The storm that swept the Channel in the summer of 17—, was long
remembered by the folk along the Sussex coast. Hail fell in many places,
and fierce squalls of wind, like huge beasts galloping with the lesser
herd, uprooted trees, sent chimneys crashing through the roofs, and
scattered tiles in many a street. At one village the church-spire fell,
and all along the coast ran the rumor of ships lost and fishing-vessels
caught in the storm.
Off the French coast, and still tangled in the lifting fringes of the
night, the _Sussex Queen_ lay rolling heavily with the waves washing her
lower decks. A squall had struck her soon after sundown, beaten down her
masts, and left her drifting like a wounded gull with wings trailing in
the water. Two men had been killed by the falling of the masts, and
another washed overboard by a heavy sea. All through the night the pumps
had been clanging, and water gushing from the brig’s black sides.
About two o’clock in the morning Captain George lurched down the short
stairway leading to the poop-cabin. He was bleeding from a wound over
the left temple and had the look of a man who was utterly unnerved.
Moreover, he smelled of liquor, and his great raw hands trembled as he
fumbled at the latch of the cabin door.
A ship’s lantern creaked and rocked from the beacon, throwing an
uncertain light about the cabin. Ever and again the poop-windows were
drenched and darkened by the waves that broke over the stern of the
ship. Bess was half lying on her bunk, with her red cloak wrapped round
her, Jeffray leaning against the bulkhead, with the _St. Thomas à
Kempis_, that had been his father’s, open in his hand. Captain George
looked at them as though half dazed, blood running down his face to soak
into his ragged beard.
“Well, captain, what news for us?”
“News!” and the man laughed with a spasmodic croaking in the throat.
“We’re going to the bottom as fast as the ship can take in water.”
“The ship sinking!”
Captain George’s hands had been working at the buckle of his belt.
“Here, take it back, I say,” and he threw the belt and purse upon the
floor; “take back your damned money. But for the gold I should be safe
in the King Harry, and not here to drown like a rat.”
Jeffray looked at Bess and then at the unnerved sot, who was leaning
against the panelling by the door. A wave struck the ship full on the
poop, breaking the glass in the windows, the black water pouring in upon
the floor. The lamp flared and spluttered with the wind and spray, and
the narrow cabin seemed full of the gurgling and plashing of the sea.
Jeffray sprang forward and laid his hand on the captain’s shoulder.
“Come, man, are you going to drown without a fight?”
The fellow shuddered, and shook the blood out of his eyes.
“It ben’t any use,” he said, sullenly; “it ben’t any use.”
“By God, man, where’s the English grit in you? Why aren’t the pumps
working? We can’t be far from the French coast now.”
Captain George shook off Jeffray’s hand.
“Let be,” he said, savagely, “the men have got the liquor out. They’re
sick of pumping, I tell ye, and they’re going down drunk, bad blood to
’em!”
Jeffray stood back against the table and looked at the long-limbed
sloven with a flash of scorn. The man had no courage left in him; he was
sulky and sodden with his death grapple with the sea. Jeffray turned to
the bunk where Bess was lying, took out his pistols from a valise, and
levelled one of them calmly at the captain’s head.
“Take down the lantern,” he said, quietly.
The man stared at the muzzle of Jeffray’s pistol, and hesitated.
“Take down the lantern, or by the love of God I’ll fire on you!”
Captain George climbed the table, and, swaying from side to side, took
down the lantern from its hook. Jeffray turned and spoke to Bess,
steadying himself against the bunk as the ship rolled with the waves.
“God keep you, dear; it may be our last chance! I must do my best.”
She looked up at him and smiled.
“I am not afraid of the dark,” she answered.
Jeffray had thrown his cloak over his shoulders, and he kept his pistols
covered so that the priming should not be damped in the pans.
“Where are your men, captain?”
“In the fo’c’sle.”
“Lead on, and let me see what I can do with them.”
They went out together, Jeffray closing the cabin door and calling back
to Bess to shoot the bolts. Captain George, sulky and silent, leaned
against the hand-rail, shading the lamp behind his coat. To Jeffray it
seemed that the force of the wind had lessened, and that the ship
groaned and tumbled less in the troughs of the sea. A wet moon shone out
now and again through the ragged clouds, lighting up the dishevelled
waters that raced under the hurrying sky.
Captain George and Jeffray took the lower deck where the darkness was
utter save for the lamp the seaman carried. The port-holes oozed with
every thundering up of the sea, the perpetual thudding of the waves
reverberating through the body of the ship. Piled about the shaft of the
main-mast were the trunks and boxes that the Rodenham coach had brought
from Lewes, and Jeffray looked at them with a tightening of the mouth.
There was a depth of pathos in the thought that all these rich stuffs
that he had bought for Bess might be torn to shreds by the remorseless
sea. The pity of it strengthened all the manhood in him, and made him
realize for what he fought.
Captain George had halted suddenly, and stood listening, the lantern
swinging in his hand.
“D’yer hear ’em? It ben’t no use, sir, I tell you, it ben’t no use.”
Jeffray heard laughter and rough voices rising above the racket of the
storm. There was a note of fierce defiance in the sound, as though the
tired and disheartened men were going to death with blasphemy upon their
lips.
Captain George shivered as though cold.
“They’re getting the drink in ’em,” he said, peering forward into the
darkness.
Jeffray pushed the coward forward.
“Our duty’s clear,” he said, “we must pitch the devil’s juice into the
sea.”
A dirty lamp was burning in the fo’c’sle, the ill-trimmed wick smoking
and flaring in the wind. On the floor sat three men, half naked, with a
keg of rum between them, and a tin cup passing from hand to hand. In one
of the bunks, a man, whose back had been broken by a falling spar, lay
groaning and biting the coat that covered him, in a paroxysm of pain.
Near him on an upturned bucket another fellow sat with his head between
his hands, as though the dread of death were heavy on his soul.
Jeffray stood on the threshold, holding his pistols behind his back. The
rough faces, the faces of men who drank to drown despair, were turned to
him half threateningly under the light of the flaring lamp. The man in
the bunk was groaning, and trying to pray. From without came the roar
and ferment of the sea.
“Well, lads, tired of pumping, eh?”
They looked at him sullenly, as though resenting any authority at such
an hour.
“What d’ yer want?”
“Pass the mug, Jim; let the dandy go to the devil.”
Jeffray steadied himself against the door-post, and brought his pistols
from behind his back. He was cool and resolute, a man whose grimness was
not to be denied.
“Drop that drink—drop it, or by Heaven, I’ll send a bullet through your
body.”
The men gaped at him, huddling back a little across the floor, their
eyes fixed on Jeffray’s unflinching face and the pistol that covered
them.
“Drop the drink. One—two—”
The man who held the tin mug, with neat rum swelling over the lip
thereof, let the thing fall as though it burned his fingers.
“Good. Stand up, all of you. Now, listen to me.”
They obeyed him sullenly, like men in whom utter weariness of soul and
body had numbed all strength and self-respect. Jeffray understood the
crude pessimism that possessed them. They had lacked leadership, for the
shivering sot who held the lamp had been the first to confess defeat at
the hands of the sea.
“Come, lads, we’ll have no more drinking. Captain George, will you have
the stuff thrown over into the sea? Steady, steady, stand back for the
captain.”
The man who had been crouching on the bucket, started up, and, pushing
his comrades aside, seized on the keg of rum and carried it to the door.
“I’m with you, sir,” he said; “you’ve got the right stuff in you, by
damn, you have!”
From that moment Jeffray’s personality dominated the ship. He spoke to
the men bluntly, bravely, and the frank manliness of his words went home
into each rough heart.
“Come, lads,” he said, “we are all British to the bone. Who says die?”
He tossed his pistols aside on to a bunk, stripped off his coat and
waistcoat, and rolled up his sleeves.
“I’m one of you, and I’ll work till my back breaks. I have my lass on
board, and I’ll fight to the last before I see her drown.”
That touch of humanism perfected it. The men gave him a cheer, shook the
hands he held out to them, and went to work like heroes at the pumps.
For an hour Bess knelt in the cabin under the poop with Jeffray’s _St.
Thomas à Kempis_ in her hands. She was listening, listening through the
rush of wind and waters, for any sound that might betray the purpose of
the night. All the past happenings of the year seemed to flash before
her eyes, even as memories flash through the brain of a drowning man.
She held Jeffray’s book against her bosom, careless of how the water
from the broken windows soaked her dress.
Bess was growing cold and hopeless as she knelt, when she heard a voice
calling to her through the weakening wailing of the wind.
“Bess! Bess!”
She sprang up and unlocked the door, to find herself in Jeffray’s arms.
“We have won! We have won!”
He was drenched to the skin, but warm and aglow with working at the
pumps.
“The old ship will float.”
“Thank God!”
“Come out with me and see the dawn.”
She unclasped her cloak and wrapped it round him, though he tried to
protest against the deed. Together they went out on the deck, and stood
hand in hand, sheltered by the bulwarks from the wind. In the east,
above the grayness of the sea, the first golden breaking of the day
fired the clouds with burning light. The storm was dying, and the
_Sussex Queen_ lay like a sick woman who rests in peace after the
delirium of the night.
Jeffray stood with one arm about Bess’s body, his head thrown back as
though in triumph. He pointed southward over the sea to where, not a
mile away, the shores of France were lit by the rising sun.
“The sea gave you to me, dear,” he said, “and I have fought to save you
from the sea.”
Bess held close to him and smiled.
“I shall wear my wedding-clothes for you,” she answered.