In Hazard (19 page)

After a long period without sleep, a healthy young man likes to make it up by sleeping for fourteen hours or so at a stretch. But the routine of watch-keeping makes this impossible on a ship.

The older men, after five days and nights without sleep, found it very difficult to sleep at all. Captain Edwardes still did not yet feel himself nap on his cabin sofa. Mr. MacDonald, on the other hand, made no attempt to sleep—he knew it would be hopeless. He walked about ceaselessly, talking chiefly about Chinamen and water (though not saying anything very sensible about either). The younger men, on the other hand (such as Gaston and Dick Watchett) once they were asleep found waking after a few hours an agony: they were dragged back to consciousness as miserably as a partially-drowned man is restored—wishing they had never slept at all, rather than that they should have been dragged back like that.

When a man is in that state, it is hard to say exactly when he does wake. Certainly not when he first answers you, in his bunk, in crisp tones but with his eyes closed, and not moving. Is it when he jumps out on to the floor, and, his eyes still shut, feels about for his boots? Or perhaps after he has been going about his duties for a quarter of an hour?

Dick certainly had no memory of getting out of his bunk that morning. The first thing he could remember was when he was on deck. It was a limpid and lovely morning. The sea was smooth, except for a slight, very long, very rapid swell, that passed almost faster than the eye could follow it, and gave the ship no time to rise and fall. The sky was the blue of a field of gentians: the air clear as glass, but warm: the very sea seemed washed, it sparkled so blue, so diamond-bright. The blue wood-smoke from the improvised donkey-funnel floated up into the still air, and hung there, the only cloud there was, scenting all the horrible litter of the decks with its sweet smell. It was such a morning that you could hardly believe no larks would presently rise, ascending on their clear voices into the clear sky.

The voices of the woodmen in the donkey-room rose sharp but still faint; and the occasional blow of an axe.

Dick heard an order given, in a confident voice. There was a hiss, as steam-cocks were turned on: then the sudden clanging of the pumps: loud at first till the water began to rise: then steady, and slow. They were pumping out No. 6 hold. A brown and filthy stream, creamy with air-bubbles, began to cascade into the clean sea.

The pool of brown in the clear blue spread. Presently Dick noticed a queer thing: fish rising to the surface of it, floating dead, their white bellies up. It was so impregnated with tobacco juice, it poisoned any fish who came near it. Imagine all that nicotine, flowing through delicate gills!

The pumps could not work for long at a time: the highest pressure of steam the wood-furnaces could raise was forty pounds (roughly, the pressure in a motor-tyre): and they could not hold it long. A brief spell of work: and then a rest, while they stoked the furnace once more. Meanwhile, the brown stain in the sea faded to a yellow opaqueness. But the poisoned fish remained, floating round the “Archimedes” in hundreds, with starting eyes and fixed, gaping mouths.

Presently the pumps began their painful and poisonous vomiting once more.

It may have killed the fish, but it put wonderful new heart into the crew of the “Archimedes”: and as the level of water in the after holds fell they sang, and worked like blazes. In their zeal they smashed for firewood even objects that were not really seriously damaged. For there were a few of these, after all, saved in a miraculous way. The book-case in the smoking room, for instance: a flimsy affair with a glass front. It had fallen on its face on the floor, and in some unaccountable way not even the glass was broken. Yet a saloon table, I told you, had been snapped off its clamped legs. It was not as if the book-case contained a Bible—you could not even find a superstitious reason for its being saved. It only contained ordinary literature.

Another pretty miraculous thing, when you come to think of it, was that nobody had been killed. Things had been happening all round them as lethal as an air-raid: yet there were no casualties. Not even a broken bone. Everyone, nearly, was cut and bruised, but that was all. The worst sufferer was Mr. Soutar: at one moment the heaviest midshipman had been flung onto a particularly bad bunion he had; and he had yelled with agony. He limped from it still.

By sight of a star at dawn, and a solar sight later, Captain Edwardes was at last able to fix his position. Being so far from his estimated position, the calculation took him some time. And when he plotted the result on the chart, he rubbed his eyes. He was away a hundred miles north of Cape Gracias: all banks passed. The storm had carried him nearly four hundred miles from the point at which it had struck him: in five days. Moreover it had probably not taken him direct there: curving, they had probably drifted at least a hundred miles a day. An average speed of four knots—travelled, for the most part, broadside on. Of course, a speed through the water of four knots, broadside on, was hardly possible. The storm must have carried the sea along with it too. And indeed, when he examined the chart, he saw that his earlier surmise must have been true: that the sea was raised up, near the centre of the storm, in a flattish cone, with a circular motion (only slower) like that of the wind: and so they had passed safely over banks they could never have crossed if the sea had been at its normal level!

The first thing he did, of course, when he found his position was to announce it to the “Patricia”: and when he got her reply, he was thankful. For this steam raised on wood—it was after all only make-believe. It enabled them to do a bit of pumping: or when in tow, perhaps it would work the steering-gear. It could work the fans: but he knew very well the fans alone could never get the main furnaces going, from cold, without a main funnel. It could never really enable them to raise main steam again.

Nevertheless, it had served two useful purposes. Most of them knew that yesterday, the day the storm had abandoned them, had been the most dangerous day of all. For six hours at least the ship might have sunk any minute. Without hard and hopeful work could these worn men have borne the strain? That was one thing: and there was another. They would presently have to be taken in tow by the salvage vessel: and the salvage the Owners would have to pay would in any case be very heavy. But salvage is proportional to the helplessness of the vessel salved. Captain Edwardes might save them a lot off the award, if the “Archimedes” had at least auxiliary steam on her.

Meanwhile the engineers continued pumping: and the Deck set about a new task. They borrowed a little steam for a winch, to haul some hawsers up on deck. They were preparing a tow-rope. For by now they were in constant communication with the “Patricia”: already acting largely under her orders. And to all other offers of assistance a general reply was sent: thanks, but it was not needed.

It was at one that midday that the “Patricia” was sighted. First, her smoke above the horizon. Thereupon (since the “Archimedes's” little whiff would hardly be visible to her) Edwardes wirelessed his bearing to her: and she was soon close.

She looked like a small black steamer, rather than a tug.

She steamed right round the “Archimedes,” taking a good look at her. Well she might! I doubt if she had ever seen a vessel looking like the “Archimedes” floating the sea. You see vessels like the “Archimedes” lying up on a reef somewhere, sometimes: but you do not see them floating on the sea.

Then she stopped, and lowered a boat. Sixteen men climbed into it, and rowed across. It was a romantic sight, these sixteen men coming to the rescue of the stricken vessel. Captain Edwardes on the bridge counted them—sixteen. And Dick also counted them, as he stood at the rail, waiting to lower a pilot-ladder to them (for both gangways were gone).
Sixteen
.

Sixteen men! Captain Edwardes was almost too shaken to speak. “Mr. Buxton,” he said, “stand by that pilot-ladder and allow no man on board but the master only.”

Buxton picked up a thick piece of wood: gave another to Dick:

“If anyone but the master tries to board us, club him back into the sea!”

Other officers joined them.

Captain Abraham was standing in the boat's sternsheets: his bow-man laid hold of the ladder.

“Keep your men in the boat, Captain,” roared Edwardes from the bridge. “I allow no man on board but yourself!”

“What the hell, Captain,” Captain Abraham began: “I insist ...”

Then he looked up at the line of faces at the ship's rail. They were faces as ravaged as the ship itself: maniac faces. Mr. Soutar, a length of iron pipe in his hand, was even foaming at the mouth: a fleck blew from his lips and slanted into the sea, where it floated. Dick felt the rage of his companions fill him; he too was trembling with rage. All these men, to board
their
ship!

“... Stay where you are,” Captain Abraham said quietly to his men, and climbed the ladder alone.

He passed through the silent guard: who took no notice of him, their eyes never leaving for a moment the boat below; only Mr. Buxton followed him, and he climbed to the lower bridge.

There the two Captains met: and shook hands.

“I congratulate you, Captain,” said the stranger.

“Thank you,” said Edwardes. “Come into my cabin.”

So the three of them entered the captain's cabin. Captain Edwardes produced a bottle of gin from a cupboard, doing the honours as host. Each took a ceremonial sip.

After that, they talked business: signed Lloyd's contract. The destination was to be Belize, in British Honduras.

Captain Edwardes now looked sane enough: so Abraham ventured to ask him: “Why won't you allow my men on board?”

Edwardes turned red as a colonel, his neck swelling over his collar.

“I allow no man on board without my permission.”

“Why?” said Abraham bluntly: “Have you got an infectious disease on board?”

“If I refuse permission, no man on earth has a right to ask my reason!” cried Edwardes, thumping the table.

“Well, I'm in charge of salvaging this vessel, and I insist on having my men!”

“Your men can work for you on your own ship, they won't work on mine!” said Captain Edwardes.

Abraham rose to his feet: “Then I shall tear up this contract,” he said.

“You can tear up your own copy if you like,” said Edwardes: “but I don't tear up my copy, and you have signed it.”

Captain Abraham was bewildered: simply did not know what to do. After all,
he
was responsible that the towing line was properly fixed. His own men were experts at the job, it was their business. These lunatic scarecrows! How could he rely on them to do it? And besides, his human heart told him that what these men needed was rest, not more work.

“Captain Edwardes,” he said: “do you imagine that if I use my own men it's going to affect the salvage claim?”

A flicker of Edwardes's eyes betrayed that one nail at least was hit on the head. But he answered in a strangled voice:

“I'll have you know, Captain, that anything needful on this ship my own men can do. We don't need any help from strangers to work our own ship,
thank you
—what do you think my men are? Passengers?”

This was no ordinary situation, to be dealt with by cold logic. Such high-pitched emotion could only be answered in the same key. Captain Abraham rose from his seat, moved into the centre of the cabin, and there fell on both his knees. He lifted his right hand above his head, fixed his worldly, hatchet-face in as other-worldly an expression as he could manage:

“Captain!” he said, “I swear by Almighty God, that if I have my own men on board to fix the tow it shall not affect the salvage question not by one jot nor one tittle! Nor it don't derogate any from your crew! I swear by Almighty God that it's just the usual procedure!”

“Very well,” said Captain Edwardes, a tear in his eye: “Mr. Buxton, let them come up.”

It is an uncommon sight nowadays, that: to see one captain, in his uniform, kneeling in another captain's cabin.

They took the “Archimedes's” towing wire, and passing the eye over one of her bits made a great loop, bringing the wire back to the same bit and securing it. Then they carried it across the deck, and made a similar bridle on the other bow. With an enormous iron shackle they fastened a heavy manila cable into these two loops jointly: and towing began. What steam the “Archimedes” still possessed was turned on to her steering gear. For it makes a big difference if the vessel being towed can steer. Otherwise she will sheer about: and it is that, often as not, which snaps the tow-line, or even turns the tow right over.

The men from the “Patricia” treated the “Archimedes's” men with courtesy and respect. Partly this was a natural feeling—honouring men who have achieved something stupendous, and to have lived through these five days was itself stupendous. Partly it was like the oriental's respect for the madman. They had not forgotten their welcome—those scowling faces, those menacing clubs. You had to mind your eye with these chaps—Yes, sir!

Captain Abraham, guessing that catering on the “Archimedes” might present difficulties, had the supper for his sixteen men cooked on his own ship, and sent across. When it arrived, the “Archimedes's” men never thought for a moment it was not meant for them: they gathered round and wolfed it in two shakes. The “Patricia's” took it very well—raised no protest as they saw their supper going. God, how those men ate! They must be short of food.

So then Captain Abraham enquired, and Captain Edwardes admitted it: yes, they were a bit short of food, and drink. Captain Abraham, secretly ashamed that he had not enquired before, sent across a small supply of provisions and water to the “Archimedes.” But he could not send over much, or he would have run short himself.