UNTIL THE DAWN
Walker was about to take her to the saloon, whence an inner staircase
communicated with the principal staterooms, but she knew that the door
leading to the promenade deck had been left unlocked, so she signaled
him to lead her the speediest way. Speak she could not. Although there
was a perceptible improvement in the weather, Elsie found the wind even
harder to combat than when she traversed the deck with Courtenay. This
apparent contradiction arose from the fact that during their early
dealing with the boats the sailors had cut away the greater part of the
canvas shield rigged to protect passengers from adventurous seas.
Nevertheless, all flustered and breathless as she was, she held Walker
back when he would have left her in the shelter of her cabin.
“Do spare me one moment,” she pleaded. “When I have put on dry
clothing, what am I to do? Where am I to go? I will do anything rather
than remain alone.”
Walker jammed himself in the doorway to break the violence of the
unceasing deluge of spray.
“Well, missie,” he said, “I’m examining the engines, Mistaw Tollemache
is fi-wing up the donkey-boiler, an’ Doctaw Chwistobal is with Mistaw
Boyle. You know whe-aw the captain is, so I weckon yo’ best place is
the saloon.”
“Dr. Christobal said you were making a raft?”
“That’s wight. But when the ship got off, we tackled othaw jobs. She is
ow-ah best waft.”
“And—do you think—we have any chance.”
“Nevah say ‘die,’ missie. Owt can happen at sea.”
She made a guess at the meaning of “owt.”
“May I not look after some of the injured men?”
“That you can’t,” was Walker’s prompt assurance. “You’d bettaw stick to
the saloon. I’ll tell the captain yo’ the-aw.”
“Tell him? Are you returning to the bridge?”
“Telephone!” shouted Walker, as an unusually heavy sea caused him to
slam the door unceremoniously. He bolted it, too. Not if he could help
it would his charge come out on that storm-swept deck unattended.
The electric light glowed brightly in Elsie’s cabin, exactly as she had
left it an hour ago. This was one of the anomalous conditions of the
disaster. It lent a queer sense of Midsummer madness to the night’s
doings. In a few days it would be Christmas, the Christmas of sunshine
and flowers known only to that lesser portion of the habitable earth
south of the line. In Valparaiso the weather was stifling, yet here,
not so very far away, it was bitterly cold. And the ship was driving
headlong to destruction, though electric bells and switches were at
command in a luxuriously furnished apartment, while the engineer had
just spoken of the telephone as a means of conversing with the captain.
Away down in her feminine heart the girl wondered why Courtenay himself
had not come to her. Why had he sent Christobal first and Walker
subsequently? Oh, of course he had more urgent matters to attend to,
though, in the helpless condition of the ship, it was difficult to
appreciate their precise degrees of importance.
Anyhow, he had sent word that she was to change her clothes, and he
must be obeyed, as Dr. Christobal said. Then she discovered, as a quite
new and physically disagreeable fact, that her skirts were soaked up to
her knees, while her blouse was almost in the same condition owing to
the quantity of spray which had run down inside her thick ulster.
It was an absurd thing to be afraid of after all she had endured, but
Elsie cried a little when she realized that she had been literally wet
to the skin without knowing it. In truth, she had a momentary dread of
a fainting fit, and it was not until she untied the veil which held her
Tam o’ Shanter in its place that she learnt how the knot had come near
to suffocating her.
The prompt relief thus afforded brought an equally absurd desire to
laugh. She yielded to that somewhat, but busied herself in procuring
fresh clothing and boots. The outcome of the pleasant feeling of warmth
and comfort was such as the girl herself would not have guessed in a
week. The mere grateful touch of the dry garments induced an
extraordinary drowsiness. She felt that she must lie down—just for a
minute. She stretched herself on the bed, closed her eyes, and was
straightway sound asleep. At the captain’s suggestion, Christobal had
given her a strong dose of bromide in the wine!
It was better so. If the ship were dashed to pieces against the rocks
which unquestionably lay ahead, Elsie would be whirled to the life
eternal before she quite knew what was happening. If, on the other
hand, some miracle of the sea enabled the men to construct a seaworthy
raft in time, or the rising tide permitted the _Kansas_ to escape, in
so far as to run ashore again in a comparatively sheltered position,
she would be none the worse for an hour’s sleep. And now that the ship
was afloat, there were things to be done which only men could do. The
saloon, the decks, the forecabin, were places of the dead. Fearing lest
Elsie might pass, Christobal, before attending to Boyle, had thrown
table-cloths over the bodies of men slain in the saloon, for Gray and
Tollemache had sternly but vainly striven to repress the second revolt.
Tollemache and Walker had dragged out of the smothering spray near the
port davits three men who seemed to be merely stunned. These, with the
chief officer, and perhaps four survivers of the explosion, made up the
list of living but non-effective members of the ship’s company. There
was one other, Gulielmo Frascuelo, who was bawling for dear life in his
bunk in the forecastle, but in that dark hour no one chanced to
remember him, and it needed more than a human voice to pit itself
against the hurricane which roared over the vessel. The unhappy wretch
knew that something out of the ordinary had taken place, and he was
scared half out of his wits by the continued absence of the crew.
Luckily for himself, he did not appreciate the real predicament of the
ship, or he would have raved himself into madness.
Walker, in his brief catalogue of occupations, had suppressed one. To
make sure, Christobal closed a water-tight bulkhead door which cut off
the principal staterooms from the saloon. Then he and his two helpers
carried out a painful but necessary task. It was his duty to certify
whether or not life was extinct. There were very few exceptions. The
three men lifted the bodies and threw them overboard. When they reached
the corpses of the second officer and a Spanish engineer who had been
knifed in the defense of the jolly-boat—his comrade had scrambled into
one of the life-boats—Tollemache took possession of such money,
documents, and valuables as were in their pockets, intending to draw up
an inventory when an opportunity presented itself.
Though they knew not the moment when a sickening crash would herald the
final dissolution of the ship, they proceeded with their work
methodically. In half an hour they had reached the end. All the injured
men—seven nondescript sailors and firemen—were carried to the saloon
and placed under Christobal’s care. Walker dived below to the
engine-room, where he had already disconnected the rods broken or bent
by the fracture of a guard ring, which, in its turn, was injured by the
blowing out of a junk-ring, a stout ring of forged steel secured to one
of the pistons. He could do nothing more on deck. Whether he was
destined to live fifty seconds or as many years he was ill content to
hear his beloved engines knocking themselves to pieces with each roll
of the ship.
Tollemache, who undertook the firing of the donkey-boiler, which was
situated on the main deck aft of the saloon—for the _Kansas_ was built
chiefly to accommodate cargo—during his wanderings round the world had
picked up sufficient knowledge of steam-power to shovel fuel into the
furnace and regulate the water-level by the feed valve and pump. The
small engine, more reliable and quite as powerful as a hundred men, was
in perfect order. It abounded in valves and taps, but Walker’s parting
instructions were explicit:
“Keep yo’ eye on the glass, an’ pitch in a shovel of coal evewy ten
minutes: she’ll do the west.”
So the new hand, satisfied that the gage was correct and the furnace
lively, lit his pipe, sat down, and began to jot in a note-book the
contents of his coat-pockets. The Spaniard’s letters he could not read,
though he gathered that one of them was from a wife in Vallodolid, who
would travel overland early in January to meet her husband. But the
Englishman’s correspondence was terribly explicit. A “heart-broken
mother” wrote from Liverpool that “Jack” had been shot during one of
the many cold-weather campaigns on the Indian frontier. “I have no
news, simply a telegram from the War Office. But of what avail to know
how my darling died. My tears are blinding me. You and I alone are
left, and you are thousands of miles away. May the Lord be merciful to
me, a widow, and bring you home to comfort me.” Yet the knife which
killed him must have gone very near that letter.
Tollemache tried to grip his pipe in his teeth. He failed. It fell on
the iron floor.
“Oh, this is rotten!” he growled. “Why couldn’t he have been spared? No
one would have missed me. I don’t suppose Jennie would care tuppence.”
The _Kansas_ rolled heavily. He waited a few seconds for the expected
shock, but she swung back to an even keel. Then he stooped to pick up
his pipe, and his mouth hardened.
“‘Spared!’ by gad!” he said. “What rot!” That roll of the ship was
caused by an experimental twist of the wheel. Courtenay, peering into
the darkness through the open window of the chart-house, saw that the
weather was clearing. He had evolved a theory, and, for want of a
better, he was determined to pursue it to a finish. The _Kansas_ was
being swiftly carried along in a strong and deep tidal current.
Happily, the wind followed the set of the sea, else there would be no
chance of success for his daring plan. His expedient was the desperate
one of keeping the vessel in the line of the current, and, if day broke
before he reached the coast, he would steer for any opening which
presented itself in the fringe of reefs which must assuredly guard the
mainland.
With his hands grasping the taut and, in one sense, irresponsive
mechanism of a steering-wheel governed by steam, a sailor can “feel”
the movement of his ship, a seaworthy vessel being a living thing,
obedient as a docile horse to the least touch of the rein. But, in the
unlikely event of fortune favoring Courtenay to the extent of giving
him an opportunity to see the coming danger, it was essential that the
ship should have a certain radius of action apart from the direction
and force of the ocean stream. The two sails were helpful, and it was
to assure himself of their efficiency that he put the helm to
starboard. The _Kansas_ obeyed with an answering roll to port, showing
clearly that she was traveling a little faster than the inrushing tide
would take her unaided. He brought her head back to nor’east again, and
glanced over his shoulder at the ship’s chronometer. It was a quarter
to one. Two hours must pass before he would discern the first faint
streaks of light. At any rate, if he were spared to greet the dawn, it
would be right ahead, and, as a few seconds might then be of utmost
value, that was a small point in his favor. Yet, two hours! Could he
dare to hope for so long a respite? How could the ship escape the
unnumbered fangs which a storm-torn land thrust far out into the
Pacific for its own protection?
He was quite sheltered from the wind and spray in the chart-house, and,
all at once, he became aware of a burning thirst. There was water in a
decanter close at hand, so he indulged in a long drink. That was
wonderfully vivifying. Then his mind turned longingly to tobacco. For
the first time in his life he broke the strict rule of the service in
which he had been trained—and smoked a cigar while on duty.
Now and again he spoke cheerily to the dog. It would be:
“Well, Joey, here we are; still got a bark in us!” . . . Or, “You and I
must have our names on the Admiralty chart, Joey:—‘Channel surveyed by
Captain Courtenay and pup; details uncertain.’ How does that sound, old
chap?” And again, “I suppose your friend, Miss Maxwell, is asleep by
this time. If she calls you ‘Joey,’ do you call her ‘Elsie’? I rather
fancy Elsie as a name. What do you think?”
To all of which the dog, who had found a dry corner, would respond with
a smile and a tail-wag. What? Joey couldn’t smile! Make a friend of a
fox-terrier and learn what a genuine, whole-hearted,
delighted-to-see-you grin he will favor you with: he can smile as
unmistakably as he can yawn.
If deeper emotions peeped up in Courtenay’s soul, he crushed them
resolutely. Men of the sea do not cultivate heroics. They leave
sentiment to those imaginative people who evolve eery visions of a
storm in the smug comfort of suburban villas. When the _Kansas_ lay on
the shoal Courtenay was certain that the ship was lost, or he would
never have dispatched some of his passengers and crew in the only boat
available. He acted to the best of his judgment then; he was acting
similarly now in abandoning the last resource of a raft in order to
keep the vessel on her present course. But, then or now, he paid no
heed whatever to the obvious fact that he and the second engineer, and
at least one of the male passengers, must be the last to quit the ship.
That was the code of all true sailor-men—the women first, then the male
passengers and crew followed by the officers, beginning at the junior
in rank. There could be room for no hesitancy or dispute—it was just a
sailor-like way of doing one’s duty, in the simple faith that the
recording angel would enter up the log.
The long wait in the darkness would have broken many a man’s nerve, but
Courtenay was not cast in a mold to be either bent or broken by fear.
When his cigar was not in his mouth he whistled, he hummed snatches of
songs, and delivered short lectures to Joey on the absurdity of things
in general, and the special ridiculousness of such a mighty combination
of circumstances centering on one poor ship as had fore-gathered to
crush the _Kansas_. Ever since he was aroused from sleep by the
stopping of the screw, his mind had dwelt on the unprecedented nature
of the break-down. Even before he discovered its cause he was wondering
what evil chance bad contrived to cripple the engine at such a
moment—in the worst possible place on the map.
“Joey!” he said suddenly, his thoughts reverting to a chance remark
made to him in Valparaiso by Isobel’s father, “what did Mr. Baring mean
by saying there was a difficulty about the insurance?”
Joey gave it up, but he cocked his ears and looked towards the door.
Christobal entered.
“Boyle will recover,” he said, when he had wiped the spray off his
face. “He had a narrow escape; the knife just grazed the spinal cord.
The shock to the dorsal nerves induced temporary paralysis, and that
rather misled me. He is much better now. Under ordinary conditions he
would be able to get about in a few days. As it is, he will probably
live as long as any of us.”
Christobal waved a hand towards the external void. He was not sailor
enough to realize the change in the weather.
“That is good news,” said Courtenay.
“I thought you would like to know. How are things up here?”
“Better. The barometer has risen an inch in less than two hours.
Possibly, nearness to the land has some effect, but wind and sea are
subsiding.”
“You surprise me; yet that is nothing. I have had several surprises
to-night. What is the position? Of course, we must hit the South
American continent sooner or later; can you fix an approximate time?”
“We are making about six knots, I fancy. If we are lucky, and avoid any
stray rocks, we should see daylight before we reach the coast. That is
our sole hope. The ship is in a powerful tidal current, and it is
high-water at 5.30 A.M. At a rough estimate, Hanover Island is twenty
knots distant. Now you know all. The outcome is mere guesswork.”
“Why did the furnaces blow up?”
“I was cross-examining Joey on that point when you came in. He reserved
his opinion. My own view is that, by accident or design, some explosive
substance found its way into the coal.”
“Shem, Ham and Japheth! Explosive substance! Do you mean dynamite, or
gunpowder, or that sort of thing?”
“Something of the kind. That is only a supposition, but when I
whispered it to Walker he agreed.”
“Walker! Is he the man who speaks so queerly?”
“If ever you go to Newcastle, don’t put it that way. I told him to take
Miss Maxwell to her cabin. Did he do so?”
“Yes. I have not seen her since, so I assume that the bromide, plus the
wine, was effective. Well, I must return to my patients. Can I get you
anything? I am store-keeper, you know.”
“No, thanks.”
“Nothing to eat, or drink?”
“Nothing. I shall be ready for a square meal when I am able to come
below—not before.”
Christobal smiled. Though he was a brave man, he thought such
persistent optimism was out of place. Nevertheless, he could emulate
Courtenay’s coolness.
“Let me know when you are ready. I am an excellent cook,” he said.
Then the captain of the _Kansas_ resumed his smoking and humming, with
occasional glances at the clock, and the compass, and the barometer. At
two o’clock he felt the ship slipping from under the wheel. The compass
showed that she was heading a couple of points eastward. He helped her,
and telephoned instantly to Walker:
“Go forward and try if you can make out anything. Report to me here.”
“Ay, ay, sir,” came the reply, and anon Walker appeared.
“It’s main thick ahead, sir, but I think we-aw passin’ an island to
port,” said he.
“I thought so. You had better remain here, Walker. We have not long to
wait now for the dawn, and four eyes are better than two.”
Walker imagined that the skipper was ready for a chat.
“Things are in a dweadful mess below, sir. I can’t make head or tail of
the smash.”
“Well, that must wait. Don’t talk. Keep a sharp lookout.”
The engineer could not guess that the captain’s pulse was beating a
trifle more rapidly with a certain elation. They were undoubtedly
passing White Horse Island. It revealed its presence by deflecting the
tremendous sea-river which ferried the _Kansas_ onward at such a rate.
In fifteen or twenty minutes Courtenay expected to find indications of
a more northerly set of the tide, and he watched the compass intently
for the first sign of this return to the former course. If the ship
crossed the current one way or the other she would certainly be driven
ashore on some outlying spur of the island or detached sunken reef.
Hence, he must actually guess his way, with something of the acquired
sense of the blind, because the slight chance of ultimate escape for
the ship and her occupants rested wholly on the assumption that some
ocean by-way was leading her to a deep-water inlet, where it might be
possible to drop the anchor.
In eighteen minutes, or thereabouts, the needle moved slightly.
Courtenay once more assisted the ship with the helm. She steadied
herself, and the compass pointed due northeast again.
Walker, though an engineer, knew enough of navigation to recognize the
apparent impossibility of the captain’s being able to steer with any
real knowledge of his surroundings. The wheel-twisting, therefore,
savored of magic; but his orders were to look ahead, and he obeyed.
Soon he thought he could discern an irregular pink crescent, with the
concave side downwards, somewhere in the blackness beyond the bows. He
rubbed his eyes, and said nothing, believing that the unaccustomed
strain of gazing into the dark had affected his sight. But the pink
crescent brightened and deepened, and speedily it was joined by two
others, equally irregular and somewhat lower. Then he could bear the
suspense no longer.
“Captain, d’ye see yon?” he asked, in a voice tremulous with awe.
“Yes. That is the sun just catching the summits of snow-topped hills.
It not only foretells the dawn, but is a sign of fine weather. There
are no clouds over the land, or we should not see the peaks.”
Walker began to have a respect for the captain which he had hitherto
extended only to the superintending engineer, an eminent personage who
never goes to sea, but inspects the ship when in port, and draws a fat
salary and various commissions.
Ere long a silver gray light began to dispel the gloom. The two silent
watchers first saw it overhead, and the vast dome of day swiftly
widened over the vexed sea. The aftermath of the storm spread a low,
dense cloak of vapor all round. The wind had fallen so greatly that
they could hear the song of the rigging. Soon they could distinguish
the outlines of the heavy rollers near at hand, and Courtenay believed
that the ship, in her passage, encountered in the water several narrow
bands of a bright red color. If this were so, he knew that the
phenomenon was caused by the prawn-like Crustacea which sailors call
“Whale-food,” a sure sign of deep water close to land, and, further, an
indication that the current was still flowing strongly, while the force
of the sea must have been broken many miles to westward.
Suddenly he turned to Walker.
“Do you think you could shin up to the masthead?” he asked.
“I used to be able to climb a bit, sir.”
“Well, try the foremast. Up there I am fairly certain you can see over
this bank of mist. Don’t get into trouble. Come back if you feel you
can’t manage it. If you succeed, take the best observations possible
and report.”
Courtenay was becoming anxious now. If he dared let go the wheel he
would have climbed the mast himself. Walker set about his mission in a
business-like manner. He threw off his thick coat and boots, and went
forward. Half-way up the mast there was a rope ladder for the use of
the sailors when adjusting pulleys.
The rest of the journey was not difficult for an athletic man, and
Walker was quickly an indistinct figure in the fog. He gained the truck
all right, and instantly yelled something. Courtenay fancied he said:
“My God! We-ah on the wocks!”
Whatever it was, Walker did not wait, but slid downward with such speed
that it was fortunate the rigging barred his progress.
And then, even while Courtenay was shouting for some explanation, a
great black wall rose out of the deep on the port bow. It was a
pinnacle rock, high as the ship’s masts, but only a few feet wide at
sea level, and the _Kansas_ sped past this ugly monitor as though it
were a buoy in a well-marked channel.
Courtenay heard the sea breaking against it. The ship could not have
been more than sixty feet distant, a little more than her own beam, and
he fully expected that she would grind against some outlier in the next
instant. But the _Kansas_ had a charmed life. She ran on unscathed, and
seemed to be traveling in smoother water after this escape.
Walker’s dark skin was the color of parchment when he reached the
chart-house.
“Captain,” he said, weakly, “I’ll do owt wi’ engines, but I’m no good
at this game. That thing fairly banged me. Did ye see it?”
“Did _you_ see land?” demanded Courtenay, imperatively. His spirits
rose with each of these thrills. He felt that it was ordained that his
ship should live.
“Yes, sir. The-aw’s hills, and big ones, a long way ahead, but I’m no’
goin’ up that mast again. It would be suicide. I’m done. I’ll nev-ah
fo-get yon stone ghost, no, not if I live to be ninety.”
Then Joey, sniffing the morning, uncurled himself, stretched, yawned
loudly, and thought of breakfast, for he had passed a rather disturbed
night, the second in one week. To cope with such excitement, a dog
needed sustenance.