Chapter Twelve.
Ice Ahead!
Although the wind and sea had being doing their utmost, without, to transform the previously trim ship, that had sailed from Plymouth so gallantly, into the veritable semblance of a battered hulk, no further damage had been done below: so that, in the cuddy, all was comparative comfort—in contrast to the scene on deck.
Mr Zachariah Lathrope, who made light of his injuries, albeit his left arm was in a sling—confessing, too, that his side “felt kinder painful, as if some coon had given him a sockdolager in the ribs, or a grizzly bar put his hug on”—was seated at the replaced table, pitching into a sort of heavy lunch, to make amends for his missed breakfast, while the steward was cutting up a plentiful supply of ham for him on his plate, so that he could use his solitary hand with a fork and so feed himself. Mrs Major Negus was busily engaged in her cabin, and with the assistance of Mary Llewellyn, the stewardess, was rearranging all her numerous goods and chattels that had been so ruthlessly banged about in the night; and Master Maurice, whom the turmoil had not disturbed in the least, was still sleeping in the top bunk as composedly as he had continued doing all through the period of his mother’s struggles on the floor and narrow escape from suffocation, unawakened either by the noise or her loud calls for help—the worthy lady as soon as she came to herself having earnestly cautioned Kate and the stewardess not to arouse her darling boy, for “he would be so frightened, you know, if he saw me like this!”
Kate herself, recovered from her faint, but yet feeling weak and languid from the effects of all she had gone through, was mechanically assisting Florry to dress, wondering the while, in a dull apathetic way, whether she would ever again have to tender the same offices to her little sister, for she was prepared for the worst and believed that the ship was in imminent danger—although she hoped still, with the ardent nature of youth, that they might be delivered, trusting to the loving mercy and watchful care of that God to whom she had prayed during the night, even before her earthly father’s counsel, and before whose footstool she had already that morning bent the knee more than once.
As for Mr Meldrum—who had remained below from the consciousness that he could not be of any service in the immediate present on deck and from an unwillingness to having the appearance even of shoving himself forward and interfering with the management of the ship after what Captain Dinks had said—he had tumbled out a portmanteau in his state-room in order to overhaul some old papers; and he presently came out into the cuddy with a chart in his hand.
“Hillo, mister,” said the American as soon as he noticed him, “jest roused up, hey? I thought you wer havin’ a bit of snooze, and wondered when you were goin’ to turn out!”
“Ah,” said Mr Meldrum gravely, “it’s no time for sleeping now for any one on board. The ship is in far too perilous a position for that!”
“Is she?” asked Mr Lathrope, most unconcernedly apparently.
“She really is,” replied Mr Meldrum.
“Wa-al, if she is,” returned the other, lifting a huge morsel of ham on the end of his fork, and surveying it critically with much relish of eye before placing it in his capacious mouth, “why, it’s a bad business, that’s all I ken say; and I’m right down sorry fur it, I am—things was going on so slick and pleasant! But if we can’t help it, mister, what’s the sorter use in grievin’? I don’t see the good in cryin’ over a spilt petroleum can, I don’t! Now, dew, mister, draw up har and make yourself comf’able; you’ll find this bacon prime, for I knows it’s the gen-u-ine Chicago brand and came out of the States.”
“No, thanks,” said Mr Meldrum, smiling at the other’s imperturbable philosophy and epicureanism that seemed proof against everything, even the sense of mortal peril, “I had something to eat earlier, and do not care about anything now.”
At that moment, Captain Dinks came down the companion and looked into the saloon, when, seeing Mr Meldrum, he beckoned to him.
“Would you mind coming on deck for a few moments,” said he hurriedly, “I want to speak to you about something?”
“Certainly,” said Mr Meldrum, at once getting up from the table, on which he had spread out the chart he had brought from his cabin and was engaged with a pair of compasses in picking out the ship’s possible position.
“Say, mister—” commenced the American.
“Pray, excuse me,” interrupted Mr Meldrum, “I’ll speak to you when I come down again; I must join the captain now, as you see;” and he hurried to the companion-way, Captain Dinks standing aside and motioning to him to go up first.
“Say, Cap—” called out Mr Lathrope, not to be baffled.
“Can’t stop now,” curtly replied Captain Dinks; and he, too, disappeared in the rear of Mr Meldrum.
“Now, I do jest wonder what them two coons hev on hand?” said the American, when they had thus left him with his curiosity unslackened; “I’m durned if I don’t go up myself and see: people must rise pretty airly o’ mornin’s to take a rise out of this old hoss!”
A roll of the ship, however, coming as soon as he had risen from his seat, settled his inquisitiveness. “I guess I’d better bide har,” he murmured to himself, uttering his thoughts aloud. “This air vessel’s a durned sight too skittish on her footing to please me, an’ that air ramshackly arm o’ mine might git squoze agin if I went on deck! No, I guess I’ll bide har in the land of Gilead—Steward!” he added, raising his voice.
“Yes, sir,” answered Llewellyn, coming out of his pantry.
“Hev you got any coffee or tea fixins?”
“No, sir, that lazy nigger Snowball says he can’t light the galley fire.”
“Does he? I’d make him smell fire if I’d got him out on the plantation whar I was riz! Then, bring me a glass of brandy and water, and make it stiff: I allers go in fur temperance drinks when I can get them, that is before sundown; but if I’m obleeged to take pizen, why, I likes it strong!”
When Mr Meldrum gained the deck, in company with the captain, he found the wind still blowing with terrific force and a dangerous sea on, although as the gale had not shifted during the last hour from the north-west, to which quarter it had finally veered, there was some hope that they had escaped from the worst of the cyclone and were now being hurried along its outside edge. In one of the last onslaughts of the wind, however, the mainyard truss had been carried away, and the yard swung so violently to and fro after snapping the braces like pack-thread that it seemed as if the main-mast would go; but, fortunately, in one of its mad gyrations, as it moved about like the arms of a semaphore, the yard-arm had caught in the standing rigging on the starboard side, where, through the gallant exertions of Frank Harness and the Norwegian sailor, who performed the task at the peril of their lives, it was firmly lashed and secured from doing further mischief. This operation eased the ship considerably, and certainly saved the masts.
The worst piece of news that the captain had to tell Mr Meldrum was with reference to the manner in which the ship was leaking.
“We had four feet water in her when the carpenter sounded the well at six bells,” said Captain Dinks; “and after rigging the pumps we reduced it considerably; but since then, she has made nearly two feet again—all clear and clean without any bilge in it—which shows she’s taking it in fresh and fast.”
“There must be a big leak somewhere,” said Mr Meldrum, “and the sooner we see about stopping it the better.”
“Yes,” said the captain, “we might keep it down certainly by an hour’s spell in each watch; but it tires out the men so. I think it is coming in somewhere astern; the rudder-post must have started some of the timbers when it got wrenched off.”
“Very probably,” said the other; “but then, the ship has had a good deal of straining the last day or two, besides from the storm in the Bay of Biscay.”
“Ah! she felt that,” replied Captain Dinks. “That’s what, no doubt, weakened the rudder and made it go so easily this morning; but I’ll call the carpenter.”
The port watch had gone below with Mr Adams, to have a little rest, for there was no need of all the crew being on deck, the ship riding out the gale to leeward of the floating anchor which providence had sent them in the shape of the broken foremast, and there being nothing to do; so, on a hail from the captain, Mr McCarthy passed the word forwards for Ben Boltrope, who soon made his appearance out of the fo’c’sle—scrambling aft as well as he could by holding on to every rope in his way, for the vessel rolled and pitched most uneasily, rendering upright walking along the deck an utter impossibility.
“Sarvent, sir,” said he, touching his hat to Mr Meldrum on coming up the poop ladder; “glad to see you on deck.”
“What about this leak, carpenter?” said Captain Dinks. “Please tell Mr Meldrum all you know.”
“Well, your honour,” said Ben, “all that can be said lies in a nut-shell! She’s making water as fast as it can pour in; and if we don’t find the leak and stop it, she’ll founder pretty soon.”
“Have you any idea where it is coming in?” inquired Mr Meldrum.
“Well, sir, the cap’en say it’s by the rudder-post; but I myself thinks it’s amidships or else forrud: I’d have looked, but I couldn’t shift the cargo without help.”
“This must be seen to at once, Captain Dinks,” said Mr Meldrum. “As you have asked my aid, I would advise your calling the watch below; and I’ll go down with the carpenter and see whether we can spy out the leak.”
“Oh, by all means, if you think that will do any good, although I’m of the opinion that the leak is in the stern. McCarthy, call the port watch up to go below and break cargo!”
“All hands, ahoy!”
This cry soon brought up the weary sailors, who had only just retired after more than twenty hours of duty, before they had had time to close their eyes in their first sleep, but they came out of the forecastle willingly enough, well knowing the peril the ship was in; and, down below the main-hatch they bumbled after Mr Meldrum and the carpenter, glad that it was not for another spell of pumping for which they had been called up.
Ben Boltrope was found to be right. After tossing to one side the bales and boxes and heavy masses of iron that filled the midship section of the hold, they found a great gap between the timbers through which the water was spouting in at the rate of some hundred gallons an hour—the cause of the hole being apparent enough in a long iron girder which had got jammed against the side of the ship, end outwards, and in the working of the ship had made its way clean through the strakes and planking—just as if it had been an auger, the hole had been bored so round and neat!
This orifice was now carefully plugged and battened over; and when the pumps were again rigged and the vessel cleared it was found that she had ceased to make water to any appreciable extent.
“Thank God for that!” said Captain Dinks heartily. “I own I was wrong, for I was certain that the rudder-post was the seat of mischief:— the ship was bound to leak there!”
“It was a very natural thought of yours,” said Mr Meldrum, to soothe his sense of defeat. “I would have held to the same but for the carpenter.”
“Ah! he’s a roight good man, sorr,” chimed in Mr McCarthy, “and a cridit to the sarvice that brought him up. Sure, an’ he’s a sailor ivry inch ov him, from the crown of his hid to the sole of his fut!”
The sky was still obscured by clouds and the stormy billows were tossing about, striving to bear down the ship and beat her to pieces; but she bravely held her own, head to sea, and rode out the gale all that day and night, as if she had been at anchor, although drifting steadily the while in a south-easterly direction, the impulse of the waves and the force of the wind on her hull carrying her thither.
It was the same the next day; but, on the third morning, the gale somewhat moderated, although still blowing with considerable force from the northward and westward, and under Mr Meldrum’s advice, which Captain Dinks now eagerly sought on every occasion, sail was got upon the ship and she was allowed to run before the wind, hoping that the vessel might reach smoother latitudes and fine weather, when they would be able to repair damages and continue their voyage.
It was but a poor pretence of making sail, however!
All they could set was a close-reefed mizzentop-sail and a fore staysail, which latter was hoisted on a jury-mast rigged forwards in place of the foremast; while the missing rudder was replaced by an ingenious makeshift, the joint handiwork of Mr Meldrum and the carpenter, composed of lengths of a spare hawser and some of the smaller spars, sawn up, lashed together, and then planked over, so as to offer a yielding surface to the sea, and secured under the stern by guys and tackles leading from the quarter galleries, the steering gear being then attached.
This contrivance was found to work admirably in guiding the ship before the wind, although if they had tried to wear her or put her about by it, there might have been some difficulty and danger in the operation.
Towards the evening of this day, while the crippled Nancy Bell, so ruthlessly shorn of her fair proportions, was going along pretty bravely, nevertheless, at some six knots an hour or more under the little sail she was carrying, with the sea still rough and wintry and the sky all clouded over, the thermometer was noticed to go down again several degrees; and Mr Meldrum, who alone had made the discovery for the wind having been bitterly cold for days past the feeling in the air would not have specially attracted attention—at once warned Captain Dinks that they had run so far southwards that he was certain they were near ice, and consequently it would be best to keep a strict look-out.
“Ice?” exclaimed the captain aghast. “Why, we aren’t much below the latitude of the Cape, I take it!”
“You’ll find you are wrong when we’re able to get an observation,” replied Mr Meldrum. “I wouldn’t be surprised to find that we were far below ‘the Forties,’ with all that drift and leeway we’ve had! However, wherever we are, we’re not far from ice, take my word for it, whether it be a wandering berg out of its latitude or the drift from the Antarctic ice-fields.”
“All right, sir,” said Captain Dinks laughing, “I’ll take your word for it; though an iceberg hereabouts, to my thinking, is a rather rum visitor this time of year, and I’ll believe it when I see it!”
However, the captain was wrong again.
Just before dark, the look-out in the maintop reported something ahead, which presently turned out to be an enormous iceberg, fortunately far away to leeward out of the course of the ship. It was an immense irregular mass several miles long and of great height, appearing to reach up into the clouds above as it heaved up and down on the heavy rolling sea; and its top and points, covered with snow, stood out distinctly against the dark horizon.
“Ah, we are well away from that fellow!” said Mr Meldrum rubbing his hands; but his congratulations were cut short in a moment by the look-out man forward—the Norwegian sailor, who as an old whaler was accustomed to Antarctic sights and sounds—shouting out that there was field-ice ahead, and that from the crashing of the floes he thought the ship must be near the pack.
“Take in sail at once,” said Mr Meldrum, “and keep a sharper look-out than ever. If the vessel runs against the ice woe betide us all!”