The Sea-Story Megapack

by Jack Williamson

  They were eighteen in number, and they typified the maritime nations of the world. Americans predominated, of course, but English, French, German, Portuguese, Scandinavian, and Russian were among them. The cook was a West India negro, and the captain—or their nearest approach to a captain—a Portland Yankee. Both were large men, and held their positions by reason of special knowledge and a certain magnetic mastery of soul which dominated the others against their rules; for in this social democracy captains and bosses were forbidden. The cook was an expert in the galley and a thorough seaman; the other as able a seaman, and a navigator past the criticism of the rest.

  His navigation had its limits, however, and this gale defined them. He could find his latitude by meridian observation, and his longitude by morning sights and chronometer time; his dead-reckoning was trustworthy, and he possessed a fair working conception of the set and force of the Atlantic currents and the heave of the sea in a blow. But his studies had not given him more than a rudimentary knowledge of meteorology and the laws of storms. A gale was a gale to him, and he knew that it would usually change its direction as a clock’s hands will in moving over the dial; and if, by chance, it should back around to its former point, he prepared for heavier trouble, with no reference to the fluctuations of the barometer, which instrument to him was merely a weather-glass—about as valuable as a rheumatic big toe.

  So, in the case we are considering, not knowing that he was caught by the southern fringe of a St. Lawrence valley storm, with its center of low barometer to the northwest and coming toward him, he hove to on the port tack to avoid Cape Cod, and drifted to sea, shortening sail as the wind increased, until, with nothing set but a small storm-mainsail, he found himself in the sudden calm of the storm-center, which had overtaken him. Here, in a tumultuous cross-sea, fifty miles off the shore, deceived by the light, shifty airs and the patches of blue sky showing between the rushing clouds, he made all sail and headed west, only to have the masts whipped out as the whistling fury of wind on the opposite side of the vortex caught and jibed the canvas.

  It was manifestly a judgment of a displeased Providence; and, glad that the hull was still tight, they cut away the wreck and rode out the gale—now blowing out of the north—hanging to the tangle of spar and cordage which had once been the foremast and its gear. It made a fairly good sea-anchor, with the forestay—strong as any chain—for a cable, and she lay snug under the haphazard breakwater and benefited by the protection, as the seas must first break their heads over the wreckage before reaching her. The mainmast was far away, with all that pertained to it; but the solid, hard-pine jib-boom was still intact, and not one of the sixteen dories piled spoon-fashion in the four nests had been injured when the spars went by the board. So they were content to smoke, sleep, and kill time as they could, until the gale and sea should moderate, and they could rig a jury-foremast of the wreck.

  But before they could begin—while there was still wind enough to curl the head of an occasional sea into foam—a speck which had been showing on the shortened horizon to windward, when the schooner lifted out of the hollows, took form and identity—a two-masted steamer, with English colors, union down, at the gaff. High out of water, her broadside drift was faster than that of the dismasted craft riding to her wreckage, and in a few hours she was dangerously near, directly ahead, rolling heavily in the trough of the sea. They could see shreds of canvas hanging from masts and gaffs.

  “Wunner what’s wrong wid her,” said the cook, as he relinquished the glasses to the next man. “Amos,” he called to another, “you’ve been in the ingine-room, you say. Is her ingine bus’ down?”

  “Dunno,” answered Amos. “Steam’s all right; see the jet comin’ out o’ the stack? There! She’s turnin’ over—kickin’ ahead. ’Bout time if she wants to clear us. She’s signalin’. What’s that say, Elisha?”

  The ensign was fluttering down, and a string of small flags going aloft on the other part of the signal-halyards, while the steamer, heading west, pushed ahead about a length under the impulse of her propeller. Elisha, the navigator, went below, and returned with a couple of books, which he consulted.

  “Her number,” he said. “She’s the Afghan Prince o’ London.” As the schooner carried no signal-flags, he waved his sou’wester in answer, and the flags came down, to be replaced by others.

  “Rudder carried away,” he read, and then looked with the glasses. “Rudder seems all right; must mean his steerin’-gear. Why don’t they rig up suthin’, or a drag over the stern?”

  “Don’t know enough,” said an expatriated Englishman of the crew. “She’s one o’ them bloomin’, undermanned tramps, run by apprentices an’ Thames watermen. They’re drivin’ sailors an’ sailin’-ships off the sea blarst ’em!”

  “Martin,” said Elisha to the cook, “what’s the matter with our bein’ a drag for her?”

  “Dead easy, if we kin git his line an’ he knows how to rig a bridle.”

  “We can show him, if it comes to it. What ye say, boys? If we steer her into port we’re entitled to salvage. She’s helpless; we’re not, for we’ve got a jury-rig under the bows. Hello! What’s he sayin’ now?” Other flags had gone aloft on the steamer, which asked for the longitude. Then followed others which said that the chronometer was broken.

  “Better ’n ever!” exclaimed Elisha, excitedly. “Can’t navigate. Our chronometer’s all right; we never needed it, an’ don’t now, but it’s a big help in a salvage claim. What ye say? Can’t we get our hemp cable to him with a dory?”

  Why not? They were fishermen, accustomed to dory work. A short confab settled this point; a dory was thrown over, and Elisha and Amos pulled to the steamer, which was now abreast, near enough for the name which Elisha had read to be seen plainly on the stern, but not near enough for the men shouting from her taffrail to make themselves heard on the schooner. Elisha and Amos, in the dory, conferred with these men and then returned.

  “Badly rattled,” they reported. “Tiller-ropes parted, an’ not a man aboard can put a long splice in a wire rope, an’ o’ course we said we couldn’t. They’ll take our line, an’ we’re to chalk up the position an’ the course to New York. Clear case o’ salvage. We furnish everything, an’ sacrifice our jury-material to aid ’em.”

  “What’ll be our chance in court, I’m thinkin’,” said one, doubtfully. “Hadn’t we better keep out o’ the courts? It’s been takin’ most of our time lately.”

  “What’s the matter wi’ ye?” yelled Elisha. “We owe a few hundreds, an’ mebbe a fine or two; an’ there’s anywhere from one to two hundred thousand—hull an’ cargo—that we save. We’ll get no less than a third, mebbe more. Go lay down, Bill.”

  Bill subsided. They knotted four or five dory rodings together, coiled the long length of rope in the dory, unbent the end of their water-laid cable from the anchor, and waited until the wallowing steamer had drifted far enough to leeward to come within the steering-arc of a craft with no canvas; then they cut away the wreck, crowded forward, all hands spreading coats to the breeze, and when the schooner had paid off, steered her down with the wind on the quarter until almost near enough to hail the steamer, where they rounded to, safe in the knowledge that she could not drift as fast as the other.

  Away went the dory, paying out on the roding, the end of which was fastened to the disconnected cable, and when it had reached the steamer, a heaving-line was thrown, by which the roding was hauled aboard. Then the dory returned, while the steamer’s men hauled the cable to their stern. The bridle, two heavy ropes leading from the after-winch out the opposite quarter-chocks to the end of the cable, was quickly rigged by the steamer’s crew.

  With a warning toot of the whistle, she went ahead, and the long towline swept the sea-tops, tautened, strained, and creaked on the windlass-bitts, and settled down to its work, while the schooner, dropping into her wake, was dragged westward at a ten-knot rate.

  “This is bully,” said Elisha, gleefully. “Now I’ll chalk out the position
an’ give her the course—magnetic, to make sure.”

  He did so, and they held up in full view of the steamer’s bridge a large blackboard showing in six-inch letters the formula: “Lat. 41-20. Lon. 69-10. Mag. Co. W. half S.”

  A toot of the whistle thanked them, and they watched the steamer, which had been heading a little to the south of this course, painfully swing her head up to it by hanging the schooner to the starboard leg of the bridle; but she did not stop at west-half-south, and when she pointed unmistakably as high as northwest, still dragging her tow by the starboard bridle, a light broke on them.

  “She’s goin’ on her way with us,” said Elisha. “No, no; she can’t. She’s bound for London,” he added. “Halifax, mebbe.”

  They waved their hats to port, and shouted in chorus at the steamer. They were answered by caps flourished to starboard from the bridge, and outstretched arms which pointed across the Atlantic Ocean, while the course changed slowly to north, then faster as wind and sea bore on the other bow, until the steamer steadied and remained at east-by-north.

  “The rhumb course to the Channel,” groaned Elisha, wildly. “The nerve of it! An’ I’m supposed to give the longitude every noon. Why, dammit, boys, they’ll claim they rescued us, an’ like as not the English courts’ll allow them salvage on our little tub.”

  “Let go the towline! Let ’em go to hell!” they shouted angrily, and some started forward, but were stopped by the cook. His eyes gleamed in his black face, and his voice was a little higher pitched than usual; otherwise he was the steadiest man there.

  “We’ll hang right on to our bran-new cable, men,” he said. “It’s ours, not theirs. ’Course we kin turn her adrif’ ag’in, an’ be wuss off, too; we can’t find de foremast now. But dat ain’t de bes’ way. John,” he called to the Englishman of the crew, “how many men do you’ country tramp steamers carry?”

  John computed mentally, then muttered: “Two mates, six ash-cats,19 two flunkies, two quartermasters, watchman, deck-hands—oh, ’bout sixteen or seventeen, Martin.”

  “Boys, le’ ’s man de win’lass. We’ll heave in on our cable, an’ if we kin git close enough to climb aboard, we’ll reason it out wid dat English cappen, who can’t fin’ his way roun’ alone widout stealin’ little fishin’-schooners.”

  “Right!” they yelled. “Man the windlass. We’ll show the lime-juice thief who’s doin’ this.”

  “Amos,” said Martin to the ex-engineer, “you try an’ ’member all you forgot ’bout ingines in case anything happens to de crew o’ dat steamer; an’, Elisha, you want to keep good track o’ where we go, so’s you kin find you’ way back.”

  “I’ll get the chronometer on deck now. I can take sights alone.”

  They took the cable to the windlass-barrel and began to heave. It was hard work—equal to heaving an anchor against a strong head wind and ten-knot tideway—and only half the crew could find room on the windlass-brakes; so, while the first shift labored and swore and encouraged one another, the rest watched the approach of a small tug towing a couple of scows, which seemed to have arisen out of the sea ahead of them. When the steamer was nearly upon her, she let go her towline and ranged up alongside, while a man leaning out of the pilot-house gesticulated to the steamer’s bridge and finally shook his fist. Then the tug dropped back abreast of the schooner. She was a dingy little boat, the biggest and brightest of her fittings being the name-board on her pilot-house, which spelled in large gilt letters the appellation J. C. Hawks.

  “Say,” yelled her captain from his door, “I’m blown out wi’ my barges, short o’ grub an’ water. Can you gi’ me some? That lime-juice sucker ahead won’t.”

  “Can you tow us to New York?” asked Elisha, who had brought up the chronometer and placed it on the house, ready to take morning sights for his longitude if the sun should appear.

  “No; not unless I sacrifice the barges an’ lose my contract wi’ the city. They’re garbage-scows, an’ I haven’t power enough to hook on to another. Just got coal enough to get in.”

  “An’ what do you call this—a garbage-scow?” answered Elisha, ill-naturedly. “We’ve got no grub or water to spare. We’ve got troubles of our own.”

  “Dammit, man, we’re thirsty here. Give us a breaker o’ water. Throw it overboard; I’ll get it.”

  “No; told you we have none to spare; an’ we’re bein’ yanked out to sea.”

  “Well, gi’ me a bottleful; that won’t hurt you.”

  “No; sheer off. Git out o’ this. We’re not in the Samaritan business.”

  A forceful malediction came from the tug captain, and a whirling monkey-wrench from the hand of the engineer, who had listened from the engine-room door. It struck Elisha’s chronometer and knocked it off the house, box and all, into the sea. He answered the profanity in kind, and sent an iron belaying-pin at the engineer; but it only dented the tug’s rail, and with these compliments the two craft separated, the tug steaming back to her scows.

  “That lessens our chance just so much,” growled Elisha, as he joined the rest. “Now we can’t do all we agreed to.”

  “Keep dead-reckonin’, ’Lisha,” said Martin; “dat’s good ’nough for us; an’, say, can’t you take sights by a watch—jess for a bluff, to show in de logbook?”

  “Might; ’t wouldn’t be reliable. Good enough, though, for logbook testimony. That’s what I’ll do.”

  Inch by inch they gathered in their cable and coiled it down, unmoved by the protesting toots of the steamer’s whistle. When half of it lay on the deck, the steamer slowed down, while her crew worked at their end of the rope; then she went ahead, the schooner dropped back to nearly the original distance, and they saw a long stretch of new Manila hawser leading out from the bridle and knotted to their cable. They cursed and shook their fists, but pumped manfully on the windlass, and by nightfall had brought the knot over their bows by means of a “messenger,” and were heaving on the new hawser.

  “Weakens our case just that much more,” growled Elisha. “We were to furnish the towline.”

  “Heave away, my boys!” said Martin. “Dey’s only so many ropes aboard her, an’ when we get ’em all we’ve got dat boat an’ dem men.”

  So they warped their craft across the Western Ocean. Knot after knot, hawser after hawser, came over the bows and cumbered the deck.

  They would have passed them over the stern as fast as they came in, were they not salvors with litigation ahead; for their hands must be clean when they entered their claim, and to this end Elisha chalked out the longitude daily at noon and showed it to the steamer, always receiving a thankful acknowledgment on the whistle. He secured the figures by his dead-reckoning; but the carefully kept logbook also showed longitude by chronometer sights, taken when the sun shone, with his old quadrant and older watch, and corrected to bring a result plausibly near to that of the reckoning by log and compass. But the logbook contained no reference to the loss of the chronometer. That was to happen at the last.

  On stormy days, when the sea rose, they dared not shorten their towline, and the steamer-folk made sure that it was long enough to eliminate the risk of its parting. So these days were passed in idleness and profanity; and when the sea went down they would go to work, hoping that the last towline was in their hands. But it was not until the steamer had given them three Manila and two steel hawsers, four weak—too weak—mooring-chains, and a couple of old and frayed warping-lines, that the coming up to the bow of an anchor-chain of six-inch link told them that the end was near, that the steamer had exhausted her supply of towlines, and that her presumably sane skipper would not give them his last means of anchoring—the other chain.

  They were right. Either for this reason or because of the proximity to English bottom, the steamer ceased her coyness, and her crew watched from the taffrail, while those implacable, purposeful men behind crept up to them. It was slow, laborious work; for the small windlass would not grip the heavy links of the chain, and they must needs climb out a few fathoms,
making fast messengers to heave on, while the idle half of them gathered in the slackened links by hand.

  On a calm, still night they finally unshipped the windlass-brakes and looked up at the round, black stern of the steamer not fifty feet ahead. They were surrounded by lights of outgoing and incoming craft, and they knew by soundings taken that day, when the steamer had slowed down for the same purpose, that they were within the hundred-fathom curve, close to the mouth of the Channel, but not within the three-mile limit. Rejoicing at the latter fact, they armed themselves to a man with belaying-pins from their still intact pinrails, and climbed out on the cable, the whole eighteen of them, man following man, in close climbing order.

  “Now, look here,” said a portly man with a gilt-bound cap to the leader of the line, as he threw a leg over the taffrail, “what’s the meaning, may I ask, of this unreasonable conduct?”

  “You may ask, of course,” said the man—it was Elisha—“but we’d like to ask something, too” (he was sparring for time until more should arrive); “we’d like to ask why you drag us across the Atlantic Ocean against our will?”

  Another man climbed aboard, and said:

  “Yes; we ’gree to steer you into New York. You’s adrif’ in de trough of de sea, an’ you got no chronometer, an’ you can’t navigate, an’ we come ’long—under command, mind you—an’ give you our towline, an’ tell you de road to port. Wha’ you mean by dis?”

  “Tut, tut, my colored friend!” answered the man of gilt. “You were dismasted and helpless, and I gave you a tow. It was on the high seas, and I chose the port, as I had the right.”

  Another climbed on board.

  “We were not helpless,” rejoined Elisha. “We had a good jury-rig under the bows, and we let it go to assist you. Are you the skipper here?”

  “I am.”

  Martin’s big fist smote him heavily in the face, and the blow was followed by the crash of Elisha’s belaying-pin on his head. The captain fell, and for a while lay quiet. There were four big, strong men over the rail now, and others coming. Opposing them were a second mate, an engineer, a fireman, coal-passer, watchman, steward, and cook—easy victims to these big-limbed fishermen. The rest of the crew were on duty below decks or at the steering-winch. It was a short, sharp battle; a few pistols exploded, but no one was hurt, and the firearms were captured and their owners well hammered with belaying-pins; then, binding all victims as they overcame them, the whole party raided the steering-winch and engine-room, and the piracy was complete.