Chapter Twenty.
The Last Disaster.
After the first shock of surprise at the alarming intelligence—the most awful that can be circulated on board a ship, and one that fills up the seaman’s cup of horrors to the brim—Captain Billings quickly recovered his usual equanimity. He was his own clear-headed, calm, collected self again in a moment.
“How did you discover it?” he asked the mate, in a low tone.
“I was ganging forwarts,” said Mr Macdougall, in the same hushed key, so that only Captain Billings and I could catch his words, “when a’ at once I smeelt somethin’—”
“Ah, that raking flying jibboom of yours wasn’t given you for nothing!” whispered the skipper, alluding to the mate’s rather “pronounced” nose.
“Aye, mon, it sairves me weel,” said Mr Macdougall, feeling the ridge of his nasal organ with much apparent satisfaction, and then proceeding to finish his statement. “But I could no meestake the smeel, the noo.”
“Something burning, I suppose?” said the skipper interrogatively.
“You’re right, Cap’en; the smeel was that o’ boornin’ wood and gas.”
“What did you do then?” asked Captain Billings.
“I joost slippet off the main hatch, and the smeel was quite overpowerin’, enough to choke one! so I e’en slippet the hatch on again, walking forwarts so as not to alarm the crew; and then I cam’ aft to tell your ain sel’.”
“You did right,” said the skipper. “I’ll go presently and have a look myself.”
Captain Billings’ inspection proved that the mate’s fears were but too well-founded; so he immediately had the pumps rigged by the watch on duty—“all hands” not being called yet, as the vessel was lying-to, and there was not much work to be done. But a lot of water was pumped into the hold, after which the hatches were battened down, and we hoped the fire would die out from being smothered in this way.
Meanwhile the north-westerly gale increased to almost a hurricane, the ship taking in great seas over her bows that deluged the decks, so that the waist sometimes was all awash with four feet of water on it; but this did not trouble us much, for of the two elements the sea was now the least feared, as we hoped that the one would check the spread of the other.
Next day, however, when the gale lightened a little, and the Esmeralda rode easier, still head to sea, the men complained that the fo’c’sle was getting too hot for them to live in it, although the temperature of the exterior air was nearly down to freezing point.
This looked ominous; so Captain Billings, determining to adopt more stringent measures to check the conflagration that must be raging below in the cargo, caused the hatches to be opened; but such dense thick volumes of smoke and poisonous gas rolled forth the moment the covers were taken off, that they were quickly battened down again, holes now being bored to insert the hose pipes, and another deluge of water pumped into the hold, forwards as well as amidships.
“I don’t know what to do,” said the skipper to Mr Macdougall. “If it were not for this gale I would try to run for Sandy Point, where we might get assistance, as I’ve heard of the captain of a collier once, whose ship caught fire in the cargo like mine, careening his ship ashore there, when, taking out the burning coals, he saved the rest of his freight and stowed it again, so that he was able to resume his voyage and deliver most of the cargo at its destination. But this wind is right in one’s teeth, either to get to Sandy Point or fetch any other port within easy reach.”
“We moost ae just trust to Proveedence!” replied the mate.
“Oh, yes, that’s all very well,” said the skipper, impatiently. “But, still, Providence expects us to do something to help ourselves—what do you suggest?”
“I canna thaenk o’ naught, Cap’en,” replied Mr Macdougall, in his lugubrious way.
“Hang it, neither can I!” returned the skipper, as if angry with himself because of no timely expedient coming to his mind; but just at that moment the gale suggested something to him—at all events in the way of finding occupation!
All at once, the wind, which had been blowing furiously from the northwards, shifted round without a moment’s warning to the south-west, catching the ship on her quarter, and heeling her over so to leeward that her yard-arms dipped in the heavy rolling sea.
For a second, it seemed as if we were going over; for the Esmeralda remained on her beam ends without righting again, the waves breaking clean over her from windward, and sweeping everything movable from her decks fore and aft; but then, as the force of the blast passed away, she slowly laboured up once more, the masts swaying to and fro as if they were going by the board, for they groaned and creaked like living things in agony.
“Put the helm up—hard up!” shouted the skipper to the man at the wheel; but, as the poor fellow tried to carry out the command, the tiller “took charge,” as sailors say, hurling him right over the wheel against the bulwarks, which broke his leg and almost pitched him over the side. Had this occurred it would have been utterly impossible to have saved him.
Mr Macdougall and I immediately rushed aft; and, the two of us grasping the spokes, managed to turn the wheel round with our united strength; but it was too late to get the ship to pay off, for, a fresh blast of wind striking her full butt, she was taken aback, the foremast coming down with a crash across the deck, carrying with it the bowsprit and maintopmast, the mizzen-topmast following suit a minute afterwards.
This was bad enough in all conscience, without our having the consciousness that besides this loss of all our spars, making the vessel a hopeless log rolling at the mercy of the winds and waves, our cargo of coals was on fire in the hold, forming a raging volcano beneath our feet!
Fortune was cruel. Mishap had followed on mishap. The powers of evil were piling Ossa on Pelion!
The skipper, however, was not daunted yet.
All hands had rushed aft, without being specially called, roused by the crash of the falling spars, so he immediately set them to work with the hatchets fastened round the mainmast bitts, cutting away at the wreckage; and then, as the clouds cleared away and a bit of blue sky showed itself aloft, Captain Billings expressed himself hopeful of getting out of the meshes of that network of danger in every direction with which we seemed surrounded.
“Look alive, men, and don’t despair,” said he to the crew, encouraging them; for they were almost panic-stricken at first, and it was all that Jorrocks and I could do to get them to ply their tomahawks forwards and cut away the rigging, which still held the foremast with all its top-hamper attached to the ship, thumping at her sides as the lumber floated alongside, trying to crunch our timbers in. “Look alive, men, and put your heart into it; all hope hasn’t left us yet! The gale has nearly blown itself out, as you can see for yourselves by that little bit of blue sky there overhead, bigger than a Dutchman’s pair of breeches; so, as soon as the sea goes down a little, we’ll hoist out the boats, so as to have them handy in case we have to abandon the ship, should the fire in the hold get too strong for us, although I don’t fear that yet, my hearties, for the water may drown it out soon, you know. But work away cheerily, my lads, and clear away all that dunnage, so that we can set a little sail presently on the mainmast and mizzen, which we still have standing, when we can make a run for some islands lying close by under the lee of Cape Horn, where I’ll heave her ashore if I can; but, if the vessel don’t reach the land, you needn’t be afraid of not being able to do so in the boats, which we can take to as a last resource, so there’s no fear of your lives being lost, at any rate!”
“Hurray!” shouted out Jorrocks, leading a cheer; and Pat Doolan seconding him heartily, the hands started at the rigging with greatly renewed vigour, slashing at the shrouds and stays until they parted, and the foremast was at last cut away clear, floating astern on the top of the rolling waves.
“There it goes!” cried the skipper, “and joy go with it for deserting us in that unhandsome way!”
“Ah, sir,” observed Haxell, the carpenter, who was standing close beside him now, quiet a bit after exerting himself like a navvy in helping to clear the wreck, “you forgets as how the poor dear thing never recovered that spring it had off Madeiry!”
“No; for it has lasted well, nevertheless, and I oughtn’t to complain of it now,” said Captain Billings, with a responsive sigh to the carpenter’s lament over the lost foremast. Haxell looked upon all the ship’s spars as if they were his own peculiar private property, and spoke of them always—that is, when he could be induced to abandon his chronic taciturnity—as if they had kindred feelings and sensibilities to his own!
The dark threatening clouds which had enveloped the heavens for the past twenty-four hours now cleared away, although the wind still blew pretty fresh from the south-west, and the sun coming out, Captain Billings told me to go and fetch my sextant in order to take an observation so as to ascertain our true position; for, first with the north-easter, and then with the squall from the south, we had been so driven here, there, and everywhere, that it was difficult to form any reasonable surmise as to where we really were—especially as there was a strong current supposed to run round Cape Horn from the Pacific towards the Atlantic Ocean at certain tides.
I fetched my sextant and took the sun; and I may say confidently to all whom it may concern that this was the last observation ever made by any one on board the ill-fated Esmeralda!
The skipper checked me in the time, from the chronometer in the cabin; and when I had worked out the reckoning, we compared notes on the poop.
“What do you make it?” said he.
“56 degrees 20 minutes South,” I said.
“And the ship’s time makes us about 66 degrees West. Ha! humph! we must be about forty miles to the south of Cape Horn; and, by Jove,” he added, looking to the north-west, where the blue sky was without a fleck save a little white cloud, like the triangular sail of a boat, seen dimly low down on the horizon, “there’s my gentleman over there, now!”
The knowledge of the vessel’s position appeared to give the skipper greater confidence; and, the waves ceasing to break over us, although the huge southern rollers swept by in heavy curves, he gave directions for getting some tackle rigged to launch the long-boat, which, although it was right in the way, had escaped injury when the foremast fell. At the same time, the mainsail and mizzen staysail were set, and the vessel steered in the direction of that Cape which she seemed destined never to round.
“We’ll run for the Wollaston group,” said the skipper—“that is, if the fire will let us stop aboard till we reach there; and if not, why, the less distance there will be for us to trust ourselves to the boats in this strong sea.”
No time was lost in making preparations to quit the ship, however—provisions and stores being brought up from the steerage by the steward and a couple of seamen who were told off to help him.
In the last few hours the fire had made considerable headway; for thin wreaths of smoke were curling up from the deck forwards, where the pitch had been melted from the seams, and the heat was plainly perceptible on the poop, accompanied as it was by a hot sulphurous smell.
“Be jabers, I fale like a cat on a hot griddle,” said Pat Doolan, as he danced in and out of the galley, engaged in certain cooking operations on a large scale which the skipper had ordered; “I’ll soon have no sowl at all, at all, to me cawbeens!”
The men laughed at this, but there was a good deal of truth in the joking words of the Irishman, as, although washed with water, the deck was quite unbearable to one’s naked foot.
It was now early in the afternoon, and the long-boat and jolly-boat were both launched and loaded with what stores were available, the skipper personally seeing that each was provided with a mast and sails and its proper complement of oars and ballast—barrels and barricoes containing water being utilised to this latter end, thus serving for a double purpose.
Other things and persons were also attended to.
Mr Ohlsen, the second mate, and Harmer, the seaman who had had his leg broken when thrown against the bulwarks—and who, by the way, had the injured limb excellently set by Mr Macdougall, who had passed through a hospital course in “Edinbro’ Toon,” he told us—were brought up from the cabin in their cots, being both invalids. The skipper likewise secured the ship’s papers and removed the compass from the binnacle; while I, of course, did not forget my sextant and a chart or two which Captain Billings told me to take. The foremast hands having also selected a small stock of useful articles, all of us were ready to leave the vessel as soon as she gave us notice to quit.
The fire was waxing hotter and hotter, the curling wreaths of smoke having expanded into dense black columns of vapour, and an occasional tongue of flame was licking the edges of the coamings of the fore hatchway, while sparks every now and then went flying up in the air and were wafted away to leeward by the wind.
“She can’t last much longer now without the flames bursting forth,” said Captain Billings. “The sooner we see about leaving her the better now. Haul up the boats alongside, and prepare to lower down our sick men.”
“Hadn’t we better have a whip rigged from the yard-arm, sir?” suggested Jorrocks. “It’ll get ’em down more comfortable and easy like.”
“Aye, do; I declare I had forgotten that,” said the skipper; “I’m losing my head, I think, at the thought of the loss of my ship!” He spoke these words so sadly that they touched me keenly.
“No, no, Cap’, you haven’t loosed your head yet, so far as thinking about us is concerned,” observed Jorrocks, who was watching the man he had sent out on the mainyard fasten a block and tackle for lowering down the cots of the two invalids. I’m sure we all acquiesced in this hearty expression of the boatswain’s opinion, for no one could have more carefully considered every precaution for our comfort and security than the skipper, when making up his mind to abandon the ship.
No further words were wasted, however, as soon as the boats were hauled alongside.
Mr Ohlsen and Harmer were lowered down carefully into the long-boat, and the provisions, with the captain’s papers and instruments, were subsequently stowed in the stern-sheets by the side of the invalids. A similar procedure was then adopted in reference to the jolly-boat, only that there were no more sick men, fortunately, to go in her; and the skipper was just about mustering the hands on the after part of the main deck, below the break of the poop, when there was a terrible explosion forwards, the whole fore-part of the ship seeming to be rent in twain and hurled heavenward in a sheet of flame as vivid as forked lightning!
I don’t know by what sudden spasm of memory, but at that very instant my thoughts flew back to my boyish days at Beachampton, and my attempt to blow up Dr Hellyer and the whole school with gunpowder on that memorable November day, as I have narrated. The present calamity seemed somehow or other, to my morbid mind, a judgment on my former wicked conduct—the reflection passing through my brain at the instant of the explosion with almost a similar flash.