Chapter Sixteen.
Righting the Ship.
“Now, men!” cried out Captain Miles, when our excitement had calmed down a little, “we’ve got the axe; but, the next thing we have to do is to use it, so as to release the ship as soon as we can. I think, my lads, I ought to have the first turn.”
So saying, taking the axe from Jake, he made a slash at the end of the hawser which had been rigged up over the head of the foremast, when, the strands being cut through after a couple of heavy strokes, the rope parted, curling up like a whip and flying up in the air with a pretty sharp report.
“Now, Mr Marline, it’s your turn,” said the captain, having thus set an example in commencing the work; and then, the first mate, nothing loth, attacked the main-shrouds, severing them clear to the chain-plates, when he handed over the axe to Jackson, who also did wonders with the weapon towards clearing away the heavy rigging that had so long resisted the efforts of the men with their clasp-knives.
The sea by this time was quite calm, thus greatly facilitating our labour; but, from our not having had any food for two days, all hands were very weak, and it took them a much longer time to free the ship of all her rope hamper and cordage than they would have achieved the task in if they had possessed their proper strength. It was, therefore, quite late on in the afternoon when the rigging on the port side was all detached, although Jake had recovered the axe at noon, and we had set to work immediately afterwards.
This, however, was only a preliminary to the real labour that lay before us—that of cutting away the masts, a much more serious matter.
The ship, it must be recollected, was lying completely over on her starboard side, with all her spars extended horizontally flat along the surface of the sea, which washed up to the hatches; so that, even amidships, the water was too deep for the men to have stood on the deck, even if they could have found foothold; there. Away ahead, the bows were completely submerged right up to the fore-chains, the ocean swell washing right through the Josephine fore and aft, right up to the poop.
Luckily, however, the upper portion of the mainmast bitts projected out of the water, so, Jackson, climbing down on to these and supporting himself as well as he could by balancing his body with his feet | extended outwards straddle-ways, commenced to slash away at the mast here; while the rest of the men, under Mr Marline’s directions, proceeded to clear away the rigging and unreeve those ropes which they were able to reach, in order to leave the spar clear for Jackson to work upon it freely.
It was a terribly tough job, though, the young seaman having to waste a part of each blow in the water that covered the foot of the mast. This neutralised his efforts, but he could not help it, for the axe splashed in the sea before touching the wood.
After a short spell, Jackson, quite feeble from hunger and exhaustion, had to give in, when Moggridge took his place, chopping vigorously at the mast as long as he was able. Then, another sailor took a turn at it, and so on, until each had had his go; when Jackson, rested a bit and refreshed by a long drink of water, began anew, making the chips of the hard wood fly as well as the sea, which he splashed up at every stroke the spray going into his eyes and almost blinding him.
All the men worked with the greatest perseverance in spite of their weak state; and, just before sunset, when the mast was about half cut through, it gave signs of at length yielding, sundry sharp cracks being heard as its natural buoyancy forced it to rise, the different purchases that previously held it to the deck being also now severed.
“Bravo, men, one spell more all round, and we’ll have the spar loose!” cried Captain Miles, going down into the waist himself to head this last attack, and taking a longer turn with the axe than anyone.
Blow after blow was then rained upon the heel of the mast, all working with fresh courage and determination as the ponderous piece of timber gave way before their efforts, a wide gaping hole having been now made in it by the axe.
“Look out and stand clear!” shouted Jackson, catching on to the same old sling he had rove out of the topsail halliards by which he had lowered himself from the bulwarks, and swinging himself out of danger. “It’s coming at last!”
At the same moment, a scrunching, wrenching sound was heard, followed by a long, loud crack; and then, up floated the mainmast cut off close to the deck, although still attached to the ship by the rigging on the starboard side—which could not be reached, of course, at present, being under water, and the sea covering it to the depth of ten or twelve feet.
The effect of this relief to the ship was at once apparent, the forward portion of the wreck sensibly rising out of the sea, and the top of the forecastle being now visible, as well as the whole of the port bulwarks up to the cat-head on that side; while the main-deck below us, and the upper portion of the poop, became slanting at an angle towards the water on the starboard, instead of being almost perpendicular to it as before, thus showing that the centre of gravity was changed and the vessel recovering her stability.
“Bravo, men!” exclaimed Captain Miles joyously, delighted at such confirmatory proofs that his hopes of righting the Josephine were not unduly sanguine. “As soon as we get the foremast clear she’ll come up all standing, never fear! Can’t you see how the poor thing is trying hard to free herself now?”
As the portion of the floating mast that was inboard now rose out of the water as far as the main-top, a party of the men with Moggridge scrambled on to it and began cutting away the various cross ropes, halliards, clew-lines, and so on, that held it to the fore and mizzen spars. The yards had now floated too, although the upper portion of the mainmast bearing their weight, as it slewed over, pressed on the starboard bulwarks, remaining in that position from the calmness of the sea, which had not motion enough to drift it away.
“If only a slight breeze would spring up now, so as to rouse a little more swell, we’d float clear of this wreck,” observed Mr Marline. “Half the weight of the mast still tends to keep the ship down to leeward.”
“Ah, we don’t want it rough yet,” said the captain. “The foremast is the main thing to get rid of now; and, unless the sea keeps still, we’ll never manage to cut that away, for it is still more under water than the mainmast was.”
“I forgot that,” replied the mate; and then, both went along the bulwarks forwards to where Jackson was beginning operations at the other spar.
If the mainmast had proved stubborn and unyielding, this was twenty times more so, the great difficulty being that there was no vantage-ground to be had, in the shape of a firm footing, from whence to ply the axe.
“It’s no use, sir,” said Jackson, when the captain had come abreast of the spot where he was standing, in the fore-rigging, trying vainly to reach the mast below. “I can’t even touch the timber, much less make a blow at it!”
“Well, all that can be done,” replied Captain Miles, “is to lighten it as much as possible. Cut away what rigging you are able to lay hands on, and if the sea gets up in the night it may work free.”
“All right, sir,” said Jackson; so, he and the gang with him went to work with a will, slashing here and there at the cordage connecting the mast with the port side of the ship.
Meanwhile, Jake had been very busy, proving himself quite as useful as the rest.
Swimming like a fish he had gone into the sea near the wreck of the mainmast; and, with that long knife of his, which had done so much damage to the sharks, he began cutting away the fastenings of the topgallant-yard, although leaving the lee-braces intact, so that the spar could be hauled in by and by.
Moggridge was on the mast, too, and, with his gang of men, was operating on the tressel-trees to free the lower yard; so that, before it was dark, the whole stick of the mainmast was nearly clear. Only the shrouds and stays on the starboard side now held it to the hull; and, consequently, when it felt inclined to shift its position athwart ship it could easily do so.
Jackson, and those with him forward, having now done as much as they could to cast-off the foremast gear, Captain Miles hailed them to come aft.
“I think,” said he, “if we can only contrive to cut away the mizzen, and a breeze springs up, as there seems every prospect of from these clouds to windward, then, through the greater buoyancy now possessed by the ship amidships and astern, the foremast will go of its own accord. At all events, we can try it; for, as you say, there isn’t any chance of our getting rid of it by any unaided efforts of our own.”
The lighter spars that Jake and Moggridge had detached were now hauled in and made into a sort of raft, upon which Jackson and the whole lot of the crew clambered, proceeding to attack the mizzen-mast, the lower part of which spar was just out of the water.
Slash, bang went the axe with a will, wielded by hands nerved with all the strength of desperation, each man cutting away as long as he could, and then another hand taking his turn. Even I was busy with a knife, sawing away at the thick ropes, and doing what I could to help the others.
The mizzen, being of considerably less diameter than the mainmast, took a much less time to conquer; so, soon it gave way with a splintering crash, the jagged heel floating up in the same way as the other, and working about freely as the rigging was severed so that it could easily pass overboard.
“Now, men, we may cry a spell,” said Captain Miles when the task was accomplished. “Nothing more can be done now. We must wait for a breeze to clear away the wreck, when, I’ve no doubt, the ship will right again.”
“I’m sure I hope so, dear captain!” said I fervently. “Do you think she really will?”
“Not a doubt of it, my boy,” he answered. “She would have never come up so far if she had meant to stop on her beam-ends. See, now! Why, I can almost stand up here on the poop, the deck has risen so much already. By the morning, I hope she’ll be right end uppermost again.”
“But, how about our lodging for the night?” suggested Mr Marline. “If we lie along the bulwarks, in the same way as before, and the ship rights suddenly in the night, we’ll be all thrown in the water.”
“I have thought of that,” said Captain Miles. “We’ll brace up this raft of spars here close in under the bulwarks inboard, and then we’ll be on the safe side of the hedge if she comes up while we’re napping! Let us have another drink of water now, Jackson, my lad, and turn in for the night, for I’ve no doubt you’re all pretty tired. I’m sorry I can’t pipe down to supper.”
“You are not more sorry than I am,” put in Mr Marline drily. “I could eat with the greatest gusto the skeleton of my grandmother’s cat now!”
This speech of his had the very effect he wished of making the men laugh at their privation. Judging by my own feelings, they must have felt terribly hungry and empty; for, instead of two days, it seemed two years since I had tasted food.
I was fairly famishing!
There was no chance yet, however, of our getting anything to eat; so, in accordance with Captain Miles’s directions, preparations were now made for our accommodation during the night, as the evening was beginning to close in and darkness to settle down on the face of the deep, veiling the waste of waters from the gaze of us poor shipwrecked fellows.
The loose spars detached from the masts were hauled up lengthwise along the bulwarks on the inner side of the poop, where they were lashed securely so as to form a sort of shelf; and, on this, all hands now settled themselves as comfortably as they could—Captain Miles with Mr Marline and myself being on the after part of the structure, while Jackson with the others bunked down nearer the break of the poop; but, each man was separately tied, for greater precaution, in case of the sea getting up again and the waves breaking over the vessel.
While we had been moving about exerting ourselves, the sense of hunger had not been so apparent, although all experienced its gnawing pain in a greater or less degree; but now, resting quietly, doing nothing and having to bear all the suspense of waiting for what might turn out possibly to be only an uncertainty on the morrow, the ravenous feeling that assailed us became almost unbearable, several of the men moaning and groaning in their sleep.
As for myself, I know that when I dozed off in fragmentary snatches of sleep I dreamed of all sorts of splendid banquets, with nice dishes such as I had often tasted in the West Indies when dad gave a dinner-party; only to waken up in the still darkness and hear the melancholy wash of the sea surging up against the ship’s hull, with the creaking noise the masts made as they surged to and fro on the swell.
Up to midnight, as far as we could tell the time, no breeze came; but, towards morning, a slight wind arose, when the sea became agitated, as we could hear from the sound of it breaking over the hull forwards, the ends of the masts worked to and fro more boisterously, grinding against the starboard bulwarks and tearing the timbers away bit by bit.
“Ah!” I heard Captain Miles say, as if talking to himself, “this is our chance if it only does not get too rough.”
The sound of his voice woke up Gottlieb, the remaining German sailor, who was lying near Jake, the latter being next me as usual.
This man had taken the loss of his countryman a good deal to heart. Our hardships, besides, had affected his health; for, all of us noticed how ill he looked during the day when working at clearing away the masts.
“I vas die!” he now exclaimed.
“Dying? Nonsense, my man, not a bit of it,” cried Captain Miles. “Keep up your courage, and you’ll be worth a hundred dead men yet.”
“Ach nein, I vas die, I knows,” replied the other, speaking solemnly in deep low tones.
His German accent and mode of speech seemed to come out more strongly now than I had noticed before; and it flashed across my mind how I had once read somewhere that, when a man is at his last, though he may have lived amongst strangers for years and spoken a foreign tongue, he will then naturally go back to the language and thoughts of his own country.
“Shall I get you some water?” asked Jackson, who was also awake and heard what Gottlieb had said.
“Nein—no. I want not water, not nothing,” returned the other. “Listen, I’ve got to tell you sometings before I vas die. I did not speak before for fear to make mischief. You remember my poor frients Hermann?”
“Aye,” said Captain Miles, now keenly attentive. “Poor fellow, he fell overboard and got caught by the sharks.”
“Dat is what I vant explain,” painfully whispered the German, his voice failing him. “Hermann vas not fall overboard. He vas throwed over.”
“Thrown over! How—by whom?” exclaimed the captain quite startled.
“He vas throw over by Davis—he one bad man.”
“Davis?” cried Captain Miles, all of us eagerly listening.
“Ye–es. Davis, he grab holt of poor Hermann and say, ‘ah, you rascal, Jackson, I have you now,’ and den he pitch him over the side. Poor Hermann, he give one yell, for he vas sleep and not awaken yet, and den dere vas a splash and de sharks swallow him up!”
“Good heavens, man!” cried Captain Miles, “why did you not tell us of this before?”
“I vas afraid, and de man is now dead too; so I did not speak,” answered the other slowly.
“Yes, he’s dead and gone to his account! I suppose we need not talk about him any more,” said the captain, deeply moved, adding a minute after, as if unable to keep his emotion to himself, “But, he was a scoundrel! I say, Jackson, you had a lucky escape from him last night!”
“Thank God, sir, yes,” replied the young seaman. “He took a grudge to me from the first, before ever you promoted me, and that, of course, made him hate me afterwards more than ever. I did not think, though, he would have tried to take my life. I suppose that was the reason he looked so very strangely when he tried to clutch me before he jumped into the sea?”
“Not a doubt of it,” said Mr Marline. “He seemed thunderstruck, I know, for I particularly noticed his look. He must have been surprised at seeing you there alive, when he thought he had already settled you for good and all!”
“Well, he has met his own punishment,” answered Jackson; “and I do not bear him any ill-will now—or ever did for that matter. Let him rest.”
“Aye,” said Captain Miles; “but, how’s Gottlieb going on—are you better, my man?”
But, there was no answer to the captain’s question; and Jackson, bending over the German sailor, found his heart had ceased to beat, his body already becoming cold.
“Golly, Mass’ Cap’en,” called out Jake, “him ’peak de trute dat time, suah, him dead as door-nail!”
This news made everyone silent, each man thinking how soon his own time might come; and we anxiously awaited the morning.
During the sad episode that had occurred the wind had risen, beginning to blow pretty strongly from the westwards. The sea, too, had got up, for short choppy waves were dashing against the stern of the ship and throwing their broken wash over us. This made our situation less comfortable than it had been previously, our worn-out bodies and hunger-stricken frames not being able to stand the exposure so well now as at first.
The masts, also, were grinding against the bulwarks and making a horrible din, the crunching of the timber work and splintering noise of the planks almost deadening the noise of the sea and preventing us from hearing each other speak. Not that we felt much inclined for conversation, answering for myself; for, I was chilled to the bone from the cool evening air penetrating my wet clothes, which got more and more saturated as the waves came over the poop, while I was faint with hunger and exhausted from want of sleep.
Thus the weary night passed, the sky being clouded over so that even the lights of heaven could not shine down to cheer us up; and, to add to the bitterness of our unhappy plight, our hearts were full of the untimely end of poor Gottlieb, the German sailor who had passed away so suddenly from amongst us, and the shocking disclosure he had made just before his tired spirit sought eternal rest, of the treachery of Davis—whose terrible fate, in front of our very eyes, seemed a just judgment for his murder of Hermann and foiled vengeance on Jackson, the latter of whom had evidently only escaped with his life through the wretched man’s mistake.
At last, when it seemed as if we could hold out no longer, a faint gleam appeared in the east lighting up the horizon, and morning dawned gloomily upon us; but, a heavy mist hung over the sea and it took the rays of the rising sun a long time to pierce through this, albeit there was light enough for us to survey the scene around.
The ocean now, instead of rising and falling with the sullen swell that had given motion to it the day before, was covered with short broken waves that rolled up from the westwards with the wind, dashing against the partly-submerged vessel and throwing clouds of spray over those portions of the hull above the surface of the water, a large share of which we also came in for.
This motion of the sea, we could perceive, had considerably altered the position of the masts that had been cut away, for they were rolling over and grinding down the starboard bulwarks, the inboard ends working themselves gradually fore and aft the ship, the lee side of which had risen quite a couple of feet higher out of the water during the night.
“Another good wave or two will send all that hamper adrift,” said Captain Miles, looking round and calculating our chances.
“Yes,” replied Mr Marline, “they are coming from the right direction too, for if they broke over us abeam, then the foremast could not free itself. Now it possibly may, from the leverage it has against the fo’c’s’le.”
“You’re right,” said the captain; “and here comes a good-sized roller that may finish the job. Look out, lads, and hold on!”
Onward, as we gazed astern, came a large green sea, with a white angry crest, swelling larger and larger as it got nearer, until it almost hung above the poop before breaking.
“Hold on, lads, hold on!” cried the captain, repeating his previous warning, when, with a dull thud the mass of water broke, covering us all with a sheet of foam that drenched us through and through, almost swept us away from our lashings—the spars that supported us being lifted up from the deck and then dropped again as suddenly.
At the same time, there was a heavy crash heard forward, and the ship lurched as if she were going to founder. She quivered all over, and her timbers creaked and groaned.
Next, she rolled heavily more over to starboard, as the wave which had broken over us sped onwards, washing the waist and forecastle; and then, with another great crash the mizzen and mainmasts rolled into the sea, and the port side of the ship that was under water rose up clear.
The foremast, which had broken away when we heard that great crash forwards had been snapped off just below the slings of the fore-yard, and had followed its companions overboard, although still towed alongside by the stays and starboard rigging that also held the other spars; and, the next instant, with an upward bound the Josephine righted. At the same moment, the water that had filled the cabin and waist and forecastle poured out on either side through the scuppers and broken bulwarks; while the sunken part of the poop and lower deck rose high and dry again as we looked on, hardly believing that what we had so anxiously awaited and striven for had come to pass at last.
“Thank God!” exclaimed Captain Miles in a voice faltering with emotion; while several of the men, quite unnerved, burst into tears.