and looked down on his poor stumps of feet. “God help me, ’tis well I
know it. Ye’ll never fish again, Martin Carr; ye’ll never haul trawl or
row dory again, nor stand to a wheel, nor reef a sail. The best part of
your life’s gone. Ye’re such a creature, Martin Carr, as men throw
pennies to in the street. But the last thing ye did in your full man’s
life--maybe Jack Teevens will remember it when in another world he meets
ye, that out of love of him ye stood by his boy--were a full dory-mate
to him--and at the last gave him Christian burial.”
The Salving of the Bark Fuller
I
To Captain Dixey, of the iron sea-going tug _Ice King_, lying tied up to
her dock in Boston Harbor, came one winter’s morning a man in a fur coat
and much bediamonded. “My name,” said the visitor, “is Wiley.”
“And wily is your nature,” thought Dixey, who, according to report, was
not too unsophisticated himself.
“And I want to know what it will cost me for the services of your tug
for one, two, three, or four days--a week, if necessary.”
“That will depend on the service.”
“Well, suppose I can’t just say what the service will be?”
“Then I can’t tell you just what the price will be.”
“Haven’t you a fixed price by the day?”
“For a fixed service, yes. A man comes to me and says, ‘What do you want
to run down to Newport News to tow a barge, or say two barges, of
coal--fifteen or eighteen hundred tons in a barge--to Boston?’ I tell
him. I’ll tell you, if it’s anything of that kind.”
“’Tisn’t quite that.”
“Well, a man comes to me and says, ‘Say, I have a vessel under the lee
of Cape Cod’--say it’s blowin’ a no’wester like now--a vessel say to
anchor at Provincetown or Chatham----”
“Yes, yes, at Chatham----”
“-- And you ask me what I’ll go and get her for and tow her to Boston?
I’ll soon tell you, if you’ll tell me what her tonnage is.”
“Say a two-thousand-ton bark, and loaded with mahogany.”
“That’s a pretty big vessel and a pretty valuable cargo, and the wind’s
liable to stay no’west for a while--blowin’ hard as it promises to, and
a hard drag around Cape Cod and across the Bay in a no’wester----”
“I know, I know--but how much?”
“Me to leave right away?”
“Well, maybe not at once--say in a few hours. But I’m ready to engage
you at once.”
“Well----”
“But wait--it isn’t exactly a tow from anchorage.”
“No?”
“No. You see, it’s this way. I’m interested in this bark, and there’s a
desperate sort of captain aboard, and she’s leaking, and I’m afraid that
despite all instructions he’ll try and beat her around the Cape. And he
mayn’t make it. And if he tries it and anything goes wrong--if he has to
get help--say her sails blow off and she leaking-- I’d like to be right
there and pick her up.”
“Why, that’s salvage, and a towboat could claim salvage--if she really
needed help.”
“The towboat could claim? You mean the owners of the towboat could claim
the salvage?”
“Why, of course, the owners.”
“Well, if I charter her I’d be the same as the owner, wouldn’t I?”
“M-m-- I don’t know but what you would.”
“Well, there it is.”
“H’m--where’d you say she was layin’-- Chatham?”
“I didn’t say.”
“No? I thought you did.”
“You think too fast. How much for your boat from now till the job’s
over?”
“Well, two thousand tons--her hull’d be worth a lot in itself. And
mahogany--a two-thousand-ton ship ought to be carryin’ about a couple of
million feet of lumber. And mahogany worth--how much a thousand is
mahogany worth, anyway?”
“I don’t know.”
“No? Well, it’s worth a whole lot, that’s sure. Here’s the _Morning
Commercial News_’ll tell. M-m--here’s pine, rough--spruce,
planed--m-m--oak--m-m--mahogany--whew! Say, mahogany’s away up, isn’t
it? Let me see now. I’ll do that job----”
“Charter me your tug----”
“Yes, charter you the tug for five thousand dollars for the whole job,
and two hundred dollars a day--the two hundred a day in case there’s
nothing doin’, in case that Skipper shouldn’t go clear crazy, you see,
and put out and she leakin’.”
Wiley put on his hat. “You don’t want much, do you? Five thousand
dollars! I’ll give you a thousand for the whole job, or two hundred for
every day you’re under charter if we don’t get her.”
“No, no--a cargo of mahogany. Five thousand or nothing.”
“Don’t be unreasonable. You know I can get plenty for a thousand----”
“Not too many sea-going tugs right now. There’s always good pickin’ for
a big tug in the Bay this time of year. And there’s a risk in your
job.”
“A little. But I can get a tug just as good as yours for a thousand.”
“Can you? Then why don’t you?”
“Well, I will. Good-day.”
Captain Dixey gazed after Wiley going up the dock. “And so he can--for a
thousand--if he don’t tell them too much. But that would be a rich haul,
and I don’t see why I can’t do a little salvage business on my own
account. Why not? She’s anybody’s prize that can get her. Two thousand
tons and a bark--in the lee of the Cape somewhere, and loaded with
mahogany--he said something about Chatham. It oughtn’t be too hard to
find out.”
Within ten minutes Captain Dixey was sending off telegrams like an
Associated Press-man. He got the answer he wanted, and some hours later,
when the man in the fur coat was putting out in another iron sea-going
tug, the _Durlich_, Dixey, in the _Ice King_, was not half a mile behind
him going across the Bay.
II
At about the same hour that the _Durlich_ and the _Ice King_ had
breasted Cape Cod Light, the American fisherman _Buccaneer_, Crump
Taylor master, lay hove-to on the Western Banks. On her deck were the
two men on watch, alternately looking out for the big seas, and hailing
one to the other when a particularly high one threatened to break over
her rail.
Young Arthur Gillis, standing forward, suddenly called out to Sam Leary,
his watchmate, who was aft, “Here’s one coming aboard, Sam, I think.”
Sam turned, brushed the spray from his eyes with a wet woollen mitt, and
had a look. He did not have to look twice. “_Think_ she’s coming!
_Think!_” and leaped for the lee of the mainmast, where he hooked his
fingers to a couple of belaying-pins in the fife-rail. Another squint
then from around the mast. “_Think!_” and with a toe to the fife-rail
and both hands to the halyards of the furled-up mainsail, he began to
climb. “And climb you, too!” Another glance between the mast and
bolt-rope of the sail. “_Think_, do you? Climb’s all I got to say.
Climb, you alabaster idjit, and don’t stop till you’re to the masthead!
She’s a Himalaya mountain.”
Sam was by then strategically astraddle the main gaff, from where in
comfort he could observe Gillis, who was to the lantern-board in the
fore-rigging and still climbing. The sea struck her, and over rolled the
little _Buccaneer_, over, over, till her masts were all but flat out on
the water. Her waist must have been buried under ten feet of water, but
Sam from his perch could manage to keep his head clear of the sea.
He saw that his watch-mate was safe. “Hi, there! are the companion-way
hatches down?”
“I think so.”
“You think so! Some day you’ll think you’re alive, and you’ll wake up
dead. Is she lifting any for’ard? Can you tell from where you are? Will
she come up?”
“I think----”
“Blast you and your thinkin’. Do you ever do anythin’ but think? Don’t
you ever _know_ anything?”
“She _is_ lifting.”
“All right, then. How’d you like to be below now, wonderin’ what’s
happened her?”
“Not me. ’Tain’t so bad up here, is it?”
“‘Twon’t be--if she comes up.”
“Was this one ever hove down before, Sam?”
“Twice.”
“Worse than this were you ever?”
“Once ’twas worse. This same man in her--he’s a dog, is Crump--nothing
jars him. Both mastheads under that time.”
“And come up, did she?”
“And come up, did she?” snorted Sam. “Ain’t she here, and ain’t I here?
Watch out--she’s righting now.”
Up she came--a noble little vessel--slowly at first, but more rapidly as
she began to free herself of the weight of water on her deck. Her final
snap nearly threw Gillis from the rigging. A wild lunge, and he managed
to retain his grip in time to save his life.
Sam had to hide his emotion at his mate’s close call. “Didn’t I tell you
to hang on? Think you was in a swing at a picnic? H’m--there’s the
Skipper bangin’--the hatch is jammed.”
Indications of action were proceeding from the cabin. Calm taps followed
by quick strokes, and they seeming inadequate to proper results, one
final impatient smash with the axe. Out came the dripping head and
shoulders of Crump Taylor.
He surveyed the clean-swept deck. Disgust overcame him. “If that ain’t a
clean job--what? I was hopin’ there’d be somethin’ left, but Lord! not
so much as would make a boy’s size match to light a cigarette with.
Gurry-kids, booby-hatches--not even a stray floatin’ thole-pin left of
the dories.” After which he had time for the watch. “So there you are,
eh? And which of you two guardian angels was it left that hatch open?
Which? Nobody? It opened itself, I s’pose. It’ll get so a man won’t dare
to turn in for a nap ’thout he has a rubber suit on. If we get that
cabin dry in a month we’ll be doin’ well. And as fine a fire in the
stove----”
“Wet the bunks, Skipper?” queried Gillis.
“Wet the bunks, you blithering idjit? Wet, is it?” He regarded Gillis
more curiously, then gave him up; and stepping on deck, followed by the
rest of the cabin gang, mingled in the waist with the crowd from the
forec’s’le.
All hands gazed disconsolately about the deck, but, wise men all,
allowed the Skipper to do the talking. “If this ain’t been the
twistedest, unluckiest trip! Five weeks from home, and what’ve we got to
show? Lost half our gear, and ’most lost four men and two dories. And
now we’ve lost the dories altogether--and every blessed thing that ain’t
bolted to her deck. Blessed if I don’t think when I get home I’ll go
coastering! Yes, sir, coastering. Cripes, but look--even the rails gone
from her! Look, will you, no more than the stanchions left to her.”
“A clean deck, Skipper, makes good sailin’,” put in Sam from the gaff.
“Does it, you--you-- I b’lieve ’twas you, Sam Leary, left that slide
open. A clean deck makes good sailing, do it? Well, try her on sailing,
then. Come off that gaff, you menagerie monkey, and give the gang a
chance to loose that mains’l. That’s what. Slap it to her and put for
home. And _drive_ her. If we can’t do nothing else, we c’n make a good
passage of it.”
And with everything on, away went the deck-swept _Buccaneer_ to the
west’ard.
III
The master of the bark _Henry Fuller_, mahogany-laden and Boston-bound,
and, now to anchor in Chatham Harbor on the Cape Cod shore, stood
conning a telegram.
“In two hours or so now he ought to be outside and waiting for us. ‘Slip
your chains and let her go.’ All right. Only, instead of slipping I’ll
see that they part--in the most natural way in the world--and out we’ll
go proper.”
And out she went, threatening all sorts of destruction, but curiously
missing whatever lay in her road. Thus far all had gone well. But the
best-laid plans----
Instead of a moderate gale, the master of the _Fuller_ found a blizzard
to combat--a northwester, which in winter is always cold. This one was
so cold that in the first sweep of it they almost froze up--in fact,
came so near to freezing that by midnight all hands were spending more
time below than on deck in the effort to keep warm.
“Why in the devil’s name didn’t he warn me of this?--up there in Boston,
where they have all kinds of weather-bureau information. Why in the
devil’s name didn’t he?” complained the master of the _Henry Fuller_.
The _Fuller_, to lend a good color by and by to the story of the
wreckage and rescue, had to have a leak. The leak had been provided for
at the same time that the cables were chiselled. So that was all right.
But the leak meanwhile had begun to grow. Whereas the _Fuller’s_ captain
had counted on two men to work pumps, or four seeming to be working
desperately as the rescuers approached, there were now four men who
really had to toil without cessation to keep the ship dry.
It grew colder. The coldest wind of all that ruffles the North Atlantic
is a northwester, and this was an exceptionally cold northwester. The
bark began to ice up fast, and so many extra men were needed to chop the
ice off her that there were not enough left to take sail off. When out
from the lee of the land they began to feel the real force of the wind,
and so unloosed sails were blown off before they could be set. Then they
hove her to. But a square-rigger doesn’t stay hove-to like a
fore-and-after, and the _Fuller_ went sliding off to leeward; and
sliding too far to leeward off the Cape Cod coast in a northwester means
to drift to Georges Shoals, where in places is no more than twelve feet
of water. The bark _Henry Fuller_ drew twenty-one.
The master of the _Fuller_, far from being as crazy as Wiley, to suit
his purposes, had described him to Dixey, was in reality a long-headed
chap and a good seaman, and here he began to think and act. Calling such
of the crew as were chopping ice off her deck and rail, he put them to
work setting such extra sail as he had below.
A tedious and difficult job that; and dangerous, with big seas
threatening to overpower the logey craft. But it had to be done; and it
was done after a long and wracking night.
Sail on her again, the Skipper tried to beat her around the cape. But as
a square-rigger won’t lay hove-to as snugly as a fore-and-after, neither
will she hold up to the wind like a fore-and-after. A fore-and-after
always for coasting work; a square-rigger for trade-winds and the wide
ocean wherein to navigate.
The _Fuller_ would not do it; nor could her master work her under the
lee of the land. What with the water in her hold, the ice on her hull,
and her insufficiency of sail, she only rolled and drifted in the trough
of the sea. And having left both anchors in the harbor of Chatham, he
could get no grip of bottom to hold her. However, he could do the next
best thing--he could lay her to a drag. So getting several of the
mahogany logs out of her hold, the crew lashed them together, and,
working under protest, mutinous almost in their free discussion of
things, they hoisted the drag up and dropped it over the rail after
great exertion.
It was again night, and still no signs of a rescuing tug. Another
private glance at the telegram revealed nothing new. “We’re altogether
too near the shoals for Wiley,” muttered the captain of the _Fuller_,
“and even if we weren’t, I guess he’s having all he wants to look after
himself in this gale. I wonder is she drifting fast? The lead there,
fellows--give her the lead, and see what’s under us.”
One man had life enough to take a sounding. “Forty-five fathom,” he
called.
“Forty-five! God, but we’re going into it! Cut that drag adrift and
let’s get out of here. Get together, men, and make sail of some kind
till we’re by this place.”
“What place is it just, Captain?”
“It’s Georges North Shoal to looard of us.”
They asked no more, but worked with desperation. Frost-bitten, wet,
hungry, they made sail of it in some fashion. Anywhere for them now but
Georges North Shoal and sure death.
“And once by here, let her go where she will-- I’m done with her,”
announced the tired captain of the _Henry Fuller_.
IV
A schemer of fame was Dixey of the _Ice King_. He stayed by the
_Durlich_ till the gale drove her to harbor, and then to harbor he ran
with her. He proposed to stay by her, too, till further orders. A
proposition to tow a used-up tramp steamer to Portland he waved off
impatiently. He was playing for bigger game.
However, when after forty-eight hours in Provincetown Harbor the
_Durlich_ showed no signs of moving out, Dixey began to squirm. He
instituted inquiries. Between the firemen of the two towboats existed an
amity of feeling that might be turned to profit. So to the hold of the
_Durlich_ a begrimed party with a quart of the right stuff in his
overcoat pocket found his way; and returned after an unconscionably long
visit, somewhat befuddled, but able to report that the gentleman in the
fur coat didn’t calculate to expose his precious life in such weather
again off Cape Cod.
Dixey considered the situation again in this new light. A long
contemplation from all angles, and he went ashore to telephone. He came
back again and drew out his charts. “H’m! She’s left Chatham and she’s
not been reported yet in Boston. She must be out here somewhere. But
where, just?” A further thoughtful whirl of a pair of dividers on the
chart. “He may’ve beat up by the Cape, but I don’t think so. It’s a good
chance he went into the North Shoal, and if he did, of course he’s lost.
But in case he did get by--in case he did--” Dixey whistled down the
tube to his engineer. “Warm her up and we’ll get out of here.”
And so it came to pass that Dixey in time sighted the leaking bark, to
every appearance a sinking bark, with a crew of imploring, frost-bitten
men to her iced-up rail.
The master of the bark told a story of extreme hardship, of just
escaping being lost on the shoals of Georges.
“The North Shoal?”
“Aye, the North Shoal. We all but bumped, we were that handy to it. A
dozen times we thought we were lost. I don’t understand it myself, but
we worked by, and here we are--our hold full of water, everything soaked
in the cabin and forec’s’le, where the seas wet everything down. Nothing
to eat, no fire fore or aft, and we’re most froze up. Put a boat out
and take us off, for God’s sake!”
“Goin’ to abandon her?” Dixey’s voice almost betrayed his anxiety.
“Abandon her? Yes, and get as far away from her as anybody will take us.
Why, man, we’re froze up, and she’s sinking!”
“Don’t you think you could keep some of your men aboard pumpin’ her out
and take a line from me so I can tow you in? This steamer of mine could
walk you home at a six-knot clip, deep as you are. It’d mean a lot of
money to me. What d’y’ say?”
“No, sir. I wouldn’t stay aboard her another hour, let alone the men,
for millions. You haven’t any notion of how things are aboard of her.
Everything wet down below, grub and bedding both, and solid ice, man,
from rail to rail--likely to go down under our feet any minute. And
here’s some of these men half wild with suffering. Take us off, and do
what you please with her afterward. For all I care she’s yours--she’s
anybody’s that’ll take us off.”
“Blest if I don’t try and take them off just the same.” Dixey waved to
his mate to unlash the boat.
The deck-hands of the _Ice King_ seldom had occasion to launch a boat,
and now they made a mess of it. When they should have fended the boat
off, they allowed the sea to bear it in. Against the side of the towboat
it came crashing.
Dixey swore blue oaths from the pilot-house. “What in the name of
Beelzebub you tryin’ to do? Stove in, is she?”
“Yes, sir,” answered the mate.
“Bad?”
“So bad that I wouldn’t want to ask any men to go in her--and the men
don’t want to go, either.”
“That so? A fine lot of able seamen! Well, they’ll have to take a
line--” He hailed the bark. “We can’t help you unless you’ll take a line
and let us tow you.”
“What’s the matter with your other boat?”
“They’d smash that, too, and----”
“Ho, Captain--” it was the voice of one of the bark’s crew--“here’s a
sail bearing down.”
V
The sea-swept _Buccaneer_, bucking the northwester, was putting in great
licks on the southerly tack. Suddenly the forward watch, trying to keep
warm in the lee of a bit of canvas tacked to the weather fore-rigging,
spied an abandoned vessel.
“Wreck O!” his voice rang above the gale. Crump Taylor and half the crew
came piling up to the tumbling deck.
“Where away? Sure enough! Let’s see again. That’s what--a wreck!”
The fast-sailing _Buccaneer_ was soon abreast of her. “Jibe her over and
sail around her--let’s have a closer look,” said Crump, and the man at
the wheel did as bid.
“She’s pretty low, and all iced up. She looks bad, but you never can
tell. What the devil’s that big tug doin’, and not helpin’ her? But no
matter what he’s doin’--drop alongside there--not too close. One roll of
her atop of us and our names’d be in the papers with the fine notices
they give a man when he’s dead. ‘An honor to their profession,’ ‘Too bad
they died,’ and so on--all fine enough, but not healthy. Hi, aboard the
bark--what’s wrong?”
Again was the story told--of the harrowing drift past the edge of the
shoals and their present plight. “Take us off,” it was then--“for God’s
sake, take us off!”
“We got no boat,” said Crump to that. “But wait, there’s that tug,” and
motioning to the wheel, “Jog over to the tug.”
“Those men want to be taken off,” hailed Crump when he was close to the
towboat.
“Well?” said Dixey.
“And you got two boats?”
“Yes, and one already smashed trying to put it over.”
“Well, there’s the other.”
“And smash that, too?”
“Well, I’ll be damned--and a frost-bitten crew alongside--and their
vessel sinkin’ under their feet. How about the busted one towin’
astern?”
“It’s full of water.”
“Well, cast her adrift, and we’ll stand by and pick her up and patch her
up and take the bark’s crew off with her.”
“Lord, you’re the devil and all, ain’t you?”
“Now, _what_ d’y’ think o’ that?” was all the disgusted Crump could
splutter by way of condemnation. He turned to his crew. “All there’s to
it is, we’ll have to get ’em off ourselves.”
“But how’ll we get ’em off, Skipper, without a boat?”
“I know.” Sam Leary bobbed up. “Let ’em run a line from their masthead
to a block in our riggin’ and again a block on deck with a couple of men
standin’ by to haul and slack, and let them come down the incline like’s
if ’twas a breeches buoy.”
“Sam,” said Crump admiringly, “but you’re sure a wizard.”
Crump hailed to the bark and explained. The bark’s crew did their share.
One after the other they came whizzing down to the deck of the
fisherman. Her captain, the last to leave, set fire to the few dry
places below before he went. An excruciating half-hour it was, but at
last the crew of the bark were on the deck of the schooner. “And now go
below,” commanded Crump, “and turn into the dry blankets. In five
minutes the cook’ll have you full of hot coffee.”
Seeing the strangers on the way to comparative comfort, he returned to
active business. Crump was ever a man of action.
“Who’s in for salvage?”
“Me!” said eighteen members.
“And who’ll be the prize crew?”
“Me!” said nineteen, this count including the cook, just then running
aft with more hot coffee. The nineteen, and doubtless Crump also, had
visions of an adventure that might yet net them a good trip.
“And now to get aboard. How’ll we get a man aboard her for a starter?
How about that, Sam? We can’t go up the way they came down, can we? Get
your head to working.”
“Why, swing aboard by our dory taykles. When we roll down and our
mastheads are ’most over her deck, a man can let go and drop off.”
“And suppose a man misses?” Crump put the question like a lecturer in
front of a class.
“He must’nt miss--unless he’s an A1 swimmer. If he----”
“O Skipper, they’re making ready to put over a boat from the tug!”
“The devil--tryin’ to steal our prize! Get a move on, fellows! If
they’re half-way smart they’ll beat us out, and you know marine
law--whoever puts the first man aboard c’n claim salvage rights. We got
to beat ’em, Sam, and that dory-taykle scheme’s not quick enough. How’ll
we do it now?”
“If you’re good and careful I’ll try the main-boom jump. But you got to
be careful--in this sea, Skipper.”
“All right. Sail around her again,” called Crump to the wheelsman. “Now,
fellows, when she’s comin’ afore it let her main sheet run to the knot,
and put the boom taykle to her and be sure to choke it up hard and
tight. This no place for accidents.”
Which they did, and as the _Buccaneer_ came flying down toward the stern
of the bark, Sam Leary ran out on the boom, which was then at right
angles to her rail, leaning against the sail as he ran. At the end of
the boom he gathered himself for the leap. “Steady, Skipper--you know
what it means if I miss.”
“Trust me, Sammie.” Crump held the wheel, and in the touch of his hand
was the full genius of steering. “Trust me, Sammie,” he repeated, while
Sam again gathered himself, and from under the stern of the bark, the
_Buccaneer_ lifting to a sea, he made the jump. It was a lesson in
helpfulness to see, at the psychological moment, the entire crew’s arms
unconsciously raised to waft him on.
Sam’s feet hit the icy rail, and away he went, skating half the length
of her quarter and coming down--bam! on the seat of his oilskins.
“Hurt you, Sammie?” came sympathetic voices from the deck of the
_Buccaneer_.
“Never jarred me,” affirmed Sam, and waved his hand at the discomfited
master of the tugboat.