Most of the crew had cleared off at Algiers the moment they had the chance, and it was with the greatest difficulty that I managed to get another lot together. Having seen my friend the towing ship off, I started myself two days later for Gibraltar.
Scarcely had we got to sea again when we began to encounter the same diabolical weather as before. I made a discovery, too, that disconcerted me more almost than anything that we had already experienced—I found we had no instruments! During the voyage from Port Said all the navigation, of course, was done by the towing vessel, and the necessity of independent navigation, in consequence of the altered arrangements, had never entered our heads. I had neither a chronometer nor sextant; only a small-scale chart and a very questionable and erratic compass on the bridge. After much cogitation I found the only thing I could do was to get the bearing of the North Star, and this I did by laying a broomstick along the top of the compass and pointing it as straight as possible. By this I was able to shape a course to Cape de Gat, the south-east corner of Spain, making due allowance for wind and current.
But trouble soon began. At Algiers I had picked up a French engineer who was in perpetual trouble with his engines. He spoke no English, I spoke no French; so that after various altercations in our own languages I was obliged to intimate to him, in a fashion it was difficult for him to misunderstand, that further discussions were useless. One morning, however, when between blowing and pitching it was hard to stand upright, the engineer came tumbling on deck frantic with excitement, gesticulating madly and shouting, "Monsieur le Commandant, oily, oily!" while he pointed a quivering forefinger below.
I rushed down and found the starboard engine bearings grinding away just about red-hot for want of oil, the stench and steam being indescribable. I cursed him for an idiot, for he might have known we were half full of oil, and he promptly shut off steam. During this time our tiny vessel (she was only a hundred and thirty-five tons), having but little way on her, was tossed about like a chip, and the rest of the crew lay in a jumble in the stokehold—sick, praying and groaning—neither persuasion nor kicks having the least effect on them. It was under these cheerful conditions that, having restarted the engines, we reached Gibraltar a day or two later.
The Officer of Health at Gibraltar received my account of the voyage, first with incredulity, and then astonishment. He heard my proposal to navigate home under the prevailing conditions with a stare of stupefaction, and then remarked, significantly, "Well, rather you than me, captain."
I had literally to hold the chief engineer down at starting in order to frustrate his frantic struggles to get overboard. We made for Cape St. Vincent, the weather being bad, though endurable, thence I steered for Cape Roca and the Burlings, but made neither. Finally we picked up Cape Finisterre and were in the Bay of Biscay, where, sure enough, we caught it. It blew hard from the north-west, and the vessel at times nearly stood on end. Nevertheless, we had to be continually shifting coal and water to keep the propeller under water. In the middle of the night the second engineer crawled along to me on the bridge to tell me the piston packings of the port engine had blown out, and those of the other engine were leaking so badly that they were expected to blow out also at any moment.
Now, if the engine had gone, there was not a spar or a sail of any kind on the vessel to keep her before the wind, and our fate, had we once been cast into the trough of the sea, would have been certain. Accordingly we had to keep one engine running at half speed while we patched up the other with some valuable hose which had been used for pumping oil out. When we had finished one we turned to the other, and managed to make a tolerable job of both. This kept us going for nearly two days.
On the fourth day from Finisterre, about one in the morning, we sighted a light. At first I thought it was the coast of France, but after a while I saw the familiar stump of the Eddystone, and then I knew where I was. On receiving the joyful news the crew worked up some sort of enthusiasm, and I determined to put out to sea again and face it. The firemen threw their hearts into their work and we breasted the waves gallantly. Soon, however, I heard a muffled report and yells from the engine-room, and, rushing below, found we had to stop the port engine for a time; so we went on with the starboard one pretty comfortably for about twenty-four hours, when the repairs were roughly completed. Then the wind rose again to almost hurricane force, and the ship rolled and pitched quite in her best style. Even this was not the worst, for near Dungeness a heavy sea threw a water-tank on top of me, and when I was hauled out I found I had broken a bone in my left wrist, in addition to other injuries. At that point, too, the electric light went out. The ship was now in total darkness; we had no mast or side-lights, and presently, to crown all, a dense fog settled upon us. At that moment a nautical Mark Tapley would have been hard put to it to muster up any cheerfulness worth mentioning.
However, to make an end to a long story, we worried through our troubles somehow or other, got a pilot on board, and at last arrived off the Royal Albert Docks, where very thankfully we made fast to the Galleon buoys on December 22nd. To show one difficulty I had to contend with during this ever-memorable voyage I may mention that the compass was so untrue that to make a true east course I had to steer south a quarter west.
For ten days after our arrival I was laid up and unable to get off to the ship. When I did I found that nearly the whole of my things had been stolen. I received from the owners, in recognition of the danger and arduousness of the voyage, a gratuity of ten pounds!