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?"