Hawtrey's Deputy Part 27

"Get the cover off the second boat, and see everything clear for hoisting out," he said to him, and then called to Wyllard. "We're close enough. You'd better heave her round."

She came round with a thrashing of canvas, stretched out seawards, and came back again with her deck sharply slanted and little puffs of bitter spray blowing over her weather rail, for there was no doubt that the breeze was freshening fast. Then Dampier sent a man up into the foremast shrouds, and looked at Wyllard afterwards.

"I'd heave a couple of reefs down if I wasn't so anxious about that blamed boat," he said. "As it is, I want to be ready to pick her up just as soon as we see her, and it's quite likely she'd turn up when we'd got way off the schooner, and the peak eased down."

Wyllard fancied that he was right as he glanced over the rail at the dimness that was creeping in on them. It was blowing almost fresh now, and the _Selache_ was driving very fast through the swell, which commenced to froth here and there. It is, as he knew from experience, always hard work, and often impossible, to pull a boat to windward in any weight of breeze, which rendered it advisable to keep the schooner under way. If the boat drove by them while they were reefing it might be difficult to pick her up afterwards in the dark. He was now distinctly anxious about her. At length, just as the light was dying out, the man in the shrouds sent down a cry.

"I see them, sir," he said.

Dampier turned to Wyllard with a gesture of relief. "That's a weight off my mind. I wish we had a reef in, but"--and he glanced up at the canvas--"she'll have to stand it. Anyway, I'll leave you there. We want to get that second boat lashed down again."

This, as Wyllard recognised, was necessary, though he would sooner have had somebody by him, and the rest of them ready to let the mainsheet run, for he was a little to windward of the opening, and surmised that he would have to run the schooner down upon the boat. It was a few moments later when he saw her emerge from among the ice, and the men in her appeared to be pulling strenuously. They were, perhaps, half a mile off, and the schooner was sailing very fast and heading for the ice. Then he lost sight of her again, for a thin shower of whirling snow suddenly obscured the light. Dampier called to him.

"You'll have to run her off," he said. "Boys, slack out your sheets."

There was a clatter of blocks, and when Wyllard pulled his helm up it taxed all his strength. The _Selache_ swung round, and he gasped with the effort to control her as she drove away furiously into the thickening snow. She was carrying far too much canvas, but they could not heave her to and take it off her now. The boat must be picked up first, and the veins rose swollen to Wyllard's forehead as he struggled with the wheel. There is always a certain possibility of bringing a fore-and-aft rigged vessel's mainboom over when she is running hard, and this is rather apt to result in disaster to her spars. So fast was she travelling that the sea piled up in a big white wave beneath her quarter, and, cold as it was, the sweat of tense effort dripped from Wyllard as he forecasted what he had to do. First of all, he must hold her straight before the wind without letting her fall off to leeward, which would bring the booms crashing over; then he must run past the boat, which he could no longer see, and round the schooner up with fore-staysail aback to leeward of her, to wait until she drove down on them.

This would not have been difficult in a moderate breeze, but the wind was freshening furiously and the schooner was horribly pressed with sail. He thought of calling the others to lower the mainsail peak, but with the weight of wind there was in the canvas he was not sure that they could haul the gaff down. Besides, they were busy securing the boat, which must be made fast again before they hove the other in, and it was almost dark now. In view of what had happened in the same waters one night four years ago, the desire to pick the boat up while there was a little light left became an obsession.

In the meanwhile, the swell was rapidly whitening and getting steeper.

The _Selache_ hove herself out of it forward as she swung up with streaming bows. It almost seemed to Wyllard that he must overrun the boat before he noticed her, but at length he saw Dampier swing himself on to the rail. He stood there clutching at a shroud, and presently turned towards Wyllard, swinging up an arm.

"Right ahead!" he shouted. "Let her come up a few points before you run over them."

Wyllard put his helm down a spoke or two, which was easy, and then as the bows swung high again there was a harsh cry from the man who stood above Dampier in the shrouds.

"Ice!" he roared. "Big pack of it right under your weather bow."

Dampier shouted something, but Wyllard did not hear what he said. He was only conscious that he had to decide what he must do in the next few seconds. If he let the _Selache_ come up to avoid the boat, there was the ice ahead, and at the speed she was travelling it would infallibly crush her bows in, while if he held her straight there was the boat close in front of her. To swing her clear of both by going to leeward he must bring the mainsail and boom-foresail over with a tremendous shock, but that seemed preferable, and with his heart in his mouth he pulled his helm up.

He fancied he cried out in warning, but was never sure of it, though three men came running to seize the mainsheet. The schooner fell off a little, swinging until the boom-foresail came over with a thunderous bang and crash. She rolled down, heaving a wide strip of wet planking out of the sea, and now for a moment or two there were great breadths of canvas swung out on either hand. Then the ponderous mainboom went up high above his head, and he saw three shadowy figures dragged aft as they tried in vain to steady it. The big mainsail was bunched up, a vast, portentous shape above him, and then he set his lips, and pulled up the helm another spoke as it swung. He never quite knew what happened after that. There was a horrible crash, and the schooner appeared to be rolling over bodily. The spokes he clung to desperately reft themselves from his grasp, the deck slanted until one could not stand upon it, and something heavy struck him on the head. He dropped, and Dampier flung himself upon the wheel above his senseless body.

Then there was mad confusion, and a frantic banging of canvas as the schooner came up beam to the wind, with her rent mainsail flogging itself to tatters. Its ponderous boom was broken, and the mainmast-head had gone, but it was not the first time the sealermen had grappled with somewhat similar difficulties, and Dampier kept his head.

He had the boat to think of, and she was somewhere to windward, hidden in the sudden darkness and the turmoil of the quickly rising sea, but in the meanwhile the schooner counted most of all. His crew could scarcely hear him through the uproar the thundering canvas made, and the screaming of the wind, but the orders were given, and from habit and the custom of their calling they knew what they must be.

They hauled a jib down, backed the fore-staysail, and got the boom-foresail sheeted in, but they let the rent mainsail bang, for it could do no more damage than it had already done. Then a man sprang up on the rail with a blue light in his hand, and as the weird radiance flared in a long streak to leeward a cry rose from the water. In another few moments a blurred object, half hidden in flying spray, drove down upon the schooner furiously on the top of a sea, and then there was sudden darkness as the man flung down the flare.

Another harsh and half-heard cry rose out of the obscurity. An indistinguishable object plunged past the schooner's stern, there was a crash to leeward as she rolled, and a man standing up in the boat clutched her rail. He was swung out of it as she rolled back again, but he crawled on to the rail with a rope in one hand, and after jamming it fast round something sprang down with the hooks of the lifting tackles which one of the rest had given him. Then, while two more men scrambled up, there was a clatter of blocks, but a shattered sea struck the boat as they hove her dear, and when she swung in the brine poured out through the rents in her. Dampier waved an arm as they dropped her on the deck, and they heard him faintly.

"Boys," he said, "you have got to cut that mainsail down."

They did it somehow, hanging on to the mast-hoops, buffeted and now and then enveloped by the madly flogging canvas, floundering below amidst a raffle of fallen gear, while the bitter spray lashed them, and the broken boom held up by the clew ring banged savagely to and fro. After that they trimmed her fore-staysail over, and there was by contrast a curious quietness as Dampier jammed his helm up, and the schooner swung off before the sea. Then somebody lighted a lantern, and Charly stooped over Wyllard, who lay limp and still beside the wheel. His face showed grey in the feeble light, save where a broad red stain had spread across it. Dampier cast a glance at him.

"Get him below, and into his bunk, two of you," he said.

They did it with difficulty, for the _Selache_ lurched viciously each time a white-topped sea came up upon her quarter, and as soon as it seemed advisable to leave the deck Dampier went down. Wyllard lay in his bunk, with his eyes half-open, but there was no expression in them, and his face was almost colourless except for the broad smear of blood.

It was oozing fast from a laceration in his scalp, but Dampier, who noticed his chilliness, did not in the meanwhile trouble about that.

He stripped off the senseless man's long boots, and unshipping a hot fender iron from the stove laid it against his feet. Afterwards he contrived to get some whisky down his throat, and then set to work to wash the scalp wound, dropping into the water a little of the permanganate of potash, which is freely used at sea. When that was done he applied a rag dipped in the same fluid, and seeing no result of his efforts went back on deck. He was anxious about his patient, but not unduly so, for he had discovered long ago that men of his description are apt to recover from more serious injuries. By and bye, he said, Wyllard's brain, which had evidently been rudely jarred by the shock, would resume its functions.

It was blowing very hard when he stood near the wheel. A steep sea was already tumbling after the schooner, but she was, at least, heading out from where they supposed the ice to be, and he let her go, keeping her away before it, and heading a little south of east. When morning came the sea was very high, and the faint light further dimmed by snow, but it seemed to him just safe, and no more, to run, and they held on while the big combers came up astern and forged by, ridged with foam, high above her rail.

She was travelling very fast, to the eastwards, under boom-foresail and one little jib, with her mainmast broken short off where the bolts of the halliard blocks had traversed it, and Dampier realised that because of that every knot she made then could not by any means be recovered that season. He wondered, with a little uneasiness, what Wyllard would say when he came to himself again. In the meanwhile he said nothing, but lay like a log in his bunk, only that there was now a little warmth in him.

Next day the breeze moderated somewhat, and they let her come up a little, heading further south; while on the morning after that Wyllard showed signs of returning consciousness. Dampier, however, kept away from him, partly to allow his senses to readjust themselves, and partly because he rather shrank from the coming interview. At length, when dusk was falling, Charly came up to say that Wyllard, who seemed quite sensible, insisted on seeing him, and Dampier went down with some misgivings into the little cabin. The lamp was lighted, and when he sat down Wyllard, who raised himself feebly on his pillow, turned a pallid face to him.

"Charly tells me you picked the boat up," he said.

"We did," said Dampier. "She had three or four planks on one side ripped out of her."

Wyllard's faint grimace implied that this did not matter, and Dampier braced himself for the question he dreaded. He had to face it in another moment.

"How's she heading?"

"A little south of east."

Wyllard's face hardened. It was still blowing moderately fresh, and by the heave of the vessel and the wash of water outside he could guess how fast she was travelling. Except for the latter sound, however, there was for a moment or two an almost oppressive silence in the little cabin. Then Wyllard spoke again.

"You have been running to the eastwards since I was struck down?" he said.

Dampier nodded. "Three days," he said. "Just now the breeze is on her quarter."

He winced under Wyllard's gaze, and spread his hands out deprecatingly.

"Now," he added, "what else was there I could do? She wrung her masthead off when you jibed her and there's not stick enough left to set any canvas that would shove her to windward, I might have hove her to, but the first time the breeze hauled easterly she'd have gone up on the beach or among the ice with us. I had to run!"

Wyllard closed a feeble hand. "Dunton was crippled, too. It's almost incredible."

"In one way, it looks like that, but, after all, a jibe's quite a common thing with a fore-and-after. If you run her off to lee when she's going before it her mainboom's bound to come over. Of course, n.o.body would run her off in a wicked breeze unless he had to, but you'd no choice with the ice in front of you."

Wyllard lay very still for almost a minute. It was clear to him that his project must be abandoned for that season, which meant that at least six months must elapse before he could even approach the Kamtchatkan coast again.

"Well," he said at length, "what do you mean to do?"

"If the breeze holds we could pick up one of the Aleutians in a few days, but I'm keeping south of them. There'll probably be ugly ice along the beaches, and I've no fancy for being cast ash.o.r.e by a strong tide when the fog lies on the land. With westerly winds I'd sooner hold on for Alaska. We could lie snug in an inlet there, and, it's quite likely, get a cedar that would make a spar. I can't head right away for Vancouver with no mainsail."

This was clear to Wyllard, who made a feeble gesture. "If the wind comes easterly?"

Dampier pursed his face up. "Then unless I could fetch one of the Kuriles we'd sure be jammed. She won't beat to windward, and there'd be all Kamtchatka to lee of us. The ice is packing up along the north of it now, and the Russians have two or three settlements to the south.

We don't want to run in and tell them what we're after."

A faint smile crept into Wyllard's eyes. "No," he said, "not after that little affair on the beach. Since it's very probable that the vessel they send up to the seal islands would deliver stores along the coast, the folks in authority would have a record of it. They'd call the thing piracy--and, in a sense, they'd be justified."

He said nothing more for a little, and then looked up again wearily.

"I wonder," he said, "how that boat's crew ever got across to Kamtchatka. It was north of the islands where the man brought Dunton the message."

Dampier understood that he desired to change the subject, for this was a question they had often discussed already.