SUVA HARBOR--THE REEF AND THE LIGHTHOUSES
As we nosed by the reef, and got the island on our beam, the wind came
to our rescue, and with staysails set I laid a course for Suva Harbor.
At one o'clock we picked up Suva lights, the two lighthouses which
marked the entrance to the harbor. One light is about on sea level, the
other has an altitude of some two hundred feet, being back and up the
hill and in direct line with the first. When these two lights bear due
north you have the channel course into Suva Harbor.
When I had these lights in range I decided to run in and take a chance,
rather than stay out and wait for the pilot. Another reason why I was
anxious to get in was that the barometer was falling and it looked like
rain. This being the hurricane season, I was not at all pleased with
the mackerel skies of the early morning. The channel is very narrow
between the reefs, and great care must be taken in steering one's
course.
After jibing her over and pointing her into the channel, I had
Broken-Nosed Pete take the wheel, with instructions that if he got off
the course his neck would be twisted at right angles to his nose. Pete
was a good helmsman, and could be trusted in close quarters like those
we were about to sail through.
Until we passed into the harbor my interest in the schooner "Wampa"
could be had for a song. With waves breaking on either side of us as we
were passing through, and expecting every moment to strike the reef,
moments seemed like centuries, and not to me alone. The only sound that
came from the crew was from Riley, and he did not intend it for my ears.
The noise of the breakers to windward was not so bad for Riley and his
one eye, but to have it repeated on his blind side was asking too much
of an honest sailor. He shouted to Old Charlie, "Glory be to God,
Charlie, and it's drowned we will be in sight of land. In the name of
the Father, what made him attempt it on a night like this? Look, look,
Holy Saint Patrick, look at the breakers. Ah, and it's high and dry
we'll be. Bad luck to the day I ever set foot on this auld barge! She
isn't fit for a dog to sail in."
The harbor end of the reef was marked by a light on a small cutter,
which was so dim that one would almost have to have a light to find it.
After rounding this insignificant light we had deep water and a large
harbor.
Just as day was breaking we dropped anchor, after an eventful voyage of
fifty-four days from Puget Sound. At eight o'clock an East Indian doctor
came on board, and lining the crew up for inspection, required every man
to put out his tongue. From the looks of the above-mentioned he seemed
pleased with the health of the crew. He left, after looking over the
official log book to make sure that the Captain had not been murdered.
The customs men followed him aboard, and being assured that we were not
pirates, departed to where the brandy and soda offered a more tempting
interest. As I expected, the pilot came alongside about nine-thirty,
very much disgusted to think that I should dare to run the channel
without the guidance of his steady head and hand.
Had he not been here for fifteen years doing this work which required
skill and courage, piloting ships of all nations into and out of this
dangerous channel? What was it to him (with a clinking glass), whether
the conversation took the shape of the battle of Balaclava or the
bombardment of Alexandria? Let the ships lay in the offing and await his
pleasure. They were helpless without him, and must await his guidance to
reach safe anchorage.
He scrambled over the side, and adjusting his monocle to look me over,
said in an accent that would make a cockney cab-driver take to honest
toil, "Ahem, ahem, where is your captain?"
"He is somewhere around the Equator in 145° west longitude," I said.
"Ow, ow, I see. He abandoned the ship, I suppose."
"Yes," said I, "he left much against his will. It is rather strange, is
it not?"
"Well, I'll be blowed to think he should have departed in this manner."
Riley, who was coiling down the main boom tackle fall, was more
interested in the English pilot than in coiling ropes. The last remark
of the pilot re-echoed back from him in words not befitting this high
command.
"Shur'n it's more av them that ought to be laying at the bottom of the
sea with a mill stone around their neck."
The way Riley's one eye would alternate from the pilot to the little
town across the harbor, and the way his lips twitched suggested to me
what was going on in his mind. To think he had sailed seventy-five
hundred miles to find a specimen like this! "To hell with the pledge and
Cannibal Isles, isn't the sight of this enough to drive any poor
Irishman into swearing allegiance to John Barleycorn for the rest of his
life?"