Wild Adventures round the Pole
Page 43
and chuckled till his face grew redder than ever, buthe would not have been quite so gay, I think, had he known what was sosoon to happen to his own ship.
Stevenson touched McBain on the shoulder.
"The ice presses heavy on the rudder, sir."
"Then unship it," said McBain.
"And I'll unship mine," said Silas.
Unshipping rudders is a kind of drill that few save Greenland sailorsever learn, but it is very useful at times, nevertheless.
In another hour the rudders of the two ships were hoisted and laid onthe bergs. So that was one danger past.
But others were soon to follow, for the swell under the ice increased,the bergs all around them rolled higher and higher. The noise from thepack was terrific, as the pieces met and clashed and ground theirslippery sides together. In an hour or two the bay ice had been eitherground to slush, or piled in packs on top of the bergs, so that thebergs had freedom to fight, as it were. Alas! for the two ships thathappened to be between the combatants. Their position was, indeed, farfrom an enviable one. Hardly had an hour elapsed ere the ice-harboursMcBain and Silas had prided themselves in, were wrecked anddisintegrated. They were then, in some measure, at the mercy of theenemy, that pressed them closely on every quarter. The _Canny Scotia_was the worst off--she lay between two of the biggest bergs in the pack.McBain came to his assistance with torpedoes. He might as well havetried to blow them to pieces with a child's pop-gun. Better, in fact,for he would have had the same sport with less trouble and expense, andthe result would have been equally gratifying.
For once poor Silas lost his equanimity. He actually wrung his hands ingrief when he saw the terrible position of his vessel.
"My poor shippie," he said. "Heaven help us! I was building castles inthe air. But she is doomed! My bonnie ship is doomed."
At the same time he wisely determined not to be idle, so provisions andvaluables were got on shore, and all the men's clothes and belongings.
As nothing more could be done, Silas grew more contented. "It was justhis luck," he said, "just his luck."
Long hours of anxiety to every one went slowly past, and still the swellkept up, and the bergs lifted and fell and swung on the unseen billows,and ground viciously against the great sides of the _Arrandoon_. Nowthe _Canny Scotia_ was somewhat Dutchified in her build--not as to bowsbut as to bottom. She was not a clipper by any manner of means, and herbuild saved her. The ice actually ground her up out of the water tillshe lay with her beam-ends on the ice, and her keel completely exposed.
[As did the _P--e_, of Peterhead, once for weeks. The men lived on theice alongside, expecting the vessel to sink as soon as the ice opened.The captain, however, would not desert his ship, but slept on board, hismattress lying on the ship's side. The author's ship was beset somemiles off at the same time.]
But the _Arrandoon_ had no such build. The ice caught under herforefoot, and she was lifted twelve feet out of the water. No wonderMcBain and our heroes were anxious. The former never went below duringall the ten hours or more that the squeeze lasted. But the swellsgradually lessened, and finally ceased. The _Arrandoon_ regained herposition, and lost her list, but there lay the _Canny Scotia_, apitiable sight to see, like some giant overthrown, silent yet suffering.
When the pumps of the _Arrandoon_ had been tried, and it was found thatthere was no extra water in her, McBain felt glad indeed, and thankedGod from his inmost heart for their safe deliverance from this greatperil. He could now turn his attention to consoling his friend Silas.After dinner that day, said McBain,--
"Your cabin is all ready, Captain Grig, for of course you will sleepwith us now."
But Silas arose silently and calmly.
"I needn't say," he replied, "how much I feel your manifold acts ofkindness, but Silas Grig won't desert his ship. His bed is on the_Canny Scotia_."
"But, my dear fellow," insisted McBain, "the ice may open in an hour,and your good ship go down."
"Then," said Silas, "I go with her, and it will be for you to tell myowners and my little wife--heaven keep her!--that Skipper Grig stuck tohis ship to the last."
What could McBain say, what argument adduce, to prevent this rough oldtar from risking his life in what he considered a matter of duty?Nothing! and so he was dumb.
Then away went Silas home, as he called it, to his ship. He loweredhimself down by a rope, clambered over the doorway of the cabin, tookone glance at the chaos around, then walked tenderly _over_ thebulkhead, and so literally _down_ to his bed. He found the mattress andbed-clothes had fallen against the side, and so there this good man,this true sailor, laid him down and slept the sleep of the just.
But the _Scotia_ did not go to the bottom; she lay there for a wholeweek, defying all attempts to move her, Silas sleeping on board everynight, the only soul in her, and his crew remaining on the _Arrandoon_.At the end of that time the ice opened more; then the prostrate giantseemed to begin to show signs of returning life. She swayed slightly,and looked as if she longed once more to feel the embrace of her nativeelement; seeing which, scientific assistance was given her. Suddenlyshe sprang up as does a fallen horse, and hardly had the men time toseek safety on the neighbouring bergs, when she took the water--relaunched herself--with a violence that sent the spray flying in everydirection with the force of a cataract. It would have been well had thewetting the crew received been the only harm done.
It was not, for the bergs moved asunder with tremendous force. Onestruck the _Arrandoon_ in her weakest part--amidships, under thewater-line. She was stove, the timbers bent inwards and cracked, andthe bunks alongside the seat of accident were dashed into matchwood.Poor old Duncan Gibb, who was lying in one of these bunks with an almostunited fracture of one of his limbs, had the leg broken over again.
"Never mind, Duncan," said the surgeon, consolingly, "I didn't make avera pretty job of it last time. I'll make it as straight as a dartthis turn!"
"Vera weel, sir; and so be it," was poor contented Duncan's reply, as hesmiled in his agony.
"Dear me, now!" said Silas, some time afterwards; "I could simply cry--make a big baby of myself and cry. It would be crying for joy andgrief, you know--joy that my old shippie should show so much pluck as toright herself like a race-horse, and grief to think she should go andstave the _Arrandoon_. The ungrateful old jade!"
"Never mind," said McBain, cheerfully, "Ap and the carpenters will soonput the _Arrandoon_ all right. We will shift the ballast, throw herover to starboard, and repair her, and the place will be, like Duncan'sleg, stronger than ever."
It did not take very long to right Captain Cobb's cockle-shell, and allthe vessels being now in position again, and the ice opening, it mighthave been as well to have got steam up at once, and felt the way to theopen water. McBain decided to make good repairs first; it was just aseasy to list the ship among the ice as out of it, and probably lessdangerous. Besides, the water kept pouring in, and the beautifularrangement of blankets and hammock-cloths which Ap had devised, hardlysufficed to keep it out.--This decision of the captain nearly cost thelife of two of our best-loved heroes, and poor old Seth as well. Buttheir adventure demands a chapter, or part of one at least, to itself.
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX.
AN ADVENTURE ON THE PACK--SEPARATED FROM THE SHIP--DESPAIR--THE DREAM OFHOME--UNDER WAY ONCE MORE.
Nothing in the shape of adventure came amiss to Rory. He was alwaysready for any kind of "fun," as he called every kind of excitement.Such a thing as fear I do not believe Rory ever felt, and, as forfailing in anything he undertook, he never even dreamt of such a thing.He had often proposed escapades and wild adventures to his companions atwhich they hung fire. Rory's line of argument was very simple andunsophisticated. It may be summed up in three sentences--first, "Surewe've only to try and we're bound to do it." If that did not convinceAllan or Ralph, he brought up his first-class reserve, "Let us try,_anyhow_;" and if that failed, his second reserve, "It's _bound_ to comeright in the end." Had Rory been s
eized by a lion or tiger, and borneaway to the bush, those very words would have risen to his lips to bringhim solace, "It's bound to come right in the end."
The few days' delay that succeeded the accident to the _Arrandoon_,while she had to be listed over, and things were made as uncomfortableas they always are when a ship is lying on an uneven keel, threw Roryback upon his books for enjoyment. That and writing verses, and, fiddlein hand composing music to his own words, enabled him to pass the daywith some degree of comfort; but when Mr Stevenson one morning, ongiving his usual report at breakfast-time, happened to say,--
"Ice rather more open to-day, sir; a slight breeze from the west, andabout a foot of rise and fall among the bergs; two or three bears abouta mile to leeward, and a few