In the Sargasso Sea Part 12

But having the hatch directly over where she was lying, though I could not get her up through it, made my undertaking a good deal easier and more comfortable for me. Even with all the ports open I would have had but little light to work by; and, what was of even more importance in that hot misty region, I would have had little fresh air--and still less when I had set a-going my forge. But with the hatch off I could have all the light that I needed and as much fresh air as was to be had--with the advantage that the hatch could be set in place every night when I went off duty and not opened again in the morning until the rain was at an end: so preserving my machinery against the rust that pretty much would have ruined it--for all that it was well tallowed--had my slow building gone on in the open air.

My preliminary investigations being thus well ended, and the morning ended too, I piped all hands to dinner; that is to say, I whistled to my cat--who had been sitting still and watching me pretty solemnly, his friskiness being for the time taken out of him by the pain in his paw--and when he perceived that I was paying some attention to him again he came limping to me on his three good legs and said with a miau that if I pleased he would prefer going to his dinner in my arms.

And when I picked him up--as, indeed, I had to, for he positively insisted upon my carrying him--he forgot about his hurt and fell to purring to me at a great rate and to making little gentle thrusts against my arm with the fore paw that was sound. And so we went aft in great friendship and contentment and had a gay dinner together: the cat sitting on the table opposite to me with all possible decorum--but manifesting his daintiness by refusing to eat anything but tinned chicken, and only the white meat at that!

x.x.xIV

I END A GOOD JOB WELL, AND GET A SET-BACK

When my meal was finished I set myself first of all to getting off the hatch beneath which my boat lay; and this proved to be a bigger job than I had counted upon--each of its sections being so heavy that I could not manage it without tackle, and even with tackle the work took me a good hour. My plan of operations had included removing the hatch every morning and setting it back again every night, but when I found how much energy and time would be wasted in that way I changed my front a little and got at the same result along another line. All that I needed was a covering for the hatch that would keep the rain out; and what I did, therefore, was to knock together a light grating of wood to fit over it--sloping the grating downward on each side from a sort of a ridge pole--on which a tarpaulin could be stretched; and in that way I got shortly to a water-tight covering for my hatch that I could shift back and forth quickly and without any trouble at all. But the whole of what remained of the afternoon was spent in getting that piece of preliminary work finished to my mind.

The next morning I set myself to the examination of the stuff stowed in the boat--the several parts which I would have to put together in order to make my craft ready for the sea--and for this job also a great deal of preliminary arrangement was required. Many of the pieces--as the boiler, the cylinder, the shaft, the screw, and the sections of the cabin--were too heavy for me to lift without tackle; and as they all had to be got out and arranged in order ready for use, and then in due course put aboard the boat one at a time in their proper places, I first of all had to set up some sort of lifting apparatus to take the place of a crane.

In this matter the open hatch directly over the boat again was a help to me. Across it, running fore and aft, I stretched a heavy wire rope on which I had placed a big block for a traveller, and carrying the end of the rope forward to the capstan I fell to work with the hand-bars and got it strained so taut that it was like a bar of iron.

Then to the traveller block I made fast my hoisting tackle--and so was able to swing up the heavy pieces from where they were stowed, and to run them along the taut rope until they were clear of the boat on either side, and then to let them down upon the deck: where they would remain until a reversal of this process would lift them up again and set them in place as they were required. But even with my tackle--and double tackle in the case of the heavier pieces--this was a back-breaking job that took up the whole of three days.

However, I finished it at last, and had the boat clear and all the pieces so arranged that as I needed them they would be ready to my hand; and the examination that I was able to make of them, and of the boat too after I had her empty, gave very satisfactory results. All the parts were there, and all numbered so carefully that they could have been a.s.sembled by much less skilful hands than mine; while the hull of the boat was completely finished, and the sockets and rivet-holes for attaching her fittings were all as they should be in her frame. Farther, I could see by the little scratches here and there on her iron-work that she had been set up and then taken apart again; and so was sure that all was smooth for her coming together in the right way. But, for all that I had such plain sailing before me in the actual work of refitting her, my courage went down a little as I perceived what a big contract I had taken, and what a very long time must pa.s.s before I could pull it through.

Moreover, I saw that while the boat was well built for pleasure cruising in smooth water--and, indeed, was so stout in her frame that she would stand a great deal of knocking about without being the worse for it--she by no means was prepared for the chances of an ocean voyage. Except where her little cabin and engine-room would be--the two filling about half of her length amidships--she was entirely open; and while the frame of her cabin was stoutly built, that part of it intended to rise above the rail was arranged for sliding gla.s.s windows--which would be smashed in a moment by a heavy dash of sea. It was clear, therefore, that in addition to setting her up on the lines planned for her--a big job and a long job to start with--there was a lot more for me to do. To fit her for my purposes it would be necessary to cover her cabin windows with planking; to deck her over forward in order to have my stores under cover as well as to guard against shipping enough water to swamp her in rough weather; and finally to rig her with a mast and sail upon which to fall back for motive-power in the event of my running out of coal. This additional work would not, in one way, present any difficulties--it being in itself simple and easy of accomplishment; but in another way it was not pleasant to contemplate, since the doing of it all single-handed would increase very greatly the time which must pa.s.s before I could start upon my voyage. However, as consideration of that phase of the matter only tended to discourage me, I put it out of sight as well as I was able and set myself with a will to finishing my preliminary work--of which there still was a good deal to do.

The steamer's machine-shop, as I have said, was unusually well fitted and supplied; but even in the short time that the vessel had been lying abandoned in that reeking atmosphere rust had so coated everything not shut up in lockers that all the tools in the racks and the fittings of the lathe--although the lathe had an oil-cloth hood over it--had to be cleaned before they could be used: a job that kept me busy with the grind-stone, and emery-cloth, and oiled cotton-waste, for a good long while. And after that I had to get the forge in order, and to bring up fuel for it from the coal bunkers. And in attending to all these various matters the time slipped away so quickly that a whole week had pa.s.sed before I had done.

But I must say that as the cat and I labored together--though his labors were confined to cheering me by following me about on three legs wherever I went, and pretty much all the while talking to me in his way so that I should not fail to take notice of him--I got more and more light-hearted; which was natural enough, seeing that what I was doing in itself interested me and so made the time pa.s.s quickly, and that I had also a great swelling undercurrent of hope as I thought of what my slow-going work would bring me to in the end.

When at last I fairly got started at my building I was in a still more cheerful mood--there being such a sense of definite accomplishment as I set each piece in its place, and such a comfort in the tangible advance that I was making, that half the time I was singing as I made my bolts and rivets fast. But for all my cheerfulness I had a plenty of trouble over what I was doing; and I was sorry enough that I had not somebody beside my cat to help me, or that I myself had not another pair or two of hands.

Almost at the start, when I began to swing the pieces of machinery inboard, I found that I had still another bit of preliminary work to attend to before I could go on. My travelling tackle crossing the boat amidships had worked well enough in getting the stuff out of her, but when I came to hoisting the parts aboard and setting them exactly in their places, and holding them steady while I made fast the rivets, it would not in any way serve my turn. What I had to do was to stretch another wire rope across the hatch--at right angles with and a couple of feet above the first one, and parallel with the boat's keel--and to rig on this two travellers, to one or the other of which I could transfer each piece as I got it inboard and so run it along until I had it exactly over the place where it was to be made fast. But I was a whole day in attending to this matter--and it was only one of the many makeshifts to which I had to resort to accomplish what was too much for my unaided strength; and in meeting such like side difficulties I lost in all a good many days.

But though my work went very slowly, and now and then was stopped short for a while by some obstacle that had to be overcome in any rough and ready way that I could think of, I did get on; and at last I had my boat together on the lines that her builders had planned. Yet while, in a way, she was finished, there still was a weary lot to do to her to fit her for my purposes; and in decking her over, and in making her cabin solid, and in fitting a mast and sail to her, I spent almost two months more.

All this work went slowly because I had to spend nearly as much time in making ready for what I wanted to do as in doing it. Before I began my planking I had to rip up from the steamer's deck the material for it; and this was a hard job in itself and did not give me what I wanted when it was done--for while the stuff served well enough for my beams and braces it was clumsily heavy for the decking of my little launch. But it had to answer, and in the end I got it well in place and the joints so tightly caulked that I was sure of having a dry hold. And that my deck might the more easily turn the water in a sea way I made it flush with the rail; and I had no hatch in it--arranging to get to the hold by a scuttle that I set in the forward end of the cabin--and that gave me a still better chance of keeping dry below.

For my mast I got down one of the top-gallant masts--and I had a close shave to coming down with it and so ending my adventures right there.

The best way that I could think of to manage this piece of work--and I have not since thought of any way better--was to make fast a line to the lower end of the top-gallant mast just above the cap of the topmast and to carry this line through the top-block and so down to the deck, and there to pa.s.s it through another block to the capstan and haul it taut and stop it; and when all that was in order, and the stays cut, to get up into the cross-trees and saw through the spar just below where I had whipped it with my line. My expectation was that as the spar parted and fell it would be held hanging by my tackle until I could get down to the deck again and lower it away; and that really was what did happen--only as it fell there was a bit of slack line to take up, and this gave such a tremendous jerk to the cross-trees that I was within an ace of being shaken out of them and of going down to the deck with a bang. But I didn't--which is the main thing--and I did get my mast. It was a good deal heavier than my boat could stand, and I had to spend a couple of days in taking it down with a broad-axe and in finishing it with a plane until I got it as it should be; and from the flag-staff at the steamer's stern I got out with very little trouble a good boom and gaff.

After that I had only my sail to fit; and as I did not trouble myself to make a very neat job of it this did not take me long. Indeed, I grudged the time that I spent on my mast and sail--close upon a fortnight, altogether--more than any like amount of time that I gave to my task; for my hope was strong that I would not need a sail at all, but would be able to manage--by a way that I had thought of--to carry enough coal with me to make my voyage under steam. But I was not leaving anything to chance--so far as chances could be foreseen--in the adventure that I was about to make, and so I got my sail-power all ready to fall back upon in case my steam-power failed. And when that bit of work was finished I was full of a joyful light-heartedness; for my boat in every way was ready for the water, and I was come at last to the good ending of my long job.

That night I made a feast in celebration of what I had accomplished, and in hope of my greater good fortune that I believed was soon to come--with a place duly set on the opposite side of the table for my only guest, and with a champagne-gla.s.s beside his plate to hold his unsweetened condensed milk (for which, when I found it among the ship's stores, he manifested a strong partiality) that he might lap properly his responses to the toasts which I pledged him in champagne. And I don't suppose that a man and a cat ever had a merrier meal anywhere than we had in that queer place for it that evening; nor that any two friends ever were happier together than we were when, our feast being ended, he went through his various tricks--of which he had learned a great many, and with a wonderful quickness, after his paw got well--and then settled himself for a snooze on my lap while I sat smoking my cigar and thinking that at last I had sawn through my prison bars.

And it was while I was sitting in that state of placid happiness that suddenly I was brought up all standing by the reflection--and why it had not come sooner to me is a mystery--that a dozen turns of the screw of my launch in that weed-covered ocean would be enough to foul it hopelessly, and so at the very start to cut short the voyage under steam that I had planned.

x.x.xV

I AM READY FOR A FRESH HAZARD OF FORTUNE

For a while after this black thought came to me I was pretty much beaten by it; but when I got steadier--and had finished kicking myself for a fool because I had not foreseen it all along--I perceived that the odds were not wholly against me, after all. I had, at least, a sea-worthy boat in which to make my venture, and therefore was as well off as I had hoped to be when I had set about looking for one; and if the plan that I had formed worked out in practice--if I could manage to force a pa.s.sage through the tangle by alternately working over the bow of my boat to break up the weed, and over the sides to pole my boat forward--I was a great deal better off than I had hoped to be: for should I win my way to open water I would have steam as well as sail power at my command.

But while this more reasonable view of the situation comforted me, it did not satisfy me. The difficulty of working myself along in that slow fashion I foresaw would be so enormous that I very well might die of sheer exhaustion before I got clear of the weed-tangle--which must extend outward, as I knew from my guess at the time that I had taken in drifting in through it, for a very long way. What I had been counting upon ever since I had found the launch was in having part of the work, and the heaviest part, done by her engine; my part to be the breaking of a pa.s.sage, while the motive power was to be supplied by the screw. But of course if the screw fouled, as it certainly would foul with the loose weed all around it, that would be the end of my hopeful plan.

This consideration of the matter reduced it to a definite problem.

What was needed was some sort of protection for the screw that would keep the weed away from it and yet would allow it to work freely: and, having the case thus clearly stated, the thought presently occurred to me that I could secure this protection by building out from the stern of the boat, so that the screw would be enclosed in it, some sort of an iron cage. That arrangement, I conceived, would meet the requirements of the case fully; and being come to my conclusion I resigned myself to still another long delay while I carried my plan into execution, and so went to bed at last hopefully--but well knowing that this fresh piece of work that I had cut out for myself would be hard to do.

I certainly did not overestimate the amount of labor involved in my cage-building. I was a good three weeks over it. But I was kept up to the collar by my conviction that without the cage I had no chance of succeeding in my project; and so I got it finished at last. And then I considered that my boat really was ready to take the water; and the cat and I had another banquet in celebration of the long step that we had taken toward our deliverance--only this time I did not give an altogether free rein to my rejoicing, being fearful that some other difficulty might present itself suddenly and bring me up again with a round turn.

The boat being ready--for I could think of nothing more to do to her--I had still to launch her, and the first step toward that end was breaking out a section in the steamer's side. Luckily the stock of cold-chisels aboard the _Ville de Saint Remy_ was a good one; but I dulled them all twice over--and weary work at the grindstone I had sharpening them again--before I had chipped away the bindings of those endless rivets and had the satisfaction of seeing the big section of iron plate between two of her iron ribs pitch outboard and splash down through the weed into the sea.

As I have said, the bow compartment of the steamer was full of water, and this brought her main-deck so low down forward that the boat had only to be slid out almost on a level through the hole that I had made. But to slide her that way--which seems easy, because I have happened to put it glibly--was quite a different thing. With steam power to work the capstan I could have got the boat overboard in no time; but without steam power the launching went desperately slowly, and was altogether the hardest piece of work that I had to do in the whole of my long hard job.

The boat had stood all along in the cradle that had been built to hold her steady for the voyage. This was a very stout wooden framework built up from two heavy beams joined by cross-pieces, and all so well bolted together that it was very solid and firm. In this the boat rested snugly and was held fast by rope lashings; and the cradle itself--resting on the lower hatch and projecting on each side of it--was lashed to the hatch ringbolts so as to be safe against shifting in a heavy sea. I could have removed the cradle by taking it to pieces, but that would not have helped matters; and the plan that I decided upon--liking it better because all this wood-work around and under the boat would protect her from harm as she went overboard--was to weight the cradle with iron bars that would cause it to sink away from beneath the boat when they took the water, and then to work it up with jack-screws until I could get rollers under it and so send them both together over the side.

How long I worked over this job I really do not know; but I do know that at the time it seemed as though it never would come to an end.

First of all I had the rollers to make from another topgallant mast that I got down, and when these were finished I had to go at the frame of the cradle with a pair of jack-screws and raise it, by fractions of an inch, until I could get my rollers under it one at a time. I think that it was the deadly dullness of this jack-screw work that I most resented--the stupid monotony of doing precisely the same sort of utterly wearying work all day long and for day after day. But in the end I got it finished: all my rollers properly in place, and the cradle made fast to hold it from starting before I was ready to have it go--although of that there was not much danger, for while the steamer had a decided pitch forward she lay on an even keel.

At first I was for sending my boat overboard the minute that I got the last roller under her; but I had the sense, luckily, to take a reef in this brisk intention as the thought struck me that I must have open water to launch her in or else very likely have boat and cradle together stuck fast in the weed. And so I set myself to clearing a little pool into which I could launch her; and as I carried this work on I came quickly to a realizing sense of what was before me when I should begin to break a way through the weed for my boat's pa.s.sage, and to the conviction that had I tried to make my voyage without steam to help me I never should have got through at all.

In point of fact, the weed was so thick and so firmly matted together that I almost could walk on it; and when I had knocked loose a couple of doors from their hinges and had thrown them overboard--taking two, so that I might move one ahead of the other as my cutting advanced--I had firm enough standing place from which I could slash away. So tough was the ma.s.s that I was a whole day in uncovering a s.p.a.ce less than forty feet long by twenty broad; and when my launching-pool was finished it had the look of a little pond in a meadow surrounded by solid banks.

All this showed me that even with the screw to push while I cleared a way for the boat's pa.s.sage I should have my hands full; but it also put into my head a notion that helped me a good deal in the end. This was to rig on the straight stem of my boat a set of guide-bars projecting forward in which I could work perpendicularly a cross-cut saw, and in that way to cut a slit in the weed--which would be widened by the boat's nose thrusting into it as the screw shoved her onward, and so would enable me to squeeze along. And as this was a matter easy of accomplishment--being only to double over a couple of iron bars so that there would be a slit a half inch wide for the saw to travel in, and to bolt them fast to the top and bottom of the boat's stem--I did it immediately; and it worked so well when I came to try it that I was glad enough that I had had so lucky a thought. Indeed, had I known how well it would turn out I should have gone a step farther and rigged my saw to run by steam power--setting up a frame in the bows to hold a wheel carrying a pin on which the saw could play and to which I could make fast a bar from my piston-rod--and in that way saved myself from the longest bit of back-breaking work that ever I had to do. But that was a piece of foresight that came afterward, and so did me no good.

When my guide-bars were in place, and the saw made ready to slip into them by taking off one of its handles--and I had still a spare saw to fall back upon in the event of the first one breaking--my boat was ready to go overboard into the open water, where she would lie while I put aboard of her my coal and stores. But the work that was before me, as I thus came close to it, loomed up very large; and so did the doubts which beset me as to how my voyage would end. Indeed, it was in a spirit far from exultant that at last I cut the lashings which held the cradle; and then with the tackle that I had ready got the heavy ma.s.s started--and in a couple of minutes had my boat safely overboard and floating free, as the cradle sunk away from under her, carried down by its lading of iron bars.

But, whatever was to come of it, the launching of my boat started me definitely along a fresh line of adventure, and whether I liked it or not I had to make the best of it: and so I stated the case to my cat--who had got scared and run off into a corner while the launching was in progress--when he came marching up to me and seated himself beside me gravely, as I stood in the break in the steamer's side looking down at the boat that I hoped would set us free.

x.x.xVI

HOW MY CAT PROMISED ME GOOD LUCK

What would have been most useful to me as foresight, but was only aggravating to me as hindsight--which happened to be the way that I got it--was the very sensible notion that I might have put all of my stores, and even a good part of my coal, aboard the boat before she was decked over and launched. A few tons more or less would have made no difference in moving her; but having to put those extra tons aboard of her over the side of the steamer, and then to drag them through the cabin and through the awkward little hatch, and at last to stow them by the light of a lantern in her stillingly close hot hold--all that made a lot of difference to me. However, I could not foresee everything; and I think, on the whole, that I really did foresee most of what I wanted pretty well.

Of provisions I took along enough to last me, by a rough calculation, for three months; being pretty well satisfied that unless within that time I got through the weed-tangle to open water--over which I could make my way to land, or on which I might fall in with a pa.s.sing vessel--I never would get free at all. And I was the more disposed to keep down my lading of provisions because I wanted every sc.r.a.p of room that I could save for my cargo of coal. But my stores were plentiful for the term that I had fixed upon, and the best and the most nourishing--save that I could not take fresh meat with me--that the _Ville de Saint Remy_ had on board; and I did not forget to take a good supply of the tinned chicken and the condensed milk of which my dainty cat was so fond. As for water--beside having my condenser to fall back upon--I felt pretty sure that until I got well out toward the open sea I could trust to the morning rains. But for all that I carried two barrels with me--filled fresh the last thing before I started--stowed in the well of the boat aft of the cabin; and there too I carried a couple of ten-gallon tins of oil for my lanterns and lamps.

My bone-breaking job was getting my coal aboard. For ease in handling and in stowing it--though I lost a little room that way--I put it in canvas sacks, of which I luckily found some bales in the steamer's cargo. These I swung up from the engine-room by the cinder-tackle to the main deck; and having got them that far I packed them on my back to the break in the steamer's side where my boat was lying and tumbled them aboard of her, and then dragged them along to where I stowed them in her hold. On my coal holding out at least until I got through the weed--for on open water I could lay a course under sail--the success of my adventure wholly depended; and knowing that, I filled my boat with all that I dared to put into her--loading the last twenty bags on her deck and on the roof of her cabin, to be used before I drew on my main supply.

But while this lading was a big one it did not satisfy me; and the only way that I could think of to better it was to build a long and narrow raft that I could stow as much more on and tow after me in the boat's wake. This was a big undertaking, but I had to face it and to carry it through: lowering down three spars (in managing which I used a treble-purchase to swing them clear, and eased them down with a couple of turns of the rope still around the capstan), and when I had them over the side in a pool that I had cleared for them I lashed them strongly together and decked them over with some of the state-room doors. This gave me a raft sixty feet long, or thereabouts, but narrower than my boat; and to make it follow the boat still more easily I set a V-shaped cut-water at its bows to turn the weed. To be sure, it was a clumsy thing, but it well enough served my turn.