I was soon myself again, and ready for the proposed voyage southward.
Accordingly, Mr Troil having received directions from Mr Gray to send
the _Good Intent_ to Lerwick to be refitted, Tom and I, bidding
farewell, as we hoped, only for a short season to Miss Troil and Maggie,
went on board the brig to assist in carrying her there, intending to
proceed by the first vessel sailing after our arrival. Mr Troil sent
us a pilot and a good crew to navigate the vessel, and accompanied her
himself in his sloop, that he might assist us if necessary.
The wind was fair and the sea smooth, and thus without accident we
arrived in that fine harbour called Brassa Sound, on the shore of which
Lerwick, the capital of the islands, stands. We there found a vessel
shortly to sail for Newcastle. Having taken in a cargo of coals, she
was thence to proceed to Portsmouth. This so exactly suited our object
that Mr Troil at once engaged a passage on board her for Jim and me.
After Portsmouth the town appeared small, but the inhabitants have large
warm hearts, and were very kind to Jim and me. As he remarked, it is
better to have large hearts and live in a small place than small cold
hearts and to live in a large place. They seemed never to tire of
asking us questions about our voyage in the _Good Intent_, and how we
two boys alone managed to rig jury-masts and to keep her afloat.
"By just knowing how to do our work and sticking to it," answered Jim,
to one of our friends.
If we had remained much longer at Lerwick we should have begun to fancy
ourselves much more important persons than we really were; but the brig
_Nancy_, Captain Gowan, was ready for sea, and wishing farewell to my
kind relative, Mr Troil, who set sail in his ship to return home, we
went on board. We soon afterwards got under way with a fair breeze, and
before night had left Sumburgh Head, the lofty point which forms the
southern end of the Shetland Islands, far astern.
The _Nancy_ was a very different sort of craft from the _Good Intent_.
She was an old ill-found vessel, patched up in an imperfect manner, and
scarcely seaworthy. Jim and I agreed that if she were to meet with the
bad weather we encountered in our old ship she would go to the bottom or
drive ashore.
We discovered also before long that Captain Gowan was a very different
person from our former captain. He had conducted himself pretty well on
shore, so that people spoke of him as a very decent man, but when once
at sea he threw off all restraint, abused the crew, quarrelled with the
mate, and neglected us, who had been placed under his charge.
Jim, who had to work his passage, slept in the fore-peak, but I was
berthed aft. I, however, did as much duty as anyone. Jim told me that
the men were a rough lot, and that he had never heard worse language in
his life. They tried to bully him, but as he was strong enough to hold
his own, and never lost his temper, they gave up the attempt. Captain
Gowan growled when I came in to dinner the first day, which I knew that
I had a right to do, and he asked if every ship-boy was to be turned
into a young gentleman because he happened to have saved his life while
others lost theirs?
I did not answer him, for I saw an empty bottle on the locker, and
another by his side with very little liquor remaining in it. After this
I kept out of his way, and got my meals from the cook as best I could.
Jim and I agreed that if the _Nancy_ had not been going direct to
Portsmouth, we should do well to leave her at Newcastle, and try to make
our way south on board some other vessel. Although we went, I believe,
much out of our proper course, we at last entered the Tyne. Soon after
we brought up, several curiously-shaped boats, called kreels, came
alongside, containing eight tubs, each holding a chaldron; these tubs
being hoisted on board, their bottoms were opened and the coals fell
into the hold.
The kreels, which were oval in shape, were propelled by a long oar or
pole on each side, worked by a man who walked along the gunwale from the
bow to the stern, pressing the upper end with his shoulder while the
lower touched the ground. Another man stood in the stern with a similar
long oar to steer.
The crews were fine hardy fellows, known as kreelmen. I was astonished
to hear them call each other bullies, till I found that the term
signified "brothers." So bully Saunders meant brother Saunders.
Jim and I had had the sense to put on our working clothes, which was
fortunate, as before long, with the coal-dust flying about, we were as
black as negroes, but as everything and all on board were coloured with
the same brush, we did not mind that.
With the help of the kreelmen the _Nancy_ was soon loaded, and we again
sailed for the southward. Matters did not improve. The captain, having
abstained from liquor while on shore, recompensed himself by taking a
double allowance, and became proportionably morose and ill-tempered,
never speaking civilly to me, and often passing a whole day without
exchanging a word with his poor mate; and when he did open his mouth it
was to abuse. The brig, though tolerably tight when light, now that she
had a full cargo, as soon as a sea got up began to leak considerably, so
that each watch had to pump for an hour to keep the water under. Jim
and I took our turns without being ordered, but though accustomed to the
exercise, it was hard work. When we cried "Spell ho!" for others to
take our places, the captain shouted, "You began to pump for your own
pleasure, now you shall go on for mine, you young rascals!" The men,
however, though they at first laughed, having more humanity than the
skipper, soon relieved us.
This was the third day after we sailed, when the wind shifting to the
south-west, and then to the south, we stood away to the eastward in
order to double the North Foreland. After some time it came on to blow
harder than ever, but the brig was made snug in time, though the leaks
increased, and all hands in a watch were kept, spell and spell, at the
pumps. The captain behaved just as before, drinking all day long,
though he did not appear to lose his senses altogether. The mate,
however, looked very anxious as the vessel pitched into the seas each
time more violently than before. I asked him if he thought she would
keep afloat.
"That's more than I can promise you, my boy," he answered. "If the wind
falls, and the sea goes down, we may perhaps manage to keep the leaks
under; but if I were the captain I would run for Harwich or the Thames
sooner than attempt to thrash the vessel round the Foreland."
"Why don't you propose that to him, and if he does not agree, just steer
as you think best?" I said. "I suspect that he would not find out in
what direction we were standing."
"Wouldn't he, though! Why, Peter, I tell you he would swear there was a
mutiny, and knock me overboard," answered the poor mate in a tone of
alarm.
He was evidently completely cowed by the captain, and dared not oppose
him. The night was just coming on; the seas kept breaking over the
bows, washing the deck fore and aft, and the clank of the pumps was
heard without cessation. The captain sat in his cabin, either drinking
or sleeping, except when occasionally he clambered on deck, took a look
around while holding on to the companion-hatch, and then, apparently
thinking that all was going on well, went below again. When I could
pump no longer I turned in, thinking it very probable that I should
never see another sunrise. By continually pumping, the brig was kept
afloat during the night; but when I came on deck in the morning, the
mate, who looked as if he would drop from fatigue, told me that the
leaks were gaining on us. We were now far out, I knew, in the German
Ocean, and if the brig should go down, there was too much sea running to
give us a chance of saving ourselves.
Some time after daylight the captain came on deck, and he had not been
there long when there was a lull. "Hands about ship!" he shouted.
The watch below tumbled up, and the brig was got round.
"Will you take charge, sir?" humbly asked the mate. "I have been on
deck all night, and can scarcely stand."
The captain raved at him for a lazy hound. "I haven't turned in,
either," he said, though he had been asleep in his chair for several
hours. "I want my breakfast; when I've had that I'll relieve you."
The mate made no reply, and as soon as the captain went below he hurried
forward to bid the cook make haste with the cabin breakfast. It was a
difficult matter, however, to keep the galley fire alight, or the pots
on it in their places. The weather seemed to be improving, but the men
were well-nigh worn out with pumping. When the captain at last came on
deck, in spite of their grumbling, he kept them labouring away as hard
as ever, and ordered Jim and me to take our turn with the rest. This we
did willingly, as we knew that unless all exerted themselves the brig
must founder.
As noon approached, the captain brought up his quadrant, and sent below
to summon the mate to take observations though the clouds hung so
densely over the sky that there was but little chance of doing this.
"Might as well try to shoot the sun at midnight as now, with the clouds
as dark as pitch," growled the mate. "What was the use of calling me up
for such fool's work?"
"What's that you say?" shouted the captain. "Do you call me a fool?"
"Yes, I do, if you expect to take an observation with such a sky as we
have got overhead," answered the mate.
"Then take that!" screamed the captain, throwing the quadrant he held in
his hand at the mate's head, not, for the moment, probably, recollecting
what it was.
It struck the mate on the temple, who, falling, let his own quadrant go,
and both were broken to pieces.
"Here's a pretty business," cried one of the men, "I wonder now what
will become of us!"
Good reason we had to wonder. The mate, picking himself up, flew at the
captain, and a fearful struggle ensued. Both were too excited to know
what they were about, and the captain, who was the stronger of the two,
would have hove the mate overboard had not the crew rushed aft and
separated them.
The mate then went below, and the captain rolled about the deck,
stamping and shouting that he would be revenged on him. At last he also
went down into the cabin.
Fearing that he would at once put his fearful threats into execution and
attack the mate, I followed, intending to call the crew to my assistance
should it be necessary. I saw him, however, take another pull at the
rum bottle, and then, growling and muttering, turn into his bed. I
waited till I supposed that he was asleep, and then I went to the mate's
berth.
"There is no one in charge of the deck, sir," I said. "And if it was to
blow harder, as it seems likely to do, I don't know what will happen."
"Nor do I either, Peter, with such a drunken skipper as ours," he
answered. "What are the men about?"
"They have knocked off from the pumps, and if you don't come on deck and
order them to turn to again they'll let the brig go down without making
any further effort to save her," I answered.
My remarks had some effect, for though the mate had himself been
drinking, or he would not have spoken as he did to the captain, he yet
had some sense left in his head. He at last got up and came on deck.
All the hands, except the man at the helm, were crouching down under the
weather-bulwarks to avoid the showers of spray flying in dense masses
over us. The sea had increased, and though we had not much sail set,
the brig was heeling over to the furious blasts which every now and then
struck her; if she righted it was only to bend lower still before the
next.
"Do you want to lose your lives or keep them, lads?" shouted the mate,
after sounding the well. "Well then, I can tell you that if you don't
turn to at once and work hard, and very hard, too, the brig will be at
the bottom before the morning."
Still the men did not move. Jim was holding on near me.
"Come, let you and me try what we can do," I said; "we have pumped to
good purpose before now."
Jim needed no second asking. Seizing the brakes, we began, and pumped
away with all our might, making the water rush across the deck in a full
stream. Before long one man got up and joined, then another, and
another. When we got tired and cried, "Spell ho!" the rest took our
places.
"I see you want to save your lives, lads," cried the mate, who
occasionally took a spell himself. "But you must keep at it, or it will
be of no use."
All that day we stood on, the crew pumping without intermission.
"If the wind moderates we'll set more sail," said the mate; "but the
brig has as much on her as she can bear. We must be soon looking out
for land, though. You, Peter, have a sharp pair of eyes--go aloft, and
try if you can see it."
Though the vessel was heeling over terribly at the time, I was about to
obey, when Jim said, "No, you stay on deck; let me go, Peter."
To this I would not agree.
"Then I'll go with you," said Jim.
So we both crawled up the weather-rigging together. Jim said he thought
that he saw land on the starboard bow, but I did not get a glimpse of
it, and felt sure that he was mistaken; at all events there was no land
visible ahead. We remained aloft till darkness came on, and there was
no use remaining longer.
We made our reports to the mate. He said that Jim was right, and that
we had probably passed the South Foreland.
This was, however, I suspected, only to encourage the men to keep at the
pumps. All night long, spell and spell, we laboured away. When the
morning broke no land was in sight. By this time we were all pretty
well knocked up, and most of the men declared that they could pump no
longer.
The mate now tried to make them keep on, reminding them that if they did
not they would lose their lives. Some answered that they would take
their chance, but Jim and I and others kept at our duty. Even we,
however, began to feel that the struggle would be useless unless we
should soon make the land, for the mate could not deny that the water
was gaining on us.
The wind, however, began to moderate, and the sun bursting forth from
between the clouds cheered us up a little.
At last the captain came on deck. After looking about him for some time
he told me to go below and get his quadrant. He was apparently sober,
and seemed to have forgotten what had happened.
"Have you a second one, sir?" I asked.
"No; bring the one I always use," he answered.
"You hove it at the mate yesterday, sir," I said. "And he fell and
broke his."
"What lies are you telling, youngster?" he exclaimed, uttering a fearful
oath. Then he shouted to the mate, who had gone forward to be out of
his way.
"Did I heave my quadrant at you?"
"Yes, you did," answered the mate. "You made me break mine, too, and if
we lose our lives you'll have them on your head."
The captain made no reply. I think that the occurrence must have
flashed on his mind. He looked at the compass, took two or three turns
on deck, and then ordered more sail to be set, directly afterwards
changing the ship's course to north-west. I therefore supposed that we
were steering for the Downs, or perhaps for Saint Helens. The men,
though very tired, went on pumping far more willingly than before.
A bright look-out was kept for land, but no land appeared. For some
hours the brig made fair progress, but as the evening drew on the wind
again got up. The captain had gone below. He could not resist taking a
pull at the rum bottle. We were carrying topsails and topgallantsails.
A sudden squall laid the brig over. The captain sprang on deck and
shouted--
"All hands shorten sail! You, Peter and Jim, up aloft with you and hand
the main-topgallant-sail."
The blast had passed over and the brig had righted. Jim and I ran aloft
to obey the order.
The rest of the people were still on deck except one man, who had gone
up the fore-rigging, about to let fly the sheets and brail up; but,
nearly worn out with labouring at the pumps, they must have very slowly
obeyed the orders they received, for almost before a sheet was let go,
another furious squall struck the brig. Over, over she heeled.
Jim and I slid down into the main-top.
"Hold on, whatever happens," cried Jim.
The warning was given not a moment too soon. There was a fearful
cracking sound, the mast quivered, it was almost right over the water,
and just as the brig was on her beam-ends it gave way, tearing out the
chain-plates on the weather side, and Jim and I were hurled with it into
the raging sea.
I expected every moment that we should be washed off as the mast was
towed along, and so we must have been had not the lee shrouds given way.
To regain the brig was impossible; the next instant the mast was clear
and the brig drove on. Before she had got a cable's length from us the
foremast also went by the board.
We could see no one on it as it was towed along. A minute or more
passed.
The mast to which we clung rose to the top of a sea, we saw the brig
plunge into another. Again we looked, for one instant we saw her stern,
and the next she was gone.
We were too far off to hear a cry. The foremast must have been drawn
down with her. The boats were securely lashed. Nothing that we could
see remained floating. We knew that our late shipmates had perished.
Our own condition was fearful in the extreme. At any moment we might be
washed from our hold! Now our head were under water! Now we rose to
the top of a sea and looked down into a deep gulf below us.
"Hold on; hold on, Peter," cried Jim, who was clinging on the mast close
to me. "Don't give up. Here, I've cut a piece of rope for you. Lash
yourself on with it. I'll get a piece for myself presently."
I wanted him to secure himself first, but he insisted that I should take
the rope, and I lashed myself with it. He soon afterwards secured
himself in the same way. We might thus prolong our lives; but should we
be able to hold out till a passing vessel might pick us up? I asked
myself.
We were far away from land, and hours, perhaps days, might go by before
the mast was seen, and only our dead bodies would be found. We had no
food, no fresh water; night was coming on. I did not tell my thoughts
to Jim, nor did he say what was passing in his mind; but we tried to
cheer each other up. For an instant the clouds broke asunder in the
west, and the sun, just as he sank below the horizon, bursting forth,
shed a bright glow over the foaming ocean.
"He'll not be long down," cried Jim, "and he'll warm us on t'other side
when he rises."
Jim's remark did me good. We had cause to hope for the best. The
squall which had carried away the brig's masts was the last of the gale.
The wind rapidly fell, and the sea went down, so that in a short time
we could keep ourselves almost entirely out of the water. The mast
became more quiet. Had we not lashed ourselves to it when we fell
asleep as we both did now and then, we might have dropped off. We
talked as much as we could, both to keep up our spirits and to prevent
ourselves from dozing. Thus the night passed. It seemed long enough,
but not so long as I expected. I must have closed my eyes when I heard
Jim shout, "A sail! A sail!" and opening them I saw a large ship under
all sail about a couple of miles away, standing on a course which we
hoped would bring her near us.