We managed to bend on two five-inch hawsers to the other steamer and started on our voyage, using our own engines to assist the towing ship. The engineer was full of zeal, which he showed by repeatedly "ramming" our consort, through his failure to understand the orders sent below through the tube—we had no telegraph—and this, needless to say, caused a great deal of unpleasantness, shown chiefly in personal abuse of myself from the big vessel, though I repeatedly tried to gesticulate explanations as to the position.
The Italian cook turned out an utter fraud, giving repeated proofs of his incapacity. I endeavoured to instruct him by practical demonstration in the art of boiling pork and cabbage, but it came on to blow and, the sea rising rapidly as it does in the Mediterranean, the galley was washed out and the cooking difficulty disposed of for ever, for we had to live on cocoa, biscuit, and onions during nearly the whole of that eventful voyage.
The seas grew bigger and bigger, and the Crocodile rolled horribly. Finally we had to abandon the quarters forward for fear of being washed overboard. I had twice tried to get to my cabin, for I had stowed away all the medical comforts, my sextant, cigars, and so forth in my bunk. At the first attempt I got knocked down and nearly had my leg broken by a heavy sea; at the second I came as close to being washed overboard as possible. By a desperate effort, however, I finally got down to my cabin, where I found everything—my clothes included—washing about in a depth of bilge water and oil, while my precious sextant was smashed. I managed to rescue the barometer—an excellent one, lent me by the towing ship, but useless under the circumstances—but I was obliged to let everything else go.
"THE SEAS GREW BIGGER AND BIGGER, AND THE 'CROCODILE' ROLLED HORRIBLY."
When I clambered back on deck I found the crew simply torpid with fright. Our two little engines raced as we lifted in such a way as to threaten a smash-up of the whole of the machinery. In spite of all my threats, and even some muscular persuasion, I was unable to induce a single man of the crew, with the exception of the mate, to stir. The ship, I may remark, was an awkward one to handle; she had no bulwarks, except a small piece forward and aft, with a single chain in between. Bunker lids were being continually washed off, but, as the men were too scared to reship them, the mate and myself had to do this ourselves to prevent our going down.
In the middle of the night, the weather growing steadily worse, one of the anchors got adrift. By a mingling of menace and persuasion I got one of the Italians to go forward with me to secure it. The mate, dead beat, was lying asleep on the engine-room gratings. We watched our time and made a rush for it, when a tremendous sea came over, simply burying us in water. I smashed my left toe against a pump, got a big piece taken out of one forefinger, and felt blood running into my eyes from a wound in my head. Looking round, I saw the Italian overboard, hanging on convulsively to a rail, and made a rush to his rescue. I managed to get hold of him, and finally hauled him on deck—and an awful bundle he was, having seemingly put all the clothes he had in the world on his back. However, we contrived to pass a lashing round the anchor and secure it as well as could be done under the circumstances. We were also successful in getting back aft, though the luckless Italian was bowled over and rolled about beneath another heavy sea, but the clothes he had on seemed to protect him, and he got to the stokehold uninjured.
Throughout the grim days and black nights that followed we laboured incessantly, led by the two hawsers that held us to the other ship. These hawsers had to be watched incessantly, and pieces of wood kept under the places where they came on board to prevent them from being cut. There was not a chair, or a stool, or a dry rag on board the ship. The crew spent their time praying or lamenting, and when we wanted to sleep the only place on which we could lie was the engine-room gratings, from which we got up as black as sweeps with coal-dust and grime. The seas were constantly washing over us from stem to stern, though the ship ahead had been dropping oil for three days to make things better for us. She herself was in difficulties, as we could see from the seas which continually rushed out from her water ports and scuppers.
About daybreak on the fourth day a loud report sounded through the din of wind and weather, and I saw our port hawser snap close up to the towing ship. We were then, of course, towing the broken part astern, and for hours I was in dread that it would foul our propeller. Luckily the weather moderated somewhat, and the larger vessel eased up, endeavouring to drop a line down to our end of the hawser so that we might heave it aboard. Owing to the drift to leeward, however, we found it impossible to do anything in this way, so, after waiting some hours longer, the towing vessel launched a boat to bring in the end. The boat was stove in as soon as it touched the water, and it was hauled on board again only just in time to save the crew from drowning. In the meantime I started to get out one of our own small steel boats. For four hours we laboured at this task, for the steamer rolled so much that at one moment the boat would be hanging over the water quite a distance from the side, and at another threatening to knock the funnel off. In the end we managed to launch her, pick up the end of the broken hawser, connect up again, and make a fresh start. But I defy anyone who has not gone through it to realize the labour, the difficulties, and danger we went through. Tossed about by mountainous seas, expecting every moment to be capsized, to fish up a five-inch steel hawser trailing deep below the surface, and pull back with it to the towing vessel, is a labour the arduousness of which my pen is utterly unable to describe. At last we got started again, and two days later, one lovely clear morning, we arrived at Algiers, the first port of call on our voyage.
Here the captain of the towing ship went ashore with me to obtain two Manila hawsers, these having more "give" and "spring" in them than wire ropes. We ransacked Algiers in vain, and accordingly cabled home for instructions. These were to the effect that the "hopper" was to be brought to England under her own steam, and I was given twenty-four hours to decide whether I would undertake the task. I made up my mind, now I had got so far, to see the thing through.