to a gale on the port-tack with her main hatch awash, and the crowd
for'ard had come to the conclusion that for carrying sail the 'old
man' beat any American Scotchman they had ever heard of. When he at
last condescended to heave her to, all hands, after wearing her, had
a job with the fore and mizzen-topsails that almost knocked the
stuffing out of them, as they phrased it. The skipper, however, told
them that they had done very well, and told the steward to serve out
grog. As the owners of the _Ullswater_ were teetotallers, and about
as economical as owners are made, this grog was at the skipper's own
expense. When they had got it down, the entire crowd said that they
would believe anything the skipper said henceforth. They went
for'ard and enjoyed themselves, while the old hooker lay to with a
grummet on her wheel, and the great south-wester howled across the
Bay. If the main-topsail hadn't been as strong as the grog and the
skipper's yarns, it would have been blown out of the bolt-ropes
before dark, for the way the wind blew then made the 'old man' own at
supper-time that it reminded him of the days of his youth.
"But you never will catch me heavin' to under anythin' so measly as a
tarpaulin' in the rigging," said Captain Amos Brown, with his mouth
full of beef and his leg round the leg of the table, as the
_Ullswater_ climbed the rising seas and dived again like a swooping
frigate-bird. "I like to have my ship under some kind of command
however it blows. One can never tell, Mr. Humphries, when one may
need to make sail to save some of our fellow-creatures. As yet
neither of you two gentlemen have got as much as the cheapest pair of
binoculars out of our own Board of Trade or a foreign Government.
With me you'll have your chance to go home to your girl and chuck
somethin' of that sort into her lap, and make her cry with joy. I
saved my own wife, who is the most beautiful woman in the world, and
weighs eleven stone, and has for years, and I got a sextant and a
nobleman's daughter at one fell swoop. Oh, I've been a lucky man."
"How did you save your wife, sir?" asked Humphries, who was almost
beginning to believe what the skipper said.
"You may well ask, and I can't tell," replied the skipper proudly.
"I hardly remember how it was, for when I get excited I do things
which kind friends of mine say are heroic, and I can't remember 'em.
But so far as I can recall it, I swam near a mile in a sea like this,
and took command of a dismasted barque with most of the crew disabled
through havin' their left legs broke, a most remarkable fact. There
wasn't a sound left leg in the whole crowd except my wife's, and the
only thing out of order was that the captain's left leg was broke in
two places. I took charge of her, and put splints on their legs, and
we were picked up by a tug from Queenstown and towed in there, and
the doctors all said I was the neatest hand with splints they had
ever seen. And I married my wife then and there with a special
license, and I've never regretted it from that day to this. By Jove,
though, doesn't it blow!"
How the "nobleman's" daughter came to be on board the dismasted
barque he did not explain, and he shortly afterwards turned in,
leaving orders to be called if it blew much harder.
"And when I say much harder, Mr. Wardle, I mean much harder. Please
don't disturb me for a potty squall."
As a result of these orders he was not called till the early dawn,
when it was blowing nearly hard enough to unship the main capstan.
Even then Wardle would not have ventured to rouse him if he had not
fancied that he saw some dismasted vessel far to leeward in the mirk
and smother of the storm.
"I think I saw a vessel just now down to loo'ard," screamed the mate
as the skipper made a bolt for him under the weather cloth on the
mizzen rigging. "Dismasted I think, sir."
He saw the 'old man's' eye brighten and snap.
"Where did you say?" he roared; and before he could hear they had to
wait till a singing squall went over.
"To loo'ard," said the mate again; and the next moment the skipper
saw what he looked for.
"Not dismasted, on her beam ends," he shouted. And in a few more
minutes, as the grey dawn poured across the waste of howling seas,
Wardle saw that the 'old man' was right.
"Poor devils," he said, "it's all over with them."
The word that there was a vessel in difficulties soon brought out the
watch on deck, who were taking shelter in the deckhouse. As it was
close on four o'clock the watch below soon joined them, and presently
Humphries came up on the poop.
"Ah!" said the second mate, "they are done for, poor chaps."
This the skipper heard, and he turned round sharply and roared,
"What, with me here? Oh, not much!"
He turned to Wardle.
"Here's your chance for a pair of inscribed binoculars," he said. "I
believe she's French, and the French Government have generous minds
in the way of fittings and inscriptions, Mr. Wardle."
"But in this sea, sir?" stammered the mate. "Why, a boat couldn't
live in it for a second, even if we launched one safe, sir."
"I've launched boats in seas to which this was a mere calm," said the
skipper ardently. "And if I can't get you or Humphries to go I shall
go myself."
"You don't mean it, sir," said the mate; and then the skipper swore
many powerful oaths that he did mean it.
"In the meantime we're driftin' down to her," said Captain Brown,
"for she is light and high out of the water and we are as deep as we
can be."
It soon got all over the ship that the 'old man' meant to attempt a
rescue of those in distress, and there was a furious argument for'ard
as to whether it could be done, and whether any captain was justified
in asking his crew to man a boat in such a sea. The unanimous
opinion of all the older men was that it couldn't be done. The
equally unanimous opinion of all the younger ones was that if the
skipper said it could be done he would go in the first boat himself
rather than be beaten.
"Well, it will be a case for volunteers," said one old fo'c'sle man,
"and when I volunteer to drown my wife's husband I'll let all you
chaps know."
And that was very much the opinion of Wardle, who was a married man
too. As for Humphries, he was naturally reckless, and was now ready
to do almost anything the skipper asked.
"He may be a liar," said the second mate, "but I think he's all
right, and I like him."
Now it was broad daylight, and the vessel was within a mile of them.
Sometimes she was quite hidden, and sometimes she was flung up high
on the crest of a wave. Heavy green seas broke over her as she lay
with her starboard yardarms dipping. She had been running under a
heavy press of canvas when she broached to, and went over on her beam
ends, for even yet the sheets of the upper main-topsail were out to
the lower yardarm, and though the starboard half of the sail had
blown out of the bolt ropes, the upper or port yardarm still was
sound and as tight as a drum with the wind.
"If she hasn't sunk yet she'll swim a while longer," said the skipper
of the _Ullswater_, as the day grew lighter and lighter still. "Show
the British ensign, Mr. Humphries, and cheer them up if they're
alive. I wish I could tell them that I am here. I'll bet they know
me. I'm famous with the French from Dunkirk to Toulon. At
Marseilles they call me Mounseer Binoculaire, and stand in rows to
see me pass."
The lies that he told now no one had any ears for. Wardle owned
afterwards that he was afraid that the 'old man' would ask him to go
in command of a boat, and, like the old fo'c'sle man, he was thinking
a good deal of his wife's husband. But all the while Captain Amos
Brown was telling whackers that would have done credit to Baron
Munchausen, he was really thinking of how he was to save those whose
passage to a port not named in any bills of lading looked almost
certain. By this time the foreigner was not far to leeward of them.
"No one could blame us if we let 'em go," shrieked the 'old man' in
his mate's ear as the wind lulled for one brief moment. "But I never
think of what other men would do, Mr. Wardle. I remember once in a
cyclone in the Formosa Channel----"
What dreadful deed of inspired heroism he had performed in a cyclone
in the Formosa Channel Wardle never knew, for the wind cut the words
from the skipper's lips and sent them in a howling shower of spray
far to loo'ard. But his last words became audible.
"I was insensible for the best part of a month after it," screamed
Amos Brown. "The usual ... silver-mounted ... sickened ... wife as I
said."
Then he caught the mate by the arm.
"We'll stand by 'em, Mr. Wardle. If I get another sextant, as I
suspect, I must put up with it. Get the lifeboat ready, Mr. Wardle,
and get all the empty small casks and oil-drums that you can and lash
them under the thwarts fore and aft. Make her so that she can't sink
and I'll go in her myself."
This fetched the blood into Wardle's face.
"That's my job, sir," he said shortly, for he forgot all about his
wife's husband at that moment.
"I know it," said the skipper, "but with your permission I'll take it
on myself, as I've had so much experience in this sort of thing and
you've had none. And I tell you you'll have to handle the
_Ullswater_ so as to pick us up as we go to loo'ard, and it will be a
job for a seaman and no fatal error."
The mate swore softly and went away and did as he was told. The men
hung back a little when he told them to get the boat ready for
launching, though they followed him when they saw him begin to cast
off the gear by which she was made fast. But the old fo'c'sle man
had something to say.
"The captain ain't goin' to put a boat over the side in a sea like
this, is he, sir?"
Wardle snorted.
"You had better ask him," he replied savagely, and then there was no
more talk. He went back to the poop and reported that the boat was
ready. He also reported that the men were very unlikely to volunteer.
"They'll volunteer fast enough when they know I'm goin' to ask
nothin' of them that I don't ask of myself," said the captain. "I
really think the wind is takin' off a little, Mr. Wardle."
Perhaps it was, but if so the sea was a trifle worse. But it seemed
to the skipper and the two mates that the French vessel was lower in
the water than she had been. She was getting a pounding that nothing
built by human hands could stand for long.
"There's not much time to lose," said the skipper.
Captain Amos Brown apparently knew his business, and knew it, as far
as boats were concerned, in a way to make half the merchant skippers
at sea blush for their ignorance of one of the finest points of
seamanship. The skipper had the crew aft under the break of the
poop, and came down to them himself. They huddled in the space
between the two poop-ladders and looked very uneasy.
"Do any of you volunteer to try and save those poor fellows to
loo'ard of us?" asked the 'old man.' And no one said a word. They
looked at the sea and at each other with shifty eyes, but not at him.
"Why, sir, 'tis our opinion that no boat can't live in this sea,"
said the bo'son.
"I think it can," said the captain, "and I'm goin' to try. Do any of
you volunteer to come with your captain? I ask no man to do what I
won't do myself."
There was something very fine about the liar of the _Ullswater_ as he
spoke, and everyone knew that now at least he was telling no lies.
"I'm wiv you, sir," said a young cockney, who was the foulest mouthed
young ruffian in the ship, and had been talked to very severely by
his mates on that very point. It is not good form for a youngster to
use worse language than his elders at sea. Some of the others looked
at him angrily, as if they felt that they had to go now. A
red-headed Irishman followed the cockney, just as he had followed him
into horrid dens down by Tiger Bay.
"I'm with ye, too, sorr," said Mike.
"I'm only askin' for six," said the skipper. Then the old fo'c'sle
man, who had been so anxious about his wife's husband, hooked a black
quid out of his back teeth and threw it overboard.
"I'll come, sir."
But now all the other young men spoke together. The skipper had his
choice, and he took the unmarried ones.
He gave his orders now to the mate without a touch of braggadocio.
"We'll run her off before the wind, Mr. Wardle, and then quarter the
sea and lower away on the lee quarter. See that there is a man on
the weather quarter with oil, so as to give us all the smooth you
can. When we are safe afloat give us your lee to work in all you
can, and hang her up in the wind to windward of the wreck all you
know. While you are there don't spare oil; let it come down to her
and us. It is possible that we may not be able to get a line to the
wreck, but we'll go under her stern and try. With all her yards and
gear in the sea it won't be possible to get right in her lee, so we
may have to call to them to jump. My reckonin' is that we may pick
up some that way before we get too far to loo'ard. When we get down
close to her, fire the signal-gun to rouse them up to try and help
us. When you see us well to loo'ard of the wreck, put your helm up,
and run down and give us your lee again. If we miss her and have to
try again, we must beat to windward once more. But that's
anticipatin', ain't it? You can put your helm up now, Mr. Wardle.
Shake hands."
And they shook hands. Then the skipper and his men took to the boat,
which was ready to lower in patent gear, with Humphries in charge of
it, and the _Ullswater_ went off before the wind. Then at a nod from
the captain she came up a little, till she quartered the sea with
very little way on her.
"Now, Mr. Humphries," said the skipper. In ten seconds they hit the
water fair and the hooks disengaged. The oil that was being poured
over on the weather quarter helped them for a moment, and even when
they got beyond its immediate influence they kept some of the lee of
the ship. They drifted down upon the wreck, and rode the seas by
pulling ahead or giving her sternway till they were within half a
cable's length of the doomed vessel. At that moment they fired the
signal-gun on board the _Ullswater_, and they saw some of the poor
chaps to loo'ard of them show their heads above the rail. Then the
full sweep of the storm struck them. But the liar of the
_Ullswater_, who had saved more crews in worse circumstances than he
could count, actually whistled as he sat in the stern-sheets with a
steering oar in his hands. To handle a boat in a heavy sea, with the
wind blowing a real gale, is a thing that mighty few deepwater seamen
are good at. But the skipper of the _Ullswater_ knew his business
even then as if he had been a Deal puntman, a North Sea trawler, or a
Grand Bank fisherman all his life. The boat in which he made his
desperate and humane venture was double-ended like a whale-boat, and
she rode the seas for the most part like a cork. In such a situation
the great thing is to avoid a sea breaking inboard, and sometimes
they pulled ahead, and sometimes backed astern, so that when a heavy
sea did break it did so to windward or to loo'ard of them. And yet a
hundred times in the dreadful full minutes that it took them to get
down to the wreck there were moments when those in the boat and those
in the _Ullswater_ thought that it was all over with them. Once a
sea that no one could have avoided broke over them, and it was
desperate work to bale her out. And the roar of the wind deafened
them; the seas raced and hissed; they pulled or backed water with
their teeth clenched. Some of them thought of nothing; others were
sorry they had volunteered, and looked at the captain furiously while
he whistled through his clenched teeth. One cockney swore at him
horribly in a thin piping scream, and called him horrid names. For
this is the strange nature of man. But he pulled as well as the
others, and the skipper smiled at him as his blasphemies cut the
wind. For the skipper saw a head over the rail of the wreck, and he
knew that there was work to be done and that he was doing it, and
that the brave fool that cursed him was a man and was doing his best.
The words he spoke were such as come out of a desperate mind, and out
of a man that can do things. They towed an oil-bag to windward, but
there was no oil to calm the movements of the soul at such a time.
"Oh, damn you, pull!" said Amos Brown. He ceased to whistle, and
cursed with a sudden and tremendous frenzy that was appalling. The
cursing cockney looked up at him with open mouth.
By the 'old man's' side in the stern-sheets there was a coil of rope
attached to a little grapnel. If the men still alive on board the
French barque were capable of motion they might be able to make a
rope fast, but after hours of such a storm, while they were lashed
under the weather bulwarks, it was possible that they were almost
numb and helpless. Now the boat came sweeping down by the stern of
the barque; they saw her smashed rudder beating to and fro, and heard
the battering-ram of the south-west seas strike on her weather side.
"Back water!" roared the skipper, for astern of them a big sea roared
and began to lift a dreadful lip. They held the boat, and the 'old
man' kept it straight on the roaring crest, and at that moment they
were lifted high, and saw beyond the hull of the barque the white
waste of driven seas. Then they went down, down, down; and when they
were flung up again the skipper screamed to those on board, and as he
screamed he threw the grapnel at the gear of the spanker, and as they
surged past her stern the hooks caught in the bight of her loosened
vangs. For all her gear was in a coil and tangle, and the topping
lifts of the gaff had parted. The men backed water hard, and the
boat hung half in the lee of the wreck, but dangerously near the
wreck of the mizzen-topmast, which had gone at the cap and swayed in
the swash of the seas. Now they saw the seamen whom they had come to
save, and no man of the boat's crew could hereafter agree as to what
happened or the order of events. The skipper called to the poor
wretches, and one cut himself adrift and slid down the sloping deck
and struck the lower rail with horrible force. They heard him
squeal, and then a sea washed him over to them. He was insensible,
and that was lucky, for his leg was broken. Then they made out that
one of the survivors was the captain, and they saw that he was
speaking, though they heard nothing. There were, it seemed, no more
than ten of the crew left, for they counted ten with the one man that
they had. But it seemed that they moved slow, and the sea was worse
than ever. It boiled over the weather-rail and then came over green,
and all the men in the boats yelled filthy oaths at the poor numb
wretches, and called them horrible names. The Irishman prayed aloud
to heaven and to all the saints and to the Virgin, and then cursed so
awfully that the others fell into silence.
"Jump, jump!" screamed the skipper, and another man slid down the
deck and came overboard for them. He went under, and got his head
cut open on a swaying block, and knew nothing of it till he was
dragged on board. Then he wiped the blood from his eyes and fell to
weeping, whereon the swearing cockney, who had been oddly silent
since his eyes had met the skipper's, cuffed him hard on the side of
the head, and said, "'Old your bloody row, you bleedin' 'owler!" And
then three of his mates laughed as they watched their boat and fended
if off the wreck of the mizzen-mast with deadly and preoccupied
energy. The cockney took out a foul handkerchief and dabbed it on
the bleeding man's head, and then threw the rag at him with an oath,
saying that a little blood was nothing, and that he was a blasted
Dago, and, further, he'd feel sorry for him when he was on board the
_Ullswater_. Then another man jumped and was swept under and past
them, and just as he was going the skipper reached over and, grabbing
him by the hair, got him on board in a state of unconsciousness.
Then three of the poor fellows jumped at once, two being saved and
the third never showing above the water again.
"As well now as wiv the rest of hus," said the cockney, who had give
the Dago his 'wipe,' and he snivelled a little. "Hif I gets hout of
this I'm for stayin' in Rovver'ive all the rest of my life."
Then they got another, and there were only the French skipper and one
more man left. It was probably his mate, but he had a broken arm and
moved slow. The French captain got a rope round him and slid him
down to loo'ard. But when he was half-way down the old chap (he was
at anyrate white-haired) lost his own hold, and came down into the
swash of the lee scuppers with a run. He fell overboard, and the
Irishman got him by the collar. He was lugged on board with
difficulty, and lay down on the bottom boards absolutely done for.
The other man didn't show up, and the men said that he must be dead.
They began talking all at once, and the skipper, who was now up at
the bows of the boat, turned suddenly and cuffed the Irishman hard,
whereupon Mike drew his sheath-knife, saying in a squeal, "You swine,
I'll kill you!" But the bo'son struck him with the loom of his oar
under the jaw, and nearly broke it. He snatched his knife from him
and threw it overboard.
Now they saw the _Ullswater_ right to windward of the sinking barque,
and some oil that they poured into the sea came down to them, so that
the hiss of the sea was so much less that it seemed as if silence
fell on them. They heard the Irishman say with difficulty as he held
his jaw--
"All right, my puggy, I'll have your blood."
He had lost his oar, and the other men were wild with him. What they
might have said no one knows, but the skipper turned to them, saying
that he would go on board after the last man. They all said at once
that he shouldn't. They gave him orders not to do it, and their eyes
were wild and fierce, for they were strained and tired, and fear got
hold of them, making them feel chilly in the fierce wind. They clung
to the captain in their minds. If he did not come back they would
never be saved, for now the boat was heavily laden. They opened
their mouths and said 'Oh, please, sir,' and then he jumped overboard
and went hand over hand along the grapnel line and the tangle of the
vangs. They groaned, and the Irishman wagged his head savagely,
though no one knew what he meant, least of all himself. They saw the
'old man' clamber on board as a big sea broke over her, and they lost
sight of him in the smother of it. They sat in the heaving boat as
if they were turned into stone, and then the Irishman saw something
in the sea and grabbed for it. He hauled hard, and they cried out
that the skipper mustn't try it again. But as the drowning man came
to the surface they saw that it was not the skipper after all, but
the French mate, and they said 'Oh, hell!' being of half a mind to
let him go. But the bo'son screamed out something, and they hung on
to a dead man's legs, for to the dead man's hands the skipper was
clinging. They got him on board not quite insensible, and the
Irishman fell to weeping over him.
"Oh, it's the brave bhoy you are," he said; and then the skipper came
to and vomited some water.
"Hold on, what are you doin'?" he asked, as he saw the two cockneys
trying to heave the dead man back in the sea. They said that he was
dead. The bo'son said that the deader had only half a head, and
couldn't be alive in that condition. So they let the body go, and
the skipper woke right up and was a man again. They hauled up to the
grapnel or near it, for they were strained enough to do foolish
things. Then they saw it was silly and cut the line. They drifted
to loo'ard fast, and got out into the full force of the gale, which
howled horribly. They saw the _Ullswater_ lying to under her sturdy
old maintop-sail, and as soon as they saw her they were seen by the
second mate, who was up aloft with his coat half torn off him. To
get her off before the wind quick they showed the head of the
foretopmast-staysail, which was promptly blown out of the bolt ropes
with a report they heard in the boat like the dull sound of a far-off
gun. She squared away and came to the nor'-east, and presently was
to windward of them, and in her lee they felt very warm and almost
safe, though they went up to the sky like a lark and then down as if
into a grave. And then they saw their shipmates' faces, and the
skipper laughed oddly. The strain had told on him, as it had on all
of them, not least perhaps on some of those who had not faced the
greater risks. And it seemed to the skipper that there was something
very absurd in Wardle's whiskers as the wind caught them and wrapped
them in a kind of hairy smear across one weather-beaten cheek. All
those in the boat were now quite calm; the excitement was on board
the _Ullswater_, and when the gale let them catch a word of what the
mate said, as he stood on the rail with his arm about a backstay,
they caught the quality of strain.
"Ould Wardle is as fidgety as a fool," said Mike the Irishman, as he
still held on to his jaw. "He'll be givin' someone the oncivil word
for knockin' the oar out o' me hand."
He sat with one hand to his face, with the other, as he had turned
round, he helped the bo'son.
"What about your pullin' your knife on the captain?" asked the bo'son.
Then Micky shook his head.
"Did I now? And he struck me, and he's a brave lad," he said simply.
But the hook of the davit tackle dangled overhead as they were flung
skyward on a sea. There were davit ropes fitted, and one slapped the
Irishman across the face.
"It's in the wars I am," he said; and then there was a wind flurry
that bore the _Ullswater_ almost over on them. The way was nearly
off her, and in another minute she would be drifting and coming down
on them.