momentous chances of fortune. Captain Allistoun never left the deck,
as though he had been part of the ship’s fittings. Now and then the
steward, shivering, but always in shirt sleeves, would struggle towards
him with some hot coffee, half of which the gale blew out of the cup
before it reached the master’s lips. He drank what was left gravely in
one long gulp, while heavy sprays pattered loudly on his oilskin coat,
the seas swishing broke about his high boots; and he never took his
eyes off the ship. He kept his gaze riveted upon her as a loving man
watches the unselfish toil of a delicate woman upon the slender thread
of whose existence is hung the whole meaning and joy of the world. We
all watched her. She was beautiful and had a weakness. We loved her no
less for that. We admired her qualities aloud, we boasted of them to
one another, as though they had been our own, and the consciousness of
her only fault we kept buried in the silence of our profound affection.
She was born in the thundering peal of hammers beating upon iron, in
black eddies of smoke, under a grey sky, on the banks of the Clyde. The
clamorous and sombre stream gives birth to things of beauty that float
away into the sunshine of the world to be loved by men. The Narcissus
was one of that perfect brood. Less perfect than many perhaps, but
she was ours, and, consequently, incomparable. We were proud of her.
In Bombay, ignorant landlubbers alluded to her as that “pretty grey
ship.” Pretty! A scurvy meed of commendation! We knew she was the most
magnificent sea-boat ever launched. We tried to forget that, like many
good sea-boats, she was at times rather crank. She was exacting. She
wanted care in loading and handling, and no one knew exactly how much
care would be enough. Such are the imperfections of mere men! The ship
knew, and sometimes would correct the presumptuous human ignorance
by the wholesome discipline of fear. We had heard ominous stories
about past voyages. The cook (technically a seaman, but in reality
no sailor)—the cook, when unstrung by some misfortune, such as the
rolling over of a saucepan, would mutter gloomily while he wiped the
floor:—“There! Look at what she has done! Some voy’ge she will drown
all hands! You’ll see if she won’t.” To which the steward, snatching in
the galley a moment to draw breath in the hurry of his worried life,
would remark philosophically:—“Those that see won’t tell, anyhow. I
don’t want to see it.” We derided those fears. Our hearts went out to
the old man when he pressed her hard so as to make her hold her own,
hold to every inch gained to windward; when he made her, under reefed
sails, leap obliquely at enormous waves. The men, knitted together aft
into a ready group by the first sharp order of an officer coming to
take charge of the deck in bad weather:—“Keep handy the watch,” stood
admiring her valiance. Their eyes blinked in the wind; their dark faces
were wet with drops of water more salt and bitter than human tears;
beards and moustaches, soaked, hung straight and dripping like fine
seaweed. They were fantastically misshapen; in high boots, in hats like
helmets, and swaying clumsily, stiff and bulky in glistening oilskins,
they resembled men strangely equipped for some fabulous adventure.
Whenever she rose easily to a towering green sea, elbows dug ribs,
faces brightened, lips murmured:—“Didn’t she do it cleverly,” and all
the heads turning like one watched with sardonic grins the foiled
wave go roaring to leeward, white with the foam of a monstrous rage.
But when she had not been quick enough and, struck heavily, lay over
trembling under the blow, we clutched at ropes, and looking up at the
narrow bands of drenched and strained sails waving desperately aloft,
we thought in our hearts:—“No wonder. Poor thing!”
The thirty-second day out of Bombay began inauspiciously. In the
morning a sea smashed one of the galley doors. We dashed in through
lots of steam and found the cook very wet and indignant with the
ship:—“She’s getting worse every day. She’s trying to drown me in
front of my own stove!” He was very angry. We pacified him, and the
carpenter, though washed away twice from there, managed to repair the
door. Through that accident our dinner was not ready till late, but
it didn’t matter in the end because Knowles, who went to fetch it,
got knocked down by a sea and the dinner went over the side. Captain
Allistoun, looking more hard and thin-lipped than ever, hung on to full
topsails and foresail, and would not notice that the ship, asked to do
too much, appeared to lose heart altogether for the first time since we
knew her. She refused to rise, and bored her way sullenly through the
seas. Twice running, as though she had been blind or weary of life, she
put her nose deliberately into a big wave and swept the decks from end
to end. As the boatswain observed with marked annoyance, while we were
splashing about in a body to try and save a worthless wash-tub:—“Every
blooming thing in the ship is going overboard this afternoon.”
Venerable Singleton broke his habitual silence and said with a glance
aloft:—“The old man’s in a temper with the weather, but it’s no good
bein’ angry with the winds of heaven.” Jimmy had shut his door, of
course. We knew he was dry and comfortable within his little cabin,
and in our absurd way were pleased one moment, exasperated the next,
by that certitude. Donkin skulked shamelessly, uneasy and miserable.
He grumbled:—“I’m perishin’ with cold outside in bloomin’ wet rags,
an’ that ’ere black sojer sits dry on a blamed chest full of bloomin’
clothes; blank his black soul!” We took no notice of him; we hardly
gave a thought to Jimmy and his bosom friend. There was no leisure for
idle probing of hearts. Sails blew adrift. Things broke loose. Cold
and wet, we were washed about the deck while trying to repair damages.
The ship tossed about, shaken furiously, like a toy in the hand of a
lunatic. Just at sunset there was a rush to shorten sail before the
menace of a sombre hail cloud. The hard gust of wind came brutal like
the blow of a fist. The ship relieved of her canvas in time received it
pluckily: she yielded reluctantly to the violent onset; then coming up
with a stately and irresistible motion, brought her spars to windward
in the teeth of the screeching squall. Out of the abysmal darkness of
the black cloud overhead white hail streamed on her, rattled on the
rigging, leaped in handfuls off the yards, rebounded on the deck—round
and gleaming in the murky turmoil like a shower of pearls. It passed
away. For a moment a livid sun shot horizontally the last rays of
sinister light between the hills of steep, rolling waves. Then a wild
night rushed in—stamped out in a great howl that dismal remnant of a
stormy day.
There was no sleep on board that night. Most seamen remember in their
life one or two such nights of a culminating gale. Nothing seems left
of the whole universe but darkness, clamour, fury—and the ship. And
like the last vestige of a shattered creation she drifts, bearing an
anguished remnant of sinful mankind, through the distress, tumult, and
pain of an avenging terror. No one slept in the forecastle. The tin
oil-lamp suspended on a long string, smoking, described wide circles;
wet clothing made dark heaps on the glistening floor; a thin layer of
water rushed to and fro. In the bed-places men lay booted, resting
on elbows and with open eyes. Hung-up suits of oilskin swung out and
in, lively and disquieting like reckless ghosts of decapitated seamen
dancing in a tempest. No one spoke and all listened. Outside the night
moaned and sobbed to the accompaniment of a continuous loud tremor as
of innumerable drums beating far off. Shrieks passed through the air.
Tremendous dull blows made the ship tremble while she rolled under the
weight of the seas toppling on her deck. At times she soared up swiftly
as if to leave this earth for ever, then during interminable moments
fell through a void with all the hearts on board of her standing still,
till a frightful shock, expected and sudden, started them off again
with a big thump. After every dislocating jerk of the ship, Wamibo,
stretched full length, his face on the pillow, groaned slightly with
the pain of his tormented universe. Now and then, for the fraction of
an intolerable second, the ship, in the fiercer burst of a terrible
uproar, remained on her side, vibrating and still, with a stillness
more appalling than the wildest motion. Then upon all those prone
bodies a stir would pass, a shiver of suspense. A man would protrude
his anxious head and a pair of eyes glistened in the sway of light
glaring wildly. Some moved their legs a little as if making ready to
jump out. But several, motionless on their backs and with one hand
gripping hard the edge of the bunk, smoked nervously with quick puffs,
staring upwards; immobilised in a great craving for peace.
At midnight, orders were given to furl the fore and mizen topsails.
With immense efforts men crawled aloft through a merciless buffeting,
saved the canvas and crawled down almost exhausted, to bear in panting
silence the cruel battering of the seas. Perhaps for the first time in
the history of the merchant service the watch, told to go below, did
not leave the deck, as if compelled to remain there by the fascination
of a venomous violence. At every heavy gust men, huddled together,
whispered to one another,—“It can blow no harder,”—and presently the
gale would give them the lie with a piercing shriek, and drive their
breath back into their throats. A fierce squall seemed to burst asunder
the thick mass of sooty vapours; and above the wrack of torn clouds
glimpses could be caught of the high moon rushing backwards with
frightful speed over the sky, right into the wind’s eye. Many hung
their heads, muttering that it “turned their inwards out” to look at
it. Soon the clouds closed up and the world again became a raging,
blind darkness that howled, flinging at the lonely ship salt sprays and
sleet.
About half-past seven the pitchy obscurity round us turned a ghastly
grey, and we knew that the sun had risen. This unnatural and
threatening daylight, in which we could see one another’s wild eyes
and drawn faces, was only an added tax on our endurance. The horizon
seemed to have come on all sides within arm’s length of the ship. Into
that narrowed circle furious seas leaped in, struck, and leaped out. A
rain of salt heavy drops flew aslant like mist. The main-topsail had
to be goose-winged, and with stolid resignation every one prepared to
go aloft once more; but the officers yelled, pushed back, and at last
we understood that no more men would be allowed to go on the yard than
were absolutely necessary for the work. As at any moment the masts
were likely to be jumped out or blown overboard, we concluded that the
captain didn’t want to see all his crowd go over the side at once. That
was reasonable. The watch then on duty, led by Mr. Creighton, began to
struggle up the rigging. The wind flattened them against the ratlines;
then, easing a little, would let them ascend a couple of steps; and
again, with a sudden gust, pin all up the shrouds the whole crawling
line in attitudes of crucifixion. The other watch plunged down on the
main deck to haul up the sail. Men’s heads bobbed up as the water flung
them irresistibly from side to side. Mr. Baker grunted encouragingly in
our midst, spluttering and blowing amongst the tangled ropes like an
energetic porpoise. Favoured by an ominous and untrustworthy lull, the
work was done without any one being lost either off the deck or from
the yard. For the moment the gale seemed to take off, and the ship, as
if grateful for our efforts, plucked up heart and made better weather
of it.
At eight the men off duty, watching their chance, ran forward over the
flooded deck to get some rest. The other half of the crew remained aft
for their turn of “seeing her through her trouble,” as they expressed
it. The two mates urged the master to go below. Mr. Baker grunted in
his ear:—“Ough! surely now ... Ough!... confidence in us ... nothing
more to do ... she must lay it out or go. Ough! Ough!” Tall young Mr.
Creighton smiled down at him cheerfully:—“... She’s as right as a
trivet! Take a spell, sir.” He looked at them stonily with bloodshot,
sleepless eyes. The rims of his eyelids were scarlet, and he moved his
jaws unceasingly with a slow effort, as though he had been masticating
a lump of india-rubber. He shook his head. He repeated:—“Never mind
me. I must see it out—I must see it out,” but he consented to sit down
for a moment on the skylight, with his hard face turned unflinchingly
to windward. The sea spat at it—and stoical, it streamed with water as
though he had been weeping. On the weather side of the poop the watch,
hanging on to the mizen rigging and to one another, tried to exchange
encouraging words. Singleton, at the wheel, yelled out:—“Look out for
yourselves!” His voice reached them in a warning whisper. They were
startled.
A big, foaming sea came out of the mist; it made for the ship, roaring
wildly, and in its rush it looked as mischievous and discomposing as
a madman with an axe. One or two, shouting, scrambled up the rigging;
most, with a convulsive catch of the breath, held on where they stood.
Singleton dug his knees under the wheel-box, and carefully eased the
helm to the headlong pitch of the ship, but without taking his eyes off
the coming wave. It towered close-to and high, like a wall of green
glass topped with snow. The ship rose to it as though she had soared
on wings, and for a moment rested poised upon the foaming crest as if
she had been a great sea-bird. Before we could draw breath a heavy gust
struck her, another roller took her unfairly under the weather bow, she
gave a toppling lurch, and filled her decks. Captain Allistoun leaped
up, and fell; Archie rolled over him, screaming:—“She will rise!”
She gave another lurch to leeward; the lower deadeyes dipped heavily;
the men’s feet flew from under them, and they hung kicking above the
slanting poop. They could see the ship putting her side in the water,
and shouted all together:—“She’s going!” Forward the forecastle doors
flew open, and the watch below were seen leaping out one after another,
throwing their arms up; and, falling on hands and knees, scrambled
aft on all fours along the high side of the deck, sloping more than
the roof of a house. From leeward the seas rose, pursuing them; they
looked wretched in a hopeless struggle, like vermin fleeing before
a flood; they fought up the weather ladder of the poop one after
another, half naked and staring wildly; and as soon as they got up
they shot to leeward in clusters, with closed eyes, till they brought
up heavily with their ribs against the iron stanchions of the rail;
then, groaning, they rolled in a confused mass. The immense volume of
water thrown forward by the last scend of the ship had burst the lee
door of the forecastle. They could see their chests, pillows, blankets,
clothing, come out floating upon the sea. While they struggled back to
windward they looked in dismay. The straw beds swam high, the blankets,
spread out, undulated; while the chests, waterlogged and with a heavy
list, pitched heavily like dismasted hulks, before they sank; Archie’s
big coat passed with outspread arms, resembling a drowned seaman
floating with his head under water. Men were slipping down while trying
to dig their fingers into the planks; others, jammed in corners, rolled
enormous eyes. They all yelled unceasingly:—“The masts! Cut! Cut!...”
A black squall howled low over the ship, that lay on her side with
the weather yard-arms pointing to the clouds; while the tall masts,
inclined nearly to the horizon, seemed to be of an immeasurable length.
The carpenter let go his hold, rolled against the skylight, and began
to crawl to the cabin entrance, where a big axe was kept ready for
just such an emergency. At that moment the topsail sheet parted, the
end of the heavy chain racketed aloft, and sparks of red fire streamed
down through the flying sprays. The sail flapped once with a jerk that
seemed to tear our hearts out through our teeth, and instantly changed
into a bunch of fluttering narrow ribbons that tied themselves into
knots and became quiet along the yard. Captain Allistoun struggled,
managed to stand up with his face near the deck, upon which men swung
on the ends of ropes, like nest robbers upon a cliff. One of his feet
was on somebody’s chest; his face was purple; his lips moved. He yelled
also; he yelled, bending down:—“No! No!” Mr. Baker, one leg over the
binnacle-stand, roared out:—“Did you say no? Not cut?” He shook his
head madly. “No! No!” Between his legs the crawling carpenter heard,
collapsed at once, and lay full length in the angle of the skylight.
Voices took up the shout—“No! No!” Then all became still. They waited
for the ship to turn over altogether, and shake them out into the
sea; and upon the terrific noise of wind and sea not a murmur of
remonstrance came out from those men, who each would have given ever so
many years of life to see “them damned sticks go overboard!” They all
believed it their only chance; but a little hard-faced man shook his
grey head and shouted “No!” without giving them as much as a glance.
They were silent, and gasped. They gripped rails, they had wound
ropes’-ends under their arms; they clutched ringbolts, they crawled in
heaps where there was foothold; they held on with both arms, hooked
themselves to anything to windward with elbows, with chins, almost
with their teeth: and some, unable to crawl away from where they had
been flung, felt the sea leap up, striking against their backs as they
struggled upwards. Singleton had stuck to the wheel. His hair flew out
in the wind; the gale seemed to take its life-long adversary by the
beard and shake his old head. He wouldn’t let go, and, with his knees
forced between the spokes, flew up and down like a man on a bough. As
Death appeared unready, they began to look about. Donkin, caught by one
foot in a loop of some rope, hung, head down, below us, and yelled,
with his face to the deck:—“Cut! Cut!” Two men lowered themselves
cautiously to him; others hauled on the rope. They caught him up,
shoved him into a safer place, held him. He shouted curses at the
master, shook his fist at him with horrible blasphemies, called upon us
in filthy words to “Cut! Don’t mind that murdering fool! Cut, some of
you!” One of his rescuers struck him a back-handed blow over the mouth;
his head banged on the deck, and he became suddenly very quiet, with
a white face, breathing hard, and with a few drops of blood trickling
from his cut lip. On the lee side another man could be seen stretched
out as if stunned; only the washboard prevented him from going over
the side. It was the steward. We had to sling him up like a bale, for
he was paralysed with fright. He had rushed up out of the pantry when
he felt the ship go over, and had rolled down helplessly, clutching a
china mug. It was not broken. With difficulty we tore it away from him,
and when he saw it in our hands he was amazed. “Where did you get that
thing?” he kept on asking us in a trembling voice. His shirt was blown
to shreds; the ripped sleeves flapped like wings. Two men made him
fast, and, doubled over the rope that held him, he resembled a bundle
of wet rags. Mr. Baker crawled along the line of men, asking:—“Are
you all there?” and looking them over. Some blinked vacantly, others
shook convulsively; Wamibo’s head hung over his breast; and in painful
attitudes, cut by lashings, exhausted with clutching, screwed up in
corners, they breathed heavily. Their lips twitched, and at every
sickening heave of the overturned ship they opened them wide as if to
shout. The cook, embracing a wooden stanchion, unconsciously repeated
a prayer. In every short interval of the fiendish noises around he
could be heard there, without cap or slippers, imploring in that storm
the Master of our lives not to lead him into temptation. Soon he also
became silent. In all that crowd of cold and hungry men, waiting
wearily for a violent death, not a voice was heard; they were mute, and
in sombre thoughtfulness listened to the horrible imprecations of the
gale.
Hours passed. They were sheltered by the heavy inclination of the
ship from the wind that rushed in one long unbroken moan above their
heads, but cold rain showers fell at times into the uneasy calm of
their refuge. Under the torment of that new infliction a pair of
shoulders would writhe a little. Teeth chattered. The sky was clearing,
and bright sunshine gleamed over the ship. After every burst of
battering seas, vivid and fleeting rainbows arched over the drifting
hull in the flick of sprays. The gale was ending in a clear blow,
which gleamed and cut like a knife. Between two bearded shellbacks
Charley, fastened with somebody’s long muffler to a deck ring-bolt,
wept quietly, with rare tears wrung out by bewilderment, cold, hunger,
and general misery. One of his neighbours punched him in the ribs
asking roughly:—“What’s the matter with your cheek? In fine weather
there’s no holding you, youngster.” Turning about with prudence he
worked himself out of his coat and threw it over the boy. The other man
closed up, muttering:—“’Twill make a bloomin’ man of you, sonny.” They
flung their arms over and pressed against him. Charley drew his feet
up and his eyelids dropped. Sighs were heard, as men, perceiving that
they were not to be “drowned in a hurry,” tried easier positions. Mr.
Creighton, who had hurt his leg, lay amongst us with compressed lips.
Some fellows belonging to his watch set about securing him better.
Without a word or a glance he lifted his arms one after another to
facilitate the operation, and not a muscle moved in his stern, young
face. They asked him with solicitude:—“Easier now, sir?” He answered
with a curt:—“That’ll do.” He was a hard young officer, but many
of his watch used to say they liked him well enough because he had
“such a gentlemanly way of damning us up and down the deck.” Others
unable to discern such fine shades of refinement, respected him for
his smartness. For the first time since the ship had gone on her beam
ends Captain Allistoun gave a short glance down at his men. He was
almost upright—one foot against the side of the skylight, one knee on
the deck; and with the end of the vang round his waist swung back and
forth with his gaze fixed ahead, watchful, like a man looking out for
a sign. Before his eyes the ship, with half her deck below water, rose
and fell on heavy seas that rushed from under her flashing in the cold
sunshine. We began to think she was wonderfully buoyant—considering.
Confident voices were heard shouting:—“She’ll do, boys!” Belfast
exclaimed with fervour:—“I would giv’ a month’s pay for a draw at a
pipe!” One or two, passing dry tongues on their salt lips, muttered
something about a “drink of water.” The cook, as if inspired, scrambled
up with his breast against the poop water-cask and looked in. There was
a little at the bottom. He yelled, waving his arms, and two men began
to crawl backwards and forwards with the mug. We had a good mouthful
all round. The master shook his head impatiently, refusing. When it
came to Charley one of his neighbours shouted:—“That bloomin’ boy’s
asleep.” He slept as though he had been dosed with narcotics. They
let him be. Singleton held to the wheel with one hand while he drank,
bending down to shelter his lips from the wind. Wamibo had to be poked
and yelled at before he saw the mug held before his eyes. Knowles said
sagaciously:—“It’s better’n a tot o’ rum.” Mr. Baker grunted:—“Thank
ye.” Mr. Creighton drank and nodded. Donkin gulped greedily, glaring
over the rim. Belfast made us laugh when with grimacing mouth he
shouted:—“Pass it this way. We’re all taytottlers here.” The master,
presented with the mug again by a crouching man, who screamed up at
him:—“We all had a drink, captain,” groped for it without ceasing to
look ahead, and handed it back stiffly as though he could not spare
half a glance away from the ship. Faces brightened. We shouted to the
cook:—“Well done, doctor!” He sat to leeward, propped by the water-cask
and yelled back abundantly, but the seas were breaking in thunder just
then, and we only caught snatches that sounded like: “Providence” and
“born again.” He was at his old game of preaching. We made friendly but
derisive gestures at him, and from below he lifted one arm, holding
on with the other, moved his lips; he beamed up to us, straining his
voice—earnest, and ducking his head before the sprays.
Suddenly some one cried:—“Where’s Jimmy?” and we were appalled once
more. On the end of the row the boatswain shouted hoarsely:—“Has any
one seed him come out?” Voices exclaimed dismally:—“Drowned—is he?...
No! In his cabin!... Good Lord!... Caught like a bloomin’ rat in a
trap.... Couldn’t open his door ... Aye! She went over too quick and
the water jammed it ... Poor beggar!... No help for ’im.... Let’s go
and see ...” “Damn him, who could go?” screamed Donkin.—“Nobody expects
you to,” growled the man next to him: “you’re only a thing.”—“Is there
half a chance to get at ’im?” inquired two or three men together.
Belfast untied himself with blind impetuosity, and all at once shot
down to leeward quicker than a flash of lightning. We shouted all
together with dismay; but with his legs overboard he held and yelled
for a rope. In our extremity nothing could be terrible; so we judged
him funny kicking there, and with his scared face. Some one began to
laugh, and, as if hysterically infected with screaming merriment,
all those haggard men went off laughing, wild-eyed, like a lot of
maniacs tied up on a wall. Mr. Baker swung off the binnacle-stand and
tendered him one leg. He scrambled up rather scared, and consigning
us with abominable words to the “divvle.” “You are.... Ough! You’re
a foul-mouthed beggar, Craik,” grunted Mr. Baker. He answered,
stuttering with indignation:—“Look at ’em, sorr. The bloomin dirty
images! laughing at a chum going overboard. Call themselves men,
too.” But from the break of the poop the boatswain called out:—“Come
along,” and Belfast crawled away in a hurry to join him. The five
men, poised and gazing over the edge of the poop, looked for the best
way to get forward. They seemed to hesitate. The others, twisting
in their lashings, turning painfull, stared with open lips. Captain
Allistoun saw nothing; he seemed with his eyes to hold the ship up
in a superhuman concentration of effort. The wind screamed loud in
sunshine; columns of spray rose straight up; and in the glitter of
rainbows bursting over the trembling hull the men went over cautiously,
disappearing from sight with deliberate movements.
They went swinging from belaying pin to cleat above the seas that beat
the half-submerged deck. Their toes scraped the planks. Lumps of green
cold water toppled over the bulwark and on their heads. They hung for
a moment on strained arms, with the breath knocked out of them, and
with closed eyes—then, letting go with one hand, balanced with lolling
heads, trying to grab some rope or stanchion further forward. The
long-armed and athletic boatswain swung quickly, gripping things with a
fist hard as iron, and remembering suddenly snatches of the last letter
from his “old woman.” Little Belfast scrambled in a rage spluttering
“cursed nigger.” Wamibo’s tongue hung out with excitement; and Archie,
intrepid and calm, watched his chance to move with intelligent coolness.