For Name and Fame Part 7

Chapter 4: Run Down.

William Gale was astonished at the fury of the tempest, and the wildness of the sea. Although, at the workhouse, he had often heard the wind roaring round the walls, there was nothing to show him the force that was being exerted. There were but few trees in the neighborhood, and William had hardly ever been without the walls, except in fine summer weather. He was, therefore, almost bewildered by the force and fury of the gale; and by the noise, as it shrieked through the rigging, and howled across the water. The occasional flapping of the sails, and the rattling of the heavy blocks added to the din; and it seemed to him that the Kitty which, like all fishing smacks, was very deep in the water, must be completely engulfed by the great waves which swept down upon her.

Several times, indeed, he was obliged to leap down into the cabin, to avoid being swept away by the great ma.s.ses of green water which--pouring over her bows--swept aft, carrying away all before them. But the Yarmouth smacks are admirable sea boats and, pounded and belabored as she was, the Kitty always shook off the water that smothered her, and rose again for the next wave. In twenty-four hours the gale abated, the scattered fleet were a.s.sembled--each flying its flag--and it was found that three were missing, having either foundered, or been driven away from their consorts.

With the return of fine weather the fishing began again, and William thoroughly enjoyed his life. The skipper was kind and forbearing; he neither ill treated the boys, himself, nor permitted any of the crew to do so; and everything went on regularly and comfortably. There were a few books on board and, of an evening, after the trawl was lowered and before the watch below turned into their bunks, William--who was the best reader on board--would be asked to read aloud for an hour. Sometimes there were songs and, as the Kitty was fortunate, and her taking of fish good, the men were all cheerful and good tempered.

Once every three or four days, the collecting steamer came in sight; then there was a general race, in the fleet, to put the trunks of fish on board her. Each did his best to be in good time for, when the catch had been heavy, the steamer was sometimes unable to take the whole of it; in which case the portion left behind would be wholly spoilt, before the arrival of another steamer. The whole of the fleet, therefore, ran down towards the steamer as soon as she was seen; the heavy boats were tossed overboard, and the trunk lowered into them, and two hands jumped in to row them to the steamer. Round her a swarm of boats would soon be collected, each striving to get alongside, to deliver the fish.

In calm weather the scene was simply amusing but, when the sea was high, it was exciting and even dangerous; indeed, in the course of a year more lives are lost, in the process of taking the fish from the smack to the steamer, than in vessels foundered by gales.

Sometimes the fleet will be joined by Dutch trading smacks, who exchange fresh bread and meat, tobacco, and spirits for fish. This traffic is the cause, alike, of loss to the owners, by the fish thus parted with; and of injury to the men, by the use of spirits.

Fortunately the skipper of the Kitty--although not averse to the use of spirits, on sh.o.r.e--was a strict man at sea, and saw that no one took more than a single gla.s.s of grog, of an evening.

Over and over again, Will congratulated himself that he had the good fortune to make his first voyage under such a skipper; for he shuddered at the stories Jack told him, of the cruelties and barbarities with which apprentices are treated on board some of the smacks. Although, however, there is no doubt many brutal skippers hail from Yarmouth; the fleet from that town bears a good reputation, in comparison with that of Grimsby--where the number of apprentices returned as drowned, each year, is appalling.

One night, when the wind was high and the fleet trawling lower down the North Sea than usual, Will--who was on deck--was startled at seeing a great ship bearing down upon the smack. He gave a shout of terror and warning, which was joined in by the crew on deck. One ran for the hatchet to cut the trawl, and thus give steerage way to the smack.

It was too late. In another moment the great ship bore down upon them with a crash, and the Kitty sunk beneath the waves. The bowsprit of the vessel projected across the deck, just at the point where William Gale was standing and, in a moment, he caught at the bob stay and quickly hauled himself on to the bowsprit. Climbing along this, he was soon on board.

Two or three sailors were leaning over the bows, peering into the darkness. They had not seen the smack, until too late to avoid it; and the collision, which had proved fatal to the Kitty, had scarcely been felt by the ship. Will was at ones taken to the captain, who spoke English. The boy implored him to turn back, but the captain shook his head.

"It would be useless," he said; "the sea is heavy and, in these long boots--" and he pointed to the sea boots, up to the thigh, which all fishermen wear, "--no man could swim for two minutes; nor would there be a chance, if they could, of our finding them on so dark a night. I am very sorry, my lad, but it cannot be helped. It would take half an hour to bring the ship about, and go back to the spot where the smack sunk; and we might not get within half a mile of it. You know that, as well as I do."

Will had been long enough at sea to recognize the truth of what the captain said. As he was led forward, he burst into tears at the thought of the loss of his kind friend the captain, and the rest of his mates. The sailor who accompanied him patted him on the back, and spoke cheeringly to him in a foreign language; and he was soon between decks with the crew. Several of these could speak English, and Will found that he was on board a Dutch merchantman, bound with troops for Java.

The wind got up and, in the morning, it was blowing a heavy gale from the east; and the vessel, with reefed topsails, was running for the straits between Dover and Calais, at twelve knots an hour.

After breakfast, the captain sent for William.

"I am sorry, for your sake, that the state of the weather will prevent our communicating with any ship we may meet. But I promise you that, if the gale breaks before we are fairly out from the channel, I will heave to and put you on board a homeward-bound ship."

Such a chance did not occur. For four or five days the gale continued with great severity and, before it ceased, the ship was well down the coast of Spain, on her way south. When the captain saw that there was but small chance of his being able to transship his involuntary pa.s.senger, he said to him:

"Look you, my lad. I fear that you will have to make the voyage with me, for we shall not touch at any port, until we arrive at our destination. If you like, I will ship you as a hand on board, as from the day of the collision. A hand, more or less, will make no difference to the owners; and the money will be useful to you, when you leave the ship. Of course, you can return in her, if you think fit; but it is likely enough that, when we reach Java, we may be sent up to China for a homeward cargo--in which case I will procure you a pa.s.sage in the first ship sailing for your home."

Will gladly accepted the offer. He was, however, by no means penniless for, upon the morning after his coming on board, the Dutch officers and pa.s.sengers--hearing what had happened in the night--made a collection among themselves, and presented the boy with a purse containing fifteen pounds.

It was a long voyage, but not an unpleasant one for William. His duties were not very heavy--he had far less to do than had been the case, on board the smack. A month on board the Kitty had done much towards making a sailor of him, for there are no better seamen in the world than the Yarmouth smacksmen. Going aloft was, at first, a trial; but he soon learned his duties and, being a strong and active lad, he was quickly able to do efficient work; and speedily gained the good opinion of the Dutch sailors, by his good temper and anxiety to please.

They ran some little distance to the south of the Cape before shaping an easterly course, to avoid the bad weather so frequently met with there and, beyond encountering two or three gales, of no exceptional severity, nothing occurred to break the monotony of the voyage, until the coasts of Java were in sight. Upon their arrival in port, they found no vessel there about to sail for Europe; and the captain's expectation was fulfilled, as he found orders awaiting him to proceed to China, when he had landed the troops and discharged his cargo. Will determined to continue his voyage in her to that place.

Among the ship boys on board was one between whom, and Will Gale, a great friendship had been struck up. He was a year or two Will's senior, but scarcely so tall; upon the other hand, he was nearly twice his girth. He talked but little, but his broad face was ever alight with a good-tempered grin. He spoke a few words of English; and Will had, when first picked up, been given specially into his charge. Will's superior activity and energy astonished the Dutch lad, whose movements were slow and heavy; while Will, on his part, was surprised at the strength which Hans could exert, when he chose. One day, when Will had been plaguing him, and ventured within his reach, the lad had seized and held him out at arm's length, shaking him as a dog would a rat, till he shouted for mercy.

The two were soon able to get on in a queer mixture of Dutch and English and, when words failed, they would eke out their words by gestures.

The vessel had sailed but a few days from Java when there were signs of a change of weather. Hitherto it had been lovely; now a slight mist seemed to hang over the sea while, overhead, it was clear and bright. There was not a breath of wind, and the sails hung listlessly against the masts. Will--who was leaning against the bulwarks, chatting to Hans--observed the captain, after looking round at the horizon, go into his cabin. He reappeared in a minute, and spoke to the officer; who immediately shouted an order for "all hands to shorten sail."

"What is that for?" Will said, wonderingly; "there is not a breath of wind."

"I egzpect captain haz looked at gla.s.s," Hans said, "find him fall.

I egzpect we going to have ztorm--very bad ztorms in dese zeas."

Will ran aloft with the sailors and, in ten minutes, every inch of canvas--with the exception of a small stay sail--was stripped from the ship. Still, there was not a breath of wind. The sea was as smooth as gla.s.s, save for a slight ground swell. Although the mist did not seem to thicken, a strange darkness hung over the sky; as if, high up, a thick fog had gathered. Darker and darker it grew, until there was little more than a pale twilight. The men stood in twos and threes, watching the sea and sky, and talking together in low tones.

"I don't like this, Hans," Will said. "There is something awful about it."

"We have big ztorm," Hans replied, "zyclone they call him."

Scarcely had Hans spoken when the sky above seemed to open, with a crash. A roar of thunder, louder than ten thousand pieces of artillery, pealed around them while, at the same moment, a blinding flash of lightning struck the mainmast, shivering it into splinters, and prostrating to the deck five seamen who were standing round its foot. As if a signal had been given by the peal of thunder, a tremendous blast of wind smote the vessel and, stripped though she was of sails, heaved her over almost to the gunwale.

For a moment, the crew were paralyzed by the suddenness of the catastrophe; stunned by the terrible thunder, and blinded by the lightning. None seemed capable of moving. Will had instinctively covered his eyes with his hands. It seemed to him, for a moment, that his sight was gone. Then the voice of the captain was heard, shouting:

"Helm, hard up. Out axes, and cut away the wreck, at once!"

Those who were least stupefied by the shock sprang, in a dazed and stupid way, to obey the order. Will drew out his knife and, feeling rather than seeing what he was doing, tried to a.s.sist in cutting away the shrouds of the fallen mast--it had gone a few feet above the deck. Presently he seemed, as he worked, to recover from his stupor; and the power of sight came back to him. Then he saw that the vessel--taken on the broadside by the gale--was lying far over, with several feet of her lee deck under water. So furious was the wind that he could not show his head over the weather bulwark. The sea was still smooth, as if the water was flattened by the force of the wind. The stay sail had been blown into ribbons.

In order to get the ship's head off the wind, the head of the jib was hauled up a few feet. It happened to be a new and strong one and, although it bellied and lashed, as if it would tear itself into fragments, it still stood. Again the captain gave an order, and the sail was hauled up to its full height. Still further the vessel heaved over; and Will expected, every moment, that she would capsize. Then, gradually, her head paid off, and slowly she righted, and flew before the gale.

"That was a near squeak," Will said.

"What is zqueak?" Hans shouted.

"I mean a close shave," Will replied.

Hans' blue eyes opened wider than usual.

"A zhave!" he repeated; "what are you talking about zhaving?"

"No, no," Will said, laughing, "I mean a narrow escape of being capsized."

Hans nodded. There was no time for talk, for orders were given for getting preventer stays on the foremast. The jib, having done its work, had been hauled down the instant the ship payed off; and a small storm sail set, in its place.

The men now had time to attend to those who had been struck by lightning. Three of them were found to be dead, but the other two--who were stunned and senseless--still lived, and were lifted and carried below.

Serious as the disaster had been, Will felt that the stroke of lightning had saved the ship. The pressure of the wind, upon two masts and hull, had nearly sufficed to capsize her. Had the main mast stood, he felt that she must have gone over.

The sea got up in a very few minutes but, being now only in light ballast, the vessel rose easily over them. Four men were at the helm, for the waves soon became so high that the ship yawed dangerously on her course. The gale seemed to increase, rather than diminish in fury; and the sea, instead of following in regular waves, became a perfect chaos of tossing water, such as Will had never before seen. He understood it, however, when--half an hour after the outburst of the gale--he heard one of the men, who had just been relieved at the wheel, say that in that time the ship had already run twice round the compa.s.s. She was therefore in the very center of the cyclone, and the strangely tossed sea was accounted for.

The motion of the ship was extraordinary. Sometimes she was thrown on one side, sometimes on the other. Mountains of water seemed to rise suddenly beside her, and tumbled in great green ma.s.ses over the bulwarks. So wild and sudden were her movements that even the oldest sailors were unable to keep their feet; and all clung on to shrouds, or belaying pins. Will and Hans had lashed themselves by the slack of a rope to the bulwarks, close to each other, and there clung on; sometimes half drowned by the waves, which poured in above them; sometimes torn from their feet by the rush of green water, as the ship plunged, head foremost, into a wave, or shipped one over her p.o.o.p.

Presently there was a crash that sounded even above the fury of the gale--the fore top-mast had gone, at the cap. The axes were again called into requisition, for a blow from the floating spar would have instantly stove in the side. While engaged upon this, the captain called two of the men with axes aft. These were set to work to chop through the shrouds of the mizzen and, in a minute later, the mast snapped asunder on the level of the deck, and went over the side with a crash, carrying away several feet of the bulwark.

This act was necessitated by the loss of the fore top-mast, as the pressure of the wind upon the mizzen would have brought her head up, and laid her broadside to the gale.

The motion of the vessel was now considerably easier, and there was no longer any difficulty in keeping her dead before the wind. She was now describing much larger circles in her course, showing that she was farther removed from the center of the cyclone. After five or six hours, the extreme violence of the wind somewhat abated, and it seemed to settle down into a heavy gale.

For two days the vessel ran before it. She had made a good deal of water, from the opening of the seams by straining, and the pumps were kept going. They were, they found, able to prevent the water from gaining upon them; and all felt that they should weather the tempest, provided that they were not dashed upon any of the islands in which this portion of the ocean abounds.