“Mr. Dorney sang out to let go both anchors, and one of them, at least, was let go. Somebody sang out, ‘Weather main brace,’ I suppose, to lay the main yards aback. Most of us ran to the weather main braces, and I was on the rope and we were just beginning to haul, when I saw something white rise up on our own weather bow, and then she went crash on to something and knocked us all off our feet. She got up just as we did and seemed to look around and wonder what was happening, and she lifted clear of whatever it was and seemed to jump out of it, but perhaps it was only the broken water that gave me the idea that she did, for then she ran fairly on to it with a crash which tore the boat’s skids clean off and pitched her fore and main top-gallant masts right out of her like bitten-off carrots.”
“Were the men aloft killed,” Sard asked.
“No, sir, they were warned by her hitting the first time. After that second crash she didn’t strike again, she only worked down into where there were great breakers all round us. Then the fog went as though by magic and it was daylight. We could see everything when it was too late, Cape Caliente, Port Matoche, and all the coast as far as the Cow and Calves. We were on the Snappers, seven miles west of Caliente. Mr. Dorney had been thinking that we were among the Chamuceras, thirteen miles east of her.
“Well, sir, we could take stock of how we were. She was lying over on her starboard side a little and about a foot or two by the stern. We judged that she was ripped pretty well open, for the water was over her ’tween decks. And now that it was too late the wind began to freshen and she began to grind where she lay. Mr. Dorney furled the sails to ease her and got the boats ready for hoisting out, and by the time the boats were ready she was grinding down at each swell with a noise like ice cracking on a lake, and the sea all round her began to come up in a kind of syrup from our sugar.
“By eight o’clock it was no joke to be on deck. She was pounding and breaking the sea. Mr. Dorney decided to abandon ship. He hoisted all her colours first, house flag, ensign and number, and then he got off three of the boats. I went in the bo’sun’s boat. Just before Mr. Dorney’s boat was put over the side, while we were lying off watching, there came a great big swell, which passed underneath us, of course, but it caught the old Pathfinder fair and gave her a great yank over and everything in her seemed to fetch away over to starboard with a bang, and the next swell went right over her all along. It was just all they could do to get that last boat over.
“Well, that was the end of it, sir, we’d a bit of a job to make Port Matoche, for the wind freshened into one of those local northerly gales which they call Arnottos. But we landed everybody and we took the sick up to the hospital. Mr. Hopkins and the A.B. were both much better when we left Port Matoche. The padre, Father Garsinton, was quite recovered. He came on here in a coaster so as to save a day while we were waiting for the mail. The doctor said that we had got some tropical infection on board, he didn’t know quite what; he said it was like medellin throat, but he had never known cases fatal before. We were all fumigated and had our clothes baked, which spoiled all our boots.”
“Did the Pathfinder break up?” Sard asked.
“Yes, sir,” the boy said. “Mr. Dorney, Wolfram, the Bos’un, and Sails went out in a shore boat after the Arnotto died down, to see if they could salve anything from her, but they found only her fo’c’sle and forepeak wedged on the rocks and the fore-mast still hanging by its gear. She had broken short off, they said, just abaft her fore-hatch and the rest of her was gone down into over 100 fathoms. They said that the worst of it was that she was within a ship’s length of clearing the Snappers altogether. Another hundred yards would have fetched her clear.”
“You aren’t allowed a hundred yards, nor a hundred inches, in our profession,” Sard said. “A ship is either afloat or ashore, and that’s all there is to it.”
By this time they had reached the door of the Sailors’ Home.