BEFORE THE GALE
I stood beneath the bridge holding on to a friendly stanchion, and
gazing apathetically before me. I could see Waller’s brawny figure
outlined upon the bridge, every movement of his muscles showing up
against the moonlit sky. He wrestled strenuously with the bucking wheel
as it fought in his grasp, while above him the ragged clouds scudded
fiercely, giving him the effect of rushing violently backward into space
as they passed swiftly over him. The wind had increased with the rise of
the waning moon, and the lull, which mercifully allowed us to rescue the
derelict boat, was blotted out in a turmoil of foam and fury. The tumult
of the night found an echo in my heart.
For, unlike my usual custom, I had allowed myself to hope. In my conceit
of my plan for gaining an interview with Gwen—in my hopes and fears of
our meeting coming off—I had not dwelt much on the fact that it might
end in failure—in despair. Gerry was partly responsible for this. For
the last week he had continually dinned his sanguine reassurances into
my ears till they had almost ousted my natural pessimism. I had
forgotten to deceive Fate with a pretense of despondency, and she had
turned to sneer wickedly in my face and to flout me for my inattention.
I gripped the stanchion savagely as I thought of these things, I turned
a silent face to the hubbub of the night, while every passion of my body
rioted in my brain. I took an infuriate comfort in the thunderous
grapple of the elements.
For, look at it how I would, I was condemned to hours—if not days—of
smiling torture. Here was I cooped up in the same ship with the woman to
whom I had utterly given over my heart, and honor—bare courtesy, in
fact—forbade me to so much as hint to her my love. Mere common kindness
bade me further the wooing of my rival. And he—I gnashed my teeth as I
remembered it—if my luck had only allowed, might have been a thousand
fathoms deep in this shrieking whirlpool of a sea. If ever the
temptations of Cain filled a man’s heart, they crowded mine that
tempest-ridden night.
I fought with my passion, thrusting these ideas back from me, conjuring
up to myself every thought of chivalry that my upbringing could give
birth to. I remembered my apathetic renunciation of Gwen when we parted
six months before—my calm and fatalistic determination to live down
dispassionately the desire of my life. None the more did it bring
comfort as I told myself that now I had the right and the means to win
her—that as before God, and not before a sordid, money-worshipping
world, we were just man and maid, and had looked upon each other in
natural love and liking. I cursed the narrow world of Society with an
insistence that gained power from the fact that I stood in the very
cradle of nature’s wrath, and Society was dimmed by the distance of
three thousand miles—veiled behind a curtain of storm and dancing spray.
Thus during the long hours of the night I battled with myself in
disjointed, hopeless argument, and the storm rattled round me with
growing clamor.
It was about three in the morning when the climax of the tempest came. A
shock quivered up from our stern, vibrating through every timber of our
hull as if by electricity—a tremor such as no mere breaking wave could
have caused. It was as if we had been smitten by some Titan
sledge-hammer. Above the bellow of the storm I heard Waller’s cry of
dismay, and saw the wheel spin uselessly through his hands. He came
headlong down from the bridge.
I sprang forward to steady him as he half stepped, half fell from the
ladder, and he lurched into my arms. As the unguided ship swung round
before the impact of the rollers, the deck stood up at an angle that
shed our footing from it. We gripped each other unhandily. The bow
leaped, and shook itself as if in pain. A ponderous surge charged into
it. The ship gave before the shock, throbbing through every timber. It
swayed, hesitated, and then, defeated in the unequal struggle, broached
to, and lay in the trough of the sea. A great flood roared down the
deck, snatching up the captain and myself in its green mane and dashing
us stunningly against the deck-house. We spluttered and choked, gasping
for breath.
“The rudder-chains are broken,” exclaimed Waller hoarsely, as he gulped
and crowed, and he made a dash for the foc’sle, roaring aloud for the
watch below. They never heard him till he thrust his face into the very
door. Unsteadily they came tumbling out to scramble along the listed
deck, and find and splice the sundered links. The rattle of their
intermitting hammering and dragging could only be heard if you stood
within a foot of them.
The seas boiled over us eternally while this was doing, and for
half-an-hour we were practically beneath the waves, the ship settling
under the weight of water as she rolled broadside into the seas. The
engine still thrashed wearily round, but ungoverned as we were, our
leeway was twice our speed of steam. We only butted our prow more and
more under the combs of the great rollers. Finally six men were
stationed with ropes spliced to the broken chains, and Waller mounted
the bridge again. By strenuous tugs they hauled upon the tiller as his
hand motioned to them, and slowly we came round to face the gale again.
As we did there was a clang and a jar. The white wake faded from behind
us, and came flying up past the sides. We were sidling back with
gathering speed into our sternway. The cover was flung off the
engine-room man-hole, and Eccles’s grizzled head appeared.
“The propeller-shaft, my lord,” he bawled, his voice rising screamingly
in his excitement, “the propeller-shaft’s split. I daren’t give her
another turn in this sea.”
As our way lost itself in the force of the contending waters, and died
down into nothingness, we slowed, stopped, and a huge mass of ocean
roared against our prow. It lifted, lifted, lifted, soaring towards the
very heavens. I saw it eclipse a red, angry planet that I had noticed
high above the bowsprit-stays a moment before. It hovered a single tense
instant, and then with a swirl and heave came flying round, reeling and
staggering. There was a rush of the crew to gain some hold or to brace
themselves against some shelter. Then with a frightful roll we swung
over, and lay on our beam ends, the hungry waves licking along our
submerged decks like wolves ravening for their quarry.
Out of this hopelessness Waller led us like the brave man he was. After
infinite research the carpenter produced a storm-sail, which had not
been buried beneath the weight of superincumbent wreckage. Under the
captain’s skilful supervision this was bent as a jib. Slowly, as the
wind gained force upon it, we dragged from under the weight of the waves
that were thrusting us deeper and deeper under their piled thronging,
and drew round to show our stern to the wind. As we ploughed our way out
of the trough of the sea, the waters rushed more and more from off our
streaming decks. We rose; the ship shaking itself like a dog. We gained
speed. The men took up the rudder ropes they had flung aside, and in
another two minutes we were riding—racing, before the gale,
back—straight back—to the regions of the Great South Wall.
As we gained way the ship steadied herself. The ponderous lurch and roll
grew less. The keel sat more evenly in the hollow between the seas,
cutting through their crests like a knife as the sail bellied out and
tautened. We managed to get another piece of canvas spread, and then
like a thing endowed with sudden life the _Racoon_ began to tear before
the wind, bursting aside the surges as she overtook them, as if she
would revenge haughtily the shame they had put upon her helplessness.
There was an exhilaration about the fury of our rushing. It was like
riding a mettled and tireless steed.
I left the crew to their work of re-connecting the broken rudder-chain
and went below. The saloon was a desolation. Every movable thing had
been swept to port by the list of our sudden broach to. The table was
leaning with its top against the side. A litter of glass and crockery
filled the port corners. A mass of pantry gear had been shot across the
floor. Smears of various sauces from the same locality stained the
carpets. Water had forced itself down through the hatchway—though this
had been battened—and sparkled in puddles beneath the electric light.
The knives and forks and splinters of glass jingled as they clustered
and broke apart again at each heave of the ship. And in the midst of
this conglomerate desolation sat poor Lady Delahay and her daughters.
The former rose hastily as I swung myself off the stairs into the
doorway. She staggered towards me, her face white with anxiety. Her hand
trembled as she dropped it unsteadily on my arm.
“Lord Denvarre?” she questioned, tugging insistently at my sleeve. “He’s
recovering?”
“Right as the mail,” answered I; “he was a bit knocked out of time at
first, but we’ve brought him round famously between us. And you?” I
queried, “I hope you have been ministered to properly?”
“I could think of nothing—absolutely nothing,” she answered, “while we
were without news of him. Oh, Lord Heatherslie, supposing my darling had
been practically widowed before my eyes?”
“It’s been a terrible night for you,” said I, “but I’m glad you were
spared that crowning sorrow. Then I suppose I’m to congratulate Miss
Gwendoline on her engagement?” I went on, looking across to where the
two girls were trying to tidy up some of the worst of the jumbled
disorder of the floor. “I’m sure she has the best wishes for luck and
happiness from me.”
“It’s not announced at all yet,” said the good lady hurriedly, “in fact,
you see there was no one to announce it to. There were no people of any
position on board, and it has only really been seriously taken into
consideration the last few days. A little awkward, you know, under the
circumstances, our being fellow-travellers for so long. So we have
decided that it shall not be recognized just yet. Just an understanding,
you see, not a formal betrothal till we return to England, if we ever
do,” added the poor old thing doubtfully. “Oh, my dear Lord Heatherslie,
shall we ever reach any port alive?” and she sank back on to the
cushions of the locker seats with a groan.
“Well, at present,” said I, “I must confess that we’re flying away from
the nearest port at the rate of about twenty miles an hour. Our engine’s
broken down, and we have to run before the gale. But it’ll only be the
case of an hour or two, I hope, and then we shall be able to beat up for
the Falklands. But it’ll be a long business at the best. You will have
to put up with our bachelor quarters and our rough accommodation.”
“Lord Heatherslie,” she said brokenly, “when I think what might have
happened, I should be less than Christian if I didn’t give thanks with a
full heart. Even though we have lost everything in the way of clothes
and property, I have my darlings safe, and their happiness is secured.
That is sufficient for me.”
“Oh,” I said, “then I have to congratulate Miss Violet also. Mr.
Garlicke, I presume?” I inquired with an air of savage festivity. Poor
Gerry, his optimism was to get felled to earth along with mine. Well, I
felt there was something in both being in the same boat. We could make
our moans in company.
“Quite on a par with Gwendoline’s affair,” answered Lady Delahay,
holding up a warning finger. “Nothing to be said about it yet, please.
Is it possible I recognized Mr. Carver on the deck?”
“Quite possible,” I replied dryly, “you did. He and I and the Professor
Lessaution—who is helping him tend the rescued men—are the only
passengers aboard,” and as the girls gave over their useless competition
with the litter of the crockery, and came and sat beside their mother, I
began to give them the whole story.
For a girl who had just been dragged by main force out of the blackest
shadow of death, I never saw anything to equal Gwen. Her eyes were
bright, her complexion was pink and shining, the sparkle of the salt
spray was on her hair. She looked as smiling and content as if she had
found the desire of her heart, instead of having just seen fivescore of
fellow-beings consigned to a frightful end. Her gaze dwelt upon my face
as she listened intently to my story. She looked as complacent as if we
were at anchor off Monaco, instead of driving Lord knows where into an
uncharted sea, before one of the fiercest gales that ever started a
ringbolt. I reflected with internal wretchedness that a girl’s horizon
is bounded very narrowly when she is in love, and envied Denvarre under
my breath furiously.
In their turn they told me of their adventure, and what had befallen
them on that night of horror. How in the midst of light and life, and
the friendly converse of the yacht’s saloon, a dishevelled lampman had
appeared, grimy, hot, and with fear of death writ largely on his face,
and beckoned out the captain from amidst the throng. How, restless in
his continued absence, one or two unquiet passengers had followed him,
and returned with vague reports of a fire in the lamp-room forward, and
how on the word the whole mob of passengers had surged on deck. That
then the iron sea discipline of a well-ordered British merchant vessel
had been closed around them instantly, and they had been marshalled in
parties to the boats to which they had been assigned. But the fire
continuing to gain, and the sea to rise, they had been confronted by an
awful death on either hand. When the captain had been obliged to abandon
hope, he had lowered away the first boat, and within seconds they had
seen it dashed to pieces like an eggshell on their bulwarks. The second
and third boats had shared the same fate, and two more had been swamped
in sight of the vessel. Then as a last chance the captain had had a boat
swung from the bow with a long tether, and they had been transferred to
it one by one as the seas swung it backward and forward between their
passing and repassing, but when but a dozen of them were aboard, the
painter had parted—worn with the constant to and fro against the
timbers—and they had been swept to leeward as in a flash. Five minutes
later the flames had covered the ship from stem to stern, and they
shuddered when they told what they had seen, as dark forms began to drop
from her red-hot decks into the merciful cold of the sea. And they ended
the tale with the tears that are the due of utter terror and long
despair, and I made no effort to stay this gracious relief of nature’s
pity.
As the ship began to steady her plunging, we made efforts to find
accommodation for the ladies, to whom, of course, we gave up our cabins.
They were absolutely destitute of everything beyond what they stood up
in, and were robed as it was in such rugs and blankets as had been
collected while their outer garments were dried in the stoke-hole. We
got them at last to retire and find a much-needed repose, a thing that
their terror had forbidden so far, for the rolling of the masterless
ship had been enough to make any one believe that she would only find a
resting-place on the bottom of the furious sea.
I left them with good wishes for sleep and for forgetfulness of the
horrors they had experienced. I sought the smoke-room to make inquiry
for the rescued men, and found that they had all lapsed into
unconsciousness, tucked up in the blankets which the crew had
surrendered to their use. Lessaution and Gerry were stretched upon the
floor, sleeping heavily after their strenuous attendance on the
half-frozen folk, and I left them to their slumbers; amid my own misery
I had a heartache to spare for Gerry’s awakening of sorrow.
I climbed up upon the bridge again and stood beside Waller. White-faced
and haggard with the anxieties of the night, he was still at his post.
He watched with hopeful eyes the coming of the dawn, which was already
tingeing the east with an angry, lurid crimson. Still racing before the
billows that hunted us we were plunging ever southward, returning
swiftly down the track up which we had fought so ploddingly the last six
days. The captain’s clothes hung about him in limp sodden clingings; he
leaned wearily upon the wheel, guiding it delicately in the strong grip
of Rafferty, who shared the toil of restraining it. There was weariness
and exhaustion in his every pose, but his eye was still bright and his
face set steadfastly upon his duty. I watched him with admiration—the
strong, confident sailor who held our lives resourcefully in his
unshaken grip. A glow of pride pulsed through my veins as I recognized
that this was the type of commander who was lifting England’s honor high
across the seas of two hemispheres, that what this staunch self-reliant
man was doing would have been done in like case by unreckoned hundreds
of his fellows. I thanked God again for the mercies of the night, with
special acknowledgment for the fact that we were manned by a wholesome
British crew.
I laid my hand lightly upon his shoulder.
“Take a rest, captain,” said I; “let Janson come and have his spell.
You’ve been at it twelve long hours already. Surely there’s nothing left
but to let her drive.”
“Thanks, my lord,” he answered, smiling back cheerily into my inquiring
eyes. “Janson’s only been two hours below. I’ll give him an hour longer
at least.”
“But Rafferty’s here, and I can hold the wheel, if that’s all,” said I
reproachfully; “what’s the good of killing yourself, man?”
“I’ve had many a longer bout in weather no better,” and he shifted the
spokes a point in his deft, unhesitating hands.
“But what’s the trouble?” I answered, almost irritated by his unswerving
determination. “Why can’t we take her from you? We’ve got the sense not
to let her broach to, at any rate.”
“Ice is the matter, my lord. Ice—and acres of it. You forget we’re
racing back into the South at fifteen knots an hour. If the gale doesn’t
drop before evening, we shall be among the bergs again. We may meet
outlying floes at any moment.”
“Then we’d call you,” said I argumentatively; “so just you skip along
and take a snooze with a clear conscience.”
“Thanks, my lord, I shouldn’t sleep,” he said dryly, wiping the spray
from his beard, and there was nothing further to be said. I shrugged my
shoulders and left him there, vigilant, alert, eternally craning his
eyes into the veil of the spin-drift, a valiant warrior of the deep.
The presage of the lurid sunrise was fulfilled. All day long the gale
shrieked and raved behind us, screaming through our taut rigging like
some inarticulate storm-spirit’s agony. The sullen waves still thundered
after us, lifting our stern, and burying our bows now and again in the
crest of some laggard comber. They broke thunderously across our
bulwarks, dashing themselves into a very dust of spray. It glistened
snow-like in the sun-rifts, as they broke now and again through the
leaden haze that hid the sky. The scud of the clouds kept pace above us,
wreathing and twisting into a thousand fantastic shapes. The gulls
screamed and hovered, and the petrels dipped and scurried from crest to
crest. The roar of the surges and the shiver of the laboring timbers
followed one upon the other monotonously. One got stupefied by their
ceaseless, recurrent boom and thud.
About mid-day the stress of the night began to tell upon me. I
remembered that during four-and-twenty hours of physical and mental
excitement I had had no sleep. I staggered wearily down into the
smoke-room, curled myself up beside Gerry’s still motionless form, and
before I had closed eye a minute, sank off into dreamless
unconsciousness.
The dark was falling again as I woke. Both Gerry and Lessaution had
disappeared, but I could hear the bellow of the tempest strong as ever.
I scrambled to my feet, and made my way uncertainly to the saloon. The
remains of a meal stood uncleared upon the table, and I began to satisfy
a hunger which had got stupendous. Then back up the pitching
companion-steps I tottered, and strode out upon the deck.
The seas were still leaping along our sides, but not quite so strongly.
Up on the bridge I recognized Janson’s burly figure, and perceived with
thankfulness that Waller had at last surrendered his post. In the bow
Gerry and Lessaution were clutching the foremost stays, and pointing
excitedly before them. I wormed my way along the deck and joined them.
Standing out blue-white above the froth of the boiling sea a great
iceberg was rearing its head. It hung there haughtily and unmoved,
despising the rage that made the breakers raven at its feet. The wind
shrieked about its pinnacles, thrusting one now and again from its seat
upon the ice buttresses, and sending it crashing into the deep. But the
main mass of the white mountain stayed motionless, a mighty breakwater
sheltering the leeward surface into a rippling pool.
Janson raised his hand to his mouth, and roared some indistinguishable
order to the watch on deck. The men came racing forward, and hauled at
the sheets. The sails came lumbering down, and as we lost the steadiness
of their grip upon the wind we began to pitch and tumble again.
Not for long. The wheel spun in the mate’s hands, and with our way still
swift upon us we began to turn. We nosed in towards the white pyramid.
We swung past its leeward edge. Our cutwater broke a burnished line
across the stillness of the sheltered pool. In a very instant the
travail of our storm-hunted vessel ceased. We swung, heaved to, upon the
calm, gently swaying to the ripples, while outside the storm still
bellowed for our lives.
Behind this sudden refuge we lay almost motionless, looking up
wonderingly at the shining peaks above. Baines and the cook accepted the
altered conditions with surprise and thankfulness, making immediate
preparations for a meal which should obliterate the discomforts of the
past eight-and-forty hours. The smoke began to curl anew from the
galley, and various tinned victuals were disinterred from the pantry
wreckage.
Within five minutes of our finding this unexpected harbor the door of
the captain’s cabin opened, and Waller strode forth, gaping upon our
changed surroundings. The sixth sense that lies in the seaman’s brain
had warned him, sleeping as he was, that we no longer dipped and tossed
amid the breakers. A glance to starboard, and he understood, giving
Janson a quick nod as the other pointed to the ice. He stayed still a
moment, watching the edge of the berg curiously, and then climbed up and
joined the mate.
I could not hear the words they exchanged, but I saw a shake of Waller’s
head as he jerked his thumb over his shoulder. They strode together to
one end of the bridge, and the captain gesticulated toward the berg
again. A half-smile crossed Janson’s face. He was evidently meeting his
chief’s arguments with a polite incredulity. Following the line of
Waller’s pointing finger, I was in time to see a strange thing happen.
The edge of the ice rose slowly, but perceptibly, mounting from the
water-level with a heavy swish. I looked up in amazement, and saw the
topmost pinnacles bow slantingly across the drifting clouds. There was a
suck and a wash as the water rolled in toward the ice to fill the
vacuum. The berg lurched slowly back again, and a big breaker gathered
itself up, and crested out toward us. There was a line of foam across
the pool.
An order roared from between Waller’s lips, and Janson came at a bound
from the bridge to wake the watch below. His face was white with terror.
He shrieked into the foc’sle in a shrill, unnatural voice.
The men came leaping up, and at the captain’s shout dropped the two port
boats over the side. A rope was passed to them, and with furious tugs
they passed ahead, towing desperately. The men left on deck set the
sails again, waiting for the first breath of the gale to catch them.
They stared wide-eyed over their shoulders, watching, staring, gluing
their gaze to the mighty ice-cliffs astern.
I scrambled up to Waller, full of unquiet surprise. I felt that
something was imminent—some possible disaster that I could not fathom. I
demanded explanations.
“Mr. Janson has committed a very serious error of judgment, my lord,”
said the sailor shortly. “A few minutes will see it repaired, I hope.”
“But, good gracious!” said I with some annoyance, “you’re taking us out
into that whirlpool again just when we were comfortable. What on earth’s
the matter?”
Before he could answer me the first breath of the gale began to catch
upon the sails. The sailors hauled upon the sheets to tauten them as he
bawled his orders down, and the boats’ crews were beckoned back. As they
slipped alongside, and the davit-hooks caught again upon the pulleys,
Waller gave a great sigh of relief and turned to me again.
“That iceberg——” he began, and at the words no explanation became
necessary.
We were both staring at it when again the edge of it began to lift. But
this time there was no return. Up, up, it soared, lifting its dripping
flanks into the air, and the seas poured back from it in torrents. The
waters boiled behind our stern, heaving as if in the bath of some
gigantic geyser. For one single moment we danced haltingly upon the
turbulence, the wind fighting with all its strength upon our canvas
against the under-currents that tore at our keel. Then, thank God, the
gale was victor. We slid away from the grip of the backflow, out into
the riot of the storm again. And behind us one of nature’s dramas was
enacted awfully. With a roar and a thunderous crash the iceberg slanted,
swayed, poised itself one motionless instant, and then rolled completely
over, dashing its topmost summit into the heart of the deep, and, heaved
up by its mighty fall, a huge wave rose and almost engulfed it. The
great rollers came clamoring after our flying bark as if in vindictive
disappointment for the escape of their nearly won prey. But their fury
defeated them. Their crests thundered on our stern, and flung us with
growing force out into the ocean, while behind us the berg slowly
emerged among the tossing, to point new pinnacles toward the clouds. And
out in the storm again we continued our ceaseless race before the seas,
flying anew down the long trail south, buffeted, tempest driven, but
safe again by the favor of a brave sailor’s quick-witted knowledge.