Round the World in Seven Days Part 1

Round the World in Seven Days.

by Herbert Strang.

PRELUDE

Lieutenant George Underhill, commanding H.M. surveying ship _Albatross_, had an unpleasant shock when he turned out of his bunk at daybreak one morning. The barometer stood at 29.41'. For two or three days the vessel had encountered dirty weather, but there had been signs of improvement when he turned in, and it was decidedly disconcerting to find that the gla.s.s had fallen. His vessel was a small one, and he was a little uneasy at the prospect of being caught by a cyclone while in the imperfectly-charted waters of the Solomon Islands.

He was approaching the eastern sh.o.r.e of Ysabel Island, whose steep cliffs were covered with a lurid bank of cloud. If the sh.o.r.e was like those of the other islands of the group, it would be, he knew, a maze of bays, islets, barrier reefs, and intricate channels amid which, even in calm weather, a vessel would run a considerable risk of grounding, a risk that would be multiplied in a storm. Anxiously noting the weather signs, Underhill hoped that he might reach a safe anchorage before the threatening cyclone burst upon him.

As is the way with cyclones, it smote the vessel almost without warning. A howling squall tore out of the east, catching the ship nearly abeam, and making her shudder; then, after a brief lull, came another and even a fiercer blast, and in a few minutes the wind increased to a roaring hurricane, enveloping the ship in a mist of driving rain that half choked the officers and crew as they crouched under the lee of the bulwarks and the deckhouse.

The _Albatross_ was a gallant little vessel, and Underhill, now that what he dreaded had happened, hoped at least to keep her off the sh.o.r.e until the fury of the storm had abated. For a time she thrashed her way doggedly through the boiling sea; but all at once she staggered, heeled over, and then, refusing to answer the helm, began to rush headlong upon the rocks, now visible through the mist.

"Propeller shaft broken, sir," came the cry from below to Underhill as he stood clinging to the rail of the bridge.

He felt his utter helplessness. He could not even let go an anchor, for no one could stand on deck against the force of the wind. He could only cling to his place and see the vessel driven ash.o.r.e, without being able to lift a hand to save her. Suddenly he was conscious of a grating, grinding sensation beneath his feet, and knew that the vessel had struck a coral reef. She swung round broadside to the wind; the boats on the weather side were wrenched from their davits and hurled away in splinters; and in the midst of such fury and turmoil there was no possibility of launching the remaining two boats and escaping from the doomed vessel.

All hands had rushed on deck, and clung to rails and stays and whatever else afforded a hold. Among those who staggered from the companion way was a tall thin man, spectacled, with iron-grey hair and beard, and somewhat rounded shoulders. Linking arms with him was a young man of twenty-two or twenty-three: the likeness between them proclaimed them father and son. The older man was Dr. Thesiger Smith, the famous geologist, in furtherance of whose work the _Albatross_ was making this voyage. The younger man was his second son Tom, who, after a distinguished career at Cambridge, had come out to act as his father's a.s.sistant.

Underhill knew by the jerking and grinding he felt beneath him that his ill-fated vessel was being slowly forced over the reef towards the sh.o.r.e. His first lieutenant, Venables, crawled up to the bridge, and, bawling into his ear, asked if anything could be done. The lieutenant shook his head.

"Water's within two feet of the upper deck forward, sir," shouted Venables; "abaft it is three feet above the keelson."

"Get the lifebuoys," was the brief reply.

Venables crawled down again, and with the a.s.sistance of some of the crew unlashed the lifebuoys and distributed them among the company.

Meanwhile the progress of the vessel sh.o.r.ewards had been suddenly checked. She came up with a jerk, and Underhill guessed that her nose had stuck fast in a hollow of the reef, and prayed that the storm would abate for just so long as would enable him to get the boats clear and make for the land before the ship broke up. But for a good half-hour longer the hurricane blew with undiminished force, and it was as much as every man could do to avoid being washed away by the mountainous seas that broke over the vessel.

At length, however, there came a sudden change. The uproar ceased as by magic, and there fell a dead calm. Underhill was not deceived. He judged that the vessel was now in the centre of the cyclone; the calm might last for forty or fifty minutes, then a renewal of the hurricane was almost certainly to be expected. Without the loss of a moment he gave his orders. The boats were made ready; into one they put arms, ammunition, and tools, together with the ship's papers and chronometer, a compa.s.s, and Dr. Thesiger Smith's specimens and diaries; into the other more ammunition, and a portion of what provisions could be collected from above or below water. The boats were lowered, the men dropped into them and pulled off, leaving Underhill and two or three of the crew still on the vessel to collect the remainder of the provisions and whatever else seemed worth saving.

The sea was so high that the boats had much difficulty in making the sh.o.r.e; but they reached it safely, and one of them, after being rapidly unloaded, returned for the commander.

Before it regained the ship, Underhill felt a light puff of wind from the south-west. Lifting a megaphone, he roared to the men to pull for their lives. The boat came alongside; it had scarcely received its load when the hurricane once more burst upon them, this time from the opposite quarter. Underhill leapt down among his men, and ordered them to give way. Before they had pulled a dozen strokes the storm was at its height, but the force of the wind was now somewhat broken by the trees and rocks of the island. Even so it was hard work, rowing in the teeth of the blast, the boat being every moment in danger of swamping by the tremendous seas. Underhill, at the tiller, set his teeth, and anxiously watched the advancing cliffs, at the foot of which the remainder of his company stood. The boat was within twenty yards of them when a huge wave fell on it as it were out of the sky. It sank like lead. Thanks to the lifebuoys Underhill and the men rose quickly to the surface. Two of them, who could not swim, cried out despairingly for help. Underhill seized one and held him up; the other was saved by the prompt.i.tude of young Smith. Seeing their plight, he caught up a rope which had been brought ash.o.r.e, and flung it among the group of men struggling in the water. The drowning man clutched it, the others swam to it, and by its aid all were drawn ash.o.r.e, gasping for breath, and sorely battered by the jagged rocks.

"All safe, thank heaven!" said Underhill, as he joined the others; "but I'm sorry we've lost the boat."

The shipwrecked party found themselves on a narrow beach, behind which rose steep cliffs, rugged and difficult to climb. Against these they crouched to find some shelter from the storm, and watch the gradual dismemberment of the ill-fated _Albatross_. Wave after wave broke over her, the spray dashing so high that even her funnel sometimes disappeared from view. The spectators held their breath: could she live out the storm? At last a tremendous sea swept her from the hollow in which she was wedged, and she plunged beneath the waters.

CHAPTER I

THE CABLEGRAM

"Tenez! up! up! Ah ca! A clean shave, mister, hein?"

A touch on the lever had sent the aeroplane soaring aloft at a steep angle, and she cleared by little more than a hair's breadth the edge of a thick plantation of firs.

"A close shave, as you say, Roddy," came the answer. And then the speaker let forth a gust of wrathful language which his companion heard in sympathetic silence.

Lieutenant Charles Thesiger Smith, of H.M.S. _Imperturbable_, was normally a good-tempered fellow, and his outburst would have deceived n.o.body who knew him so well as Laurent Rodier.

It was the dusk of an evening in mid spring. Above, the sky was clear, washed by the rain that had fallen without intermission since early morning. Below, the chill of coming night, acting on the moisture-laden air, had covered the land with a white mist, that curled and heaved beneath the aeroplane in huge waves. It looked like a billowy sea of cotton-wool, but the airmen who had just emerged from it, had no comfort in its soft embrace. Their eyes were smarting, they drew their breath painfully, and little streams of water trickling from the soaked planes made cold, shuddering streaks on their faces and necks.

An hour ago they had sailed by Salisbury spire, calculating that a few minutes' run, at two or three miles a minute, would bring them to their destination on the outskirts of Portsmouth. But a few miles south the baffling mist had made its appearance, and Smith found himself bereft of landmarks, and compelled to tack to and fro in utter uncertainty of his course. He was as much at a loss as if he were navigating a vessel in a sea-fog. To sail through the mist was to incur the risk of striking a tree, a chimney, or a church steeple; to pursue his flight above it in the deepening dusk might carry him miles out of his way, and though a southerly course must presently bring him to the sea, he could not tell how far east or west of his intended landing-place. Meanwhile the petrol was running short, and it was clear that before long his dilemma would be solved by the engine stopping, and bringing him to the ground w.i.l.l.y-nilly, goodness knows where.

This was vexing enough, but in the particular circ.u.mstances it was a crowning stroke of misfortune. To-day was the twenty-first of his twenty-eight days' leave: to-morrow he was to begin a round of what he called duty visits among his relatives; he would have to motor, play golf, dance attendance on girls at theatres and concerts, and spur himself to a thousand activities that he detested. There was no escape for him. Perhaps he could have faced this seven days' penance more equably if he had had the recollection of three well-employed weeks to sweeten it. Even this was denied him. Ever since he came on leave the weather had been abominable: high wind, incessant rain, all the elements conspiring to prevent the enjoyment of his hobby. Rodier had suggested that he should apply for an extension of leave, but Smith, though he did not lack courage, could not screw it to this pitch. He remembered too vividly his interview with the captain when coming off ship.

"Don't smash yourself up," said the captain, "and don't run things too fine. You're always late in getting back from leave. Last time you only got in by the skin of your teeth, when we were off shooting, too.

If you overstep the mark again you'll find yourself brought up with a round turn, you may take my word for it."

"I couldn't beg off after that," he said to Rodier. "Anyway, it's rotten bad luck."

"Precis.e.m.e.nt ca!" said Rodier sympathetically.

For some little time they sailed slowly on, seeking in vain for a rift in the blanket of mist: then Rodier cried suddenly--

"Better take a drop, mister. In three minutes all the petrol is gone, and then--"

"I'm afraid you're right, Roddy, but goodness knows what we shall fall on. We must take our chance, I suppose."

He adjusted the planes, so as to make a gradual descent while the engine still enabled him to keep way on the machine, and it sank into the mist. Both men kept a sharp look-out, knowing well that to encounter a branch of a tree or a chimney-stack might at any moment bring the voyage, the aeroplane, and themselves to an untimely end.

All at once, without warning, a large dark shape loomed out of the mist. Smith instantly warped his planes, and the machine dived so precipitately as almost to throw him from his seat. Next moment there was a shock; he was flung headlong forward, and found himself sprawling half suffocated on a damp yielding ma.s.s, which, when he had recovered his wits, he knew to be the unthatched top of a hayrick.

His first thought was for the aeroplane. Raising himself, and dashing the clinging hay wisps from his face, he shouted--

"Is she smashed, Roddy?"

"Ah, no, mister," came the answering cry. "She stick fast, and me also."

Smith crawled to the edge of the rick and dropped to the ground. Two or three dogs were barking furiously somewhere in the neighbourhood. A few steps brought him to the aeroplane, lying in a slanting position between the hayrick and a fence, over which it projected. Rodier had clung to his seat, and had suffered nothing worse than a jolting.

"This is a pretty mess," said Smith despairingly, "one end stuck fast in the hayrick, the other sticking over the fence: they'll have to pull it down before we can get her out. Get off, you brute!" he exclaimed, as a dog came yapping at his legs.

"Seize him, Pompey: seize him, good dog!" cried a rough voice.

"Call him off, or I'll break his head," cried Smith in exasperation.

"You will, will you?" roared the farmer. "I'll teach you to come breaking into my yard: I'll have the law of you."

"Don't be absurd, man," replied Smith, fending off the dog as well as he could. "Don't you see I've had an accident?"

"Accident be jiggered!" said the farmer. "You don't come breaking into my yard by accident. Better stand quiet or he'll tear you to bits."

"Oh, come now!" said Smith. "Look at this. Here's my aeroplane, fixed up here. You don't suppose I came down here on purpose? I lost my way in this confounded mist, and don't know where I am. Just be sensible, there's a decent chap, and get some of your men to help us out. I'll pay damages."