A Dream of the North Sea Part 17

Before Ferrier went to Yarmouth he heard that Fullerton was astounded at the number of financial sheep who had followed the plucky bell-wether.

Said he, "We shall never turn our backs now. There will be three hospital cruisers on the stocks before the autumn, and your steamer will serve to supply them when we have them at work. If I were not fixed on G.o.d's firm ground, I should think I had pa.s.sed away and was dreaming blissfully."

Oh! the fury and hurry around that steamer! Men were toiling without cessation during all night and all day; one shift relieved another, and Ca.s.sall employed two superintendents instead of one. The way the notion came to him was this:--he had an abrupt but most essentially pleasant way of getting into conversation with casual strangers of all ranks, and he always managed to learn something from them. "Nice smack that on the stocks," he remarked to a bronzed, blue-eyed man who was standing alert on a certain quay.

"Yes, sir. That's honest oak. I like that. But that other's not so honest."

"You mean the steamer?"

"Yes, sir. I don't like the way things goes along. The surveyor's been down. He and the manager are having champagne together now, and you may bet there's some skulking work going on in the dark corners. I know the ocean tramps, sir. Many's the time I've seen the dishonest rivets start out of 'em like b.u.t.tons of a woman's bodice if it's too tight. If I was an owner, and building a vessel, I'd test every join and every rivet myself. You force a faulty plate into place, and the first time your vessel gets across a sea she buckles, and there's an end of all."

"You understand shipbuilding?"

"Only a sailor does, sir. He has the peril; the builders have the money."

"What are you?" "Merchant captain, sir," said the stout man, turning on the questioner a clear, light blue eye that shone with health and evident courage.

"Are you in a situation?"

"My vessel's laid up, sir, and I'm waiting to take her again."

"I'm not impertinent, but tell me your wages."

"Ten pound a month, and good enough too, these bad times."

"Then if you'll superintend the building of a vessel for me, I'll give you 150 a year--or at that rate, and you shall have a smaller vessel afterwards, if you care to sail a mere smack."

And so the bargain was struck, and Captain Powys was employed as bulldog, a special clause being inserted in the contract to that effect.

"Men won't like it," said the builder. "They'll lead him a life."

"Tell them, if they do, you lose your contract and they lose their work." So the splendid little steamer grew apace; she was composite, and Ca.s.sall took care that she should be strong. The most celebrated living designer of yachts had offered to make the drawings for nothing, out of mere fondness for Ca.s.sall, but the old gentleman paid his heavy fee. If any one can design a good and safe vessel it is the yacht-builder, whose little thirty tonners are expected to run quite securely across the Bay in the wild autumn. The _Robert Ca.s.sall_ had not a nail or bolt in her that was not scrutinized by a stern critic. "Never mind fancy work or fancy speed. Give me perfect collision bulk-heads; perfect watertight compartments; make her unsinkable, and I don't care if you only make her travel ten knots--that's good enough for the North Sea."

Powys asked and obtained an a.s.sistant to take a turn on the day or night shifts, and the British workmen were held hard in hand by two acute and most critical mariners.

Robert Ca.s.sall had value for every penny of his money, but he certainly did not spare the place. His friend the yacht-builder twice came to see how the work was going on, and he said, "You'll be able to run her round the Horn if you like. You see I took care that she shouldn't kick like those steam-carriers. You'll find her as stiff as they make them."

Sir John Rooby resolved that the peerless engines which he provided should be fitted under cover, so, as soon as the hull was completed, the engineers began their work; and as it turned out, the experiment of launching a boat with all engines complete was an entire success. Sir James Eoche came and watched the fitting of all the appliances designed by him, and it seemed that he was as exquisite in mechanical skill as he was sagacious in treatment of disease. Ferrier was afraid that the vehement old man would wear him out, but he bottled his impatience, and sought repose in the gentle society of Sir James. The two medicos pottered on with pulleys and wheels and inclined planes with much contentment, and they satisfied themselves at last that a man might be picked up in any sea, and swiftly placed under cover, without sustaining a jar severe enough to hurt even a gouty subject.

Ca.s.sall did not like the workmen to be discontented over his incessantly vigilant superintendents, so, with his inexhaustible good-humour and resolution, he hit on a mode of conciliation. He met both shifts on a Friday, and said, "Now, men, I'm not a bad sort even if I _am_ determined not to have a scamped nail in my vessel. Now you're working hard, and we'll show the prettiest vessel in England presently, so to-morrow we'll have two brakes here at eleven o'clock, all who like will drive to a certain little place that I know of, and we'll have a rare good dinner together, and come home in the evening. We'll have no spirits, and no shaky hands for Monday. Plenty of good, pure spring water with orange champagne for those who like it."

This was a very successful announcement, and Robert presided at table with extreme satisfaction on account of his own Machiavellian astuteness. Oh! those millionaires. What chances they have!

The scene at the launch of the _Robert Ca.s.sall_ was imposing. The Queen, it was thought, would be present; but an intensely exciting and close general election had just taken place, and Her Majesty was occupied with relays of the gentlemen who are good enough to carry on the operation known as Governing the Country; so that the bunting and the manifold decorations served to grace the progress of a Royal Duke, who brought his August Mother's message.

I have nothing to do with the speeches this time; I only know that the steamer looked superb, with her gay stripe, and her beautiful trim on the water. The town was in a state of excitement until nightfall, and the people who had tickets to view the Fisherman's Palace pa.s.sed in a steady and orderly procession over the broad deck; through the smart main ward with its polished oak floor; through the operating-room, and through the comfortable, unostentatious club-room, which had been designed by Lewis Ferrier. Robert Ca.s.sall was silently ecstatic now that the pinch of his work was over; and he had good reason to be proud, for no prettier or more serviceable piece of work was ever bought with money, and no man on earth need have grudged to exchange the costly obscurity of the monumental stone, for this beautiful memorial which promised to be the pride of the North Sea.

The riggers went hard at work; the captain and crew were sent on board to a.s.sist, and thus before the autumn storms broke once more, the _Robert Ca.s.sall_ was ready for sea.

The whole fabric seemed to have risen like a vision, and the most hopeful of those who endured that cruel gale the year before could hardly believe that they were not deceived by some uneasy, uncanny dream.

The steamer surged away past the pier on her first trip, and a dense black crowd cheered and shouted blessings after her.

"Ah! they jeered me the first time I sailed from here under that flag.

Thank G.o.d for the wonderful change," said Fullerton. "Never mind bygones. There's a good stiff sea outside. Let us watch how she takes it."

The st.u.r.dy old man was triumphant, satisfied with himself and his work, and he only wished to see how the contrivance of his audacious, teeming brain would succeed. Tom Lennard was on board again; and he only recovered from a congestion of adjectives on the brain, after he had fairly freed his nerves by smoking a pipe. He was still subdued, and he never let loose that booming laugh of his except on supremely important occasions. He attached himself much to Miss Dearsley, and, as he was pa.s.sionately fond of talking about Lewis Ferrier, his company was surprisingly grateful to the young lady. Blair could not be with them, but he religiously promised to give Ferrier a lively time in the spring.

The party of five were enough in themselves, and they watched with all the pride of successful people as their vessel, the offspring of dreams, flew over the seas without plunging or staggering. The captain came aft.

"Well, sir, this is better than wind-jamming. I think she's doing elevens easily, and, if the wind comes round a bit, she shall have the try-sails, and I warrant she does twelve."

"You'll go right for the Short Blues, as we arranged?"

"We shall pick them up in eighteen hours from now, sir, and I'll be glad if we haven't to work your patent sling, though I'd like to see it tried."

When the night came, and the men were smoking in Ferrier's room, the young man suddenly said, "Mr. Ca.s.sall, I hope you'll live to see at least six of these ships knocking about. In the meantime I'd sooner have your memorial than that awful, costly abortion of Byron's. I mean the one with a cat, or a puppy or something, sprawling at the man's feet."

Ca.s.sall slowly smiled.

"Not bad; not bad. But wait till I'm done, my lad; wait till I'm done.

I've managed a beginning; I've designed a scheme for a ship, and now I'm bent on something bigger. Wait. I mean to move the conscience of your plutocrats, and I shall do it the hard, City style; see if I don't."

"Hah-h! Meantime this, sir, is, as I may say, _recherche_, unique, fahscinating."

"I must set _my_ watch now," laughed the surgeon, and he whistled for the male nurses. He had drilled them to perfection in a week or two, and they had no easy time with him, for he was resolved to have naval precision and naval smartness on board the _Ca.s.sall_; and Tom was thankful that a man whose cheek showed chubby signs of containing a quid of tobacco, was not instantly suspended from the gaff. That was what he said, at any rate.

The _Robert Ca.s.sall_ picked up the fleet just when the boarding was at its height, and her arrival caused a wild scene. Work and discipline were forgotten for a while: men set off flares which were absurdly ineffective in daylight; they jumped on the thofts of boats, ran up the rigging, and performed all sorts of clumsy antics out of sheer goodwill, as the beautiful steamer worked slowly along, piling up a soft, snowy scuffle of foam at her forefoot. The spare hands who had been brought out for the cruise yelled salutations to friends, and one of them casually remarked: "If this had happened before the drink was done away with, there would have been a funny old booze in some o' them ar smacks, just for excitement like." There were no patients from the first fleet excepting one man with that hideous poisoned hand which, like death, cometh soon or late to every North Sea fisher. He was sent back for his kit; one of the _Ca.s.sal's_ hands was sent in his place, and the steamer rushed away after leaving a stock of tobacco with the Mission smack.

In the next fleet the same scenes made things in general lively. The skipper of the ordinary Mission smack came on board, and joyously cried: "I'm main glad you're come, sir. We've got one case that beats me. I can't do anything at all." Sir James Eoche's boat with the balanced stretcher was sent, and a crippled man was whipped up and slid along the boarding-stage before he had time to recover from his surprise. He had a broken patella--a nasty case--and he had gained the distinction of being the first man put to bed in that airy, charming ward. He will probably claim this honour with more or less emphasis during the rest of his lifetime. I fear that curiosity of an aggravated kind caused one or two gentlemen to be suddenly afflicted with minor complaints; but Ferrier had a delightful way of dealing with doubtful martyrs, and the vessel was soon cleared of them.

So the _Robert Ca.s.sall_ scoured the North Sea like a phantom, sometimes crawling in the wake of the fleet when the gear was down, sometimes flying from one bank to another. In the course of two long, sweeping rounds she proved that she was worth all the other cruisers put together--for medical and surgical purposes alone. Danger was reduced to a minimum, and the sick men were, one by one, returned safely to their own vessels. When, on a rather calm day, a tubular boat was tried, and a prostrate man was seen flying over the water with what intelligent constables call "no visible means of support," the general opinion of the smacksmen was that no one never knowed what would come next. Some gentlemen threatened to be gormed if they did not discover a solution of this new and awful problem; others, more definite, were resolved to be blowed; and all the oldsters were agreed that only a manifest injustice could have caused them to be born so soon.

Robert Ca.s.sall was at length a.s.sured by experience that his enterprise had quadrupled the power of the Mission, and he only longed to see how his little miracle would succeed in winter. As for Lewis, he set himself to make a model hospital; his men were made to practise ambulance work daily; they had practical lectures in the evening, and, in a month, before the coals had given out, the mere attendants could have managed respectably if their adored martinet had given in from any cause. One last picture before the _Bobert Ca.s.sall_ makes her brief scurry home.

The long sea was rolling very truly; the sick men in the wards were resting--clean, quiet, attentive; the nurses lounged at the dispensary door; Tom Lennard leaned his great bulk against the elaborately solid machinery which Ferrier had designed for purposes of dentistry, and the grim, calm old man sat with a tender smile in his eyes which contrasted prettily with the habitual sternness of his mouth.

A deep contralto voice was intoning a certain very n.o.ble fragment of poetry from a book that the men loved to hear when its words were spoken by that stately dame, who now read on from psalm to psalm: "For I said in my haste, I am cut off from before Thine eyes; nevertheless, Thou heardest the voice of my supplications when I cried unto Thee."

"Amen," said Fullerton. "Amen," added the other three men. "Amen," said the sick sailors; and the Amen rustled softly above the lower rustle of the water that fled past the sides of the swift vessel. We shall see this brave hospital ship again, for I want to dream of her for long and many a day. Meantime, adieu, sweet lady; adieu.

APPENDIX A.

Since I set down a picture of my North Sea dream, I have pa.s.sed through a valley of shadows. The world of men seemed to be shut out; the Past was forgotten, or, through the dark, vague trouble, Death smiled on me coldly, as if to warn me that my pulses must soon be touched with ice.

In that strange trance my petty self was forgotten, and I waited quietly till I should be bathed in the flood of bliss to which Death is but the Portal. As from some dim, far land there came echoes of storm and stress, and then swift visions of the sea flitted past my eyes. While gazing languidly on the whirl of the snow, or listening to the thunder of winds in the clamorous night, I thought, as it were in flashes, about the fishermen who people the grey country that I used to know.

Nevermore, oh! nevermore shall I see the waves charging down on the gallant smacks. All is gone: but my little share of a good work is done; I have warmed both hands before the fire of Life; it sinks, and I am ready to depart.