THE SECOND GALE.
In thirty-six hours the gale had fined off, and the scattered and
shattered vessels of the fleet began to draw together; a sullen swell
still lunged over the banks, but there was little wind and no danger.
Fullerton said, "Now, Ferrier, we have an extra medicine-chest on board,
besides Blair's stock, and you've seen the surgery. You'll have plenty
of work presently. After a gale like this there are always scores of
accidents that can't be treated by rough-and-tumble methods. A skipper
may manage simple things; we need educated skill. The men are beginning
to know Blair's boat, and I wish we had just twelve like her. You see
we've got at a good many of the men with our ordinary vessels, and that
has worked marvels, but all we've done is only a drop in the sea. We
want you fellows, and plenty of you. Hullo! What cheer, my lads! what
cheer!"
A smack lumbered past with her mainsail gone, and her gear in a sadly
tangled condition.
"Can you send us help, sir? We'm got a chap cruel bad hurt."
"We've got a doctor on board; he shall come."
All round, the rolling sea was speckled with tiny boats that careered
from hill to hollow, and hollow to hill, while the two cool rowers
snatched the water with sharp dexterous strokes. After the wild ordeal
of the past two days these fishers quietly turned to and began ferrying
the fish taken in the last haul. While the boat was being got ready,
Ferrier gave Mrs. Walton and Miss Dearsley an arm each, and did his best
to convey them along the rearing deck. The girl said--
"Is that the steam-carrier I have heard of? How fearful! It makes me
want to shut my eyes."
To Marion Dearsley's unaccustomed sight the lurching of the carrier was
indeed awful, and she might well wonder, as I once did, how any boat
ever got away safely. I have often told the public about that frantic
scene alongside the steamers, but words are only a poor medium, for not
Hugo, nor even Clark Russell, the matchless, could give a fair idea of
that daily survival of danger, and recklessness, and almost insane
audacity. The skipper was used to put in his word pretty freely on all
occasions, for Blair's men were not drilled in the style of ordinary
yachtsmen. Freeman, like all of the schooner's crew, had been a
fisherman, and he grinned with pleasing humour when he heard the young
lady's innocent questions.
"Bless you, Miss, that's nothing. See 'em go in winter when you can't
see the top of the steamboat's mast as she gets behind a sea. Many and
many's the one I've seen go. They're used to it, but I once seen a
genelman faint--he was weak, poor fellow--and we took aboard a dose of
water that left us half-full. He would come at any risk, and when we
histed him up on the cutter's deck, and he comes to, he shudders and he
says, 'That is too horrible. Am I a-dreaming?' But it's all use, Miss.
Even when some poor fellows is drowned, the men do all they can; and if
they fail, they forget next day."
"Could you edge us towards the cutter, skipper?" said Fullerton.
"Oh, yes. Bear up for the carrier, Bill; mind this fellow coming down."
The beautiful yacht was soon well under the steamer's lee, and the
ladies watched with dazed curiosity the work of the tattered, filthy,
greasy mob who bounded, and strained, and performed their prodigies of
skill on the thofts and gunwales of the little boats. Life and limb
seemed to be not worth caring for; men fairly hurled themselves from the
steamer into the boats, quite careless as to whether they landed on
hands or feet, or anyhow. Fullerton exclaimed--
"Just to think that of all those splendid, plucky smacksmen, we haven't
got one yet! I've been using the glass, and can't see a face that I
know. How can we? We haven't funds, and we cannot send vessels out."
Miss Dearsley's education was being rapidly completed. Her strong, quick
intelligence was catching the significance of everything she saw. The
smack with the lost mainsail was drawing near, and the doctor was ready
to go, when a boat with four men came within safe distance of the
schooner's side.
"Can you give us any assistance, sir? Our mate's badly wounded--seems to
a' lost his senses like, and don't understand."
A deadly pale man was stretched limply on the top of a pile of
fish-boxes. Mrs. Walton said--
"Pray take us away--we cannot bear the sight."
And indeed Marion Dearsley was as pale as the poor blood-smeared
fisherman. Ferrier coolly waited and helped Tom and Fullerton to hoist
the senseless, mangled mortal on deck. The crew did all they could to
keep the boat steady, but after every care the miserable sufferer fell
at last with a sudden jerk across the schooner's rail. He was too weak
to moan.
"Don't take him below yet," said Ferrier. "Lennard, you help me. Why,
you've let his cap get stuck to his head, my man. Warm water, steward".
The man was really suffering only from extreme loss of blood; a falling
block had hit him, and a ghastly flap was torn away from his scalp. That
steady, deft Scotchman worked away, in spite of the awkward roll of the
vessel, like lightning. He cut away the clotted hair, cleansed the
wound; then he said sharply--
"How did you come to let your shipmate lose so much blood?"
"Why, sir, we hadn't not so much as a pocket-handkerchief aboard. We
tried a big handful of salt, but that made him holler awful before he
lost his senses, and the wessel was makin' such heavy weather of it, we
couldn't spare a man to hould him when he was rollin' on the cabin
floor."
"Yes, sir; Lord, save us!" said another battered, begrimed fellow. "If
he'd a-rolled agen the stove we couldn't done nothin'. We was hard put
to it to save the wessel and ourselves."
"I see now. Steward, my case. This must be sewn up."
Ferrier had hardly drawn three stitches through, when one of the seamen
fainted away, and this complication, added to the inexorable roll of the
yacht, made Ferrier's task a hard one; but the indomitable Scot was on
his mettle. He finished his work, and then said--
"Now, my lads, you cannot take your mate on board again. I'm going to
give him my own berth, and he'll stay here."
"How are we to get him again, sir?"
"That I don't know. I only know that he'll die if he has to be flung
about any more."
"Well, sir, you fare to be a clever man, and you're a good 'un. We're
not three very good 'uns, me and these chaps isn't, but if you haves a
meetin' Sunday we're goin' to be here."
Then came the usual handshaking, and the two gentlemen's palms were
remarkably unctuous before the visitors departed.
"Look here, Lennard, if I'd had slings something like those used in the
troopships for horses, I should have got that poor fellow up as easily
as if he'd been a kitten. And now, how on earth are we to lower him down
that narrow companion? We must leave it to Freeman and the men. Neither
of us can keep a footing. What a pity we haven't a wide hatchway with
slings! That twisting down the curved steps means years off the poor
soul's life."
The gentle sailors did their best, but the patient suffered badly, and
Ferrier found it hard to force beef-tea between the poor fellow's
clenched teeth.
Lucky Tom Betts! Had he been sent back to the smack he would have died
like a dog; as it was, he was tucked into a berth between snowy sheets,
and Tom Lennard kept watch over him while Ferrier went off to board the
disabled smack. All the ladies were able to meet in the saloon now, and
even the two invalids eagerly asked at short intervals after the
patient's health. Lucky Tom Betts!
Marion Dearsley begged that she might see him, and Tom gave gracious
permission when he thought his charge was asleep. Miss Dearsley was
leaning beside the cot. "Like to an angel bending o'er the dying who die
in righteousness, she stood," when she and Lennard met with a sudden
surprise. The wounded man opened his great dark eyes that showed like
deep shadows on the dead white of his skin; he saw that clear, exquisite
face with all the divine fulness of womanly tenderness shining sweetly
from the kind eyes, and he smiled--a very beautiful smile. He could
speak very low, and the awe-stricken girl murmured--
"Oh, hear him, Mr. Lennard, hear him!"
The man spoke in a slow monotone.
"Its all right, and I'm there arter all. I've swoor, and Ive drunk, and
yet arter all I'm forgiven. That's because I prayed at the very last
minute, an' He heerd me. The angel hasn't got no wings like what they
talked about, but that don't matter; I'm here, and safe, and I'll meet
the old woman when her time comes, and no error; but it ain't no thanks
to _me_."
Then the remarkable theologian drew a heavy sigh of gladness, and passed
into torpor again. Tom Lennard, in a stage whisper which was calculated
to soothe a sick man much as the firing of cannon might, said--
"Well, of all the what's-his-names, that beats every book that ever
was."
Tears were standing in the lady's sweet eyes, and there was something
hypocritical in the startling cough whereby Thomas endeavoured to pose
as a hard and seasoned old medical character.
Meanwhile Ferrier was slung on board the smack which hailed first, and
his education was continued with a vengeance.
"Down there, sir!"
Lewis got half way down when a rank waft of acrid and mephitic air met
him and half-choked him. He struggled on, and when he found his bearings
by the dim and misty light he sat down on a locker and gasped. The
atmosphere was heated to a cruel and almost dangerous pitch, and the
odour!--oh, Zola! if I dared! A groan from a darkened corner sounded
hollow, and Ferrier saw his new patient. The skipper came down and
said--
"There he is, sir. When our topmast broke away it ketches him right in
the leg, and we could do nothin'. He has suffered some, he has, sir, and
that's true."
Ferrier soon completed his examination, and he said--
"It's a mercy I'm well provided. This poor soul must have a constitution
like a horse."
An ugly fracture had been grinding for forty-eight hours, and not a
thing could be done for the wretched fellow. Quickly and surely Ferrier
set and strapped up the limb; then disposing the patient as comfortably
as possible in an unspeakably foul and sloppy berth, he said--
"Let that boy stand by this man, and take care that he's not thrown from
side to side. I must breathe the air, or I shall drop down." When on
deck he said, "Now, my man, what would you have done if you hadn't met
us?"
"Pitched him on board the carrier, sir."
"With an unset fracture!"
"Well, sir, what could we do? None on us knows nothin' about things of
that sort, and there isn't enough of Mr. Fullerton's wessels for
one-half of our men. I twigged a sight on him as we run up to you, and I
could a-gone on these knees, though I'm not to say one o' the prayin'
kind."
"But how long would the carrier be in running home?"
"Forty-eight hours; p'raps fifty-six with a foul wind."
"Well, that man will have a stiff leg for life as it is, and he would
have died if you hadn't come across me."
"Likely so, sir, but we don't have doctors here. Which o' them would
stop for one winter month? Mr. Doctor can't have no carriage here; he
can't have no pavement under his foot when he goes for to pay his calls
and draw his brass. He'd have to be chucked about like a trunk o' fish,
and soft-skinned gents don't hold with that. No, sir. We takes our
chance. A accident is a accident; if you cops it, you cops it, and you
must take your chance on the carrier at sea, and the workus at home.
Look at them wessels. There's six hundred hands round us, and every man
of 'em would pay a penny a week towards a doctor if the governors would
do a bit as well. I'm no scholard, but six hundred pennies, and six
hundred more to that, might pay a man middlin' fair. But where's your
man?"
Ferrier's education was being perfected with admirable speed.
The yacht came lunging down over the swell, and Freeman shaved the smack
as closely as he dared. The skipper hailed: "Are you all right, sir? We
must have you back. The admiral says we're in for another bad time.
Glass falling."
Fender sang out, "I cannot leave my man. You must stand by me somehow or
other and take me off when you can."
The ladies waved their farewells, for people soon grow familiar and
unconventional at sea. Blair shouted, "Lennard's a born hospital nurse,
but he'll overfeed your patient." Then amid falling shades and hollow
moaning of winds the yacht drove slowly away with her foresail still
aweather, and the fleet hung around awaiting the admiral's final
decision. The night dropped down; the moon had no power over the rack of
dark clouds, and the wind rose, calling now and again like the Banshee.
A very drastic branch of Lewis Ferrier's education was about to begin.
Dear ladies! Kindly men! You know what the softly-lit, luxurious
sick-room is like. The couch is delicious for languorous limbs, the
temperature is daintily adjusted, the nurse is deft and silent, and
there is no sound to jar on weak nerves. But try to imagine the state
of things in the sick-room where Ferrier watched when the second gale
came away. The smack had no mainsail to steady her, but the best was
done by heaving her to under foresail and mizen. She pitched cruelly and
rolled until she must have shown her keel. The men kept the water under
with the pumps, and the sharp jerk, jerk of the rickety handles rang all
night.
"She do drink some," said the skipper.
Ferrier said, "Yes, she smells like it."
Down in that nauseating cabin the young man sat, holding his patient
with strong, kind hands. The vessel flung herself about, sometimes
combining the motions of pitching and rolling with the utmost virulence;
the bilge water went slosh, slosh, and the hot, choking odours came
forth on the night. Coffee, fish, cheese, foul clothing, vermin of
miscellaneous sorts, paraffin oil, sulphurous coke, steaming leather,
engine oil--all combined their various scents into one marvellous
compound which struck the senses like a blow that stunned almost every
faculty. Oh, ladies, have pity on the hardly entreated! Once or twice
Ferrier was obliged to go on deck from the fetid kennel, and he left a
man to watch the sufferer. The shrill wind seemed sweet to the taste and
scent, the savage howl of tearing squalls was better than the creak of
dirty timbers and the noise of clashing fish-boxes; but the young man
always returned to his post and tried his best to cheer the maimed
sailor.
"Does the rolling hurt you badly, my man?"
"Oh! you're over kind to moither yourself about me, sir. She du give me
a twist now and then, but, Lord's sake, what was it like before you
come! I doan't fare to know about heaven, but I should say, speakin' in
my way, this is like heaven, if I remember yesterday."
"Have you ever been hurt before?"
"Little things, sir--crushed fingers, sprained foot, bruises when you
tumbles, say runnin' round with the trawl warp. But we doan't a-seem to
care for them so much. We're bred to patience, you see; and you're
bound to act up to your breedin'. That is it, sir; bred to patience."
"And has no doctor been out here yet?"
"What could he du? He can't fare to feel like us. When it comes a breeze
he wants a doctor hisself, and how would that suit?"
"Have you eaten anything?"
"Well, no, sir. I was in that pain, sir, and I didn't want to moither my
shipmets no more'n you, so I closes my teeth. It's the breed, sir--bred
to patience."
"Well, the skipper must find us something now, at any rate."
There was some cabbage growing rather yellow and stale, some rocky
biscuit, some vile coffee, some salt butter, and one delicious fish
called a "latchet." With a boldness worthy of the Victoria Cross, Lewis
set himself to broil that fish over the sulphurous fire. He cannot, of
course, compute the number of falls which he had; he only knows that he
imbued his very being with molten butter and fishy flavours. But he
contrived to make a kind of passable mess (of the fish as well as of his
clothing), and he fed his man with his own strong hand. He then gave him
a mouthful or two of sherry and water, and the simple fellow said--
"God bless you, sir! I can just close my eyes."
Reader, Lewis Ferrier's education is improving.