Chapter Sixteen.
“Man Overboard!”
“Confound those mounseers,” I heard Mr Stormcock say to the master as I came out from Captain Farmer’s cabin. “I wonder what they want to stop us for now, just as we were getting clear of Ushant? It’s sure to bring us bad luck!”
“By jingo, it is a nuisance bringing us up like this,” chorused Mr Quadrant, a fellow-grumbler of the same kidney. “We might have carried on as we were standing, if those blessed Parlyvoos, had only let us alone; while now, when we do make a start again, the wind will most probably have headed us, and we’ll then have to go about and bear away to the nor’ard on the port tack, losing all the southing we’ve made since yesterday!”
In spite of both their growls, however, we could not well avoid the interview, albeit it was none of our seeking; and while I went down to summons the captain, Commander Nesbitt ordered the courses to be clewed up and the mainyard squared, so as to heave the ship to.
When I came up again the Frenchman and ourselves had both our heads to windward and were bobbing about abreast of each other, though still some distance apart; dipping deeply in the rough seaway and occasionally rolling broadside on, with the salt spray and spindrift coming in over our hammock nettings in sprinkles of foam.
“Hullo!” cried Larkyns, who was signal midshipman and was looking at the stranger with a diminutive telescope screwed-up to his starboard eye. “She’s hoisted the answering pen’ant under her ensign.”
“That means she’s going to use the International Code,” said the commander, overhearing him. “Signalman, keep a sharp lookout on her, and have your book handy to read her signal as soon as it goes up!”
“Ay, ay, sir,” replied the man, who was, like Larkyns, squinting his best at the other ship, although with a much bigger glass. “Something’s going up now, sir.”
“Yes, I see,” said Commander Nesbitt, as a string of flags were run up to the French ship’s main. “Have our answering pen’ant ready to hoist as soon as you can make it out. Look sharp, signalman! What does she say?”
“It’s ‘B D N,’ sir,” stammered out the man, who was rapidly turning over the pages of the signal book, seeking the meaning of the flags in that dictionary of the sign language of the sea, and missing what he sought to find in his hurry. “I—I—can’t find it, sir.”
“Can’t find your grandmother!” cried the Commander, impatiently, vexed at the delay. “Here, give me the signal book!”
“The hoist means ‘I want to communicate,’ I think,” observed Captain Farmer, who had come up quietly on the poop meanwhile, and stood behind the commander. “But the Frenchman might have saved himself the trouble of sending such a signal aloft; for, the mere fact of his already coming up to the wind and firing a gun, told us as much beforehand!”
“I should think so, sir; but it’s just like those Johnny Crapauds—always gabbling a lot about nothing!” rejoined the commander, who, at last, had now found the right page of the signal book. “Yes, sir, you’re quite right, as usual! I wish I had your memory for signals! He ‘wants to communicate.’ Signalman, hoist our answering pen’ant!”
At this order, the red-and-white barred pennant, which had long since been bent ready to the signal halliards, was run up to our main truck.
From this point of vantage, it flew out fair above all our sails and tophamper, visible all round the compass and telling the French corvette, still curvetting and prancing abreast of us and showing her bright copper sheathing as she rolled, that we had at last made out her signal and were waiting to learn what she had to say.
“I hope it’s really important,” said Captain Farmer to the commander; while Larkyns and the head signalman kept their glasses fixed on the opposite ship, ready to take in her next signal. “International courtesies are all very well in their way, but I don’t like being stopped for a mere exchange of bunting and that sort of balderdash, Nesbitt.”
“Nor I, sir,” agreed the commander. “Ha, they’re sending up another hoist now, and we’ll soon know all about it. What’s that now, signalman?”
“‘B L K,’ sir,” replied the yeoman of signals and Larkyns in one breath; and the former, running his fingers over the pages of the signal book, which Commander Nesbitt had returned to his custody, soon found that the interpretation of the flags thus clustered was, “We have passed a wreck, but were unable to stand by to see if any survivors were aboard her.”
“Oh!” exclaimed the captain on this being read out aloud, as the signalman put it down on the slate for entry into the ship’s log, according to the usual custom. “This is getting interesting. Hoist ‘Q R S’ after the answering pen’ant.”
“I say, Larkyns,” I asked, in an undertone of my friend the senior mid, as a string of square flags went up on our side—a yellow on top, a red square with a yellow cross in the middle, and a white flag with a blue centre the lowermost—“what does our signal mean, eh?”
“It means,” he whispered back, keeping his starboard eye still glued to his telescope, “‘whereabouts is that wreck you’re speaking of?’”
Some considerable delay now occurred on board the corvette; the Frenchies, in spite of their taking the initiative in the matter, being not as handy as our man in the manipulation of their flags.
At last, however, they sent up two hoists in rather a slovenly fashion, one going up after the other.
“Ha, that’s the latitude,” said Captain Farmer. “‘F K S’ and ‘G I V’ Signalman, what does that make, eh?”
“Forty-seven degrees, and fifteen minutes north latitude, sir.”
“Good, my man,” returned the captain, approvingly. “You’ve read that pretty smartly! Now, hoist the answering pennant; though, I suppose we’ll have to wait another month of Sundays for their longitude. No, by Jove! Messieurs les Français are a trifle quicker this time. ‘F N J’ and ‘G V L.’ How do you make them out, signalman? See if you can be as smart again as you were just now.”
“Ay, ay, sir,” returned the yeoman, all on his mettle and his eye the quicker to scan the alphabetical pages of his flag lexicon where the signals were catalogued in groups according to their subjects, this one being a numeral and, therefore, all the easier to read. “It’s longitude 9 degrees 15 minutes west, sir.”
“All right, put it down correctly, signalman,” said Captain Farmer; and, turning to the commander, he added, “Why, Nesbitt, it’s nearly in our direct course across the Bay, only we shall have a tighter squeeze, perhaps, in weathering Finisterre.”
“But, we can go a couple of points more free, sir,” observed Mr Quadrant, who had busied himself shaping a course on a chart by the binnacle as soon as he heard the latitude and longitude given. “That’ll be better than going about on the port tack, as I thought we should have to do, sir.”
“Yes—ha—humph! But I don’t like going too near Finisterre, though, Mr Quadrant, with a westerly gale threatening,” said the captain. “We cannot help ourselves, however, at present, for we must go after this wreck and see if there’re any unfortunate people aboard; though, I think those Frenchmen might have overhauled her themselves, instead of leaving it for us to do! Hoist ‘H V L,’ signalman! That will serve, Nesbitt, to tell them we’ll attend to the wreck. Let us fill and bear away again. We can’t afford to waste any more time palavering with our friend over yonder, who keeps us bowing and scraping like a veritable Frenchman as he is! Run up the signal now, signalman; and, Nesbitt, give him a parting dip of the ensign, and then brace round the yards and bear up!”
“Very good, sir,” replied the commander; and, as soon as the Frenchmen had hoisted their answering pennant to show that our signal had been taken in and understood, he turned to the poop-rail and sang out, “Bosun’s mate, pipe the watch to trim sails!”
The braces were then manned and the main yard swung, while our helm put hard a-starboard; when, the upper sails now filling and drawing again, our courses were dropped and the tacks hauled aboard, the clew garnets rattling as they were brought aft, and the ship put on her course.
We bore away, though, a couple of points more to the southward than before, steering sou’-sou’-west, towards the position of the wreck, as pointed out to us by our communicative friends, the strange ship.
“By Jove, sir,” exclaimed the commander as we bade farewell to the Frenchman, who also filled at the same time and went about on his way, both of us dipping our ensigns once more in salute, “we never thought of asking his name!”
“No more we did, Nesbitt,” said Captain Farmer; and the two stared at each other for a moment in silence, the captain ultimately breaking into a laugh. “But, that need not trouble you; for, I should know that corvette anywhere, I think, from the way she tumbles home from her water line abaft the beam. She’s the old Sérieuse for a thousand!”
“Indeed, sir?”
“Yes. She was one of the French fleet in the Black Sea when I was out there with old Dundas. I’ve been alongside her too often to forget her queer build!”
“But, I thought most of those French corvettes were wall-sided, sir?”
“Ay, true enough,” replied Captain Farmer, with a chuckle, as he came down the poop-ladder and turned to go into his cabin. “But, not all of them, Nesbitt, not all of them, my boy. I tell you, I would know the old Sérieuse anywhere, for they haven’t got another tub like her afloat.”
“The ‘old man’s’ right,” I heard the master say to Mr Stormcock when the captain had disappeared. “The corvette was on the right of our line when we bombarded Odessa; and I recollect she missed stays when tacking, and pretty nearly came aboard us.”
“By jingo,” replied Mr Stormcock, enthusiastically, “what an eye the old man has for a ship, and what a memory for signals! I never came across his equal.”
So thought I too; however, each day disclosed some fresh trait in our captain’s character, which surprised us all the more from his being such a very reserved man.
He was in the habit of keeping himself to himself until occasion arose to bring out his latent qualities.
Time, and a longer acquaintance with him, only taught us this pregnant fact, amongst other things!
While all the signalling had been going on, the wind was gradually freshening and the sea getting up; and by the time we made sail again the waves had put on their white caps, while a heavy, rolling swell had set in.
This met us almost full butt as we lay on our course and broke over our weather bow in columns of spray, washing the forecastle fore and aft and tumbling into the waist in a cataract of foam.
The water was knee-deep on the lee side of the deck, whenever the ship heeled over to port under the pressure of her canvas, passing out of the scuppers like a mill-race on her rising again and righting on an even keel.
The more the gale blew, however, the better the old Candahar appeared to like it; racing along in grand style, and kicking up her heels to the Frenchman who was pretty soon hull down astern, the distance between us widening each instant all the more rapidly from the fact of our proceeding in opposite directions!
At Two Bells, when the log was hove, we were found to be going over nine knots but the ship began to plunge so much presently, that Commander Nesbitt, after one or two anxious glances aloft, ordered the boatswain’s mate to call the hands to shorten sail, setting them to work the moment they came up from below, the topgallant sails and royals being taken in without delay and the royal yards sent down.
“I thought we were going to have bad luck,” observed Mr Stormcock, who had made his appearance again on the quarter-deck on hearing the boatswain’s pipe for all hands. “We haven’t seen the worst of it yet, I’m afraid.”
“Shut up, you old croaker,” said Mr Jellaby. “Why, you’re a regular Jonah with your prophecies of evil!”
“I hope you won’t chuck me overboard for it, though, as they did him!” replied Mr Stormcock, good-humouredly. “Goodness knows, I don’t wish any harm to the old ship, or anyone in her! It isn’t likely I would; but, look at those clouds there away to win’ard and judge for yourself what sort of weather we’re likely to have before nightfall!”
“Yes; no doubt you’re right, Stormcock,” said “Joe” in answer to this, squinting as he spoke over the side to the westward, where a heavy bank of cloud was rising up and nearly blotting out now the sun as it sank lower and lower towards the horizon. “It does look squally, certainly; still, I can’t see the use of anticipating the worst and trying to meet troubles half-way, as you do, old chap!”
“I would rather be prepared for them than be caught napping,” rejoined the master’s mate, eyeing the quartermaster at the wheel, who was giving a helping hand to the two helmsmen, their task being by no means easy to make the ship keep her luff under the circumstances of wind and sea. “I wonder the commander doesn’t reef tops’ls? We can’t carry on much longer like this!”
“I hope he won’t,” whispered little Tommy Mills to me aside, my chum having come up with the rest from the gunroom at the general call. “Ain’t it jolly, spinning along like this, eh, Jack?”
Before I could reply, however, the commander seemed to have arrived at Mr Stormcock’s opinion, that we were still carrying too much canvas, for he came to the break of the poop and shouted out to the boatswain’s mate.
“Hands reef topsails!” he cried. “Topmen aloft! Take in two reefs!”
“Not a bit too soon,” growled the master’s mate, under his breath. “He ought to have given that order when the to’gallants were taken in!”
“Better late than never, say I,” said Mr Jellaby, laughing, as the topmen raced up the ratlines and the weather braces were rounded-in, preparatory to reefing. “Really, Stormcock, you’re the most inveterate growler I have come across in the service since first I went to sea, by Jove!”
Tom Mills and I chuckled at this; but, alas! our merriment was suddenly hushed by hearing a wild shriek come from aloft, that rose above the moaning of the wind as it whistled through the rigging and the melancholy wash of the waves, while, at the same instant, a dark body whizzed through the air and fell into the water alongside with a heavy plunge.
“Good heavens!” exclaimed Commander Nesbitt, as we all stared at one another with blanched faces. “What is that?”
His question was answered in the moment of its utterance by a loud shout from forward that rang through the ship, sending a chill to every heart.
“Man overboard!”