We carried only the crew of six seamen and ten firemen, with two engineers, a donkeyman, a pair of mates, a cook, and galley boy. Just two dozen of us all told; and, while I had never commanded a ship of any size before, I was not suffering much from swelled cranium as I stood upon the bridge and gave orders.
Low-powered, black-sided, with the regulation Clyde bow and round stern, she was no better than a tramp. We carried extra diving and hoisting gear for the wrecking crew that had preceded us. Our winches were heavy, and built for working in the African trade where a ship must handle her own cargo. They would be useful in the work ahead.
My mates, Simpson and Dennison, were good men, and knew their little book all right. Simpson had a very red nose, and looked as if he liquored on the sly, but he never showed groggy on duty, so I had no chance to call him down. He would continue the voyage as captain after I got that safe up and on its way to England. Dennison was young and boyish. He was a good lad, and never slept in his watch on deck—at least I never caught him.
The run was uneventful, and we were sooner or later close to the West African coast, running through an oily sea, and pointing for Lagos.
One hot and stifling morning after I had worked the sight, I was sitting in a deck chair at the pilot-house door, thinking of Lucy Docking, and how I might make a saving of fifteen pounds a month out of a salary fixed at twelve. This mathematical problem was unfinished when Dennison hailed me from the bridge.
"Vessel right ahead, sir, anchored about a mile and a half offshore," he said.
It was our friends, the wrecking crew, and we had arrived.
The topmasts of the Heraldine stuck clear of the oily sea. She had been a three-masted ship with square rig forward and fore and aft upon the main and mizzen. She had sails upon her spars already bent after the old-time style of low-powered ships. She lay easily in about ten or twelve fathoms, and had a slight list to port owing to her settling a bit upon her bilge.
Being very flat and wide-bottomed, she looked almost ready to rise and continue her voyage lying as she did in that smooth sea, and being unhurt save for that gash in her bilge where the broken crank tore through, thrashing her life out before the engineer could shut off steam.
I pictured for a moment the huge flail, the piston with the broken crank attached, the pieces not less than half a ton, whirling up and down under the full pressure of her cylinders with nothing to stop it. There must have been a wild mess in that engine room with a crazy hammer going full tilt like that.