STORM
The storm brewed long in gray banks of cloud that hung in the west and
north. It drew around the Rose of Devon from north to east with a slow,
immutable force, as yet perceived rather than felt, till she sailed in
the midst of a circle of haze. At night the moon was ringed. The sun
rose in a bank of flaming red and the small sea-birds that by their
presence, mariners say, tell of coming gales, played over the wake.
Captain Candle from the poop sniffed at the damp air: and studying
the winds as they veered and rose in brisk flourishes and fell to the
merest whisper of a breeze, he puckered his lips, which was his way
when thoughts crowded upon him. Martin on the beakhead pursued his
noisome task of cleaning it under the watchful eye of the swabber
(who took unkind joy in exacting from him the utmost pains), and cast
furtive glances at the gray swell that came shouldering up from the
east.
"Holla, boatswain," the captain cried.
"Yea, yea!"
"Our foresail is old and hath lost its goodness. Look to thy stores and
see if there be not another. Have it ready, then, to bend in haste if
there be need."
"Yea, yea!"
"And lay out thy cordage, boatswain, that if sheet or halyard or
tackling shall part, we may be ready to bend another in its place."
Descending thereupon into the forehold with his boatswain's mate to
fetch and carry, Boatswain Marsham fell to work overhauling the bolts
of sail-cloth and the hanks of cordage and the coils of rope, till he
had found a new foresail and laid it under the hatch, and had placed
great ropes and such cordage as headlines and marlines and sennets so
that a man could lay hands on them in a time of haste and confusion.
For the Rose of Devon was heavily pitching and the seas crashed on her
three-inch planks with a noise like thunderclaps; and when she lifted
on the swell, the water rumbled against her bilge and gurgled away past
her run.
Very faintly he heard a sailor's voice, "The pump is choked." There
was shouting above for a time, then the cry arose, which brought
reassurance to all, "Now she sucks," and again there was quiet.
Climbing through the hatch and passing aft along the main deck, he
heard for himself the _suck-suck_ from the pump well, then the rattle
of tiller and creak of pintle as the helmsmen eased her off and brought
her on to meet a rising sea.
"Holla, master!"
"Holla, is all laid ready below?"
"Yea! Ropes and cordage and sail are laid ready upon the main deck and
secured against the storm."
"And seemeth she staunch to one in the hold?"
"Yea, master."
"Then, boatswain, call up the men to prayer and breakfast, for we shall
doubtless have need of both ere the day is done. Boy, fetch my cellar
of bottles, for I would drink a health to all, fore and aft, and I
would have the men served out each a little sack."
By midday the veering winds had settled in the east and the overcast
sky had still further darkened. The ship, labouring heavily, held her
course; but as the wind blew up a fresh gale, the after sails took the
wind from the sails forward, which began to beat and thresh. Swarming
aloft, the younkers handed the fore-topsail-steering-sail, the fore and
main topsails, and the main-topsail-staysail. But as they manned the
foreyard, the ship yawed in such a manner that the full force of the
wind struck the old foresail and split it under their fingers.
Philip Marsham on the weather yardarm, with the grey seas breaking in
foam beneath him at one minute and with the forecastle itself seeming
to rise up at him the next minute, so heavily did the old ship roll,
was reaching for the sail at the moment it tore to ribands; and a
billow of grey canvas striking him in the face knocked him off the
yard; but as he fell, he locked his legs round the spar and got finger
hold on the earing, and crawled back to the mast as the sailors stood
by the ropes to strike the yard and get in the threshing tatters of the
sail.
The mate, going aft, was caught in the waist when the ship gave a
mighty lurch, and went tumbling to lee-ward where the scupper-holes
were spouting like so many fountains all a-row. The fall might well
have ended his days, had he not bumped into the capstan where he clung
fast with both arms, and twice lucky he was to stay his fall thus, for
a sea came roaring over the waist and drowned the fountains in the
scuppers and in a trice the decks were a-wash from forecastle to poop.
But the old ship shook her head and righted and Captain Francis Candle,
leaning against the wind, his cloak flapping in the gale and his hat
hauled hard down over his eyes, descended from the poop and braced
himself in its lee.
"The wind blows frisking," the mate cried, scrambling up the ladder and
joining the master.
"Yea, it is like to over-blow. She took a shrewd plunge but now. We
shall further our voyage by striking every sail. Go thou, mate, and
have them secure the spritsail-yard, then take thy station on the
forecastle."
For an hour or two the old Rose of Devon went plunging through the
seas; and there was much loosing and lowering of sails. For a while,
then, the wind scanted so that there was hope the storm had passed, and
during the lull they bent and set the new foresail and must needs brace
and veer and haul aft. But ere long the gale blew up amain, and in the
late afternoon Captain Candle, sniffing the breeze, called upon all to
stand by and once more to hand both foresail and mainsail.
"Cast off the topsail sheets, clew garnets, leechlines and buntlines!"
The order came thinly through the roar of the wind.
"Yea, yea!" a shrill voice piped.
"Stand by the sheet and brace--come lower the yard and furl the
sail--see that your main halyards be clear and all the rest of your
gear clear and cast off."
"It is all clear."
"Lower the main yard--haul down upon your down-haul." As the yard
swayed down and the men belayed the halyards, one minute staggering to
keep their feet, the next minute slipping and sliding across the decks,
the captain's sharp voice, holding them at their work, cut through the
gale, "Haul up the clew garnets, lifts, leechlines and buntlines!
Come, furl the sail fast and secure the yard lest it traverse and gall!"
"'Twas a fierce gust," an old sailor cried to Phil, who had reached
for the rigging and saved himself from going down to the lee scuppers.
"We best look the guns be all fast. I mind, in the Grace and Mary, my
second Guinea voyage, a gun burst its breechings--"
"Belay the fore down-haul!" the mate thundered, and leaving his tale
untold, the old man went crawling forward.
The men heard faintly the orders to the helmsman, "Hard
a-weather!--Right your helm!--Now port, port hard! More hands! He
cannot put up the helm!"
Then out of the turmoil and confusion a great voice cried, "A sail! A
sail!"
"Where?"
"Fair by us."
"How stands she?"
"To the north'ard."
She lay close hauled by the wind and as the Rose of Devon, scudding
before the sea, bore down the wind and upon her, she hove out signs to
speak; but though Captain Candle passed under her lee as near as he
dared venture and learned by lusty shouting that she was an English
ship from the East Indies, which begged the Rose of Devon for God's
sake to spare them some provisions, since they were eighty persons on
board who were ready to perish for food and water, the seas ran so
high that neither the one vessel nor the other dared hoist out a boat;
and parting, the men of the Rose of Devon lost sight of her in the
gathering dusk.
Still more and more the storm increased. Darkness came, but there was
no rest at sea that night.
Thanks to the storm, and the labour and anxiety it brought all hands,
Martin, the latter part of that day, escaped the duties of ship's liar,
and glad was he of the chance to slip unobserved about the deck with
no reminder of his late humiliation. But by night he was blue with
the cold, and drenching wet and so hungry that he gnawed at a bit of
biscuit when he needed both hands to haul on a rope.
Finding Phil Marsham at his shoulder and still resenting bitterly the
jest to which he had fallen victim, he shot at him an ill-tempered
glance and in sullen silence turned his back.
"Belay!"
A line of struggling men tripped and stumbled as they secured the rope
and went swaying and staggering across the deck when the ship rolled;
for the weight of her towering superstructure and her cannon would set
her wallowing fearfully in the merest seaway. One caught up the rope's
end in loose coils; another, having fallen, got clumsily on his feet
and staunched his bleeding nose; the rest shivered as the icy wind
struck through their wet shirts.
Martin again turned his back on the boatswain and hugged himself, but
to little profit, although his fat arms covered a goodly area. Phil
laughed softly at Martin's show of spleen and was about to warm the
man's temper further by a thrust well calculated to stir him to fury,
when the ship rose with a queer lurch and descended into a veritable
gulf.
They saw above them a sea looming like a black cloud. It mounted slowly
up, hung over them, curled down a dark tongue of water and, before
the Rose of Devon had righted from her plunge into the trough, broke
upon the ship and overwhelmed her. The waist was flooded from the head
of the forecastle to the break of the poop. Water, licking across the
quarter-deck, rose in a great wave that drenched the captain to his
thighs and poured into the steerage room, momentarily blinding the men
at the helm,--for in those old ships they stood with their faces on
a level with the quarter-deck,--and, following whipstaff and tiller,
spilled into the main deck and hold.
Philip Marsham, as the water washed him off his feet, made shift to lay
hands on the shrouds, and though he had no footing and was washed far
out over the side, his grasp was strong and he held himself against the
rush of water as the ship rose like a dog shaking its head and coming
up through a wave. In very truth she seemed to shake her head and
struggle up to the black night above. But as Phil saved himself he saw
Martin cowering by a gun and striving to reach the breeching; and as
the ship rose, the lad half felt, half saw, some great body washed past
him and over the side.
There was no one beside the gun: Martin was gone.
Though a man were a knave and liar, Phil Marsham had no stomach to
see him drown thus; and though he held old Martin in contempt and
bedevilled him night and day, yet he had a curious liking for the
fellow. Overhead there hung from the maintop a loose rope. He faintly
saw it swinging against the leaden-black sky. By a nimble leap there
was a fair chance a man might reach it and if it did not part, an
active man might by a stroke of fortune regain the ship. All this Phil
saw in the falling of a single grain of sand, then the rope swung
within reach of his hand and he seized it. Spared the hazard of
leaping for it, he let go the shrouds and swung with all his strength
out into the night.
Swinging high over the sea he saw for an instant, while he was in
mid-air, the Rose of Devon surging away from under him. The single
great lanthorn was burning on her poop, and dim lights in forecastle
and cabin showed that those parts of the ship, at least, had come up
through the sea unflooded. He thought he saw a cloaked figure like a
shadow on the quarter-deck. Then he slid down into darkness till the
rope burned his hands, then he struck the water and went under, gasping
at the shock, for the sea was as cold as a mountain stream. He caught
a last glimpse of the great ship, now looming high above him, then
clutching fast the rope with one hand and wildly kicking out, he felt
with his knees what might be a man's body.
With his free hand he reached for the body. He snatched at an arm and
missed it, then felt hair brushing his fingers and tangled them in it
and gripped it. He went down and down; then the drag of the water, for
the ship was scudding fast, raised him to the surface. The ship rolled
toward him and he again went under, overshadowed by the lofty poop
which leaned out so far that notwithstanding the tumble home he thought
the poop would come down and crush him. The ship then rolled away from
him, and the rope brought up on his arm so hard that he feared the
bones would pull from their sockets; but if he died in doing it he was
bound he would hold the rope and keep his man.
The ship rolled till he bumped against her side and was lifted half out
of water.
"Help!" he cried. "Help or we die!"
He heard voices above and felt the rope move as if some one had seized
it, then the looming bulk of the ship rolled back and drove him again
down into the sea.
He had no wind left for calling when he came up as once more the ship
rolled, but the man he held had come to life and was clinging like a
leech to the rope, which vastly lightened the strain, and some one
above was hauling on it. For a moment the two swung in air with the sea
beneath them, then the ship rolled farther and their weight rested on
planks, and hands from within the ship reached down and lifted them on
board.
The man--and it was indeed Martin--coughed like one who is deathly
sick, as well he might be, and went rolling down the deck with a boy to
help him. But Phil, having kept his head and having swallowed no great
quantity of salt water, was able after breathing deeply a few times to
stand alone beside Will Canty whose hands had drawn him to safety, and
to perceive that waist, boat, capstan, windlass and sheet anchor were
washed away.
He then heard a pounding and shouting aft. "What in the fiend's name
hath befallen us?" he demanded.
"'Tis even worse than doth appear," Will cried. "The sea hath a free
passage into the hold between the timber heads. They are pumping with
both pumps. The captain hath ordered the mizzenmast cut away, the
better to keep us before the wind. Hear you not the sound of axes?
And--"
Out of the darkness burst the mate. "Come, my hearts! Below there! Cram
blankets and hammocks into the leak, yea, the shirts from off your
backs! And then to the pumps to take your turn. And pray Almighty God
to give us sight of another day."
There was running on the deck and shadows passed forward and aft.
From the quarter-deck a clear voice, so sharp that it pierced the noise
of the storm, was calling, "Port the helm! Ease her, ease her! Now up!
Hard up! Ease her, ease her!"
As the boatswain dropped through the hatch, he saw very dimly the
captain crouching under the poop, his cloak drawn close about him.
There was wild confusion below, for as the ship rolled to starboard the
sea burst in through the great gap along the timber heads and pushed
through the gap and into the ship the blankets and rugs that were
stuffed in place. Though the men leaped after them and came scrambling
back to force them again into place between the timbers, and though
they tore down hammocks and jammed them in with the blankets to fill
the great opening, yet as the ship again rolled and the sea once more
came surging against the barrier, they again fled before it, and again
the sea cleared the gap and came flooding in upon the deck. It was a
sight to fill a brave man with despair.
The more hands made faster work, and though the labour seemed spent in
vain they stuffed the gap anew. But now when the ship again rolled to
starboard an old seaman raised his hand and roared, "Every man to his
place and hold against the sea! Stay! Hold fast your ground!--Come,
bullies, hold hard!--Good fellows! See, we have won!"
They had perceived his meaning and braced themselves and with their
hands they had held the stuffing in the gap until the pressure ceased,
which was more of a feat than a man might think, since despite their
every effort the sea had found passage in great strong streams, yet
they held to the last; and when the ship rolled back, Boatswain Marsham
cried out:--
"Now, Master Carpenter, quick! Bring great nails and hammer and a plank
or two. Yare, yare!"
"Yea, yea," the carpenter cried, and came running down the deck.
The men held the planking and the carpenter drove home the nails
and thus they made the plank fast along the timbers behind the gap,
where it would serve to brace the stuffing. Between the plank and the
stuffing they forced a great mass of other wadding, and though the ship
rolled ever so deeply the plank held against the sea. They left it so;
but all that night, which seemed as long as any night they had ever
seen, no man slept in the Rose of Devon, for they still feared lest the
sea should batter away the plank and work their undoing.
All night long they kept the pumps going and all night long they feared
their labour would be lost. But at four in the morning one of the pumps
sucked, which gave them vast comfort, and at daybreak they gave thanks
to God, who had kept them safe until dawn.
The storm had passed and the sky was clear, and Phil and Martin met at
sunrise.
"Since thou hast haled me out of the sea by the hair of my head," quoth
Martin, after the manner of one who swallows a grievance he can ill
stomach, "I must e'en give thee good morrow."