SANS RANCUNE
A large French fishing-lugger was drifting northward on the ebb tide with
its sails flapping idly against the spars. It had been a fine morning,
and the Captain, a man from Fécamp, where every boy that is born is born
a sailor, had been fortunate in working his way in clear weather across
the banks that lie northward of the Thames.
He had predicted all along in a voice rendered husky by much shouting in
dirty weather that the fog-banks would be drifting in from the sea before
nightfall. And now he had that mournful satisfaction which is the special
privilege of the pessimistic. These fog-banks, the pest of the east
coast, are the materials that form the light fleecy clouds which drift
westward in sunny weather like a gauze veil across the face of the sky.
They roll across the North Sea from their home in the marshes of Holland
on the face of the waters, and the mariner, groping his way with dripping
eyelashes and a rosy face through them, can look up and see the blue sky
through the rifts overhead. When the fog-bank touches land it rises,
slowly lifted by the warm breath of the field. On the coast-line it lies
low; a mile inland it begins to break into rifts, so that any one working
his way down one of the tidal rivers, sails in the counting of twenty
seconds from sunshine into a pearly shadow. Five miles inland there is a
transparent veil across the blue sky slowly sweeping toward the west, and
rising all the while, until those who dwell on the higher lands of Essex
and Suffolk perceive nothing but a few fleecy clouds high in the heavens.
The lugger was hardly moving, for the tide had only turned half an hour
ago.
"Provided," the Captain had muttered within the folds of his woollen
scarf rolled round and round his neck until it looked like a dusky
life-belt--"provided that they are ringing their bell on the Shipwash, we
shall find our way into the open. Always sea-sick, this traveller, always
sea-sick!"
And he turned with a kindly laugh to Loo Barebone, who was lying on a
heap of old sails by the stern rail, concealing as well as he could the
pangs of a consuming hunger.
"One sees that you will never be a sailor," added the man from Fécamp,
with that rough humour which sailors use.
"Perhaps I do not want to be one," replied Barebone, with a ready gaiety
which had already made him several friends on this tarry vessel, although
the voyage had lasted but four days.
"Listen," interrupted the Captain, holding up a mittened hand. "Listen! I
hear a bell, or else it is my conscience."
Barebone had heard it for some time. It was the bell-buoy at the mouth of
Harwich River. But he did not deem it necessary for one who was a
prisoner on board, and no sailor, to interfere in the navigation of a
vessel now making its way to the Faröe fisheries for the twentieth time.
"My conscience," he observed, "rings louder than that."
The Captain took a turn round the tiller with a rope made fast to the
rail for the purpose, and went to the side of the ship, lifting his nose
toward the west.
"It is the land," he said. "I can smell it. But it is only the Blessed
Virgin who knows where we are."
He turned and gave a gruff order to a man half hidden in the mist in the
waist of the boat to try a heave of the lead.
The sound of the bell could be heard clearly enough now--the uncertain,
hesitating clang of a bell-buoy rocked in the tideway--with its
melancholy note of warning. Indeed, there are few sounds on sea or land
more fraught with lonesomeness and fear. Behind it and beyond it a faint
"tap-tap" was now audible. Barebone knew it to be the sound of a
caulker's hammer in the Government repairing yard on the south side. They
were drifting past the mouth of the Harwich River.
The leadsman called out a depth which Loo could have told without the
help of line or lead. For he had served a long apprenticeship on these
coasts under a captain second to none in the North Sea.
He turned a little on his bed of sails under repair, at which the Captain
had been plying his needle while the weather remained clear, and glanced
over his shoulder toward the ship's dinghy towing astern. The rope that
held it was made fast round the rail a few feet away from him. The boat
itself was clumsy, shaped like a walnut, of a preposterous strength and
weight. It was fitted with a short, stiff mast and a balance lug-sail. It
floated more lightly on the water than the bigger vessel, which was laden
with coal and provender and salt for the North Atlantic fishery, and the
painter hung loose, while the dinghy, tide-borne, sidled up to stern of
its big companion like a kitten following its mother with the uncertain
steps of infancy.
The face of the water was glassy and of a yellow green. Although the scud
swept in toward the land at a fair speed, there was not enough wind to
fill the sails. Moreover, the bounty of Holland seemed inexhaustible.
There was more to come. This fog-bank lay on the water halfway across the
North Sea, and the brief winter sun having failed to disperse it, was now
sinking to the west, cold and pale.
"The water seems shallow," said Barebone to the Captain. "What would you
do if the ship went aground?"
"We should stay there, _mon bon monsieur_, until some one came to help us
at the flood tide. We should shout until they heard us."
"You might fire a gun," suggested Barebone.
"We have no gun on board, mon bon monsieur," replied the Captain, who had
long ago explained to his prisoner that there was no ill-feeling.
"It is the fortune of war," he had explained before the white cliffs of
St. Valérie had faded from sight. "I am a poor man who cannot afford to
refuse a good offer. It is a Government job, as you no doubt know without
my telling you. You would seem to have incurred the displeasure or the
distrust of some one high placed in the Government. 'Treat him well,'
they said to me. 'Give him your best, and see that he comes to no harm
unless he tries to escape. And be careful that he does not return to
France before the mackerel fishing begins.' And when we do return to
Fécamp, I have to lie to off Notre Dame de la Garde and signal to the
Douane that I have you safe. They want you out of the way. You are a
dangerous man, it seems. _Salut_!"
And the Captain raised his glass to one so distinguished by Government.
He laughed as he set his glass down on the little cabin table.
"No ill-feeling on either side," he added. "_C'est entendu_."
He made a half-movement as if to shake hands across the table and thought
better of it, remembering, perhaps, that his own palm was not innocent of
blood-money. For the rest they had been friendly enough on the voyage.
And had the "Petite Jeanne" been in danger, it is probable that Barebone
would have warned his jailer, if only in obedience to a seaman's instinct
against throwing away a good ship.
He had noted every detail, however, of the dinghy while he lay on the
deck of the "Petite Jeanne"; how the runner fitted to the mast; whether
the halliards were likely to run sweetly through the sheaves or were
knotted and would jamb. He knew the weight of the gaff and the great
tan-soddened sail to a nicety. Some dark night, he had thought, on the
Dogger, he would slip overboard and take his chance. He had never looked
for thick weather at this time of year off the Banks, so near home,
within a few hours' sail of the mouth of Farlingford River.
If a breeze would only come up from the south-east, as it almost always
does in these waters toward the evening of a still, fine day! Without
lifting his head he scanned the weather, noting that the scud was blowing
more northward now. It might only be what is known as a slant. On the
other hand, it might prove to be a true breeze, coming from the usual
quarter. The "tap-tap" of the caulker's hammer on the slip-way in Harwich
River was silent now. There must be a breeze in-shore that carried the
sound away.
The topsail of the "Petite Jeanne" filled with a jerk, and the Captain,
standing at the tiller, looked up at it. The lower sails soon took their
cue, and suddenly the slack sheets hummed taut in the breeze. The "Petite
Jeanne" answered to it at once, and the waves gurgled and laughed beneath
her counter as she moved through the water. She could sail quicker than
her dinghy: Barebone knew that. But he also knew that he could handle an
open boat as few even on the Côtes-du-Nord knew how.
If the breeze came strong, it would blow the fog-bank away, and Barebone
had need of its covert. Though there must be many English boats within
sight should the fog lift--indeed, the guardship in Harwich harbour would
be almost visible across the spit of land where Landguard Fort lies
hidden--Barebone had no intention of asking help so compromising. He had
but a queer story to tell to any in authority, and on the face of it he
must perforce appear to have run away with the dinghy of the "Petite
Jeanne."
He desired to get ashore as unobtrusively as possible. For he was not
going to stay in England. The die was cast now. Where Dormer Colville's
persuasions had failed, where the memory of that journey through Royalist
France had yet left him doubting, the incidents of the last few days had
clinched the matter once for all. Barebone was going back to France.
He moved as if to stretch his limbs and lay down once more, with his
shoulders against the rail and his elbow covering the stanchion round
which the dinghy's painter was made fast.
The proper place for the dinghy was on deck should the breeze freshen.
Barebone knew that as well as the French Captain of the "Petite Jeanne."
For seamanship is like music--it is independent of language or race.
There is only one right way and one wrong way at sea, all the world over.
The dinghy was only towing behind while the fog continued to be
impenetrable. At any moment the Captain might give the order to bring it
inboard.
At any moment Barebone might have to make a dash for the boat.
He watched the Captain, who continued to steer in silence. To drift on
the tide in a fog is a very different thing to sailing through it at ten
miles an hour on a strong breeze, and the steersman had no thought to
spare for anything but his sails. Two men were keeping the look-out in
the bows. Another--the leadsman--was standing amidships peering over the
side into the mist.
Still Barebone waited. Captain Clubbe had taught him that most difficult
art--to select with patience and a perfect judgment the right moment. The
"Petite Jeanne" was rustling through the glassy water northward toward
Farlingford.
At a word from the Captain the man who had been heaving the lead came aft
to the ship's bell and struck ten quick strokes. He waited and repeated
the warning, but no one answered. They were alone in these shallow
channels. Fortunately the man faced forward, as sailors always do by
instinct, turning his back upon the Captain and Barebone.
The painter was cast off now and, under his elbow, Barebone was slowly
hauling in. The dinghy was heavy and the "Petite Jeanne" was moving
quickly through the water. Suddenly Barebone rose to his feet, hauled in
hand over hand, and when the dinghy was near enough, leaped across two
yards of water to her gunwale.
The Captain heard the thud of his feet on the thwart, and looking back
over his shoulder saw and understood in a flash of thought. But even
then he did not understand that Loo was aught else but a landsman
half-recovered from sea-sickness. He understood it a minute later,
however, when the brown sail ran up the mast and, holding the tiller
between his knees, Barebone hauled in the sheet hand over hand and
steered a course out to sea.
He looked back over the foot of the sail and waved his hand. "_Sans
rancune!_" he shouted. "_C'est entendu!_" The Captain's own words.
The "Petite Jeanne" was already round to the wind, and the Captain was
bellowing to his crew to trim the sails. It could scarcely be a chase,
for the huge deep-sea fishing-boat could sail half as fast again as her
own dinghy. The Captain gave his instructions with all the quickness of
his race, and the men were not slow to carry them out. The safe-keeping
of the prisoner had been made of personal advantage to each member of the
crew.
The Captain hailed Barebone with winged words which need not be set down
here, and explained to him the impossibility of escape.
"How can you--a landsman," he shouted, "hope to get away from us? Come
back and it shall be as you say '_sans rancune._' Name of God! I bear
you no ill-will for making the attempt."
They were so close together that all on board the "Petite Jeanne" could
see Barebone laugh and shake his head. He knew that there was no gun on
board the fishing-boat. The lugger rushed on, sailing quicker, lying up
closer to the wind. She was within twenty yards of the little boat
now--would overhaul her in a minute.
But in an instant Barebone was round on the other tack, and the Captain
swore aloud, for he knew now that he was not dealing with a landsman. The
"Petite Jeanne" spun round almost as quickly, but not quite. Every time
that Barebone put about, the "Petite Jeanne" must perforce do the same,
and every time she lost a little in the manoeuvre. On a long tack or
running before the wind the bigger boat was immeasurably superior.
Barebone had but one chance--to make short tacks--and he knew it. The
Captain knew it also, and no landsman would have possessed the knowledge.
He was trying to run the boat down now.
Barebone might succeed in getting far enough away to be lost in the fog.
But in tacking so frequently he was liable to make a mistake. The bigger
boat was not so likely to miss stays. He passed so close to her that he
could read the figures cut on her stern-post indicating her draught of
water.
There was another chance. The "Petite Jeanne" was drawing six feet; the
dinghy could sail across a shoal covered by eighteen inches of water. But
such a shoal would be clearly visible on the surface of the water.
Besides, there was no shallow like that nearer than the Goodwins.
Barebone pressed out seaward. He knew every channel and every bank
between the Thames and Thorpeness. He kept on pressing out to sea by
short tacks. All the while he was peeping over the gunwale out of the
corner of his eye. He was near, he must be near, a bank covered by five
feet of water at low tide. A shoal of five feet is rarely visible on the
surface.
Suddenly he rose from his seat on the gunwale, and stood with the tiller
in one hand and the sheet in the other, half turning back to look at
"Petite Jeanne" towering almost over him. And as he looked, her bluff
black bows rose upward with an odd climbing movement like a horse
stepping up a bank. With a rattle of ropes and blocks she stood still.
Barebone went about again and sailed past her.
"_Sans rancune_!" he shouted. But no one heeded him, for they had other
matters to attend to. And the dinghy sailed into the veil of the mist
toward the land.