CHAPTER TEN.
THE CAMPAIGN OF 1758.
The contrast was pleasant; repose after toil,--for stone-cutting in theyard on shore was rest compared with the labour at the Rock. Steady,regular, quiet progress; stone after stone added to the great pile,tested and ready for shipment at the appointed time. Thecommander-in-chief planning, experimenting, superintending. The menbusy as bees; and, last but not least, delightful evenings with friends,and recountings of the incidents of the war. Such is the record of thewinter.
The spring of 1758 came; summer advanced. The builders assumed theoffensive, and sent out skirmishers to the Rock, where they found thatthe enemy had taken little or no rest during the winter, and were ashard at it as ever. Little damage, however, had been done.
The attacking party suffered some defeats at the outset. They foundthat their buoy was lost, and the mooring chain of the _Buss_ had sunkduring the winter. It was fished up, however, but apparently might aswell have been let lie, for it could not hold the _Buss_, which brokeloose during a gale, and had to run for Plymouth Sound. Again, on 3rdJune; another buoy was lost, and bad weather continued till July. Then,however, a general and vigorous assault was made, the result being"great progress," so that, on the 8th of August, a noteworthy point wasreached.
On that day the fourteenth "course" was laid, and this completed the"solid" part of the lighthouse. It rose 35 feet above the foundation.
From this point the true _house_ may be said to have commenced, for,just above this course, the opening for the door was left, and thelittle space in the centre for the spiral staircase which was to lead tothe first room.
As if to mark their disapproval of this event, the angry winds andwaves, during the same month, raised an unusually furious commotionwhile one of the yawls went into the "Gut" or pool, which served as akind of harbour, to aid one of the stone boats.
"She won't get out o' that _this_ night," said John Bowden, alluding tothe yawl, as he stood on the top of the "solid" where his comrades werebusy working, "the wind's gettin' up from the east'ard."
"If she don't," replied one of the men, "we'll have to sleep where weare."
"Slape!" exclaimed Maroon, looking up from the great stone whose jointshe had been carefully cementing, "it's little slape you'll do here,boys. Av we're not washed off entirely we'll have to howld on by ourteeth and nails. It's a cowld look-out."
Teddy was right. The yawl being unable to get out of the Gut, the menin it were obliged to "lie on their oars" all night, and those on thetop of the building, where there was scarcely shelter for a fly, feltboth the "look-out" and the look-in so "cowld" that they worked allnight as the only means of keeping themselves awake and comparativelywarm. It was a trying situation; a hard night, as it were "in thetrenches,"--but it was their first and last experience of the kind.
Thus foot by foot--often baffled, but never conquered--Smeaton and hismen rose steadily above the waves until they reached a height ofthirty-five feet from the foundation, and had got as far as thestore-room (the first apartment) of the building. This was on the 2ndof October, on which day all the stones required for that season wereput into this store-room; but on the 7th of the same month the enemymade a grand assault in force, and caused these energetic labourers tobeat a retreat. It was then resolved that they should again retire intowinter quarters. Everything on the Rock was therefore "made taut" andsecure against the foe, and the workers returned to the shore, whencethey beheld the waves beating against their tower with such fury thatthe sprays rose high above it.
The season could not close, however, without an exhibition of thepeculiar aptitude of the _Buss_ for disastrous action! On the 8th thatinimitable vessel--styled by Teddy Maroon a "tub," and by the other men,variously, a "bumboat," a "puncheon," and a "brute" began to tug withtremendous violence at her cable.
"Ah then, darlin'," cried Maroon, apostrophising her, "av ye go on likethat much longer it's snappin' yer cable ye'll be after."
"It wouldn't be the first time," growled John Bowden, as he leanedagainst the gale and watched with gravity of countenance a huge billowwhose crest was blown off in sheets of spray as it came rolling towardsthem.
"Howld on!" cried Teddy Maroon, in anxiety.
If his order was meant for the _Buss_ it was flatly disobeyed, for thatcharming example of naval architecture, presenting her bluff bows to thebillow, snapt the cable and went quietly off to leeward!
"All hands ahoy!" roared William Smart as he rushed to the foresailhalyards.
The summons was not needed. All the men were present, and each knewexactly what to do in the circumstances. But what avails the strengthand capacity of man when his weapon is useless?
"She'll _never_ beat into Plymouth Sound wi' the wind in thisdirection," observed one of the masons, when sail had been set.
"Beat!" exclaimed another contemptuously, "she can't beat with the windin _any_ direction."
"An' yit, boys," cried Maroon, "she may be said to be a first-ratebaiter, for she always baits _us_ complaitly."
"I never, no I never did see such a scow!" said John Bowden, with adeepening growl of indignation, "she's more like an Irish pig than a--"
"Ah then, don't be hard upon the poor pigs of owld Ireland," interruptedMaroon, pathetically.
"Bah!" continued Bowden, "I only wish we had the man that planned her onboard, that we might keel-haul him. I've sailed in a'most every kind ofcraft that floats--from a Chinese junk to a British three-decker, andbetween the two extremes there's a pretty extensive choice ofwashin'-tubs, but the equal o' this here _Buss_ I never did see--nonever; take another haul on the foretops'l halyards, boys, and shut yourpotato-traps for fear the wind blows your teeth overboard. Look alive!"
That the _Buss_ deserved the character so emphatically given to her wasproved by the fact that, after an unsuccessful attempt to reach theSound, she was finally run into Dartmouth Roads, and, shortlyafterwards, her ungainly tossings, for that season, came to a close.
The Story of the Rock Page 10