The weather thickened. With the night came a storm of snow in heavy flakes, which the wind swept over the deck in clouds. There was nothing to relieve the inky darkness. The schooner reeled forth and back on the port and starboard tacks, beating her way south as blind as a bat. There was no rest for the crew. The skipper was at the wheel, the first hand on the lookout forward, the cook and the two other hands standing by on deck for emergencies.
So far as the wind, the sea and the drift-ice were concerned, the danger was slight, for the Rescue was stoutly built; but the sea was strewn with vast fields and mountains of Arctic ice—the glacier icebergs which drift out of the north in the spring—and in their proximity, in their great mass and changing position, lay a dreadful danger.
“Sure, I wisht you could chart icebergs,” said the skipper to the cook. “But,” he added, anxiously, “you can’t. They moves so fast an’ so peculiar that—that—well, I wisht they didn’t.”
“I wisht they wasn’t none,” said the cook.
“Ay, lad,” said the skipper. “But they might be a wonderful big one sixty fathom dead ahead at this minute. We couldn’t see it if they was.”
“I hopes they isn’t, sir,” said the cook, with a shiver.
The snow ceased before morning; but at the peep of dawn a thick fog came up with the wind, and when the light came it added nothing to the range of vision from the bow. The night had been black; the dawn was gray. It was so thick that the man at the wheel could not see beyond the foremast. The lookout was lost in the fog ahead. Eyes were now of no more use than in the depths of a cloudy night.
But the schooner had weathered the night; and when the first light of day broke in the east, Skipper Job gave the wheel to the second hand, and went below with the cook to have a cup of tea.
“I’ve no mind t’ lose her,” said he, “so I’ll leave her bowl along under short sail. If we strike, ’twill be so much the easier.”
“’Twould be a sad pity t’ lose her,” said the cook, “when you’ve got her so near paid for.”
“Ay, that’s it,” said the skipper.
The Rescue had been built for young Skipper Job, after Skipper Job’s own model, by the Ruddy Cove trader. The trader was to share in the voyages—whether for Labrador fish or in the Shore trade—until she was paid for. Then she would belong to Skipper Job—to the young skipper, who had married the parson’s daughter, and now had a boy of his own for whom to plan and dream.
That was the spring of his energy and caution—that little boy, who could no more than toddle over the kitchen floor and gurgle a greeting to the lithe young fellow who bounded up the path to catch him in his arms. The schooner was the fortune of the lad and the mother; and she was now all so nearly Job’s own that another voyage or two—a mere four months—might see the last dollar of the obligation paid over.
“No,” Skipper Job repeated, absently, when he had thought of the toddler and the tender, smiling mother, “I’ve no mind t’ lose this here schooner.”
Job dreamed of the lad while he sipped his tea. They must make a parson of him, if he had the call, the skipper thought; or a doctor, perhaps. Whatever, that baby must never follow the sea. No, no! He must never know the hardship and anxiety of such a night as that just past. He must be—
A scream of warning broke into the dream:
“Har-rd-a-lee!”
Skipper Job heard the fall of the feet of a man leaping back from the bow. There was meaning in the step, in the haste and length of the leaps—the imminence of a collision with the ice.
“All hands!”
The skipper had no more than leaped to his feet when there was a stunning crash overhead, followed on the instant by a shock that stopped the schooner dead and made her quiver from stem to stern. The bowsprit was rammed into the forecastle, the deck planks were ripped up, the upper works of the bows were crushed in, the cook’s pots and pans were tumbled about, the lamp was broken and extinguished. Job was thrown from his feet.
When he recovered, it was to the horror of this darkness and confusion—to a second crash and shock, to screams and trampling overhead, and to a rain of blows upon the deck. He cried to the cook to follow him on deck, and felt his way in mad haste to the ladder; but there he stopped, of a sudden, with his foot on the lowest step, for the cook had made no reply.
“Cook, b’y!” he shouted.
There was no answer. It was apparent that the man had been killed or desperately injured. The skipper knew the danger of delay. They had struck ice; the berg might overturn, some massive peak might topple over, the ship might fill and sink. But, as a matter of course, and with no thought of himself as a hero, he turned and made a groping search for the cook, until he found the poor fellow lying unconscious among his own pots and pans. Thence he carried him to the deck, and stretched him out on the fore hatch, with the foreboom and sail to protect him from the fragments of ice, which fell as in a shower each time the schooner struck the berg.
Billy Topsail caught the skipper by the arm in a strong grip.
“We’re lost!” he cried.
The roaring wind, the hiss of the seas, the shock and wreck, the sudden, dreadful peril, had thrown the lad into a panic. The skipper perceived his distress, and acted promptly to restore him to his manhood.
“Leave me free!” he shouted, with a scowl.
But Billy tightened his grip on the skipper’s arm, and sobbed and whined. The skipper knocked him down with a blow on the breast; then jerked him to his feet and pointed to the pump.
“Pump for your life!” he commanded, knowing well that what poor Billy needed was work, of whatever kind, to give him back his courage.
CHAPTER XIV
Faithfully Narrating the Amazing Experiences of a Newfoundland Schooner and Describing Billy Topsail’s Conduct in a Sinking Boat
The deck of the Rescue was now littered with wreckage and casks. Splinters of the jib-boom, all tangled with the standing rigging, lay upon the forward deck. The maintopmast had snapped off, and hung from the mainmast in a tangle of wire and rope. They had already cut the mainsail halyards, and the big sail lay upon the boom, on the port side, in disarrayed folds.
The bows were high out of the water, as if the ship had run up a steep, submerged shelf of ice; and the seas, which the wind of the night had raised, from time to time broke over the stern. It was impossible, however, to determine the general situation of the schooner. The fog was too thick for that, and the day had not yet fully broken. All that was revealed, in a glance about, was that upon one hand lay a waste of breaking water, and upon the other a dull white mass, lifting itself into the mist.
“’Tis bad, lads,” said the skipper, when the first and second hands had joined him under the mainmast shrouds.
“She’s lost,” said the first.
“We’ll be takin’ t’ the boat,” said the second.
“I’m not so sure that she’s lost,” said the skipper. “Whatever, we’ll not take t’ the boat till we have to.”
The first and second hands exchanged a glance, and together looked at the boat. The swift glance and look were a danger-signal to the skipper.
“Does you hear me?” he shouted, his voice ringing out above the wash of the waves and the noise of the wind. “We’ll not leave her. Take a spell at the pump, both o’ you!”
For a moment the skipper’s authority was in doubt. The men wavered. A repetition of the command, however, with clenched fists ready to enforce it, decided them. They relieved young Billy.
“Is the water gainin’, b’y?” said the skipper to the lad.
Billy looked up steadily. The fright had left his eyes. He had recovered his self-possession.
“No, sir,” he said, quietly. “’Tis gettin’ less all the while.”
At that moment the ship lurched slightly and slid off the shelf. The skipper shouted an order to raise the foresail, and ran aft to take the wheel. But the fall of the topmast had so tangled the rigging and jammed the gaff and boom that before th
e crew could remove the unconscious cook and lift the sail, the wind had turned the schooner and was driving her stern foremost, as it appeared, on the ice.
The skipper, from his station at the wheel, calmly observed the nearing berg, and gave the schooner up for lost. There was no time to raise the sail—no room for beating out of danger. He saw, too, that if she struck with force, the quarter-boat, which was swinging from davits astern, would be crushed to splinters.
“She’s lost!” he thought. “Lost with all hands!”
Nearer approach, however, disclosed the strange fact that there was a break in the ice. When the schooner was still a few fathoms nearer, it was observed that the great berg was in reality composed of two masses of ice, with a narrow strait leading between them.
The light was now stronger, and the fog had somewhat thinned; it was possible to distinguish shadowy outlines—to see that great cliffs of ice descended on each side of the passage to the water’s edge. Still deeper in the mist it was lighter, as if the strait indeed led directly through the berg to the open sea beyond. The crew was gathered aft, breathlessly awaiting the schooner’s fate, helpless to fend or aid; and the cook was lying on the roof of the cabin, where they had laid him down, revived in part, and desperately struggling to recover his senses.
“Lads,” said the skipper, at last, “the Lord has the schooner in His hands. They’s a way through the ice. He’s guidin’ her into it, but whether He’ll save us or not, He only knows.”
The Rescue drifted fairly into the passage, which was irregular, but in no part less than twice the width of the vessel. She was swept on, swinging from side to side, striking her bow here and her stern there; and with every shock fragments of rotten ice fell in a shower from above.
How soon one might strike one of their number down, no man knew. How soon some great mass, now poised in the mist, might be dislodged and crush the schooner in its fall, no man knew. How soon the towering cliffs might swing together and grind the ship to splinters, no man could tell. Were these masses of ice connected deep down under water? Or were they floating free?
There were no answers to these questions. On went the schooner, stern foremost, slipping ever nearer to the open.5
“Skipper, sir,” the first hand pleaded, “leave us launch the quarter-boat an’ pull out. ’Tis—’tis—too horrible here.”
“Ay, lads, if you will,” was the reply.
It was then discovered that a block of ice had fallen in the boat at the bows, and sprung the planking. She was too leaky to launch; there was nothing for it but to wait.
“We’ll calk those leaks as best we can,” said the skipper. “They’s no tellin’ what might—”
The stern struck a projection, and the bow swung round and lodged on the other side. The schooner was jammed in the passage, almost broadside to the wind. They made a shift at calking the leaks with rags and a square of oiled canvas. At all hazards the schooner must be freed.
“We must get her off quick, lads!” the skipper cried. “Come, now, who’s going with me in the boat t’ tow?”
“I, sir,” said young Billy, stepping forward eagerly.
“I, sir,” said the first hand.
“So it is,” said the skipper. “Andy, Tom, when we hauls her bow off, do you stand here with a gaff an’ push. Lower away that boat, now! Billy, do you fetch a bucket for bailin’.”
The boat was launched with great difficulty from her place in the stern davits. She began at once to fill, for the calking had been ill done, and she was sadly damaged. It took courage to leap into her from the taffrail, leaky as she was, and tossing about; but there was a desperate sort of courage in the hearts of the men who had volunteered, and they leaped, one by one.
Billy fell to bailing, and the skipper and the first hand rowed forward to catch the line. The line once caught and made fast, they pulled out with might and main.
“She’s fillin’ fast, sir!” Billy gasped.
“Bail, b’y, bail!”
The tow-rope was now taut. The skipper and the first hand pulled with such strength that each stroke of an oar made a hissing little whirlpool.
“’Tis gainin’ on me fast, sir,” said Billy.
“Give way! Give way!” cried the skipper.
The bow of the schooner swung round inch by inch—so slowly that the sinking of the boat seemed inevitable.
“She’ll sink, sir!” said Billy, in alarm, but still bailing steadily.
“Pull! Pull!”
When the schooner was once more in her old position—stern foremost, and driving slowly through the passage—the water was within an inch of the seats of the boat, which was now heavy and almost unmanageable. Twenty fathoms of water lay between the boat and the bow of the schooner.
“She’s goin’ down, sir!” said Billy.
“Cast lines!” the skipper shouted to those aboard.
Water curled over the gunwales. The boat stopped dead, and wavered, on the point of sinking. Two lines came whizzing towards her, uncoiling in their flight. The one was caught by the first hand, who threw himself into the water and was hauled aboard. Billy and the skipper caught the other. With its help and a few strong strokes they made the bow chains and clambered to the deck.
“She’s drivin’ finely,” said the skipper, when he had looked around. “Stand by, there, an’ be ready with the fores’l! We’ll soon be through.”
It was true enough; in a few minutes the schooner had safely drifted through the passage, and was making off from the berg under a reefed foresail, while the mist cleared and the sun shone out, and the peaks and cliffs of the island of ice, far astern, shone and glistened. And three days later the young skipper bounded up the path at Ruddy Cove, and the little toddler whom he loved was at the kitchen door to greet him.
CHAPTER XV
In Which the Ruddy Cove Doctor Tells Billy Topsail and a Stranger How He Came to Learn that the Longest Way ’Round is Sometimes the Shortest Way Home
It was a quiet evening—twilight: with the harbour water unruffled, and the colours of the afterglow fast fading from the sky. Billy Topsail and the doctor and a stranger sat by the surgery door, watching the boats come in from the sea, and their talk had been of the common dangers of that life.
“It was a very narrow escape,” said the doctor.
“Crossing the harbour!” the stranger exclaimed. “Why, ’tis not two hundred yards!”
“’Twas my narrowest escape—and ’twas all because of Billy Topsail.”
“Along o’ me!” cried Billy.
“Ay,” said the doctor; “’twas all along o’ you. Some years ago,” he continued, “when you were a toddler in pinafores, you were taken suddenly ill. It was a warm day in the spring of the year. The ice was still in the harbour, locked in by the rocks at the narrows, though the snow had all melted from the hills, and green things were shooting from the earth in the gardens. The weather had been fine for a week,” the doctor continued, addressing the stranger, “Day by day the harbour ice had grown more unsafe, until, when Billy was taken ill, only the daring ventured to cross upon it.
“Billy’s father came rushing into the surgery in a pitiable state of grief and fright. I knew when I first caught sight of his face that Billy was ill.
“‘Doctor,’ said he, ‘my little lad’s wonderful sick. Come quick!’
“‘Can we cross by the ice?’ I asked.
“‘I’ve come by that way,’ said he. ‘’Tis safe enough t’ risk. Make haste, doctor, sir! Make haste!’
“‘Lead the way!’ said I.
“He led so cleverly that we crossed without once sounding the ice. It was a zigzag way—a long, winding course—and I knew the day after, though I was too intent upon the matter in hand to perceive it at the moment, that only his experience and acquaintance with the condition of the ice made the passage possible. After midnight, when my situation was one of extreme peril, I realized that the way had been neither safe for me, who followed, nor easy for the man who led.
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br /> “‘My boy is dying, doctor!’ said the mother, when we entered the house. ‘Oh, save him!’
“My sympathy for the child and his parents—they loved that lad—no less than a certain professional interest which takes hold of a young physician in such cases, kept me at Billy’s bedside until long, long after dark. I need not have stayed so long—ought not to have stayed—for the lad was safe and out of pain; but in this far-away place a man must be both nurse and doctor, and there I found myself, at eleven o’clock of a dark night, worn out, and anxious only to reach my bed by the shortest way.
“‘I thinks, sir,’ said Billy’s father, when I made ready to go, ‘that I wouldn’t go back by the ice.’
“‘Oh, nonsense!’ said I. ‘We came over without any trouble, and I’ll find my way back, never fear.’
“‘I wisht you’d stay here the night,’ said the mother. ‘If you’ll bide, sir, we’ll make you comfortable.’
“‘No, no,’ said I. ‘I must get to my own bed.’
“‘If you’ll not go round by the shore, sir,’ said the man, ‘leave me pilot you across.’
“‘Stay with your lad,’ said I, somewhat testily. ‘I’ll cross by the ice.’
“‘’Twill be the longest way home the night,’ said he.
“When a man is sleepy and worn out he can be strangely perverse. I would have my own way; and, to my cost, I was permitted to take it. Billy’s father led me down to the landing-stage, put a gaff in my hand, and warned me to be careful—warned me particularly not to take a step without sounding the ice ahead with my gaff; and he brought the little lesson to an end with a wistful, ‘I wisht you wouldn’t risk it.’
“The tone of his voice, the earnestness and warm feeling with which he spoke, gave me pause. I hesitated; but the light in my surgery window, shining so near at hand, gave me a vision of comfortable rest, and I put the momentary indecision away from me.
“‘It is two hundred yards to my surgery by the ice,’ I said, ‘and it is two miles round the harbour by the road. I’m going by the shortest way.’
The Sea-Story Megapack Page 19