"SAIL HO!"
Away forward, I remember, the ship's bell under the break of the
forecastle, or "fo'c's'le," as it is pronounced in nautical fashion, was
just striking "two bells" in the first day watch.
In other words, more suited to a landsman's comprehension, it was five
o'clock in the afternoon when I came on deck from my spell of leisure
below, to relieve Mr Spokeshave, the third officer, then on duty, and
the sight I caught of the heavens, across the gangway, was so beautiful
that I paused a moment or two to look at the sunset before going up on
the bridge, where Mr Spokeshave, I had no doubt, was anxiously awaiting
me and, equally certainly, grumbling at my detaining him from his "tea!"
This gentleman, however, was not too particular as to time in relieving
others when off watch, and I did not concern myself at all about Master
"Conky," as all of us called him aboard, on account of a very prominent,
and, so to speak, striking feature of his countenance.
Otherwise, he was an insignificant-looking little chap, as thin as
threadpaper and barely five feet high; but he was always swelling
himself out, and trying to look a bigger personage than he was, with the
exception that is, of his nose, which was thoroughly Napoleonic in size
and contour. Altogether, what with the airs he gave himself and his
selfish disposition and nasty cantankerous temper, Master Spokeshave was
not a general favourite on board, although we did not quarrel openly
with the little beggar or call him by his nickname when he was present,
albeit he was very hard to bear with sometimes!
Well, not thinking of him or his tea or that it was time for me to go on
watch, but awed by the majesty of God's handiwork in the wonderful
colouring, of the afterglow, which no mortal artist could have painted,
no, none but He who limns the rainbow, I stood there so long by the
gangway, gazing at the glorious panorama outspread before me, that I
declare I clean forgot Spokeshave's very existence, all-important though
he considered himself, and I was only recalled to myself by the voice of
Mr Fosset, our first officer, who had approached without my seeing him,
speaking close beside me.
Ah, he was a very different sort of fellow to little Spokeshave, being a
nice, jolly, good-natured chap, chubby and brown-bearded, and liked by
every one from the skipper down to the cabin boy. He was a bit
obstinate, though, was Mr Fosset; and "as pigheaded as a Scotch
barber," as Captain Applegarth would say sometimes when he was arguing
with him, for the first mate would always stick to his own opinion, no
matter if he were right or wrong, nothing said on the other side ever
convincing him to the contrary and making him change his mind.
He had caught sight of me now leaning against the bulwarks and looking
over the side amidships, just abaft the engine-room hatch, as he passed
along the gangway towards the bridge which he was about to mount to have
a look at the standard compass and see what course the helmsman was
steering, on his way from the poop, where I had noticed him talking with
the skipper as I came up the booby-hatch from below. "Hullo, Haldane!"
he cried, shouting almost in my ear, and giving me a playful dig in the
ribs at the same time; this nearly knocked all the breath out of my
body. "Is that you, my boy?"
"Aye, aye, sir," I replied, hesitating, for I was startled, alike by his
rather too demonstrative greeting as well as his unexpected approach.
"I--I--mean, yes, sir."
Mr Fosset laughed; a jolly, catching laugh it was--that of a man who
had just dined comfortably and enjoyed his dinner, and did not have,
apparently, a care in the world. "Why, what's the matter with you,
youngster?" said he in his chaffing way. "Been having a caulk on the
sly and dreaming of home, I bet?"
"No, sir," I answered gravely; "I've not been to sleep."
"But you look quite dazed, my boy."
I made no reply to this observation, and Mr Fosset then dropped his
bantering manner.
"Tell me," said he kindly, "is there anything wrong with you below? Has
that cross-grained little shrimp, Spokeshave, hang him! been bullying
you again, like he did the other day?"
"Oh no, sir; he's on the bridge now, and I ought to have relieved him
before this," I replied, only thinking of poor "Conky" and his tea then
for the first time. "I wasn't even dreaming of him; I'm sure I beg his
pardon!"
"Well, you were dreaming of some one perhaps `nearer and dearer' than
Spokeshave," rejoined Mr Fosset, with another genial laugh. "You were
quite in a brown study when I gave you that dig in the ribs. What's the
matter, my boy?"
"I was looking at that, sir," said I simply, in response to his
question, pointing upwards to the glory in the heavens. "Isn't it
grand? Isn't it glorious?"
This was a poser; for the first mate, though good-natured and good-
humoured enough, and probably a thinking man, too, in his way, was too
matter-of-fact a person to indulge in "dreamy sentimentalities," as he
would have styled my deeper thoughts! A sunset to him was only a
sunset, saving in so far as it served to denote any change of weather,
which aspect his seaman's eye readily took note of without any pointing
out on my part; so he rather chilled my enthusiasm by his reply now to
me.
"Oh, yes, it's very fine and all that, youngster," he observed in an
off-hand manner that grated on my feelings, making me wish I had not
spoken so gushingly. "I think that sky shows signs of a blow before the
night is over, which will give you something better to do than star-
gazing!"
"I can't very well do that now, sir," said I slily, with a grin at
catching him tripping. "Why, the stars aren't out yet."
"That may be, Master Impudence," replied Mr Fosset, all genial again
and laughing too; "but they'll soon be popping out overhead."
"But, sir, it is quite light still," I persisted. "See, it is as bright
as day all round, just as at noontide!"
"Aye, but it'll be precious dark soon! It grows dusk in less than a
jiffey after the sun dips in these latitudes at this time o' year," said
he. "Hullo! I say, though, that reminds me, Haldane--"
"Of what, sir?" I asked as he stopped abruptly at this point.
"Anything I can do for you, Mr Fosset?"
"No, my boy, nothing," he replied reflectively, and looking for the
moment to be in as deep a brown study as he accused me of being just
now. "Stop, though, I tell you what you can do. Run forwards and see
what that lazy lubber of a lamp-trimmer is about. He's always half an
hour or so behind time, and seems to get later every day. Wake him up
and make him hoist our masthead lantern and fix the side lights in
position, for it'll soon be dark, I bet 'ee, in spite of all that flare-
up aloft over there, and we're now getting in the track of the homeward-
bounders crossing the Banks, and have to keep a sharp look-out and let
'em know where we are, to avoid any chance of collision."
"Aye, aye, sir," I cried, making my way along the gangway by the side of
the deckhouse towards the fo'c's'le, which was still lit up by the
afterglow as if on fire. "I'll see to it all right, and get our steam
lights rigged up at once, sir."
So saying, in another minute or so, scrambling over a lot of empty coal
sacks and other loose gear that littered the deck, besides getting
tripped up by the tackle of the ash hoist, which I did not see in time
from the glare of the sky coming right in my eyes, I gained the lee side
of the cook's galley at the forward end of the deckhouse. Here, as I
conjectured, I found old Greazer, our lamp-trimmer. This worthy, who
was quite a character in his way, was a superannuated fireman belonging
to the line, whom age and long years of toil had unfitted for the
rougher and more arduous duties of his vocation in the stoke-hold, and
who now, instead of trimming coals in the furnaces below, trimmed wicks
and attended to the lamps about the ship, on deck and elsewhere. He
managed, I may add, to make his face so dirty in the carrying out of the
lighter duties, to which he was now called, probably in fond
recollection of his byegone grimy task in the engine-room, that his
somewhat personal cognomen was very appropriate, his countenance being
oily and smutty to a degree!
He was a very lazy old chap, however; and, in lieu of attending to his
work, was generally to be found confabulating with our mulatto cook,
Accra Prout, as I discovered him now, more bent on worming out an extra
lot of grog from the chef of the galley in exchange for a lump of "hard"
tobacco, than thinking of masthead lanterns or the ship's side lights,
green and red.
"What are you about, lamp-trimmer?" I called out sharply on catching
sight of him palavering there with the mulatto, the artful beggar
furtively slipping the tin pannikin out of which he had been drinking
into the bosom of his jumper. "Here's two bells struck and no lights
up!"
"Two bells, sir?"
"Aye, two bells," I repeated, taking no notice of his affected air of
surprise. "There's the ship's bell right over your head where you
stand, and you must have heard it strike not five minutes ago."
"Lor', Master Dick, may I die a foul death ashore if I ever heard a
stroke," he replied as innocently as you please. "Howsomdever, the
lamps is all right, sir. I ain't 'ave forgot 'em."
"That's all right, then, Greazer," I said, not being too hard on him,
and excusing the sly wink he gave to Prout as he told his barefaced
banger about not hearing the bell, in memory of his past services.
"Come along now and rig them up smart, or you'll have Mr Fosset after
you."
Making him hoist our masthead light on the foremast, twenty feet above
the deck, according to the usual Board of Trade regulations for steamers
under way at sea, I then marched him before me along the deck and saw
him place our side lights in their proper position, the green one to
starboard and the red on our port hand.
Old Greazer then mounted the bridge-ladder, in advance of me, with the
binnacle lamp in his hand to put that in its place, and, as I followed
slowly in his slow footsteps, for the ex-fireman was not now quick of
movement, an accident in the stoke-hold having crippled him years ago, I
half-turned round as I ascended the laddering to have a look again at
the horizon to leeward over our port quarters, when I fancied, when
advancing a foot with the lamp-trimmer, I had seen something to the
southward.
In another instant my fancy became a certainty.
Yes, there, in the distance, sailing at an angle to our course, right
before the wind, was a large full-rigged ship. Everything, though, was
not right with her, as I noted the moment I made her out, with her white
canvas all crimson from a last expiring gleam of the afterglow; for I
could see that her sails were tattered and torn, with the ragged ends
blowing out loose from the boltropes in the most untidy fashion,
unkempt, uncared for!
Besides, she was flying a signal of distress, patent to every sailor
that has ever crossed the seas.
Her flag was hoisted half-mast high from the peak halliards. Half-mast
high!
I did not wait, nor did I want, to see anything further. No, that was
enough for me; and, springing on to the bridge with a bound that nearly
knocked poor old Greazer down on his marrowbones as he stopped to put
the lantern into the binnacle, I shouted out in a ringing voice that
echoed fore and aft, startling everybody aboard, even myself, "Sail ho!
A ship in distress! Sail ho!"