Original Penny Readings: A Series of Short Sketches

by George Manville Fenn

Chapter Fourteen.

A Wheel of Misfortune.

That’s our vessel out there, moored fore and aft—that one with her starn so low down, and her nose right up outer the water. You see, that’s all owing to her make. Being a screw boat, all her machinery is far aft, as you can see by her funnel; and now the cargo’s all out, she looks awkward in the water. Fine boat, though, ain’t she? There’s lines! there’s a clipper-look about her! She seems as if she’d cut through anything. My old boat was a fine one, but nothing like so fast, though I liked her, after all, far better than this; for when you get out in the warm parts the engine-room’s awful, and enough to kill a fellow; and I don’t know, after all, that I don’t like a paddle-boat best, same as my old ’un was. I’ve never seen such engines since, nor such cylinders—oscillators, you know—and one to each paddle separate, so that you could go ahead with one and turn astarn with t’other, just like the chaps in a boat rowing and backing water, so that the old steamer would almost spin round upon herself if you liked. There was some credit in keeping that machinery bright, for you could see it all from the deck, and when the sun shone, and the pistons, and beams, and cylinders were all on the work, it was a pretty sight as would pay any one for looking at.

It’s only a short journey, you know—London and Hull—but it takes a deal of care, and precious rough the weather is sometimes; for our east coast ain’t a nice one, any more than it’s easy working going up the Humber, or making your way into the Thames; and then, amongst all the shipping most as far as London Bridge, there’s so many small boats about, and so much in-and-out work and bother, that at times one gets sick of going ahead, and turning astarn, and easing her, and stopping her, and the rest of it; but then, you know, if we didn’t look sharp we should soon be into something, or over it, just as it happened.

I remember once we were in the Humber. It was winter time, when the great river was covered with floating ice; and as we went along slowly to get in midstream, you could hear the paddle-wheels battering and shattering the small pieces, so that one expected the floats to be knocked all to pieces; while the ragged, jaggy fragments of ice were driven far enough under water, and then rose up amongst the foam to go rushing and bumping along the side of the ship, tearing and grinding one another as they went. It was terribly slow work, for we were obliged to work at quarter speed, and now and then we’d come with a tremendous shock against some floating block, which then went grating along till the chaps in front of the paddles caught it at the end of their hitchers, and so turned it off, or the paddles must have been smashed.

You see, the tide was coming up, and all this floating ice that had come down, out of the Ouse and Trent, was being brought back again from Humber’s mouth. Pretty nigh high water it was, but we started a little sooner, so as to see our way through the ice before night came on; and as I stood on deck, having come up for a moment or two, of all the dreary sights I ever saw that was the worst. Far as eye could reach there was ice-covered water, mist, and the heavy clouds seeming to settle down upon the distant banks.

It was getting fast on towards evening, and seeing me up, the captain began to talk a bit about the state of the river, and whether we hadn’t better anchor, while I could hardly hear him from the clattering noise made by the paddle-floats upon the ice.

“Cold place to anchor,” I says, as I looked round the deck; and then I says, “Be clearer as soon as we gets nearer Grimsby.” So we kept on, and I went down to join my stoker giving an eye to the engine, and after a few words I went up again and took a look about me. And what a wretched lookout the deck of a Hull boat is. You see it’s a cheap way of getting up to London, and parliamentary trains ain’t nowhere in comparison for cheapness, so that you have rather a poor lot of passengers; and then, what with the cargo, and one thing and another, always including the poor folks as is sick, and them as is trying to make themselves so, why, you may find much pleasanter places than the deck of a Hull steamer. But, there, the deck’s bad enough, so what do you suppose the fore-cabin is? It’s enough to make your heart bleed sometimes to see the poor miserable-looking objects we have on board, some half-clothed and looking less than half-fed as they crouch about the deck or huddle down in the cabin. Then there’s always a lot of children, and the poor, tired, cold, hungry little things soon let you know as they’re on board, and very loudly, too, making every one else miserable and wretched into the bargain.

I’d been giving an eye to all this, and thinking how very much pleasanter everything would have been if we had had a fine summer’s evening for our voyage, when all at once, above the rattle and clatter of the ice amongst the paddles, I heard a horrible wild shriek from just over the side of the ship. Like half a dozen more, I ran to the side directly, and looked over, when just at the same moment I saw two men standing up in a little boat—one a sailor chap or boatman, and the other evidently a passenger; for in the glance I took I could see a bag and a box in the boat.