CHAPTER XVI. PRACTICAL SEAMANSHIP
He is a lucky sailor to whom is granted the opportunity of teaching a girl with a romantic face and a beautiful figure the art of steering a full-rigged ship. Though the sailor is often in the company of ladies at sea, he is kept very severely forward, whilst the ladies are kept very severely aft; and if they formed a seraglio imprisoned on soft couches and fanned by eunuchs, behind walls ten feet thick, Jack at sea could not know less of the ladies at sea.
Hardy's job was therefore a delightful one, and the more delightful because the ship was now homeward bound, and the morning was fair and the sea courteous and graceful in caress.
"Do you see that black mark on the white under the glass?"
"Yes," answered the girl.
"It is called the lubber's mark: it is the business of the helmsman to keep a point of the compass aiming at it; that point is the ship's course. Do you observe that the point that is levelled at the lubber's mark is north-by-east?"
"If you call it so I shall remember it," answered the girl.
"The lubber's point," Hardy continued, "represents an imaginary line ruled straight from the stern into the very eyes of the ship, where the bowsprit and jib-booms point the road. If, then, I tell you to keep that point called north-by-east pointing as steadily as the swing of the ship's head will permit to the lubber's mark, then I am asking you to steer the ship in the direction I wish her to go."
She frowned a little in contemplation at the compass card, and said, "I believe I understand you."
"I will teach you to box the compass presently," Hardy went on. "You will easily get the names, and will not be at a loss if I should say the course is northeast or nor'-nor'east, and so on. And now see here: the action of a ship's wheel exactly reverses the action of a boat's tiller. Look under that grating; that is the tiller, and when you revolve the wheel the chains which drag the tiller sweep the rudder on one side or the other, so that when I tell you to put your helm a-starboard you revolve your wheel to the left, which will bring the rudder over to the left; and when I say port your helm you revolve your wheel to the right, which carries your rudder over to the right. If you steered by the tiller, then to the order of starboard your helm, you would put your tiller to the right. Do you understand?"
The machinery of the compass, the wheel, the tiller, and its chains girdling the barrel, was all before her, and she would have been a blockhead if she had not grasped the simple matter speedily—but you, madam, who are a lady and read this, may be puzzled; possibly you are not, but if you are I do not wonder.
"Now," he said, "I want the ship to be off her course: mark what I do; she shall be a little to leeward of her course."
He put the helm by a few spokes over, and the binnacle card revolved two points from its course as the ship's head rounded away with the wind.
"Now," said Hardy, "I bring her again to her course: observe what I do: we call this putting the helm down."
He brought her to her course and arrested her at it, and the girl cried, eagerly, "Yes, yes, I see. Let me hold the wheel, George."
She grasped the spokes, a swelling, beautiful, conquering figure, a delight to the eye, a triumph of British girlhood, one of those women who are the mothers of the gallant and glorious sons that man the signal-halliards of our country.
"Now bring the ship to windward of her course," said Hardy.
"I do not understand you," she answered, reproachfully.
"Make that bowsprit yonder point there," he exclaimed, and he indicated with outstretched hand a part of the horizon to windward of the bow.
"Why didn't you speak more plainly? I can do it."
She revolved the wheel by three or four spokes, and hailed with eyes of transport and conquest the response of the compass card.
"Do you understand?" said Hardy.
"My dear," she answered, "I can steer your ship perfectly."
"Not yet," he said, "but you are not far off."
Thus proceeded this pleasant tuition, and for half an hour Hardy stood beside the wheel teaching his sweetheart how to steer. The Newfoundland sat alongside of them and seemed to listen, for his loving eyes were often on Hardy's face whilst he spoke. He tried the girl again and again, and at the end of half an hour she was expressing keen appreciation of his delightful lecture by dutiful movement of the wheel. But, indeed, the ship did not need much steering that fine day. Had the helm been lashed it is probable that, braced as the yards lay, and pulling in steadfast accord as the sails were, the ship would have made a tranquil passage of an hour with no other check to the dull kicks of the rudder than a rope's end.
He left the girl to steer whilst he tautened here and there a brace with the watch-tackle; then entered the galley, saw to the fire, the coppers, and their contents. He was accepting an enormous obligation; could he discharge it? He felt the heart of a dozen men in his pulse, and he knew that if God did not smite her with sickness the spirit of his heroic girl would make her the match of any man, able-bodied or ordinary; so, though the York might be undermanned, her crew of a man and a girl, with a dog for a lookout, would carry her home.
The weather was so fine that he did not mean to make a job of seamanship. He did not intend to keep a lookout for ships unless it was to escape collision, because no ship that hove in sight, however willing, should be allowed to help him. The York was to be his own and the girl's fortune, and, much as he respected the sailor, no man afloat would be permitted to share in this estate.
He stood a minute on the forecastle to admire the beautiful fabric, and to pity the powerlessness which held imprisoned the cloths whose lustrous spaces would have climbed to the trucks in bright breasts yearning for home. Afar trembled the pocket-handkerchiefs of the sodden brig. The naked vision could no longer distinguish their appeal. She broke the continuity of the girdle, that was all, and she hovered on the skirts of the deep like a gibbet beheld afar. Hardy went right aft to the wheel; it was in the afternoon, and the speed of the ship was about four miles an hour.
"We will make ourselves happy," said he. "This is yachting, and if you strain the imagination of your eyes you shall see close aboard the white terraces of the Isle of Wight."
She laughed and answered, "We shall be off that island some day."
"No fear," he replied. "Don't suppose I mean to sail her up channel. Plymouth is our port, and as we sha'n't be able to let go the anchor, I'll seize a blue shirt to the fore-lift and that 'ull bring a man-o'-war's boat alongside."
"Why?" she asked.
"Because it is the merchant seaman's signal that he wants to join the white ensign, and the naval officer is always greedy for men."
But this was spoken many years ago. The signal of the blue shirt has been hauled down and buried with many other customs under the thin white wake of the metal battleship.
"Why do you want a naval boat; would not any other boat do?" asked Julia.
"No; the Royal Navy claims no salvage and gets none. Any other boat would make a claim for assistance, and I mean that our cake shall be whole."
He brought two chairs out of the cabin, gave one to Julia and took one himself, with his hand on a spoke. Their faithful friend the dog lay in the westering sun beside them; and now they talked of what they should do in the night, and came to terms about the discipline of the crew whilst the ship kept the sea.
"I shall be on deck as much as I can," said he. "I must sleep on deck; I do not choose to lie without shelter during my watch below. I'll bring a hen-coop aft, thoroughly cleanse it, and put a mattress into it after knocking away the rails. That's a good idea!"
"Excellent!" she exclaimed; "and clear out another hen-coop for me. How romantic to sleep in a hen-coop!" and she laughed softly, looking lovingly at him.
"If I should crow in my sleep whilst you're at the wheel you'll know that I am being hen-pecked."
"Can't we put Sailor to some use?" she asked.
The animal lifted his head to the sound of his name, and all was intelligence in his soft, pathetic eyes.
"You shall sleep on a mattress at the foot of the companion-steps, where you will be sheltered. I have an idea. Are you strong enough to bring your mattress out of your berth and place it on deck with a pillow?"
"Chaw!" she answered, with a shrug. "I have lifted an old woman out of bed. What do you want me to do?"
"Spread your mattress on the port side of the steps, get a pillow, and stretch yourself upon it, and sing out when you're ready."
She instantly rose and descended; the dog was about to follow her.
"Lie down, Sailor!" and the dog obeyed.
In a few moments the clear voice sounded, "On deck there!"
"Hallo!"
"All ready, George."
"Shut your eyes and seem asleep. Sailor!" The dog immediately stood up with an inquiring look, ears slightly lifted. "Fetch her, Sailor! fetch her!"
The dog trembled, and looked with a sort of passion about him.
"Fetch her, Sailor! fetch her!" shouted Hardy, pointing down the hatch.
The noble creature sprang down the steps. In a moment Julia began to scream.
"Oh!" he heard her say; "he is tearing my dress, George."
"Come up with him; it is all right," he bellowed. And up came the girl with her skirt in the mouth of the dog, who tried to get in front of her to drag her as though they were both in the sea and awash; but she filled the way and the Newfoundland could not jam past her.
The dog held on till she was seated; he had not torn her dress, and the sweethearts fell into a fit of immoderate laughter, whilst the dog by pantomime of tail and motion exhibited every mark of satisfaction.
"What a wonderful animal!" said Julia.
"That breed is cleverer than we are," answered Hardy, "and as humane as angels. He understood me; it was like bidding him jump overboard after you."
"But what is your object, George?"
"I might want you, and if you are in a sound sleep and a breeze is blowing in low thunder over the companion-way, I might yelp myself into the disease of laryngitis without awakening you. The dog rests beside me and is at hand to call you."
"You are very clever, George. The more I see of you the cleverer you become. Dear old Sailor! must he lie beside you on deck unsheltered?"
"I shall lash an empty cask to the grating; there is plenty of sailcloth forward, and he shall have a kennel. Take the wheel, Julia; there is something to be done before the night falls. The breeze freshens too; hurrah, see how straight the white race flies astern of her! Under such canvas too! Keep her steady and don't be afraid."
"Afraid!" she answered with a glance at him, which made him feel as if he was married.
He walked forward, laughing, trusting his girl as though she had been an able seaman. A great deal of confusion followed when he caught a few hens out of one coop and thrust them into the other. Such heartrending screams of despair, and two cocks and five or six hens in the other coop strained their throats in clamorous sympathy, and you could have sworn that the whole crowd of them, cocks and all, had just laid eggs. When the hen-coop was clear he passed his knife through the lashings, fetched an axe, swept the bars out of their fixings to the accompaniment of the orchestra in the other hen-coop, drew a bucket of water, and with a scrubbing brush thoroughly cleansed the dirty thing, which had the width of a trunk, though much longer.
He found it was heavy to drag, being a somewhat solid structure, so he called the Newfoundland to him and harnessed him to the coop by the watch-tackle. The dog tugged with the vigour of a man, Hardy shoved, and the hen-coop rushed along the deck right aft, whilst Julia with tears of laughter in her eyes kept the speeding ship to her course as though she had done nothing but steer ever since she could stand. But there was more yet to be done, and the sun was setting. He took the cooked meat out of the coppers and placed the steaming mass on a dish until it should grow cold.
Suddenly his ear was taken by a strange noise of hissing over the side; it was something more than the sheeting of the ship through the soft whiteness she made. It was like a continuous snarl threading the blowing off of steam.
He looked over the rail and saw the boat they had come aboard in from the brig rushing with comet-like velocity close alongside, like a little child swept to her home by the enraged mother that had lost her.
He debated a minute, and then said to himself, "She is of no use, neither she, nor the fresh water, nor the grub that is in her."
He was making his way into the channels to cast the painter adrift.
"Where are you going?" shrieked Julia at the wheel. He explained.
"If I see you in the water behind me I shall jump after you," she cried, with a look of alarm and real anxiety.
"Can't I drop into a ship's chains without going overboard?" he answered, and disappeared, and a short scream at the wheel attended his going.
The boat was easily released, and to the great joy of Julia the manly face of her sailor was once more visible. They both watched the boat as she receded.
"She'll be fallen in with," said Hardy, "and some skipper will log her and make a fearful mystery of her. Every tragic possibility of shipwreck is in her. She is the issue of fire, collision, the leak, the meteor-cloven craft—"
"What do you mean?" interrupted Julia.
"The ship's off her course," said Hardy. "That's quite right. Three spokes did it. Now look how fair the compass course points to the lubber's mark."
"What's a meteor-cloven ship?" she asked.
"I never heard of a big ship having been sunk by a meteor," he answered; "but I have been told of a great stone dropping out of the sky with the meteoric flash of a fallen star plump through the hatchway of a schooner and down through her: the sailors took to the pumps and then to the boats. That's what I mean."
And now he must prepare a bed for himself and the dog. He could not find an empty barrel, but just against the windlass the cook or the cabin servant had placed for firewood perhaps, or for other reasons, a big empty case, which might have contained wine or commodities of some sort. This placed on its side would do, and as it was too heavy for him to carry, and too rough for him to shove, he harnessed the Newfoundland to it as to the coop, and Sailor, helped by Hardy, ran the case close against the wheel.
"The ship is sailing very fast," said Julia.
"A little over five knots, perhaps," answered Hardy. "We wants legs, my love. Blow, blow, my sweet breeze." And he sang to himself whilst he got the box on to its side and secured it to the grating.
"Now for your bed, Sailor, and then we'll go to supper."
He reflected, and remembered that there was straw in the fore-peak for the use of the old sow that had been and was gone—recollect that he had been mate of this ship, and knew exactly where to look for what he wanted. He dropped into the fore-peak, which was like descending into a hell of smells and the mutter of troubled water, and reappeared with his arms full of straw, transforming Julia's wistful face into beaming pleasure, for his briefest disappearance struck a sort of horror to her heart.
Thus was the Newfoundland housed, and before making up his own bed in the hen-coop the sweethearts went to supper.
The girl had been standing some time at the wheel. It was proper she should be relieved, so Hardy grasped the spokes whilst Julia went below, followed by the dog, to fetch something to eat. She arrived with wine, biscuits, jam, and tinned meats. You will remember that she had been an under-stewardess, and was used to waiting upon people. But that was not all: she had nursed old ladies, had for a very lean wage indeed washed, dressed, and walked out with children; in fact, she long afterward told Hardy that, always having emigration in her mind, she had worked at a laundry for some weeks. In point of service, therefore, she was well equipped for life, and Hardy saw in her the helpful woman, the wise and devoted wife, beautiful in figure and, now that she was happy, most engaging in face.
The three of the ship's company ate their supper, and two of them talked and watched the sunset. The further north you go the greater is the glory of the sun's departure; yet yonder was a magnificent scene of golden pavilions hung with tapestries of deep blue ether; the flight of the eastern cloud was like incense pouring from the evening star, unrisen or invisible: the vapour fled on the wings of the wind to enrich the light in the west by duplication of scarlet splendour, and the ship blew steadily along controlled by the hand of Hardy, who was sometimes fed by Julia.
All about was the soft, sweet noise of creaming seas; the brig astern had vanished into airy nothing, and the York sailed a kingdom of her own.
"Will there be a moon?" asked Julia.
"Between nine and ten," he answered. "A slice of moon. We can do without her. There is light in starshine, and we can do without that also. I must light the binnacle lamp and get the side-lights over. I thank God that this wind promises steadiness. Yet it may shift, and then I shall want the dog to awake you whilst I see what a single pair of arms can do with the braces."
"Do you think I shall not hear you if you shout?" said she.
"I'll not chance it," he answered.
"Do you believe we shall carry this ship home?" she asked.
"I'll not hope, for hoping is bragging, but we'll try, Julia. A man cannot add a cubit to his mother's gift of stature by standing on stilts; but we'll try, Julia."
"Who can do more?" she asked.
"Hold this wheel while I light the lamps."
He set about this job and speedily despatched it, knowing exactly where to lay his hands upon everything he wanted, then brought his mattress up along with the rug and jammed it into his hen-coop, and lay down. It was rather a tight fit with the mattress, but it gave him the length he wanted, and if he did not start in his sleep he need not knock his head against the ceiling. He carefully secured the hen-coop to belaying pins.
"That'll provide," said he, "against being taken aback."
He then went below and lighted the cabin lamp, and saw to Julia's bed by readjustment of the mattress clear of the draughts circling down the companionway. He fetched covering for her, and it was for her to make herself comfortable when the time came.
By this hour it was dark; there was no light upon the deep save the musket-like wink of the sea flash. But the stars swarmed in brilliant processions betwixt the clouds over the mastheads, and their subtle light was in the air, and you saw things dimly. The Newfoundland was asleep in his kennel beside the wheel. Julia, who had come aboard with nothing on but the clothes she stood in, fetched the captain's cloak from the captain's cabin. It was a long coat with a warm cape, and I call it a cloak because it wasn't a great-coat. It clothed her to her little feet, and she sat as warm in it as in the embrace of eiderdown.
"How shall we manage to keep watch?" she asked.
"I shall keep the deck till twelve," he answered; "I have a watch, and there is the binnacle light which from time to time will want trimming. Sailor will call you at twelve—see now his use? And I'll trim the lights, and lie close beside you there for a couple of hours, for I can do with very little sleep, and the more sleep you can get the better, because you will keep strong and will be able to steer in the day whilst I take an off-shore spell in my coop."
"If I felt I could sleep, I would go and lie down at once," she answered; "but I love to sit and talk with you. What time is it, George?"
"Nearly half-past eight," he answered, putting his watch to the binnacle.
"Grant me till nine, I may then be sleepy. But I feel as if that sleep of drug was going to suffice me a year."
"Oh, my heart, am not I rejoiced that you should be with me!" he exclaimed, in a soft and melodious note of love. "Think if that madman had missed the brig and sailed on!"
She shuddered and answered, "I dare not think." Then after a pause she said, "Suppose a steamer came in sight, wouldn't she tow us home?"
"I wouldn't give her the chance."
"Why?"
"She would demand salvage, and get it."
"It is shameful," she exclaimed, "that a ship should be paid for helping a ship in distress."
"The shipowner knows no shame," answered Hardy, "and neither does his dumb confederate, the underwriter. One builds a jerry ship to sink, and the other pins a policy on to the villain's back that he may sleep whether his ship goes down or not."
It was strange to look along the decks and witness no figure of man. No shape of seaman was on the forecastle to extinguish a thousand stars as the jib-booms rose pointing to the sky; no shadow of man stirred in the waist or the main-deck. The mighty loneliness of the deep was in this ship from the wheel to where the forecastle rails clasped hands above the figure-head. But sentience was in her and she knew it, and nobly confessed the spirit of control by the glad, direct and cleaving shear of her stem.
Happy is the sailor who can sit beside his sweetheart on board ship on a fine night and discourse of love and other matters without dread of the eye of the master-mariner. This couple talked of the safe arrival of the ship. They would buy a little cottage; they would not go to sea any more. It is always a cottage well inshore that is the sailor's dream. It was our glorious Nelson's for many years; witness his letters to his wife, whom he loved before the traitress wound her brilliant coils round the hero's heart, and numbed the loyalty of its pulse to one who had cherished him in sickness and was his dearest one when the shadow of his life was yet short in the sun of his glory.
The dust of the shooting star glittered on high; the steady voice of the night wind filled the shrouds with the melodies of invisible spirits; the white wake gleamed astern like the dusty highway which is the road to home; the softly plunging bows awoke the minstrelsy of the surge. It was night upon the Atlantic, and no twinkle of side-lamp was to be seen upon the sea line.
At nine by Hardy's watch, Julia kissed her sweetheart's lips and held him by the hand a little.
"Good night, good night," she said; "I will say a prayer before I sleep."
"Never forget that," answered Hardy. "Be sure it is He that hath made us and not we ourselves. Pray to him and bless him and thank him, and his love will be with us."
Is this the common talk of the sea? Do Smollett and Marryat make their heroes converse like this? Thrust your hands into your ribs, ye ribald crew, and laugh with godless merriment at this presentment of a sailor who was a gentleman, who feared God, to whom the helplessness of his companion was no appeal to the heart that loved her, respected her, and desired that she should be true to herself and to him.
He was alone at the wheel, and now she was gone to rest and the dog was asleep he was alone in the ship, but he could keep a lookout as well as the dog, and the dog would not be called upon to serve until the girl was alone at the wheel whilst her lover slept.
Many thoughts were this fine young sailor's; he was full of hope and courage, and often bent his mind to shrewd contemplation of contingency—the shift of the breeze, the head wind, the gale, and other gay humours and tragic scowls of the life. But the winch was four men, and the watch-tackle a little company of hands, and he did not despair. Sometimes he meditated on the port he should make; if it came to the worst, then, when in the English Channel, he would shape a course for Ramsgate Harbour and run her on the mud, and no man must be suffered to board her, for the money of the safety of the ship was to be his and hers, and that was the settled resolution of his soul.
When twelve o'clock came round he did not wish to sleep; he would have chosen rather that Julia should have slumbered until dawn. But the refreshment of rest was an imperious demand with which he must comply for his own and for the sake of the girl, the safety of their noble companion, the safety of the ship and her cargo. He thought he would try Julia by calling, and he shouted four or five times, but, as he had foreseen, the sweep of the wind broke his voice to pieces in the companionway, and her ears were blocked with sleep.
The dog started up and came to his side at the outcry of the man. "Fetch her, Sailor! fetch her!" he cried, pointing to the companion-hatch.
The Newfoundland barked and seemed to wonder.
"Fetch her, Sailor! fetch her!" he roared again, still pointing.
This time the dog understood. He sprang to the ladder and vanished, and a moment later Julia's cries were piercing. But it was merely the noise of terror such as would be excited in a girl awakened from a sound sleep by the resolute drag of a dog's teeth. She understood the thing in a minute, patted the dog, who was dragging her by her skirt to the ladder, snatched up her hat and the captain's cloak, and arrived on deck with the dog, whose tail timed the wag of the stars over the mastheads.
"Have you slept?" he asked.
"Too well," she answered. "I screamed because Sailor broke in upon a nightmare and fitted it."
"Will you be able to hold the wheel?"
"I'll try. What is the time?"
"After midnight—nearly one bell," he answered.
She stood at the wheel, and her firm grasp was full of promise of control.
"Is that the course?" she inquired, looking into the compass.
"Yes, and keep her to it as best you can by the starshine whilst I trim the lamp."
"What is our pace, dear?"
"Six and a half at least," he answered.
He made haste to trim the lamp and saw to the side-lights, and his spirits were high and his hope more exalted yet when he saw how well the girl steered. A big ship for a girl to control! And all the sweet archness of her incomparable posture was unconsciously expressed to her lover as he flashed the light over her before adjusting it for the illumination of the card.
"Now for a little supper," said he, "then I shall lie down."
He fetched some food and wine, and ate himself whilst he helped Julia to eat; the dog was remembered; and all the while he kept his eyes fixed in critical attention upon the girl's handling of the wheel.
"Sailor, go forward and keep a lookout, sir," he exclaimed, and this was an order which, as you know, the dog understood, and was accustomed to obey. He had supped and was thankful, and, faithful to his duty as Tom Bowline, the brave Newfoundland trotted forward to the forecastle, and took up a position of lookout betwixt the knight-heads.
"Here is my watch, Julia," said Hardy. "Call me at half-past two—but sooner, at the instant of need, if your arm should weary or the breeze shift and drive you off your course. I am a sailor and used to keeping my ears open in sleep. I am close beside you there, and your first cry will bring me out like a cork to the drag of a corkscrew."
"I will call you at half-past two," she answered. "She is as easy to steer as a boat. Look how steady the course swings at the mark there!"
He paused and gazed round him. The white cloud was speeding swiftly across the stars, and the ship hummed with the wind as the thrill of its ebon lines of gear, of shroud and stay and back-stay, shook its transport into the plank. The glass was steady—he had seen to that when he went below for the midnight supper; and there was no sign of worse, or changeful, or other weather within or on the verge of the mighty liquid sweep, whose heart was the ship, carrying onwards always the illimitable girdle on which she floated, the central figure of the night.
Hardy got into the hen-coop—a tight fit; but in it he was well sheltered, for the coop was under the lee of the weather-bulwark. He drew an old coat he had brought up over him, pillowed his head on the rolled-up flag he had thrown into the hen-coop, and in a minute was asleep.
A sailor's sleep is sound, and sacred as the slumber of death to his messmates and shipmates as they mutter softly round about him and tread the upper plank with airy feet that all shall be hushed in the forecastle—hushed unless it be the crying of the wind or the sullen thunder of the bow-sea, or the cries of the watch on high furling or reefing to the trumpet commands of the quarter-deck. Nothing in all ocean romance is comparable to this picture of a full-rigged ship in command of a girl who is alone at the wheel whilst her lover sleeps, whilst a dog on the forecastle-head watches the ocean line with faithful eye for the sparkle of light, for the dim sheen of canvas, for the stream of smoke spangled with the stars of the furnace, that shall make him bark in barks as truthful of indication as the strokes of the tongue upon the ship's bell.
The wind held a sweet, true breeze as Hardy had foreseen, whilst that brave little heart kept the ship's course steady to the lubber's point. She was not tired, sleep had refreshed her; standing was no trial; she was warmly draped, and felt a sort of glory in this occupation of sea-throne, which enabled her to do her duty and to hold her sweetheart in tranquil and most necessary repose. She was quick in intelligence, and the sea was small and its weight was of the summer; and she found a woman's delight in her power of governing, for the ship answered to her white hand with a courtier-like grace; she felt to be queen of the lordly fabric, and her spell at the wheel was a triumph of British girlhood.