luck, Spink? To my mind it don't look so healthy a
breed of luck as you let on, and it's my notion that old Mac is of my
opinion, to judge by the sad expression of his countenance."
"To blazes with the old fool!" said Spink. "Who cares what he
thinks? My luck is where it was, and I reckon to get out of this
with flyin' colours, and never a man short, and nothin' against the
certificates of any of us. I've noticed all my life that I seem to
be under the especial care of Providence, and I don't believe
Providence will go back on me after plantin' me here all safe and
sound on an iceberg. Day, rake up that cook, and give the cockney in
the boat a hail. We'll have some grub. I've a twist on me like a
machine-made hawser."
They went to dinner, and the sun did something of the same sort. At
anyrate it went out of sight, and a thick fog came down on the
castaways.
"We 'opes no bloomin' packet 'll come and run us pore blighters
down," said the men as they fell to work on the grub, "for accordin'
to the 'old man,' who is the cheerfulest bloke in difficulties we
ever struck, we're right in the track of the ole shoot of 'em, and
may be picked up or scooted into the sea again any minute."
As a matter of fact, they were then on the southern tail of the Bank,
for when the _Swan_ bunted her nose into the berg, she was pretty
well at the locality on the Grand Bank where the usual 'lane' to New
York is left for the lane to Halifax. The very watch before the
collision they had verified their position by flying the 'blue
pigeon,' as seamen call the deep-sea lead, and ever since then they
had been floating in the Labrador current to the south and east. To
locate them exactly, they were just about where the Great Circle
Track of steamers from the English Channel to the Gulf of Mexico
crosses the tail of the Bank. There was every chance of something
coming along there, even if it was getting late enough in the season
for the big liners to take the route to the south'ard for fear of the
very ice which had brought them to grief.
"Oh, yes," said the crowd, when they were full up with food, "we're
all right."
Nevertheless the fog did not cheer them up to any great extent, and
when it showed signs of lasting all day they grew less happy.
"A hundred vessels might pass us in this," said Ward, who for all his
bigness had much less endurance than the skipper, and was now hardly
more cheerful than old Mac. "I wish I was out of it."
"Oh, wish again," retorted Spink contemptuously. "Do you know, Ward,
that you make me tired? What do you get by howlin' and growlin'? I
know this is goin' to come out all right, and I won't be discouraged
by any silly jaw of a man that ought to know better. Shut up."
And to Day's surprise Ward shut up. At that very moment there came a
bellow from Billings, who had relieved Lim'us in the boat.
"Berg, ahoy!" roared Billings.
"Hallo!" replied the skipper. "What's the matter now?"
"I 'ears a steamer, so help me Dick!" bellowed Billings joyfully. "I
'ears 'er plain. Don't none of you blokes 'ear 'er too?"
There was such a buzz among the crowd that it would have been hard to
hear a fog-horn, and it was not until Spink had hit three, kicked
half a dozen, and used at least ten pounds worth of bad language,
according to 19 Geo. II. cap. 21, that anything like silence was
restored. Then it was obvious that Billings had made no mistake.
The sea was fairly calm, the breeze from the west was light, and any
sound carried long and far.
"She's coming from the westward," said Spink, as he consulted a toy
compass on his watch-chain.
"No," said Day, "she's bound west, or I'm a Dutchman."
"Then you come from Amsterdam for a certainty," said the 'old man'
crossly. "Now, men, shout all together when I say three. One, two,
three."
And just as the men yelled there was a hoot-too-oot from the
steamship, which for a moment made them believe she had heard them.
But Spink knew better, and when there was another hoot he grabbed Day
by the arm.
"By Jemima," said Spink, "we're both right, Day. There are two of
'em; that second squeal never came out of the same whistle that the
first one did!"
Now the nature of fog is something that no fellow can understand.
Seamen must not think they are a long way off if they hear a sound
faintly, or even if they do not hear it at all. That's bad enough,
but there is worse behind. They are not to reckon they are near
because they hear it plainly, or that it isn't to be heard farther
away at some other spot if they cease to hear it at all. And,
furthermore, any notion that a sound comes from any particular
direction is the biggest trap of the lot. Now the uninitiated can
understand that they do not understand, and that seamen are in the
same awkward fix whenever a fog comes down to cheer them on their
weary way. The two steamers coming out of nothingness and butting
into it were commanded by men who trusted to the evidence of their
senses, as if they were police magistrates trusting to policemen.
They hooted and bellowed in the most wonderful manner, and said with
one short blast that they were directing their course to starboard.
And as neither knew where the other was, or where he was himself,
they directed their courses with the most marvellous precision to the
exact spot on the tail of the Grand Bank in the Western Ocean where
they could collide. And they did so with a most horrid grinding
crash, and with one long, last, fearful and hopeless wail on their
steam-whistles.
"Holy sailor," said the iceberg's crew, "this time they've been and
gone and done it!"
Ward asked Spink sickly if he had any remarks to make about his luck.
Spink hadn't, but he had some remarks to make about Ward, which in
other circumstances would have led to war. While he was relieving
his overcharged mind there was a horrid uproar coming out of the fog,
for both the steamships were blowing off steam, and everyone on board
of them appeared to be running the entire show at the top of his
voice. And just as it was all at its extreme point of interest the
fog played one of its commonest tricks, and with an anacoustic wall
shut off the whole dreadful play in one single moment.
The castaways turned to each other in alarm, and Billings, who had
nearly lost himself in the fog, rowed in close.
"I think they've both foundered," said Billings, and it certainly
looked as if he were right, in spite of what Spink said to him.
"I believe the josser is right," said Day; and old Mac wept and said
he was sure of it, and that he had the rheumatics badly, and that he
was very cold. And to add to Spink's joy, once more Ward asked if he
still thought he was under the especial protection of Providence.
Then for the first time Spink lost his temper and went for Ward, and
by dint of taking him by surprise served him as Jackson had served
Billings.
"Take that, you swab," said the enraged skipper. "I'll teach you to
be so discouraging and so blasphemous as to cast a slur on
Providence."
And when Ward climbed upon the ice again all he said was--
"All right, Spink, you wait till we're on board that beastly packet
you and Providence have up your sleeves."
And everyone sat down and smoked, and said how grieved they were for
the poor unfortunate beggars who had been drowned through having no
nice comfortable iceberg to take refuge on. Then they had their
supper and went to sleep, leaving all their cares in the faithful
hands of poor Spink.
"Ah," he sighed, "my unfortunate disposition cuts me off from all
real sympathy. I've no one to confide in at sea or ashore, and as if
bein' a ship-master wasn't solitary enough I must plug Ward and make
him hostile. I wish I'd been brought up better and licked more
before I got into this fatal habit of fighting."
He couldn't go to sleep, and took to walking as far as the narrow
limits at his disposal would allow him. When he found that he was in
for a restless night he told the man on the lookout that he could
turn in. Jackson, who happened to be the look-out, lingered a little
before he did as he was told.
"Do you think, sir," he asked with some trepidation at his daring to
speak to the skipper, "do you think, sir, that we shall ever get out
o' this?"
"Of course we shall," said Spink. "What do you suppose I'm here for?
Go to sleep, Jackson, and mind your own business. You'll be all
right."
And Jackson, who was a simple-minded seaman of the real old sort,
fell asleep feeling that the 'old man' was to be relied on even on an
iceberg in the Western Ocean and in a fog as thick as number one
canvas.
For by now the fog was thick and no mistake. As Spink walked the
ice, and squelched with his sea-boots in the melted puddles, he could
hardly see his hand before his face, and more than once he nearly
walked overboard. At midnight it was even thicker, and he was
obliged to give up walking and come to an anchor on a tin of corned
beef, and though he was on watch it has to be owned that he dozed for
a few minutes, just as Lim'us did in the boat which lay a little way
off the berg. When Spink woke he found it just about as dark as
their prospects. When his eyes cleared, he sighed and looked about
him, with a mind which took some of its tone from the fog and from
the dull dead hour of two o'clock in the morning.
"I wonder if my luck is out," he sighed, and he stared solidly into
the solidest darkness. It was certainly monstrously dark in one
direction. He rubbed his eyes and grunted. Then he lighted a match
and looked at his little compass. His mind went back to the lady in
Bristol who had given it to him.
"She was a very pretty piece," said Spink thoughtfully. "But I'm
damned if I can see why it should be darkest towards the east."
He rose up and peered into the fog. Again he rubbed his eyes, and
then stood staring.
"Perhaps another berg," he said, "but----"
He stood as still as if his figure had been turned into stone, and
presently he looked to the sleeping crowd, who were all as solid with
sleep as if they were dead, and nodded in the strangest way.
"Oh, oh, if it is; if it only isn't a horrid delusion," he murmured.
He turned to the darkness again and shook his fist at it and the fog.
At that very moment the fog rolled up like a curtain. Right in front
of Spink, and not farther than a man could chuck a biscuit, there lay
the strange and almost monstrous apparition of a silent, lightless,
and derelict steamer!
"What did I say to Ward about Providence?" asked Spink of the whole
Atlantic Ocean. "Ward cast a nasty and uncalled-for slur on its ways
when he said what he did. But now I've got the bulge on him, and no
fatal error about it."
He rubbed his hands together and smiled very happily.
"There'll be fine pickings in this and no mistake," he murmured.
"Oh, this'll be something like salvage. And I'll lay dollars to
cents that I can tell how it ever happened. Ah, here comes the fog
again!"
The fog dropped down in a thin veil, till the dim and ghostly
derelict looked still less substantial than it had done. Then it
heaved and rolled in, and the deserted packet could be seen no more.
Spink sighed but was happy.
"I'll give Ward the biggest surprise he ever had in his life," he
said, as he turned to the boat in which young Lim'us was doing a very
solid caulk. Spink kicked some ice into small lumps, and at the
third attempt he hit the sleeper on the side of his head. Lim'us
woke with a start, and heard the captain's voice just in time to
prevent him threatening to eviscerate the swab who was slinging
things at him.
"Hold your infernal jaw," said Spink in a savage whisper, "and pull
in here quiet, or I'll murder you."
Lim'us obeyed instantly, though he had doubts as to whether it was
wise to come within arm's length of the skipper after having been
caught asleep.
"I warn't asleep, sir; stri'my blind if I was," he began as he came
up to the berg.
"Dry up and say nothin'," said Spink. "If you wake anyone I'll see
you don't sleep again for a week. Hand up some of that truck and get
the stern sheets clear, I want to get in myself."
There was more than a chance of not finding the derelict and of
losing the iceberg, and Spink knew it. Just as he was about to
chance it he remembered that he had a couple of balls of strong twine
in the bag into which he had dumped all his belongings, including the
precious ship's papers, when he left the _Swan_. As he recalled this
lucky fact a heavenly smile overspread his handsome features.
"It's a splendid notion," said Spink. "I feel as proud of it as a
dog with two tails! I wish those chaps at the Foreign Office were
here now; they would enjoy it better than a play."
He stepped to his bag as lightly as a Polar bear after a sleeping
seal, and when he found the twine he tied the end of it to Ward's leg.
"Ward at one end and Providence at the other," said Spink with a
grin. "Oh, won't he be surprised!"