Chapter Ten.
“Under Fire!”
“Look alive, my lads!” shouted out our tall commander, as we stumbled about the deck of the brig, the shock as her keel touched ground knocking us off our pins and making the poor seasick chaps who were holding their heads over the side pull them in pretty promptly. “Watch, furl sails! ’Way aloft!”
The sheets and halliards were let go in a twinkling before we left the deck and the topsails dropped on the caps, as well as the jib downhaul manned and the spanker brailed up, so as to prevent our being forced farther upon the shoal; and, while we were shinning up the rigging, the clewlines and buntlines were hauled by the watch below, which got in all the slack of the sails preparatory to our passing the gaskets when we got aloft, thus enabling us to furl all the canvas, and make everything snug in less time than I take to tell of it.
In the meanwhile our commander made himself busy in other ways, the cutter being lowered and a party of seamen and boys sent in her with a kedge to drop astern and try to warp off; the port bower anchor being dropped at the same time, and a spring set on the cable, which was buoyed so that we could slip it in a moment in the event of her suddenly floating.
A ‘distant signal’ was also hoisted at the main, consisting of a square flag on top with a ball below, which meant that we were aground and wanted assistance, to let the men on watch at the Hurst Castle signal-station know what was up with us; and, in addition, our smart commanding officer put on a party of boys at the pumps, to see whether the brig might not have strained her timbers and sprung a leak, through working about on the nasty sand bottom of the Brambles.
This latter precaution, however, proved a useless one; for the gang of eager lads working away with a will at the crank-handles of the pumps, soon cleared the little amount of water that was in the bilge, and the shaft sucked dry.
“Ther’ ain’t a drop in her,” reported Mr Tarbolt, the quarter-master, ‘old Jellybelly,’ as we called him amongst ourselves. “I don’t think, sir, as how she’s made a h’inch since we passed the Needles and last cleared ship.”