Down in that nauseating cabin the young man sat, holding his patient
with strong, kind hands. The vessel flung herself about, sometimes
combining the motions of pitching and rolling with the utmost virulence;
the bilge water went slosh, slosh, and the hot, choking odours came
forth on the night. Coffee, fish, cheese, foul clothing, vermin of
miscellaneous sorts, paraffin oil, sulphurous coke, steaming leather,
engine oil--all combined their various scents into one marvellous
compound which struck the senses like a blow that stunned almost every
faculty. Oh, ladies, have pity on the hardly entreated! Once or twice
Ferrier was obliged to go on deck from the fetid kennel, and he left a
man to watch the sufferer. The shrill wind seemed sweet to the taste
and scent, the savage howl of tearing squalls was better than the creak
of dirty timbers and the noise of clashing fish-boxes; but the young man
always returned to his post and tried his best to cheer the maimed
sailor.
"Does the rolling hurt you badly, my man?"
"Oh! you're over kind to moither yourself about me, sir. She du give me
a twist now and then, but, Lord's sake, what was it like before you
come! I doan't fare to know about heaven, but I should say, speakin' in
my way, this is like heaven, if I remember yesterday."
"Have you ever been hurt before?"
"Little things, sir--crushed fingers, sprained foot, bruises when you
tumbles, say runnin' round with the trawl warp. But we doan't a-seem to
care for them so much. We're bred to patience, you see; and you're
bound to act up to your breedin'. That is it, sir; bred to patience."
"And has no doctor been out here yet?"
"What could he du? He can't fare to feel like us. When it comes a
breeze he wants a doctor hisself, and how would that suit?"
"Have you eaten anything?"
"Well, no, sir. I was in that pain, sir, and I didn't want to moither
my shipmets no more'n you, so I closes my teeth. It's the breed,
sir--bred to patience."
"Well, the skipper must find us something now, at any rate."
There was some cabbage growing rather yellow and stale, some rocky
biscuit, some vile coffee, some salt butter, and one delicious fish
called a "latchet." With a boldness worthy of the Victoria Cross, Lewis
set himself to broil that fish over the sulphurous fire. He cannot, of
course, compute the number of falls which he had; he only knows that he
imbued his very being with molten butter and fishy flavours. But he
contrived to make a kind of passable mess (of the fish as well as of his
clothing), and he fed his man with his own strong hand. He then gave
him a mouthful or two of sherry and water, and the simple fellow said--
"God bless you, sir! I can just close my eyes."
Reader, Lewis Ferrier's education is improving.
*CHAPTER IV.*
*A NEAR THING.*
Ferrier was anything but a fatalist, yet he had a happy and useful way
of taking short views of life. In times of extreme depression he used
to say to himself, "Things seem black just now, but I know when I get
over the trouble I shall look over the black gap of misery and try to
imagine what is on the other side." It is a good plan. Many a suicide
would have been averted if the self-slain beings had chosen to take a
short view instead of harbouring visions of huge banked-up troubles.
No young fellow was ever in a much more awkward position than that of
Ferrier. The _Haughty Belle_ smack, in spite of her highly fashionable
name, was one of the ramshackle tubs which still contrive to escape the
censure of the Board of Trade; and Bill Larmor, the skipper, skilful as
he was, could not do himself justice in a craft that wallowed like a
soaked log. Then poor Withers, the maimed man, was a constant care; all
the labour of two hands at the pumps was of little avail, and, last of
all, the unhappy little boy could hardly count at all as a help.
But the bricklayer's saying, "It's dogged as does it," holds all over
the world, and brave men drive death and despair back to their
fastnesses. Ferrier thought, "I'm all well except for the active
inhabitants of the cabin. They seem to be colonizing my person and
bringing me under cultivation; barring that I'm not so ill off. If I
can ease my patient, that is something to the good." So he claimed the
boy's assistance for the night, and determined to divide his time
between soothing Withers and lending a hand on deck.
Skipper Larmor was composed, as men of his class generally are; you
rarely hear them raise their voices, and they seldom show signs of being
flurried. As quietly as though he had been wishing his passenger good
evening, he said--
"We're blowing away from them, sir, and we can't du much. I hope the
yacht will be able to stand by us. Later on we'll show them a few
flares, and if things get over and above bad I must send some rockets
up."
"I'm mainly anxious about my man below. If we only had any kind of easy
mattress for him I should not be so anxious, but he's thrown about, and
every bad jerk that comes wakes him out of his doze. A healthy
life-guardsman would be helpless after one night like this!"
"As I said, sir; Lord, help us; we must bear what's sent."
The _Haughty Belle_ became more and more inert, and the breeze grew more
and more powerful. The Mediterranean is like a capricious woman; the
North Sea is like a violent and capricious man. The foredoomed smack
was almost like a buoy in a tideway; the sea came over her, screaming as
it met her resistance, like the back-draught among pebbles. Ferrier
found to his dismay that, even if he wanted to render any assistance, he
was too much of a landsman to keep his feet in that inexorable cataract,
and he saw, too, that the vessel was gradually rolling more and more to
starboard. The pumps were mastered, and even on deck the ugly squelch,
squelch of the mass of water below could be heard. Every swing of that
liquid pendulum smote on our young man's heart, and he learned, in a few
short hours, the meaning of Death.
Can a seaman be other than superstitious or religious? The hamper of
ropes that clung round the mainmast seemed to gibber like a man in fever
as the gale threaded the mazes; the hollow down-draught from the
foresail cried in boding tones; it seemed like some malignant elf
calling "Woe to you! Woe for ever! Darkness is coming, and I and Death
await you with cold arms." Every timber complained with whining
iteration, and the boom of the full, falling seas tolled as a bell tolls
that beats out the last minutes of a mortal's life. The Cockney poet
sings--
"A cheer for the hard, glad weather,
The quiver and beat of the sea!"
Shade of Rodney! What does the man know about it? If his joints were
aching and helpless with the "hardness," he would not think the weather
so "glad"; if the "beat of the sea" made every nerve of him quiver with
the agony of salt-water cracks, I reckon he would want to go home to his
bath and bed; and if the savage combers gnashed at him like white teeth
of ravenous beasts, I take it that his general feelings of jollity would
be modified; while last of all, if he saw the dark portal--goal of all
mortals--slowly lifting to let him fare on to the halls of doom, I wager
that poet would not think of rhymes. If he had to work!---- But no, a
real sea poet does not work.
Ferrier was a good and plucky man, but the moments went past him,
leaving legacies of fear. Was he to leave the kindly world? Oh!
thrilling breath of spring, gladness of sunlight, murmur of trees,
gracious faces of women! Were all to be seen no more? Every joyous hour
came hack to memory; every ungrateful thought spoken or uttered was now
remembered with remorse. Have you looked in the jaws of death? I have,
and Ferrier did so. When the wheels of being are twirling slowly to a
close, when the animal in us is cowed into stupor, then the spirit
craves passionately for succour; and let a man be never so lightsome, he
stretches lame hands of faith and gropes, even though he seem to gather
but dust and chaff.
Roar on roar, volley on volley, sweep on sweep of crying water--so the
riot of the storm went on; the skipper waited helplessly like a dumb
drudge, and a hand of ice seemed to clutch at Ferrier's heart.
He went down to see Withers and found him patient as before.
"She du seem to have got a lot of water in her, sir. I never felt quite
like this since once I was hove down. Say, here, sir."
The man spoke with a husky voice.
"If so be you has to try the boat, don't you mind me. If you try to
shove me aboard you'll lose your lives. I've thought it round, and,
after all, they say it's only three minutes."
"But, my man, we won't leave you; besides, she's not gone yet. A tub
will float in a sea-way; why shouldn't the vessel?"
"I knows too much, sir, too much. Excuse me, sir, have you done what
they call found Christ? I'm not much in that line myself, but don't you
think maybe an odd word wouldn't be some help like in this frap? I'm
passin' away, and I don't want to leave anything out."
Lewis slipped up on deck and signed for Larmor.
"Our man wants to pray. Don't you think we may all meet? You can do
nothing more than let the vessel drift. Leave one hand here ready to
show a flare, and come down."
"I don't much understand it, sir; but Bob and me will come."
Then, knee deep in water, the forlorn little company prayed together. I
do not care to report such things--it verges on vulgarism; but I will
tell you a word or two that came from the maimed man. "O Lord, give me
a chance if you see fit; but let me go if any one is to go, and save my
commerades. I've been a bad 'un, and I haven't no right to ask nothing.
Save the others, and, if I have no chance in this world of a better
life, give me a look in before you take me."
Who could smile at the gruff, innocent familiarity? A very great poet
has said, "Consort much with powerful uneducated persons." Fellows like
Withers make one believe this.
The prayer was not, perhaps, intelligent; but He who searches the hearts
would rightly appraise those words, "I've been a bad 'un." Ferrier felt
lightened, and he shook hands with Larmor before they once more faced
the war of the night.
The fire was out, it was bitter chill, yet hope was left--a faint
sparkle--but still a stay for the soul of the tempest-tossed men. The
climax of the breeze seemed approaching at four o'clock; and, as Larmor
said, "it couldn't be very much worse." The skipper was then hanging as
he best could to the mizen rigging; Lewis had his arms tightly locked on
the port side round the futtock shrouds, and was cowering to get clear
of the scourging wind. There was a wild shriek forward.
"Water, skipper!"
Lewis looked up. There it was, as high as the mast-head, compact as a
wall, and charging with the level velocity of a horse regiment. The
doctor closed his eyes and thought, "Now for the grand secret." Then
came the immense pressure--the convulsive straining, the failing light,
the noise in the ears. First the young man found himself crushed under
some strangling incubus; then, with a shrieking gasp, he was in the
upper air. But he was under a hamper of ropes that strung him down as
if he were in a coop, and his dulled senses failed for a moment to tell
what ailed him. At last, after seconds that seemed like ages, it dawned
on him; the masts had snapped like carrots, both were over the side, and
the hulk was only a half-sunken plaything for the seas to hurl hither
and thither. Larmor? Gone! How long? These things chased each other
through his dim mind; he slipped his arm out and crept clear; then a
perception struck him with the force of a material thing; a return wave
leaped up with a slow, spent lunge on the starboard side, and a black
something--wreckage? No. A shudder of the torn nerves told the young
man what it was. He slid desperately over and made his clutch; the
great backwash seemed as though it would tear his arm out of the socket,
but he hung on, and presently a lucky lift enabled him to haul Larmor on
board! All this passed in a few flying instants, but
centuries--aeons--could not count its length in the anguish-stricken
human soul.
I once knew a sailor who was washed through a port in a Biscay gale; the
return sea flung him on board again. I asked, "What did you think?"