Chapter Seven.
Billy tells how we became wrecked.
“My word,” began Billy, “I shan’t forget in a hurry the awful look of the sky, that night, when you ordered me to come below, and I heard you slam the companion doors behind me, and draw over the slide. I felt certain that, with a sky blazing like that, when it was gettin’ on toward the middle of the night, something dreadful was goin’ to happen; and—it did, didn’t it? I was frightened enough, to start with, but when you battened me down I tell you, Mr Blackburn, I was fairly terrified, and two or three times I climbed half-way up the companion stairs, intendin’ to shout to you to let me out; then I thought again that you wouldn’t have sent me below if you hadn’t known it was the best place for me, so I crept back again and curled up on the locker cushions. And then came the hurricane. I heard it, even before it struck the ship; and when it hit her, and I felt her shiver, I made sure that it was all up with us, and I knelt down on the cabin floor and kept on sayin’ my prayers, over and over again.
“I was still sayin’ ’em when I suddenly heard the slide pushed back and the companion doors flung open; there was a scuffling of feet on the stairs, and I heard Enderby and Chips warnin’ one another to be careful. Then they came into the cabin, carryin’ you between ’em; and they laid you on the cabin table, and said you’d met with an accident; and I saw that your head was bleedin’. They undressed you, all in a hurry, put you in your bunk, told me to look after you, and then rushed up on deck again, shuttin’ me in, just as you did.
“You were insensible then, so I got to work and hunted up some stuff to make bandages with. Then I opened the medicine-chest and got out the book of instructions; and while I was trying to find out what was the proper thing to do I heard the bosun and Chips shoutin’ something. I listened, tryin’ to hear what they were shoutin’ about; and then, above the noise of the wind, I heard another sound, like—well, I can hardly describe it, but you can hear it now, the roar of the surf on the reef. It grew louder, and louder still, until it was—well, just deafenin’; then I felt the ship hove, first up and then down; then she touched something, but didn’t seem to hit it very hard; I felt a blow, like a heavy sea hittin’ her; I heard the fall and rush of water on her deck, and a crash that sounded as if the mainmast had gone over the side, then she struck again—harder—three or four times, heeling over until she seemed to be on her beam-ends, and flinging me right across the cabin floor; and all the time I could hear that she was bein’ swept by awfully heavy seas. But after a bit things got rather more quiet. I felt that we were aground, but still rolling heavily, and I could hear at every roll a sort of crunching sound, as though the planking of the ship’s bottom was grinding upon something; but the seas weren’t coming aboard now nearly so heavy nor so often as they were, and after a time they didn’t come aboard at all; the rocking motion eased up, and I thought, from the sound, that it didn’t seem to be blowin’ quite so hard.
“All this time you were in your bunk, insensible; but as soon as I was able to stand without bein’ flung down again I got some water from the pantry filter, and bathed your head. There was a nasty cut in it, and it was still bleedin’, but I washed it as well as I could, and made a pad that I bound tightly over it, accordin’ to the directions I found in the book. And then I think I must have fallen asleep, for I don’t remember anything more happenin’ until I awoke and saw the sun shinin’ through your scuttle and the cabin skylight.
“You were still insensible, so I bathed your head afresh, put a new dressing on it, and then went on deck to have a look round. My word! Mr Blackburn, I was astonished when I pushed open the companion slide and looked out. The ship is ashore on a reef; a total wreck; both masts gone by the board; bulwarks carried away; decks swept, and everything but the galley gone—and you and I are all that are left of the crew.”
“Good Heavens, Billy, you surely don’t mean to say that all hands except ourselves are lost!” I exclaimed, in horrified tones.
“Yes, I do, Mr Blackburn,” protested the boy; “and you wouldn’t be surprised if you had heard—as I did—the tremendous seas that swept the ship when she first hit the reef. I shouldn’t have been a bit surprised if she had gone to pieces right then. It’s no wonder that the decks were clean swept.”
“No wonder, indeed,” I agreed. “You say that we are ashore on a reef, Billy. What sort of a reef is it; just ordinary rocks, or—?”