BREAKING UP OF THE GREAT ICE PACK--IN THE NIPS--THE "CANNY SCOTIA" ON
HER BEAM-ENDS--STAVING OF THE "ARRANDOON."
In the very midst of joy and pleasure in this so-called weary world, we
are oftentimes very nigh to grief and pain.
See yonder Swiss village by the foot of the mountain, how peacefully it
is sleeping in the moonlight; not a sound is to be heard save the
occasional crowing of a wakeful cock, or the voice of watch-dog baying
the moon. The inhabitants have gone to bed hours and hours ago, and
their dreams, if they dream at all, are assuredly not dreams of danger.
But hark to that terrible noise far overhead. Is it thunder? Yes, the
thunder of a mighty avalanche. Nearer and nearer it rolls, till it
reaches the devoted village, then all is desolation and woe.
See yet another village, far away in sunny Africa; its little huts
nestle around the banyan-tree, the tall cocoa-palm, and the
wide-spreading mango. They are a quiet, inoffensive race who inhabit
that village. They live south of the line, far away from treacherous
Somali Indians or wild Magulla men; they never even dreamt of war or
bloodshed. They certainly do not dream of it now.
"The babe lies in its mother's arms,
The wife's head pillowed on the husband's breast."
Suddenly there is a shout, and when they awake--oh! horror! their huts
are all in flames, the Arab slavers are on them, and--I would not harrow
your young feelings by describing the scenes that follow.
But a ship--and this is coming nearer home--may be sailing over a
rippling sea, with the most pleasant of breezes filling her sails, no
land in sight, and every one, fore and aft, as happy as the birds on an
early morning in summer, when all at once she rasps, and strikes--
strikes on a rock, the very existence of which was never even suspected
before. In half an hour perhaps that vessel has gone down, and those
that are saved are afloat in open boats, the breeze freshening every
moment, the wavetops breaking into cold spray, night coming on, and
dark, threatening clouds banking up on the windward horizon.
When the first wail arose from the pack that announced the breaking up
of the sea of ice, a silence of nearly a minute fell on the sailors
assembled at the entertainment. Music stopped, dancing ceased, and
every one listened. The sound was repeated, and multiplied, and the
ship quivered and half reeled.
McBain knew the advantage of remaining calm and retaining his presence
of mind in danger. Because he was a true sailor. He was not like the
sailor captains you read of in penny dreadfuls--half coal-heaver, half
Herzegovinian bandit.
"Odd, isn't it?" he muttered, as he stroked his beard and smiled; then
in a louder voice he gave his orders.
"Men," he said, "we'll have some work to do before morning--get ready.
The ice is breaking up. Pipe down, boatswain. Mr Stevenson, see to
the clearing away of all this hamper."
Then, followed by Rory and the doctor, he got away out into the
daylight.
The ships were all safe enough as yet, and there was only perceptible
the gentlest heaving motion in the pack. Sufficient was it, however, to
break up the bay ice between the bergs, and this with a series of loud
reports, which could be heard in every direction. McBain looked
overboard somewhat anxiously; the broken pieces of bay ice were getting
ploughed up against the ship's side with a noise that is indescribable,
not so much from its extreme loudness as from its peculiarity; it was a
strange mixture of a hundred different noises, a wailing, complaining,
shrieking, grinding noise, mingled with a series of sharp, irregular
reports.
"It is like nothing earthly," said Rory, "that ever I heard before; and
when I close my eyes for a brace of seconds, I could imagine that down
on the pack there two hundred tom-cats had lain down to die, that twenty
Highland bag-pipers--twenty Peters--were playing pibrochs of lament, and
that just forenenst them a squad of militia-men was firing a
_feu-de-joie_, and that neither the militia-men nor the pipers either
were as self-contained as they should be on so solemn an occasion."
The doctor was musing; he was thinking how happy he had been half an
hour ago, and now--heigho; it was just possible he would never get back
to Iceland again, never see his blue-eyed Danish maiden more.
"Pleasures," he cried, "pleasures, Captain McBain--"
"Yes," said McBain, "pleasures--"
"Pleasures," continued the doctor,--
"`Are like poppies shed,
You seize the flower, the bloom is fled.'
"I'll gang doon below. Bed is the best place."
"Perhaps," said McBain, smiling, "but not the safest. Mind, the ship is
in the nips, and a berg might go through her at any moment. There is
the merest possibility of your being killed in your bed. That's all;
but that won't keep _you_ on deck."
Mischievous Rory was doing ridiculous attitudes close behind the worthy
surgeon.
"What?" cried Sandy, in his broadest accent. "_That_ not keep me on
deck! Man, the merest possibility of such a cawtawstrophy would keep me
on deck for a month."
"A vera judeecious arrangement," hissed Rory in his ear, for which he
was chased round the deck, and had his own ears well pulled next minute.
The doctor had him by the ear when Allan and Ralph appeared on the
scene.
"Hullo!" they laughed, "Rory got in for it again."
"Whustle," cried Sandy.
"I only said `a vera--'" began Rory.
"Whustle, will ye?" cried the doctor.
"I can't `whustle,'" laughed Rory. But he had to "whustle," and then he
was free.
"It's going to be a tough squeeze," said Silas to McBain.
"Yes; and, worse luck, the swell has set in from the east," answered the
captain.
"I'm off to the _Canny Scotia_; good morning."
"One minute, Captain Grig; we promised to hoist up Cobb's cockle-shell.
Lend us a hand with your fellows, will you?"
"Ay, wi' right good will," said Silas.
There were plenty of spars on board the _Arrandoon_ big enough to rig
shears, and these were sent overboard without delay, with ropes and
everything else required.
The men of the _Arrandoon_, assisted by those of the _Canny Scotia_,
worked with a readiness and will worthy even of our gallant Royal
Engineers. A shears was soon rigged, and a winch got up. On a spar
fastened along the cockle-shell's deck the purchase was made, and, under
the superintendence of brave little Ap, the work began.
For a long time the "shell" refused to budge, so heavily did the ice
press around her; the spar on her deck started though, several times.
"Worse luck," thought little Ap. He had the spar re-fastened. Tried
again. The same result followed. Then little Ap considered, taking
"mighty" big pinches of snuff the while.
"We won't do like that," he said to himself, "because, look you see, the
purchase is too much on the perpendicular. Yes, yes."
Then he had the spar elevated a couple of yards, and fastened between
the masts, which he had strengthened by lashing extra spars to them.
The result of this was soon apparent. The hawsers tightened, the little
yacht moved, even the pressure of the ice under her helped to lift her
as soon as she began to heel over, and, in half an hour afterwards, the
cockle-shell lay in a very ignominious position indeed--beam-ends on the
ice.
"Bravo!" cried Silas, when the men had finished their cheering. "Bravo!
what _would_ long Cobb say now? what would he say? Ha! ha! ha!"
Silas Grig laughed and chuckled till his face grew redder than ever, but
he would not have been quite so gay, I think, had he known what was so
soon to happen to his own ship.
Stevenson touched McBain on the shoulder.
"The ice presses heavy on the rudder, sir."
"Then unship it," said McBain.
"And I'll unship mine," said Silas.
Unshipping rudders is a kind of drill that few save Greenland sailors
ever learn, but it is very useful at times, nevertheless.
In another hour the rudders of the two ships were hoisted and laid on
the bergs. So that was one danger past.
But others were soon to follow, for the swell under the ice increased,
the bergs all around them rolled higher and higher. The noise from the
pack was terrific, as the pieces met and clashed and ground their
slippery sides together. In an hour or two the bay ice had been either
ground to slush, or piled in packs on top of the bergs, so that the
bergs had freedom to fight, as it were. Alas! for the two ships that
happened to be between the combatants. Their position was, indeed, far
from an enviable one. Hardly had an hour elapsed ere the ice-harbours
McBain and Silas had prided themselves in, were wrecked and
disintegrated. They were then, in some measure, at the mercy of the
enemy, that pressed them closely on every quarter. The _Canny Scotia_
was the worst off--she lay between two of the biggest bergs in the pack.
McBain came to his assistance with torpedoes. He might as well have
tried to blow them to pieces with a child's pop-gun. Better, in fact,
for he would have had the same sport with less trouble and expense, and
the result would have been equally gratifying.
For once poor Silas lost his equanimity. He actually wrung his hands in
grief when he saw the terrible position of his vessel.
"My poor shippie," he said. "Heaven help us! I was building castles in
the air. But she is doomed! My bonnie ship is doomed."
At the same time he wisely determined not to be idle, so provisions and
valuables were got on shore, and all the men's clothes and belongings.
As nothing more could be done, Silas grew more contented. "It was just
his luck," he said, "just his luck."
Long hours of anxiety to every one went slowly past, and still the swell
kept up, and the bergs lifted and fell and swung on the unseen billows,
and ground viciously against the great sides of the _Arrandoon_. Now
the _Canny Scotia_ was somewhat Dutchified in her build--not as to bows
but as to bottom. She was not a clipper by any manner of means, and her
build saved her. The ice actually ground her up out of the water till
she lay with her beam-ends on the ice, and her keel completely exposed.
[As did the _P--e_, of Peterhead, once for weeks. The men lived on the
ice alongside, expecting the vessel to sink as soon as the ice opened.
The captain, however, would not desert his ship, but slept on board, his
mattress lying on the ship's side. The author's ship was beset some
miles off at the same time.]
But the _Arrandoon_ had no such build. The ice caught under her
forefoot, and she was lifted twelve feet out of the water. No wonder
McBain and our heroes were anxious. The former never went below during
all the ten hours or more that the squeeze lasted. But the swells
gradually lessened, and finally ceased. The _Arrandoon_ regained her
position, and lost her list, but there lay the _Canny Scotia_, a
pitiable sight to see, like some giant overthrown, silent yet suffering.
When the pumps of the _Arrandoon_ had been tried, and it was found that
there was no extra water in her, McBain felt glad indeed, and thanked
God from his inmost heart for their safe deliverance from this great
peril. He could now turn his attention to consoling his friend Silas.
After dinner that day, said McBain,--
"Your cabin is all ready, Captain Grig, for of course you will sleep
with us now."
But Silas arose silently and calmly.
"I needn't say," he replied, "how much I feel your manifold acts of
kindness, but Silas Grig won't desert his ship. His bed is on the
_Canny Scotia_."
"But, my dear fellow," insisted McBain, "the ice may open in an hour,
and your good ship go down."
"Then," said Silas, "I go with her, and it will be for you to tell my
owners and my little wife--heaven keep her!--that Skipper Grig stuck to
his ship to the last."
What could McBain say, what argument adduce, to prevent this rough old
tar from risking his life in what he considered a matter of duty?
Nothing! and so he was dumb.
Then away went Silas home, as he called it, to his ship. He lowered
himself down by a rope, clambered over the doorway of the cabin, took
one glance at the chaos around, then walked tenderly _over_ the
bulkhead, and so literally _down_ to his bed. He found the mattress and
bed-clothes had fallen against the side, and so there this good man,
this true sailor, laid him down and slept the sleep of the just.
But the _Scotia_ did not go to the bottom; she lay there for a whole
week, defying all attempts to move her, Silas sleeping on board every
night, the only soul in her, and his crew remaining on the _Arrandoon_.
At the end of that time the ice opened more; then the prostrate giant
seemed to begin to show signs of returning life. She swayed slightly,
and looked as if she longed once more to feel the embrace of her native
element; seeing which, scientific assistance was given her. Suddenly
she sprang up as does a fallen horse, and hardly had the men time to
seek safety on the neighbouring bergs, when she took the water--
relaunched herself--with a violence that sent the spray flying in every
direction with the force of a cataract. It would have been well had the
wetting the crew received been the only harm done.
It was not, for the bergs moved asunder with tremendous force. One
struck the _Arrandoon_ in her weakest part--amidships, under the
water-line. She was stove, the timbers bent inwards and cracked, and
the bunks alongside the seat of accident were dashed into matchwood.
Poor old Duncan Gibb, who was lying in one of these bunks with an almost
united fracture of one of his limbs, had the leg broken over again.
"Never mind, Duncan," said the surgeon, consolingly, "I didn't make a
vera pretty job of it last time. I'll make it as straight as a dart
this turn!"
"Vera weel, sir; and so be it," was poor contented Duncan's reply, as he
smiled in his agony.
"Dear me, now!" said Silas, some time afterwards; "I could simply cry--
make a big baby of myself and cry. It would be crying for joy and
grief, you know--joy that my old shippie should show so much pluck as to
right herself like a race-horse, and grief to think she should go and
stave the _Arrandoon_. The ungrateful old jade!"
"Never mind," said McBain, cheerfully, "Ap and the carpenters will soon
put the _Arrandoon_ all right. We will shift the ballast, throw her
over to starboard, and repair her, and the place will be, like Duncan's
leg, stronger than ever."
It did not take very long to right Captain Cobb's cockle-shell, and all
the vessels being now in position again, and the ice opening, it might
have been as well to have got steam up at once, and felt the way to the
open water. McBain decided to make good repairs first; it was just as
easy to list the ship among the ice as out of it, and probably less
dangerous. Besides, the water kept pouring in, and the beautiful
arrangement of blankets and hammock-cloths which Ap had devised, hardly
sufficed to keep it out.--This decision of the captain nearly cost the
life of two of our best-loved heroes, and poor old Seth as well. But
their adventure demands a chapter, or part of one at least, to itself.