III
The master of the bark Henry Fuller, mahogany-laden and Boston-bound, and, now to anchor in Chatham Harbor on the Cape Cod shore, stood conning a telegram.
“In two hours or so now he ought to be outside and waiting for us. ‘Slip your chains and let her go.’ All right. Only, instead of slipping I’ll see that they part—in the most natural way in the world—and out we’ll go proper.”
And out she went, threatening all sorts of destruction, but curiously missing whatever lay in her road. Thus far all had gone well. But the best-laid plans——
Instead of a moderate gale, the master of the Fuller found a blizzard to combat—a northwester, which in winter is always cold. This one was so cold that in the first sweep of it they almost froze up—in fact, came so near to freezing that by midnight all hands were spending more time below than on deck in the effort to keep warm.
“Why in the devil’s name didn’t he warn me of this?—up there in Boston, where they have all kinds of weather-bureau information. Why in the devil’s name didn’t he?” complained the master of the Henry Fuller.
The Fuller, to lend a good color by and by to the story of the wreckage and rescue, had to have a leak. The leak had been provided for at the same time that the cables were chiselled. So that was all right. But the leak meanwhile had begun to grow. Whereas the Fuller’s captain had counted on two men to work pumps, or four seeming to be working desperately as the rescuers approached, there were now four men who really had to toil without cessation to keep the ship dry.
It grew colder. The coldest wind of all that ruffles the North Atlantic is a northwester, and this was an exceptionally cold northwester. The bark began to ice up fast, and so many extra men were needed to chop the ice off her that there were not enough left to take sail off. When out from the lee of the land they began to feel the real force of the wind, and so unloosed sails were blown off before they could be set. Then they hove her to. But a square-rigger doesn’t stay hove-to like a fore-and-after, and the Fuller went sliding off to leeward; and sliding too far to leeward off the Cape Cod coast in a northwester means to drift to Georges Shoals, where in places is no more than twelve feet of water. The bark Henry Fuller drew twenty-one.
The master of the Fuller, far from being as crazy as Wiley, to suit his purposes, had described him to Dixey, was in reality a long-headed chap and a good seaman, and here he began to think and act. Calling such of the crew as were chopping ice off her deck and rail, he put them to work setting such extra sail as he had below.
A tedious and difficult job that; and dangerous, with big seas threatening to overpower the logey craft. But it had to be done; and it was done after a long and wracking night.
Sail on her again, the Skipper tried to beat her around the cape. But as a square-rigger won’t lay hove-to as snugly as a fore-and-after, neither will she hold up to the wind like a fore-and-after. A fore-and-after always for coasting work; a square-rigger for trade-winds and the wide ocean wherein to navigate.
The Fuller would not do it; nor could her master work her under the lee of the land. What with the water in her hold, the ice on her hull, and her insufficiency of sail, she only rolled and drifted in the trough of the sea. And having left both anchors in the harbor of Chatham, he could get no grip of bottom to hold her. However, he could do the next best thing—he could lay her to a drag. So getting several of the mahogany logs out of her hold, the crew lashed them together, and, working under protest, mutinous almost in their free discussion of things, they hoisted the drag up and dropped it over the rail after great exertion.
It was again night, and still no signs of a rescuing tug. Another private glance at the telegram revealed nothing new. “We’re altogether too near the shoals for Wiley,” muttered the captain of the Fuller, “and even if we weren’t, I guess he’s having all he wants to look after himself in this gale. I wonder is she drifting fast? The lead there, fellows—give her the lead, and see what’s under us.”
One man had life enough to take a sounding. “Forty-five fathom,” he called.
“Forty-five! God, but we’re going into it! Cut that drag adrift and let’s get out of here. Get together, men, and make sail of some kind till we’re by this place.”
“What place is it just, Captain?”
“It’s Georges North Shoal to looard of us.”
They asked no more, but worked with desperation. Frost-bitten, wet, hungry, they made sail of it in some fashion. Anywhere for them now but Georges North Shoal and sure death.
“And once by here, let her go where she will— I’m done with her,” announced the tired captain of the Henry Fuller.