Chapter Fourteen.
A Wheel of Misfortune.
That’s our vessel out there, moored fore and aft—that one with her starn so low down, and her nose right up outer the water. You see, that’s all owing to her make. Being a screw boat, all her machinery is far aft, as you can see by her funnel; and now the cargo’s all out, she looks awkward in the water. Fine boat, though, ain’t she? There’s lines! there’s a clipper-look about her! She seems as if she’d cut through anything. My old boat was a fine one, but nothing like so fast, though I liked her, after all, far better than this; for when you get out in the warm parts the engine-room’s awful, and enough to kill a fellow; and I don’t know, after all, that I don’t like a paddle-boat best, same as my old ’un was. I’ve never seen such engines since, nor such cylinders—oscillators, you know—and one to each paddle separate, so that you could go ahead with one and turn astarn with t’other, just like the chaps in a boat rowing and backing water, so that the old steamer would almost spin round upon herself if you liked. There was some credit in keeping that machinery bright, for you could see it all from the deck, and when the sun shone, and the pistons, and beams, and cylinders were all on the work, it was a pretty sight as would pay any one for looking at.
It’s only a short journey, you know—London and Hull—but it takes a deal of care, and precious rough the weather is sometimes; for our east coast ain’t a nice one, any more than it’s easy working going up the Humber, or making your way into the Thames; and then, amongst all the shipping most as far as London Bridge, there’s so many small boats about, and so much in-and-out work and bother, that at times one gets sick of going ahead, and turning astarn, and easing her, and stopping her, and the rest of it; but then, you know, if we didn’t look sharp we should soon be into something, or over it, just as it happened.
I remember once we were in the Humber. It was winter time, when the great river was covered with floating ice; and as we went along slowly to get in midstream, you could hear the paddle-wheels battering and shattering the small pieces, so that one expected the floats to be knocked all to pieces; while the ragged, jaggy fragments of ice were driven far enough under water, and then rose up amongst the foam to go rushing and bumping along the side of the ship, tearing and grinding one another as they went. It was terribly slow work, for we were obliged to work at quarter speed, and now and then we’d come with a tremendous shock against some floating block, which then went grating along till the chaps in front of the paddles caught it at the end of their hitchers, and so turned it off, or the paddles must have been smashed.
You see, the tide was coming up, and all this floating ice that had come down, out of the Ouse and Trent, was being brought back again from Humber’s mouth. Pretty nigh high water it was, but we started a little sooner, so as to see our way through the ice before night came on; and as I stood on deck, having come up for a moment or two, of all the dreary sights I ever saw that was the worst. Far as eye could reach there was ice-covered water, mist, and the heavy clouds seeming to settle down upon the distant banks.
It was getting fast on towards evening, and seeing me up, the captain began to talk a bit about the state of the river, and whether we hadn’t better anchor, while I could hardly hear him from the clattering noise made by the paddle-floats upon the ice.
“Cold place to anchor,” I says, as I looked round the deck; and then I says, “Be clearer as soon as we gets nearer Grimsby.” So we kept on, and I went down to join my stoker giving an eye to the engine, and after a few words I went up again and took a look about me. And what a wretched lookout the deck of a Hull boat is. You see it’s a cheap way of getting up to London, and parliamentary trains ain’t nowhere in comparison for cheapness, so that you have rather a poor lot of passengers; and then, what with the cargo, and one thing and another, always including the poor folks as is sick, and them as is trying to make themselves so, why, you may find much pleasanter places than the deck of a Hull steamer. But, there, the deck’s bad enough, so what do you suppose the fore-cabin is? It’s enough to make your heart bleed sometimes to see the poor miserable-looking objects we have on board, some half-clothed and looking less than half-fed as they crouch about the deck or huddle down in the cabin. Then there’s always a lot of children, and the poor, tired, cold, hungry little things soon let you know as they’re on board, and very loudly, too, making every one else miserable and wretched into the bargain.
I’d been giving an eye to all this, and thinking how very much pleasanter everything would have been if we had had a fine summer’s evening for our voyage, when all at once, above the rattle and clatter of the ice amongst the paddles, I heard a horrible wild shriek from just over the side of the ship. Like half a dozen more, I ran to the side directly, and looked over, when just at the same moment I saw two men standing up in a little boat—one a sailor chap or boatman, and the other evidently a passenger; for in the glance I took I could see a bag and a box in the boat.
No doubt they had been hailing, but the noise of the paddles stopped any one from hearing, while the coming evening prevented any one from seeing them till they were close on to us, and the little boat gliding along the ship’s side in company with the ice.
The boatman seemed to have lost his nerve, or else he would have tried to hook on with a hitcher; but he stood quite still, and as we all looked, one of the men who had been keeping off the ice made a dash at the boat with his hook, but missed her; and the next instant there was a loud shriek and a crash, and the little boat and the two men were out of sight under the great paddle-wheel of the steamer.
I dashed to the skylight, and shouted “Stop her!” to my mate, and the paddle-wheels ceased going round; when I followed all on deck to the side abaft the paddle-box, and in the dim light I could just see the swamped boat come up and pass astarn of us, floating amongst the ice.
“Here, get out a boat!” cried the captain, and directly after four of us were rowing about amongst the ice, trying to find the two poor fellows who had been beaten down. Now we tried one way, and now another, and always with the great thick sheets of ice grinding against us, and forcing the boat about; while I could not help thinking what a poor chance the best of swimmers would have had in the icy water, amongst the sharp, ragged-edged floes that were sweeping by.
It had got to be almost dark now, and the steamer lay some distance off, so that we could only see her by the lights hung out; when just as we had made up our minds that nothing more could be done, and were turning the boat’s head, there came a hail from the steamer for us to return.
And that returning was not an easy job in the darkness, with the ice making the little boat shiver at every stroke of the oars, for it seemed to grow thicker and heavier all round us, so that we had to row carefully to keep from being overset. Till I saw it, I could hardly believe in such huge lumps of ice being anywhere out of the Polar seas; for here in England one would not expect to see pieces of ice lying stranded on the shore—pieces eight or ten feet high. But there, in the Humber, in a severe winter, a great quantity of sheet ice comes down with the tide, and being washed one piece over the other, they mount up and up, and freeze together till they get quite a height, while I have often seen small schooners and billy-boys froze in, and even raised right out of the water, so that they stood on a little hill of ice, which supported the middle, while you could walk under the keel of the fore part.
After a good deal of pushing and warding off blows, we got aside the steamer at last, when the captain shouted to us to row all along, for he thought once he had heard some one shout for help. So we put her gently alongside, round the paddle-box, and were going forward a bit, when I heard a shout close by me as made my blood turn cold.
But I was myself again next moment, and I got hold of a boat-hook and hitched on alongside.
“Throw us a rope,” I says; and they let down the tackle, when we hooked on, and directly after they had us hauled up to the davits, when I jumped on deck.
“Lend a hand here with a lanthorn,” I says, running up to the paddle-box.
“Easy ahead,” says the captain, shouting down the skylight.
“No, no!” I shrieked, turning all wet with horror; and then, as the paddle-wheels made about half a revolution, there came such a horrid, stifling, muffled scream as nearly froze us, and then another, but this time a plain one, for I was up atop of the paddle-box and had opened the trap.
“Help, help!” came the wild cry from just beneath me, and I called out again for a light, which some one brought, and I lowered it down between two of the floats, when I could see both of the poor fellows—one astride of the wheel axle, and the other half in the water, holding on to one of the spokes; while, by the glimmering of the lanthorn, I could see their horror-stricken countenances, and the peril of their position.
Just then one of them tried to say something, but it was only a sort of groan, and to my great horror I saw him throw up his hands wildly, and fall off the axle right down splash into the water, where the bottom floats were underneath, and I made sure he was gone. But there was no time for thinking, if anything was going to be done; and, giving the lanthorn to another man to hold, I got through the trap, and then, climbing about like a squirrel in a cage, I got down to the bottom, and then got hold of the poor fellow who had fallen, and managed to hold his head up, while I shouted for some one to bring a rope.
Nobody seemed in a hurry to come down, and I must say as it looked a horrible place, while the water kept dripping from the icy wet floats, and I couldn’t help thinking where we should be if the wheels went round. But directly after I saw some one drop through the hole, and then the captain began to climb down with the end of a rope, and we soon made it fast to the poor fellow, and had him up. As for the other chap, he seemed mad with fright, for when we got to him his eyes were fixed and his arms clinging that tightly round one of the spokes that we could not move them. So we had to make the rope as was sent down again fast round him, and at last we got him up through the floats and out of the trap.
Now, I have heard of captains setting their men good examples, and wanting to stay in places of danger till the last, but our captain didn’t, for he took the lead precious eagerly, and was soon out; but, as he got up, bang down went the lanthorn, when I had a taste of the creepy feeling those two poor fellows must have had as I hung on there in the darkness, fancying all sorts of terrible things—that they would forget I was there and give the order “Go on ahead,” when I should be leaping from float to float in the horrible darkness, to keep myself above water, till I was exhausted, when with a dying clutch I should cling to one of the spokes of the wheel and be dashed round and round till life was beaten out of me; when so strong was the imaginary horror that I could see myself turning up in the white foam behind the wheel and then floating away far astarn.
It was so pitchy dark, and I felt so unnerved, that I dared not try to climb up the slimy iron-work, though I was quite familiar with its shape: and, though I dare say the time was only a minute before the light appeared again, it seemed to me an hour, and it was only by the exercise of great self-control that I could keep from shrieking aloud.
But the light came at last; and, pale, wet and trembling, I managed to climb out on to the paddle-box, and had almost to be helped down on to the deck, when I pretended that I was suffering from cold, and made the best of my way down into the engine-room, where I stood in front of the fire till a bit recovered, and then changed my things.
“How did we get up there?” says the boatman next day, when I was asking him about the accident—“how did we get up there? Goodness only knows; for, when the paddle beat our boat under, I didn’t seem to know anything more till we were down in the cabin.”
And so the passenger that he was bringing aboard said when he came down and thanked me for what he called my gallantry; just as if it was anything to go and help a poor fellow in distress. And so it always seems to be that, in the great peril of an accident itself, there is not so much horror and dread as in the expectation and waiting for it to happen; but I know that I suffered enough hanging there in the dark on that paddle-wheel, and thought enough to have driven me out of my senses in another half-hour.