on deck with his treasured papers, has seen more than the wreck of the
head! He runs to the compass--a look--then casts his eyes aloft.
"Square mainyards!" His voice has the old confident ring: the ring we
know. "Square main yards! ... A hand t' th' wheel!"
Doubting, we hang around the boat. She swings clear, all ready! The
jar of a further blow sets us staggering for foothold! What chance?
... "A hand t' th' wheel, here," roars the Old Man. Martin looks up
... goes back to his post.
A man at the wheel again! No longer the fearful sight of the main post
deserted; no longer the jar and rattle of a handless helm! Martin's
action steadies us. What dread, when the oldest of us all stands there
grasping the spokes, waiting the order? ... We leave the swinging
boat and hurry to the braces!
A 'chance' has come! The power of gales long since blown out is
working a way for us: the ghostly descendants of towering Cape Horn
'greybeards' have come to our aid!
As we struck, sidling on the bows, the swell has swept our stern round
the berg. Now we are head to wind and the big foresail is flat against
the mast, straining sternward!
It is broad day, and we see the 'calf' plainly as we drift under
stern-way apart. The gap widens! A foot--a yard--an oar's-length!
Now the wind stirs the canvas on the main--a clew lifts--the tops'ls
rustle and blow out, drawing finely! Her head still swings!
"Foreyards! Le'go an' haul!" roars the Old Man. We are stern on to
the main ice. Already the swell--recurving from the sheer base--is
hissing and breaking about us. There is little room for sternboard.
"Le'go an' haul!" We roar a heartening chorus as we drag the standing
head yards in.
Slowly she brings up ... gathers way ... moves ahead! The 'calf' is
dead to windward, the loom of the main ice astern and a-lee. The wind
has strengthened: in parts the mist has cleared. Out to the south'ard
a lift shows clear water. We are broad to the swell now, but sailing
free as Martin keeps her off! From under the bows the broken boom
(still tethered to us by stout guy-ropes) thunders and jars as we move
through the water.
"Cut and clear away!" roars Old Jock. "Let her go!"
Aye, let her go! ... We are off ... crippled an' all ... out for open
sea again!
XIX
IN LITTLE 'SCOTLAND'
It was to no purpose that Lloyds' agent pointed out the convenience and
advantage of the inner port: it was as useless for the local pilot to
look grave and recall dire happenings to Captains who had elected to
effect their repairs in the outer harbour--just here, at Port William.
Old Jock's square jaw was set firm, his eyes were narrowed to a crafty
leer; he looked on everyone with unconcealed suspicion and distrust.
He was a shipmaster of the old school, 'looking after his Owners'
interest.' He had put in 'in distress' to effect repairs.... He was
being called upon to spend _money_!
"No, no!" he said to all their reasoning. "My anchor's doon, an' here
I stoap! I've conseedered a' that ye've pit furrit! 'Convenience tae
th' toon, if supplies are needit'? (I'll no' need that mony!) ... 'Nae
distance tae bring th' workin' gang'? (I've a wheen men here mysel'!)
... 'Nae dues tae pay'? (We're jist as cheap here!) ... No, no,
Maister Fordyce! Ye can jist mak' up yeer mind on that! We'll dae a'
th' repairs oot here! I'm no' comin' in!"
"Oh weel! Jist as ye like, Captain! Jist as ye like! ... But--as
th' pilot here 'll tell ye--ye're in a verra bad poseetion if it comes
on tae blow f'ae the south-east! An' south-east 's a hard win', I'm
tellin' ye!"
"Aye, aye! Jist that! ... Weel, if it comes tae blow frae th'
south-east (I'm no much feart o' that at this time o' th' year) we're
in a guid berth tae slip anchor an' run her in tae Port Stanley. It'll
be time enough then! But I'm no' goin' in there if I can help it! ...
If I brocht her in therr"--pointing to the narrows that led to the
inner harbour--"I micht hae tae wait for a fair win' tae bring her oot,
when oor bit damage is sortit.... No, no! We'll dae fine oot here.
Smooth watter! Guid holdin' ground!"
"Oh, the holding ground is all right," said the pilot. "Eight fathom
... mud and stones! Good enough for anything but south or southeast."
"Oh, aye!" continued the Old Man. "We'll dae fine here.... If it
wisna' for that bowsprit bein' steeved up and th' rivets stertit in th'
bows o' her, I widna' be here at a'.... Spars? ... We can mak' a'
th' spars oorsel's; tho' I'm no' sayin' but that I'd be glad o' a spar
or twa--at a moderate cost. A moderate cost, mind ye!"
The agent laughed. "Oh weel, Captain! We're no' exactly Jews doon
here, though they say an Aberdonian (I'm fa'e Aberdeen mysel') is th'
next thing! We can gi'e ye yeer spaurs--at a moderate cost! ... But
I'll tell ye again, Captain, ye'll lose time by stoappin' oot here. A'
this traffiking back an' furrit tae Port Stanley! Bringin' th' workmen
aff in th' mornin', an' takin' them hame at e'en! Ye'll no' get th'
smiths tae stey oan th' ship. It'll be, 'Hey, Jimmy! Whaur's ma lang
drift?' or, 'Jock, did ye bring oot th' big "Monday?"' ... an' then
naethin' 'll dae but they maun be awa' back tae th' Port, tae look for
theer tools in th' bar o' th' Stanley Airms!"
"Oh, aye!" said the Old Man. "I ken them! They'll be as keen for a
dram doon here as onywhere! But we'll attend tae that. As for th'
traffiking, I've a big boat an' a wheen idle lauds therr that'll be
nane the waur o' a lang pull! ... Onyway, I'm no' goin' t' risk bein'
held up for a fair win' when th' time comes ... an' ye may tak' it that
we're no' goin' t' lose time owre th' joab! A wheen smiths, an' mebbe
a carpenter or twa, is a' I want ... an' if we can arrange wi' th'
Captain o' this schooner--ye were speakin' aboot--t' tak' a hunner' or
a hunner' an' fifty ton o' cargo ... for th' time bein'.... No! Jist
twa beams tae be cut an' strappit.... A screw-jack an' a forge or twa!
We can ... straighten them oot in their place! ... Naethin' wrang
below th' sheer strake! ... Jist plain rivettin'...."
Talking of the repairs and their relation to the great god of Economy,
Old Jock led the way to the gangway and watched his visitors depart.
In all he said the Old Man spoke his 'braidest' Scotch. This was
right! We had reached the Falkland Islands in safety, and what more
natural than that he should speak the language of the country? Even
the German saloon-keepers who had boarded us on arrival--to proffer
assistance in our distress--said 'aye' for yes, and 'Ach! Awa' wi'
ye'--a jocular negative! Nor did the resemblance to our 'ain countree'
end there. Port William was typical of a misty Scotch countryside: the
land about us was as bleak and home-like as a muirland in the Stewartry.
A bare hill-side sloping to the sea, with here and there straggling
acres of cultivated land. A few wooden houses nestling in the bends
and gullies, where small streamlets ran. Uplands, bare of trees and
hedge growth, stretching away inland in a smooth coat of waving grass.
Grass, grass, grass--a sheep fank--a patch of stony hill-side--a
solitary hut, with blue smoke curling above--a misty sky-line--lowering
clouds, and the setting sun breaking through in fleeting patches. Port
William! A quiet place for anchorage after our stormy times! No ships
riding with us under the lee of the land! No sign of human life or
movement in the lonely bay! No noise! Quiet! Only the plaintive
cries of sea-birds that circled and wheeled about us, and the distant
_baa-ing_ of sheep on the green hill-side!
* * * * *
'No time was to be lost,' as the Old Man had said. Soon the quiet of
our lonely anchorage was broken by a din of strenuous work. The
sea-birds flew affrighted from the clang of fore-hammers and the roar
of forge fires.
Our damage was all on the bows. The to'gallan'mast, in its fall, had
wrecked the starboard side of the fo'cas'le; the decks were smashed in;
some beams were broken, others were twisted and bent. The hull plating
had not escaped, and a big rent showed where the grinding ice had
forced the stout cat-head from its solid bed. These were minor
affairs--something might have been done to put them right without
coming to port--but the bowsprit! Ah! It was the bowsprit that had
brought us in!
"It's no use talking," the Old Man had said when he and the Mate were
considering the damage. "That bowsprit! ... Spars? ... We could
make th' spars good; ... an' we could do a fair joab wi' th' ironwork!
... But th' bowsprit! ... No, no! We can't sail th' ship unless
we're sure o' th' head-gear! ... No use! No use talking, Mister!
We'll have t' bear up for th' Falklands, and get that put to rights!"
If further cause were needed to justify the serious course of 'putting
in,' they had it when the carpenter reported water in the forepeak; and
it was discovered that the broken jibboom had not hammered at the bows
for nothing. No hesitation then! No talk! The course was set!
Although the Falklands are famed as a refuge for vessels 'in distress,'
there was then no great facilities for repair. It is enough if the
ships stagger into port in time to save the lives of their crews. Port
Stanley had many such sheer hulks lying to rust and decay in the
landlocked harbour. Good ships that had cleared from the Channel in
seaworthiness; crossed the Line with a boastful "_All well!_" to a
homeward-bounder; steered south into the 'roaring forties'--to meet
disaster in fire, or wind, or sea, and falter into the Falklands with
the boats swung out!
There was then no firm of ship repairers on the Islands. The most Mr.
Fordyce could do for us was to find workmen, and a schooner to take
part of our cargo and lighten us sufficiently to get at the leaky
rivets. Old Jock had to set up as a master shipwright and superintend
the repairs himself. And who better? Had he not set Houston's leg as
straight as a Gilmorehill Professor could? He was the man; and there
was no sign of hesitation when he got out his piece of chalk and made
marks (as many and as mysterious as a Clydeside gaffer's) on the
damaged ironwork! Such skilled labour as he could get--'smiths' from
the sheep camps (handy men, who were by turns stonemasons or
woolpackers or ironworkers)--were no great hands at ship-work; but the
Old Man, with his rough, chalked sketches, could make things plain; he
had, too, the great advantage of knowing the Islanders' language and
its proper application to the ordering of 'wis'like' men! What might
have been put elsewhere as, "What th' hell sort of work do you call
this?" he translated to, "Man, man, Jock Steel! Could ye no' pit a
fairer bend oan that knee?" ... Jock (who would have thrown down his
tools, and "on with his jacket" at the first) would perhaps turn red at
the kindlier reproof, mutter "Well, well," and have another try at the
stubborn knee.
It was slow work, for all the din and clatter. Forge fires are
devilish in the hands of an unskilled blower; rivets break and twist
and get chilled when the striking is squint and irregular; iron is
tough and stubborn when leverage is misapplied. There were
difficulties. (Difficulties that wee Jonny Docherty, a Partick rivet
'b'ye,' would have laughed at!) The difficulty of strapping cut beams
to make them span their former length; the difficulty of small rivets
and big holes, of small holes and big rivets ... the sheer despair when
sworn measurements go unaccountably and mysteriously wrong in practice.
All difficulties! Difficulties to be met and overcome!
Every one of us had a turn at the ironwork. There was odd work that we
could do while the 'smiths' were heating and hammering at the more
important sections. We made a feeble show, most of us; but Joe Granger
gained honour in suggesting ways and showing how things were done. It
was the time of Granger's life. He was not even a good sailorman. His
steering was pitiful. Didn't Jones have to show him how the royal
buntlines led? What did Martin say about the way he passed a
head-earring? A poor sailorman! ... Yet here he was: bossing us
around; Able Seamen carrying tools to him; Old Man listening quite
decently to his suggestions--even the hard-case Mate (who knew Granger,
if anyone did) not above passing a word now and then! ... And all
because Granger had worked in the Union Ironworks at 'Frisco. At first
I am sure it was a _holder-on_ he told us he had been, but before our
job had gone far it was a whilom _foreman shipwright_ who told us what
was to be done! ... If Armstrong, the carpenter, had not taken up a
firm stand when it came to putting in the deck, there would have been
hints that we had a former _under-manager_ among us! It was the time
of Joe's life, and the bo'sun could only chuckle and grin and wag his
head in anticipation of 'proper sailor-work' on the mast and spars.
It was good for us brassbounders to lie at Port William, where there
was little but the work in progress to interest us. In the half-deck
we were full of ship repairs. Little else was talked about when we
were below. Each of us carried a small piece of chalk, all ready to
make rough drawings to explain our ideas. We chalked on the walls, the
table, the deck, the sea-chests, lines and cross-lines, and bends and
knees--no matter what, so long as there were plenty of round "O's" to
show where the rivets were to go. We explained to one another the
mysteries of ship construction, talked loftily of breasthooks and sheer
strakes, and stringers and scantlings ... and were as wise after the
telling! That was while the ironwork repairs were in progress. In a
week or more we were spar-makers. Jock Steel and his mates put down
their drifts and hammers, and took up adzes and jack-planes. We were
getting on! We had no time for anyone who drew sketches of riveting.
It was 'striking cambers' and 'fairing' and 'tapering' now, and Joe
Granger got a cool reception when he came along to the half-deck after
work was over for the day. Poor Joe had fallen from his high place!
With the bowsprit hove down and securely strapped and riveted, and the
last caulking blow dealt at the leaky doubling, his services became of
small account. No one in the fo'cas'le would listen any longer to his
tales of structural efficiency. There was no spar-making in the Union
Ironworks at 'Frisco. Joe had to shut up, and let Martin and the
bo'sun instruct the ship's company in the art of masting and
rigging--illustrated by match-sticks and pipe-stems!
There were pleasant intervals to our work on board--days when we rowed
the big boat through the Narrows to Port Stanley and idled about the
'town,' while the Old Man and Mr. Fordyce were transacting business
(under good conditions) in the bar-parlour of the Stanley Arms. We
made many friends on these excursions. The Falklanders have warm
hearts, and down there the Doric is the famous passport. We were
welcome everywhere, though Munro and I had to do most of the talking.
It was something for the Islanders to learn how the northern Scottish
crops had fared (eighteen months ago), or 'whatna'' catch of herrings
fell to the Loch Fyne boats (last season but one).
There was no great commercial activity in the 'town.' The '_Great
Britian_' hulk, storehouse for the wool, was light and high in the
water. The sawmill hulks were idle for want of lumber to be dressed.
It was the slack time, they told us; the slack time before the rush of
the wool-shearing. In a week, or a month at the most, the sheep would
be ready for the shears. Then--ah, then!--Wully Ramsey (who had a head
for figures) would be brought forward, and, while his wind held out,
would hurl figures and figures at us, all proving that 'Little
Scotland,' for its size, was a 'ferr wunner' at wool production.
The work of the moment was mostly at breaking up the wreck of the
_Glenisla_, a fine four-masted barque that had come in 'with the flames
as high as th' foreyard,' and had been abandoned as a total wreck. Her
burnt-out shell lay beached in the harbour, and the plates were being
drifted out, piece by piece, to make sheep tanks and bridge work. It
was here that the Old Man--'at a moderate cost, mind ye'--picked up a
shell-plate and knees and boom irons to make good our wants. A spar,
too (charred, but sound), that we tested by all the canons of
carpentry--tasting, smelling, twanging a steel at one end and listening
for the true, sound note at the other. It was ours, after hard
bargaining, and Mason, the foreman wrecker, looked ill-pleased with his
price when we rolled the timber down to tide mark, launched, and towed
it away.
Pleasant times! But with the setting up of the new boom the Old Man
was anxious to get under weigh. The to'gallant mast could wait till
the fine weather of the 'trades.' We were sound and seaworthy again!
Outside the winds were fair and southerly. We had no excuse to lie
swinging at single anchor. Jock Steel and his mates got their
blessing, our 'lawin'' was paid and acquitted, and on a clear November
morning we shook out the topsails and left Port William to the circling
sea-birds.
XX
UNDER THE FLAG
A black, threatening sky, with heavy banks of indigo-tinted clouds
massed about the sea-line. A sickly, greenish light high up in the
zenith. Elsewhere the gloom of warring elements broken only by flashes
of sheet lightning, vivid but noiseless. The sea, rolling up from the
sou'-west in a long glassy swell, was ruffled here and there by the
checks of a fitful breeze. It needed not a deadly low barometer to
tell us of a coming storm; we saw it in the tiers of hard-edged
fearsome clouds, breaking up and re-forming, bank upon bank, in endless
figurations. Some opposing force was keeping the wind in check; there
was conflict up there, for, though masses of detached cloud were
breaking away and racing o'er the zenith, we held but a fitful gusty
breeze, and our barque, under low sail, was lurching uneasily for want
of a steadying wind.
It was a morning of ill-omen, and the darkling sky but reflected the
gloom of our faces; our thoughts were in keeping with the day, for we
had lost a shipmate, one among us was gone, Old Martin was dead.
He died sometime in the middle watch, no one knew when. He was awake
when the watch came below at midnight, for Welsh John had given him
matches for his pipe before turning in. That was the last, for when
they were called at four, Martin was cold and quiet. There was no
trouble on his face, no sign of pain or suffering. Belike the old man
had put his pipe aside, and finding no shipmate awake to 'pass the
word,' had gently claimed his Pilot.
There was no great show of grief when it was known. Perhaps a bit
catch in the voice when speaking of it, an unusual gentleness in our
manner towards one another, but no resemblance of mourning, no shadow
of woe. His was no young life untimely ended, there was no accident to
be discussed, no blame to be apportioned. It was just that old lamp
had flickered out at last. Ours was a sense of loss, we had lost a
shipmate. There would be another empty bunk in the fo'cas'le, a hand
less at the halyards, a name passed over at muster; we would miss the
voice of experience that carried so much weight in our affairs--an
influence was gone.
At daybreak we stood around to have a last look at the strong old face
we had known so long. The sailmaker was sewing him up in the clew of
an old topsail, a sailorly shroud that Martin would have chosen. The
office was done gently and soberly, as a shipmate has a right to
expect. A few pieces of old chain were put in to weight him down, all
ship-shape and sailor-fashion, and when it was done we laid him out on
the main hatch with the Flag he had served cast over him.
"There goes a good sailorman," said one of the crowd; "'e knowed 'is
work," said another.
"A good sailorman--'e knowed 'is work!" That was Martin's
epitaph--more, he would not want.
His was no long illness. A chill had settled into bronchitis. Martin
had ever a fine disregard for weatherly precautions; he had to live up
to the name of a 'hard case.' Fits of coughing and a high temperature
came on him, and he was ordered below. At first he was taken aft to a
spare room, but the unaccustomed luxury of the cabin so told on him
that when he begged to be put in the fo'cas'le again, the Old Man let
him go. There he seemed to get better. He had his shipmates to talk
to; he was even in a position to rebuke the voice of youth and
inexperience when occasion required, though with but a shadow of his
former vehemence. Though he knew it would hurt him, he would smoke his
pipe; it seemed to afford him a measure of relief. The Old Man did
what he could for him, and spent more time in the fo'cas'le than most
masters would have done. Not much could be done, for a ship is
ill-fitted for an ailing man. At times there were relapses; times when
his breathing would become laboured. Sometimes he became delirious and
raved of old ships, and storms, and sails, then he would recover, and
even seemed to get better. Then came the end. The tough old frame
could no longer stand the strain, and he passed off quietly in the
silence of middle night.
He was an old man, none knew how old. The kindly clerks in the
shipping office had copied from one discharge note to the other when
'signing him on,' and he stood at fifty-eight on our articles; at
sixty, he would never have got a 'sight.' He talked of old ships long
since vanished from the face of the waters; if he had served on these
he must have been over seventy years. Sometimes, but only to favoured
shipmates, he would tell of his service aboard a Yankee cruiser when
Fort Sumter fell, but he took greater pride in having been bo'sun of
the famous _Sovereign of the Seas_.
"Three hundred an' seventy miles," he would say; "that wos 'er day's
travellin'! That's wot Ah calls sailin' a ship. None o' yer damn
'clew up an' clew down,' but give 'er th' ruddy canvas an'--let 'er go,
boys!"
He was of the old type, bred in a hard sea-school. One of his boasts
was that he had sailed for five years in packet ships, 'an' never saw
th' pay table.' He would 'sign on' at Liverpool, giving his
boarding-master a month's advance note for quittance. At New York he
would desert, and after a bout ashore would sail for Liverpool in a new
ship. There was a reason for this seeming foolish way of doing.
"None o' yer slavin' at harbour jobs an' cargo work; not fer me, me
sons! Ah wos a sailorman an' did only sailorin' jobs. Them wos th'
days w'en sailormen wos men, an' no ruddy cargo-wrastlin', coal-diggin'
scallywags, wot they be now!"
A great upholder of the rights of the fo'cas'le, he looked on the Mates
as his natural enemies, and though he did his work, and did it well, he
never let pass an opportunity of trying a Mate's temper by outspoken
criticism of the Officers' way of handling ship or sail. Apprentices
he bore with, though he was always suspicious of a cabin influence.
That was Martin, our gallantly truculent, overbearing Old Martin; and,
as we looked on the motionless figure outlined by folds of the Flag, we
thought with regret of the time we took a pleasure in rousing him to a
burst of sailorly invective. Whistling about the decks, or flying past
him in the rigging with a great shaking of the shrouds when the 'crowd'
was laying aloft to hand sail. "Come on, old 'has-been'!" Jones once
shouted to him as he clambered over the futtock shrouds. Martin was
furious.
"Has-been," he shouted in reply. "Aye, mebbe a 'has-been,' but w'en ye
comes to my time o' life, young cock, ye can call yerself a
'never-bloody-wos'!"
Well! His watch was up, and when the black, ragged clouds broke away
from the sou'-west and roused the sea against us, we would be one less
to face it, and he would have rest till the great call of 'all hands';
rest below the heaving water that had borne him so long.
* * * * *
Surely there is nothing more solemn than a burial at sea. Ashore there
are familiar landmarks, the nearness of the haunts of men, the
neighbourly headstones, the great company of the dead, to take from the
loneliness of the grave. Here was nothing but a heaving ship on the
immensity of mid-ocean, an open gangway, a figure shrouded in folds of
a Flag, and a small knot of bare-headed men, bent and swaying to meet
the lurches of the vessel, grouped about the simple bier. The wind had
increased and there was an ominous harping among the backstays. The
ship was heaving unsteadily, and it was with difficulty we could keep a
balance on the wet, sloping deck. Overhead the sky was black with the
wrack of hurrying clouds, and the sullen grey water around us was
already white-topped by the bite of freshening wind.