Heart of Oak: A Three-Stranded Yarn, vol. 2.

by William Clark Russell

I quickly found what I immediately wanted, namely, a quantity of long iron spikes. I took a handful of these and a hammer on deck and drove a spike deep into the wood, a little above the other; and thus I made a ladder of spikes, every projection of iron yielding me room for my foot and for a grip of one hand. When I had driven in the spikes as high as was needful, I came down, and after hunting over the gear upon the deck found a small block through which I rove a line that looked like a length of the fore-royal signal halliards. I climbed the mast again with this block and line and, driving a spike into the head of the stump, I secured the block to it and descended for good, this business being finished.

I had taken notice of a flag locker under a grating abaft the wheel; I went to it and found a complete code of Marryatt's signals, a large and small ensign, and a jack. There was too much bunting in the big ensign for such weather as this, and for such winds as might burst upon us at any moment: so I bent on the small ensign to my halliards and ran it, jack downwards, to the head of the stump of foremast, where it flared bravely, chattering like a thing of life.

Yet I found it but a mocking signal after all, when I sent my glance from it round the thick swollen and breaking seas, and noticed that even already the dye of the early night seemed in the air, and that in little more than an hour that streaming, flame-like appeal would, as a call to the eye, be as useless as the stump it blew from.

I was now extremely anxious to ascertain the depth of water in the hold, and went to the pumps to see what was to be done with the ice there. The sounding tube was perhaps solid with ice half-way to the hold; I thought then I would try and draw one of the pumps, and having the pantry chopper in my hand, let fly, bruising and splintering so as to free the bucket. In the midst of my chopping Miss Otway called out. I stopped and saw her head in the companion way.

'Oh,' she cried, with a note in her voice that sounded almost like joy, pointing with a gesture of rapture to the inverted ensign, 'that will bring help to us! That will be seen for miles and miles. How clever! How did you manage to climb that slippery mast?' And then, catching sight of the spikes, she exclaimed, 'I see. I see. It's wonderfully done.'

'It's too cold for you on deck,' said I, scarcely keeping grave over this girlish praise. 'Remain below in the warmth. No use taking a voyage for your health only to lose your toes and fingers as your doctor has.'

But paying no heed to this, she stepped out of the companion way, and putting her thickly-gloved hand upon one of the life-lines, came to where I was letting fly at the pump and watched me.

It was the best light I had yet viewed her in; and now indeed I perceived that she was a very delicate, sweet-looking young lady, about two-and-twenty years of age, pale, but of a transparency of complexion that made a beauty of her pallor; nor were her eyes wanting in expression, though they would be too light to faithfully reflect the deeper and subtler passions and sensations of her spirit.

I thought her the most refined-looking lady I had ever seen; which perhaps is not saying much, seeing how many of my years had been passed upon the ocean. I saw the quality and breeding of her in her face and heard it in her voice, and I think anyone, no matter how inexperienced in such things, but would, on looking at her, have said to himself, this is an English lady.

After chopping and hammering for some time, I freed the bucket and drew the pump; and, the sounding-rod lying handily by, I dropped it, and after several casts, so hard did I find it to get the level of the water betwixt the swift abrupt rolls of the hull, I made a little more than a foot and a half. I was astonished, but wonderfully heartened. Here was a hull that had not been pumped out for eight or ten days: she had been straining heavily in the hollow hour after hour: and yet there was no more water in her than a single spell of a watch on deck at the pumps might free her of!