EIGHT WEEKS' CALM.
Leisurely as our progress had been hitherto, we had always managed to
make some Southing each day. But now ensued a time unique in all my
experience. What our exact position was I do not know; but I fancy it
must have been somewhere near the Equator in the Atlantic. When the
faltering, fitful breezes first failed us, a long succession of rain
deluges set in, which at first were most heartily welcome. For, like
many other ships of her class in those days, the _Western Belle's_ store
of water-tanks contained barely enough of the precious fluid to suffice
us for half the voyage, even upon the regulation allowance of three
quarts per man each day. Rain was depended upon to replenish them in
time, and on such voyages, of course, seldom failed to afford a
bountiful supply. Now, however, it fell for whole days in one solid,
roaring downpour that, in spite of the many openings by which the decks
were drained, filled them so that it was possible to swim from poop to
forecastle in fresh water. Everybody turned out all their belongings
that were washable, and a regular carnival of soap and water took place.
Then the ports were opened and the decks cleared of water. It still
poured over the front of the poop like a small Niagara, and from thence,
as being the cleanest, we refilled all our tanks. Still the flood came
down without a break, until the incessant roar became awe-inspiring.
Many of the crew spoke of it as passing all their experience, even
hinting at the possibility of another flood. It was so heavy that the
experiment was successfully tried of scooping up drinkable water off the
sea-surface, which was like a mill-pond for its level, although all
a-foam with the falling torrent. The ship lay as nearly motionless as it
is possible for a ship to be out in mid-ocean. For Coleridge's simile of
"A painted ship upon a painted ocean" is only a poet's licence, and
grates upon a seaman as the sole picture in that wonderful work which is
not literally true. Admiral Wharton's remark that "In all the
incalculable mass of the ocean not one particle is ever absolutely at
rest," may strike most people as strange; but it is sober truth, and
therefore it is impossible for a vessel at sea ever to be perfectly
motionless.
Gradually the massive downpour abated, the sun peeped out, and the
sodden decks and gear dried up. But there was no breath of wind. And as
Captain Smith was a practical man, with all his patience, he decided to
utilize this otherwise barren time in carrying out a scheme he had
purposed leaving for some long spell of waiting in Indian harbours. We
had on deck three huge, rough spars--long logs, in fact. These were
loosed from their lashings and lifted on to the gallows, whereon the
boats usually rested. A big rip-saw was produced--the only time I ever
saw one on board ship--and the strange spectacle was witnessed of a
ship's deck being turned into a saw-pit, sailors into sawyers. Thick
slabs were sawn off the spars, after which the carpenter, and a couple
of men who could handle axe and adze, set to work to fashion them into
topsail-yards. Meanwhile, the rest of the hands toiled like beavers,
unbending sails, sending down yards, and overhauling standing rigging,
until the old ship looked as if she were in some snug dock-corner being
dismantled. All day long this work went on, no one knowing or caring
whose watch on deck it should be, and at night the weary workers lay
around promiscuously, sleeping away the hours of darkness in calm
certainty of being undisturbed. This curious interlude in an ocean
voyage developed strange faculties in our men. The iron bands, which
form part of the fittings of a ship's yards, were, owing to the
skipper's desire to have heavier spars, found to be too small. No
matter. An impromptu forge was rigged up on a barrel filled with sand, a
most ingenious bellows was made by somebody, and, as if born and bred in
a smithy, the bo'sun and two hands manipulated that ironwork in such
workmanlike fashion that it answered its purpose as well as if turned
out of a Blackwall foundry.
For many days this work went on, with apparently no more notice taken of
its strangeness than as if it were the normal course of events. But
gradually the deathly stillness of our surroundings, the utter absence
of the faintest air of wind, or sign of any other vessel in a similar
plight, began to tell upon everybody's nerves. Men took to gathering in
twos and threes in the evenings to recount their experiences of
lengthened calms, and the yarns they had heard of bygone tragedies
connected with ships that had strayed into windless seas. Even the busy
working-hours could not prevent the men from gazing uneasily over the
side where the familiar, smiling face of the sea was undergoing a
mysterious change. There is about the deep sea, even in the hottest
weather, a delicious atmosphere of cool cleanliness, a searching purity,
such as the earth can never yield, giving one the fixed idea that to
this vast, unpollutable limpidity the nations owe their health. In some
dim fashion this thought is present with all sea-farers, however dense
and unnoticing they may be. Therefore, when that familiar freshness was
found to be giving place to a stale, stagnant greasiness to which a
mawkish, uninvigorating atmosphere clung, what wonder that
uneasiness--all the more difficult to bear quietly because
undefinable--became generally manifest. Adding to the sense of
eerieness, was the fact that old Peter was failing fast. I have already
mentioned how willingly his share of the common burden was borne by his
shipmates, and how loyally they tended him, even though such service as
he needed could not be spoken of without offence. But now his mind had
completely gone. He lived in some misty past, about which he babbled
unceasingly. Often, in the still evenings, all hands would gather round
him, listening in perfect silence to his disjointed reminiscences of
desperate deeds in the way of duty, of long-drawn-out debaucheries in
filthy rookeries of home ports, as well as the well-known hells at Hong
Kong, Calcutta, or Callao. They were strange scenes, those dog-watch
gatherings, nothing distinctly visible but the red glow of the
pipes--except when the sudden glare of a match, struck to light fresh
tobacco, shed a momentary gleam over the group of haggard, bearded
faces, each beclouded with an unwonted shadow. In the midst, a placid
stream of sound, Peter's voice prattled on, its lurid language in the
strangest contrast to the gentleness of his speech. Still the days
dragged on and the faces grew longer. All the refitting was finished,
and only the ordinary routine of ship-life was left to be carried on.
Happily those duties are always, in the hands of capable officers,
sufficiently onerous to prevent time ever hanging heavily. One of the
strangest of all the strange notions current ashore about sea-life is
that sailors have nothing to do but watch the ship go along, except
during stormy weather. One would have thought that the never-ending,
ever-beginning round of work in a house that is properly kept would have
taught all landsmen and women that the great complicated machine called
a ship would demand at least equal labours to keep it fit and in working
order. But "watch and watch" was now restored, which, of course, threw a
great deal of additional time upon the men's hands, since they could
still sleep through the night, if they chose, without fear of being
disturbed. So for hours, when unemployed, men took to hanging over the
rail, watching, with an unnatural curiosity, the myriads of strange
creatures that, lured from their silent haunts in the gloomy
middle-depths of the ocean by the long-enduring stillness above, came
crawling about, blinking glassily with dead-looking eyes at the
unfamiliar light. Truly it was an uncanny sight. Not only
fish of bizarre shape abounded, but vast numbers of great
medusae--semi-transparent simulacra of all the hideous things that ever
haunted a maniac's dream--crawled greasily about us, befouling the once
clear blue of the sea, and coating its sleek surface with stagnant
slime. And, deeper down, mighty shadows passed sluggishly to and fro,
filling the gazers with wordless terror as the days crept wearily away
and those formless apparitions gradually chose higher levels. Overhead
the sweet fathomless azure of the sky paled as if in sympathy with the
silent sea. Cloudless, indeed, but overspread with a filmy veil of
strange mist, that, while it robbed the sun of its glare, seemed to
enclose us within a dome of heat, unventilated and stale. When night
fell, instead of cool refreshment--such as comes, even in tropical
calms, after sunset at all ordinary times--there arose a foul odour of
decaying things that clung clammily to the palate like a miasma. The
densely populated ocean beneath palpitated with pale fire, the gleaming
of putrescence. Instead of the usual brisk movement seen among the
glowing denizens of the deep, everything crawled languidly, as if
infected with some universal pestilence. Moon and stars lost their
strong silver glow, and were no longer reflected in the smoothness
beneath as if shining in another heaven. And at moonrise, when the
fantastic mist-wreaths writhed about the horizon, the broad red disc of
the moon would be distorted into many uncouth shapes, or patterns of
strange design were drawn across her paling surface.
At last, one night, when old Peter was holding his usual levee, he
suddenly raised his voice, and authoritatively demanded that his
auditors should bear him on to the forecastle head. They instantly
obeyed, lifting him tenderly upon his mattress, and laying him gently by
the side of the capstan. Then all hands gathered round him in the
darkness, only the glow of the pipes fitfully illuminating the rugged
countenances. Slowly the moon rose, but sent no silvery pathway across
the sea, until suddenly, as if with a great effort, she broke through
the hampering mist-wreaths that seemed to clog her upward way. A pure,
pale beam shot right athwart our vessel, lighting up the little group of
watchers on the forecastle, and lingering as if lovingly upon the
withered, weather-scarred face of our ancient shipmate. As it did so he
smiled--a patient, happy smile--his lips unclosed, and, with a sigh of
relief like a weary child, he died.
Breaking the steadfast silence came the mate's mellow cry, "Square the
mainyard!" As the men rose to obey, a gentle breath, welcome as the
first thrill of returning health, kissed the tanned faces. Slowly the
great yards swung round, a pleasant murmuring as of a mountain rivulet
arose from the bows, and the long calm was over. In quiet attendance
upon the dead came the sailmaker, with a roll of worn canvas under his
arm in which the poor, shrivelled remains were reverently wrapped and
neatly sewn up. A big lump of coal was found and secured to the feet,
and the long parcel was borne gently aft to the gangway. There in the
moonlight we all gathered, while the skipper, with faltering,
unaccustomed voice, read the stately words of the Burial Service, all
hands standing like statues as they listened to what all admit to be one
of the most solemn as well as majestic selections known in our splendid
language. Suddenly there was a pause; the skipper raised his hand, and
those who supported the plank on which the worn-out tabernacle of old
Peter lay, gently raised its inner end. There was a subdued s-s-s-h as
the white fardel slid slowly seaward, followed by a sullen plunge. All
rushed to the side, where an ascending column of green light marked the
descent into those calm profundities of our dead. An almost inaudible
sigh of relief escaped from every lip, as if a well-nigh intolerable
burden had been removed. Undoubtedly that was the predominant feeling,
intensified by the fact that a sweet breeze was now blowing steadily. In
the blue dome above, the moon and her attendant stars were shining with
their full splendour, and from the now sparkling face of the surrounding
sea the sickly mist was rolled quite away.
Thenceforward, although our progress was wretchedly slow, of course, we
were little troubled by calms. But our tribulations were not yet all
over. Barber, the painter A.B., was taken ill; so ill as to be quite
useless, nor did he ever again that voyage recover sufficiently to
resume his place as an active member of the crew. And other men were
grievously tried by scurvy, which, though in a mild form, was painful
and weakening. How it was that they were no worse, I cannot think, for
the food was bad enough truly for the development of that malignant
disease in its worst form. But, somehow, we worried along in dogged
fashion, every one showing rare patience under their unmerited
sufferings.
And so, in laborious fashion, we crept southward and round the Cape
without any bad weather worth mentioning, until well to the eastward of
that justly dreaded point. Then one night we had a narrow escape from
serious disaster. It was our (the second mate's) watch on deck from
eight to midnight. We were jogging along before a light south-westerly
breeze, at about four knots, the weather being singularly fine for those
latitudes. Down in the cabin the skipper, his wife and daughter, and the
mate were playing cards, while the second mate, with a carelessness most
unusual with him, was hanging over the open scuttle, absorbed in
watching the game. Rees, the old Frenchman with a Welsh name, was on the
look-out, and I heard him muttering and grumbling because the officer of
the watch was oblivious of the fact that an ominous-looking cloud was
rising in the northeast, or almost right ahead. Presently from its black
bosom faint gleams of lightning showed themselves, while the subdued
murmur of the breeze we had became hushed in an unnatural quiet. With a
quickness that seemed miraculous, the threatening cloud ahead
overspread the sky, and still the second mate did not realize what was
coming. As all sail was set, the position began to look so threatening
that all the watch took the alarm, and gathered in the waist, ready for
the sudden emergency imminent. Presently the wind dropped dead, its
sudden failure arousing the supine officer, who, lifting his head, took
in the situation at a glance. But before he could issue an order, there
came a smart patter of rain, followed immediately by a roar as the
north-east wind, like a savage beast, leapt upon us, taking us flat
aback. Then there was a hubbub. Up rushed the skipper and mate, shouting
for all hands. Everything was let go at once; but the sails, jammed
backward against the masts, refused to allow the yards to come down. The
ship began to drive astern most dangerously, nor could she be got round
by any means. Presently she dipped her stern right under, taking a sea
in over the taffrail that filled the decks fore and aft. It was now a
question of minutes with us. If she could not be got round she would
certainly go down stern foremost, for again and again she drove her
broad stern under the rising sea as the now furious gale hurled her
backwards. The feeble efforts of the crew seemed utterly unavailing
against the mighty force of this sudden tempest. But, providentially, a
huge sea caught her on one bow, flinging her head off far enough for the
wind to grip the head sails. Round she spun upon her heel like a top,
and in another minute the shreds of the rending sails were thundering
above our heads as they flew to fragments. In an indescribable uproar,
wherein the howling of the gale, the reverberations of the thunder, and
the crash of our yards were all mingled, the ill-used vessel sped away
before the wind as if fleeing for her life. An almost continual glare of
lightning shed an unearthly light over all, by which the havoc that was
being wrought was plainly to be seen. How that night's work was ever
accomplished I have no idea. But when morning dawned we were
fore-reaching under the three lower topsails and fore topmast staysail,
the fluttering rags of what remained of our lighter sails being secured
in some haphazard sort of fashion to the yards. We had escaped the doom
of many a fine ship, whose crew have paid the penalty of carelessness
with their lives. It was long, however, before we overtook the labour
which those few hours involved us in. For many days we jogged along
under easy sail, getting farther and farther to the northward every day,
happily for us, and so putting a greater distance between us and bad
weather.