At one time a heavy squall roughened the dark water, and taxed all my powers to work the little yawl; but whenever a lull came, or a chance of getting on my proper course again, I bent round to “East by North,” determined to make way in that direction.
In the middle of the night my compass lamp began to glimmer faint, and it was soon evident that the flame must go out. Here was a discomfort: the wind veered so much that its direction would be utterly fallacious as a guide to steer by, and this uncertainty might continue until the lightning ceased. Therefore, at all hazards, we must light up the compass again. So I took down the ship-light from the mizen shroud, and held it between my knees that it might shine on the needle, and it was curious how much warmth came from this lantern. Then I managed to get a candle, and cut a piece off, and rigged it up with paper inside the binnacle. This answered for about ten minutes, but finding it was again flickering, I opened the tin door, and found all the candle had melted into bright liquid oil; so this makeshift was a failure. However, another candle was cut, and the door being left open to keep it cool, with this lame light I worked on bravely, but very determined for the rest of my sailing days to have the oil bottle always accessible. Finally the wind blew out the candle, though it was very much sheltered, and the ship-light almost at the same time also went out suddenly. Then we lay to, backed the jib, opened the cabin hatch, got out the oil, thoroughly cleaned the lamp, put in a new wick, and lighted it afresh, and a new candle in the ship’s light; again we started all right once more, with that self-gratulation at doing all this successfully,—under such circumstances of wind, sea, and rain,—which perhaps was not more than due.
What with these things, and reefing several times, and cooking at intervals, there was so much to do and so much to think about during the night that the hours passed quickly, and at last some stray streaks of dawn (escaped before their time perhaps) lighted up a cloud or two above, and then a few wave-tops below, and soon gave a general grey tint to all around, until by imperceptible but sure advance of clearness, the vague horizon seemed to split into land and water, and happily then it was seen plainly that the Rob Roy had not lost way in the dark.
As soon as there was light enough to read we began to study Shoreham in the Pilot book, and neared it the while in the water; but though now opposite the Brighton coast, it was yet too faraway to make out any town, for we had stood well out to sea in the thunderstorm. All tiredness passed off with the fresh morning air, and the breeze was now so strong that progress was steady and swift.
It may be remarked how a coast often appears quite different when you are fifteen or twenty miles out to sea, from what it does when you stand on the beach, or look from a row-boat close to the land. So now we were puzzled to find out Brighton, one’s own familiar Brighton, with its dull half-sided street, neither town nor bathing-town, its beach unwalkable, and all its sights and glories done in a day. We might well be ashamed not to recognise at once the contour of the hills, which we had so often trudged over in column or in skirmish in the Volunteer Reviews.
The chain-pier was, of course, hardly discernible at a great distance. But the “Grand Hotel” at last asserted itself as a black cubical speck in the binocular field, and then we made straight for that; Shoreham being gradually voted a bore, to be passed by, and Newhaven adopted as the new goal for the day.
We had shaken out all reefs, and now tore along at full speed, with the spray-drift sparkling in the sun, and a frolicsome jubilant sea. The delights of going fast when the water is deep and the wind is strong—ah! these never can be rightly described, nor the exulting bound with which your vessel springs through a buoyant wave, and the thrill of nerve that tells in the sailor’s heart, “Well, after all, sailing is a pleasure supreme.”
Numerous fishing-vessels now came out, with their black tanned sails and strong bluff bows and hardy-looking crews, who all hailed me cheerily when they were near enough, and often came near to see. Fast the yawl sped along the white chalk cliffs, and my chart in its glazed frame did excellent service now, for the wind and sea rose more again; and at length, when we came near the last headland for Newhaven, we lowered the mainsail and steadily ran under mizen and jib. Newhaven came in sight, deeply embayed under the magnificent cliff, which, at other times I could have gazed on for an hour, admiring the grand dashing of the waves, but we had to hoist mainsail again, so as to get in before the tide would set out strongly, and so increase every minute the sea at the harbour’s mouth.
It was more than exciting to enter here with such waves running. Rain, too, came on, just as the Rob Roy dashed into the first three rollers, and they were big and green, and washed her well from stem right on to stern, but none entered farther. The bright yellow hue of the waves on one side of the pier made me half afraid that it was shallow there, and, hesitating to pass, I signalled to some men near the pier-head as to which way to go, but they were only visitors. The tide ran strongly out, dead in my teeth, yet the wind took me powerfully through it all, and then instantly, even before we had rounded into quiet water, the inquisitive uncommunicative spectators roared out, “Where are you from?” “What’s your name?” and all such stupid things to say to a man whose whole mind in a time like this has to be on sail and sea and tiller. [250]
During this passage from the Isle of Wight I had noticed now and then, when the waves tossed more than usual, that a dull, heavy, thumping sound was heard aboard the yawl, and gradually I concluded that her iron keel had been broken by the rock at Bembridge, and that it was swinging free below my boat. This idea increased my anxiety to get in safely; and to make sure of the matter we took the Rob Roy at once to the “gridiron,” and laid her alongside a screw-steamer which had been out during the night, and had run on a rock in the dark thunderstorm. The “baulks” or beams of the gridiron under water were very far apart, and we had much difficulty in placing the yawl so as to settle down on two of them, but the crew of the steamer helped me well, and all the more readily, as I had given them books at Dieppe, a gift they did not now forget.