The engines pounded, the sea boiled white beneath the Shasta's stern, and wire and studded cable screamed and groaned above the clamor of the winch and the thudding of the screw. For thirty long minutes, during which the uproar ceased for a moment or two once or twice, the Shasta did not move at all, and Jimmy felt his heart thump under the tension, while a cold breeze whipped his face. Then he thrust down his telegraph, and his voice reached the men on the forecastle harshly when the engines stopped.
"You have to do it now, or tear the windlass out. I'll give you all the steam," he said.
The men understood why haste was necessary. The fog no longer slid past them but whirled by in ragged streaks, and the wind that drove it came up out of the wastes of the Pacific. Already the long swell was flecked with little frothing ridges, and there was no need to tell any of those who glanced at it anxiously that it would break across the stranded vessel in an hour or two. Some of them stood by clanking windlass and banging winch, while the rest swabbed the creaking wire with grease and rubbed engine tallow on guide and block where it would ease the strain. For five minutes they worked in silence, and then a shout went up as the winch-drum that had spun beneath the wire took hold and reeled off a foot or two of it. The Shasta swung herself upright as a big gray heave capped with livid white rolled in, and a curious quiver ran through her before she came down on one side again. The roar of the jet of steam that rushed aloft from beside her funnel grew almost deafening, but Jimmy's voice broke faintly through the din.
"Lindstrom," he said, "tell Mr. Fleming he can turn the steam he daren't bottle down on to his engines."
Then a sonorous pounding, and the thud of the screw joined in; and by the time the jet of steam had died away, the Shasta was quivering all through, while her masts stood upright and did not slant back again. Her windlass was also slowly gathering the clanking cable in, until at last it rattled furiously as she leaped astern. Then a hoarse shout of exultation went up, and Jimmy drew in a deep breath of relief as he strode across his bridge.
"Heave right up to your kedge and break it out," he said. "Then we'll let her swing, and get the stream anchor when she rides to it ahead."
It meant an hour's brutal labor overhauling hard wire tackles and leading forward ponderous chain, but they undertook it light-heartedly, with bleeding hands and broken nails, while the Shasta heaved and rolled viciously under them. Then, when they broke out the stream anchor under her bows, Jimmy sighed from sheer satisfaction as he pressed down his telegraph to "Half-speed ahead."
"We wouldn't have done it in another hour, Lindstrom," he said. "We'll drive her west a while to make sure of things before we put her on her course again; and in the meanwhile you'll keep the hand-lead going."
It gave them steadily deepening water, until the sea piled up and the Shasta rolled her rail under, so that the man strapped outside the bridge could do no more than guess at the soundings; and Jimmy told him to come in. Then he turned to Lindstrom.
"I'll have to let up now," he said; "I can't keep my eyes open."