Overdue Part 1

Overdue.

by Harry Collingwood.

CHAPTER ONE.

THE "MERCURY" APPEARS.

This is a yarn of the days when the clipper sailing-ship was at the zenith of her glory and renown; when she was the recognised medium for the transport of pa.s.sengers--ay, and, very frequently, of mails between Great Britain and the Colonies; and when steamers were, comparatively speaking, rare objects on the high seas. True, a few of the great steamship lines, such as the Cunard and the Peninsular and Oriental, were already in existence; but their fleets were only just beginning to compete, and with but a very limited measure of success, against the superb specimens of marine architecture owned by the Black Ball and other famous lines of sailing clippers. For the Suez Ca.n.a.l had not yet been dug, and--apart from the overland journeys to India--travellers bound to the East were compelled to go south-about round the Cape of Good Hope, whether they journeyed by steamer or by sailing-ship; and it was no very uncommon thing for the latter to beat the former on the pa.s.sage to India, China, or Australia. Moreover, the marine steam engine was, at that period, a very expensive piece of machinery to operate, developing only a very moderate amount of power upon an exceedingly heavy consumption of coal; hence it was only the nabobs who could afford to indulge in the then costly luxury of ocean travel by steam.

The occurrence which I regard as the starting-point of my extraordinary yarn happened on the 27th day of October, in the year of grace 18--; the _Salamis_--which was the ship in which it originated--being, at noon of that day, in lat.i.tude 30 degrees south, and longitude 23 degrees west, or thereabout; thirty days out from London, on a voyage to Melbourne.

The _Salamis_, I may explain, was a full-rigged clipper ship of 1497 tons register, cla.s.sed 100 A 1; being one of the crack vessels of the celebrated Gold Star Line, outward bound to Melbourne, as I have said, with a full complement of saloon and steerage pa.s.sengers, and a general cargo that, while it filled her to the hatches, was so largely composed of light merchandise that it only sank her in the water to her very finest sailing trim; of which circ.u.mstance Captain Martin, her commander, was taking the fullest possible advantage, by "carrying on"

day and night, in the hope of making a record pa.s.sage. I, Philip Troubridge, was one of her midshipman-apprentices, of whom she carried six, and I was seventeen years of age on the day when the occurrence happened which I have alluded to above, and which I will now relate.

The _Salamis_ carried three mates: chief, second, and third; and the accident happened in the first watch, when Mr Moore, the second mate, had charge of the deck. The wind was out from about nor'-nor'-west, and had been blowing very fresh all day, notwithstanding which the ship was under all three royals, and fore and main topgallant studdingsails, her course being south-east. There was a heavy and steep sea following the ship on her port quarter, which not only made her motions exceedingly uneasy, but also caused her to yaw wildly from time to time, despite the utmost efforts of two men at the wheel to keep her true to her course.

It was during one of these wild sheers that the main topgallant studdingsail-boom snapped short off by the boom-iron; and there was immediately a tremendous hullabaloo aloft of madly slatting canvas and threshing boom, as the studdingsail flapped furiously in the freshening breeze, momentarily threatening to spring the topgallant yard, if, indeed, it did not whip the topgallant-mast out of the ship. Then something fouled aloft, rendering it impossible to take in the sail; and, the skipper being on deck and manifesting some impatience at what he conceived to be the clumsiness of the men who had gone up on the topsail yard, Mr Moore, the second mate, sprang into the main rigging and went aloft to lend a hand. Just precisely what happened n.o.body ever knew; one of the men aloft said that the broken boom, in its wild threshing, struck the mate and knocked him off the yard; but, be that as it may, one thing certain is, that the poor fellow suddenly went whirling down, and, without a cry, fell into the boiling smother raised by the bow wave, and was never seen again! I happened to be on the p.o.o.p at the moment, and, despite the darkness, saw the falling body of the mate just as it flashed down into the water, and guessed what had happened even before the thrilling cry of "Man overboard!" came pealing- down from aloft. I therefore made a dash for one of the lifebuoys that were stopped to the p.o.o.p rail, cut it adrift, and hove it, as nearly as I could guess, at the spot where the mate had disappeared, while one of the men on the forecastle, antic.i.p.ating the skipper's order, called all hands to shorten sail. The whole ship was of course instantly in a tremendous commotion, fore and aft. The rest of the studdingsails were taken in as quickly as possible, the royals and topgallantsails were clewed up, a reef was taken in the topsails, and the ship was brought to the wind and worked back, as nearly as could be, to the spot where the accident had happened, and a boat was lowered. Although the skipper had displayed such nice judgment in determining the precise spot where the search should begin, that the crew of the boat dispatched to search for the mate actually found and recovered the lifebuoy that I had thrown, no sign of the lost man was ever discovered. The a.s.sumption was that he had been stunned by the blow that had knocked him overboard, and had sunk at once. This occurrence cast a gloom over the ship for several days; for poor Moore was probably the most popular man in the ship, highly esteemed by the pa.s.sengers, and as nearly beloved by the crew as one of the afterguard can ever reasonably hope to be. The skipper, in particular, took the loss of this very promising officer deeply to heart, not only because of the esteem in which he held him, but also, I fancy, because he was worried by the conviction that the accident was very largely due to his own propensity to "carry on" rather too recklessly.

On the ninth day after this unfortunate occurrence, and on our thirty- ninth day out from London, we found ourselves in the longitude of the Cape of Good Hope, and in lat.i.tude 37 degrees 20 minutes south, with a whole gale of wind chasing us, which blew us into lat.i.tude 39 degrees south, and longitude 60 degrees east before it left us, ten days later, stark becalmed. The calm, however, lasted but a few hours, and was succeeded by a light northerly breeze, under the impulse of which, with all plain sail set, the _Salamis_ could barely log six knots to the hour. This lasted all night, and all the next day; but before that day had sped, the second incident occurred, that resulted in plumping me into the adventure which is the subject of this yarn.

The heavy sea which had been kicked up by the gale subsided with extraordinary rapidity, and when I went on duty at eight bells (eight o'clock) on this particular morning the weather was everything that the most fastidious person could possibly desire, saving that the sun struck along the weather side of the deck--when he squinted at us past the weather leach of the mainsail as the ship rolled gently to the heave of the swell--with a fierceness that threatened a roasting hot day, what time he should have worked his way a point or two farther round to the nor'ard. The swell which lingered, to remind us of the recent breeze, was subsiding fast, and the ocean presented one vast surface of long, solemn-sweeping undulations of the deepest, purest sapphire, gently ruffled by the breathing of the languid breeze, and ablaze in the wake of the sun with a dazzle that brought tears to the eye that attempted to gaze upon it. The ship's morning toilet had been completed, and the decks, darkened by the sluicing to which they had been lavishly subjected by the acting second mate and his watch, were drying fast and recovering their sand-white colour in the process. The bra.s.swork, freshly scoured and polished, and the gla.s.s of the skylights, shot out a thousand flashes of white fire, where the sun's rays searched out the glittering surfaces as the ship rolled. The awning had already been spread upon the p.o.o.p, in readiness for the advent of those energetic occupants of the cuddy who made a point of promenading for half an hour in order to generate an appet.i.te for breakfast; the running gear had all been bowsed taut and neatly coiled down; and the canvas, from which the dew had already evaporated, soared aloft toward the deep, rich azure of the zenith in great, gleaming, milk-white cloths of so soft, so tender, so ethereal an aspect, that one would scarcely have been surprised to see the skysails dissolve in vapour and go drifting away to leeward upon the languid breeze. The main deck was lively with the coming and going of the steerage pa.s.sengers as they went to the galley to fetch their breakfast; and there must have been between twenty and thirty children chasing each other fore and aft, and dodging round their elders in their play, filling the rich, sweet, morning air with the music of their voices. There was a soft, seething sound over the side as the ship slid gently along, accompanied by a constant iridescent gleam and flash of the tiny bubbles that slipped along the bends and vanished at last in the smooth, oil-like wake with its tiny whirlpools; and at frequent intervals a shoal of flying-fish would spark out from under the bows and go skimming and glittering away to port or starboard, like a shower of brand-new silver dollars hove broadcast by the hand of old Father Neptune himself. The cuddy breakfast was fairly under way, and a great clattering of cups and saucers, knives and forks, and the hum of lively conversation, accompanied by sundry savoury odours, came floating up through the open skylights, when the chief mate's eye happened to be attracted toward a gasket, streaming loose like an Irish pennant from the fore topgallant yard, and he sang out to one of the ordinary seamen to jump aloft and put it right. The fellow made his way up the ratlines with extreme deliberation--for, indeed, a journey aloft in such scorching heat was no joke--made up the loose gasket, and was in the very act of swinging himself off the yard when, happening to be watching him, I saw him suddenly pause and stiffen into an att.i.tude of attention as, holding on to the jackstay with one hand, he flung the other up to his forehead and peered ahead under the sharp of it. For a full minute he stood thus; then, twisting his body until he faced aft, he hailed:

"On deck there!"

"Hillo!" answered the mate.

"There's a biggish ship away out yonder, sir," reported the man, "under her three taups'ls and fore topmast staysail; and by the way that she comes to and falls off again I'd say that she was hove-to."

"How far off is she?" demanded the mate.

"'Bout a dozen mile, I reckon, sir," answered the man.

"Um!" remarked the mate, as much to himself as to me, it seemed. "She is probably a whaler on the lookout for 'fish'. I believe they sometimes meet with rare streaks of luck just about here. All right,"

he added, hailing the man aloft; "you can come down."

Shortly afterward we made out the stranger's upper spars from the deck; and from the rapidity with which we raised them it soon became apparent that, if she had really been hove-to when first seen, she had soon filled away, and was now standing in our direction. By five bells she was hull-up; and while the skipper and mate were standing together eyeing her from the break of the p.o.o.p--the latter with the ship's telescope at his eye--I saw the ensign of the stranger float out over her rail and go creeping up to her gaff-end.

"There goes her ensign, sir," I shouted to the mate, who responded by remarking dryly:

"Yes; I see it." Then, turning to the skipper, he said:

"There's something wrong aboard that craft, sir; they've just hoisted their ensign, jack downward!" This, it may be explained to the uninitiated, is a signal of distress.

"The d.i.c.kens they have!" exclaimed the skipper. "Just let me have a look at her, Mr Bryce."

The mate handed over the telescope, and the skipper raised it to his eye, adjusting the focus to his sight.

"Ay, you are quite right," he agreed, with his eye still peering through the tube. "The jack's downward, right enough. Wonder what's wrong aboard of her? her hull and spars seem to be all right, and I don't see any water pouring from her scuppers, as there would be if she had sprung a leak and the hands were working at the pumps. Well, we shall soon know, I suppose. Let our own ensign be hoisted in acknowledgment, Mr Bryce."

"Ay, ay, sir," answered the mate. "Troubridge,"--to me--"jump aft and run our ensign up to the peak, will ye?"

I went aft to the flag locker, drew out the big ensign, bent it on to the halyards, and ran it up to the gaff-end, where there was just wind enough to blow it out and make it distinguishable for what it was.

The news that the stranger in sight was flying a signal of distress soon spread among the pa.s.sengers, and in a few minutes every telescope in the cuddy was upon the p.o.o.p and being eagerly focused upon the approaching vessel, which had by this time revealed herself as a full-rigged ship of some 800 tons measurement, of wholesome, motherly build, but certainly not a whaler, as could be seen by the model of the boats which she carried, and by the absence of certain characteristics which proclaim the whaler, and are apparent almost from the moment when she heaves into full view. There was, naturally, a vast amount of speculation, not only on the part of the skipper and mate, but also among our pa.s.sengers, as to the precise character of her distress; but probably not one of us came anywhere near guessing at its extraordinary nature.

Approaching each other, as the two vessels were, it did not take us very long to close with the stranger; and as we drew near to her it became apparent that her people were preparing to lower a boat. At the proper moment, therefore, our mainyard was laid aback, the stranger followed suit, and a minute or two later the two craft came to a stand abreast of each other, the stranger about a hundred fathoms to windward of us, near enough, indeed, for us to read with the unaided eye the name _Mercury_ upon her head-boards. Then one of her two port quarter boats was lowered and hauled to the gangway, and with three men pulling, and one in the stern-sheets grasping the yoke lines, she shoved off and pulled away towards us, the mate hailing them to come to the lee gangway, where a side ladder had been dropped over for their use. Her main deck was crowded with people--men and women--all hanging over the rail and staring at us with that idle curiosity which is so characteristic of the uneducated cla.s.ses. Mr Bryce at once unhesitatingly p.r.o.nounced them to be emigrants, an opinion which the skipper as unhesitatingly endorsed.

The men in the approaching boat were all forecastle hands, the one steering having the appearance of being either the boatswain or the carpenter of the ship, and this it was that gave me--and no doubt the skipper and mate also--the first specific hint of what was actually wrong aboard the stranger. Nothing, however, was said; and presently, when the boat came rounding under our stern, Captain Martin and Mr Bryce descended to the main deck and awaited our visitors at the gangway, our own steerage pa.s.sengers, who had crowded the lee rail to see the strange boat come alongside, respectfully making way for them.

One only of the boat's crew--the man in the stern-sheets--ventured to come on deck, the other three staring up at the heads peering down at them from our rail, without saying a word in reply to the mult.i.tude of questions that were fired into them, beyond remarking that "the bo'sun will tell your skipper all about it."

The boatswain of the _Mercury_--for such the newcomer proved to be-- pa.s.sed through our gangway, pulled off the knitted woollen cap which decorated his head, and at once addressed himself to the skipper.

"Mornin', sir," he remarked. "My name's Polson--James Polson, and I'm bo'sun of the _Mercury_, which ship you see hove-to yonder,"--with a flourish of his hand in the direction of the vessel named.

"Yes?" said the skipper enquiringly, as the man paused, apparently waiting to be questioned after this introduction of himself. "I see you have a signal of distress flying. What's wrong with you?"

"Well, the fact is, sir, as we've lost our cap'n and both mates--"

answered the man, when the skipper struck in amazedly:

"Lost your captain and both mates! How in the name of Fortune did that happen?"

"Well, sir, you see it was this way," was the reply. "When we'd been out about a week--we're from Liverpool, bound to Sydney, New South Wales, with a general cargo and two hundred emigrants--ninety-seven days out--when we'd been out about a week, or thereabouts--I ain't certain to a day or two, but it's all wrote down in the log--Cap'n Somers were found dead in his bunk by the steward what took him in a cup o' coffee every mornin' at six bells; and Mr Townsend--that were our chief mate-- he took command o' the ship. Then nothin' partic'lar happened until we was well this side o' the Line, when one day, when all hands of us was shortenin' sail to a heavy squall as had bust upon us, Jim Tarb.u.t.t, a hordinary seaman, comin' down off the main tops'l yard by way o' the backstays, lets go his hold and drops slap on top o' Mr Townsend, what happened to be standin' underneath, and, instead of hurtin' of hisself, broke t'other man's neck and killed him dead on the spot! Then,"

continued Polson, regardless of the e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns of astonishment and commiseration evoked by the recital of this extraordinary accident, "then Mr Masterman, what were origin'lly our second mate, he up and took charge, and navigated us to somewheres about where we are now. But four nights ago come last night--yes, that's right, it were four nights ago--'bout three bells in the middle watch, while it were blowin' hard from the west'ard and we were runnin' under single-reefed topsails, with a very heavy sea chasin' of us, the night bein' dark and thick with rain, somebody comes rushin' out of the p.o.o.p cabin yellin' like mad, and, afore anybody could stop him, sprang on to the lee rail, just the fore side of the main riggin', and takes a header overboard!" More exclamations of astonishment from the listeners, amid which Polson triumphantly concluded his gruesome narrative by adding: "Of course we couldn't do nothin', and so the poor feller were lost. And when Chips and I comed to investigate we found that the unfortunit man were Mr Masterman, he bein' the only one that was missin'!"

"Well!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the skipper, addressing himself to Mr Moore, our chief mate; "I've heard a good many queer yarns in my time, of maritime accident and disaster, but this one tops the lot. The captain and both mates lost in the same voyage, and, so far as the two last are concerned, by such queer accidents too! Did you,"--turning to Polson--"find anything in Mr--what's his name!--Masterman's cabin to account for his extraordinary behaviour in rushing out on deck and jumping overboard in the middle of the night?"

"No, sir," answered Polson with much simplicity. "He'd been drinkin' a goodish bit, and there were a half-empty bottle of rum under his piller; but--"

"A-ah!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the skipper with a whole world of emphasis; "that may account for a good deal. Well, what happened next?"

"Oh, nothin' else haven't happened, thank G.o.d!" exclaimed the boatswain piously. "But ain't that what I've already told ye quite enough, sir?

What's made it so terrible awk'ard for all hands of us is that we're now without a navigator, and have lost our reckonin'. So, after Chips and I had confabulated a bit, we comed to the conclusion that, knowin' as we was well in the track of ships bound to the east'ard, the best thing we could do was to heave-to and wait until somethin' comed along that could spare us somebody to navigate the ship for us to Sydney. Chips and I are men enough to take care of her--to know when to make and when to shorten sail--but we don't know nothin' about navigation, ye see, sir."

"Ay, I see," answered the skipper. "Well, I think you acted very wisely, boatswain, in heaving-to; I don't know that you could have done anything better, under the circ.u.mstances. But, as to sparing an officer to navigate you--I have had the misfortune to lose one of my own mates this voyage, and,"--here his eye happened to fall on me, and he considered me attentively for several seconds, as though he felt he had seen me before somewhere, and was trying to remember who I was. Then his countenance lit up as an idea seemed to strike him, and he addressed me briskly:

"What d'ye say, Troubridge? You've heard this man's yarn, and understand the fix that they're in aboard the ship yonder. You are a perfectly reliable navigator, and a very fair seaman; moreover, the boatswain says that he and the carpenter are seamen enough to take care of the ship, which I do not for a moment doubt. Do you feel inclined to undertake the job of navigating the _Mercury_ from here to Sydney? It ought to be a very good thing for you, you know. I have no doubt that the owners--"

I did not wait for him to finish; I knew enough to understand perfectly well what a splendid thing it would be for me, from a professional point of view, if I should succeed in safely navigating such a ship as the _Mercury_ to Sydney; and I had no shadow of doubt of my ability to do so; I therefore cut in by eagerly expressing my readiness to undertake the task.

"Then that is all right," remarked the skipper.

Turning to Polson, he said: "This young gentleman is Mr Philip Troubridge, one of my midshipman-apprentices. He has been with me for a matter of three years; and he is, as you just now heard me say, an excellent navigator, and a very good seaman. I have not the least doubt that he will serve your purpose quite as well as anyone else that you are at all likely to pick up; and if you care to have him I shall be pleased to spare him to you. But that is the best that I can do for you; as I told you, a little while ago, I have lost one of my mates--"

"Say no more, sir; say no more," interrupted Polson. "Your recommendation's quite sufficient to satisfy me that Mr--er-- Troubridge'll do very well; an' since he's willin' to come with us we'll have him most gratefully, sir, and with many thanks to you for sparin'

of him to us."

"Very well, then; that is settled," exclaimed the skipper briskly.